The Top 5 albums of 2010, as chosen by a few music geeks, snobs, enthusiasts, aficionados…
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5. Tallest Man On Earth – The Wild Hunt
The moniker of Sweden’s Kristian Matsson truly is a fitting one. This is Folk music with an emotional punch to the gut. Powered by vocals that sound as if they are being sung off the top of the highest mountain. These are beautiful songs. Amazing melodies riding on intricate guitar. It is sometimes quite incredible what just one man and his instrument can do.
Burden of Tomorrow – The Tallest Man On Earth
4. Beach Fossils – Beach Fossils
What my brain said upon first hearing Beach Fossils: “Wow, this is dreamy”. And guess what. My brain was right (for a change). Bright guitar and bass lines to make you smile, all encompassed in a warm cocoon of reverb. Listening to this is like spending the summer laying about, drinking with friends in the middle of the day and not having a job. Fucking awesome, it embodies a lazy summer.
Beach Fossils – The Horse
3. Fair Ohs/ Spectrals – Split 7″
On one side of this record we have…
Spectrals! Holy shit, I never knew I liked country music so much. Music for the modern day cow folk. Lack luster, dusty guitar ambling along like a dried up tumbleweed. Be at ease, go find a good porch and a solid rocking chair.
Spectrals – Keep Your Magic Out Of My House
And on the other side…
Fair Ohs! Almost the opposite of Spectrals. This is up-beat, summer music that will make you want to cruise the beach in your daddy’s old Woody station wagon. This is easily one of my favorite bands right now, I cannot get enough. A word of warning though: listening to this will cause spontaneous jumping and dancing, so do not put it on in a place with low ceilings.
Fair Ohs – Himalayas
2. KEEPAWAY- Baby Style
A journey for your ears. There isn’t a whole lot out there that sounds like this. One could definitely pick out some musical influences (obvious comparisons to Animal Collective, and if you listen closely you can hear some reggae), but it is how the layers of KEEPAWAY fit together that makes it so great. Drum rolls spur a wall of electronic sound while the guitar drifts to the front then back again. And over top it all, three part vocal harmonies that you’ve never heard before. Sometimes spooky, sometimes poppy, sometimes bangin, all the time awesome. I think I’m in love.
Keepaway – 5 Rings
1. Listening Party – I Was Young
British Columbia’s best kept secret. These guys have it dialed. A perfect mix of melody and swooning noise in the background. The vocals are powerful and catchy and the guitar slices through everything while adding its own buzz into the fray. It will bring you up and then gently glide you back down. It is never abrupt or in your face, but songs do manage to retain some edge. Pick just about any one, and the drums will have you bobbing your head. Yet it is hard to shake the relaxed, calm feeling that seeps out of this record. It envelopes the mind. You roll with it. Get lost in its ebb and trapped in its flow. Drifting, you wander through a warm, soft landscape. Shapes are formless, floating in a deep sea of shifting colours. They swirl and fall around you, wrapping their tendrils about you in a loving caress. Occasionally you are swept away on the wind. Pulled from grasping colour, you fly. Cresting over the rounded tops of mountains, covered in trees which lean with the force of the wind that carries you. Pointing you in the right direction. Into the clouds you float, placed softly on the largest, puffiest one . You fade off into sleep… Only to awaken back in the real life. The record is over. You must face the cold, harsh realities of the world again. Hopefully not alone.
Listening Part – Swift Runner
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5.Yeasayer – Odd Blood
How quickly we forget in this digital age. This one was on very heavy rotation for a good part of early-2010 and just resurfaced in my playlist. Playing almost like a split album, the first side is a collection of club-worthy pop songs that are guaranteed to get heads nodding, and finishes with a more experimental B-side. As much hype as this one got when it was released, its interesting how quickly it left the collective consciousness.
Yeasayer – ONE
Yeasayer – Rome
4.PLANETS – TURBO JAMZ!!!!!
An assualt on the senses from beginning to end. I saw these guys live and it was one of the most enthralling shows I have ever seen. The skill on both instruments are something to be marveled at. Headphones are a must.
Listen Here (full album at Bandcamp)
3.Frog Eyes – Pauls Tomb: A Triumph
Carey Mercer still manages to make some of the most intense music out there right now, and it just seems to be getting better and better. Frog Eyes managed to impress again with an epic collection of songs.
Frog Eyes – Flower in a Glove
2. White Denim – Last Day of Summer
Apparently a weekend project done on a retreat, Last Day of Summer might actually be the catchiest album released this year. White Denim managed to strike a balance between experimental song structure and rhythms and pure pop simplicity. No song is similar, and it’s a hard album to describe. Flowing effortlessly through every genre in the book, and adding a touch of soul, they managed to come out with an amazing album.
White Denim – id have it just the way we were
White Denim – Tony Fatti
White Denim – Champ
1.SUBTITLE – Brief Bloom
Subtitle has always been a hip-hop favourite of mine. An effortless, relaxed approach to rapping combined with some very unique beats, he has always managed to impress and keep that head nodding. On Brief Bloom, Subtitle continues to expand on his signature style, ranging from straightforward, atmospheric songs such as “fascination ends here” to glitchy club bangers like “smart wild.”
Through multiple releases, Subtitle seems to be one of the hardest working rappers out there. Forgoing the normal distribution channels, he relies on home-grown, DIY output and digital distribution and a pay-what-you-want business model. Self-created success is always really cool.
Subtitle – fascination ends here
Subtitle – Smart Wild
lionsteeth
Band To Watch:
Wu Lyf – Up All Night Got Demons To Fight EP
From the first two minutes of Heavy Pop one releases the potential of the sound Wu Lyf has created. It seems almost limitless. And being such a varied and eclectic band they have so much more to offer us. Heavy Pop being the generous single from a band shrouded in mystery, we are left to wonder what Wu Lyf has in store for us. Songs like SUCH A SAD PUPPY DOG craft ambient organ drone with blasted out hip hip samples, while in songs like SPITTING IT CONCRETE LIKE THE SUN GOD they deliver ambient textured noise with incredible samples of old time blues. Despite their reluctense to release anything beyond a few singles and videos I’m very excited to see what Wu Lyf offer’s next year.
Wu Lyf – HEAVY POP
Top 5
5. PS. I Love You – Meet Me At The Muster Station
Truely love at first sight. A not so subtle introduction of PS. I Love You was the video for the track Facelove. Singer Paul Saulnier is a spectacle of a man as is, but when given an arts and crafts lightning storm head mask he is captivating. PS. I Love You kicked an aboslute whole into my musical world early in the year and by the time they released the album Meet Me At The Muster Station in fall, I was more than ready for it. The overall rawness of this band is really the most mesmerizing aspect. Gritty guitar realism matched with shrill and urgent vocals. Steady pounding drums and pedal organ to boot this band is nearly perfect. I think as long as they just keep going PS. I Love You can’t really go wrong at this point.
PS I Love You – Meet Me At The Muster Station (Pt. 2)
4.Thee Oh See’s – Warm Slime
Baby shake me sideways, back and forth and to the ground. I’ve loved Thee Oh See’s for awhile and with this new release we are able to see Thee Oh See’s exactly where they should be. In The garage blasting out more retro psych-punk then most can handle. Not exactly a creative leap for Thee Oh See’s but Warm Slime’s title track is a 13 minute tribal jammer that takes up the entire first side of this amazing LP. The B side is packed with shorter more coherent but still furious singles. Drop some acid and crank this baby to 10.
Thee Oh See’s – Castiatic Tackle
3. Sonny & The Sunsets – Tomorrow is Alright
A step back into a time we never really got to experience ( unless your in the senior oriented section of our readership). A gleeful cross between 50′s doo wap pop and the lighter side of The Velvet Underground. Joyous vocal melodies, light and airy guitar strums and enough hand claps, snaps and xylophone to make anyone feel like it’s a nice sunny day on a Venice Beach in the 60′s. Sonny Smith has nabbed himself a group of well rounded musicians to fill out his classical stylings and I’m head over heels, fox trot at the sock hop in love with it.
Sonny & The Sunsets – The Houris
2. Titus Andronicus – The Monitor
Dear Patrick of Titus Andronicus; I don’t know what magical powers you store in your beard but… I want it all. I’m trying to grow spell’s myself but if you wouldn’t mind sending me a beard hair doll I’ll wear it around my neck every day. Titus Andronicus is seriously got to be one of the best bands around these days. That’s a huge claim seeing that they only have 2 full lengths out but even with an almost full line up change save a few members, Titus pulls through to continue on their steady march to victory. Similar themes from past album Airing Of Grievances are present on this album with one minor difference…it’s about 75% about the fucking Civil War. Combining 1850′s troop rallying speeches with aggressive folk punk is perfection. With every snarling toothy bark there is a deep seeded metaphorical lyric to magic. Oh, also Spider Bags Dan McGee’s guest vocals on Theme From Cheer’s is like mixing whiskey and honey…tasty!
Titus Andronicus – No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future
1. Women – Public Strain
This was a very tough pick for me, but after great deliberation handing the album of the year to Women wasn’t exactly rocket science. And with their recent melt down and disbanding this seems all the more fair. Women hit a pinnacle in their musical writing and seemed to define a genre, although I’m not sure exactly what to define that as. Public Strain is an immensely dense and tonal album with as much work going into the production as the song writing it seems. As a follow up to their self titled debut the listener is treated to everything Women have to offer with no constraint. Songs resonate with the hazy drone of broken down guitar amps, tarnished guitars and the crackly static of your grandparents AM radio. With songs bouncing between the drone of a string quarter warming up in incredible waves and rolls, to sinisterly charming lo-fi indie. From start to finish this album is a god damn master piece and I’ll swear to it until my final breath. As sad as I am to see Women go, I feel that even if their is no chance of reunion we where given two albums which tells a story of a band who perhaps was too creative, too ahead of their time, too intricate, just too damn good.
Women – Locust Valley
dirtydeez:
5. Frog Eyes – Paul’s Tomb
Frog Eyes’ Masterpiece. I saw whatever god is while listening to this record.
Frog Eyes – Rebel Horns
4. Wolf Parade – Expo 86
Wolf Parade are Canadian greats. Since their debut Apologies to the Queen Mary, they have been crafting intelligent rock music for the modern world.
Wolf Parade – Cloud Shadow on the Mountain
3. Avey Tare – Down There
Animal Collectives Avey Tare’s first solo disc. Just as good as anything else in their collective canon. Swampy guitars and electronics.
Avey-Tare- Umbrellass
2- Women – Public Strain
A sonic head fuck. The guitars are golden.
Women – Can’t You See
1. Listening Party – I Was Young
There is something inherantly joyful about listening to this record, atmospherics give way to fat beats, creative percussion, and plesant vocal harmonies. Spontaneus dancing required
Listening Party – Half My Worries
combineharvester
5. Vampire Weekend – Contra
My girl and I went to Spain this year and got a big 2euro cup of horchata from the market just so we could feel a little of that Contra chill. This album is one of the final bastions of white boy college rock that is obviously having so much fun breaking down the rules that Pavement, and <cringe>Weezer put to stone in the nineties. Go ahead write ditties about feeling disenfrancished, but do it cool, smart alecky, and get laid, get everyone laid.
Vampire Weekend – Horchata
4.MGMT – Congratulations
Speaking of smart alecks, MGMT could have taken the paved road, they were poised after their big first album (the one with Kids on it) to be remixed into oblivion or at least become a modern day Pink Floyd. Instead we get this weird-ville release that makes them the only possible title holders to the Ween crown. And i state that as an accolade, what band in their right minds would throw out a group of scatter shot recordings that ham fist you into singing along with country ballads, psych rock, and sea songs in one release. The schizophrenic music listener in me is begging for more, the only thing MGMT don’t have is Ween’s gigantic catalogue at their disposal but they young…they still tender boys.
3. Andrew Cedermark – Moon Deluxe
Andrew Cedermark – Hard Livin’
(continued in next review)
2.Titus Andronicus – The Monitor
Both Titus and Cedermark share a means of making rock songs anthemic, like you heard them in some rain-soaked trench or at the tail end of 10 year drinking binge and your still there with your middle finger up to the mirror/or God or whatever. The haze and blur with which Cedermark boils out his words and guitar leads just makes this album so raucous. On Hard Livin’ when he banters “but If you wanna talk about let’s talk about it” and the band erupts into a swoon of intonating La’s, it gets my nerve up as though I said those very words.
:side note- best live show… TA
I have never been so ecstatic and angry at a show then I was with Titus at the Cobalt back in April. I bore witness to a 90-nothing pound girl raise Juice over our heads with nothing but the power of a few PBR’s and the foul mouthed chanting of a bearded Stickles who was determined to make this the night of our lives.
Titus Andronicus – Richard II
1. Women – Public Strain
This is the album of the year. While Titus and Cedermark make their music seem anthemic, Women make anthems and rip them into shreds leaving you to pick up the pieces. It seems fitting that the band that created this album would then rip themselves apart touring it. Public Strain is like La Niña: 3 to 5 degrees colder than any other album released this year. The guitars of Eyesore (scratch that, every song…) hit you in this tandem sleet, the drumming: a din of the industrial age, then hissed voices start breaking the robotic into a chaotic churn. Cheers to the production of Chad Van Gaalen for turning that way overdone 60’s reverb garage schtick that was indie music this year into something that sounds at once new and weary. I share Calgary as a hometown with Women, and listening to this I can feel the minus 30 degree walks along new city streets with nobody in view.
Women – Drag Open
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5.Die Antwoord – $O$
Ninja and Yolandi with help from a cast of reoccurring Capetown misfits rep “Zefside,” which as Yolandi explains is unique to South Africa and is about how you carry yourself, “Zef is, you’re poor but you’re fancy. You’re poor but you’re sexy, you’ve got style.” They drop massive freak beats accompained with a fucked up mish-mash of Afrikaans and english …. Their style is fresh, they’ve got awesome videos and a great web site, plus one of the years best album covers … Check out their pre – Die Antwoord projects like Max Normal.TV …
Die Antwoord – Evil Boy
4.Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today
This isn’t old-school, lo-fi, midnight-under-the-covers, bedroom recordings, this is studio ariel pink and it’s worked it’s way into my steady rotation … Twisted-genius lyrics in the track Menopause Man “Make me maternal, fertile woman. Make me menstrual, menopause man. Rape me, Castrate me, Make me gay. Lady, I’m a lady from today.” …Overall this album plays like the soundtrack to a Cheesy (not intentional), 70′s erotic-thriller, B-movie filmed in Bucharest …
Ariel Pink – Fright Night
3.Caribou – Swim
Our good friend Tbag makes me and slobby birthday mix’s every year and this year one of my fave tracks turned out to be “Odessa.” It’s all the way clean, fluid dance music, punctuated with delicate and sometimes atmospheric vocals. For someone who doesn’t really like to dance, I’m all over these beautiful sweet dance tunes …
Caribou – Odessa
2.Beach House – Teen Dream
You know that place in between sleep and awake? The place where your soul floats to after a candle-lit masturbatory session? That is where Beach House lives … a beautifully depressing and haunting release, not an album to hype you up, but is great for hangover days, mind-game-girlfriend fight days, sunny freezing winter days and summertime dawn and/or dusk ….. Dreamy spacey soundscapes … Victoria Legrand’s voice is beautifully distinct and sounds like Bjork’s less crazy younger half – sister sining in an empty church in Estonia …
Beach House – Norway
1.The Walkmen – Lisbon
The 6th studio album finds the Walkmen up to their same old tricks. Vocalist Hamilton Leithauser’s distinct howl nicely punctuates the track ” Angela Surf City ” which is lead predominantly by pounding surf rock drums …. This album whisks me away to a dimly lit smokey Portugese brothel, humble in appearance except for the ornate chandelier, which shakes to the sound of the hard working women upstairs as jukebox spins another cut from this solid album…
The Walkmen – Angela Surf City
