BravePicks 2013: The 12 Days Of Metal - #1!
January 1, 2014, 10 years ago
Happy New Year from BraveWords! Being the first day of 2014, it's time to unveil BravePick #1 as voted on by our devout scribes!
And remember to stay tuned to each writer's take on 2013 with the always popular Brave Embarrassments, Concerts, Thoughts On 2013, Predictions For 2014 and What / Who Needs To Stop In 2014!
Drum roll please...
1) CARCASS – Surgical Steel (Nuclear Blast)
This was a no-brainer. Most scribes had CARCASS' stupefying comeback album Surgical Steel on their list and at #1 to boot! Yeah, it was that good. And if you don't own it, your head is in the snow or sand depending on your location!
But the band wasn't convinced of their genius from the get-go!
"I’m sure there’s a lot of people that have already written it off," vocalist and bassist Jeff Walker told BraveWords in September.When asked if the current excitement surrounding Carcass surprises him, he replied, “Well, not really because obviously it’s been a gradual process since we started to talk about a reunion in 2007. It’s not like we’ve come completely out of the blue. We did three years of reunion shows, and it got quite a phenomenal response. We did record this in secret, but it’s not a complete shock to the system like I wanted it to be. Since the information was made available in February, people have known this was on the horizon. Honestly, I think it would have more impact if we’d just announced it when the damn thing was finished. I wanted to have it mastered, artwork done, record deal in place and bam – people find out two weeks before it’s out. Because there’s too much anticipation, people twiddling their thumbs and pontificating about how they think it’s going to sound. I’d rather it just came out and people were like, fuck! Where the hell’s this come from?”
Read Aaron Small's entire feature here.
Scribe David Perri gave Surgical Steel a glowing 10/10 score stating: " In the annals of metal history and the beer-drenched debate that no doubt accompanies it, the search for the perfect metal album is a long and winding road of endless analysis that is part personal preference, part objective appreciation of technique and part understanding a record's place in its time and context. With regard to all three criteria, Surgical Steel fulfills its mandate with malice, legacy-backed assertiveness and panache, this album the result of smart people working really hard to impressive effect. Let's call an ace of spade an ace of spade: Surgical Steel is an unqualified and unreserved 10, a record that is homage, next-generation revival and a reminder to all of metal what our genre is like at its most absolute of peaks."
Read the entire review here.
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)
6) EXHUMED – Necrocracy (Relapse)
5) STRYPER - No More Hell To Pay (Frontiers)
4) QUEENSRŸCHE - Queensrÿche (Century Media)
3) BLACK SABBATH - 13 (Vertigo/Universal)
2) MOTÖRHEAD – Aftershock (UDR)
1) CARCASS – Surgical Steel (Nuclear Blast)
