The Black Angels - Indigo Meadow (2013)

Being the preeminent retro rockers of the last decade, along with Queens Of The Stone Age, Wolfmother, and every underground act in the Stoner/Psychedelic Rock scene, The Black Angels have returned with a stalwart pack of new songs. "Indigo Meadow" is about 45 minutes of rugged, solicitous Rock n' Roll. It has the preciseness of primal Post-Punk in arranging the melodies and rhythms , as well as 70's Psychedelia and Acid Rock's indulgence.

John Zorn - The Mysteries (2013)

No matter if you're into Free Jazz or Grindcore, you must have heard about John Zorn if you're into Experimental music in general. Being involved in countless number of projects, and varieties of different music genres, Hemophiliac, The Lounge Lizards' song "John Zorn's S&M Circus", and Naked City's soundtrack to Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" were the main three keys to the door of discovering Zorn for me. His latest solo record called "The Mysteries" has been released about two weeks ago and it's in the vein of his previous efforts like "Magick", "Redbird", "Chimeras" and "From Silence To Sorcery", a Minimal take on Contemporary Classical music. In the first listen it reminded me of Philip Glass' "Music With Changing Parts", with an additional guitar line, however it goes beyond that, and in the second and third listens, I came to think of it as a meditation on the theme of everything enigmatic. Conceptually it seems to be partially based on Gnosticism, making references to The Naassenes, Yaldabaoth, and Catharism (which itself is deeply bounded with Gnosticism, and has obtained many of its main ideologies from it) in the song titles, still because the record's an instrumental one, I believe it is more of a meditation on those ideas as a theme, rather than a musical tractate.

Voivod - Target Earth (2013)

First let me explain that I totally loved "Infini" so I'm not going to babble how this record is a comeback or anything, Voivod's latest offering "Target Earth" is about some new blood in their sound, with their new guitarist Daniel Mongrain (Of the Canadian Technical Death Metal band Martyr, who also played on Gorguts' "From Wisdom To Hate") they've basically achieved a progressive sound just like they did years ago in "Killing Technology", I don't think comparing it with "Dimension Hatröss" would be proper, because it has a lot more to do with dissonant Proggy structures rather than just Thrashy riffage. Running over 56 minutes, it's a great chunk of Thrash goodness to start the year with, and yes, it does raise up the expectations for any other Thrash/Prog Metal release after it. (ex. Sodom, TDEP)

Merchandise - Totale Nite (2013)

Trying to revive Post-Punk without having any new ideas would come to nothing but a roundabout of cliches, Merchandise seem to know that impeccably. With their latest offering "Totale Nite" they've attained a musical bridge between the New Wave sound of acts like The Teardrop Explodes, Men At Work, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, ... and a more Shoegaze variation of Psychedelic/Space Rock of The Flaming Lips, Moon Duo, Ashra, Comets On Fire, ... something like a sleek, less Noise Rock influenced version of A Place To Bury Strangers for the lack of better examples.

Rapeman - Two Nuns And A Pack Mule (1988)

Steve Albini's most obsolete project is also a matchless one, some may say however, that it's too much like Big Black, what I must disagree with, Big Black no matter how chaotic and noisy, didn't have much to do with the No Wave/Free Jazz inspired, fortuitous time signatures that would led to Math Rock, what Albini came to perfect later in Shellac. Also while the presence of dissonant chords and angular melodies is undeniable in Big Black's music, we're missing the the atypical rhythmic structures. I believe Rapeman was Albini's first attempt to form a project going athwart the Industrial consuetude. Their only studio full-length "Two Nuns And A Pack Mule" stands out as one of the earliest Math Rock albums, and here I'm not talking the stepping stones to the genre such as The Mothers Of Invention, Henry Cow, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, or Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away (2013)

It's almost impossible to put in words how much I loved Grinderman, first time I heard about it, the whole idea of having a new band with the same musical attitude as The Birthday Party's with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis being involved psyched the fuck out of me. Those two records they recorded was better than anything Nick Cave had put out with The Bad Seeds, Free Jazz-inspired raw slabs of Garage/Blues/Noise Rock was all that I wanted to hear Nick Cave's vocals over. "Push The Sky Away" is the very first material recorded after the demise of Grinderman and it's like everything in the opposite direction, no fuzzed out Electric Violin lines, no murky Mandolin lines and no Psychedelia on the Keyboards, however the factor that makes it unique is its Minimal attitude, instead of a Pop one, this is why I fucking love Nick Cave, even when he's doing something straightforward  it's twisted from some point. Running about 42 minutes it feels a bit short but there're no fillers in the tracklist so there's no point I bitch about that.