Looking Back At 2013

This Best Of list is way overdue. Even if I wanted to publish it sooner and on time, I couldn’t. Not only because there were too many releases to choose from, but I also had a hard time trying to put them in order of preference, which is silly, because doesn’t preference depend on other factors as well? (circumstances, moods, etc.)

That’s why I won’t do that anymore and just post, in alphabetical order, a certain, round number of releases I found worth checking out. Not that there wasn’t more of 2013 that is worth listening to. There is / was a whole lot more. But one can’t keep an eye and ear on everything and this kind of list is best kept relatively short.

 

This is my selection of what stood out (full albums only), in alphabetical order:

  1. AMON AMARTH – Deceiver Of The Gods
  2. ANIHILATED – iDeviant
  3. ARMORY – Empyrean Realms (review)
  4. AYREON – The Theory of Everything
  5. CIVIL WAR – The Killer Angels (review)
  6. DGM – Momentum
  7. DREAM THEATER – Dream Theater
  8. DYSCORDIA – Twin Symbiosis (review)
  9. EMPYRIOS – Zion
  10. EREB ALTOR – Fire Meets Ice
  11. EYE OF SOLITUDE – Canto III (review)
  12. FREEDOMS REIGN – Freedoms Reign (review)
  13. GORGUTS – Colored Sands
  14. HAKEN – The Mountain
  15. IVANHOE – Systematrix
  16. KALMAH – Seventh Samphony
  17. LA-VENTURA – White Crow (review)
  18. LOCUS CONTROL – Àttavita (review)
  19. MASTERPLAN – Novum Initium
  20. ONSLAUGHT – VI (review)
  21. OPERADYSE – Pandemonium
  22. POWERWOLF – Preachers Of The Night
  23. PSYCHOTHERMIA – Fall To The Rising Sun (review)
  24. SANDSTONE – Delta Viridian (review)
  25. SERENITY – War Of Ages
  26. SOILWORK – The Living Infinite
  27. SPOCK’S BEARD – Brief Nocturnes And Dreamless Sleep
  28. TIERRA SANTA – Mi Nombre Serà Leyenda
  29. TIMO TOLKKI’S AVALON – The Land Of New Hope
  30. VISIONS OF ATLANTIS – Ethera

 

And here’s, also in alphabetical order, what I think didn’t stand out (for whatever reason: production, compositions, variety, …), at least not like the releases above:

  1. AVANTASIA – The Mystery Of Time
  2. CRYSTAL VIPER – Possession
  3. FKÜ – Rise Of The Moshmongers (review)
  4. KROSSBREED – The Art Of Suffering (review)
  5. LONEWOLF – The Fourth And Final Horseman
  6. LUCID DREAMING – The Chronicles Pt. I
  7. MINOTAURUS – The Call
  8. MYSTERY – 2013 (review)
  9. ROZZ – Tranches De Vie (review)
  10. SAXON – Sacrifice
  11. SINNER – Touch Of Sin 2
  12. SWITCHBLADE – Heavy Weapons (review)
  13. THYRFING – De Ödeslösa