For our 7th annual Highlighting feature, we split the year into TWO pieces -- January to June and July to December. Normally, we select our top 25 most anticipated releases for the whole year, but we realize that it's tough to really gauge EVERYTHING that may release throughout a given year when we're making the list in January. So, for 2012, we split the year into TWO pieces -- January to June and July to December, and we're using this format again for 2013. Also, each list contains 15 artists/releases for a total of 30 in total for 2013.

PLEASE NOTE:
We've already selected the first fifteen artists, so please click here to check those out. If you think an artist may be missing on this list, please keep in mind they may have made our list for the first half of the year before their release date was pushed back to the latter half of the year (like Switchfoot, Five Iron Frenzy and Relient K, for example). Without further ado, we give you Highlighting Second-Half 2013!

	9 of 15   #9. Abandon untitled Release Date: Late 2013/Early 2014 Given that 2011's Control album was such a quantum leap in quality and diversity over the band's 2009 full-length major label debut, Searchlights (which, it should be noted, was hardly a shabby affair), one can only imagine what the San Antonio band - now reduced to a trio - have up their sleeves this time around. Even if it winds up being only half as impressive as Control, the new record will still arguably be a winner.         - Bert Gangl One of the very first reviews I ever wrote for this site was for Abandon's self-titled EP, years before they started to make an impact on the radio. I liked them then, and I'm happy to say that everything they've released since then has been great as well. Let's hope this album is just the next in a long series of successes.         - Timothy Estabrooks Admittedly, Control was better than most of us expected it to be, and we're still waiting for the follow-up. The stakes are even higher with the news of their independence from a label, and winning enough support from a Kickstarter campaign doesn't hurt, either. I'm anxious for Abandon's next chapter.         - Roger Gelwicks Visit our Abandon page for more information about them... Second-Half of 2013 Countdown: 15 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 ©January, 2013 Jesusfreakhideout.com