^ Well, lots of good songs on both records. I'd actually find it kinda weird if we all liked the same songs from each, lol!
Anywho, met000000l for all! \m/
12. Carcass - Surgical Steel
Genre: Death Metal
Sounds Like: Themselves
So it's time for some snarlz, riffz and headbanging goodness: there's been enough spectacular death metal, black metal, grind, etc. this year to fill 15x AOTY lists and they still wouldn't be enough to cover everything (and I enjoyed a good many of them!). But for what it's worth, I think I picked the crown jewel of the lot for 2013. And yes, I do take travelers' checks. 
So, just to be clear - I'm not gonna be a complete elitist tard and tell you I completely despised this band's previous (and until this year, final) release Swansong: I didn't even listen to that album til nearly twelve years after it fell flat commercially back in 1996. I personally thought it was so-so, but for the hardcore fans who loved these death metal pioneers from their illustrious start all the way up to 1993's groundbreaking Heartwork I'm sure people felt it was a sonic betrayal of the worst kind....oh well, shit happens and people move on. Bands do too, and I don't think anyone ever thought these guys would ever record another album. But hey, miracles do happen...and Surgical Steel is one baddass motherf-in miracle if there ever was one. A masterpiece even: the sort of record that only comes about when some fanatic at the soundboard decided to have the band listen to all the classic early 80's Judas Priest vinyls on repeat for a week while keeping some Roid Rage'd asshole on staff outside to hose down Jeff Walker and Bill Steer every time they didn't blast the producer out of the next room (though I'm sure Colin Richardson is used to it by now if his time with Cannibal Corpse taught him anything). I'll bet there was bourbon too. Lots of it!
So is this the best ball busting, throat scarring, shredtastic sorta-melodic death metal album of all time? Who knows, but its got 2013 in its pocket and laughing about it all the way to the bank. And if you doubt my words, one whiff of opening instrumental '1985' or the gravity defying 'Noncompliance To ASTM F 899-12 Standard' should pulverize that skepticism into bonemeal.
Quite eerie when you think about it though. Seventeen years after releasing their worst record + vanishing off the face of the Earth to join a bunch of smaller-time groups, they suddenly rise from the dead, kill all their competitors and worshipers in one fell swoop...and created a new classic in the process. Almost makes you want to believe in God. Or maybe the Devil.