Donnerstag, 15. Jan 2009, 15:43
I may know music, but I'm no expert on everything, so to call this a "Best Of 2008" would be a little pretentious on my part, since there might have been some Finnish black metal album that is truly the greatest album of the year in it's category.
Enough backpedaling. Here's my list, backwards, just like strummerbs.
10. Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday At Devil Dirt
Their first collaboration was critically adored, but nobody bought it, no matter how hard I pushed it when i was working at the record store. Really good "morning-after" music by a guy that sounds like death and a woman who sounds like an angel. This should have been the soundtrack to Sin City.
9. Portishead - Third
It's just nice to have them back, really. The sound is essentially more of the same, with a few modern updates to make it sound thoroughly modern, even though modern is relative with a band that sounds so disembodied and ghostly anyway. Great songs, great playing, great atmosphere, and while "more of the same" might sound like a slight, they're the only ones who can sound like this, no matter how many others try and fail.
8. Sloan - Parallel Play
Maybe I'm biased, since I got to see them just a couple blocks from my new apartment this year, the month this album came out, but it's a totally great album from Sloan. My friends and I may be divided on their last one (I say it's pretty cool, Kevin says it's bullshit), but this is a collection of 3-minute power-pop songs. To reduce them to "power-pop" is not fair, it neglects the depth here. All bands should be able to make TENTH albums that are this good.
7. Malory - The Third Face
Malory was my find of the year, I think. Discovering their 2000 album Not Here, Not Now was like finding out you're actually a superhero. Gorgeous, lush, magnificent. Would their third album be as good? Almost. It's fantastic.
6. The Raveonettes - Lust, Lust, Lust
Do you like the Jesus And Mary Chain? I do. You know what I like just as much? The sounds of a band who can take the JAMC influence and slowly edge away from it while still keeping it reverby and staticy. Maybe the best thing they've done yet, but something tells me the next one will be even better.
5. The Breeders - Mountain Battles
Sounds more like Pod than Last Splash. It's like somebody made a Breeders record, then erased 7 of the 16 tracks on each song. It's like "Gigantic" before the pre-chorus kicks in. It's haunting and rocking, and makes the Deal sisters sound better than they have any right to still sound.
4. Spiritualized - Songs In A&E
It's a return to the Spiritualized I loved. Before the "I'm gonna go symphonic" vibes of Let It Come Down and before the "return to rock" of Amazing Grace, this is their finest since the first two albums and most of the third. Making music to take drugs to make music to.
3. The Jesus And Mary Chain - The Power Of Negative Thinking
CHEAT! Lots of this has been released before, but enough of it is "previously unreleased" that I'm letting it fake it's way onto the list. And while it is a comp, it's also a non-album tracks comp, so it's like new stuff. OK, some of it is new to me. Whatever, it's damn good, and whether I cheated or not, you should give it a listen.
2. Big Dipper - Supercluster: The Anthology
Yeah, a lot of it is previously released, even if it's only on vinyl, but it's new to me, and it's a new collection of this stuff, and at least 1/3 of it is completely unreleased. It should say something about how good this is in that I'm willing to cheat something (ok, ANOTHER something) on to my list and put it up so damn high, and cop to the fact that it might be some shady dealings. If I'm willing to call MYSELF out, and STILL have it be my number two of the year? It's fantastic. Nerdy Bostoners playing Mid-America heartland post-punk alt rock.
1. The Dirtbombs - We Have You Surrounded
Well, duh. The best live band on the planet. Nay, the best ROCK band on the planet (and my personal favorite) puts out an album about urban paranoia the year I move from pastoral Indiana to the middle of Cambridge/Boston. Yeah, I (Shake) played a show with them, and they remembered me a few months later at two different shows, one of which we helped them load out. So what about that stuff (which was so unbelievably awesome to me I had to type it out again), this album rocks. Perfect? No way. But it's got enough grit and fuzz and howl on it for me to know it was my top album of '08 back in February. C'mon now, people… get on board. These guys are AMAZING.