Amygdala

Here we go folks...You are now entering the Rock Genius Top Albums of 2013 project. What you'll see is a daily feature for our top 20 albums of the year. An album a day for 3 weeks. Something to look forward to every day when you wake up (i hope?). Today and today only, there's more than one album...10 of them to be exact. Numbers 21 through 30. The honorable mentions if you will. Beautiful productions that were noteworthy releases in 2013 I've kept a list of Top Albums of the year for 7 years...You can see the archives here and get an understanding of the evolution of what goes into the list and how we've arrived at it's first year on the RG platform. The daily features are interactive, click the annotations and find all sorts of easter eggs and breakdowns. Send us feedback. Disagree with something? Let's hear it! Agree wholeheartedly? Speak up! Before we begin, a word about Rock Genius and our musical spectrum: At the heart of everything we feature is Rock, but this encompasses rock, indie, pop, electro, international, etc... You'll even see some hip-hop sprinkled in to these selections. Our musical tastes are eclectic and our selections will reflect that. In the end, this list is about passion, enthusiasm, comfort, emotions, conversation and more. Enjoy the ride! 30. Elvis Costello & The Roots - Wise Up Ghost I never thought i could be this happy with a Roots project that didn't feature Black Thought. Questlove is one HELL of a band leader and Elvis Costello's velvety voice settles in comfortably to the jazzy music. Everything about this album oozes The Roots vibe we love. It's jazz club music, it's that tuba popping up in the most welcome moments. I feel like "haunting" is one of the most overused words in music writing, but when an album is called Wise Up GHOST it's pretty appropriate. Except this haunt comes with a smile and a head nod throughout29. Lucius - Wildewoman Ok...I have to admit. This entry really brings a smile to my face, cause i just deleted the entry that was originally here and I'm REALLY stoked to show this Brooklyn band some love. I'd heard Lucius passively a couple months ago, but i immersed in their music this week and i've had trouble listening to anything else ever since. They can hit you with the melancholy "Go Home" and then switch to the crazy energy of "Nothing Ordinary". I'm happy cause this album just puts me in a fantastic mood. I feel the brit-pop vibe of old faves Elastica sometimes and then folky vibes on others tracks, but at it's very core, this is a power indie-pop record and it's just plain fun. Mad love to Lucius! 28. DJ Koze - Amygdala Where the hell did this come from? One of the best chill out records in recent memory. Anyone who can weave Matthew Dear into their beat is fine by me. What the German-born DJ Koze (pronounced Cozy) excels at, is matching the vocal pitch to that of his music, so that they seem to be one and the same. On "Magical Boy", Dear's voice sounds like it's coming out of a didgeridoo...Koze finds a way to capture the essence of Matthew Dear so perfectly in his production. Lush horn samples peruse the atmosphere and we're left with a breathtaking composition that calls to mind European electro-chill heavyweights like Ulrich Schnauss and SCSI-927. Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels Man, are El-P and Killer Mike a match made in heaven or what? This was the most inspiring El-P project i'd heard since Fantastic Damage. The record grabs you right away on the self-titled opening track, as El-P starts blaring. And you know you hear the vibe of the old school El-P. Dude flows like no other. Killer Mike is a ball of fun, but fierce at the same time. On the album's crowning moment, Mike flashes his ability to fill the bars with like 20 more words than should be in there and keep you on the edge of your seat for the whole flow. Seriously, one of the dopest hip-hop shows i saw this year too. I felt like i shoulda been wearing my backpack and ducking down to take a toke out of my chillum like it was 199926. The Men - New Moon I like guitars...a lot. And I LOVE guitar rock. That's why this album fucking rules. THIS is rock. It's dueling guitars and hard cymbal crashes and harmonicas and reverb [breathes]. Guitar solos. Shredding. Gaaaah! Damn it if 'Half Angel, Half Light' ain't one of the best songs of the year. If you like all the shit i just listed in the last few sentences, then grab this album. Post-punk, garage, psych, whatever....ROCK!25. King Krule - 6 Feet Beneath The Moon Press play on "Border Line"...God this kid is so good. I profiled 19 year old Archy Marshall at the beginning of the year after his early songs were getting indie airplay in the US. He looks like a cross between Rick Astley and the pimple-faced kid from the Simpsons, but his voice doesn't crack. Quite the opposite in fact. He sounds like a seasoned lounge singer with decades of pain and emotion to express and it's beautiful. His loose affiliation with Tyler the Creator gave him crossover appeal and dude is onto something. Just a dark and real album that pays respect to guitars the same way it incorporates spacier strings24. Ryan Hemsworth - Guilt Trips Hemsworth is onto something. The Canadian producer burst onto the scene with some prominent remixes and his debut LP quickly established him as one of the top up and coming producers for 2014. Guilt Trips showed what he can do on the more atmospheric vibe, as well as how well his sound lends to having an MC in the mix. If he's not producing for some major hip-hop acts next year, then someone done fucked up. This one's already a classic23. James Blake - Overgrown Producers, producers, producers....Do you feel the tide turning? The digital sound is being mastered and the most fluent creators are rising to the top. Blake's follow-up to 2011's self-titled LP was equally as clean. It didn't really blow past too many additional barriers (I'm of the opinion that the Mercury Prize people were late to the party on Blake), but it's pretty clear when you hear "Retrograde" that Blake meticulously seeks perfection in his production and gets it done 22. Shigeto - No Better Time Than Now I zoned out to this record more than anything else this year. When my nerves got high, it brought me back down. When my anxiety hit a peak, it was like a drug. Ghostly International's Shigeto labors over these tracks. Dude locks himself up all day in his studio and purposefully doesn't have internet cause he wants to focus on what he's creating. "Miss U" is arguably his finest track to date and has a particular cadence that envelops your rogue emotions into a calming state of relaxation. Do yourself a favor and discover this sound21. London Grammar - If You Wait Ahhh, electro soul. This is the future and Hannah Reid and London Grammar are the embodiment of it. She's a heavenly vocalist...her voice is nothing short of timeless. Look no further than "Wasting My Young Years"...Absolutely incredible. The record as a whole will have you in a trance and transport you back to the days where Massive Attack and Morcheeba reigned supreme--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok....That's the 21 & over crew if you will. Quick shots of each of these albums, but the format will be changing drastically from here on out. One album a day, for the next 20 days. The goal is to allow you to focus and immerse and really FEEL the best music of the year, through the RG platform. You'll be taken from electro-pop to hip-hop to indie and beyond. Stay tuned Spinelli PS - Shouts and apologies to Magical Cloudz and Kurt Vile who both put out amazing records this year and could qualify as #31 and #32 on the list :-) PPS - Peep our running Spotify Playlist that gets updated daily as each Album drops