Uncut's Top 50 Albums of 2013

Uncut's Top 50 Albums of 2013

Original Source →

50.

Houndstooth - Ride Out the Dark
July 16, 2013
Critic Score
75
3 reviews

48.

Iron & Wine - Ghost on Ghost
April 16, 2013
Critic Score
74
31 reviews
Professor Beam has made his first art movie, and it's a stunner.

47.

April 22, 2013
Critic Score
73
36 reviews

46.

September 9, 2013
Critic Score
80
32 reviews

44.

October 1, 2013
Critic Score
77
15 reviews
Eight glorious tracks of heavy, frantic and, yes, extremely fuzzy, proto-metal.

43.

September 3, 2013
Critic Score
76
28 reviews

42.

October 29, 2013
Critic Score
77
49 reviews

While the overall sound is massive, it’s become somewhat restricted in tone and texture, most tracks careering towards climaxes of cacophonous synth whines and heavy rock guitars, a narrower palette than on previous albums.

41.

March 19, 2013
Critic Score
76
30 reviews

40.

Chris Forsyth - Solar Motel
October 29, 2013
Critic Score
80
1 review

39.

August 20, 2013
Critic Score
80
33 reviews
A joy to listen to.

38.

September 27, 2013
Critic Score
76
36 reviews

36.

Mark Kozelek & Desertshore - Mark Kozelek & Desertshore
August 20, 2013
Critic Score
73
8 reviews

33.

Richard Thompson - Electric
February 5, 2013
Critic Score
77
20 reviews
It's a vibrant set with a live feel, alternating between rowdy folk-rockers and some of Thompson's most poignant ballads.

31.

September 3, 2013
Critic Score
81
29 reviews

On The Worse Things Get…, Case asserts herself less in a literal sense, but paints the most emboldening and endearing portrait of herself yet

30.

January 15, 2013
Critic Score
80
39 reviews

29.

April 1, 2013
Critic Score
83
9 reviews
The arrangements are bigger, the language more dense, the symbolism darker.

27.

February 26, 2013
Critic Score
74
46 reviews

This seamless synthesis of sinew and silicon is crucial to the album’s slippery feel; there’s a pleasing fluidity and crooked funkiness to the arrangements that Yorke sometimes struggled to achieve on The Eraser.

26.

June 11, 2013
Critic Score
84
13 reviews
It's Isbell's best album yet, and suggests that he'll do better still.

25.

February 25, 2013
Critic Score
77
24 reviews

The Stand-In has everything that made its predecessor special – big voice, expertly crafted tunes, clever backings, a deft mix of stridency and restraint – but is definitely a step up.

24.

February 5, 2013
Critic Score
78
29 reviews
The scratchy lo-fi production doubles its mystery, resulting in an album of sensual pleasures and magical power.

23.

October 14, 2013
Critic Score
78
12 reviews

22.

April 8, 2013
Critic Score
80
44 reviews
This duo's songs are genetic pop mutations, scampering out of control.

21.

Broadcast - Berberian Sound Studio
January 8, 2013
Critic Score
76
24 reviews
It doubtless works best heard in the cinema or the home theatre, and especially in the context of Julian House's beautifully lurid title sequence.

20.

May 14, 2013
Critic Score
81
45 reviews
If in the past you’ve admired Vampire Weekend from a distance, this is the album that should have you falling in love with them.

19.

February 19, 2013
Critic Score
76
6 reviews

16.

April 16, 2013
Critic Score
76
16 reviews
It's the quintet's talent for sneaking in moments of surprising prettiness that makes their seventh record such a charmer.

15.

August 19, 2013
Critic Score
83
32 reviews
Like any new city, this album may take some getting used to--there's beauty everywhere, but the streets are far from a neat grid. But as you walk them, Holter's genius as a sonic town planner reveals itself.

14.

May 21, 2013
Critic Score
84
47 reviews

These songs instinctually shy away from grandstanding or big gestures; every time you think they’re headed for a fist-pumping chorus, they’ll veer off, or Berninger will shrug off the gravity with a lyrical clown move delivered in deadpan.

13.

May 21, 2013
Critic Score
83
50 reviews
Silly and overblown, but wittily, brilliantly so.

12.

October 7, 2013
Critic Score
80
7 reviews
It's a genius pop album by a genius pop singer-songwriter.

11.

August 21, 2012
Critic Score
84
18 reviews
He's made one of the great albums of modern Americana, and one suspects that a reluctant star is born.

10.

June 11, 2013
Critic Score
81
44 reviews

9.

September 9, 2013
Critic Score
81
43 reviews

AM ... feels a considerably more self-assured album: heavy in a dramatic and confident way, conceptually strong, and not without groove.

8.

April 9, 2013
Critic Score
81
39 reviews

It’s a tough, late-night, soul-searching kind of process that Kurt Vile has signed up for here. It’s a testament to his talent that he takes it so seriously, but makes it all sound effortless.

7.

September 17, 2013
Critic Score
79
30 reviews

Among Callahan's very best.

6.

September 23, 2013
Critic Score
82
13 reviews

5.

May 27, 2013
Critic Score
86
40 reviews

Rarely since the Laurel Canyon heyday of CSNY, Jackson Browne et al has the confessional mode been quite so unashamedly mined for artistic ore.

3.

February 18, 2013
Critic Score
84
47 reviews

As by his own admission he’s more of a voyeuristic, narrative songwriter than an emotional miner: here, the music fills in the unwritten emotional content lurking behind his observations.

2.

March 12, 2013
Critic Score
81
46 reviews

1.

February 3, 2013
Critic Score
87
42 reviews

Overall m b v is more of a time capsule than a box of surprises, but the contents have survived in immaculate condition.

Original Source: http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/wild-mercury-sound/the-best-albums-of-2013-the-uncut-top-80
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