Shop our Big Takeover store for back issues, t-shirts & CDs
Follow The Big Takeover
The dawn of a new, loud age: 10 for ’13
How much 1990s is too much? This past year, we were tested.
Veteran Seattle labels Barsuk and Sub Pop celebrated their respective 15th and 25th anniversaries at festivals featuring headliners — Death Cab for Cutie, Built to Spill — with a high nostalgia factor.
And Superchunk, Sebadoh and Polvo — even the long-M.I.A. My Bloody Valentine — all released new records, so you’re forgiven if, at certain points, you forgot this wasn’t in fact 1993.
Yet with so many great new bands out there, why lean on old-timers? It was the North American underground’s young bucks — inspired by the ‘90s, perhaps, but looking to the future — behind the year’s most creative, melodic, powerful sounds.
Yes, the Clinton era was a golden age for passionate, no-frills guitar music. We know — we were there, and it was great.
But if 2013 was any indication, we’re entering another one.
All ten of the below albums are must-haves — so don’t read too far into the numerical rankings — but leading the pack was a pair of Northeast acts that delivered on promising 2012 extended-players.
Roomrunner, Ideal Cities (Fan Death)
Baltimore’s Roomrunner followed up last year’s appetizer Super Vague with main event Ideal Cities, bridging the gap between dead-serious high-gain riffage and non-sequitur slacker humor. (“Yes, we like Nirvana. Try harder,” reads the sticker on the LP’s sleeve.)
Speedy Ortiz, Major Arcana (Carpark)
While 2012’s Sports EP was the sound of Western Massachusetts’ Speedy Ortiz learning to write together, this year’s Major Arcana was a revelation. Its ten varied songs — wonky one moment, anthemic the next — showcased incisive lyrical musings and the intuitive confidence of a band that’s played hundreds of shows in a very short time.
Ovlov, AM (Exploding in Sound)
When Speedy graduated from Brooklyn D.I.Y. outpost Exploding in Sound to larger indie Carpark, Connecticut’s Ovlov held down the fort with AM, a collection of über-melodic, flannel-flying bruisers played with audible restlessness, but plenty of heart.
Weed, Deserve (Couple Skate)
Coming from a similar place, sonically — but the opposite coast — Vancouver foursome Weed’s all-killer, no-filler debut Deserve arrived shrouded in feedback and noise, yet its habit-forming melodies cut through the gnarly din, as did singer-guitarist Will Anderson‘s cathartic howl, one of the coolest-sounding yells around.
Viet Cong, Viet Cong (self-released)
Also north of the border, Calgary’s Viet Cong rose up in the wake of the wildly underrated Women — an art-rock quartet struck down in its prime by the tragic 2012 passing of its guitarist, Christopher Reimer — with a lo-fi but high-quality eight-song demo of intrepid, percussive post-punk with noisy accouterments.
Darto, In Difference (Echolalic)
Glacially-paced tension-and-release exercises with a sense of impending doom, Pacific Northwest three-piece Darto’s In Difference comes highly recommended for fans of Slint‘s 1991 post-rock classic Spiderland. Chastity Belt and La Luz might’ve been the critical darlings, but this was the most exciting debut from a Seattle band in 2013. (Honorable mentions: art-punk wildmen Health Problems‘ Counterproductive cassette EP, and suburban shoegazers Special Explosion‘s Past/Future seven-inch single.)
Gun Outfit, Hard Coming Down (Post Present Medium)
Gun Outfit left Olympia for Los Angeles awhile back, but its third album Hard Coming Down was a heartfelt love letter home, the trio’s disaffected but timeless songwriting hallmarks — Carrie Keith‘s airy, countrified vocal lines, and Dylan Sharp‘s intimate, black-comedic lyricism — growing and evolving.
Stephen Steinbrink, Arranged Waves (Holy Page)
Meanwhile, Arizona-born singer-songwriter Stephen Steinbrink, a recent transplant to Washington’s capital city, continued down an impossibly prolific path with Arranged Waves, his third LP of artful Neil Young, James Taylor and Arthur Russell-inspired folk-pop in as many years.
Dustin Wong, Mediation of Ecstatic Energy (Thrill Jockey)
Dustin Wong is also a solo artist, but one who prefers to emote without words. On Mediation of Ecstatic Energy, the New York-based guitar wizard coaxed an otherworldly cornucopia of sounds from a Telecaster run through a well-curated effects-pedal chain.
Tony Molina, Dissed and Dismissed (Melters)
The last album on the list — and the shortest, with 10 songs in 12 minutes —would be San Franciscan Tony Molina’s Dissed and Dismissed, a brilliant, unlikely marriage of burly metal riffs and sugary power-pop hooks, played at Robert Pollard running times.
