Digg this storyPART I (#75-#51)
| On the fringe: Dropkick Murphys - The Meanest of Times; Emma Pollock - Watch the Fireworks; We All Have Hooks For Hands - The Pretender; Besnard Lakes - Are the Dark Horse; Dungen - Tio Bitar; Track A Tiger - We Moved Like Ghosts; Tomahawk - Anonymous; Battles - Mirrored; No Age - Weirdo Rippers; Oh My God - Fools Want Noise; The Acorn - Glory Hope Mountain; Shinichi Osawa - The One; The Warlocks - Heavy Skull Lover |
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075 | Sunset Rubdown Random Spirit Lover [Jagjaguwar/Oct 9] |
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Third LP from Wolf Parade member is weirder than its predecessors — its rhythmic, staccato vocals contrast the surrounding circus-y instrumentation to form a strangely appealing aural carnival.
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074 | Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Some Loud Thunder [Self-released/Jan 30] |
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The eclectic mixture of artsy post-punk and playfulness on these post-David Byrnians’ sophomore record is more reflective, less poppy and more challenging than its antecedent.
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073 | Chromeo Fancy Footwork [V2/May 8] |
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Canadian dance pop duo’s second release is a metro-stained helping of funky grooves and insouciant hooks that are both guilty pleasures and skillfully crafted dance anthems.
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072 | Other Men Wake Up Swimming [Robocore/Mar 20] |
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Pinback and Heavy Vegetable alumni team up for a set of spastic melodies and cracked-out vocals that collide perfectly with eachother to create a kind of tensely panicked charm.
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071 | Holy Fuck LP [Young Turks/Oct 23] |
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Toronto analog improvisationalists deliver second full-length of bleeding free-form electronica that twists and chugs and pulsates its way through a strange land of anti-dramatic melodica.
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070 | Die! Die! Die! Promises Promises [Tardus/Oct 8] Note: scheduled for 2008 US release |
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New Zealand neo no-wavers’ latest is more exploratory, more melodic and more dynamic while still noisy and abrasive, revealing more depth and more sagacity with each successive listen.
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069 | Simian Mobile Disco Attack Decay Sustain Release [Wichita/Jun 18] |
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British electronic duo’s debut is jam-packed with ridiculously catchy dance beats, energetic rhythms and an explosively repressed attack on the senses.
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068 | Papercuts Can’t Go Back [Gnomonsong/Feb 13] |
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Californian neo-hippie Jason Quever’s second record is a transient, nomadic rubberband ball of bubbly melodies that are fully aware (and quite accepting) of their looming deaths.
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067 | Justice † [Ed Banger/Jun 11] |
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French house duo’s first full-length is a brilliant update of Daft Punk’s blazing dancefloor anthems, its instantly memorable hooks transforming everything in its path to neon-checkered lights and ecstasy-fueled floor-stompings.
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066 | Sole & the Skyrider Band Sole & the Skyrider Band [Anticon/Oct 23] |
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Avant-garde hip-hop artist’s latest combines intellectual, stream-of-consciousness vocal delivery with spacey, atmospheric overtures and abstract idealism.
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065 | Apostle of Hustle National Anthem of Nowhere [Arts & Crafts/Feb 6] |
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Broken Social Scene frontman offers up a guileful odyssey of worldly influences and hypnotic soundscapes that traverse through everything from downtempo to reggae.
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064 | Thrice The Alchemy Index, Vol. 1 & 2 [Vagrant/Oct 16] |
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First two parts of post-hardcore band’s four-part conceptual anthology offers quite literal aural interpretations of Earth’s elements; dreary, atmospherical homages soaked to the core with evolutionary subtext.
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063 | Immaculate Machine Immaculate Machine’s Fables [Mint/Jun 12] |
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Canadian band returns with an excellent third effort that brims with sunny melodies and boy/girl harmonies that reminisce and introspect with a modest coyness.
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062 | Jesu Conqueror [Hydra Head/Feb 20] |
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Justin Broadrick returns with another sedated collection of stoned ambience and layers upon layers of droning, apocalyptic doomgaze that could quite possibly destroy the world’s sunlight in slow motion if played loud enough.
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061 | Caribou Andorra [Merge/Aug 21] |
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Daniel Snaith’s latest wintery wonderland ebbs and flows in a snowy-December haze of subtle melodies and intricate arrangements which beg for repeated listens and provide joyous memories that never really existed.
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060 | Chuck Ragan Feast or Famine [SideOneDummy/Aug 7] |
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Former Hot Water Music frontman’s solo debut is a whiskey-soaked, introspective compendium contemplating life’s left hooks and unjustness — cloaked in a folksy flurry of harmonicas, violins and banjos.
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059 | Stars In Our Bedroom After the War [Arts & Crafts/Sep 25] |
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Canadian indie pop band’s fourth LP is a sublimely rich symphonic orchestration of vocalized sorrow, complete with pianized ballads and heartbroken themes of lost love.
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058 | Wilco Sky Blue Sky [Nonesuch/May 15] |
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Alt-country superheroes’ latest continues to experiment with avant-jazz and atmospheric folk-pop to form an engaging (if relaxing) record filled with subtle instrumental complexities that only add to the depth of Jeff Tweedy’s increasingly engrossing vocals.
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057 | Rocky Votolato The Bragg & Cuss [Barsuk/Jun 19] |
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Alt-country singer-songwriter’s fifth album is another familiarly folk-tinged gem of pseudo-southern backwater rock that sounds as breezy as it is heavy.
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056 | Pinback Autumn of the Seraphs [Touch and Go/Sep 11] |
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Energetic indie mainstays return with new LP of distinctively catchy brand of liquified melodies backed by unstable rhythmic confidence and high-octane, vivacious guitar interplay.
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055 | The Sea and Cake Everybody [Thrill Jockey/May 8] |
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Jazzy indie band’s seventh album further evidences an intrinsic grasp of subtle hooks, dazed vocals, and layered pseudo-electronic melodies; meandering slowly in and out of consciousness in a sundrenched daze.
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054 | Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Baby 81 [RCA/May 1] |
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Anton Newcombe protégés’ fourth record takes a step back to the fuzzed-up-drugged-up garage rock of earlier releases and marries it perfectly with a pervading flair for mature, sensitive songwriting.
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053 | Polynya Polynya [Childhoot Pet/Aug 14] |
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North Carolinan quartet offer up debut filled with Stereolab-ish time shifts and cherubic vocal harmonies swimming contently in an ocean of kaleidoscopic, drifting immediacy.
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052 | Animal Collective Strawberry Jam [Domino/Sep 10] |
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NYC experimentalists are back with another insanity-tinged collection of Pixies-on-LSD-styled pop songs interlaced with meandering segues that form a surprisingly cohesive whole.
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051 | Mice Parade Mice Parade [Fat Cat/May 8] |
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Multi-instrumentalist New Yorkian’s latest is a typically genre-defying blend of electronica, post-rock, layered melodies and simplistically intense beauty; like a frozen butterfly emerging from a burning cocoon.
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Part II (#50-26)
Part III (#25-1)