The Best Albums of 2013
Anxious Sound
10
Nebraska (OST)
Mark Orton
18-Song LP
Released November 19 on Milan
Favorite tracks: Their Pie, Herbert's Story, Gossip/Brownie's Pie, To the Levee, Seaone, Night of the Skeptic, Magna Carta, The Old House
09
You’re Nothing
Iceage
12-Song LP
Released February 19 on Matador
Favorite tracks: Coalition, Burning Hand, Awake, A Rifle
08
Floating Coffin
Thee Oh Sees
10-Song LP
Released April 16 on Castle Face
Favorite tracks: Toe Cutter - Thumb Buster, The Floating Coffin, No Spell, Strawberries 1 + 2, Night Crawler, Minotaur
07
Monomania
Deerhunter
12-Song LP
Released May 6 on 4AD
Favorite tracks: Neon Junkyard, The Missing, T.H.M., Sleepwalking, Back to the Middle, Monomania, Nitebike
06
Világvége
Rorcal
8-Song LP
Released February 28 on Cal of Ror
Favorite tracks: II, V, IV, VI, VIII
05
Water Park (OST)
Dirty Beaches
7-Song EP
Released February 18 on 'A' Records
Favorite tracks: Water Park Theme (Take 2), Floating Underwater Watching Waves, Phases, Canadian Prairies, Water Park Theme (Reprise)
04
Live In San Francisco
White Fence
13-Song LP
Released November 4 on Castle Face
Favorite tracks: Swagger Vets and Double Moon (Live), The Pool (Live), Chairs in the Dark (Live), Pink Gorilla (Live), Breathe Again (Live)
03
Cyclops Reap
White Fence
11-Song LP
Released April 9 on Castle Face
Favorite tracks: Chairs in the Dark, Beat, Pink Gorilla, Live on Genevieve, To the Boy I Jumped in the Hemlock Alley, Make Them Dinner at our Shoes, White Cat, Only Man Alive
02
Berberian Sound Studio (OST)
Broadcast
01
Sunbather
Deafheaven
7-Song LP
Released June 11 on Deathwish
Favorite tracks: Dream House, Irresistible, Sunbather, Please Remember, Windows, The Pecan Tree
Sometime in the Spring of 2013, an image appeared on the Instagram feed of independent record label Deathwish. It was beautifully sparse, with only a single word—SUNBATHER—spelled across three rows of text in elegant, minimal type against a soft gradient orange-pink background. The stems, crossbars, and shoulders of its letterforms seemed to disappear into the warm tones behind them. The caption revealed it as the cover art (designed by Nick Steinhardt of Touché Amoré) for the forthcoming album by the San Francisco band Deafheaven. Deafheaven had somehow eluded me, but they now had my attention.
Deathwish released Sunbather on June 11, and I listened to it for the first time that morning (somehow, I summoned the willpower to avoid all prior leaks). I was immediately consumed by the opening track “Dream House” with its cascading wash of guitars, frantic drums, and the tense, controlled screams of vocalist George Clarke, sonic characteristics that define so much of Sunbather.
Across the album's 7-track landscape, epic, genre-crossing crescendos of frantic, moody aggression paced by impenetrable blast beats suddenly give way to swells of disarmingly pretty guitar interludes. It's ferocious and beautiful in turns. The result achieves widescreen emotional resonance—equal parts devastating, haunting, and lovely—and a visceral impact that is immediate and relentless.
