2013, places 6-10.

6. Windhand - Soma
This album includes some of the coolest riffs of 2013. It's heavy and catchy doom with a finess and unlike Lumbar they really drag out riffs and songs which is a really cool thing! The closing track clocks in at over 30 minutes.







7. David Bowie - The Next Day
What a comeback!! This record exceeded all my expectations. I've already written about this album earlier when it was released.








8. The Body - Christs, Redeemers
This might be the most evil sounding record on the list. This album reeks of desperation from the first to the last second. You feel almost exhausted when you're done listening to it. I love the screaming vocals, I get the same feeling as I did when I heard Amenra for the first time last year.





9. Skogen Brinner - 1st
It's not often that I have these high hopes for a debut album. I'm not very good at discovering new bands early in their careers. I've got enough job to follow up all the albums that are released every year.

Skogen Brinner however, I've had the pleasure of following ever since they released their debut 7" "Pundarvarning", and after that the cassette EP "Fasornas Berg". On this record they presented five new songs and the other four are taken from the earlier releases. I wrote a blog post about this record earlier this year.


10. Steve Earle & The Dukes (& Duchesses) - The Low Highway
Over the last few years Steve Earle has grown to be one of my favourite artists. I really love his post-millenial stuff, which is a bit different than the stuff he did in the 80s for example.

The Low Highway is no exception. He continues on the more stripped down sound, to me it sounds more honest. There is a great variety of songs on this album, both up-tempo country songs and beautiful down-tempo songs. In this beautiful mix it's the slow songs that stands out. "The Low Highway", "Invisible" and "Remember Me" are some of the best songs of 2013.

Record Store Day

Yesterday was the annual Record Store Day all over the world. The Garden was of course participating in the celebrations and we had an incredible day in both of our stores. It exceeded all of our expectations.

This year there were an insane amount of releases. I only got one for myself... I got the new single from David Bowie. It's a double A-sided with the songs "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" and "Where Are We Now", both taken from his brilliant last album "The Next Day".

There were a few releases more that I wanted, the re-issue of At The Drive-In's "Relationship In Command" and GZA's "Liquid Swords" in a really cool new version with a chess game and other stuff. We weren't able to get these in our store though. Hopefully they can arrive at a later point.

David Bowie - The Next Day LP

David Bowie - The Next Day

Finally I got my hands on the new Bowie vinyl on Saturday. The vinyl is not supposed to be available until the 29th of March, but a glitch at the Norwegian distributors saw them send out all pre-orders to Norwegian stores. So it's not officially for sale for little over a week.

Oh, how I looked forward to this record as soon as I heard the news about it in January. Since then I've listened to the two songs that were made available. First it was "Where Are We Now?" that is one of the stronger tracks on the album, not the best one though I think. In February "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" was released and it wasn't as good as the first single on the first few listenings but it grew.

The album was released for various streams and such long before I heard it the first time. I wanted to wait until I got my hands on the vinyl. Obviously I wasn't quite patient enough to do that. I gave it a few listens on Spotify last week and since Saturday it has been on the record player almost non-stop. However I had to put "Aladdin Sane" on the record player yesterday as my father had made a  notice that the brilliant song"You Feel So Lonely You Could Die" on "The Next Day" was the "Drive In Saturday" of 2013. He was quite right. And it is a good measure for this record. It actually measures up to a lot of the stuff Bowie did in the 70s, and that is saying a lot! Some of that material are among the greatest albums of all time.

A record that really lived up to my high expectations, from one of my all time favourite artists! Now I'm just hoping for a tour, or at least some shows in Scandinavia or the UK, so I get the chance to see him live.

2013

It's time for an update!

We're well into the new year and I have some stuff to update you on. This post will just be a few different "shorts", and I'll hopefully have more posts in the coming days. A "best-of-2012-list" is a must as well, so expect that soon!

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Graveyard's "Lights Out" was the first album I played in 2013, on new year's day. It really is a great album and it will probably end up on that 2012-list...

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These two are probably the ones to end up on the top spots.... Swans - The Seer and Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

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I've bought myself a new record player. It's a Pro-Ject Debut E. I'm very pleased with the Pro-Ject player I've had for a few years so I decided to get one more as I need to have record players on each floor in the appartment.

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It's been a slow month so far "record-buyin-wise". I'm trying to have a month without buying any records, and I've succeeded so far. I can't remember the last time that happened, must be some years ago. Let's see if I actually can wait until February to pick up the latest vinyls in the picture disc series from Iron Maiden for example...

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And last, but far from least... What a year we have a head of us! David Bowie AND Black Sabbath... Need I say more!?

I really love the first song of Bowie's upcoming album:

That's it for now!