Rockfeedback Records of the Year 2009 – #40-31
By: Dan Monsell, Chris Helsen, Thomas Hannan, Kevin Molloy, Tim Dellow
40) The Dodos - Time to Die (Wichita)
Supposedly named after a catchphrase of frontman Meric's when faced with a yay or nay decision (Shall I ask that girl out? Yes? Ok then - time to die), Time to Die is the Dodos rather understated (but thankfully correctly spelt) return following 2008's Vister. The band's rough history follows a trajectory from a Meric solo project, to include (the thoroughly awesome) percussionist and drummer Logan, and on this latest LP a fulltime vibraphone player in the form of Keaton Snyder (Rockfeedback caught an intimate session with the original duo, minus Keaton, earlier this year. Check it out here). So, if there was a ya or nay decision to be had, on starting this album, it was probably, 'Shall we make an absolutely awesome pop record, by reining in all those mistakes we left in the mix on the last record, and getting that Fleet Foxes and Shins producer guy in to make us sound awesome? Ok then - Time to Die.' Phil Ek dutifully on board, the band have thoroughly delivered. And any concerns that polishing up the Dodos would leave us none of those jagged edges we loved so much on Vister are casually dismissed across the record. Clattering rhythms bounce off each other as soon as they come out of your speakers - the whole album is a showcase to just what can be done with a shedload of percussion and a frenzied pace of alternating guitar work between fingerpicking and frantic dashes up and down the fret board. The vibraphone in the back just helps keep all of the above together in a warm and fuzzy glowing spell - even playing an mp3 version of one of these songs through a set of generic in-ear headphones, you'd still feel like you were listening to the warm embrace of a heavyweight vinyl. And perhaps that's this album's greatest achievement - Time to Die manages to stray into the middle ground between lo-fi and production, and come out of the other side unscathed by either side. The result is undeniably gorgeous, a simultaneous work of love, craft and virtuosity, an audio equivalent to a bourbon, with a little dash of moonshine. [KEVIN MOLLOY]
39) Fanfarlo - Reservoir (Atlantic)
Honing their craft patiently on London's indie underground, there was mini-celebration the land over when everyone's favourite young indie-upstarts Fanfarlo finally released their debut LP this year. Inevitably, a record deal with Atlantic and critical acclaim on both sides of the pond followed. Reservoir provided a fine collection of instantly loveable melodic pop songs to start the days and wile away the seasons. Their own take on the triumphant sub-genre of folk-tinged indie-rock (itself one of the decades musical wins), meant that comparisons to Arcade Fire and Beirut where always inevitable. However, the sheer creativity and fine talent of these fine young souls was without doubt, and it's for this reason that they're a band to make fans proper and make us yearn to hear more. [DANIEL MONSELL]
38) Bat For Lashes - Two Suns (Parlophone)
In a year where the synth-pop female appeared to champion all, Natasha Khan's Bat For Lashes stride atop this pile, whilst also managing to be altogether different, more interesting, innovative and timeless. Where debut LP "Fur and Gold" meandered, dipped and waved into exciting pysch-pop directions, "Two Suns" carried this forward by sanding off some of the edges and going full steam into high-production audio whimsy. How good it sounded too. "Two Suns" thus emerged a more accomplished and rounded body of work than before. This time around the melancholic pop majesty of the likes of ‘Daniel’, ‘Pearl’s Dream’ and ‘Sleep Alone’ meant that the more casual music fans whose ears were prickled first time around, sat up and listened proper here. This was the record where Khan staked her critical acclaim torch firmly into the ground (picking up her second mercury nomination along the way), yet became a real crossover artist. With songs and mystical splendour as an artist at her disposal like this, there's no reason to doubt that Khan could eventually be up there with the Bjorks and Kate Bush's of this world in the near future. [DANIEL MONSELL]
37) Current 93 – Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain (Southern)
David Tibet is hilarious, yes. But of course, he’s also deadly, terrifyingly serious, and he’ll have spent ages putting together bat-sh*t crazy lines like “I saw the ghost train fake orgasm for the cliffs!” and finding them a suitable place in the overarching narrative of the titular Aleph that weaves its incomprehensible way through the album’s 53 minutes. This is a record I love, though it tells a tale I still don’t understand. Nonetheless, in its relentlessness, persistent discomfort and wry perversity, I find it fascinating, frightening, and funny as hell. Happy listening. God is love. [THOMAS HANNAN]
36) Zu – Carboniferous (Ipecac)
Does being so consistently inventive, so doggedly against the norm, so deliberately ignorant of codes of practice when it comes to these things, constitute its own kind of dullness, repetitiveness, mundanity? It could. But that's why the rock element is so important to Zu. They're playing riffs, and yes, other people have played riffs before. But whilst I can name people who have played them like this, the only names I bring up in comparison are the likes of Lightning Bolt, The Melvins, Ruins, The Thing, Sunn O)))... those of unquestionably pioneering geniuses. It's time to start counting Zu up there with them, says I. [THOMAS HANNAN]
35) Tortoise – Beacons of Ancestorship (Thrill Jockey)
Leaving boundary pushing to the likes of protégés Animal Collective and Aphex Twin, Tortoise seem to have taken on something of a scholarly role with Beacons of Ancestorship. There's no ground being broken here that hasn't been smashed through by others, or indeed themselves, before - but there's still a lot one can learn, even more to enjoy, about the band's umpteenth record. Yes, Tortoise might be comfortable exploring the rules of their chosen medium whilst others are busy valiantly disregarding them, with varying success. But it's important to remember that if anyone's afforded this right, it's these guys - after all, a good few chapters of the rulebook are in their handwriting. [THOMAS HANNAN]
34) The Horrors – Primary Colours (XL)
This is by no means a perfect album - at times it's almost parodic how they manage to spit those out who have come before them. An actual My Bloody Valentine guitar-part here, a Joy Division bass-line there, drum parts exactly the same as Tortoise/My Bloody Valentine. 'I Only Think of You' just is Interpol's 'NY', and 'I Can't Control Myself' is Spiritualized. The Horrors are victims of their large record collections in this case, but their saving grace is that they pull it together well, and it's sometimes hard to ask for more in an age when kids are more aware of the music before them than ever before. [DANIEL MONSELL]
33) Speech Debelle – Speech Therapy (Big Dada)
It's remarkable how quickly an artist can fall from grace nowadays - it seems only about a week ago that Speech was winning the Mercury for her "long time in the offing, labour of love debut" before receiving a slew of bad live reviews (and ticket sales), playing for unimpressed Take That fans and unceremoniously dumping her label due to "lack of promotion". In fact, right now praising this album is about the un-coolest thing I could do. However, i shall because despite all this: it's f**king brilliant. Sure, jazzy hip hop had been done before (Pharcyde, anyone?) but this Tuung backed debut of intimate diary readings and emotively earnest vocals should speak to anyone who has a heart. From the downbeat ‘Searching’ to the creation of language (‘Overstand’) in order to connect and convey hardship of both an individual and a representation of inherited histories, this album is engrossingly consistent and feels, at this moment, astoundingly fresh. [TIM DELLOW]
32) Anthony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light (Rough Trade)
The Crying Light is a beautiful thing, imbued indeed with such a huge amount of beauty that it actually makes its title seem appropriate to convey the emotional weight of the work, rather than just something really corny, something a satirist would invent if asked to guess what the title of the next Antony and the Johnsons record might be. No, it’s not quite as good as I Am A Bird Now. But imagine this album as a standalone piece, and its merits are bountiful and clear as the daylight it admits no knowledge of. Sure, The Crying Light might sound just like his other records. But that means there are only two records in the world that sound anything like The Crying Light. [THOMAS HANNAN]
31) Noah and the Whale – First Days of Spring (Mercury)
In a world where music is increasingly disposable and has a shelf-life as short as our ever withering attention spans, Noah and the Whale have made an album that is worth its weight in gold. For it is one where you feel every word and every note means something to its writer, that blood, sweat, tears and real human emotion have gone into both its formulation and execution – and that is a rare commodity indeed. Impressive in almost every regard, it may not be what fans of ‘Five Years Time’ are looking for or were expecting, but it is at the end of the day a record you will – or at least you should – want to play again as soon as it ends. If you have ever been through the heartbreak at the end of a relationship, that is. Flawless it isn’t, but such is the ambition (emphasised by the album’s poignant companion film, also written and directed by Charlie Fink), quality and sheer beauty of The First Days of Spring, that you can’t fail to be moved by it. As Fink sings on the National-esque ‘Slow Glass’, “it’s not just music...the pain’s not brief”: this record is his catharsis, and its catharsis must surely resonate with all who listen to it. [CHRIS HELSEN]
Artists in this article: Bat For Lashes, The Dodos, Fanfarlo, Current 93, Zu, Tortoise, The Horrors, Speech Debelle, Antony & The Johnsons, Noah & The Whale