Rockfeedback’s Top 80 Records of the Year 2008 - Part 2
By: Various Scribes
40. THE COOL KIDS - THE BAKE SALE (XL)
Hands down, The Bake Sale was THE party album of the year. With two of the freshest flows heard in a long time combining over often nothing more than a drum loop and a bassline, The Bake Sale, along with new albums from Kanye, Lupe and Common (not to mention 'That One'), helped shift focus away from the grandiose east, the lavish west and the dirty south. In 2008, hip-hop found a new home - Chicago. From the very first beat of the album (the "boom"-s, "tick"-s and "clap"-s of 'What Up Man'), we knew we were in for a treat. Chuck Inglish And Mikey Rocks, along with the rest of the Chicago set, knew that rap needed a little more refinement, a little more excitement, and a lot more one liners. Taking Chuck's minimal beats as a starting point, the duo proceed to craft eleven of the funniest, catchiest tracks of the year. They basically just talk about themselves for thirty-five minutes (with a name like that, what can one expect?), but their lyrical prowess is such that they are able to sustain the flow for the entirety. When they occasionally do segue into new areas, they tend to focus on three things - women (the angular squelch of 'Black Mags', the frantic bounce of 'What It Is'), reliving the 80s ('One Two', '88', 'A Little Bit Cooler') and getting down - stand-out 'Bassment Party', which has a breakdown that runs thus; "If you knew what I knew/You would prob'ly try to/Do whatever I do/Prob'ly move to Chicago." They're the only ones in the world doing what they're doing, and in a few short bars, they manage to show why no-one else should try - no-one's going to be as good as they are. (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
39. LOS CAMPESINOS - WE ARE BEAUTIFUL WE ARE DOOMED (Wichita)
Los Campesinos! making music used to be like watching preparatory school students adopt cockney accents for the school production of Oliver Twist - endearing, cute, but just a little bit rubbish. Just like all my ex girlfriends, every instrument begged for your attention. But, this is an albums of the year piece. And Los Campesinos second album, released a Stone Roses mocking 8 months after their debut, is breathtaking. The band bristle with newfound musicianship, bile and cynicism. The lyrics are no longer unnecessarily complex, but instead fizz with black humour. See the chiasmus-like, "we kid ourselves there's future in the fucking/ but there is no fucking future" or "I identify my star sign, by asking which is least compatible with yours". At this rate, in August 2009, Los Campesinos will be a truly epochal band. (Kieran O'Halloran)
Los Campesinos! not only get props for releasing two full-lengthers in 2008, there should also be the sound of 14 hands patting seven backs reverberating around Cardiff for the combined brilliance of both Hold On Now Youngster and We Are Beautiful.... 10 more tongue in cheek quotidien tales of the disaffected and heartbroken more than complement their debut, on this limited-run-no-single-once-it's-gone-it's-gone album, with more great songs a plenty and a title track to absolutely die for. (Chris Helsen)
38. WHITE DENIM - WORKOUT HOLIDAY (Full Time Hobby)
From the instant 'Let's Talk About It' bursts out of your speakers with pounding drums and the crazy vocals of James Petralli, it's obvious that White Denim's Workout Holiday could well be the most exciting album of 2008. Bursting with nervous energy and more soul than James Brown's breakfast cereal, the Texas trio rip through an albums worth of psychedelic punk in what seems like a minute. Steve Terebecki's fluttering basslines, and Joshua Block's reckless drumming, power an album so packed with ideas that it demands listen after joyful listen. A brilliant live act as well - as proved by their clattering performance at this year's Mighty Boosh Festival - White Denim are a band whose inventiveness propels them into the stratosphere. (Joe MacAllister)
37. THE WAVE PICTURES - INSTANT COFFEE BABY (Moshi Moshi)
Music often provides a well-renowned catharsis for those racked with sociopathic impulses and The Wave Pictures are a perfect case point, forming a distillation of the erudite neurosis of their chief songwriter, Dave Tattersall. By no means a car crash stumbling through illness and destitution ala Television Personalities, The Wave Pictures are a strange amalgam of the joyful and the socially perverse and with Instant Coffee Baby they've hit an apotheosis. The Wave Pictures are driven by the same pop impulses as conceived by Jonathan Richman and the Velvet Underground, and channelled by bookish but disarmingly seamy indie icons like Hefner (with whom all three of The Wave Pictures often play). Charged with twisted witticisms and a plague of failed and failing relationships, Instant Coffee Baby is buoyed by a charming power-pop simplicity, offset by an equally soured tongue that's as sharp as cystitis. As immediate and affecting as the song writing is here - and they're certainly a band with the requisite chops, if chops is what you need - it's the inventive wordplay that truly engages. Tattersall's shrill whine is an acquired taste perhaps, but it's pinpoint designed for the tales he weaves. The desperation of each failed sexual endeavour and ridiculous social indiscretion is present in the body of a voice that forever stretches and searches for a note technically better singers find in an instant. And as anyone that has witnessed them live this year will attest, Tattersall is by far the most proficient singer in the band. But it's in this apparent 'lack' that The Wave Pictures shine; virtuosity supplanted (and thankfully so) with a yearning to be heard, suggesting stories that need to be told. It's pure unfettered jouissance sidled with a literary bent and as such finds itself of a lineage shared with such luminaries as Modern Lovers, Bowie and Costello: a heady pantheon indeed. As Tattersall insistently wails through 'I Love You Like Mad Man', evoking images slightly unnerving for their close-to-the-bone desperation, there's nevertheless a pervasive and flagrant romanticism that still believes that hearts can be won, broken and fixed through the power of song. And in these cynical times, that's a belief with which we can all sympathise. (Steve Pietrzykowski)
36. BRITISH SEA POWER - DO YOU LIKE ROCK MUSIC? (Rough Trade)
Despite the change in studio personnel, the band have managed to keep their unique world vision, and the album is bursting with memorable hooks and melodies. Songs touch on the Canvey Island flood disaster ('Canvey Island'), there's a mesmerising instrumental dedicated to a predatory seagull ('The Great Skua') and on the fantastic 'No Lucifer' a touching salute to British wrestler Big Daddy. It's an album as wonderfully dense as it is immediate, a testament to what a band can do when they think outside the box. In answer to their question, on this evidence then the answer has to be yes. (Michael Cragg)
35. JOHNNY GREENWOOD - THERE WILL BE BLOOD OST (Nonesuch)
Without trying to sound oddly patronising, there is a certain sense of pride that I get when a skinny, wrist support-wearing closet weirdo like Johnny makes truly terrifying, powerful music like this. There is something about the way his music operates on such an emotional level, it makes you think that he's constantly looking at life from a distant position, trying to work out what it means to be alive. This soundtrack puts the viewer into a position of intense meditation on the human condition, the overwhelming arc of birth life and death... (Charlie Potter)
34. SUBTLE - EXITING ARM (Lex)
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Subtle are better than you. Subtle are better than us all. They're better because they don't proclaim the death of rock or the stagnancy of hip-hop and go up their arses. Instead they take all that is bad and all that is good and make it better. They're better because Doseone scours the corners of our minds picking up the words we don't use and the thoughts we don't acknowledge and applies them to lines with such frightening skill and panache you wonder how he makes it from one song to the next without suffering a cerebral haemorrhage. The overall musicianship puts Subtle above one hell of a lot of inferior bands which includes you or me or anyone we know that makes music. Put simply, Subtle are visionaries. If you can't appreciate Subtle you're scared. That or you don't actually like music. You just say you do. (Andrew Misuraca)
33. DEERHOOF - OFFEND MAGGIE (ATP)
Rockfeedback heralded the Deerhoof masterpiece that is Friend Opportunity as our record of the year in 2007. It changed my life, reshaping precisely what I thought a three piece rock band were capable of (as it turns out, anything). Its follow up, Offend Maggie, didn't change my life again - it just made my already altered state of musical appreciation an even more pleasant place to be. Sure, it didn't completely change the world like we hoped it might, but there's something about listening to a band who don't feel any pressure to be revolutionary, a group of expert musicians just having the time of their lives, that culminates in its own brand of indubitable genius. (Tom Hannan)
32. SIGUR ROS - Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust EMI)
The most versatile and exciting album from this lot yet. The record suggests more mainstream horizons in sight, with 'Gobbledigook' having the drums and snap of an indie sound - a quirky and inexorably flamboyant indie sound - but still arguably conformist. It has all the usual disobedience of any significant Sigur Ros record though which with glimpses of conventionality and some of their more ludicrous sonic ideas yet translate into one of the best pieces of individualist music of 2008. (Alex Lee Thomson)
31. BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY - LIE DOWN IN THE LIGHT (Domino)
Will Oldham's latest has a distinct air of renewal: rather than a detour from his patented sexy misery, there was a sense of refreshed perspective, of hope. Comforting but never complacent, Lie Down In The Light has an incandecence that runs vibrant, lucid and true. However, should this fail to slake your thirst for all things Bonnie, there is also Is This The Sea, a sumptuous BBC live recording with Harem Scarem and Alex Neilson. (Liam Manley)
30. KANYE WEST - 808s and HEARTBREAK (Mercury)
No-one saw this coming. Absolutely no-one. After the bravado of Graduation, the millions upon millions sold, and the unshakeable self-assured swagger, the wary distance, with which he conducted his every move - Kanye West has a heart too. And, as you might well have gathered, its been wrent in two. "I'm a problem that'll never ever be solved." "I'm not loving you the way I wanted to." "You're gonna tell your friends that you're leaving me/They say that they can't see what you see in me/You wait a couple months then you gon' see/You'll never find nobody better than me." The last of those quotes comes from current single 'Heartless', a chugging minor-key anthem for the quietly heartbroken. It's a track that perhaps sums up best the fourth release from a man who once proclaimed, to Playboy no less, that he was "in the history books already". Over a bubbling bass drum and stuttering orchestral effects, Kanye proceeds to narrate a story of loose women and feeble men. Appropriately for an album almost entirely sung through an autotuner, Kanye's attempts at rapping in the verses seem forced, with him uneasily flitting between spoken word and grumbling monotone. As with his previous albums, he utilises a staple of contemporary hip-hop culture (here the autotuner vocal modify, a device seemingly under the monopoly of T-Pain at the moment) and takes it on with a style so original he leaves the competition for dead. What's different about 808s and Heartbreak, though, is the utter vulnerability that it lends him, so appropriate a bleak album about lost love (in the 14 months since Graduation West has had to suffer the tragic loss of his mother, Donda, and a break-up with his fiancée Alexis Phifer). The beats remain minimal throughout, with each track
29. FUCKED UP - THE CHEMISTRY OF COMMON LIFE (Matador)
Less concerned with burning down churches than the hypocrisy of the pious (be it punk insularity or right wing evangalists), Fucked Up burst through like a gang of punk-rock Richard Dawkins. Bridging post-hardcore elements with Stoogified space rock, they tear up the template, happy to fuse flutes, loops and drones with vocalist Pink Eyes' invective, like Iggy vomiting lava. The choice is simple: either wait around for the rapture or get Fucked Up and go to heaven (before you die). (Liam Manley)
28. WHY? - ALOPECIA (Tomlab)
I've been harping on about Why? Since just before Elephant Eyelash, and with good reason too. Any conversation about music at uni would be subject to what I like to call Misuraca's law, which is like Godwin's law only with Why? instead of Nazis. It was always going to be tough to follow up Elephant but by Jove, they gave it a right old go and nailed it, but so well that I'd nail the lot of them at the drop of a hat. I would be their cum-guzzling whore. I am seriously gay for Why? I'm that wasted annoying guy you see at all their London shows singing along to everything. In the same league as Subtle (collaborators, don't you know, and if you don't: cLOUDDEAD, 'nuff said), they are what the world needs now (thanks, Burt). Maverick visionaries with skills. It's official. They can put that on their CVs. (Andrew Misuraca)
27. LYKKE LI - YOUTH NOVELS (Atlantic)
One has to wonder - why is Sweden so good at producing delightful pop musicians? Their artists seem to come with an innocence, grace and humility that often makes them so much more engaging than the posturing and distant rockers from us or the US. And after ABBA, The Cardigans and Peter, Bjorn and John comes Lykke Li, a 22-year-old Stockholm-based singer who, after gathering a steady wave of industry interest from 2007, finally dropped her debut album this summer. Clearly extremely proud of her work, she takes great care over all aspects of her art - from live choreography to sublime videos to this albums beautiful sleeve - in order to ensure that the listener knows exactly where she's coming from. Musically, she uses her highly intelligent lo-fi pop as the perfect backbone for her highly intelligent lo-fi vocals. The voice, in fact, is the selling point of Li's music - a vulnerable, frail and yet empowered whisper that never fails to leave you totally enraptured. Throughout Youth Novels, she moves seamlessly from jerky dance ('I'm Good, I'm Gone', 'Breaking It Up') to blissfully ignorant glee ('Dance Dance Dance') to frail cries for companionship ('Let It Fall', 'Tonight'). And, on 'Little Bit', she combines little more than a sparse bass with heartfelt verse to create one of the best tracks of the entire year. (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
It's not an astonishing, tonking record or anything. There are about four songs, y'know? It's a download the good ones album. It's pretty good in a 'minimal pop for pretentious people who wouldn't think to admit they like Girls Aloud' kinda way. But that bit in 'Little Bit', when she sings "For you I keep my legs apart" in that faux-naif quirky teen sex voice — EASILY the best moment in music this year. (Michael Lewin)
26. THESE NEW PURITANS - BEAT PYRAMID (Domino)
These New Puritans, having flitted around the underground scene since the beginning of 2006, finally released debut full-length Beat Pyramid in late January. With it, they were to hammer in the last nail of the coffin of noughties indie. With so many of their contemporaries still dealing in the kitchen sink monotony of dreary guitars and crass lyrical ineptitude, the Southend four-piece were to prove, once and for all, that the genre desperately needed an injection of class, intelligence and accomplished musicianship, and that they were the ones to administer the lethal dose. Taking to the task of making an LP with a refreshing sophistication, the band were not afraid to wear their idiosyncrasies with pride, albeit in a more restrained manner than the vapid heart-on-sleeve faux-romanticism of the Albion brigade. Singer Jack Barnett's obsessions with numerology and symmetry, lyrical themes that could so easily reduce one to grandiose posturing, are used as a potent and menacing barrier that only adds to the stark soundscape his backing band creates, led by unflinching programmer and keyboardist Sophie Sleigh-Johnson. While lyrically they may at times be a struggle, These New Puritans are not ones to shy from a hook, no matter how angular it may be. 'Swords of Truth' rides in on a foreboding fanfare before dissolving into an impenetrable mesh of sound on the chorus, only to snap smartly out again, and 'En Papier' drills a verse of fourths before exploding into a sharp refrain. Bass player Thomas Hein has developed the ability to make only two or three notes appear more complex than a Slash-ian guitar solo, and twice as effective. 'Mkk3' may chime and clang, but it is his jumpy, melodic bassline is to dictate the drive and focus of what could have otherwise been a pointless two-minute musing, and standout 'Elvis' introduces itself with an utterly monstrous, one-note bass pedal. These New Puritans have a style that is enlightening and illuminating, wise beyond its years. Here's to the new age of rock. (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
25. HOT CHIP - MADE IN THE DARK (EMI)
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Hot Chip could have given people what they wanted - The Warning part two, basically - but we commend them for their bravery, making a record full of hip hop experiments and gentle piano ballads instead of a big club banger of an LP. That it succeeds isn't in doubt, and though we haven't figured out quite exactly what Made In The Dark actually is yet, we look forward to spending the rest of our lives with it, grappling with that dilemma whilst tapping our feet incessantly. (Tom Hannan)
24. FUCK BUTTONS - STREET HORRRSING (ATP)
OH GOD YES YES YES THANK F**K THANK YOU YES THAT WAS WHAT I WANTED TO HEAR. I exclaimed this loudly at around 8am on public transport around three minutes into 'Sweet Love for Planet Earth,' the opening track of Fuck Buttons' violent, sensual drone rock debut Street Horrrsing. Six tracks stretch over 50 minutes with few crescendos, long chords, buried vocal howls, wilful abrasions and sudden, surprising tender moments. It is a cathartic experience: tribal, repetitive and tense, it washes out the soul—but with so obviously human a heart that, for all the angst, emerging at its end feels like hopefully beginning again. Best played loud. (Michael Lewin)
23. HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR - HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR (DFA)
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A highly intriguing debut from a highly intriguing band, Hercules and Love Affair manages to offer something entirely new by, paradoxically, cobbling together a whole record from all kinds of borrowed styles. The project of New York DJ Andy Butler, he painstakingly constructed the ten songs that make up the album over a period of three years, adding a new track or overdub whenever he could scrape together the money. One couldn't say it didn't pay off, though. Every track pulsates with an energy and vigour seldom heard today in popular music. Basses thump out octaves with a somehow effortless precision; synths cascade and flutter; disco strings and keyboard brass punctuate sporadically with ice-cool exuberance. The record falls in two halves, but is still heard distinctly as a whole, surely as a reflex to the towering vaults of influence that orchestrate it. The first five tracks smack us straight away with stone-cold disco hits. 'Hercules Theme', an early highpoint, plants itself in a mid-tempo groove from the off, the slippery stabs of violins and trumpets dictating the state of play before descending into chromatic collapse. The singles 'You Belong' and 'Blind' both see Butler set squarely at the dancefloor - the former a paranoid throb of choppy voices and spluttery effects, the latter a burst of bongos and boisterous brass. Straight away, however, we slip into the dewy-eyed comedown of 'Iris', and start to look from a new angle at the Hercules universe. The latter half is distinctly more reserved, and this is to only add to its appeal. 'Easy' flits around over a dark, brooding, disjunct beat, while 'This Is My Love' and 'Raise Me Up' take the opposite route, locking early on into robotic and conservative rhythms that both entice and push away. Butler's taken a risk here - Hercules ... could quite easily have fallen flat on its face, a mess of genre pilfering without any sense of identity. As it is, he's managed, through some feat of electronic alchemy, to make one of 2008s most startling records. And the decision to set the vocals of his three guests - the dove-like croon of Anthony Hegarty, the deadpan androgyny of Kim Ann Foxman, and the soulful, icy anguish of Nomi Ruiz - so stubbornly and beautifully against each other is something akin to genius. (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
22. WILD BEASTS - LIMBO PANTO (Domino)
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Many were content with writing off Leeds four-piece Wild Beasts when they emerged two years ago, dubbing them too flamboyant, too out of touch, too odd. A year on, the band have resoundingly proved how very, very wrong the doubters were. Musically, the group are tight and restrained, their jarring chords often combined with sweetly tremolo-ed melodies, as shown to brilliant effect in 'The Devil's Crayon'. Limbo, Panto is such an exercise in superbitude that they even managed to get away with leaving off wonderful single 'Assembly' (to be honest, it's doubtful it would have fitted, a testament to how much the group has grown over the last few years). So much of the bands appeal lies in the totally bizarre vocal of bandleader Hayden Thorpe. Truly, the music scene has not been blessed with such a strange and beguiling talent in a long time. His voice is to flutter and screech, soar and swoon, in the most glorious falsetto. Every track has contains a turn that is to make you gasp at the sheer guile of his vocal - be it the heartfelt, slippery blues of 'Please, Sir' or the empowered shimmer of 'Cheerio Chaps, Cheerio Goodbye', everything Thorpe does seems to be completely natural, and all the more entertaining for it. Lyrically, matters range from debauchery to grandiose sentiment, and back again, re-enforcing the feeling that you have entered some sort of parallel realm, and are in the midst of performance by a cabaret group fronted by Oscar Wilde. The aforementioned 'The Devil's Crayon' deals in the latter, musing at one point "we are so many tiny pieces", at another "we are so much mouldy dough", and frivolous ode to copulation 'She Purred, While I Grrred''s sentiment "I die every day/Just to live every night" is one I'm sure we have all indulged in at some point. 'Take these chips with cheese/As an offering of peace'; the humour, the bemusement, the very Britishness of Limbo, Panto is what makes it such an enjoyably baffling 41 minutes. Let us not hope that they are tamed any time soon. (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
21. THE MELVINS - NUDE WITH BOOTS (Ipecac)
For the last year, The Melvins have been like a twice a day tablet for me. There are loads of really good bits that I could talk about on this album, but there really is no point in ruining the fun of finding them for yourself. Overall, Nude With Boots has even further strengthened my faith that my favourite band in the world are in fact also the best band in the world. (Charlie Potter)
20. METRONOMY - NIGHTS OUT (Because)
The charm of Nights Out is its diversity. It has been scientifically proven that when 'Radio Ladio' or 'A Thing For Me' come on at any club night you automatically down your drink and start to dance. Yet sit down with this coming out of your record player at home and you start to notice just how special this record really is, those bass lines that had you two stepping at the club are technically sound, the drum beats that in your head at the time represented your heartbeat as you saw 'that girl' are some of the best you've heard in a long time, even the vocals that you drunkenly slurred in the face of your friends after that fifth sambucca have you thinking. With this record every bass line, riff, drum beat and weird noise came together to create one of the bets electro-pop records in a long time - Nights Out saw Metronomy go from remixing some of your favourite artists to becoming one of your favourite artists. (Mike Harounoff)
19. M83 - SATURDAYS = YOUTH (EMI)
Other publications have called this their album of the year. For us, it was a beautiful, shiny, epic gem of record that was certainly one of the year's best. A certain editor of this website even tried to make some kind of joke in the office the other day about how this record would slip through your fingers every time you tried to put it on, it was so smooth. A blank look was what he received back for this, but on closer thought, this record might well win "smoothest of the year", if not claim the top spot in this list. Whereas previous album Before the Dawn Heals Us separated M83 out as an electronic sound explorer of epic and extraordinary dimensions, Saturdays = Youth saw him work this into a finely balanced masterpiece filled with glistening pop songs and just the right amount of ear bending experimentation. Bravo. Honourable mention also goes to the French electronica wizard that is Anthony Gonzalez for one of the singles of the year - track two: 'Kim and Jessie'. (Dan Monsell)
18. FRIENDLY FIRES - FRIENDLY FIRES (XL)
Regular readers of my scene report for Bristol will know that I have been well acquainted with the Friendly Fires as they have toured the country, and, of course, during our time at uni together. So it is with great joy that I nominate their album as one of my records of the year. Friendly Fires is crammed with joyous pop songs, seamlessly melting in influences from avant garde electronica, funk, rock and dance music. Taking the instrumental powers of the dust buster to new heights, the tunes soar through you like a rush of excitement to the head, compelling you to tap your feet and dance as wildly as Ed does on the stage. His vocals whisper and cry over a cacophony of synths, guitars and drums, breaking down and lifting back up as the songs take you through a journey of love, day dreamy travels and youthful exuberance. 'Paris' is the stand out track for me, with its whispery backing vocals from Au Revoir Simone, as is "the ballad" 'Strobe', and I always have a place in my heart for 'Photobooth'. The whole affair is just so much fun, expressing the band's "pop rock disco funk nu rave" in 45 minutes worth of joyful sounds. (Sian Norris)
17. CUT COPY - IN GHOST COLOURS (DFA)
Summer 2008 will not be remembered as a summer of love, but rather one of tragically dull inclemancy. Regardless of this, these Aussies reminded us of better times: a time when The Pet Shop Boys covered Elvis or sang with Dusty; a time when New Order were arguably the greatest band alive and not just arguing. Concerned first and foremost with the matters of the heart, be it longing ('Far Away') or fledgling romance ('Unforgettable Season'), In Ghost Colours carefully married pure pop with 80's pre-hyphenated house. Piss poor weather aside, the real tragedy would have been if nobody fell in love with (or to) this dazzling record. (Liam Manley)
16. EUGENE MCGUINNESS - EUGENE MCGUINNESS (Domino)
Perhaps the main triumph of Eugene McGuinness' self titled debut LP proper is that with it he managed to present a record that was every bit as charming a collection of songs as he is a ruddy lovely person. Seriously, go say hi. What a smashing bloke. And when you're up there, let him know that we've got a lot of our hopes pinned on him - although on moments like 'Fonz' and 'Wendy Wonders' Eugene sounds every bit the finished article, and whilst it is indeed true that Eugene McGuinness is a faultless delight from beginning to end, the other huge achievement to it is that the best, certainly, is yet to come. (Tom Hannan)
15. SPIRITUALIZED - SONGS IN A&E (Sanctuary)
Yeah, it's more of Jason Pierce singing about death, and the sun, and his baby, and his lord, and flying high, in the sky, and being on fire, and love, and his soul, and all manner of huge topics. Yes, it's as if he's never actually contemplated anything on the scale of say, a common household cat, in his entire time on this Earth. But after a bout with a life threatening illness, Jason Pierce really values his time on this Earth at the moment, and on Songs In A&E, he sings about the aforementioned themes as if he's really, really had to think about them. It instils the entire record with a huge emotional weight, but though it's focused on death, you have to remember that it's the music of a survivor, and as such, it's also rather joyous. (Tom Hannan)
14. LAURA MARLING - ALAS I CANNOT SWIM (EMI)
Alas, perhaps, but boy, she CAN play. Often armed with nothing more than a six-string and a most curious way with words, the young lady from Berkshire rose from being a mere underage stirring into a bashfully charming Mercury-prize nominee. But be warned, for from these apparently reserved lips springs forth some of the most startling monologue heard in song in recent years. Dealing in a certain language of love that sets her far apart from the pack, her words are packed with a venom and sharp accuracy that can turn the most simple phrase into a soaring statement of intent. Book ended by two tales of unobtainable love (lead single 'Ghosts' and the utterly, utterly gorgeous title track), she moves through a dense 38 minutes of broken hearts, broken minds and broken dreams. Hitting back at the delusions of grandeur that sterilise the minds of so many of her singer-songwriter contemporaries on the light-hearted romp of 'You're No God', she sings with a grace so rare in the current pop climate. Be she talking of twisted tales of the ocean on 'Crawled Out of the Sea' and 'The Captain and the Hourglass', describing the isolation held in nightmares of loved-ones on London parks ('Night Terror'), or simply wishing for a ray of light to permeate her dour world on 'Shine', Laura has an accessibility that makes anyone who happens to listen fall immovably under her quiet spell. And through her honesty, her empowering weaknesses, her heartbreaking intimacy, she's made an album that will linger long after 2008 is out. (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
13. BECK - MODERN GUILT (XL)
A lot has been made of the fact that, at just over half an hour, Modern Guilt is half the length of its predecessor, the bloated but still charming The Information. What people have failed to mention is that Beck's very good when you give him limitations - in this case, time - to work within and around. Modern Guilt is the one a large section of Beck fans had been waiting for since Odelay. It's his 'rock' record - but as with all things Beck, it wasn't that simple. Danger Mouse was brought in on production duties and gave even its heaviest moments ('Profanity Prayers', 'Gamma Ray') a curiously engaging kind of sixties R&B bounce, and on the one track where Beck was left to produce himself without DM's assistance, he took us in to the stratosphere with 'Chemtrails', perhaps the dreamiest thing this man has sung since 'Nobody's Fault By My Own'. Good enough even to completely overlook the fact that the guy's a big freaky Scientologist weirdo. (Tom Hannan)
12. DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE - NARROW STAIRS (Universal)
"Occasionally, I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only... Like a jealous lover, I don't want anybody else to hear of it..."
WH Auden wasn't talking about long-time Death Cab fans when he said that, but such sentiments ring true for the more possessive admirers of the wistful Seattleites. Now their old heroes had hit the majors, it was perhaps fear that the band's engagingly empathetic qualities would be compromised; that the sense of shared experience and of being taken into confidence might be lost forever. Yet fully a decade on from their debut album, Narrow Stairs retained their trademark warmth and delicacy whilst supplementing these qualities with a grandiose baroque resonance befitting their exalted new status. (Matt Tomiak)
11. THE DODOS - VISITER (Wichita)
The Dodos understand something very important about acoustic guitars, and that's the fact that they can actually be played very quickly, very inventively and with an extreme amount of passion to create dazzling musical accompaniments for exploratory, wide eyed songs that don't as a rule have to have anything to do with girls, or love, or necessarily anything. One of the finest of debuts in a year that will be remembered for fine debuts, it juxtaposed the Animal Collective's way with a 'huh?' alongside a childlike glee that comes from hitting stuff really hard and finding out it sounds completely amazing. (Tom Hannan)
10. NEON NEON - STAINLESS SYTLE (Lex)
What began as an obscure, albeit brilliantly presented, oddity devoted to car mogul Delorean, soon transpired to be a live highlight of the year and an opportunity for Richard X to turn in one of his best mixes yet. 'I Told Her On Alderaan' was unabashedly commercial, but sat comfortably on an album unburdened by expectation, or need to sound like Super Furry Animals. This was Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip reclaiming the 80's for themselves - replete with hip-hop and electro beats and of course gull-winged, Irish-built Vauxhalls that owners must have been gutted turned out not to be time machines; unlike the welcome surprise of this. (Tom Hocknell)
9. HIGH PLACES - HIGH PLACES (Thrill Jockey)
Brooklyn duo High Places first began to surface late last year, with those who did hear it drawn in by their highly limited release 03/07-09/07, a gathering together of all their tracks that had been put out on various 7's across 2007. With their dreamy, swirling kindergarten pop, highly charming melodies and the creation of a soundscape that reminded the listener of days spent flopping on grass, in the height of summer and without a care, it was only a matter of time before their name was to start being bandied around in all the relevant circles. They began to play festival slots on decent stages, be interviewed by Pitchfork Media, and appear on the covers of the right magazines (notably America's Impose alongside the queen of guitar-asphyxiating prog-punk Marnie Stern). Their first proper release doesn't stray too far from the sound of that singles collection - no matter. The bubbles and swirls and twitters and bleeps envelop the listener in such a comforting bed of sound that the only issue you can take with High Places is that it's only 10 tracks long. From the toddler-in-the-kitchen clang of 'The Storm' to the utterly gorgeous whiz-bang of closer 'From Stardust to Sentience', High Places whispers of a simpler, more innocent, wholly more enjoyable time. Not that the album is entirely devoid of any evolution from their previous work - 'Golden' is more considered than the two minute taster we were afforded earlier this year without foregoing any of its ethereal rapture, whilst 'Namer' and 'Vision's the First ...' are two of the most dance-friendly tracks the group have put out since 2006 demo 'Sandy Feat'. The world needs bands like High Places - those that aren't afraid to follow their artistic path to the very end, no matter what the consequences may be. This is an album that deserves to be heard. Put it on; close your eyes; lose yourself in dreams of love and childhood, hope and awe. (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
8. THE MAGNETIC FIELDS - DISTORTION (Nonesuch)
Stephin Merritt's Psycocandy-subverting opus was packed full of typically dry wit and yearning romance in equal proportions. The tragic-comic 'Too Drunk Too Dream' and delightfully misanthropic revenge fantasy 'California Girls' stand out amongst these melodic, fuzzed-out, gender-bending tales of hopelessness and isolation. (Matt Tomiak)
7. BORN RUFFIANS - RED, YELLOW AND BLUE (Warp)
Ruffians they may be, but the debut from the Canadian threesome was one of the most skilfully crafted indie-rock albums of 2008. On the surface a ramshackle rollick through pop hoedowns and reserved campfire music, a closer inspection reveals a group with an attention to detail that was refreshing in a year of so much lacklustre and sloppy guitar music. The Ruffians set out their stall early on, with an opening triple salvo surely the envy of their contemporaries. The ghost-town whistleathon opener 'Red, Yellow And Blue', the meticulously precise ensemble thwacks and canon-breakdown of 'Barnacle Goose', and the exhilarating 'Hummingbird' (a track that truly highlights the craftsmanship of the band, with drums chipping and chopping around a spidery bassline, coos and yelps, and squalling guitar flicks) - all showcase a pride in their craft which warms the listener no end. (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
One of the more interesting guitar albums of 2008, Red, Yellow and Blue was also one of the best (you'd expect nothing less of Canadians signed to Warp) and quite how it never exploded, I have no idea. Led by Luke LaLonde's strained vocals, the trio mixed scruffy, infectious guitar hooks with Animal Collective-like production (courtesy of Rusty Santos) and a whole range of quirkiness, from a capella breaks to song titles like 'Badonkadonkey' and 'Foxes Mate For Life'. Bursting with childish exuberance and a couple of the songs of the year ('Hummingbird' and 'I Need A Life') it is a quite brilliant record. (Chris Helsen)
6. FLEET FOXES - FLEET FOXES (Bella Union)
Initially, listening to this album in the summer felt like a fitting season to hear it. Yet as the year went on it became apparent that listening to it in autumn, winter or spring was just as appealing. The philosopher Blaise Pascal once said "Nature is an infinite sphere of which the centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere." Fleet Foxes encapsulate nature; the universality of timeless beauty is contained within every aspect of their makeup. Its real music. Let it grow and its roots will set deep. (Sam Crawford)
5. MYSTERY JETS - TWENTY ONE (679)
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The Mystery Jets proved with this sophomore record that a second album doesn't just have to be a case of locking yourselves in a studio, turning on the reverb and leaving with an album of the same 11 songs as your first record, just louder. Whilst previous effort Making Dens was wrapped in Syd Barret's imagination and Einstürzende Neubsaten's penchant for making use of everything and anything for instruments, Twenty One saw the 'Jets go out there, make a straight up pop record and pull it off, creating an album that will live comfortably in everybody's top 10's for 2008. As the band once said themselves what feels like a long, long time ago, "you can do anything thing you want as long as it makes sense" and from the opening air raid siren of 'Hideaway' to the last heartbreaking key on the piano of secret track '21', this was Blaine, Will and co. Pulling themselves in to dazzling focus. (Mike Harounoff)
C'mon. If you were a bit drunk and it was a dimly-lit club and this record came onto you and told you it was Parklife's younger sister, you'd squint a bit then shrug and get off with it and maybe even go to bed with it and not feel that bad the morning after, right? Certainly not as bad as that time with Los Campesinos. I felt so used. (Michael Lewin)
4. BON IVER - FOR EMMA, FOREVER AGO (4AD)
Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago is the loveliest album of the year, without a doubt. Though Fleet Foxes may have won 2008's Battle of the Bearded Folkies, garnering more wide spread critical acclaim for their debut, it was Wisconsin's Bon Iver (a.k.a. Justin Vernon) who delivered the more hauntingly brilliant and lasting collection of songs. Highlights include the heart-wrenching cry of 'Skinny Love' and the other-worldly stomp of 'Creature Fear' - really, God only knows how one man in a wood-shed has crafted songs that sound so massive, and how an album so steeped in loneliness and heartbreak could be so uplifting. This record deserves to be heard by as many people as possible. (Joe MacAllister)
3. VAMPIRE WEEKEND - VAMPIRE WEEKEND (XL Recordings)
It is a testament to the newfound liberalism coursing through the veins of the charts that, in 2008, the biggest breakthrough of the year could come from a group of swarthy, Ivy League professionals who wrote songs about, amongst other things, the finer points of grammar. Yes, New-York's flamboyantly-monikered foursome (each of their names are pitched somewhere between Cape Cod and Cape Town) became the darlings of the blogosphere in 2007 after releasing their self-titled 'Blue CDR' debut recording. Whereas their debut proper only contains one more track (perhaps the groups most obvious homage to Paul Simon's Graceland, 'One'), and many of the old songs are merely touched up versions of tracks from that original record, this should not at all detract from the delightfully infectious eleven songs that the group have crafted. Their distinctly American brand of African hi-life guitar music brought a ray of sunshine into the lives of all those who happened to even catch a few bars of it. Powered by a terrific rhythm section, group leader Ezra Koenig and keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij (best name in pop) will trade the spotlight - when Ezra's vocal comes to an end, you can be sure Rostam will be right in with a perky chime of flute or harpsichord. The group can seemingly craft a delicious refrain out of thin air, and each song bristles with potent melodic intent. The frantic romp of 'A-Punk' catches the band at their most joyful and quirky, while Koenig's trilling guitar on 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa' sums up the groups sound in a single line - playful and catchy, ever so slightly ramshackle and all the more invigorating for it. They prove they can write an anthem with the soaring 'Walcott', and even show an intriguing vulnerability in the swirling keyboards and breathy vocal of the gorgeous 'I Stand Corrected'. (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
2. NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS - DIG!!! LAZARUS DIG!!! (Mute)
As we noted in our review of the title track upon its single release, it was only a matter of time before the ever-biblically inclined Nick Cave got round to singing about Lazarus, the greatest comeback kid of all time - that is, until Cave himself returned with this startlingly brilliant piece of rock and roll. Now three billion albums in to a career that doesn't actually contain a bad record, Dig!!!... might actually be one of his finest, with songs like 'More News From Nowhere', the title track and utterly compelling 'We Call Upon The Author' each bona fide Bad Seeds classics. One of the most interesting things about it is that even at this stage of his career, he's still making records that excite young people enough that they go out and research his entire back catalogue. The kind of record so special it makes you want to listen to music made exclusively by people over fifty years old, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is how to grow old disgracefully well. (Tom Hannan)
1. PORTISHEAD - THIRD (Universal)
Are Portishead the only band to ever have gone on one of those usually fatal 'indefinite hiatus' spells and come back with a record that not only puts to shame all others released this year, but one that makes their once era-defining past efforts seem like insignificant, half formed kids stuff? Probably. Third was everything one could have hoped for from a Portishead return and more; wholly unpredictable, and as beautiful as it was genuinely unsettling, on it the resurgent band displayed a mastery of manipulation of human emotion. From gorgeous ukulele interludes and spellbinding ways with melody such as displayed on 'The Rip' to the stunning Silver Apples-influenced groove of 'We Carry On' and sheer assault of 'Machine Gun', it's a masterpiece you'll return to for years to come. Listen to the latter on some really big speakers, and try telling us anything else is the record of 2008. (Tom Hannan)
So, there you go. HUGE thanks to all readers, contributors, PRs, bands, agents, labels and everyone who has helped out Rockfeedback in 2008. We'll see you next year.