10. No Age - Nouns
For a while it looked like a new Los Angeles scene based around an all-ages venue near skid row was the koolest thing around. Not so, after all it's just a teenage hangout - a good thing in the 60s, yes, but by 2008... Either way, some good music came out of it and the Mae Shi's final album almost made the cut as well. This was the best by far as this drum and guitar duo has learned a lot from all the great noise poppers before them, especially those from New Zealand. No Age excels at creating a dense and atmospheric sound out of noise guitars that could qualify them to be the world's catchiest drone-rock band. This is an energetic set and every song is a concise piece of electric pop, even at its least song-oriented the duo has a rare accessibility and pleasant sound. It's like a more sane and chill Jay Reatard. That's how I learned to love them, at least.
9. Beck - Modern Guilt
One of the more tedious recurring themes of the late 00s was the Danger Mouse collaboration. Despite the Georgia producer's talent the ridiculously high expectations people had in his influence and it's ability to really whip artists into shape was consistently disappointing. It even made me give the Black Keys yet another chance! Perhaps has his pervious album was the closest thing Beck had to a failure he went for the collaboration and it actually worked. Their sensibilities really mesh, and this album is well-rounded in a direct, yet un-deliberate way not heard since Odelay. Beck's other collaborations such as with Chan Marshall and Jason Falkner work just as well, but Beck's unique kind of artistry and song-writing is, as it should be the star. Though there is plenty of dark material especially in the chemical contamination of "Chemtrails" and "Gamma Ray" it is a pretty fun album, particularly on the latter track, so good that it was a staple and highlight of Jay Reatard's live set that year.
8. Bloc Party - Intimacy
This one rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, expecting more intense and playful dance music from the post-punk revivalists. What they got was a dramatic breakup album more akin to Radiohead than LCD Soundsystem. For that reason it sticks out as Bloc Party's best work to me. It can be a very rough listen, but that is thanks to the sincerity of these dark emotions and thoughts. Opener "Ares" has the urgency and snappy dance-punk attack of their more beloved work, but the harsh follow-up of "Mercury" sets the pace of the bulk of the album. I am surprised that this album has not found its audience yet in the generation that craved music so painfully emotional in its youth as the band matches that with an electronic/rock dance milieu that rarely carries that kind of weight. These arrangements have this perfect build from their drum machines and sequences to the at times blaring guitars that always distinguished the band from the rest. This focus and intensity hits its peak on closer "Ion Squared," one of the band's greatest songs, and the most impressive on the album. The bonus track versions are even better with songs like "Your Visits Are Getting Shorter" and "Flux," which would give this underrated album higher standing if they were always included.
7. The Bats - The Guilty Office
The Bats show that their reunion success was no fluke with a second album that is a continued return to form. Their high standard in jangly folk rock remains and in middle age the four members plays as perfectly and the songs have their unique way of sticking and fading into each other, making a pleasant listen. There's not really much to say. It's another Bats album and that's always a good thing. Here it's even more good than usual. Hooray for middle age.
6. Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances
When this band came around I had lots of people telling me they were the "ultimate C-Mac band." Obviously, the fact that this only 6 shows that's not quite true. They do have a point, though as the loud and intense New Jersey band named their album after a Seinfeld reference and spews literary and artistic references like the just don't give a shit. Also, they name song after themself. Bad ass. Bruce Springsteen has become a popular influence in recent years and TA does it the best, even for other Jersey bands in their way of combining urgency, energy, drone, folk, and pure loud aggression. This band is more rooted in the underground though, far removed from the Boss, even considering his love of challenging punk rock, but in this modern landscape who needs a jolt of intelligent working man energy more than the indie rock scene. Wake up.
5. The Walkmen - You & Me
Much older and wiser the Walkmen truly come into themselves. This album's big room production and trebly guitars and organs with all this space give this album the kind of romance usually reserved for an old city blanketed in snow. Appropriately, the New York band's finest moment is "In The New Year" with its abrasive guitar, melodic organ, and slow push rhythm. It is the perfect example of the song that has an unparalleled dynamic of each instrument carefully following the other with a space giving the album a poetic and urbane melancholy atmosphere. The titles show a band that is worldly and while privileged, has a lot of honorable perspective and wisdom upon reflection. This is the sound of entering a respectable and well-deserved adulthood and the beginning of a real "golden age" for some of the most weathered musicians in the "indie rock" game. I can tell it's gonna be a good year.
4. Beach House - Devotion
Here I continue the theme of the current standard on indie rock. Like many of their peers, Beach House has one very cut and dry sound that grows with each album. This from the last may have been the biggest leap. The songs are still slow, as they would remain, but they are better as are the duo's dreamlike atmospheres. With this tempo and low emphasis on rhythm, especially compared to what would come next this album may be their most romantic with Victoria Legrand's sultry vocals at a warm moan rather than the commanding force they would become on the subsequent louder material. Songs like "Astronaut" and "Gila" are some of the most beautiful of their career and they had the rare good taste to do a cover. As with almost all Daniel Johnston covers, they outdo the original and Built to Spill on "Some Things Last a Long Time." Maybe this is why so many people are moving to Baltimore.
I know I'm gonna get a lot of shit for this. I can't deny that this is a great album though, as off-putting as their privileged whiteness can be. However, it is a brilliant observance of the Northeastern elitist way, and captures its majesty and beauty more than anything else. Before I heard this band, their music had been compared to Wes Anderson and I think that's the best point of reference, much more than Graceland. Mark Mothersbaugh's scores are a clear influence and their music, almost a classical sound put into pop format evokes the same kind of imagery. The lyrics are droll and witty to the point of eye-rolling, but they do fit with these pristine string arrangements and the playful keys from secret weapon Rostam Batmanglij, particularly on the harpsichord-driven "M79." Ezra Keonig may be the ultiamte preppy hipster charmer, but the rhythm section is the real hero of this band. The always-underrated duo is what makes this record both so enduring and so immediate. After all, what could draw in a new fan more than the drums on opener "Mansard Roof"? The backlash of this band needs to end. It is so bad, I still haven't brought myself to listening to the new one OR the one before it!
2. Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
Since you won't find them apart, I am counting this as one album. This still maybe be Deerhunter's best thanks to its brilliant concept of each song being a small world of itself, a room in the proverbial castle. The band which had previously built an identity around its more abrasive side gets softer and more vulnerable on this album's most treasured moments such as the beautiful "Agoraphobia." Their pop sensibilities and almost proggy ability to change styles and rhythms and integrate sounds that move in and out of the song is also more apparent on "Nothing Ever Happened." However their mastery of tension, melody, and deep, sensitive humanity hits its greatest peak on the stunning title track. This is the first of two albums recorded exclusively by the classic four-piece and their peak this is. The fact that this album was recorded in just a week shows just what kind of power the band had at the time, and considering where they are now I feel the extra need to applaud bassist Josh Fauver who is a a crucial part to these songs, even more than usual. The second part is less of a focused album, but shows just how much great material they had to spare such as the absorbing rocker "Vox Celeste," one of the many contenders for their best song.
1. Apollo Sunshine - Shall Noise Upon
This decade's overlooked and actually, greatest album. Back to their original trio the band makes a true wake-up call to the world. The cover and title indicate the spiritual expanse of this record ranging from heaven to hell, night to day, beautiful to ugly, and from Earth to Infinity. It eases you in with the gentle psychedelic love ballad of "Breeze" and then into dark territory of "Money" and "666: The Coming of The New World Government," songs that both admit the horrific truth and hidden light in their frightening subject matter. It does get into the full blown hell of evil and corruption with "Brotherhood of Death," but not without immediately following with instrumental "Happiness" and "We Are Born When We Die." When the band fully embraces beauty, though, is when their powers are most apparent such as in the proggy love song "The Mermaid Angeline" and the Latin-tinged "Honestly," in which they remind those still paranoid from other songs, "nervous energy is not helping anyone out and the dangers that you read about are ridiculous." It is on the second track, "Singing to The Earth (To Thank Her For You)," a love song to the muse and the forces of nature that brought her to its creator. Both heartbreaking, heart-warming and absolutely life-affirming. This is creation. This is inspiration. This is one of the only albums that has set out to change the life of everyone who hears it and does that for anyone actually listens to it. This is what you need for a good heart and mind-washing to take in "The Light of The World." This is the album humanity needs most and the sooner you hear it the better your life and the lives you touch will be.
Won't be as long until I do 2009, I promise.
No comments:
Post a Comment