10. White Denim-Fits
One of the most stale, oversaturated, yet strangely misunderstood and unappreciated forms of music is garage rock. Having existed since the late 50's/early 60's, it is an American tradition along with hating soccer and lying on your taxes. But any hipster with a silly moustache can bang along like Sid Vicious in the comfort of their so-called "garage" (ahem, studio apartment shared by six trust fund kids). To really succeed in the form, one has to have the tunes or the chops to do something really different. White Denim has both.
Able to turn on the dot, Fits, is the work of a group finding it's footing, only to throw it to the side whenever they feel apt (check opener "Radio Milk How Can You Stand It" which changes its arch half-way through the song). What follows in its wake is some of the most psychedelic ("Say What You Want"), in your face, Santana-influenced ("Hard Attack DCWYW"), challenging "garage rock" to come around in ages. They even insert a mid-tempo, dub-influenced number half-way through the record (first single "Mirrored in Reverse").
But the future for this band is what is the most intriguing about this band. The final two numbers ("Regina Holding Hands" and "Syncn") find the band calming their ADD ways to actually write two affecting ballads. "Regina Holding Hands" is especially fantastic, combining what sounds like a Otis Redding outtake with a starry folk ballad. Let this band continue to meddle if the results are going to be this fantastic.
9. Passion Pit-Manners
It seemed like it was the summer of bedroom projects. Everybody was coming out of left-field with these stirring, youth-commiserating groups that seemed to cure the overall down-feeling a lot of college graduates/young peoples who suddenly found themselves unemployed and unwanted were feeling this summer. A lot of these groups relied on warm, fuzzy analog synths and snippets to achieve a "worn-in" sound. Not Passion Pit. Michael Angelakos (and his helium-propelled voice) were shooting for the cheap seats.
Don't believe me? Check out "Little Secrets" which is accompanied by a children's choir chanting "higher and higher" or "Eyes Like Candles" which contains, I kid you not, a serious saxophone solo. Throwing everything into this record including the kitchen sink, Passion Pit is not holding anything back. It's refreshing to see a band go and do something as ballsy as this. There isn't a moment of insincerity or pomp on this record; just like Angelakos' voice, you either will dig it or won't.
But once you stop dancing, what lies at the center of this record is its beating heart. On the show-stopping grandeur of "Moth's Wings", Angelakos proclaims "But you run away from me/and you left me shimmering." Instead of running away from the end of the world, Passion Pit would rather "all my lovers raise their cups" ("Swimming in the Flood") and just lose yourself in the music.
8.Pissed Jeans--King of Jeans
In horror/thriller/suspense movies, the creepiest guy is always the normal-looking guy with bad hair and crappy teeth who seems real awkward and kind of nice until you find out he has ten bodies buried underneath his porch. They always turn out to be the guy who would never do this sort of thing (so the neighbors say) and seemed perfectly innocent. Matt Korvette is that type of singer. Unlike previous noise-moingers The Jesus Lizard or Black Flag, Korvette's group Pissed Jeans is more-intent on turning their anger inward towards themselves, exposing themselves as the weirdoes that they are.
Tightening their sound from Hope for Men, Pissed Jeans' King of Jeans simply smolders. "False Jesii Part 2" opens the record reaching for your throat, the band in torment while Korvette is left screaming about the things he could do, but won't (go to a party, wear a tight black shirt, start a congo line), literally taunting you with his chorus of "la/la/la's". "Dream Smotherer" treads similar territory with the band rocketing forward while Korvette accepts his mundane job as long as you stay away from his dreams.
But the band's greatest strength is their ability, and love, in lying in the filth. On "Lip Ring", Korvette falls for the girl with the bondage pants and wants to get "impaled on your pink nails." On "R-Rated Movie", he gets nervous during the sex scene. But best of all is the slow burn of "Request for Masseuse" which ends with Korvette's yelps and groans of orgasmic pleasure.
King of Jeans is a throwback record, to the late 80's/early 90's, when indie rock was sloppy
and angry. Instead of using the Shins success as a platform to keep things nice and polite and
oh-so-harmonious souding, Pissed Jeans would rather have you suck on their fumes, you mouth-
breather. And I wouldn't want them any other way.
7. Wild Beasts- Two Dancers
It takes a bit of theateratics to pull off the line "this is a booty call/my boot, my boot up your arsehole" only to follow it up with "this is a Freudian slip/my slipper in your bits." It's takes even more gall to do it all with a falsetto. Yet, Wild Beasts still manages to pull it off without sounding too ridiculous. One of the major reasons why Two Dancers is such an interesting listen.
By ditching their cabaret sound for a more grounded art pop one, Wild Beasts songs about the dirty English youth seem to ring more truth this time around. On "We Still Got the Taste on Our Tongues" shimmers about while Thorpe leers alongside, asking "what's wrong with a little fun?" That fun consists of "rattling around town" and "scaring old ladies out of their dressing gowns." On the slow-dance special "This is Our Lot" the young band just wants "to find someone to nuzzle to/and waltz from the room." The needs of the youth.
Their greatest asset, though, was giving Tom Flemming, their baritone, Nick Cave-sounding, bassist more songs. The centerpiece, "Two Dancers/Two Dancers II", deals with the heady subject of gang rape, but it never falls into ridiculous lament or cheesiness. Wild Beasts seemed primed to takeover indie Britain.
6. Animal Collective-"Merriweather Post Pavilion"
Do you remember January last year? I hardly do, having had this year go by so far. But I do remember the hype/confusion surrounding Animal Collective's new offering. After hearing "My Girls" and realizing how poppy sounding it really was, the blogsphere was split in two. Many others where ready to crown it record of the year (it was January, btw), while others had determined that AC had, indeed, sold-out. There were videos made by fifteen year olds claiming that it was the best thing since sliced bread while other fifteen year olds claimed that it sucked (you need to check this out). What was to be made about this strange, intriguing music record that plays with my earbuds so much?
Relax, chief. Too many went too far to claim that this was AC's pop record. While, albeit poppy-sounding and more realized in vision, this is still Animal Collective we are talking about. They are still doing drone-influenced, repetition based songs ("Daily Routine"), still screaming over weird sounding spaghetti-western beats ("Lion in a Coma"). They had gotten rid of their fifteen minute acoustic, campire freakouts and replaced them with slightly shorter Jamacian, precussion-tapping, Come-on-ride-the-acidtrip jams ("Brothersport").
Needless to say, did you hear "Summertime Clothes" played right after Miley Cyrus on pop radio? Did "No More Runnin" replace "Birthday Sex" as the youths favorite slow-motion grind song? No, that didn't happen. "Merriweather Post Pavilion" is the highlight of AC's career because it sacrifices nothing that they do well, yet builds a (alright I'll say it) hook-chorus-hook repeat (ha!) base for their adventures. Don't worry blog world, Animal Collective is still all yours.
5.Japandroids-Post-Nothing
Sometimes the most comforting things in the world are the simplest. Sometimes the most
enjoyable things are the things that defy pretension. Cold beer, nights out with good friends,
Taco Bell, cheesy action films from the eighties: these things, while not cool in the neveau-hipster
chic tradition of the definition, are definite ingredients for a good time. Japandroids are a band
that revel in these things. Post-Nothing is their rallying call.
The album is simple; two guys, guitar and drums, both singing anthems about girls, beer,
road trips, and girls. They are not buying into a trend. They just play loud and fast, like their
garage is the Meadowlands. It's so simple yet so comforting, and gosh darn it, so different then
what everyone else is trying to attempt right now.
It's hard to not a get sugar rush on this album. They want to "French kiss some French girls"
("Wet Hair"), they want to stay "Crazy/Forever", and you want to be along with them for the
ride. Instead of trapping themselves in the doom and gloom of the recession, they don't "wanna
talk about dying/I just want the sunshine girls" ("Young Hearts Spark Fire"). Words to live by.
4. Raekwon-"Only Built for Cuban Linx II"
The Wu is back. Nuff' said.
3. Phoenix-Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
"It's time to show it off." So says the refrain from the first cut "Litzomania" from Phoenix's album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix but it might as well been their statement for takeover that occurred in 2009. After appearing on every single late-night talk show, murking the SNL stage (did you see that? Pitch perfect), having their song on a car commercial ("1901"), and appearing on everyone's record of the year list, from hipsters world-wide to your dentist, Phoenix were the indie band.
But why the sudden success? Did that much change from their formula? No, not really. They are still writing great pop songs that have more in common with Hall & Oates then Husker Du. But they abandon the Strokes-like shuffle of their last album (It's Never Been Like That) in favor of a much more electronic dance vibe. And the results work. Phoenix has always seemed like a band that barely broke a sweat when recording, and this album flows along (ten songs, 37 minutes) with no filler.
There's so many good songs it's hard to choose one: the crystalized "Liztomania", the robo-tripping of "1901", the funky Prince-lite of "Fences", New Order via France "Girlfriend." But the real shinning is the five minute instrumental "Love Like a Sunset" which centers the record. Building till a sweet crescendo, this is the only song that sacrifices hooks for muscles. It sounds like the opening credits for an arena band. One can dream.
2. Grizzly Bear-Veckatimest
When asked about their new recording, Ed Droste, singer of Grizzly Bear, replied that the band was spending more time in the studio to make sure everyone exercised what they wanted to achieve on the record. They wanted to embrace a full band sound. It doesn't take long for Veckatimest to confirm this. "Southern Point" tramps in sounding like a marching band has escaped only to break mid-form into this paranoid piano waltz. If there's one thing this record doesn't lack, it's that there's not enough going on.
I could sit here and talk about how good the songs are: "Two Weeks" is the sunniest piece of pop pie to come out this year, the great kiss-off of "While You Wait for the Others", or the simply gut wrenching simplicity of closer "Foreground", but that would be well traveled ground. What I do want to emphasis is how much of a step forward this record was for the group as a group. No longer a solo vision of Droste or guitarist Daniel Rossen (who write all of the songs on the record), Veckatimest shows drummer Chris Bear and bassist Chris Taylor as actual foundations of the group. The biggest impact comes for Bear's increased role: "Cheerleader"'s crowded drumming is a highlight while "Ready,Able" lurches forward because of his constant tom-tom's. Sure many might miss the boundless, yet spare, scope of Yellow House but Veckatimest shows the group as a valid and increasing force in the music world.
1. The Antlers-Hospice
Every group at some point wants to make the "Big Record." A record that absconds sound, leaps traditional views of what music can do, and be relatable to all people, be that one constant in everyone's I-Tunes (this record just speaks to me, man). In short, every musical artist dreams of creating a Where the Wild Things Are or Catcher in the Rye or "Ophelia", something that resonates and stirs within us all.
But relative and conventional knowledge tells us the feat is hard to accomplish. In the last fifteen years, there have been maybe three records to accomplish such: In An Airplane Over the Sea, Kid Computer, and Funeral. For those three, there have been hundreds of failures (including on a lower scale Arcade Fire's follow up, Neon Bible) and their has been one casualty concerning these certain groups (what really happened to Neutral Milk Hotel?). In short, genius is hard to come by and certainly hard to follow up. Just ask Kevin Shields.
But The Antlers' Hospice is such a "big record." Based around the solo recordings of Peter Silberman, Hospice is the story of a man who watches his love one die slowly from cancer. It's told in order; from the man meeting the woman in the hospital, the woman getting better and the two of them building a relationship although dysfunctional outside the ward, and the inevitable conclusion of her falling ill again and having to deal with her death. It invokes Sylvia Plath both in name and spirit. It comes across a whisper soft ("Kettering"), whirl wind crazy ("Sylvia"), and strangely childish jovial ("Bear"). It's a record that has a lot going on and it is worth every minute.
In the "Epilogue" Silberman sings that "you're screaming/and cursing/and angry/and hurting me/and then smiling/and crying/and then apologizing." The record is all of these things. It's the music record of the year for me and I hope Silberman and his group stick around to, by chance, outdo themselves the next time around.
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