Tuddd's Muddd

The Best Albums of 2009 - #11 to #30 (sort of) [part 2]

OK kiddos, it's already the end of February, 2010, so you know what that means: the second part of my Best Albums of 2009 list.  You can find the first part here and you can find my Best Songs of '09 list here. 

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11.) BOAT - Setting the Paces -- Scrappler.  Scrap'ums.  Scrap-a-rino.  Scrappity Scrap Scrap.  SCRAPPO!!!  OK, so here's the deal with this band.  I've enjoyed the music of BOAT since hearing their p4k-approved Come On Let's Drag Our Feet album a couple years ago (#35 on 2007's Best Albums list).  Liked their follow-up EP, Topps, as well (again #35 on 2008's list), but seriously this newest BOAT album is so much better than those, you don't even KNOW!  See, they turned the amps up and decided to ROCK THE FUCK OUT while sacrificing none of the trademark BOAT <wait for it> scrappiness.  Anthemic and self-deprecating at the same time.  Kinda like me!

    [Time for the year's first mea culpa (of many, in all likelihood).  I should have ranked this album much higher.  If I had to do it over again, It's Blitz would still be #1, but the new #2 would be the Nirvana live album, which I totally excluded from the list (um, second mea culpa, thanks), and this BOAT album would come in at a nifty #3.]

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12.) A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head -- Local boys done good... but is it any better than the debut (23rd best album of '07)?   I'm not entirely sure that the clearer production always benefits the songs- which themselves are probably more accessible than those on the first album.  It's no coincidence that the best songs on Exploding Head have treated/distorted/fucked up vocals, and they really should keep it that way... it's just that I'm not exactly the biggest fan of the songs displaying a slightly "lighter side" to this band-- they're best when following their JaMC/MBV/Joy Division/Ministry/etc. template very, very closely.

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13.) The Crocodiles - Summer of Hate -- What with all the lo-fi/electronic genre mish-mashing these days, it can be easy to overlook a band like the Crocodiles just because you're worried they might sound like Ear Pwr or whatever.  This album's high ranking (by me and me alone, apparently) is on the merit of three great songs: "I Wanna Kill," "Sleeping With the Lord," and the title track... the rest of the album I could kinda take or leave, to be truthful. 

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14.) Boston Spaceships - Zero to 99 - Robert Pollard's best new album since 2006's massive/sprawling From a Compound Eye (#9 on '06's Best Albums list) sees him dipping back into the famed suitcase (literally, there are several re-recorded versions of songs from the first Suitcase box set) and fleshing out some gems.  Pretty sure that standout "How Wrong You Are" is not among the older tracks, but rather a new one entirely...? (Seriously, I'm not sure here.  Help me out, someone.)  GbV freakz will love that on at least a couple of the songs they somehow they manage to churn out a ramshackle rhythm guitar style reminiscent of the Tobin Sprout/Mitch Mitchell salad days.  [Note: if planning your next record store purchase on the recommendation of this album review, do yourself a favor and don't confuse this album with the year's *other* Boston Spaceships album, The Planets Are Blasted, which is horrible.] 

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15.) White Denim - Fits -- This album sounds like good drugs.  Partially because the songs on this jittery genre-hopper are patterned after some of the best music of the psychedelic '60s, encompassing garage, soul, frat rock, Nuggetsy psych, and good ol' fashioned arena rock.  No, there probably aren't any single tracks on this one as strong as "Transparency" (from 2008's Exposion, #23 on '08's Best Albums list) but these guys seem to know how to make really fun, listenable rock albums.  Oh, and Steve Terebecki is indie rock's version of Chris Squire.

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16.) Fever Ray - Fever Ray -- The first several times I listened to this album I thought it was either 1.) "absolutely brilliant" or 2.) "lightweight fruity garbage."  Couldn't put my finger on why, and then EUREKA! I figured that shit out (or, rather, "I figured the fuck out of it").  Listening to this album at night reveals the creepiness, the elegantly minimal production, and an understated, subtle melodic awesomeness.  But just try listening to it when the sun's bright n' shining: you'll feel like a shallow shiny shirt-wearing Eurotrash faggot shitbag. 

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17.) Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights -- Fuck it, you know what you're getting into with Lightning Bolt.  These guys' psychotic, migraine-inducing blustery hoopla never fails to entertain. Barely-controlled chaos at its finest.

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18.) Heartless Bastards - The Mountain -- Normally when a band either 1.) goes higher-fi or 2.) starts flaunting more country-ish tendencies it's time to cut bait.  However, Les Bastardes Sans Coeurs manage to make both numbers 1 and 2 work for 'em on this album.  Rockin' and soulful at times, although your mileage may vary on the wimpier folky songs. 

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19.) Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans -- Saw this album described somewhere as a "steaming plate of hostility".  In fact, I'll second that.  [Side note: one of my favorite concert moments of the year occurred when I saw these guys at the WFMU-fest at Music Hall of Williamsburg.  Towards the end of the set just moments after Pissed Jeans had finished playing a song, the drummer stood up and triumphantly puked all over his drum kit.  Amazing.]

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20.) Russian Circles - Geneva -- Three albums in, you have to admit that Russian Circles are kind of a one-trick pony.  But if you like hyper-melodic post-metal with a decided tension/release slant, then, like me, you love this band.  There are some strikingly beautiful moments on this record. 

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21.) Liturgy - Renihilation -- This is truly Hell's muzak.  (That is, if hell's awesome.)

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22.) Converge - Axe to Fall -- The best thing to come out of Boston -- musically or otherwise -- since Sib Hashian's 'fro.  If there's a better heavy song from 2009 than "Worms Will Feed" that's not by Pissed Jeans or Baroness, I've yet to hear it. [Yes, this is said as I realize that I somehow managed to accidentally leave all Converge songs off of my Year's Best Songs list.  Fuck me.]

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23.) Wolfmother - Cosmic Egg -- Simply put, Wolfmother are good at what they do. If you don't care for great cock rock, you're obviously not going to care for this, but c'mon.  Live a little!  Pull your Poison Flesh and Blood black sleeveless out of mothballs and crush some brewdogs to Cosmic Egg while doing reverse gravity bong hits and, uh, competing in freestyle Motorcross events. 

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24.) Dinosaur Jr - Farm -- Solid album, but almost boringly so.  After comeback album Beyond's eye-popping awesomeness, Farm's songwriting is so standardly above-average that at times the album seems to be in danger of flatlining.  But I definitely prefer the fuzzy, You're Living All Over Me-style production on this one to Beyond's weird emphasis on J's vocals, that's for damn sure. 

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25.) Smith Westerns - Smith Westerns - People seem to do a lot of kvetching about these guys being super young, which honestly I had no fucking clue about until all the year-end lists started coming out.  But fuck tha haterz.  When The Airing of Grievances came out, the collective age of all the members of Titus Andronicus was less than that of my left asshole and that didn't stop 'em from making some rootin' tootin' great music.  In the tradition of countless good-to-great garage bands from the early-to-mid '60s, Smith Westerns have found that touring the country and rockin' out are funner things to do with your summer than (say) working at McDonalds, lifeguarding, hanging out in the parking lot of a 7-11 or [whatever it is that the kidz do these days]. 

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26.) Goes Cube - Another Day Has Passed -- Quality riffs, great drumming, and plenty of throat shredding from this post-hardcore powerhouse.  Top-notch re-recordings of a trio of classic Cube jams push this one over the top safely into Best Albumville. 

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27.) Wolves in the Throne Room - Black Cascade -- How can something so brutal be so relaxing?  Does this mean I've got a serious fucking screw loose?!  (Don't answer that.) 

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28.) Dead Weather - Horehound -- This one kinda dropped like a stone in the rankings, no?  Yes, there's still a few good mixtapeable songs on here, although beyond the best four-or-so songs, shit gets pretty bare.  But seriously, why wouldn't you just listen to the Kills?

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29.) Red Fang - Red Fang -- This actually includes their great Tour EP released a couple of years ago (ranked #30 on '07's Best Albums list) and expands upon that with another handful of sludgy goodness. 

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30.) Dan Deacon - Bromst -- To me, nearly every friggin' song on this album sounds like something you'd hear as the background music on a really smug iPhone commercial.  Which still makes this album way, way better than most of the other crap that came out this year. 

Baroness and Genghis Tron at Blender Theatre at Gramercy, April 1st

    I'm still kicking myself for missing last week's Goes Cube "welcome home" shows... some unexpected family shit came up here out on the Island/blah blah blah.  But I was hoping that tonight's show (ostensibly a Converge show) would deliver the rock.  Which it did.  Kinda.

    The ticket said "DOORS AT 6 PM" which had me puzzled... why so early?  Who th' fuck knows.  I got to Penn at about 6:20 and walked the mile or so to Blender Theater.  This was the second show I've seen here (Two Gallants with the comically overrated Blitzen Trapper last October was the first) and because I'm a fucking cripple, I kinda wish more venues had the same "seating optional" deal as this place-- it's kind of like a smaller Nokia Theater in that respect.  I checked out the merch table but unfortunately the only Baroness CDs they were selling were '07's awesome The Red Album (incidentally, #15 on some fat dickhead's Best of 2007 list) and their split with Unpersons, both of which I already have.  Which kind of sucks, because last time I saw them (last October at Don Pedro's, coincidentally a day after the aforementioned Two Gallants show) they had all of 'em for sale but I "only" had enough cash on hand to get First and a crimson Baroness t-shirt, going away Secondless. 

    (Also, it was at that same show -- during the Atakke set, specifically -- when I witnessed the single most fucked up thing I've ever seen at a show, namely a dude in a wheelchair getting unceremoniously dumped onto the floor, and, uh, just check #2 on this list.  Pretty fucked up, no?  And I had tix to see them at Bowery Ballroom last December, arriving early before realizing that Baroness was playing the late show and I'd have to sit through a full Richard Hawley set in addition to two more openers, meaning that I wouldn't be getting home until about 6 AM.  So I bailed on that one.  By the way, if it seems like I'm padding this review with superfluous bullshit, I am, and you'll understand why in a few paragraphs.)

    7:00 rolled around and Genghis Tron came onstage.  I can't be sure who/what website had recommended these guys, but it was probably OhMyRockness... lemme check... yeah.  I liked their set, and they kind of reminded me of Ministry mixed with, say, An Albatross but that's kind of a cop-out because any heavy band with keyboards/drum machine/samples is invariably going to be compared to Ministry at some point.  But they were cool... (dramatic pause)... even if they only got a 25 minute set.  {FORESHADOWING!}

    Although I had been to a Baroness show previously, this was the first time I had ever actually *seen* the band.  (The October show at Don Pedro's took place a month after having my ankle broken by an angry cop in DC -- long story -- and after I saw the dude get knocked out of a wheelchair I pussed out and "watched" -- or, more accurately, "listened" -- to the show from the back of the room.) They took the stage at a little before 8, ripping right into "Rays on Pinion" into "The Birthing," followed by "Isak" (yes, in the exact same order that the same three songs open The Red Album).  Although I find the the vocals to be a bit too... let's go with "linear," the instrumental sections are comprised of equally perfect amounts of technical precision, melody, and crunch, with just a nip of Southern rock thrown in there, and these three Red Album standouts showcase that winning combination as well as anything that's out there today.

    After a couple other tunes, they lumbered into the tripping-down-a-spiral-staircase riff of Red Album closer "Grad," probably my favorite jam on the record.  Love love love this song, which, with its dual guitar attack and latent sentimentality, would have fit nicely somewhere at the back end of Pelican's City of Echoes.  Sadly, this was to be the last song of their set, and I did a double-take after realizing that they were only onstage for 35 minutes!  Biggest rip-off since the criminally brief 25 minutes alloted to Russian Circles in favor of the vastly inferior Velvet Teen, Minus the Bear and some other shitburger a couple years ago at Irving Plaza.  I had no interest in seeing Converge's set so I began walking back to Penn.  Love Baroness, but I couldn't help but feel a bit, you know, gypped. 

    So, yeah, good set, but did it really justify the 4+ hours it took getting there and back home?  Hmmm, my time really isn't worth much these days, so probably.  Meh.  See ya at Howlin' Rain tomorrow night.