Top Albums of the Year 2013: Staff Picks

AURAL DEVASTATION is a regular column about heavy rock music. This month, Russian Circles teases with a new song from a new album, Dead In the Dirt introduces themselves to the world with a fury, plus new songs from Weekend Nachos, Touché Amoré and Modern Life Is War. ...
A staff-compiled list of some of our favorite songs from the year 2011, in no particular order or with allegiance to any particular style....
"This new Russian Circles album is their best one yet," I said last month for the fourth time in my life to the clerk at Sonic Boom Records. She stared back at me blankly as I gleefully clutched my new copy of Empros and ran home for its first spin....
While I tend to harp on this fact, it is incredibly rare to find a label that is a true tastemaker for a specific genre and consistently delivers. For this reason, Hello Sir Records out of Athens, GA stands out and has been an absolute gem of a label since...
"I want people to pick up Enter or our new record, and say, 'What the hell are they going to do next?" -- Dave Turncrantz...