Tis the season of giving and 2013 was certainly the year the hard and heavy metal scene gave back! There was an exhausting parade of new releases and tours to boot! Be careful what you wish cuz you just might get it, and this year it came at us from all angles. And these days it seems that the output is tenfold, as bands of all shapes and sizes can easily Protools or GarageBand it-up in their bedroom and release to the masses in numerous forms, mostly digital. But is it quality stuff? Here come the BraveWords scribes to the rescue, who tear their way through the glut and the grit and come up the finest slabs of music the year had to offer. Just one rule: studio recordings only. No compilations, covers, live albums etc…

So after days of compiling, we bring you BravePicks 2013: The 12 Days Of Metal, our nice n' tidy summary of the year that was. Of course we will start with the countdown until New Year's and then the scribes step up with their always popular Brave Embarrassments, Concerts, Thoughts On 2013, Predictions For 2014 and What / Who Needs To Stop In 2014!

So jump in, strap in and grab a cold one!!!

2013 … The 12 Days Of Metal

7) CHILDREN OF BODOM - Halo Of Blood (Nuclear Blast)

Halo Of Blood, the eighth studio album by Finnish heavy metal band CHILDREN OF BODOM, stormed the world with Top 40 chart entries in no less than seven countries including #2 in their homeland and their highest charting album in Canada ever at #21!

In his interview with keyboardist Janne Wirman, BraveWords scribe Carl Begai said that Halo Of Blood is all over the place dynamically but it works.

“That’s something I like about the new album," Wirman responded. "Even I couldn’t figure out or predict what was coming next during the first listen, and I played on it. After the third time through we were all thinking ‘Fuck yeah, this is killer. There are no filler tracks on this. We made sure that if we were going to have 10 original tracks, the shit was going to be good all the way through.”

BW&BK;: But Halo Of Blood isn’t an intentional back-to-the-roots record even though a large portion of your fanbase has been screaming for one for years now.

Janne: “What’s funny is that people don’t believe that we never sit down and say ‘Hey, let’s go in this musical direction…’ when we start writing new songs. We never say a word about that. We just go to the rehearsal room, Alexi comes in with his riffs and we start working on the songs from there. I think it would be ridiculous for us to discuss going back to our second album. We would never do that.”

Read more here.

2013 … The 12 Days Of Metal

12) ANVIL - Hope In Hell (The End)

11) MEGADETH – Super Collider (Tradecraft/Universal)

10) WATAIN - The Wild Hunt (Century Media)

9) VOIVOD – Target Earth (Century Media)

8) GHOST BC - Infestissumam (Loma Vista Recordings)

7) CHILDREN OF BODOM - Halo Of Blood (Nuclear Blast)

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