My choices for top 10 Best Music albums of 2013. These are the albums that impressed the hell out of me this year. It’s hard to find good music these days ’cause the industry gets worse every year but here are the best albums that I can find this year!!! Hope you enjoy the list….

10. Ghost B.C. – Infestissumam

This band is a Swedish metal band who chooses to remain anonymous. This band refuses to reveal their real names and their identities so they have chosen to be masked and costumed. I’ve read a lot about this band through Guitar World magazine and the more I’ve read about them, the more they intrigue me. So I finally decided to give this album a listen. At first, I was a little scared of listening to this album ’cause I was afraid I was gonna hear death metal with a lot of growling. Turns out… it wasn’t that at all. Ghost B.C. is actually very listenable. There’s no growling at all on this record as there are actual singing on it. The guitar playing is pretty sick and there are a lot of organ playing on it. I thought it was a pretty amazing and impressive album. I wanna get my own copy of it soon.

9. Joe Satriani – Unstoppable Momentum

The “Satch” came back for another studio album this year and this is his best yet! I respect the Satch so much ’cause while he is a shredder and virtuoso he was never about showing off of how fast he plays and all that stuff. He was always about melody and sounding musical. This album is his most melodic album ever. It’s his best since “Surfing With the Alien”. I do respect guys like Steve Vai, Ynqwie, and Eric Johnson but it’s the “Satch” who I respect the most. This is a great album ’cause it’s not really about shredding. He was more about the songwriting on this one. Even though Satriani is all instrumental music, he is great at making his music sound like they’re actual songs.

8. Dream Theater – self titled

The mighty Dream Theater returned with another studio album this year — minus Mike Portnoy on the drums. Portnoy left the band a few years ago and the band recruited a new drummer by the name of, Mike Mangini. They do sound different with a new drummer and no offense to Portnoy, I think Mangini is the true Dream Theater. They sound bigger and better than ever before. This is a pretty strong album. James Labrie’s singing is just great and John Petrucci’s guitar playing is out of this world like usual. I’ve been a Dream Theater fan for a long time and this is their best album yet.

7. Lorde – Pure Heroine

I never heard of Lorde until the internet started buzzing about that “Royals” song that’s been making the rounds so I decided to check out the song myself and ended up liking it myself. So I decided to check out more of her music through youtube and was digging her even more. I bought her album “Pure Heroine” and loved the album so this album is worthy for the list. Finally, some good pop music we can all listen to. This album is not that typical bubble-gum pop you hear on the radio these days. This pop music is more maturing and it’s a fun album to listen to. I couldn’t stop listening to it.

6. Volbeat – Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies

I’ve been a fan of Volbeat ever since I saw them open for Metallica a few years ago. It’s hard to tell what genre they are ’cause they are always doing different things. Metal, punk, country, rockabilly, folk, etc. They blend everything together. This is a great band from Denmark and Michael Poulsen is a talented guitarist, and singer. I loved this album and wanna get my own copy soon.

5. Queens of the Stone Age – …Like Clockwork

QOTSA is finally back with a new album after a pretty long hiatus in the music industry. Dave Grohl has returned to drums for this band after their previous drummer, Joey Castillo left. This is their best album since “Songs For the Deaf”. It has some of Josh’s best songwriting and there are some pretty surprising collaborations on it with musicians such as Trent Reznor and Elton John.

4. David Bowie – The Next Day

After a little over 20 years or so of being missing in action in the music business, David Bowie has finally made his album comeback. This album was announced on his birthday this year. Everybody speculated that he retired from the music business but I knew he wasn’t. He maybe done with touring and performing live but making studio albums, no. I think “The Next Day” is his best new album. This album has covered every genre and style of music he has done over the years. It has excellent guitar work on it and some of David’s best singing. I hope he doesn’t make us wait too long for his next album.

3. Black Sabbath – 13

The founding members of Black Sabbath have reunited minus Bill Ward. Fans thought Sabbath couldn’t make a good album without Bill Ward on the drums but I disagree. They STILL killed it on the album despite Bill Ward not being in the band. I thought this was a pretty sick album. Every song on it is so good. I couldn’t stop listening to it. The guys in Sabbath proved they still GOT IT, and Tony Iommi is still the riff-master. Ozzy has never been the greatest singer in the world but I was actually impressed with his singing on this album. He was more confident on it, this time.

2. Arcade Fire – Reflektor

Win Butler and his wife, Regine are back with another Arcade Fire album. I’ve been an Arcade Fire fan for a pretty long time and this is their best one. It sounds different than their previous albums. The songs on “Reflektor” are pretty strong and amazingly done. Every song gave me goosebumps. A lot of emotion and passion on it. I read they got the idea for this album after Win and Regine visited Haiti for the first time. Every song is so tight and aggressive. I was blown away with this album.

1. Man Of Steel – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Hans Zimmer

When Warner Bros. announced that they are doing a new Superman movie and Zack Snyder was going to direct the film… it should be no surprise that they were going to get Hans Zimmer to score it. It was debatable whether or not Hans Zimmer could make a good score for this film. People thought he would never be able to top the original score by John Williams. Turns out myself and a lot of people were wrong. Hans Zimmer topped John Williams with no problem at all. I thought the music in “Man of Steel” was beautiful. I’m not into movie soundtracks too much but listening to the “Man of Steel” soundtrack was pretty intense. Every track gave me goosegumps. Great job, Hans. I pick “Man of Steel” soundtrack as the best album of the year.

It’ll be a few more weeks for the movies list. Still have to see: “The Hobbit 2”, “Grudge Match” and “American Hustle”. I’ll try to see all 3 of those movies after the Holiday and then I’ll write up the list.

Kev