It may be bit early for “Best of 2013? lists, but it‰’s the middle of 2013 and we‰’re excited to share our most-repeated new albums from the last six months. Read about some of WVAU‰’s favorite records released in 2013.

Listening to We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic doesn‰’t count for your music history requirement, but it should. As Foxygen endorses the territory of almost every prolific rock movement, their product is a temporally flattening, simultaneously conducted history of rock and roll itself. Countless decades of influence place We Are among the most expansively derived of 2013, and the result is a grounding of sheer peculiarity and raw 21st century originality.

We Are shines in multiple places: Opener “In The Darkness‰” combines strange vocals with a steady musical presence of keys and strings, and fluidly leads into what possibly may be the track of 2013, “No Destruction.‰” While “There‰’s no need to be an asshole, we‰’re not in Brooklyn anymore‰” may be the most quoted line off the album (personal witness), “On Blue Mountain‰” reveals the genuinely narcissistic tendencies that continue to haunt the record. “San Francisco‰” emulates androgynous patterns, flower crowns (Vocalist Sam France carries a couple on tour) and everything psychedelically outlined under the 60s. With the added effect of spiritual incarnations (“Shuggie‰Û‘s “If you believe in yourself, you can free your soul‰Û), this album is an artificially provoked, satirically defined manifesto.

Explosive choruses contrast mundane verses as this album is literally all over the place. But by capitalizing on the ambiguous direction in each track, Foxygen allows the listener to rejoice at every unexpected turn; Some of the best moments are at the peak of a crashing chorus (“On Blue Mountain, “No Destruction‰Û) or a rolling display of streamlined peculiarity (“San Francisco,‰” “Shuggie‰Û).

But while their label Jagjaguwar‰’s influence is apparent, Foxygen‰’s commitment showed itself way before We Are (try: Take The Kids Off Broadway, EP 2011, Kill Art); The rock and roll dream ended a long time ago and was replaced with a solidified reality: SXSW hype, BNM cites and tour headlines. Whether or not your relationship with We Are is conditioned by drugs, there‰’s enough material here for everyone to be intrigued. Engaging lyrics personify a modern narrative of a contemporary band living in the wrong era — or, a band weighted by nostalgia for a past era. Regardless, as ambassadors of peace and magic, Foxygen leaves We Are with “Oh No 2‰Û: “If you believe in love, everything you see is love, so try to be what god wants you to be, and say that I love you again.”

Whatever this means, Foxygen creates something cryptically unique rivaled by few.