Every year is a good year for music. Sometimes it takes time for the jewels to surface, but they're submerged somewhere, just waiting to be discovered.
If you've tried and really can't find anything that has captured your interest this year, we've got a wonderfully diverse list of albums here from our writers that covers everything from black metal to pop punk to dance to just about everything else. We're proud of our little-bit-of-everything list, and hopefully you'll find something here that will inspire you to want to hear more. Happy listening.
Michael Keefe:
10. Sparks - The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman
This is the studio album version of a radio show about Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman being kidnapped by the Hollywood studio system. Approached by the Swedish arts council, Sparks brother duo Ron and Russell Mael concocted a Kafka-esque dream journey. Combining elements of classical and rock, Ron provides the Bernard Hermann-like score, while Russell sings and speaks his multiple parts. He's joined by a gruff, Swedish-speaking voice portraying Bergman, among others. Though conceptually bizarre, this one-of-a-kind album is oddly engrossing.
9. Madness - The Liberty of Norton Folgate
The rebirth of Madness has been a surprisingly quiet affair. First, they crept back onto the scene with their 2005 reggae covers album, The Dangermen Sessions. And now The Liberty of Norton Folgate emerges to little fanfare. Madness' new batch of mostly easy-going ska ditties will insinuate themselves into your brain, as each run-through reveals yet another great song from this surprisingly strong album.
8. Various Artists - Dark Was the Night
4AD revitalizes the "Red Hot" AIDS benefit compilation series with this mostly excellent collection of originals and covers from many of the best indie acts of the 2000s: The National, Dirty Projectors, Spoon, and many others. A few relatively grizzled veterans like David Byrne and Yo La Tengo also pitch in. The mood here is generally mellow and moody, as contemporary indie folk meets the somber dream pop of early 4AD collection Lonely Is an Eyesore.
7. Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring
This UK band's sophomore effort is a gorgeous concept album about leader Charlie Fink's recent break-up with former contributor (and solo artist) Laura Marling. Granted, the concept is simple. And, in many ways, the musical and lyrical elements that comprise the eleven songs on this record are simple, too. Yet, together, the band's open-ended guitar pluckings, feathery drums, and occasional chamber pop arrangements yield a cinematic grandeur that is far greater than the sum of this album's modest parts. Also, despite its gloomy theme, the beautiful The First Days of Spring is sweetened by hope for a better tomorrow.
6. Willie Nile - House of a Thousand Guitars
Street poet, rock 'n' roll romantic, and excellent songwriter Willie Nile continues his 30-year career in the shadows of rock with another top-rate studio album of well-penned tunes. With a backing band as solid as the Heartbreakers and just a touch of the raggedness of London Calling-era Clash, Nile sings odes to music and love, along with a character-driven portrait of the aftermath of war. Willie Nile remains one of rock's great unheralded artists.
5. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes - Up from Below
The debut album from this So Cal collective is full of rollicking indie folk-rock played exuberantly and with gorgeous harmonies. It also exudes a sweeping, cinematic quality, as if Ennio Morricone had a hand in the album's arrangements. This is what Arcade Fire would sound like if they spent their days sipping Dos Equis in a sun-baked backyard.
4. Miss Derringer - Winter Hill
On their third album, Miss Derringer dish up a terrific set of street fighting rock 'n' roll and sweeping, Roy Orbison-esque melodrama, evoking the epic battles and tragic love stories of American youth from a half-century ago. Winter Hill is a lean, rock-solid record of girl group-inspired goodness and rockabilly rowdiness that's beefed up with injections of garage and punk.
3. Cheap Trick - The Latest
Who could've guessed that good ol' Cheap Trick would rise again as one of the best bands of the late 2000s? After 25 years making mostly mediocre (and sometimes dreadful) albums, 2006's Rockford seemed like an impossibly good fluke. With their humbly named The Latest, the band prove they're back on a roll. They've also broadened their range, tilting the power pop of their last album toward more intricate arrangements that nod to Sgt. Pepper's-era psychedelics.
2. U2 - No Line on the Horizon
With No Line on the Horizon, U2 have made their best album since Achtung, Baby. The ambient-tinged alt-rock is the band's most brooding ever. Nonetheless, their trademark surges of anthemic grandeur propel the record forward. The songwriting is the group's strongest is quite some time, and Bono's voice is in fine form. Though there aren't many reach-out-and-grab-you numbers, No Line on the Horizon quickly becomes indelible, stealing its way into the listener's consciousness.
1. Robyn Hitchcock - Goodnight Oslo
Robyn Hitchcock changes the formula from his first album with the Venus 3, 2006's loose and jammy Olé Tarantula. By comparison, Goodnight Oslo is Hitchcock’s most tightly arranged album of the decade. Here, he harnesses the many talents of co-conspirators Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5), and Bill Rieflin (Ministry), creating neatly constructed pop gems with glorious harmonies and an appealing variety of sonic textures. This catchy batch of tunes comprises Robyn Hitchcock's most widely accessible and readily enjoyable record in a decade.
Adam Schragin:
10. Circulatory System – Signal Morning
It took eight long years, but Will Cullen Hart and his shapeshifting group The Circulatory System finally completed the sequel to their self-titled debut album. The band still employs the fuzzy pop framework that marked the debut, along with the refreshing dose of optimism that consistently marks Hart's lyrics. This time around, the group are a little more content to take smaller bites while expanding the sonic territory that is this Athens, Georgia's supergroup's mainstay.
9. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Bursting out at the tail-end of last year, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's single "Come Saturday" was markedly catchy and promising, but the actual full-length was an even more pleasant surprise. The songs on their debut have the familiar appeals of dreampop and shoegaze but keep from sliding into the derivative.
8. Kid Sister – Ultraviolet
Not as delayed as Signal Morning or as hotly anticipated, Kid Sister's Ultraviolet is a smart, carefully orchestrated record of tight dance jams, playful rapping and a bit of techno balladry ("Daydreaming") to top it all off. XXXchange and A-Track add production, and guests include Cee-Lo and Kanye West. Listeners expecting some sort of pop opus will be disappointed, but for spirited and witty hip-hop, this is the joint.
7. Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms
A hot trend of 2009 that actually shows promise beyond the new year is something called glo-fi, or chill wave, or some other goofy moniker. Dumb name aside, this trademark combination of haze, machine-driven pop and a predilection for smoothness is legit. Perhaps the most talented "group" working within this framework is Neon Indian, a project featuring musician Alan Palomo and video artist Alicia Scardetta. Neon Indian's first album is entitled Psychic Chasms, a glittery but often indistinct meld of sleepy synthesizers and far-off vocals. Underneath the fuzziness is inspired songwriting, though, which Paloma pulls off here without losing atmosphere in the process.
6. Passion Pit – Manners
Last year's Chunk of Change EP was impressive, but the full-length Manners is even better. A collection of electronic-rock tracks that manages to feel full but never bloated, Manners is all at once hyper ("Little Secrets") and contemplative ("Swimming in the Flood"), resulting in a well-balanced and sturdy debut.
5. The Field – Yesterday and Today
Perhaps the best way to describe Yesterday and Today is as "warm techno." First and foremost an electronic album, this release has an organic approach and feel to it that fills in some of the gaps separating the often disparate worlds of rock and dance. The fantastic track "Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime" unrolls with minimal, pleading vocals and a lovely stretch of low percussive beats and staccato synthesizer bursts.
4. The Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Finally shedding some of their less palatable quirks, on Bitte Orca The Dirty Projectors shine brightly without losing their edge. A combination of far-off influences and fine original songwriting inform this record, which is kept aloft by lead singer David Longstreth and his remarkable band.
3. Extra Golden – Thank You Very Quickly
This impressive collaboration between musicians of America and Africa is the third from Extra Golden, and it may be their best. Thank You Very Quickly is dense with sharp guitar, dizzying drum patterns and resplendent organ parts. It has been a year (or two years, really) of rediscovered appreciation for the African continent in the world of indie music, and Thank You Very Quickly is one of the best examples of this reawakening.
2. Sleepy Sun – Embrace
They impressed the hell out of us at SXSW, and it was no fluke - Sleepy Sun are thick with '60s jammy charm, but they do not lose focus. Every song on Embrace is carefully constructed, from the triple guitar workouts on up to the flirtatious dueling lead vocals. The track "Sleepy Son" works the Bret Constantino and Rachel Williams' voices into a trance - a towering, nearly seven-and-a-half minute treatise of new psychedelia.
1. Lullabye Arkestra – Threats/Worship
Weird - you'd think as powerful and loud an album as Threats/Worship would be harder to ignore, but far and away folks seem to have missed the boat on this one. A demented fusion of art-rock and RAWK!, Lullabye Arkestra are a hard-assed duo consisting of married couple Justin Small and Kat Taylor-Small. From the wicked shredding of "Voodoo" to the trembling blues number "Sad Sad Story," the songs center around the rhythmic interchange of bass and drums while Taylor-Small and Small swap acidic vocals. Powerful stuff.
Andrew Reilly:
10. Alestorm - Black Sails at Midnight [note: this a review of the Leviathan EP]
It seems unlikely that "true Scottish pirate metal" could compel any listener for more than ten seconds, let alone for an entire album, but Alestorm's second full-length proved that in metal, a sense of humor is just as useful as ridiculous chops. And a good accordion solo.
9. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer
Unfortunately, there exists an album entitled Dragonslayer that is not in fact a ridiculous metal album. Fortunately, it exists as an impeccably crafted, highly enjoyable indie rock record.
8. Fall Out Boy - Folie A Deux
Ridiculously catchy pop-punk. Nothing more, nothing less.
7. Dethklok - Dethalbum II
The band might be fictitious but the brutality is all too real. Brendon Small and pals take the over-the-top attack of the first Dethalbum to strange new highs and crushing new lows while possibly setting a record for most intense double bass ever on "Laser Cannon Deth Sentence."
6. St. Vincent - Actor
The scattershot approach might be off-putting, but the depths of Annie Clark's bag of tricks pays off big here, especially in the unexpectedly rocking "Actor Out of Work."
5. Wolves in the Throne Room - Black Cascade
By mostly eschewing things like riffs, solos, bridges, and intelligible vocals while still playing at full speed, Black Cascade somehow manages to be an insanely heavy album totally void of any and all of the trappings of metal, its songs built seemingly from nothing and its epic scope materializing almost out of thin air.
4. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
The songs and themes finally match the pipes, and while not Case's best album, Middle Cyclone still stands head and shoulders above what any of her peers are up to these days.
3. Steven Wilson - Insurgentes
Not nearly as abrasive as the drone/noise train wreck Wilson threatened to release, Insurgentes instead saw the Porcupine Tree frontman pulling out all the stops on the page and in the booth, resulting in a perfect marriage of his unchecked space-rock ambitions and meticulous skills as a producer.
2. Mastodon - Crack the Skye
Take an LSD nightmare of a story involving astral projection, Rasputin, and a golden umbilical cord connecting a quadriplegic's body to his mind, combine it with a relentlessly horrific approach to songwriting, and you have Mastodon's latest adventure in thrash prog. Sixteenth-century assassination plots never sounded so good as when Brent Hinds screams about magnets of wisdom while drummer Brann Dailor attacks the kit with a jackhammer.
The third time indeed proved to be the charm, as Kevin Moore and Jim Matheos took the steel-toed riffage of their debut, fused it to the ambient weirdness of the follow-up, and ran into the long-promised new direction the prog-metal power duo inevitably had to. Moore's minimalist vocals and all-consuming mini-Moog found a happy balance with Matheos' continued explorations of down-tuned riff-outs and, with Blood, the group delivered their long-awaited masterpiece.
Ira Brooker:
10. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
Neko Case’s voice just isn’t fair. Her latest doesn’t pack quite the punch of 2006’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, but Neko could sing the screenplay to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and make it sound like a religious experience. (One warning: The last track is eminently skippable, unless you’re really, really into frog calls.)
9. Brother Ali – Us
The Minneapolis MC’s follow-up to his 2007 breakthrough The Undisputed Truth finds him sounding like the spiritual heir to Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone as he holds forth on topics as diverse as domestic bliss, street corner hustling and the brotherhood of man.
8. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2009 didn’t get much more fun than this giddy pop platter. The indie smash “Lisztomania” may be the most infectious cut, but the entire album is a joy. It’s an especial treat for vinyl junkies, as the unmistakable “Side A-Side B” structure is a welcome throwback to that format.
7. Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. II
Since the original Cuban Linx is justly regarded as a stone-cold classic, there was every reason to expect this long-delayed sequel would pale in comparison. Instead, Raekwon’s street-level storytelling meshes miraculously with beats from a suite of top-grade producers, resulting in the strongest Wu-affiliated album in quite some time.
6. The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
One would think that there comes a point where a band can push the envelope of hyper-literate, intricately orchestrated, vaguely archaic musical narratives no further. Thankfully, Colin Meloy and crew have yet to reach that point, and they don’t seem to be closing in on it anytime soon.
5. Mason Jennings – Blood of Man
The perennially underrated singer-songwriter bounces back from 2007’s lackluster In the Ever with one of the strongest efforts of his career to date, rediscovering the rock-folk blend that made 2006’s Boneclouds such a revelation. Songwriting doesn’t get much more affecting or effective than the half-tragic character sketches of “Pittsburgh.”
4. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
This is a more accessible album than previous Animal Collective efforts - “more accessible” being a relative term. While the band’s cacophonous circus music is still pretty far out there, Merriweather hews fairly close to recognizable song structures, yielding a buoyant, beautiful work of art.
3. Sleepy Sun – Embrace
A good old-fashioned slab of California acid rock, this disc is equal parts throwback and look forward. Sleepy Sun mixes up the best elements of early ‘70s hard-psych with a healthy dose of modern production, proving that it’s still possible for a band to both jam and rock at the same time.
2. Benjy Ferree – Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee, Bobby Dee
No 2009 release was quite as distinctive as this truly odd ode to tragic child star Bobby Driscoll, an unclassifiable album employing everything from folk to doo-wop to barroom sing-alongs. Ferree’s second album is an unflinching double portrait of both Driscoll and the deeply passionate, Disney-obsessed singer-songwriter himself. It’s tough to say which artist is the more compelling.
1. Jaydiohead – Jaydiohead
At first glance, Radiohead vs. Jay-Z sounds like a novelty concept at best, but this thrilling little mash-up recontextualizes its source material far more successfully than Danger Mouse’s better-known The Grey Album. Over the course of ten well-chosen tracks, two seemingly disparate artists elevate each other’s material in ways most fans never would have dreamed of. Mash-ups come in for a lot of derision, but Jaydiohead may be the best argument to date for the format’s artistic validity.
Devon Tincknell:
10. Chain and the Gang - Down With Liberty
After spending most of the decade working with the rambling psych-rock act Weird War, Ian Svenonious finally returned to his gospel roots. The call-and-response, pseudo-spoken word revolutionary shenanigans of Chain worked even better live than on record, with Svenonious delivering a manic performance that recalled a sarcasm laced big tent faith revival.
9. The Dream - Love Vs. Money
More than just extraneous packaging for ringtones and singles, The Dream's Love Vs. Money is that extremely elusive full length album of consistently solid radio friendly R&B. Great beats and un-autotuned crooning abound as The Dream deftly avoid filler tracks and score exceptional guest spots from Kanye and Mariah.
8. the xx - the xx
On their astoundingly full realized debut, Britain's the xx showed an immense talent for crafting husky, understated pop songs. Sounding far more mature than their average age of twenty, the xx delivered a welcome surprise on par with the overhyped output of Grizzly Bear and St. Vincent.
7. Gun Outfit - Dim Light
A raw slab of SST inspired punk, Gun Outfit's debut Dim Light sounds like exactly what you might have scored from a college radio station CD sale in the early 90s. Like a contemporary of Dinosaur Jr. and Husker Du rather than a mere copy cat, Gun Outfit's analog purity and sloppy Northwest aesthetic make Dim Light more time capsule than album, sorely needed in these strange, digital days.
6. Lee Fields & The Expressions - My World
After languishing as a bit player for so many years in the funk scene, cult artist Lee Fields is finally coming into his own as an impeccably solid leading man. Retro to the point of being easily mistaken for a reissue, My World is fantastic old school soul/funk all the way through, rightfully deserving of a spot on the shelf between James Brown and Al Green.
5. Pictureplane - Dark Rift
Pictureplane embraces the best aspects of electronic music and then pulls them far enough way from their influence that they can be enjoyed by people who find "techno" a distasteful word. With just enough glitch to give it an off-kilter aura, Dark Rift is Pictureplane's breakthrough second record, finding the artist completely at ease in the world of dancefloor tempos and headphone soundscapes.
4. The Drums - Summertime EP
As fluffy and sweet as cotton candy with the catchy addictiveness of crack cocaine, the Drums understand exactly what it means to be a bubblegum band. This four song EP is all a person needs in life, whether they're driving to the beach, running through a sprinkler, or participating in some sort of 80s "teens having fun" montage.
3. DJ/Rupture and Andy Moor - Patches
The surprising duet of DJ/Rupture and punk guitarist Andy Moor finds the two working with the seamless improvisation of true jazz artists. Moor's murky guitar riffs repeat and distort, laying down the barebones frame over which DJ/Rupture creates a mesh of ambient tones and out-of-context samples. The resulting live recording is as stark and uncompromising as it is impressive.
2. The Horrors - Primary Colours
Primary Colours is to the proto-shoegazer scene of late 80s UK as Kill Bill is to grind house cinema. A mix of homages and overstated influences, the Horrors perfectly mirror the likes of the Cure, My Bloody Valentine, and the Jesus and Mary Chain without ever losing the overarching vision that make them something more than the sum of their parts.
1. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle
You are an eagle, Bill. Now spread your wings and soar.
