album review: 'villains' by queens of the stone age / 'god's problem child' by willie nelson / 'any night in texas' by jon wolfe / '27861' by parmalee (VACATION SERIES)

I always fall behind with vlog updates, but here we go - enjoy!

the top 25 best albums of 2013 - video

And THAT takes care of my year-end lists. 2014 is now here, so that means album reviews and special comments are starting again! Until then, stay tuned!

the top 25 best albums of 2013

And now we're down to the final list - my top twenty-five albums of 2013. This year, I reviewed 135 albums - and frankly, I should have done more. But I feel it's a plenty big sample size to discuss my choices, and all of these earned their slots on this list. I'll also try to keep this as quick as I possibly can - I've already talked about all of these albums in detail, and you should all check out my reviews if you want a more in-depth discussion. Also, my list isn't exactly going to correspond with common critical consensus - there are albums I have picked that have been ignored, and there are certain albums that some critics lauded that I didn't find nearly as strong. Got all that? Good, because we're not waiting any longer, let's GO!

the top 50 best songs of 2013 (PART ONE: 50-26)

Part One, songs 50-26! Enjoy, and stay tuned for part two!

video review: '...like clockwork' by queens of the stone age

Well, that should take care of the last of my major retrospectives, and it's a great one to end off on, I think.

This is the last big week for album releases, so I'll endeavor to knock back some of the big ones and a few last retrospectives before my year end lists, so stay tuned!

album review: '...like clockwork' by queens of the stone age (RETRO REVIEW)

For the longest time this year, I ignored Queens of the Stone Age and their newest album entirely.

And really, that was a big mistake, mostly linked to the fact that I had a few major misconceptions about the band that I only really knew from the few singles I heard from Era Vulgaris six years ago. As I've said a number of times, I skipped over most rock throughout the 2000s and jumped straight into metal, and Queens of the Stone Age were one of those bands I just ignored because I assumed they were just another post-grunge or hard rock band that somehow managed to get rave reviews. 

As I said, big mistake, and I've spent the past three weeks listening through the band's discography and realizing the major errors in my thinking. For one, Queens of the Stone Age are one of those acts that really defies genre classification: they've done hard rock, they've flirted with psychedelia and alternative metal, and while they've worked with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, I wouldn't call them a post-grunge act by any stretch. Also, they're awesome, as in one of the best rock/metal acts of the decade. I stand by my opinion that Era Vulgaris is their worst album, but it's by no means bad (it mostly suffers from the same listlessness that Tonight... Franz Ferdinand had when they made a 'nightlife' album). As to my favourite Queens of the Stone Age record, I'm honestly going to go with Lullabies To Paralyze, simply because the nightmarish fairy tales that Josh Homme wrote about added a lot of twisted flavour to the songwriting, and the album had simply phenomenal grooves and melodies that I really loved.

And thus, having completed my heel-face turn on Queens of the Stone Age, I was psyched to listen through their newest album ...Like Clockwork - albeit six months too late. And I'd be remiss not to mention the importance of this record, or the troubled production process that preceded it. Long-time Queens of the Stone Age drummer Joey Castillo was fired about a third of the way into the recording and replaced by Dave Grohl, and Josh Homme recruited singers like Trent Reznor, Alex Turner, Jake Shears, Elton John, and even former Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri for backing vocals. And this was their first album in six years - did ...Like Clockwork manage to work?