Rockfeedback Records of the Year 2009 #20-11
By: Thomas Hannan, Tim Dellow, Keri Kennedy, Dan Monsell, Chris Helsen, Liam Manley
20) Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer (Jagjaguwar)
Dragonslayer is a massive sandwich of an album and not one of those composed mainly of doughy Bowie bread. No, the most distinguishable ingredient here is 70s Sparks spread evenly over Casio keyboard filigree and fugue. If you were nightmare-scarred enough to have such thoughts, you could perhaps compare it to melodically opulent 80s power rock. But only if you could re-imagine Brian Eno as a much hairier man – a much hairier man who joined Toto and made them awesome. [LIAM MANLEY]
19) Sonic Youth – The Eternal (Matador)
Let’s be honest, any year with a new Sonic Youth album is a good year. It’s true that The Eternal probably finds music’s most influential alternative rock band at the least ‘alternative’ end of their spectrum to date, but from the album’s opening atonal chords and Kim Gordon yelping ‘what’s it like to be a girl in a band?’, it’s clear that the band’s 16th record is still very much their own. As you’d expect, a new label and new member in the studio affected little of what Sonic Youth do: The Eternal sounds like a slightly more polished and streamlined version of the same glorious noise they’ve been blessing us with for nigh on 30 years. [CHRIS HELSEN]
18) A Hawk and a Hacksaw- Délivrance (Leaf)
If they were any less than brilliant at what they do, it would be easy to rip apart A Hawk and A Hacksaw as frauds, pretenders, imposters. But the music they make is so studied, so clearly the work of a group who have immersed themselves in the sounds and culture of Eastern Europe out of a genuine, deep love and fascination for it and nothing else, that worries about who made the music become irrelevant – the only relevant thing is the music they make. Which is astounding. As such, one can take these culture vultures seriously in a way that one can’t to the same extent with, say, Vampire Weekend. The musicianship on Délivrance might well be some of the most astounding in your collection, the rhythms alien to the ears of one raised only on rock music in the most eye-opening manner, the vocal melodies bizarrely delivering lyrics detailing themes deliberately vague (and all the more intriguing for it)... it’s a confusing ride, but in virtue of its infectious, exotic and baffling nature, it’s one of the finest records of the year all the same. [THOMAS HANNAN]
17) Wilco – Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch)
Yet this latest, surprisingly breezy, honky tonk filled seventh record sees Wilco having some brilliantly self referential giggles. Over forty minutes that race by, you get the sound of the band with the wind in its hair and the sun on its back. It’s not just in the titles (Wilco (The Album) opens with ‘Wilco (The Song)’ and its brilliant chorus of “Wilco, Wilco, Wilco... I love you baby”) that they reference themselves, poking fun at their own status as supposedly the ‘best band in the world right now’, but also in the sonic delivery – it’s vintage Wilco, nodding back to their highest previous artistic peaks, but stripped of any of the pretence that might have made them seem a little too highbrow to bother with. [THOMAS HANNAN]
16) Passion Pit – Chunk of Change EP (Frenchkiss)
As belated Valentine's Day gifts turned in to bands go... this is the only one I can name. But as bedroom dalliances with laptop music software and strained surely-that-must-be-a-girl falsetto experiments morphed in to huge hype generating full band propositions go... this is genuinely amongst the most exciting pop in 2009. And what makes it exciting is the personal nature of it so apparent from merely the initial notes of the impeccable, sprawling opener 'I've Got Your Number', the idea that Passion Pit are really reaching for something with all their might the whole time. Often, that thing they're trying to attain is the right note - Michael Angelakos is not singing in a register that is particularly suited to his voice. But this roughness to its edges, this admittance of its failings - where do you hear that in any other electronically based music? This feels like a proper band, even though when it was recorded, Passion Pit were barely even a one man project. Angelakos means it enough for five people, or at least he did here. The album they made after this fine, fine start was sadly devoid of any of this ramshackle charm. [THOMAS HANNAN]
15) Future of the Left – Travels With Myself and Another (4AD)
Travels with Myself and Another marks another meaningful, dropkick of an album from a band that many have come to, and will increasingly arrive at to cherish. This time it's a slightly more arena-referencing grown-up rock than the band's debut raw assault, as evidenced best when the first chorus of ‘Arming Eritrea’ kicks in. However it's still as fierce, snarling and funny a rock record you're likely to hear in recent times. One of the year's best rock LPs, and a reason to love ever more a band who will continue to be revered as time eats away at the world. Why? Because they are a group with ideals, beliefs, heart and an ability to pack a big blast of fun. [DANIEL MONSELL]
14) Yeah Yeah Yeahs -It’s Blitz! (Interscope)
It’s Blitz!, the third album proper “sounds different, but still sounds like Yeah Yeah Yeahs” as the band put it before it leaked on the internet earlier this year. Such was the anticipation that Interscope brought the release date forward a month. It is more polished, electronic and a world away from debut Fever To Tell. Opening track ‘Zero’ was a jump-a-long assault on the ears, almost an electro ‘Date With The Night’. ‘Heads Will Roll’ was in the same vein, while ‘Shame and Fortune’ was dark, sleazy and built to a crescendo of Nick Zinner’s trademark guitar. Like Fever to Tell and Show Your Bones, It’s Blitz! had tender moments – ‘Hysteric’ wasn’t quite ‘Maps’ but was a sure contender for the album’s top tear-jerker. It’s Blitz! is different, but on it the Yeah Yeah Yeahs prove change can be, and is, pretty good. [KERI KENNEDY]
13) Swan Lake – Enemy Mine (Jagjaguwar)
All it took was a little focus. Miraculously, Swan Lake have on Enemy Mine transformed in to more than the sum of their parts. This record makes Wolf Parade seem frivolous, Destroyer seem over cooked, Frog Eyes somehow lonely. The men in this band (Dan Bejar, Spencer Krug, Carey Mercer) make up those bands, which used to be the only reason why people cared about Swan Lake. Now, you can justifiably give a sh*t because of the music that's been made, not just because of who made it. This is a scary, gorgeous and wifully peculiar record that displays a rare kind of uncategorisable song craft. It’s true that any one of those aforementioned bands could have ruled the world, and still might, if their respective members decide that's what they want. This shows what they're capable of if they put their minds to it. Yet, after Enemy Mine, there's a strong argument for the case that they should drop everything, and just be Swan Lake for a bit. [THOMAS HANNAN]
12) The Field – Yesterday and Today (Kompakt)
An almost contradictory mood of minor delight, a sadness that remains like the feeling of a light kiss at the end of a night – a beautiful, yet hopeful, absence of The Other, yet the feeling that they somehow remain, continues throughout the Field’s second LP. Propulsive album highlight ‘Leave It’ thrusts you forwards into uncharted territories with individual almost-melodies that you can live in for months, eternally out of reach but close enough to tantalise all your senses. This is a truly immersive, complex and rewarding listen, reassuring even the most jaded that there is a future, or futurism for modern music. Quite simply, an important record, for Europe and humanity. [TIMOTHY DELLOW]
11) Various Artists – Dark Was The Night (4AD)
The liner notes describe the purpose of this charity collection better than we can - we're in the business of reviewing music, not illnesses. If we were reviewing illnesses, AIDS would definitely get a 0/5. AIDS is RUBBISH. The music here however is a never atrocious, consistently delightful and occasionally spectacular snap shot of where it is alternative music finds itself in 2009. Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, Arcade Fire, Antony Hegarty, Ben Gibbard, Bon Iver, Beirut, Sufjan Stevens? Zeitgeist, consider yourself captured. [THOMAS HANNAN]
Artists in this article: Sunset Rubdown, Sonic Youth, A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Wilco, Passion Pit, Future of the Left, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Swan Lake, The Field, Dirty Projectors