“Drum roll please Rusty…”
1. Portugal. The Man – “Censored Colors” – My absolute must pick #1, as this album surprised me by coming out of relative obscurity for a band I had only recently just discovered & turned yet another new, genre-bending page for them. With this album they continue to impress me with their refusal to be pigeon-holed in one style.. The first album is the secret love child of the Mars Volta & Minus the bear, while the 2nd album took a similar approach while blending in elements of classic rock & more traditional ambient rock vibes… Finally, the amazing “Censored Colors” did a creative 180 & pushed boundaries into folk, 60’s pop, & acoustic noodling with dribbles of cello, violin, & rich horns tossed in for atmosphere. A definite must recommend “7 Thumbs Up” for me.
2. Beck – “Modern Guilt” – A fantastic return to form for Beck, an artist who can continue to do “the Same thing” subjectively every 2-3 years & still craft albums that are like ear-gasmic, bluesy, trip-hoppy, goodness. Particularly, “Modern Guilt” was supported by Danger Mouse on production who was able to build a sonic palette for Beck close enough to his early Dust Brothers inspiration w/ tinges of enough solid funk, soul, & just a smidgen of rock- country swirled around w/ electronic breakbeat pleasure. All in all, not a huge divergence for Beck as an artist, but a truly enjoyable, solid listen & a great resume builder for Danger Mouse.
3. Radiohead – “In Rainbows” – This will go down as my 1 (only 1?) entry that doesn’t quite qualify as 2008. Fortunately this album’s release was sooo unprecedented & groundbreaking that it needed an official “record store” release for 2008 & that’s where I get to group it happily in with our reviews here. I put this album very near the top of my 2008 list with a big smile as Radiohead has been a band for the last few years that I didn’t know what to expect from. Would they do another electronic fueled beat collage album w/ Thom Yorke & Colin Greenwood going ape crap on the drum machines & synthesizers?... would they return whole-heartedly to their rock roots leaving behind the iffy-ness of their electronic indulgences?... or would they meet somewhere in the middle to my, & most other fans, absolute delight & excitement? -- The latter seemed to be the case in 2008 as Radiohead delivered their strongest album since OK Computer, in my humble opinion. “In Rainbows” is such a wonderfully pulsing, rhythmic delight mixing the best Radiohead guitar & bass work together w/ the synths & sweeps that they made famous on Kid A… listening to “15 Step”, & “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”, I feel 17 again.. being overjoyed w/ this sense of a warm blanket being wrapped around me & my ears as the familiar Radiohead crescendo of sound surrounds me. Highs, Lows, Drum Rolls, & Thom through it all singing like he’s re-invigorated both creatively lyrically & musically. I can’t say enough good things about this album as it has re-ignited my absolute love for Radiohead & has left me captivated as to what may possibly come next.
4. Dr. Dog – “Fate” – Dr. Dog was a surprise discovery for me this year...and yet I have fallen in love with this band this year, as I have very few other bands *Cough* *See the rest of this list* Fate is an album that has this bare-bones, stripped down, acoustic-y feeling without actually being bare-bones, stripped down, or entirely acoustic. It makes you feel like you’re in a local attic listening to them harmonize & craft these melodies to an 8 track that’s held together w/ spit & bailing wire, & yet managing to come out with a wonderfully poppy, dusty, folk rock record. Very humble, warm, & endearing – while retaining its’ sparse & simple yet fairly enthralling arrangements. All in all though, these guys come down to their wonderful harmonizing. The vocal layering on tracks like “Breeze”, “Hang On”, & “100 Years” evokes the obvious comparisons to the Beach Boys & Beatles but never feels stale or un-interesting. They make you feel like you’ve grown up listening to them even if you’ve just heard it for the first time.
5. MGMT – “Oracular Spectacular” – Whoa. Who the hell are these guys? The album cover says so much in its strange, ambiguous, oddity of what you may or may not expect from actually hearing this band. The opening single “Time to Pretend” was the perfect inspiring introduction to this band proclaiming their musical, spiritual, & societal independence… “This is our decision, to live fast & die young, we’ve got the vision, now let’s have some fun…. Yeah, it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do, get jobs in offices, & wake up for the morning commute?”… aaaah, how badly can we all relate to that one line alone? With their strangely erratic yet intriguing soundscapes speckled with pieces of late 70’s disco, mid 80’s new wave, late 90’s ambient rock & today’s indie pop, these guys have crafted a quirky, endearing, musical surprise that looks & sounds like a happy acid trip. It’s just awesome.
6. Kings of Leon – “Only By The Night” – From the opening guitar plucking bubbly introduction of “Closer”, this album signals quite a departure for the Kings from the thrashy, stop & start rhythms of “Because of the Times’ – “Charmer”. A much more accomplished, reflective, & musically thorough endeavor in my opinion, that has elevated these guys from just another southern rock band with a punky demeanor to a band that stands poised to inherit the future of Rock & Roll from our U2, Black Crowes, & the like. I have to say “Use Somebody” with its distant vocal harmony opening, plaintive crooning from frontman Caleb Followill, & tumultuous exploratory rocking rhythms is the perfect example of the band that the Kings of Leon are fast becoming on “Only By The Night”. Definitely one of my stand out tracks for its simple yet interesting complexity. Upon repeated listens, thanks to its multi-faceted genre exploration, mixed with all the best elements of the old Kings material, “Only By The Night” is by FAR my favorite Kings album to date.
7. Ra Ra Riot – “The Rhumb Line” – I have fallen head over heels for this album & this band! From the wonderful opening to “Ghosts Under Rocks” that just gets right under my skin with its building deep cello lines, plucking violin strings, frantic snares & choruses of “Oh-Oh’s” perfectly rising into the first verse from lead singer Wesley Miles proclaiming “All, All, All your soaking wet dreams, You’ve spent them – You have gone & dreamt them – Dry, now you ask your babies, why, why, why…” This is deep, deep stuff, a large portion of it owed to the tragic death of the bands original drummer, John Ryan Pike, who drowned in the ocean after a Massachusetts show in 2007… who had also written a large majority of the material for this album along with the remaining members. Even slightly haunting with that specter over or around its release, this album still holds onto its fun as well. Leaning along with friends & musical co-horts, Vampire Weekend, into that slightly orchestral, world influenced, indie pop world, Ra Ra Riot have managed to capture such a rich, textured & fulfilling sound with “The Rhumb Line” that I couldn’t help but be captivated after a few listens. Songs such as “St. Peter’s Day Festival” with its bouncy, dub inflected punctuation, to the other side of the spectrum with the cello-infused “Run My Mouth” have propelled this album to one of my most recent favorites of 2008. Gracing the listener with an at times whimsical, at times heart-breaking collection of songs, “The Rhumb Line” is probably hands down in my Top 3 for the year even though I’m hating to actually put any of these wonderful albums into a consistent order.
8. Vampire Weekend – “Vampire Weekend” – This album was a wonderful, indie delight. This band clawed their way up from non-existent, college dorm basement performance obscurity to briefly explode on the indie pop rock scene & get everyone all riled up the way many other artists on this list, this year also have,….. but something about this album is a little different. Maybe it’s the sprinkling of world music, & the fact that if you didn’t know better you’d swear they were from the UK, that makes this record stand out this year -- but this album is so much fun & is such a surprise to listen to with spunky tempo’s & off kilter rhythms, that it doesn’t really matter where they came from or how they got here… It’s what it makes you feel. It makes me feel good & at times even makes me laugh. The name alone shows that these guys have a sense of humor about their music & it’s safe to assume, themselves. I have to admit that this album is a tough descript, I can’t say so much what grabs me about this album except that it’s just so undeniably catchy & yet still so rewarding. All-in-all a really fun listen.
9. The Mars Volta – “The Bedlam in Goliath” – “Holy Flarkin Shnit, Batman!”, this album is like a fantastic punch in the nuts! Seriously, that is not a knee-jerk reaction. This album is like what would happen if you were actually punched in your privates but somehow found it enjoyable. Close your eyes & imagine for a moment what that must be like (S&M freakish-ness aside)… it’s weird. This pummeling, squelching, screeching, rollicking, rolling, thrash-a-thon, perfectly contrasted with the high-pitched, nasal vocals of Cedric Bixler-Zayala & the bad ass guitar virtuouso-ness of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez to create an amazing, jolting sonic explosion that feels like a perfect return for a band that had begun to venture down the path of latin-tinged, prog-rock obscurity. I absolutely cannot say enough about how kick-damn-ass this album was & still is this year! This album represents everything that I have ever really loved about Hard-Rock / Metal, flying at your ears & face at about Mach-3 (although anything with horns can be hard pressed to be called Metal – Candiria not included). Swirling around & hitting you about the face & body like a musical tornado filled w/ nervous tension & explosive middle eastern fury, this album is just hands down- the absolute best & clearly most diverse hard rock record of the year! Although at the same time, don’t let it be thought that this album doesn’t also have its wonderfully melodic segueways & lows that build right back into fantastic pummeling crescendos. “Metatron”, “Tourniquet Man”, & “Soothsayer” are great examples of the dexterity on display here as these guys run the gamut of the musical map… up down & all in between – a fantastic hard rock record to peel away like an onion, layer by layer.
10. Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova – “The Swell Season” (Apparently not from 2008 at all, but that’s when I was introduced to it)-- *Sob* **….. This record is one of those albums that feels like it reaches inside your chest, grabs your heart with pointed fingers, & squeezes ever so slightly. Squeezes just enough that you remember that slight sadness that comes with the vague nostalgia of youth come & gone… It’s like losing every great love of your life again, all in one listen, but at the same time feeling stronger for the experience it’s given you. An album this powerful to me, astounds me that I didn’t fall for this guy years ago in the Frames. This album is so evocative of the feeling I got when I first heard Damian Rice’s “O”….. that aching & powerfully moving construction of sweeping ballads interspersed with piano, strings, & harmony that just screams Requiem but in a good way.
*** Honorable Mentions – for artists I fell for big time in 2008, whose album’s didn’t premier in ’08, or who just generally rocked my musical world this year but didn’t quite make the list!
· …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead – “So Divided” (2006)– absolutely fantastically diverse album from a band that just keeps growing & getting better. New album on its way in 2009!
· Nicole Atkins – “Neptune City” (2007-08) – An accomplished album from a newbie singer songwriter. Evocative of so many great female folk singers through the years but striking out on her own as well. Good stuff.
· Mt. Helium – “Faces” (2008) – For a band that hasn’t been signed to a major label since 2002, rising from the ashes of The Apex Theory… Mt. Helium delivered an album this year that creatively straddles The Mars Volta, System of a Down, old Incubus, & Muse… mixing middle eastern rhythms w/ hard prog-rock sensibilities… it’s Tops!
· Black Diamond Bay – “Black Diamond Bay” (2008) – These guys are just a really consistently great, up & coming band who I can’t believe haven’t been signed yet. Awesome album.
· The Budos Band – “The Budos Band II” (2007) – This album is so bad ass! An afro-beat, 70’s funk/soul conglomerate based outta Brooklyn. A jam collection for sure, the Budos Band kicked it big time at this years XPNential Fest at Wiggins Park in Camden, NJ.
· My Morning Jacket – “Evil Urges” (2008) – Great follow up to “Z”, a different direction than what I was expecting from them after loving “Z”, but still a really satisfying release. Was definitely a close contender for the Top 10 this year.
· Dead Confederate – “Wrecking Ball” (2008) – Weird 1990’s esque grunge rock band from the south.. Kings of Leon / My Morning Jacket meets Nirvana/Pearl Jam… none of which is bad in any way.
· Estelle – “Shine” (2008) – The Black rapping Amy Winehouse!… mix in a little Kanye West for radio appeal & you’ve got a greatly produced Soul / R&B / Hip-hop album with a songstress that has charisma & a killer voice.
· The Gaslight Anthem – “Sink or Swim” (2006?) – These guys are a really cool post-punk, Springsteen influenced rock band, that I’ve discovered thanks to the WXPN – Y-Rock show out of Philly.. this is a pretty dang good album. I’m still trying to dig up their supposedly better, 2008 entry “The ’59 Sound”.
· Heatmiser – “Mic City Sons” (1996) – Elliot Smiths’ earlier band. Great, Great, Great. Hard to believe this sound was 1996.
· Keane – “Perfect Symmetry” (2008) – Really good album, funk & dance-y, disco tinged release for Keane. Quite a startling departure from their earlier "radiohead-esque" comparisons of yesteryear. Great to hear them branch out into a direction that is all their own.
There’s quite a few more honorable mentions but I’ve scratched the surface & that should be a pretty good start… right?
Whew!
Comments, criticisms, bitter disagreements? Have at ‘em!
* Eric Roberts is an actor who appeared in the 1989 film "The Best of the Best".
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