1. In my book, #1 has gotta be the insanely good, The Winery Dogs self-titled debut, an absolute must-own piece of music! Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan, and Mike Portnoy all combine to remind everyone just how good quality "album rock" is, meaning, start-to-finish, this disc flat out kills! A delicious combination of hard rock, blues, and soul, you don't need to release singles when you're entire album kicks so much ass!
2. No.#2 should really be 1(A), because it's top-to-bottom as good as The Winery Dogs cd- Alice in Chains' 2nd cd of their triumphant return, "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here"! Absolutely love what singer/guitarist Will Duvall brings to this band, and the vocal harmonies are back to perfection, while Jerry Cantrell's riffs are still heavy enough to bulldoze a house!
3. Alter Bridge.. on an album of BRUTALLY heavy & amazing, tasty riffs, it's this melodic stuff that really grabs me. Here, guitarist Mark Tremonti (Creed) takes lead vocals, with the super-talented Myles Kennedy (also Slash's singer) on backing vox..
4. Black Sabbath, with Ozzy back in the band.. The GODFATHERS returned this year, and there is no way that anyone could've expected it to turn out this insanely good, even if they did borrow heavily from their debut album, some 40 years ago.. It still RULES..
5. Avenged Sevenfold.. new school sounding deliciously old school! I think they really are onto something with the melodic, grooving, hard rock sound they are pumping out now..
6. Megadeth.. I remember when everyone got all pissy when Metallica released, "Load", even though I loved the bluesy, hard rock "almost metal", direction they went in on that album. Well, Megadeth does it here, and I love this too.. Radio friendly, GREAT "driving fast" song! ..Not that I drive fast or anything..
7. Bullet For My Valentine.. Boy, did I screw up not paying attention to this band before.. Well, I'm paying attention now! Love this group, enough raucous thrash to not be classified as completely emo/screamo-metal..
8. Another band well-represented in my workout mix, this band had it's biggest release this year: Five Finger Death Punch..here with some help from the Metal God, Mr. Rob Halford!
9. Kill Devil Hill... Another new band I freakin' absolutely love, out of Texas, featuring Pantera's Rex Brown, it's got equal parts classic Sabbath, Pantera, and Alice in Chains.. Just sludgy riff awesomeness..
10. Volbeat.. Yet another band that seemed to pop outta nowhere, and really take off this year.. LOTS of good old-school Metallica riff influence here, and very original vocal sound too..
...OK, so there is my list of best new original hard rock & metal for this year, 2013.. Dream Theater had a new release, but other than a scattered few songs, didn't really blow my mind as much as these ten releases.. Cover albums by Anthrax & Adrenaline Mob were both BRILLIANTLY done, but I was sticking to new, original music for this list.. Hopefully, I turned even one person onto something they may have not even known was out there.. Happy New Year, everyone, and STAY LOUD!
