ZWB's Top 20 of 2013

Alas, since neither Converge nor Baroness released a new record in 2013, Decibel didn't know what to do with themselves. As much as I love both of those bands - the former slightly approximately 1000x times more than the latter - this year still proved to be an astounding little sonic adventure. I enjoyed much more than I can fit into twenty line items, and even given my self-imposed restrictions to metal for these purposes, I will be leaving albums out that I nonetheless listened to furiously. One aspect of this year I wish to highlight, and I hope my list highlights, is what I'll call "doom/black-revival": the return to mass popularity, even to the hipster paradiso of Pitchfork, of doom and black metal acts that are shunning norms about song lengths, lyrical content, and - to put it directly - "scene". I've included numerous such acts in my previous lists on this blog, but never to the extent that I'm about to. Same goes for hardcore. Call me a Decibel-sellout, but metal is evolving, which is what makes it so beautiful. Noise is in; chugs are out. Pig Destroyers and Cattle Decapitations over Lambs of God and Mastodons. This is as it should be, given the strikingly low quality coming from the latter of these groups nowadays. We all yearn - myself less so than others - for another Ashes of the Wake or Leviathan, but it is not clearly in the cards. Until then, we shall - and I argue, should - revel in the splendor of the modern era. Please enjoy the following list (or don't, I don't fucking care):

Dat List

20. Deeds of Flesh - Portals to Canaan

19. The Ocean - Pelagial

18. Castevet - Obsian

17. Noisem - Agony Defined

16. Anciients - Heart of Oak

15. Cult of Luna - Vertikal

14. Defeated Sanity - Passages Into Deformity

13. Altar of Plagues - Teethed Glory and Injury

12. The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us Is the Killer

11. Inter Arma - Sky Burial

10. Portal - Vexovoid

9. Rivers of Nihil - The Conscious Seed of Light

8. Ulcerate - Vermis

7. Coliseum - Sister Faith

6. Intronaut - Habitual Levitations

5. Title Fight - Spring Songs EP

4. Skeletonwitch - Serpents Unleashed

3. Nails - Abandon All Hope

2. Gorguts - Colored Sands

1. Deafheaven - Sunbather