War on Radio

Here we go again! This chapter of the countdown gets into some of 2008’s spaciest, dreamiest territory in the continuing quest to get to my number 1 album and not have to write this list anymore (I am having fun with it, but damn this is a lot to write).

The List So Far:
50. Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux
49. Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul
48. Owl City - Maybe I’m Dreaming
47. Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
46. Counting Crows - Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings
45. Sigur Rós - Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
44. The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
43. Juliana Hatfield - How to Walk Away
42. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
41. The Kills - Midnight Boom
40. Man Man - Rabbit Habits
39. Shugo Tokumaru - Exit
38. Lambchop - OH (Ohio)
37. Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Lie Down in the Light
36. Drive By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
35. Panic at the Disco - Pretty. Odd.
34. TV on the Radio - Dear Science
33. The Mighty Underdogs - Droppin’ Science Fiction
32. The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia
31. Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances

And we continue…

30. R.E.M. - Accelerate
After putting out arguably the best record of their career (no small feat) in 1992’s Automatic for the People, R.E.M. seemed to have lost a bit of their footing. While there were some incredibly sublime moments (see “E-Bow the Letter” from New Adventures in Hi-Fi), this is the first R.E.M. album in 16 years that sounds truly focused. Even the quieter songs are built around solid riffs with tight textural elements (see: the organ in “Houston”) and don’t wander off on tangents. Michael Stipe is in fine form as both a vocalist and lyricist–more straightforward in the latter than he has been in some time. Accelerate isn’t the band’s best record, true, but it does save them from the brink of irrelevance–the band has energy once again, even approaching their fourth decade, which isn’t something many acts can claim.

29. School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms
I had high expectations for a group made up of ex-Secret Machines guitarist/vocalist Ben Curtis and former On!Air!Library! twins Alley and Claudia Deheza. I was not disappointed. Alpinisms is one of the best dream pop/shoegaze-ish records I’ve heard in some time. The sisters’ goregously layered vocals float through playful, open melodies, surrounded by clouds of guitars, keys and a palate of sounds that hints at influences from Can to Stereolab. The lyrics are pretty enough, dipping into meditative/philosophical territory (”Allow yourself to be relieved” or “Those who say dreams are just dreams say words end when you can’t hear them”), but take a backseat to the pure, joyful sound of the record. It’s music to drift away to and a great use of the considerable talent involved.

28. Spiritualized - Songs in A & E
Don’t let the title fool you–Spiritualized records are never that plain or simple. In fact, they’re usually massive, drugged out, hazy, doom-laden affairs, even the relatively raw Amazing Grace, and this album isn’t an exception to that. It is, however, a slight modulation–rather than building to huge, spacy peaks, the album is more restless, drifting uncomfortably between different ideas in a collage-like fashion. Jason Pierce’s fondness for incorporating elements of gospel music, a gloomy sensibility (the album is haunted by the specter of death) and his warbling vocal are the unifying elements amidst washes of strings, fuzzed out guitars, electronic noises and lilting rhythms. The thing is, the snaky discomfort of the record is what makes it interesting–it hasn’t been since Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space that a Spiritualized album has been this guttural; it’s meant to be a slightly bracing listen and entering the weird world it creates elicits a powerful and intriguing reaction.

27. Benoît Pioulard - Temper
If epic, driving majestry like that of Explosions in the Sky or GY!BE is post-rock, one might call the music of Benoît Pioulard (aka Thomas Meluch) post-folk. It’s built on a foundation that mixes acoustic guitar lines and gentle melodies into a swirling cloud of electronic and ambient sounds resulting in something that approximates a warped fragment of Fairport Convention lost in outer space. Temper expands on the formula laid out on 2006’s Précis, giving the tracks a little more of an anchor, but this is still an album made for getting lost in–tuneful numbers are interspersed with droning instrumentals full of beautifully alien sounds. The result is something wintry and crystalline that both demands and supports dreamlike exploration.

26. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of Understatement
Nothing about the Arctic Monkeys nor The Rascals–the main gigs of Alex Turner and Miles Kane, respectively–would suggest the kind of epic scope the duo achieves here. It uses the baroque art-rock of Scott Walker, Robert Wyatt, etc as a foundation–so much so that the album wouldn’t sound out of place circa 1970–but injects that very distinct sound with some heady adrenaline. The melodies lilt back and forth over swaying horn/string arrangements (in part the work of Owen Pallett), but the rhythms charge forward in the manner of dramatic marches, giving the songs a driving sense of speed and power. The combination creates a sound that’s ornate, sophisticated and intelligent without getting lost in its own artiness. The band takes classic sounds (much in the way their main bands do), but actually expands and updates them, rather than merely mimicking, in the process creating something distinct. Here’s hoping they do another record together.

25. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Speaking of drawing from and updating the past, maybe no record did that quite as distinctly this year as this one. The band seems to mix and match songs drawn straight out of various late ’60s and ’70s styles (british folk, progressive rock, classic singer/songwriter, etc) and marinates them in My Morning Jacket-style reverb. The lyrics are flooded with natural imagery (streams, forests, morning light, what have you) which contributes to the folksy, occasionally somewhat mystical (see: “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”) and timeless feel the record creates. The sound is remarkably comfortable and accomplished for a debut record–its pacing is measured and careful and the atmosphere sounds finely honed. It’ll be interesting to see how this Seattle outfit tops this one next time out–it’s hard to tell how much further they could go from here.

24. The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Grave
Making a great case for the “less is more” aesthetic, Swede Kristian Matsson takes a trip to rural Appalachia for this brief record, comprised of almost nothing but a solo acoustic guitar/banjo (one or two songs layer both) and a nasal, shitmouthed folk vocal. The starkness of the arrangements make the accomplished fingerpicking and gorgeous, soaring melodies all there is to hear, drawing attention to the vivid details of each. The lyrics brim with a lonely aching, but express it in lovely images (”When I’m covered by the thunder I’ll get rid of all the breath deep in our lungs,” eg), and Matsson warbles each sentiment with heartfelt conviction, his voice cracking and rasping in all the right places. I don’t remember how I came across this record, but it’s been in heavy rotation for the past few months.

23. Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
I got this album because the title made me laugh when I first heard it. I don’t know what I was expecting from the record itself, but it wasn’t this. Listening to this record is like being haunted by something–at times, it’s barely a presence on the corner of your consciousness, while other times it’s boldly apparent, beautiful and eerie. Liz Harris’s voice layers and intertwines with itself, sounding both spooky and inviting, even if the lyrics are often lost in the haze. Except for the piano on “Disengaged,” I can’t identify any instruments other than guitars, but that’s not immediately obvious–both electric and acoustic are often washed and processed into indistinct sounds as otherworldly as the vocals they surround. While there isn’t anything close to a hook here, the atmosphere is rich enough to demand attention and in the process of trying to sort out what you’re hearing, the record reveals an incredible beauty.

22. Augie March - Watch Me Disappear
One of the most interesting aspects of Augie March’s four albums is the time it takes for each to reveal its real character. As with 2006’s Moo, You Bloody Choir, I was mildly disappointed by this one at first–while it had a certain charm, nothing hit me in the gut the way “There is No Such Place” or “This Train Is Taking No Passengers” did. Yet with each listen, the charm became more vivid–little touches in each song became more apparent, like the way the vocal melody plays against the guitar and bass lines in “City of Rescue” or the subtle minor chord changes in “The Glenorchy Bunyip.” As it turns out, the record is really quite accomplished and tightly wound together without being showy. Glenn Richards’ poetry–and he is one of the most overtly poetic lyricists working today–doesn’t disappoint either; he creates stories steeped in mythology and allusion, always hinting at slightly more than he actually says. The album still hasn’t fully opened up to me, but it’s already rocketed up in my estimation and maintains my faith in these lovely chaps as one of my favourite groups.

21. Deerhunter - Microcastle
This is a weird album. It’s not really a standard indie-rock/pop record–the songs are just a little too out of focus, have a little too much noise, sound just a little too off. But it’s not purely an experimental record either. Instead, it’s as though Bradford Cox and company have taken pop songs and twisted them just a little beyond recognition. Take “Activa,” which sounds like a folk ballad cut apart and reassembled as something a little more frightening, or the title track, which comes off like a ’50s Top 40 hit slowed way down and stretched out like taffy until a suddenly bombastic conclusion in its final third. The result of this approach is a record that’s appealingly strange and a lot more accessible than it seems like it should be, even if it’s not exactly catchy.

Phew. Tomorrow, we enter the top 20. Mwahaha.