My Favorite Albums of 2010

I used to live with this German guy. He was originally a friend of my twins, a connection which made the transition easier for him - he could poke fun at me for all of the things my brother did. He kept to himself mainly, darting around the apartment, muttering about the German religious deity Obama. As a result, not much of his conversation made sense to me, but a few things stuck. The first was that life was a waste of money (curiously, he was very frugal - so maybe the afterlife wasn't). The second was that a successful life required a careful management of one's expectations.

It's this second idea which hovered over my listening experience this year. To me, what made 2009 such a special year for music was that I wasn't expecting much. It was an off-year for many of indie's main movers and shakers as somewhere in Brooklyn, Sufjan prayed that the south would finally secede, thereby cutting his 50 states project in half; and Matt Berninger, complaining of a hangover, pulled his duvet covers over his head and tried to sleep it off. Unbridled from the burden of expectations, everything became a surprise, and many were very good - from the Scottish Krautrock of the Phantom Band (who released a solid follow-up this year) to the arrival of indie poet laureate Al Joshua and his folk band, Orphans and Vandals. The only bands I really expected anything from - the Veils and the Drones - both exceeded expectations, getting the 3 and 1 spots, respectively, on my year-end list.

In 2010, however, the slumbering giants awoke, and with them a host of high standards and unrealistic expectations. I had a my doubts. Was it technically possible Arcade Fire to top the one-two punch of Funeral and Neon Bible? Could the National make an another great album that didn't sound exactly like the last two? Where these bands capable of surprising us anymore? For fear of hearing them fall short, I was tempted to not even listen to them. But in most cases (sorry, Interpol), I was pleasantly surprised.

But before we start, an honorable mention:

Elf Princess Gets a Harley, Only animals eat animals

I have no idea what the deal with this band is. I'm not sure why they'd give themselves this name - surely not commercial appeal. It seems like it could be an anime reference, but my desire to research it is non-existent. Pretty much all I know about them is that they're from Portland, Maine. And that's a good start.

Their formula is simple: a guy and a lady alternate singing unembellished, slightly off-kilter love songs. Let say they're a cross between The Flaming Lips and The Magnetic Fields and see if that gets us anywhere. They sing a song dedicated to Gael Garcia Bernal, the Spanish heartthrob from Y Tu Mama Tambien, whose chorus reiterates the simple notion that the singer wants to have "like a million" of his babies. This naive perspective works even better when juxtaposed by more serious topics, say the apocalypse; on "Ballad", they sing, "in my fatigue, I could have swore I heard a bird singing / but it was just the air raid sirens ringing / and if we should be bulldozed into the same mass grave / may heaven let our fingers at least momentarily graze." It's funny, but also sort of nice. For me, the real standout here is "Make a Noise", a unassuming anthem which subsides halfway through to reveal the band's m.o. "everything I know I learned from my little sister, she eats ice cream with her hands / everything I know I learned from my little sister, and when I get younger, I hope she lets me play in her band."

Their album can be downloaded using the Radiohead payment scheme here, which I'm pretty sure puts the band's 2010 taxable income at $1.00. Let's make 2011 a better year for this small Maine band.

Yeasayer, Odd Blood

This is not a band I ever thought I'd like, but when my brother got me a ticket to their show, I realized I'd at least have to try. I'd always assumed they were the archetypal hipster band and the video for their single "Ambling Alp" pretty much confirmed this thinking. In it, a hooded, faceless figure on horseback gallops toward a shiny pyramid, as two fighters with mirrored gloves and faces box each other. Pretty normal so far, right? Well, it turns out there are a bunch of naked people in the pyramid. And when they wake up, they get chased a la sigur ros' gobbledigook by the hooded figure to the statue of a fist. 

But so what if their symbols were devoid of significance, or that some of the lyrics sounded like they were penned by a 10th grader ("the world can be an unfair place at times, but your lows will have their compliment of highs"), the song was catchy. As were a lot of the others. Plus, they were catchy without sounding like anything I'd heard before: primal sounds reverberating from the future. At the end of they day, they were just big fat pop songs hiding under weird hipster jumpsuits, more Lady Gaga than Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Songs not intended for your head, but your feet. And in the indie world, where the norm is to stand with your arms crossed and a look of mild disappointment on your face, that's a welcome change.

Medications, Completely Removed

It's a little strange that the new release I listened to as background music more than any other this year comes from Dischord Records, an independent D.C. label home mainly to hardcore/punk/post-punk bands like Minor Threat and Fugazi. Dischord was never a label I was particularly crazy about, although Fugazi's perfectly executed 2001 album, The Argument might be on my top 50 list. The Dischord sound is evident in Medications' tricky time changes, unusual arrangements and angular guitars - but none of these elements ever come at a cost to rhythm or melody, which is the primary focus here. The interplay between the two band-mates vocals (lyrics take a back seat to sound) and the sophisticated, relentlessly engaging guitar work creates a gorgeous, sometimes psychedelic, musical joy ride. It's the kind of album that one might put on repeat on a sunny day and lose hours to, until broken from the spell and reminded of their simple existence by the seraphic twittering of a passing, summer tanager.

Parlovr, Self-titled

The only reason this album isn't on my top ten is that it was officially released in 2008. I suspect that part of the reason it slipped through the cracks is because the band hail from Montreal, where you can't round a corner without bumping into an Arcade Fire member. Plus, their name has a v followed by an r, which renders it pretty much unspeakable. But as the old equation goes: Great Album + Little Initial Fanfare/ Critical Respect + Time = Cult Following + Re-Release + Immense Fame/Sacks of Money...

Not quite. Still the album is quite good. I stumbled across it on the outskirts of the internet, a random music blog with infrequent posts (much like my own) which compared them to two bigger Montreal bands: Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene. Bold words. So I checked them out. Thirty seconds into the opener, "Pen to the Paper", I bought the album from Amazon. They sounded like an unhinged version of the Unicorns, or a shoutier, bass-less version of dare-I-say Pavement. What really caught my attention though, was that they sounded like they didn't care much for what you thought of them. Not all that common I know, but something about it made you think they actually believed it.

The good news about this being a re-release is that maybe Parlovr have been working on something in the meantime. So keep your ears open in 2011, and you might just hear someone slaughtering the pronunciation of this band's name.

Gareth Liddiard, Strange Tourist

Goddammit, this guy is talented. He's not well known outside of Australia, where his song "Shark-Fin Blue" was just named by a panel of musicians polled by Triple J (the radio station the kids listen to) as the greatest Australian song ever written. But he really oughta be. He can compose a couplet that would have made Robert Frost green with envy. Take a look at how he describes the differing perspectives that he and his love interest's father hold on "Did She Scare All Your Friends Away":

I viewed life like a bedroom through a keyhole on a door,

while he saw it like a pantry through a window on a wall,

we never got on well, were never friends at all.

Not impressed? Well how about if he does it a hundred more times on the album. Now you're listening. Given the nuance and complexity displayed in these songs, it's not surprising then that one of the reviews I read described Liddiard as a novelist who doesn't know it yet. And that designation works both for and against him on Strange Tourist, a sparse album recorded in an dilapidated mansion in remote Australia, with only a guitar, a microphone and bottomless supplies of whiskey and coffee. It's an album that, like a good book, you can spend a lot of time with, as you get pulled into it's world of alcoholic tight-rope walkers, lonely mailmen, world war two sympathizers, "harakiri weirdos", burgeoning terrorists, and god knows who else. But also like a novel, it's long. It has five songs that run over seven minutes, and one that clocks in at over 16. Despite this, I kept on finding myself coming back to it as inevitably, tucked within each of these songs are moving and fascinating moments that you won't hear anywhere else - the pummeling assault that marks the end of "The Radicalisation of D" is the best six minutes of music I heard all year - but I understand that this can add up to a somewhat draining listening experience.

On Strange Tourist, Liddiard does his best to capture the contradictions and dizzying claustrophobia of a century where the world's population is exploding at the same rate that Facebook reins it in, where crowded cultures pursue change through never-ending conflict. The album falls short only to the extent that such a goal is impossible for a single man to achieve. Strange tourist indeed.

Editor's Note: on subsequent listens over the years, this album would most likely make the top three, and could even take the 1 spot.

And now for the good stuff. I tried to keep it at ten, but I couldn't. Without further adieu, my top 11 albums of 2010:

#11) The Mohawk Lodge, Crimes; Fourth of July, Before Our Hearts Explode

The Mohawk Lodge:

It's pretty clear that at some point before the release of Crimes, Ryder Havdale, the lead singer of this Toronto band, got his heart ripped out. From what the blogosphere informs me, his girlfriend left him for one of his best friends. On Crimes, Havdale wants to let you know as loudly, passionately, and with as many power chord-powered choruses (+2) as possible, that what happened was definitely not cool.

When asked what kind of music his band plays, my friend Dave, eager to avoid the indie signifier, describes it as "straight rock." While I give him a hard time about that being the opposite of "queer rock," I think it provides a good description of the Mohawk Lodge's sound. They're indie only in the sense that they write great songs that won't ever see the static of radio. (I mean, how many indie songs end with the sound of motorcycle driving into the distance?) Their most clear musical influence is the swaggering, stadium-sized songs of Bruce Springsteen, although one review compared them to another Springsteen-aping Canadian band, Constantines, who were my favorite re-discovered band this year. (Check out Shine a Light, Tournament of Hearts, and the Adam Roux endorsed Self-titled, if you haven't already.) In short, if you've ever found yourself cursing your ex-girlfriend as you cruise down the highway on the back of a motorcycle (or aspire to such a thing), this is the album for you.   

Slay Tracks: Cold Hearts, Done Fighting, Roll with the Punches, Wicked Nights (Canadian Girl)

Fourth of July:

The sophomore album from this Lawrence, Kansas band signed to the Pavement-referencing Range Life Record was the one I kept removing to get to nice, round ten. It's an album I would have loved in my younger days: playful, observant, slacker vocals capturing the contradictory feelings of failing/failed relationships over sprightly guitars and ooh-ooh-ooh back-up vocals. (Great lyrical example: "she's on a blind date / he's blind to the fact I ever had her.") But six years into a relationship, it's a perspective that's a bit harder to connect with. Still, I can't fault the band for that, can I?

While break-ups mark the perfect occasion for Morrissey-type moping or the kind of angsty, naval-gazing that Conor Oberst perfected in his teens, Fourth of July wisely sidestep the melodrama, crafting sprightly, up-tempo numbers that you'll want to sing along to. Trumpets blare over jangling guitars as singing shifts to shouting and songs reach their climax. While there are a few slower songs here, the contrast is welcomed, a reminder that break-ups are serious affairs. You could call it an album of hipster heartbreak anthems, but you'd run the risk of being called a hipster yourself. One review called it a "break-up record that provides the perfect accompaniment to playing frisbee," so lets leave it at that.

Slay Tracks: Bad Dreams (are Only Dreams), Providence, Tan Lines, L Train, Crying Shame

#9) Secret Cities, Pink Graffiti

I've heard talk that the the transition to online media will kill, or has already killed, the "album." Personally, I don't think there's much truth to this. From what I can tell, it has only revealed the large, and in this case, relatively untapped monster, that guides most things - the passive consumer. In the past, the passive listener had to rely on the radio to hear the catchy song from last night's episode of Hellcats, the gripping cheerleader law school drama on the CW. Now that access is only a click away. While it's true that music's unit of currency has shifted to the "single," birthing a number of bands seeking to make a quick, and now seemingly easier, buck, it obscures another truth: that great albums are still, and always will, be made. The internet hasn't killed the "album" more than twitter has conquered the novel, or facebook the friendship.

Which brings us to Pink Graffiti, the debut album by the Fargo, North Dakota band, Secret Cities. While I don't know that much about the technicalities of music, I know that Pink Graffiti checks off a lot of the boxes that are sometimes found on"albums" I like: the use of a guiding idea (nice, but not always necessary); the repetition of musical ideas; and a general cohesion of sound. So what's the theme here? From what I've read it's "Brian Wilson and his work as a prism through which we view youthful things." Pretentious I know, but it guides you to a set of lyrics which unlock the key to understanding the album. Against the hazy soundscape of "Boyfriends", the lead singer sings, "Brian Wilson and me / he smokes pot, I watch tv," before revealing that Wilson "never taught me anything... those good vibrations never came." Bummer. In summary, Secret Cities filter Wilson's pop flourishes and neatly orchestrated harmonies through a layer of  reverb and end up with an album so effortless it might, at first, seem lazy.

Slay Tracks: Boyfriends, Pink Graffiti Pt. 2, Pink Graffiti Pt. 1, Vamos A La Playa.

#8) MGMT, Congratulations

MGMT returned this year with an album sure to confound expectations. Congratulations replaces the big, infectious hooks of Oracular Spectacular with dense, psychedelic tunes. One review compared it to early Syd Barrett helmed Pink Floyd. While this is the one era of Pink Floyd I know the least about, I think the shoe fits. This an odd-duck of an album, content to follow it's own musical meanderings, even if it leads the band from limelight back to their mom's basement (as it did with Barrett).

On Congratulations, NESCAC-educated MGMT pay homage to their inspirations. There's "Song for Dan Treacy," an ode to the lead singer of influential English band The Television Personalities, whose debut featured it's own dedication song, entitled "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives." And "Brian Eno", a song extoling the impact of the the famed musician/producer on their musical development: "When I was stuck, he'd make me memorize elaborate curses / tinctures and formulas to ditch the chori and flip the verses / my whole foundation came unglued." (They also note his tremendously huge name: Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno). While the album's influences are clear, the entryways aren't. Lyrics alternate between opaque and non-sensical ("the hot dog's getting cold / and you''ll never be as good as the Rolling Stones / watch the birds in the airport gathering dirt / crowd the clean magazine chick lifting up her skirt"). And just when a song gathers steam, it changes direction. This isn't a problem, if all the parts are great - see The Unicorns Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone, and "Flash Delirium" here. However, MGMT's ambitions occasionally outstrips their knack for memorable melodies and some of these songs seem to exist only to hold the wildly varied ideas together. But that's the kind of album this is - a free-wheeling affair keen to pay homage to, and to take the same chances as, the pioneers that inspired it.

Slay Tracks: It's Working, Flash Delirium, Siberian Breaks

#7) Pomegranates, One of Us

One of the first things you learn in Mitch Cote-Crosskill's eight-week seminar, "Music as Motivation for Daily Life," is of an indie band's general trajectory. On their debut, the band scores attention for a noteworthy single, while the remainder of their songs only "hint" at further potential. For a follow-up, the band has two options: 1) compose an album of thinly veiled copies of their hit, or 2) release an ambitious album overstepping their technical prowess (see the MGMT review above). In the first case, the band will disappear or receive heavy radio airplay and lose it's indie status. In the second case, the band, which has a fifty percent change of unknowingly just releasing it's "seminal" album, will ditch the heavy-handed experimentation and studio gimmickry, and release a doozy of an third album.

So it goes with One of Us, the third release from the Cincinnati, Ohio band, Pomegranates. The album cover - a menacing skull set against a none-too-scary pink background - conveys the result of this honing process: perfectly composed, dreamy songs with a naive, but no-less-meaningful, take on death. (I guess I use naive here to mean to draw the distinction that it's not self-conscious and ironic like a lot of indie). And even though One of Us is heavy on atmosphere, it's not somniferous (the GREs turned me into a monster, I know). Mellow instrumental tunes are always paired with bouncy songs that sometimes become downright frantic. On "Anywhere You Go," the lead singer's playful insistence of "I like you. I really like you!"becomes far more urgent as shouts all the places he'd follow: "Across the river. To the top of the mountain. Through the holy fire." 

This is an album that changes pace and transforms with a learned subtlety, builds and releases in all the right places, and might truly live up to a comparison I read: "the sounds of Modest Mouse, Flaming Lips, Deerhunter, and MGMT -- all in one." A hell of a third effort.

Slay Tracks: One of us, 50s, Prouncer, Create your own reality, Anywhere you go

#6) Wolf Parade, Expo 86

It's impossible not to view Expo 86, the third (and final?) Wolf Parade album through the same three-album framework as above. While I loved Apologies to the Queen Mary, I thought At Mount Zoomer (my 2008 album of the year) gave a better indication of what Wolf Parade was all about. Isaac Brock was gone (not in a good riddance kind of way, just a well he's not actually in the band kind of way) and it seemed like Dan and Spencer were doing their damnedest to marry their unique sounds, styles, and song-writing skills, which were concurrently being revealed through the success of their respective side-bands, Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown. To me, the top of Mount Zoomer was their pinnacle.  

Not that there's anything wrong with Expo 86. The songs were still written by two of indies most talented figures. It just seems a bit clearer that this was the case. (I've had to switch to past tense because of the recent announcement that Wolf Parade were on "indefinite hiatus.") Wolf Parade seemed less unified on Expo 86, as if the chains which held the two resident genius' together during At Mount Zoomer had snapped. Even the sequencing showed it: a Dan song followed a Spencer song and so on; and while the majority of the songs were really good - although Dan's songs were stronger - it seemed like there was a fundamental separation which a similarity of instrumentation couldn't hide. Dan keyed in on his Soviet Springsteenisms (Yulia), while Spencer followed his keyboard down whatever freaky little alleyway it would lead (Cave-o-sapien). I can't say I called it, but I can say I'm not surprised by their dissolution. Still, a spade's a spade, and in the case of Expo 86, it's a very, very good spade.

Slay Tracks: Palm Road, Little Golden Age, In the Direction of the Moon, Ghost Pressure, Yulia

#5) PS I Love You, Meet Me at the Muster Station

This band is sweet. Honestly, check out their video for Facelove. The lead singer, Paul Saulnier, a husky man to say the least, is dressed like a poor second-grader from the height of the grunge era. He wears a raincloud headband with lightening bolts that fall past his eyes. Over insanely tight percussion (courtesy of Benjamin Nelson), he sings - like a cross between Frank Black and Frog Eyes - about a failed romance: "Your love is like a giant strawberry thrown in my face / your love is like a delicious glass of wine thrown in my face / your love is like these naive dreams of mine thrown in my face." The whole thing teeters on the verge of comedy. Then the guitar momentarily stops, a pedal is hit, and this funnily dressed man with no-doubt pudgy fingers rips into a guitar solo that would make J Mascis jealous.

That's how the whole album works: ten hyper-kinetic songs featuring two dudes channeling the spirit of fuzzed-out early nineties bands like Dinosaur Jr. And despite the limited supply of band mates, the songs are never dull -- unstructured distortion-heavy soundscapes and high-paced axe-wielding come in equal measure, while bass lines get played simultaneously on an organ pedal. This is indie rock in the original sense - talented outsiders trapping catchy songs in walls of noise, and lyrics of the wry or self-deprecating variety. Take those on "Get Over," where Saulnier sings, "what you got, you know I want it / what you don't want, you know I got it." It's simple, to-the-point, and it works. It all does. After all this, you might find yourself asking, "what is the 'muster station'?" Well I'm here to tell you. It's the place on a ship where you'd meet in case of an emergency, usually near the lifeboats. I'll meet you there in 5. 

Slay Tracks: Meet Me at the Muster Station, Breadends, Butterflies and Boners, Facelove, Get Over

#4) The National, High Violet; Arcade Fire, The Suburbs; Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz 

High Violet:

What I was expecting: Matt Berninger's intonated baritone reciting that familiar mix of melancholic  nostalgia ("I was a comfortable kid / but I don't think about it much anymore") and middle-age anxieties ("I still owe money to the money to the money I owe"), over intertwining guitars and the complex, near-militaristic drums - starting restrained, slowly rising, eventually cascading, and then catharsis. 

What I got: Pretty much just that.

How I was surprised: As the National perfect their respective instruments, their sounds become deeper and more nuanced ("I'll try to find something on this thing that means nothing enough"). But they aren't trying to overstep each other, they're out to get it right: adding a squiggly guitar line or spooky backing vocals, or putting pillowcases on the snare drums. At this point, they know who they are and how it all fits together. The problem with being this tight a band is that even though there are frequent crescendos, you never have the complete breakdowns found in some of the older, less technically proficient songs like "Murder Me Rachel" or "Available." Watching Berninger walk off the stage, through the crowd, and onto the bar, you can't help but think that he might be missing these earlier, more spontaneous and revelatory moments too. Here's hoping they do something to bring them back.

Slay Tracks: Terrible love, Sorrow, Anyone's Ghost, Afraid of Everyone, Bloodbuzz Ohio, England

The Suburbs:

What I was expecting: Stadium-sized anthems about suburban malaise.

What I got: I remember putting this album on before going on a long run, expecting it make the time pass more quickly. An hour later, with a few songs to go, I remember half-heartedly thinking "maybe they're trying to capture the ennui of modern, middle-class life with boring songs." 

How I was surprised: Turns out, it just needed time. Some songs hit the bloodstream immediately (Rococo, We Used to Wait, Sprawl II), while others take three or four listens (Wasted Hours, Deep Blue). That's partly what makes The Suburbs such a satisfying listen - not every melody is instantly recognizable; some you've gotta get to know (although there are a few songs - Half Light I, Month of May, Sprawl I - that, I suspect, aren't capable of being known). The theme here is pretty evident and Win even alludes to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - the quintessential plight of the modern man poem - on "We Used to Wait." T.S. Eliot he is no though. In this regard, Arcade Fire might be the opposite of The National. Matt Berninger dissects day-to-day minutiae with a surgeon's precision, while Win - to continue the Prufrock reference - is more of an anesthesiologist, gassing his listener with symbols, key words and phrases. Still, with such a clear thesis and enough listens, the thematic elements add up, imbuing every passage with meaning, and bringing the listener along for a drive through the sprawl, albeit one that's more emotional than intellectual.

Slay Tracks: Ready to Start, Modern Man, Rococo, Suburban War, Deep Blue, We Used to Wait, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

The Age of Adz:

What I was expecting: Sufjan's shifting narrative perspectives and feather-light, emotionally devastating vocals over orchestral arrangement now populated by techno blips and bleeps.

What I got: a chaotic, bombastic electronic odyssey inspired by the apocolyptic art of a schizophrenic.  

How I was surprised: Sufjan got a ton of attention (deservedly) for 2005's Illinoise. I remember reading an article a year or so after that release (and the 21 b-sides collected on The Avalanche) where he said he was getting pretty sick of his sound, and I could see why. The guy had the market cornered. So he shifted gears, composing an orchestra about the Brooklyn Queens Expressway - a passion project with limited widespread appeal. And as the years started to add up, he started saying that the whole fifty states project had been a joke and what exactly was a song anyway. Suffice it to say, he was undergoing a bit of an identity crisis. 

It's this confusion that he masterfully explores on Age of Adz. Don't be fooled by the gentle guitar plucking which opens the album, this isn't your older sister's Sufjan (after seeing the stage show - with it's neon-lit-break-dance-friendly-costume-change-encouraging-dual-projection-screen-theatrics - this might be your gay cousins Sufjan). There are less point-of-view changes here, and the vibe is decidedly less intimate (although more personal) than it's predecessor. For 75 minutes (again, he could use an editor), we are pinned inside Sufjan's head, seeing the world as he sees it, facing the pressures he faces. On "Too Much," he bemoans the challenge of making choices when faced with so many expectations, singing "there's too much riding on that." On "Vesuvius," he starts singing to himself "Sufjan, the panic inside / the murdering ghost / that you cannot ignore" - surely a sign that he's cracking up. On the title track, he goes as far as saying he's "lost the will to fight." But the tables turn on "I Want to Be Well," my favorite song on the album, and my favorite song of the year, as quiet, mild-mannered Sufjan let's loose, hollering "I'm not fucking around" - finally taking ownership of his decisions and coming to terms with his fears. (I don't know what to say about the album's final song, a 25 minute, auto-tune enhanced boy-and-girl call-and-response epic, other than to say that it works.) So even though it took a while, Age of Adz is a dazzling album not to be missed.  

Slay Tracks:  Too much, age of adz, Get real get right, Vesuvius, I want to be well, Impossible soul

#1) Frightened Rabbit, The Winter of Mixed Drinks

Without a doubt, The Winter of Mixed Drinks is the sound of Frightened Rabbit stepping onto the main stage. Their previous album, 2008's impressive break-up inspired The Midnight Organ Fight won me over with skillful song-writing - the bridges were as memorable as the choruses - and lyrics that were scruffy, cheeky and a bit sordid (take a second look a the title). Plus, it was all being filtered through lead singer Scott Hutchinson's Scottish brogue, and everything sounds better with some kind of British accent - that's scientific fact. Everything that I liked about that album is ramped up and improved here. 

If The Midnight Organ Fight put Frightened Rabbit on my radar, The Winter of Mixed Drinks sunk my ship - which brings us to the theme. While a number of songs refer to the ocean, this album is nautical only to the extent that Gattaca is. It'll sound dumb, but this album is be more about how being pushed to your limits reveals what truly matters. After all, one's character is only revealed by the decisions one makes when there are real stakes. It might sound trite, but it's the truth, and on The Winter of Mixed Drinks it comes across as nothing less than completely refreshing. 

On "Swim Until You Can't See Land"- I can tell it's the key track because it has a reprise in the second half  - Hutchinson "comes to the coast to disappear." He steps in and swims to the point at which "land is a marker line." As the chorus swells, urging him onward, he swims even farther. The stakes aren't just death, but worse - meaninglessness. On "The Wrestle" he reminds us that "this is the test I left land for" - he needs to know if he's a "man" or a "bag of sand." If it's the former then this swim will transform him, giving him the fresh start he wants: "let's call me a baptist, call this the drowning of the past." 

Each song deals with this fundamental challenge - how to find meaning in life, especially if death renders the whole pursuit futile (on "Things," he opines "at the front gate, what reward awaits? one bit of loaf from a holy ghost, an eternity of suffering the company of all those Christian men?"). This age old challenge is never presented in the same way twice. On "Yes I would," he notes "the loss of a lonely man never makes much of a sound," and then on "The Loneliness and the Scream," as he updates an old adage, he wonders if he is that lonely man, singing "I have fallen in the woods / did you hear me?"

But it isn't enough to just ask the questions, no matter how well-dressed and nice sounding they are - and with the rousing choruses and compelling counter-melodies insulating the more contemplative, quiet moments - they are all very nice sounding. What elevates the songs is what he answers the questions. After noticing "a splitting binbag next to damp boxes," Hutchinson wonders what kind of proof they offer of his existence ("they hardly show that I have lived"). But it's what he does next that matters: "I shed my clothes, I shed my flesh / down to the bone and burned the rest." Only at this point can he see what matters, realizing that "things are only things and nothing brings me up like you bring me up." 

While it might sound like sad sack music, it's not. I'm reminded of something that fellow FR-lover Jake Berkowitz said about The Winter of Mixed Drinks. It's an album you can listen to at any time, whether you're happy, sad or somewhere in between. And I think, in part, what makes it an album for all occasions are the redemptive, transformative aspects of the lyrics. Hutchinson isn't just whinging and moping about - there's optimism here. Soul-searching doesn't always have lead to sorrow and self-pity, sometimes it leads to liberation. On "Skip the Youth," he captures this notion perfectly, singing "if you don't stare at the dark/ You can never feel bleak / Life starts to lose its taste."

So does he get there? Like any good writer, the answer isn't a simple yes or no. On "Not Miserable," he sings that "most of the misery's gone," pauses momentarily, allowing us the time to think it's passed, before finishing, "gone, gone to the bone." A fucking brilliant twist. Then we get to the chorus, where Hutchinson sings "I'm not miserable anymore" against an uplifting angelic choir repeating over and over: "I am." So is he or isn't he? Perhaps the climax of "Living in Colour," which features a dazzling string arrangement, provides the best answer. Using the metaphorical language of the previous album, Hutchinson sings "I dreamt with a rapid eye, by day I hoped to rapidly die / have my organs laid on ice, wait for somebody that would treat them right / but as the night started swallowing, you pulled the blood to my blue lips / forced the life through still veins, filled my heart with red again." Again through his relationship with others, he seems to found at least a momentary peace.

This is a bittersweet album for all kinds of reasons, but the one that lingers with me the most one that has less to do with the band or the album than the simple human psychology espoused by my german friend. After releasing an album as incredible as this, how can I not be a little disappointed by their next release? If you've reached the top where else is there to go? What grand themes are left once you've mined relationships, life, death and meaning? While Frightened Rabbit have risen to lofted heights and should be applauded for such, the road ahead of them isn't by any means an easy one.

Slay Tracks: Things, Swim Until You Can't See Land, The Loneliness and the Scream, The Wrestle, Skip the Youth, Footshooter, Not Miserable Now, Living in Colour

Townes Van Zandt Joins a Fraternity

I downloaded "Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas" not really knowing much about this guy. I liked the simplicity of his songs (just him playing an acoustic guitar) and how he sang (and often talked) very plainly. This is my favorite song from that album and always leaves me with a smile. Little did I know that Van Zandt was a manic depressive, addicted to both heroin and alcohol (allegedly drinking a pint of vodka a day by 1982). It got so bad that by his mid-thirties, he needed a full-time caretaker. According to doctor's notes, he even heard voices; although, according to Townes, they were mainly musical. Clearly then, this is a man with a lot of demons. He does well to channel them.

I think I love you, though I don't know what that means

Sebadoh's "Think (Let Tomorrow Bee)" is not a love song because Lou Barlow, the lead singer, isn't sure what love is. An acoustic number delivered in a voice that nears a whisper, it stands out among Bubble and Scrape's (1993) messy noise rock/lo-fi experimentation and the shouted psychosis of alternate frontman Eric Gaffney. The song revolves around a chorus so fragile and sincere that, when sung, it sounds like it might completely dissolve. Simple and simply beautiful. Check it out.

Song of the Month - January - "Velvet" by the Big Pink

I came around to this one a little late. The Big Pink's "A Brief History of Love" came out in September of 2009, and I slept on it til the beginning part of this year. Velvet, a song seemingly about falling in love with a girl in a dream and wondering whether or not to pursue her, is my favorite song from it. It starts like a Knife outtake, adds a heavy dose of shoegaze, and metamorphosizes into some kind of ethereal Eurotrash anthem. Plus, every band needs a girl drummer.

my 12 favorite albums of 2009

Two things before we start:

1. I don't like blogging, and
2. I don't like for lists

That makes this combination difficult for me.

My issue with the former comes from a few well-established principles, which I'll elaborate upon briefly here. First, the amount of time and effort it takes to write a blog post vastly exceeds the limited, and usually unseen (or at least unremarked) enjoyment that anybody gets from reading said posts. Secondly, it's highly unlikely that the blogger (in this case me, but come on, I know you've been thinking about it) has anything actually worth saying. No offense. Please feel free to return to perusing your twitter feeds now.

My issue with list-making is that, in general, I don't think people think like that. We simply like some albums, and dislike others. Unless I'm comparing it to another album by the group, I'm never thinking "ooo, Sufjan Stevens is so much better than Bloc Party!" Still, like it or not, at the end of every year, we're barraged with "Best Of" lists. And Here's another problem: they're not just "My Favorite Albums of the Year" lists, but indisputably, invariably, without-any-doubt, THE BEST albums of 2009. It's as if everybody has forgotten about the uniquely personal (and, after a certain point, relatively arbitrary) nature of the decision-making process. If, as you say, Animal Collective really is tangibly better than Grizzly Bear, then please show your work. These aren't "best of" lists, they're just a collection of albums released during the same calendar year that you happen to like, some more than others.

There.

Still, I wasn't going to make a list of my favorite albums of the year. Not really for any of the aforementioned reasons, but just because it's such a pain. First of all, I don't really know anything about music. Second of all, it's pretty hard to describe sounds, or to explain why you (or your reader) might like them. It's much easier to just sit around. But I knew that I had to write something, just like my friend Dave knows he's got to eat chicken for dinner; I care too much about music not to chime in, offer some kind of year-summary, keep track of the things I liked. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but in the end, it's just nice to have a record. Future Jake will appreciate it.

This is me making sure my affairs are in order.

Let's proceed, shall we?

#12:

Dead Man's Bones, Dead Man's Bones

Ryan Gosling is a talented guy. He won over Teeny-boppers as a kid when he was a member of the Mickey Mouse Club, Jews with The Believer, weird, lonely people with Lars and the Real Girl, and just about everybody else with Half Nelson. He made my friend Rich (a pseudonym) cry with his performance in The Notebook. However, the indie music scene, where the best way to achieve success is to toil in relative obscurity for around a decade before being 'reconsidered' in the context of modern music, isn't a particularly inviting place, especially to celebrities. You're doomed if there is even the faintest whiff of artifice.

Luckily, these guys don't. Instead of taking cues from new wave or post-punk or post-post-punk or any of the other styles of the moment, they draw from 1950's doo-wop and B-movie ethos. In an interview, Gosling said the album was inspired by Disney's Haunted Mansion ride, and the project was originally conceived of as a love-story musical about ghosts and monsters. The resulting songs (just look at the names "My Body's a Zombie for You" and "Werewolf Head") are eerie in the same way that the TV show Eerie, Indiana was, or that R.L. Stine books are. They are trying to create atmosphere: one song prominently features girl crying, another a whispered monologue, a third is set against background of howling wolves. All this is overlayed by snapping fingers, hand-claps, and simple, but sufficient, piano and guitar melodies (Gosling and Ryan Shields, the other half of the band, learned the instruments that they didn't know). And then there are their voices: Shields has a feathery voice more suited for the indie scene, while Gosling channels his inner Elvis.

What holds the album together is the lo-fi nature of the production: no "click tracks" were used (I'm guessing that means metronomes), and songs were recorded within three takes, in what sounds like large empty room. Songs end, but the recording goes on, and chit-chat can be overheard between members of the kid's choir (did I mention that most songs feature the Silverlake Music Children's Choir?) and their director. They album is like a make-shift Halloween costume where the scotch tape is showing that your mom made for you when you were a bit too old to be going trick-or-treating anyways. But let's be honest, weren't those the best Halloweens?

Slay Tracks: Dead Hearts, In the Room Where You Sleep, My Body's a Zombie for Your, Pa Pa Power, Lose Your Soul, Werewolf Head, Dead Man's Bones

#11:

Julian Casablancas, Phrazes for the Young

Midway through the first song on his debut solo album, Julian Casablancas asks listeners, "why can't you ignore the things I did before?" The answer is pretty simple: you, Julian Casablancas, are a member of the Strokes, a band whose 2001 debut Is This It was supposed to save - whatever that means - Rock n' Roll. While, it didn't, Is This It is a great album, somehow surviving a musical hype machine that so often eats its young. It was an album that arrived fully-formed: Casablancas' raspy vocals and detached, world-weary lyrics acted as the perfect counterpoint for the near-mechanical drumming, and Television-esque guitars.

The Strokes follow-up, 2003's Room on Fire, honed their sound, but perhaps didn't take enough chances. That changed with 2006's overstuffed "First Impressions of Earth," an album that lunged in a lot of different directions, but came away with very little to show for it. On the synth-y ballad (Can you imagine, the Strokes wrote a ballad? With Synths?), Casablancas crooned "We could drag it out / but that's for other bands to do" before slipping into a refrain of "I've got nothing to say." Needless to say, the Strokes haven't released anything since.

Phrazes for the Young, perhaps the worst titled album of the year, is an attempt to re-define himself. As the title (a reference to a compilation of Oscar Wilde witticisms but with a 'z' to show that he's hip) and cover suggest, the album has a retro-futuristic quality. Over the course of the album, Casablancas refers to humanity as "complicated mammals on the wings of robots," laments that "we were born waiting in line," and shows his concern with the "afterlife of supercities," particularly the possibility that "soon the whole world will be urban sprawl." Still, it's hard to say if he's trying to capture (or actually interested in capturing) the chaos, confusion, and culture shock of modern living, or if he's looking for someone to do it for him: in "11th dimension," which sounds like a Strokes song remixed by Daft Punk, Casablancas asks "So when's it coming - this last new great movement that I can join?"

You can't fault the guy for trying though. After First Impressions of Earth it seemed like the well had run dry. However, on "Tourist," the album's denouement, Casablancas mixes a middle-eastern sitar, what sounds like a trumpet, and a syncopated drum beat, all before we even reach the chorus. Which isn't to say that there aren't moments of overkill - there are a lot of them. The banjo solo on "Ludlow Street," a tiring six-minute western waltz that provides a history of the NYC street, doesn't really work. Still, the guy's seemingly inherent knack for melody prevents even the most loaded tracks from completely de-railing.

The album is also aided by the fact that Casablancas appears to have dropped his too-cool-for-school image (something that was, in part, outside of his hands: the Strokes did meet at a Swiss boarding school, that his father does own the most successful modeling agency in the world, and that his name is Julian Casablancas) and opens up. On "Left and Right in the Dark," he reflects upon his role in the Strokes mythology, singing that "I might have used tricks to make you like me more" and on "11th Dimension" provides a potential causes for his change "and don't be shy, oh no, at least not deliberately - cause no one really cares or wonders why anymore." On a number of songs he sings about his childhood, and guess what, it seems quite normal.

Here's a Phraze for the young: Unless you're Steve Malkmus, if you build your career on being cool and unphased by anything, it's only a matter of time before people start to think you're boring, and the best to win the crowds back is to let the mask down. Why do you think Tom Cruise has been on Oprah so many times? Phrazes for the Young, while a little scatter-shot, is definitely a step in the right direction.

Slay Tracks: Out of the Blue, Left and Right in the Dark, 11th Dimension, River of Brakelights, Glass, Tourist.

#10:

Future of the Left, Travels with Myself and Another

The Future of the Left is my favorite Welsh band. Of course, the only other Welsh band that I can think of is Mclusky, who broke up in 2005, and had members that went on to form The Future of the Left...However, if Mclusky were right when they sang "my band is better than your band" in their 2002 album Mclusky do Dallas, isn't there reason to believe that The Future of the Left is also better than your band?

The answer is yeah, pretty much. The Future of the Left write loud, raucous, insanely compact pop songs. While they do feel abrasive at first, it's only because they are sinking their tendrils into your brain - believe me, these are some of the catchiest songs you'll hear all year. In part, I think that what prevents this band from attaining the kind of status they probably deserve is their subject matter: war. It's a shame too, cause it's really classic stuff. Think of the final lines of Wilfred Owen's 1917 poem Dulce et Decorum Est which translate to "the old lie: it is glorious and honorable to die for one's country." Look at the the chorus in "The Hope that House Built": "Come join our hopeless cause, come join our lost cause," and tell me that Owen's sentiment isn't felt there. Or the stanza in "Land of my Formers" that goes: "Not much of an incident / a couple of fists in the gut for my troubles / Nothing to write home about / A couple of drinks and a break for the border. Of course, ne of the many differences between Wilfred Owen and Andy Falkous, the lead singer of the band, is that the latter has a sense of humor. Check out the lyrics that open "Throwing Bricks at Trains," another standout tracks on the album: "Slight bowel movements preceded the bloodless coup." It could be a diary entry from disinterested warlord. I think that it would bring a smile to Hannah Arendt's face.

This isn't a joke-band though. Jokes get old. This band is droll, wry, observant, witty. Even if you get turned off by a song titled "You need Satan more than he needs you," how could you not appreciate the chorus: "What kind of orgy leaves a sense of deeper love?" That's just funny stuff.

Recap: this is an intense and intensely talented band with a sense of fun. The shitty part about it is that these guys, who've been making music since 1996, still work part-time jobs. Still, if it took the Pixies fifteen years to really break through, I don't have any doubt that in 2025 we'll all be queued up at Ticketmaster waiting for The Future of the Left tickets to go on-line. That is, if Mclusky doesn't get back together...

Slay Tracks: Arming Eritrea, Chin Music, The Hope that House Built, Throwing Bricks at Trains, I am Civil Service, Land of my Formers, You Need Satan More than He Needs You, That Damned Fly, Stand by Your Manatee, Yin/Post-Yin, Drink Nike

#9:

Built to Spill, There is No Enemy

A couple of reasons why I never got into Built to Spill: 1) I got into Modest Mouse before I'd heard them and so they sounded tame by comparison; 2) I had the sense that they were sort of a "jam band" - and even if they weren't a jam band in the traditional sense of Phish, pot, patchouli, and body odor, just the loose association with the word rubbed me the wrong way. My bad.

This year, I was looking for another band to get really into. I'd spent a year with Radiohead, another with Modest Mouse, and then Pink Floyd, two years with Pavement, and then a year-or-so with the Drones. Each band had at least three or four excellent albums behind them, and so provided for countless hours of easy listening. Each band was also very different from one another, creating soundscapes for their unique world-views. I didn't really know where to look. At the beginning of the year, my friend asked me, "who do you think is better: Modest Mouse or Built to Spill?" I didn't begin to know how to answer the question, but just the fact that it could be raised led me to There is No Enemy.

Some songs may go on a bit too long, but only because they're carefully constructed: they need that time to unfold. I've yet to fully explore Built to Spill's back catalogue, but if it's anything like this album, with it's transcendent guitar, ethereal vocals, and big questions (see Oh Yeah: "And if God does exist / I am sure he will forgive / me for doubting that he'd see / how unlikely he himself seems"), then it looks like I know what I'll be listening to in 2010.

Slay Tracks: Aisle 13, Hindsight, Nowhere Lullaby, Life's a Dream, Done, Things Fall Apart, Tomorrow

#8:

The Phantom Band, Checkmate Savage

There were a number of good Scottish albums that came out this year. The Phantom Band's debut album Checkmate Savage was my favorite. Maybe because I think Scottish misanthropy in song form has already been perfected, that I wasn't blown away by We Were Promised Jetpack's angst, or the Twilight Sad's crushing defeat.

Checkmate savage is a different kind of Scottish album. Sure, it's got the lilting brogue that makes Americans swoon, but musically it's might be more influenced by the German tradition of Krautrock, a term I only know in the context of Death Cab for Cutie's not-so-great-as-it-is-long "I Will Possess Your Heart." The Phantom Band locks into a heavy, heavy groove, incorporating all kinds of instruments and sounds, and after slowly building it, adding layers to it, they change it into something entirely different and equally fantastic (twenty songs for the price of nine!). The only other Scottish touchstone that I can think of, and few people will recognize, is the 1990's band Rollerskate Skinny (fronted by MBV lead singer Kevin Shields brother). Both bands could genre-hop with an ease that would make Gwen Stefani jealous. The Phantom Band move from pop to gothic to techno to rock and even acapella without missing a beat, and with an ease that belies their age. A very mature debut.

Slay Tracks: The Howling, Folk Song Oblivion, Halfhound, Left Hand Wave, Throwing Bones

#7:

Julian Plenti, Julian Plenti is...Skyscraper

Julian Plenti is...Skyscraper, but he is also Paul Banks, who, in 2002, auditioned for the role of best Ian Curtis imitator in Interpol's criminally good debut "Turn on the Bright Lights." This is, of course, a somewhat back-handed compliment. While both Interpol and Joy Division explored life's black and whites from a coolly detached perspective, Interpol updated the sound: their music was more angular and aggressive, dirtier even. Think of NYC's lyrics: "The subway is a porno/ Pavements they are a mess/ I know you've supported me for a long time / Somehow I'm not impressed."

It's not that Interpol released anything bad with "Antics" or "Our Love to Admire," it's just that the freshness and genius of "Turn on the Bright Lights" started to seem a little schtick-y. So what's the lead singer of a band with a fully-formed, critically acclaimed debut, and two subsequently watered-down efforts, to do? Create an alter ego, of course.

Julian Plenti, at least as I picture him, is a somewhat sleazy, down-on-his-luck secret agent - a James Bond character more likely to visit S&M clubs than casinos. Take, for instance, the song "Girl on the Sporting News," where he dryly croons to a newscaster "you've got the kind of sex appeal that doesn't get a guy like me down." On "Games for Days," a pummeling musical number, Plenti sounds as if his love affair has gone sinister ("Babe, you play my heart / like the way you play guitar"). "No Chance Survival," another standout number, creeps along with a growing intensity, as Plenti laments that "something so vile has become so commonplace."

Pitchfork's review of Skyscraper only saw it as a precursor for better things to come from Interpol, they missed the fact that this solo venture allowed Banks to try things that Interpol, with such a firmly entrenched sound, could never do (i.e. use a horn section in "Unwind" or try a simple acoustic guitar number in "On the Esplanade"). I know I read too much into lyrics, but in "On the Esplanade" I can't help but think that Banks is admitting to the riskiness of this album. when he sings "It was a big slip for me to roll up my golden life." I think it would have been a big slip if he hadn't.

Slay Tracks: Only if you Run, Fun that we have, Games for Days, No Chance Survival, Unwind, On the Esplanade, Fly as you Might

#6:

Ramona Falls, Intuit

Brent Knopf, the lead singer and master of ceremonies of Ramona Falls, works another gig with the great band, Menomena. As a result their styles are somewhat similar, taking disparate sonic elements and creating audible masterpieces in a sum-of-the-parts-is-greater-than-the-whole kind of way. Their approaches vary though: Menomena mixes the punk and funk and skronk of three musicians, whereas Knopf pulled in over thirty musicians in the Portland, Oregon area to make Intuit.

He'd probably have shown up on this list just for creating such a seamless product, but the music is great. The songs are meticulously layered: melodies rise and fall, are introduced and disappear, only to turn up after off-stage costume changes. And despite the inevitable complications of such a hugely collaborative approach, the album still seems intensely personal, a true labor of love for Knopf. On "Bellyfulla," my favorite track from the album, he captures the best of both aspects: a simple chord progression on an acoustic guitar and a steady kick drum give way to a rising, swirling chorus of singers, so that when Knopf sings:

"If I could just listen to her, this seashell rests against my ear -- Well, there's a sea and a shell at the end / and I can hear down the spiral, my friends / more happiness than a body can hold"

you can't help but be awed by the delicate balance he's managed to forge between the intimacy of a 'solo' record and the community of collaboration.

Slay Tracks: Melectric, I Say Fever, Clover, Russia, Going Once, Going Twice, Salt Sack, Bellyfull, Diamond Shovel

#5:

Polvo, In Prism

Polvo is, if I understand the term correctly, a "math rock" band. Their wikipedia page indicates that they were standard bearers of the genre in the early 1990's, but also states that they disagree with that claim. Early this year, I got a copy of their esteemed 1993 album, Today's Active Lifestyles, and after listening to what I perceived as 17/13 time signatures and seemingly random tempo changes, I assumed that was the last I'd ever hear of them...

But then, as I so often do, I got bored at work. Cruising Pitchfork, I found their song "Beggar's Bowl" and figured why not. I sat in awe for the five minutes that it played. I played it again. And again. I must have listened to it ten times in a row. It's "math rock" for people who think that the words mathematics and rock shouldn't be paired together. It's unrelenting and intense. It's massive. It's catchy. It's my favorite song of the year.

It's no secret that I'm a lyrics guy. The best way to get me coming back for more is to get me thinking. The best way to get me thinking is to say something neat. Polvo is a different breed though. While their lyrics are sufficiently cryptic and interesting, they take a back seat to the sound. A cross between Tool and My Bloody Valentine, their music is loud and noisy, hushed and subtle, and perhaps even more impressively, seemingly completely within their control.

When I was getting into "indie," I didn't know what Sonic Youth would sound like. I'd heard their name get thrown around a lot, a kind of shorthand for walls of feedback, alternate guitar tunings, unorthodox anthems. I knew that they inspired Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood. So by the time I listened to Daydream Nation my expectations were set so high that I couldn't help but be let down. Sonic Youth released a very good album this year, the Eternal, but it still didn't have the sound that I first imagined. And even if I'm completely off base, Polvo's In Prism fills that void for me.

Slay Tracks: Right the Relation, D.C. Trails, Beggars Bowl, Lucia, the Pedlar, A Link in the Chain

#4:

Sunset Rubdown, Dragonslayer

I really liked Shut Up I am Dreaming. It took a while, but I did. Initially, I was disappointed that it didn't sound more like Wolf Parade, that it was quieter and more spread out. The production values weren't as high. Little did I know that it was a waterfall waiting inside a well. When "Random Spirit Lover" came along and I expected the same thing to happen. But it never did. It was weighted down with too many ideas; it was too complex, convoluted, and too long. It was a reminder of what can happen if you spend too much time on a good idea.

Dragonslayer sounds looser, freer, more spontaneous. It's second track, Idiot Heart is one of the purest pop songs I've heard in a long time, a chugging dance-along that moves from hook to hook like Nero at an orgy. Which is perhaps a metaphor that Spencer Krug might enjoy. The guy works with his own unique set of symbols, and the album is laden with references to kings, virgins, ghosts, roman gods, lizards, and buffalo. His language works so well that when he sings

"when me and the boys were out / we killed a thousand butterflies / so I put their wings into my mouth and said a prayer for our safe arrival / and then a big black car crossed our path and I wondered whether or not that shit was empty"

in the apogee of the album "You Go On Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)" on some level you think you know what he means. By the time that "Dragon's Lair," a ten-minute epic that closes the album, comes to an end, you realize that he is, as the song title cleverly suggests, the Dragon slayer, the kind in his otherworldly mythology.

Slay Tracks: Silver Moons, Idiot Heart, Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna Oh!, Paper Lace, You Go On Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II), Dragon's Lair.

#3:

The Veils, Sun Gangs

According to Sun Gangs, the Veil's Finn Andrews is "a scarecrow not made for these times." That seems like a fair assessment to me. When I saw them live this July, Finn seemed pained; like his body was a conduit for the sounds coming through it (particularly on the track Larkspur, which seems overly long on the album, but is fantastic live). Luckily though, he's an incredible singer, a mix of Jeff Buckley and Thom Yorke. Unlike Jeff Buckley though, Andrews' music is interesting, and unlike the-Yorke-of-late, Andrews isn't just interested in creating sad, beautiful songs. While he can craft simple haunting sentences on things like life's futility ("where I am going you can't save me") or his loss of spirituality (I'd off my soul if I thought it might help at all"), he's well aware that you need to show the lows to make the highs that much more impressive, which he demonstrates by songs like 'Sit down by the fire,' 'The Letter,' and 'Three sisters.' 'Killed by the boom' is an unrelenting slice of intensity that rivals only Nux Vomica's "Jesus for the Jugular". My personal favorite on the album though is "The House She Lived in," a breezy, swaying piano number that makes its melancholy lyrics hit that much harder ("I know that it was me alone she loved though i still have nothing to show for it").

My only complaint with this album, and what prevents it from achieving a higher ranking, is that while the songs seem content to ratchet up the volume, tempo, intensity, but never make that final transition to something larger (think the final minute of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android"). Additionally, and I'd never really considered it before this album, but the sequencing nearly parallels 2007's overlooked and slightly better Nux Vomica. It's a slight concern, but throw us a curveball next time.

Slay Tracks: Sit Down by the Fire, Sun Gangs, The Letter, Killed by the Boom, Three Sisters, The House She Lived In.

#2:

Orphans and Vandals, I am alive and you are dead

It's too simplistic to say that the English band, Orphans and Vandals, sound like the Arcade Fire with Lou Reed singing instead Win Butler, but I think there's a bit merit to that. Orphans and Vandals, like the Arcade Fire, are, ostensibly, a folk ensemble. They make use of the violin, viola, xylophone, heck even a musical saw and a harmonium. Like the Arcade Fire, their music is enthralling and ambitious; unlike the Arcade fire, who write songs meant for nations to rally around ("Intervention" could the soundtrack to the French Revolution), Al Joshua's groups focuses more on the personal.

Just like how Justin Vernon spent a winter in a remote cabin, with only his thoughts of ex-girlfriends and musical instruments and came out with one of the best albums of 2008, Al Joshua took a pilgrimage to to Charville Messiers, France, birthplace of 19th Century French poet Arthur Rimbaud, did some thinking about the people there, and about himself, and made one of the best albums of 2009. I am alive and you are dead captures the essence of that journey: the strangers and familiar faces, the dirt and the grime, the trashcan bonfires, and friendships made with transient people just like us. Here's a taste of his street-urchin poetry:

"Down along the strand there's a golden light down there/ Crowds of immigrant ghosts team along the alleyways and thoroughfares/ at picadilly circus, there's a boy who isn't there/ and an old woman stops me on the street/ and her body's homeless and dying and when she touches me it's such a treat/ she takes my hand in her two hands and says the earth is flat / how'd she know that? How'd she know that/ Black taxi crabs turning around in the rain/ washes through the city, runs our the drain/ like the blood that rushes through my body to the cock and the brain."

Some people may write off this album as a series of spoken-word vignettes. But I can't tell you how happy I am to hear someone who has no aspirations of ever being on American Idol, who can find melody in an overheard conversation, the poetry of everyday life. Al Joshua is clearly fascinated with the human voice, the words we use to express ourselves, and the interaction between sounds and meaning. In that sense he's more poet than singer. I don't think Robert Frost would mind being name-checked at all:

"I remember Victoria coach station/ I was 14 years old/sitting by the gate where the cheap jewelry was sold/ and when I crossed the river, it turned from brown to gold / ten thousand gray swimmers in the water rolling over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again/ and what happened to the people that were there just a moment ago, huddled 'round the edge of the station and the square and the magazine stands and the taxi ranks/ and the words are lovely, dark and deep, but I have miles to go and miles to go and miles to go before I sleep."

Though rough and uneven at times, I can't think of a more impressive, more inspiring debut album I've ever heard.

Slay Tracks: Strays, Mysterious Skin, Argyle Square, Metropes, Christopher, Terra Firma

#1:

The Drones, Havilah

In 2009, the indie rock snake got closer than ever to swallowing its own tail. What started with irony and self-awareness (perhaps most importantly, of one's shortcomings) in the early 90's, a rebellion against the bloated, self-important cock rock of the 80's, got closer to smothering itself. Wavves pushed lo-fi into the abyss. Passion Pit shat on a synthesizer and screeched about it in front of a group of children.

It's hard to watch the music videos released by some of the "it" bands, and not want to laugh. Who are these people and why are they wearing skin-tight body suits and eye-patches? Why is everything in neon? I know that things change, that "indie" as a label is meaningless, and not that everything needs to be serious, but neither does it need to involve hordes of nude bodies and inflatable balls that look like vaginas.

Maybe it's because the Drones are from Australia that they aren't caught up in the trends. Then again, maybe it's because they're more interested in creating something meaningful, and not just dicking around. A lot of people get thrown off by the Drones, thinking 'oh they write about cannibals, or men last at sea and surrounded by sharks, or the first moon landing" and say, "thanks, but that's not for me, I'd rather just have something I can dance to, something I don't need to think about." Well here's my New Years advice to you: ride an elevator.

Too harsh? I'm with you, 999 times our of 1000 I wouldn't want to hear a song about the impact of 'advanced' cultures on primitive tribes in the southwest pacific. However, that changes when someone sings,

"And I am ruin borne by sea/stone age smoked by dysentry/ Patient zero to the lust of Papuans/Trade one want for another want/And if they want to see me one more time/ Then typhoid's seen to them/And they are just like all the white folks/The whites are just like them/They take pain and superstition/And then they call it something else."

The only band that I can think to compare them to is Modest Mouse - The Modest Mouse of the 1990s though, the one that looked at people drinking orange Julius' and foresaw the end of the world. Not the one who first floated on, and then said it's okay that the dashboard melted because we've still got the radio, or that it didnt matter that the car was on blocks because he was already where he wanted to go. Gareth Liddiard shrieks like him. His band matches that intensity. Unlike Isaac Broke though, I think he's still got something to say.

This video does them more justice than I will ever be able to.

Slay Tracks: Nail it Down, The Minotaur, The Drifting Housewife, I am the Supercargo, Careful as you go, Luck in Odd Numbers, Penumbra, Your Acting is like the End of the World.