SOUND BITES

They can't all be shining examples. Collected below are ten songs/artists that I hesitated to nominate for the Year in Rock awards, but have redeeming qualities to them nonetheless. Some impressed me initially only to have interest wane quickly; others I expected better from. These are Year in Rock 2013's Honourable Mentions:

With next week's release date approaching, Bad Religion are streaming True North (their sixteenth album and first in 2 1/2 years) in full. If you're looking for stylistic detours, you'll have to look elsewhere; Bad Religion rarely deviates from their original M.O., and True North is chock full of speedy tunes, vocal harmonies, and wordy musings and observations. In fact, True North may be guilty of playing a little too close to form; with the exception of two songs this album is wall-to-wall speed. Dharma And The Bomb plays like a more menacing brand of garage rock, followed by the sludgy Hello Cruel World , which I'm a little shocked hasn't been serviced to radio like slower Bad Religion tracks traditionally are. These two are surely sequenced back-to-back on purpose, a temporary breather from the opening five-song salvo and a chance to steel ourselves for the nine-song onslaught that closes it out. Not groundbreaking in any way, True North is noneth...

Usually, this is the time of year when the reflections on the twelve months that were are complete and this place becomes a ghost town for at least a couple weeks because there's nothing interesting being released until April. In fact, if you noticed during my chronologically ordered nominees rollout, you'll find that only 7/50 came out in the first quarter of the year (with five of those being in March, and none in January). Maybe the labels are panicking to get their properties out there before no one cares about albums anymore, maybe my music addiction's spiraled too far out of control. Whatever the case, the first three months of 2013 are logjammed with potentially and guaranteed awesome albums alike. So, we took a look back, and will remember 2012 fondly; now let's dive into 2013 and start devouring more tasty riffs! After the jump are my 15 most anticipated releases coming in the early part of 2013:

Stream Soundgarden's first album in 16 years here courtesy iTunes. In an increasingly impatient society that's rife with leaks when it comes to high profile albums, that Soundgarden's hotly anticipated return effort King Animal escaped the leak is nothing short of a miracle. Today, patience has been rewarded via an official stream one week ahead of the album's release. So, the burning question is how does it all sound? Well, that's not for me to say right now; outside of posting that link, I'm making no effort to listen to King Animal until I've got a CD in my hand and headphones on my dome next week. I figure I've waited this long while only hearing two (really good) songs in full, why not put myself through another seven days of anticipation and reap a sweet payoff when I'm hearing most of it for the first time and flipping through liner notes? King Animal is out November 13 on Universal.