SOUND BITES

There's something to be said for a band as creatively restless as the Melvins; they've forged a career that just recently passed the thirty year mark while never losing their quest for new sounds. And yet, for as many directions their muse has pulled them over the decades, they've somehow managed to also develop their own unique sonic signature. It's the sludgy, metallic riffage that opens the album on Bride of Crankenstein , a hazy stomper that leaves no doubt as to who's providing the soundtrack. However, there are a couple of new players here; this incarnation of the Melvins (there have been plenty) features Paul Leary and Jeff Pinkus of Butthole Surfers joining pre-existing Melvins King Buzzo and Dale Crover. What they bring, as if this band needed it, was extra weirdness; it courses throughout the album, in stabs of synth, odd production shifts and other assorted experiments. Leary also gets full credit on three songs, which certainly stand out from the other...

As much fun as it is watching a band grow and evolve over the years and through their assorted projects, sometimes it's nice to see them take a step back, shrug their shoulders and try walking in someone else's shoes for four minutes. Whether it's a faithful reconstruction or a sonically shapeshifted alternate vision, it's always fun to hear what an artist can do with a song that's not theirs. Here are ten artists whose interpretations of familiar songs got the biggest smiles from me in 2013:

Occasionally, I look at the list of upcoming releases on the right of this page and realize I haven't had your back as far as sampling what you're in for with these records.  So I thought, with a week passed between posts and these records sneaking up on us, that I should probably post up a few tracks.