Sincere apologies (t'heh! Not really! Go fuck yourself!) for the lack of Muddd action during these precious summer months. Not making any excuses (actually, watch me), but I've been super fucking busy 1.) dealing with the resurgence of my Antiques business, 2.) writing a book, 3.) "curating" (hehheheh I HATE THAT WORD) a successful vegetable garden, and 4.) partying my fat fucking tits off. Seriously, this has probably been the funnest summer of my sad, pathetic life. Also, it's pretty safe to assume that my summer squash can beat the shit out of your summer squash. Bitch.
So, at this very moment, you're looking at a continuation of / sequel to this post. The way I do these lists is pretty simple. You may or may not notice that there are no repeats between the lists. This is because, over the course of the year, my tastes have been known to shift, sometimes dramatically. For example, it's pretty safe to assume that the Kurt Vile record will place a lot higher on my year-end "Best Of" list than it did upon my initial handful of listens. But I really don't feel like re-writing a Kurt Vile album review at this point, nor do I feel like slotting it (and other records from earlier in the year) into this list, which includes ONLY newer albums. [Jesus Christ, I've somehow managed to bore myself. Enough. You semi-literate shitbags should be able to figure out a Best Albums list, mehopes.]
So, enjoy this list, or jump in front of a city bus, I really don't give a shit. [J/K, smoocherz!!!]
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1.) Raveonettes - Raven in the Grave -- The Raveonettes' gloomiest record yet, which says quite a bit for a band that has made a career creating an (insanely catchy) songbook of tunes spanning the topics of heartbreak, depression, drug addiction, depression, rape, depression, inadequacy, suicide, depression, and so forth. But this is also a legitimate career highlight, their most well-crafted, thoroughly tuneful, thoughtfully paced, and perfectly produced album since '03's Chain Gang of Love [which is incidentally one of my favorite albums of all time].
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2.) Cheeseburger - Another Big Night Down the Drain -- Much has changed in the land of Cheeseburger since the release of their self-titled masterpiece in 2007. The band has expanded its lineup, adding a second (and, at times, a third) guitarist and a bassist; vocalist extraordinaire Joe Bradley departed during the lengthy period between the recording and release of this album; they endured label issues and uncertainty as to the whether or not this second album would even see the light of day. But fortunately, the important things didn't change: Cheeseburger still knows how to do it right. So what does Another Big Night add to the band's greasy, nicotine-stained, beer-soaked legacy? Well, for one, it hammers home Joe Bradley's legitimate (and possibly entirely unintentional) claim as an undeniably great rock and roll vocalist. For another, it adds several great songs to Cheeseburger's canon -- the best of the bunch, "Roll Like That" and "Winner" are as fist-pumpingly awesome as anything they've ever done. And for yet another, it serves as a righteous reminder SOMEBODY still remembers how to FUCKING ROCK.
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3.) Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact -- Just a lovingly crafted, complex, vibrant, beautiful album. Here, Gang Gang Dance manages to incorporate the textured, dancey, ecstatic highlights of their previous work (which usually only traversed a couple of great tracks per album) into a full-album experience which flows seamlessly from song to song.
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4.) Melvins - Endless Residency -- In early 2011, stoners up and down the East Coast cursed their geography when the Melvins announced their residency at Spaceland in LA, at which they would play every Friday during the month of January as follows:
<<Jan. 7: Melvins set (current line-up performing Colossus of Destiny); Lysol and Eggnog records in their entirety
Jan. 14: Melvins 1983 (Buzz, Dale and Mike Dillard); Melvins set (current line-up performing normal set) and Houdini in its entirety
Jan. 21: Melvins Lite (Buzz & Dale only); Melvins set (current line-up performing normal set) and Bullhead in its entirety
Jan. 28: Melvins set (current line-up performing normal set) and Stoner Witch in its entirety>>
Uhhhhhh, yeah. Jealous much?
This limited-edition 4 CD box set contains live recordings of each of the full albums that the Melvins performed during that run, warts and all. Of course, it's not ALL good (I doubt I will ever make it through all 17+ minutes of "Lividity"), but what is good (the very, very vast majority) is very much worthwhile.
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5.) Liquor Store - Yeah Buddy -- So, according to Tuddd archives, I've seen Liquor Store live 10 times over the last two years, which seems a bit low considering how much I've pumped these guys up to friends, acquaintances, and random passers-by, but what can you do (the sands of time, etc.). Anyway, it's a serious relief to hear that the band was somehow able to capture the grimy, slovenly, riotously bad-ass spirit of their live shows on this, their first LP. But don't take my word for it; watch some of my buddy Devin's Liquor Store live clips here or here or here. Truly one of the few (as in, literally, there are THREE) great local bands (they're from Jersey) actually actively putting out music today.
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6.) Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part Two -- Contains everything you'd expect from a top-notch Beasties album: hilarious rhymes, great production, and show-stealing guest spots on this, their first truly worthwhile outing of the new millennium. And if you haven't seen their promo video for this album yet, do yourself a favor: find a comfy chair, pull some bong rips, and press play.
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7.) Melvins - Sugar Daddy -- To many, still yet another Melvins live record might seem excessive. (Notice another 4-CD live set from the Melvins just a few spots above this one.) Not this band, however. To quote Buzz Osbourne, "I'm not afraid of putting out records." And it's a testament to the strength of the Melvins' recent output that they're capable of putting out a damn good live album that largely neglects their "classic" material, focusing instead mostly on stuff from Nude With Boots and (A) Senile Animal.
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8.) White Denim - D -- I've been singing this band's praises for awhile now, and I hope that one day they're somehow able to put all of their great influences (classic guitar rock, soul, bluesy southern rock, folky pop, with just a smidge of lite prog and jamminess) in the blender and come up with the show-stopping Album of the Year-competing album that I know they're capable of. I just KNOW White Denim has an Exile on Main Street in 'em somewhere. While this album isn't that album (sorry, it just doesn't rock hard enough), it's certainly on par with their previous output (which I've enjoyed). At this point, that is probably this band's real (recorded) strength: putting out eminently listenable albums. The real winners here can be found in the spiraling guitar work of "At the Farms," the sentimental "Street Joy," and the bubbly "Is and Is and Is."
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9.) Explosions in the Sky - Take Care, Take Care, Take Care -- If you've ever heard an Explosions in the Sky song, you know EXACTLY what you're getting here. If you haven't, allow me to explain: delicate, heavily-reverbed, extremely emo(tive) instrumental / post-rock that wrings every last drop out of the quiet / loud dynamic. Not for everyone, but those who do like it tend to REALLY like it.
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10.) O'Death - Outside -- OATTETH FOREVER!!!! [inside joke.] If you were worried that these guys' inimitable version of scrappy, punky mountain music would be derailed by their misfortune (their drummer was stricken with bone cancer), fear not: this album is just as persistently, undeniably, rollickingly catchy as their previous work.
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11.) Tombs - Path of Totality -- Never mind the relentless brutality and A+ riffs on this record. This album has the highest ranking on the list of any band that has had a member throw a punch at me. Huzzah!
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12.) Battles - Gloss Drop -- I loved the shit out of "Atlas" (who didn't), but generally I found Mirrored to be monotonous and tuneless (if rhythmically interesting at times). But this time around, by enlisting a cadre of guest vocalists and focusing more on melody, Battles manage to stave off my boredom quite effectively.
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13.) Liturgy - Aesthethica -- So apparently Liturgy main dude Hunter Hunt Hendrix has pissed off a lot of people in the black metal community. Of course, why anyone would give a holy horsefuck about the opinions of the black metal community, I have no earthly idea. Oh yeah, that's right, sometimes they kill people an' shit. Watch your ass, brah!
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14.) Red Fang - Murder the Mountains -- Was really excited about this one, due to my thoroughly enjoying their first two releases, both of which I reviewed somewhere on this site. Plus I enjoyed their live show. And as anyone who knows me knows, I loves me some good ol' fashioned meat n' taters stoner metal. Not to mention that this has gotten an assload of great press. But seriously guys, whud'j'ya do with all the hooks?
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15.) Various Artists - Persian Funk -- Of course, I'm a sucker for this type of compilation. For example, without '09's Psych Funk 101 comp, I would have never discovered this gem. On Persian Funk, there are several worthy tracks, but look no farther than Morteza's creatively named "Morteza" for a sick fucking jam that shoulda been the theme to some awesomely horrible '70s genre film / blaxploitation flick / heavily mustachioed cop drama.
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16.) Mars Classroom - New Theory of Everything -- As someone who regularly identifies GbV as the Greatest Band of All Time, I occasionally feel pangs of guilt about the sheer amount of unadulterated vitriol I've poured into reviews of recent-period Robert Pollard releases. That being said, this album has exactly ONE great song on it, which immediately makes it better than any of the umpteen trillion other Bob releases we've seen over the last two years. (That being said, "Wish You Were Young" is the shit.)
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17.) Times New Viking - Dancer Equired -- Yes, this is the first Times New Viking album without the endearingly oppressive layer of tape hiss we've all grown to know and love. As a direct result of that, it would probably be more... I dunno, 'romantic' for music journalism's sake if this review were to read either 1.) "they prove that they're a damn fine band without the hiss" or 2.) "they prove that the hiss was hiding their suckitude all along." But neither is the case. On this album, TNV is simply a decent, sloppy indie pop act, of which there are approximately fifteen trillion bipping and bopping around the blogosphere at any given time. [Incidentally, say what you want about the glut of "lo-fi" bands that popped up over the last few years: yes, it was redundant, and yes a lot of undeserving people got a lot of press for the wrong reasons, but I'll take lo-fi copycats over first generation chillwave any day of the fucking week.]
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18.) Dum Dum Girls - He Gets Me High -- This is nowhere near a 'bad' record by any means, but when comparing recent releases by gothy, Jesus and Mary Chain-influenced noise pop bands, this is just so far inferior to the Raveonettes album that it's practically irrelevant. Which is a shame. Kristen Gundred may have a really nice singing voice, but she does herself no favors by penning some of the most godawful lyrics ever recorded.
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19.) Krallice - Diotima -- Technically accomplished; bone-crushingly loud; forged from unimpeachable integrity; virtually impossible to listen to in its entirety in one sitting.
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20.) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong -- Signing on with 90s stalwarts Alan Moulder and Flood as a production team has made these guys' scrappy little pop tunes decidedly less limp-wristed, but, with two notable exceptions ("Belong" and "Even in Dreams" are both pretty great), the songwriting remains firmly in "meh" territory.
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21.) Boris - Heavy Rocks (2011) -- If you're not familiar with Japanese sludge-meisters Boris' huge discography, you might not be aware of the fact that they put out another (greatly superior) album called Heavy Rocks nine years ago. This one seems to rehash the ground they've been traversing on their last several more conventional, song-based studio albums, albeit less successfully / more boringly. Although, in Boris' case, wallowing in the past is decidedly less awful than, say, experimenting in electro (see #29 below).
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22.) The People's Temple - Sons of Stone -- The production on this album manages to replicate Nuggets-era (well, San Fran Nuggets, at least) garagey, folky psych. And, just as many Nuggets acts were good for one great song and nothing more, this album consists of one true gem (the title track) and a bunch of aimless, dreary, stoned-sounding horsecrap.
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23.) The Antlers - Burst Apart -- Throughout the course of the media blitz that preceded this album, Peter Silberman said he wanted this Antlers album to be something that "didn't need to be an overwhelming emotional experience every time you listen to it," referencing Hospice's gut-wrenchingly intimate catharsis (which actually worked). Uhhhhhhh, bad move. Saying "we're taking the emotional experience out of an Antlers record" is tantamount to saying "ok, we're going to make a Metallica record, but we're going to take out the guitar solos, we're going to make the snare sound like a fucking empty tin can, and we're going to let Kirk write lyrics." Avoid.
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24.) Death - Spiritual Mental Physical -- This is to be considered an 'Odds and Sods'-type release, focusing on unearthed tracks and unfinished sketches, many of which are too bare to actually be considered "songs." So this should not be considered a true follow up to '09's pretty darn good ...For the World to See. The only real noteworthy tidbit on this one is "The Masks," which hilariously rips off the entire verse of the Beatles' "Got to Get You Into My Life," note for note.
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25.) Foo Fighters - Wasting Light -- Yeah, I know, what was I thinking, right? Well, since you asked, my "acquaintance," who is a useless thieving moron and one of the biggest pieces of ignorant Lwong Eyelund trash I've ever met, one day said to me "duuuuuhhhhh... you heard the new Foo Fighters? I don't usually like thrash metal but this is pretty good!!!111!!!1!" [Yes, you could actually HEAR the accidental 1's rolling out of his tooth-deprived mouth.] Of course, this genius' idea of thrash metal is probably like O.A.R. or something, so I should have filed this away along with everything else he ever says under "flush immediately," but, in the interest of "acquaintance" relations, I instead thought to myself, "hmmm, it would be nice to have something we could both listen to and enjoy during those timeless moments where he's shamelessly / gratitudelessly leeching drugs and booze off of me late nite." So I gave this shitty album a shot, sue me. Whatever. Foo Fighters are terrible, move along, nothing to see here.
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26.) The Kills - Blood Pressures -- Sorry, Jack White totally ruined Alison Mosshart. While the Kills' first two albums worked largely in part to VV and Hotel's convincing stabs of drugged-out creepiness, these songs all just sound antiseptically prefab, ideal for hawking Volkswagens or fancy sunglasses or expensive strollers or whatever the fuck it is that white folks waste their money on these days.
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27.) Panda Bear - Tomboy -- A total crock of hyped-up gimmicky garbage. I don't know about you, but me, I'm a "song" guy, and the songwriting on this one is, for all intents and purposes, virtually non-existent. It makes sense that technology (oooh, look at me! I can loop shit!) plays such a central role on this album, because I've met toasters that have more soul than this moron. The best thing you can say about Tomboy is that it makes 'good background music,' which, to me is probably the most scathing indictment one can make about ANY music.
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28.) Crystal Stilts - In Love With Oblivion -- Ugggggghhhhh... the singing on this... THE SINGING! THE GODAWFUL SINGING!!! How do the other members of the band put up with this massive horsecock being rammed down their collective throats time and time again, over and over, on every single fucking track? HE SINGS THE SAME TWO FUCKING NOTES IN EVERY SONG!!! AND THAT'S IT!!!!!!! Is this just an elaborate practical joke, and rest of the band isn't in on it? Are the other band members just afraid they're going to hurt his feelings if they broach the subject? Does the singer suffer from IDS (Imminent Death Syndrome)? Is this a brilliant marketing hoax played on the public to prove that morons will cream their jeans over ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING that gets compared to Joy Division? Meh, fuck it, who really cares. This album blows.
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29.) Boris - Attention Please -- Yes, it may take balls for an established heavy band like Boris to branch out into yet another new genre (noisy, breathy industrial electropop, uh, or something) while focusing on their weakest instrument (guitarist Wata's thin-as-toilet paper voice, which is seemingly incapable of expressing anything more intense than a sigh), but that doesn't mean we have to like it. Or pay money for it.
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30.) Various Artists - Sing for Your Meat: a Tribute to Guided by Voices -- Worse than pointless. Is there really a huge demand for giving absolute no-talents a podium for the sole purpose of eviscerating classic GbV songs? Well, there shouldn't be. Since most of the original "studio" versions of these songs were recorded on the cheap (on 4 track or 8 track), and since most of the artists on this joke of a piece of shit of a record choose to perform these songs in a lo-fi "style" as well, they've given me no choice but to judge these inferior remakes face-to-face against the originals, which rank among the greatest songs EVER WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY ANYBODY. So you wanna guess how Crooked Fingers, James Husband, and some idiot from the Vivian Girls fare? Take a wild stab!
