At long last, ALARM unveils its 11 favorite albums of 2013 — a list of amazing music that you won’t find anywhere else.
Saving the best for last, we’ve chosen our 51 favorite albums of 2013, pulled from the acclaimed and the unsung — some of the best as well as most boundary-pushing releases from rock and beyond.
Inspired by the third installment of The Naked Gun, we decided to compile our favorite albums over the first 3 1/3 years of the 2010s.
Shining: One One One
Retox: YPLL
Roomrunner: Ideal Cities
Destined to be one of the best albums of 2013, Shining’s One One One picks up where Blackjazz left off — as a refinement of the band’s frenzied, progressive, jazz-infused avant-metal.
From simple to psychedelic, here’s a look at ten great works of album art from this month.
Shining: One One One (Prosthetic / Universal Norway, 5/28/13)
There are covers, and then there are covers. Shining’s version of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” is the latter, a roiling, screaming beast of wails, beats, and static.
Norway’s Shining, which gave a name to its genre with 2010 album Blackjazz, has a new record coming out May 28 on Prosthetic. Entitled One One One, the album includes the recently unveiled riff-rocker “I Won’t Forget” (see the sci-fi music video here).
Now the band has made stems available for download and is holding a remix competition of the single. The three best versions, picked by front-man Jørgen Munkeby, will be posted on the band’s social-media sites, and each winner will receive a Shining button-up, the “Blackjazz Rebel,” pictured below. So download that application, send it back to the band, and get to cutting.
Shining: One One One (Prosthetic / Universal Norway, 5/28/13)
The first video from Shining’s One One One is here, and it’s a sci-fi catharsis of one man’s lasting pain. Directed by Kyrre Larsen, “I Won’t Forget” is a blistering dose of metallic, whirring, jazz-tinged riff rock. Watch it below and mark your calendars for May 28.
Shining: I Won’t Forget single (Universal Norway, 2/8/13)
Following the band’s superlative, groundbreaking album Blackjazz in 2010, progressive metal outfit Shining (the Norwegian former jazz band, not the Swedish suicidal metal band) is back this year with a new full-length, One One One. Its first single, “I Won’t Forget,” is still en route to America, with a seemingly spectacular video to match a gnarly rock/metal tune. Get a glimpse of the futuristic, industrialized visuals, directed by Kyrre Larsen (who also did “Fisheye”), and get ready.