So for no other reason than I can, let’s leave all that financial services crap aside for a bit and concentrate on the really important stuff – what music was on heavy rotation on the lang cat’s patented Tune-O-Matic Stereogram this year. I appreciate this is massively self-indulgent, more so than usual even, but there’s no point having your own website if you can’t do random stuff once in a while.

So here we go. 9 in no particular order, and then an album of the year. Stick your thoughts below in comments if you fancy, or just be all haughty and don’t bother. Your call.

• Killswitch Engage – Disarm The Descent – Jesse Leach came home to Killswitch (he was the original vocalist until…oh never mind) and knocked the ball out of the park.
• The National – Trouble Will Find Me – this was just a lovely record. Strings, electronics and Matt Berninger’s affecting vocals mixed with really nice understated guitar work made this a top late night listen.
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Push The Sky Away – I sometimes think it must be dispiriting for other bands when NCATBS continue to bosh out historic records like this after 30 years and 15 albums.
• 65daysofstatic – Wild Light – if you like your post-rock with lots of layered guitars but also lots of electronics then this Sheffield crew’s latest is for you.
• Black Sabbath – 13 – this is a properly good Sabbath record, and it’s been a while since we had one of them. These guys are 65 years old. Only one thing to say – m/ m/
• Motorhead – Aftershock – Lemmy has type 2 diabetes and a defibrillator fitted these days, and is finding it increasingly hard to get critical illness insurance. This doesn’t stop him coming up with a record which did mix in a little more restrained stuff than in his heyday, but only a little.
• Sigur Ros – Kveikur – a bit darker than all that Hoppipolla stuff on Takk, but none the worse for it. Gets quite noisy on occasion, which is excellent.
• Carcass – Surgical Steel – very close to album of the year. Huge, brilliantly produced sound which shows what intelligent extreme music can do.
• Bring Me The Horizon – Sempiternal – Noisy, aggressive, technical, but nuanced too. Listen to ‘And The Snakes Start To Sing’, then ‘Antivist’ and thank me later.

Album of the year time.

• Midas Fall – Wilderness – no, you haven’t heard of it or them, and that’s a crying shame. A 3-piece from somewhere called Edinburgh, this lot started in 2009 and are still paying their dues. Wilderness should change all that. Elizabeth Heaton’s vocals are close to Julianne Regan’s except probably better, and the music is just gorgeous all the way through. Understated sometimes, rich other times, this wears its post-rock influences lightly and just keeps giving back the more you listen to it. If you do only one thing this festive season, be on the side of the angels and buy Wilderness from your local record store, or here if you must.

So there it is. Or they are. Good list? Bad list? Your list? Gaun yersel’, list some of your favourites from 2013 below.

Here’s to more music in 2014 and have a good culturally appropriate whatever.

M