2013
Noah’s Barks pages covering things relating to the year 2013.
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letlive. – “The Blackest Beautiful” (2013)
After the glory days of early 2000s post-hardcore, the genre quickly fizzled out. Every once in a while some late stragglers to the now-dead scene would prove to be as good as any band were while the scene was alive, such as La Dispute and mewithoutYou. However, La Dispute fell off the radar quickly after a promising first… (read more)
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David Bowie – “The Next Day”
Initial thoughts on The Next Day: 1. Like most of his later career stuff, a lot of this isn’t bad at all, just uninteresting. Like, “okay, whatever.” 2. If anyone other than David Bowie put this album out, people would unanimously criticize it by saying “sounds like a David Bowie album, except bad.” Basically they’d… (read more)
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Alice in Chains – “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here”
‘The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here’ gets repetitive quickly. Only a hardcore fan wouldn’t be tired by the middle of this 70-minute (!) album. (read more)
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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Push the Sky Away”
‘Push the Sky Away’ is the rejuvenation Nick Cave has clearly been trying to achieve with albums like ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!.’ (read more)
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The Knife – “Shaking the Habitual”
All over the place. Can’t decide how much of it wants to be tribal industrial or electronic dance and when or where. There’s no pattern here and it isn’t schizophrenic in a way that’s interesting because it never goes beyond those industrial and electro traits for anything new to reveal itself during the course of… (read more)
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My Bloody Valentine – “m b v” (2013)
I just want to be the first to call m b v the “indie Chinese Democracy” before Pitchfork says it 10 times in their review. I don’t actually view this as another Chinese Democracy at all, I just wanted to be the first to say it. After all, I was one of the first people… (read more)
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Johnny Marr – “The Messenger” (2013)
Other than this first sentence, I’d like everyone to note how I never bring up The Smiths anywhere in this little review of The Messenger. Well, people will be pleased to hear the whole album is done in Johnny Marr’s distinctive playing style. This sounds like an album that could have been released in the… (read more)
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The Joy Formidable – “Wolf’s Law” (2013)
Featured on the front page of RateYourMusic.com! On first listen, this has less variety in songcraft than The Big Roar. Primarily because there’s a lot less dynamics this time around. Most songs on Wolf’s Law have no surprises in them like how many tracks on The Big Roar often shifted between softer verses and loud choruses.… (read more)
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Killing Joke – “The Singles Collection 1979-2012” (2013)
‘The Singles Collection’ is probably the best introduction to Killing Joke but falls short of providing enough value for existing fans. (read more)