Penultimate Musical Memories of 2008
Holy holidays, gang. Mine were hectic and overlong, but ultimately pretty pleasant, considering the state of the world, etc. I sure haven't gotten around to finishing the Heathen Crusade retrospective, but I did find time to squeak in one more playlist of new music before Baby Jesus is upstaged by Baby New Year. There's not as much metal this time, but lots of West Coast love, and you might actually recognize some of these performers.
2008 was a shitty year for just about everyone I know, although it occasionally helped me to consider that so much good music is being made out there. I hope to find more - and to see you, of course - in '09.
1. Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart" Narrow Stairs (Atlantic): The year's best stalker song comes from one of Washington State indie rock's major league stars, who sound a bit like a dour, unambitious jam band in the thick of this long, groovy single.
2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Midnight Man" Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Anti-): Looks like the Grinderman record made Nick want to rock again, and while it ain't no Birthday Party, the organ-drenched proceedings thrive on seedy nighttime grit.
3. Blitzen Trapper, "Furr" Furr (Sub Pop): These beardies from Portland, Oregon offer one of the catchiest goddamn songs I've heard in ages, a pagan hymn to the animal in man hidden inside sunny '60s folk-pop in the vein of Simon, Garfunkel and Dylan.
4. Leviathan, "Receive the World" Massive Conspiracy Against All Life (Moribund): Wrest lays his one-man avant-garde black metal band to rest with what is supposedly the final release under the celebrated Leviathan moniker, bearing more crazed, dissonant blasting, somewhat cleaner sound and a bit less miserable post-rock ambience.
5. Foals, "Olympic Airways" Antidotes (Sub Pop): Here's a slightly edgier British alternative to the overhyped Vampire Weekend, containing sprightly Afropop-lite guitars and affected vocals along with some throbbing post-punk rhythms for bite.
6. Hammers of Misfortune, "Always Looking Down" Fields/Church of Broken Glass (Profound Lore): Although I'm still absorbing Hammers' double-disc offering, the mantra-like repetition recently favored by my favorite Bay Area prog metallers is already starting to balance with their vintage aura, intellectual depth and ass-kicking yet understated harmonies.
7. Benoît Pioulard, "Brown Bess" Temper (Kranky): Lush soundscapes of folk guitar, hazy vocals and found sounds make for intricate, delicious headphone candy on the second pseudonymous album by Thomas Meluch.
8. "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Whatever You Like" Whatever You Like (Volcano): Al takes advantage of the Internet's quick-delivery capability to address both current economic troubles and T.I.'s cheesy pop-rap hit "Whatever You Like"... but he couldn't come up with a different title?
9. Gojira, "Esoteric Surgery" The Way of All Flesh (Prosthetic): The French quartet's fourth album got a publicity boost from vocalist/guitarist Joe Duplantier's stint with the Cavalera brothers, although its textured slo-mo art thrash offers a strong, cerebral pummel on its own merits.
10. The Tossers, "Get Back" On a Fine Spring Evening (Victory): Chicago's South Side Irish folk-punks lose the banjo and offer a sunnier slate of tunes on their latest, although the broody lyrics of this fleet-footed frolic beg to differ.
11. AC/DC, "Black Ice" Black Ice (Columbia): This greasy little title boogie, stuck regrettably at the end of an exhausting, interminable CD, is the first new AC/DC track I've really liked in a long time.
12. Grails, "Predestination Blues" Doomsdayer's Holiday (Temporary Residence): Including a barely perceptable vocal cameo by cult icon Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls, you can smell the hash on every note of this celestial downer, the ominous heart of Portland's metallic post-rockers' second album of 2008 - the one with the creepier yet sexier cover art.
13. Brighton, MA, "Let's Be Friends Again" Amateur Lovers (Loose Tooth): Former Scotland Yard Gospel Choir guys' second disc of rootsy indie pop can be on the ponderous side, but at its best (like this opener), it's remarkably warm and uplifting classic rock created in Chicago's here and now.
14. Arsis, "Failing Winds of Hopeless Greed" We Are the Nightmare (Nuclear Blast): More jumbled and not as arresting as the Virginian's past work (and I wish you could hear the bass), but James Malone and his revolving cast still occasionally work up a bracing technical/melodic death metal lather while edging toward accessibility.
15. Parenthetical Girls, "Unmentionables" Entanglements (Tomlab): Portland's experimental pop perverts go for baroque on their third LP, still creepy and twee beyond belief but now evoking a chamber orchestra comprised of mental patients wearing disturbingly stained tuxedos.
16. Genghis Tron, "Board Up the House" Board Up the House (Relapse): Remaining at the forefront of IDM/metal hybrids, the Philadelphia trio unleashes another whirlwind opus of electronic math-grind, hiding surprises around every jagged, block-rocking turn.
17. TV on the Radio, "Crying" Dear Science (Interscope): The NYC tastemakers' most accessible disc to date offers unique constructions of warped electro-funk, introverted soul, crackling ambience and libidinous release that span the emotional spectrum.
18. Burst, "Nineteenhundred" Lazarus Bird (Relapse): Sweden's finest progressive metalcore act returns with a fiercer (yet still considered) attack, reminding me here of a curious Mercenary/Mastodon hybrid.
19. Beck, "Volcano" Modern Guilt (Interscope): With Danger Mouse producing, Beck's twelfth album is his mellowest since Sea Change, its lush tracks oozing tiki hut hipster nonchalance while an examination of its lyrics reveals a fair amount of morbid brooding.
20. Averse Sefira, "Refractions of an Unexploded Singularity" Advent Parallax (Candlelight): The fourth LP by Texas' cult black metal horde harnesses undulating rhythms and hypnotic strings with an assured stridence, characteristically atonal guitars bleeding spare melodies into their complex, tightly wound storm.
2008 was a shitty year for just about everyone I know, although it occasionally helped me to consider that so much good music is being made out there. I hope to find more - and to see you, of course - in '09.
1. Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart" Narrow Stairs (Atlantic): The year's best stalker song comes from one of Washington State indie rock's major league stars, who sound a bit like a dour, unambitious jam band in the thick of this long, groovy single.
2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Midnight Man" Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Anti-): Looks like the Grinderman record made Nick want to rock again, and while it ain't no Birthday Party, the organ-drenched proceedings thrive on seedy nighttime grit.
3. Blitzen Trapper, "Furr" Furr (Sub Pop): These beardies from Portland, Oregon offer one of the catchiest goddamn songs I've heard in ages, a pagan hymn to the animal in man hidden inside sunny '60s folk-pop in the vein of Simon, Garfunkel and Dylan.
4. Leviathan, "Receive the World" Massive Conspiracy Against All Life (Moribund): Wrest lays his one-man avant-garde black metal band to rest with what is supposedly the final release under the celebrated Leviathan moniker, bearing more crazed, dissonant blasting, somewhat cleaner sound and a bit less miserable post-rock ambience.
5. Foals, "Olympic Airways" Antidotes (Sub Pop): Here's a slightly edgier British alternative to the overhyped Vampire Weekend, containing sprightly Afropop-lite guitars and affected vocals along with some throbbing post-punk rhythms for bite.
6. Hammers of Misfortune, "Always Looking Down" Fields/Church of Broken Glass (Profound Lore): Although I'm still absorbing Hammers' double-disc offering, the mantra-like repetition recently favored by my favorite Bay Area prog metallers is already starting to balance with their vintage aura, intellectual depth and ass-kicking yet understated harmonies.
7. Benoît Pioulard, "Brown Bess" Temper (Kranky): Lush soundscapes of folk guitar, hazy vocals and found sounds make for intricate, delicious headphone candy on the second pseudonymous album by Thomas Meluch.
8. "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Whatever You Like" Whatever You Like (Volcano): Al takes advantage of the Internet's quick-delivery capability to address both current economic troubles and T.I.'s cheesy pop-rap hit "Whatever You Like"... but he couldn't come up with a different title?
9. Gojira, "Esoteric Surgery" The Way of All Flesh (Prosthetic): The French quartet's fourth album got a publicity boost from vocalist/guitarist Joe Duplantier's stint with the Cavalera brothers, although its textured slo-mo art thrash offers a strong, cerebral pummel on its own merits.
10. The Tossers, "Get Back" On a Fine Spring Evening (Victory): Chicago's South Side Irish folk-punks lose the banjo and offer a sunnier slate of tunes on their latest, although the broody lyrics of this fleet-footed frolic beg to differ.
11. AC/DC, "Black Ice" Black Ice (Columbia): This greasy little title boogie, stuck regrettably at the end of an exhausting, interminable CD, is the first new AC/DC track I've really liked in a long time.
12. Grails, "Predestination Blues" Doomsdayer's Holiday (Temporary Residence): Including a barely perceptable vocal cameo by cult icon Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls, you can smell the hash on every note of this celestial downer, the ominous heart of Portland's metallic post-rockers' second album of 2008 - the one with the creepier yet sexier cover art.
13. Brighton, MA, "Let's Be Friends Again" Amateur Lovers (Loose Tooth): Former Scotland Yard Gospel Choir guys' second disc of rootsy indie pop can be on the ponderous side, but at its best (like this opener), it's remarkably warm and uplifting classic rock created in Chicago's here and now.
14. Arsis, "Failing Winds of Hopeless Greed" We Are the Nightmare (Nuclear Blast): More jumbled and not as arresting as the Virginian's past work (and I wish you could hear the bass), but James Malone and his revolving cast still occasionally work up a bracing technical/melodic death metal lather while edging toward accessibility.
15. Parenthetical Girls, "Unmentionables" Entanglements (Tomlab): Portland's experimental pop perverts go for baroque on their third LP, still creepy and twee beyond belief but now evoking a chamber orchestra comprised of mental patients wearing disturbingly stained tuxedos.
16. Genghis Tron, "Board Up the House" Board Up the House (Relapse): Remaining at the forefront of IDM/metal hybrids, the Philadelphia trio unleashes another whirlwind opus of electronic math-grind, hiding surprises around every jagged, block-rocking turn.
17. TV on the Radio, "Crying" Dear Science (Interscope): The NYC tastemakers' most accessible disc to date offers unique constructions of warped electro-funk, introverted soul, crackling ambience and libidinous release that span the emotional spectrum.
18. Burst, "Nineteenhundred" Lazarus Bird (Relapse): Sweden's finest progressive metalcore act returns with a fiercer (yet still considered) attack, reminding me here of a curious Mercenary/Mastodon hybrid.
19. Beck, "Volcano" Modern Guilt (Interscope): With Danger Mouse producing, Beck's twelfth album is his mellowest since Sea Change, its lush tracks oozing tiki hut hipster nonchalance while an examination of its lyrics reveals a fair amount of morbid brooding.
20. Averse Sefira, "Refractions of an Unexploded Singularity" Advent Parallax (Candlelight): The fourth LP by Texas' cult black metal horde harnesses undulating rhythms and hypnotic strings with an assured stridence, characteristically atonal guitars bleeding spare melodies into their complex, tightly wound storm.
posted by SoulReaper at 8:02 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks for doing this. I love your end of the year reviews because you always point me in the direction of something good that I might have otherwise ignored.
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