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. 

The 99 Best Songs of 2009

Okay.  So, late last year, I spent all day putting together a list of my 75 favorite songs of 2008, complete with mp3s of *rare live versions* of many of the songs and links to videos on YouTube of the songs being played live.  And again, it's not like I really care about how many page views this blog gets, but it's a bit of a sobering deal when a list you've slaved over gets fewer hits than a picture of Grimace saying "Fuck Tim".  I mean c'mon now, people.

So, needless to say, this list took less work than that.  How much less, you ask?  Enough that I'm not even going to finish this intr

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1.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Zero" -- Yup, it's clicheed.  In fact, one could question the point of maintaining still yet another crappy blog tagging It's Blitz as Album of the Year and "Zero" as the year's finest song.  While we're on the subject, one could probably also question the utility of playing Baseball Stars for like 17 straight hours. But then again one should probably just get off my case. 

2.) The Crocodiles - "I Wanna Kill" -- Posing + Preening + Hilariously bad lyrics + THE GREATEST CHORUS IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC EVER.

3.) Boston Spaceships - "How Wrong You Are" - This is the best *new* song Robert Pollard has written since "The Best of Jill Hives" in 2003.  Yes, there have been some good-to-great songs since then, but many of them ("Go For the Exit," "Be It Not for the Serpentine Rain Dodger," "Accidental Texas Who," etc.) are gussied-up versions of stuff he came up with forever ago.  Not so this one.  As if you care.

4.) Pissed Jeans - "False Jesii pt. 2" -- If I were to begin regularly dancing in a manner befitting this song, the world would have many, many more falling chandeliers.

5.) Jay Reatard - "There Is No Sun" -- Mr. Reatard slows it down, throws on some strings, and winds up with what sounds like "Don't Stop Now"'s misanthropic cousin. 

6.) Smith Westerns - "My Heart" -- These lo-fi kiddies' finest song.  Awesome guitar lick at the end kills me every time. 

7.) The Thermals - "Bottom of the Sea" -- This song has a simplicity to awesomeness ratio of 1.

8.) A Place to Bury Strangers - "Ego Death" -- If you've seen APTBS at any point over the last two years you've probably seen them open their set with this (I always thought it was called "Gimme Acid").  Oliver Ackerman sounds like Peter Murphy on this one. 

9.) Baroness - "The Gnashing" -- Sounds a lot like Torche's "Across the Shields," a/k/a '08's second best song.

10.) Wolfmother - "Far Away" -- Let me see your cigarette lighters!  

11.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Skeletons"

12.) The Raveonettes - "Bang"

13.) Kylesa - "Unknown Awareness"

14.) Big Business - "The Drift"

15.) Crippled Black Phoenix - "200 Tons of Bad Luck"

16.) Kylesa - "To Walk Alone"

17.) Fuck Buttons - "Olympians"

18.) Crippled Black Phoenix - "Rise Up and Fight"

19.) The Thermals - "How We Fade"

20.) Pelican - "What We All Come to Need"

21.) Heartless Bastards - "The Mountain"

22.) The Antlers - "Two"

23.) The Thermals - "When I Died"

24.) Death - "Politicians In My Eyes"

25.) Fever Ray - "Triangle Walks"

26.) A Place to Bury Strangers - "In Your Heart" (Cereal Spiller remix)

27.) Atlas Sound (ft. Laetitia Sader) - "Quick Canal"

28.) Built to Spill - "Oh Yeah"

29.) BOAT - "Interstate 5"

30.) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "The Tenure Itch"

31.) The Crocodiles - "Sleeping With the Lord"

32.) Built to Spill - "Things Fall Apart"

33.) Crippled Black Phoenix - "444"

34.) The Raveonettes - "Wine"

35.) King Khan & BBQ Show - "Anala"

36.) Baroness - "Swollen and Halo"

37.) Dan Deacon - "Red F"

38.) The Raveonettes - "Break Up Girls!"

39.) A Place to Bury Strangers - "Keep Slipping Away"

40.) Russian Circles - "Malko"

41.) Kylesa - "Scapegoat"

42.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Runaway"

43.) Built to Spill - "Done"

44.) Crippled Black Phoenix - "A Hymn for a Lost Soul"

45.) Oxford Collapse - "Search Party"

46.) Goes Cube - "I Hold Grudges"

47.) King Khan & BBQ - "I'll Be Loving You"

48.) Julian Plenti - "Only If You Run"

49.) The Thermals - "I Let it Go"

50.) The Crocodiles - "Summer of Hate"

51.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Little Shadow"

52.) Smith Westerns - "Tonight"

53.) Red Fang - "Whales and Leeches"

54.) The Raveonettes - "Suicide"

55.) A Place to Bury Strangers - "Dead Beat"

56.) Julian Plenti - "Games for Days"

57.) The Thermals - "You Dissolve"

58.) Heartless Bastards - "Witchy Poo"

59.) Goes Cube - "Saab Sonnet"

60.) Cheeseburger - "Commin' Home"

61.) Fuck Buttons - "The Lisbon Maru"

62.) Your Nature - "Sands"

63.) Pissed Jeans - "Half Idiot"

64.) Dead Mellotron - "I Hate the Way Things Are"

65.) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Young Adult Friction"

66.) Sian Alice Group - "Close to the Ground"

67.) White Denim - "All Consolation"

68.) Them Crooked Vultures - "Elephants"

69.) Maximo Park - "The Kids Are Sick Again"

70.) Fever Ray - "If I Had a Heart"

71.) Wolfmother - "Caroline"

72.) Melvins (remixed by John Duncan) - "AAHHH"

73.) Pissed Jeans - "Dream Smotherer"

74.) Seventh Void - "Heaven is Gone"

75.) Fuck Buttons - "Surf Solar"

76.) Alice in Chains - "A Looking in View"

77.) Goes Cube - "Bluest Sky"

78.) Times New Viking - "Those Days"

79.) White Denim - "Sex Prayer"

80.) Dex Romweber Duo - "Picture"

81.) Wolfmother - "Back Round"

82.) Boston Spaceships - "A Good Circuitry Soldier"

83.) Portishead - "Chase the Tear"

84.) Dinosaur Jr. - "Oceans in the Way"

85.) LiveFastDie - "Amputated"

86.) A Place to Bury Strangers - "I Lived My Life to Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart"

87.) Wolfmother - "California Queen"

88.) Franz Ferdinand - "Ulysses"

89.) The Dead Weather - "I Cut Like a Buffalo"

90.) Heartless Bastards - "Sway"

91.) Crippled Black Phoenix - "Burnt Reynolds"

92.) Baroness - "A Horse Called Golgotha"

93.) O'Death - "Mongoloid"

94.) LiveFastDie - "Camero Shit the Bed"

95.) Goes Cube - "The Only Daughter"

96.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Hysteric"

97.) Dead Mellotron - "I Woke Up"

98.) The Dead Weather - "60 Feet Tall"

99.) Jay Reatard - "It Ain't Gonna Save Me"

The Best (and worst) Albums of 2009 (so far)

    Let's not gild the lily-- if these reviews seem bitchier than usual, it's for the simple reason that this has been an historically atrocious year for new music.  Here's hoping the next few months improve matters since there's all kinds of potentially great shit poised to drop before the year's up.  Fortunately I have a pretty significant backlog of albums I've hoarded over the last several years, and this year's shortage of good new shit has just meant I've been able to delve into the collected works of bands that y'all probably already know and love. 

    As usual, the rules for this list remain the same: this is newly-released full-lengths only, so there are no singles, reissues, or greatest hits comps on here.  And these are all albums that I personally either bought myself or paid to download (except one which shall go nameless, and the Moby record which I streamed at NPR).  So it's not like I stole this shit just so I could write snarky reviews.  Enjoy! (or don't.)

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1.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz -- I was absolutely in love with the noisy direction the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had taken on 2007's awesome Is Is EP, so naturally I cringed when I heard the new one would feature an entirely new stylistic twist n' turn into disco-ish territory.  To me, this foretold of a streamlining/mainstreaming of their sound, and I wasn't the hugest fan of their previous attempt at conventionality on Show Your Bones, because I kinda always felt the YYY's material is at its best with plenty of roughness around the edges.  But f all that; simply put, Blitz contains their strongest songwriting ever, framed by absolutely letter-perfect production.  From rave-ups to poppy shit to straight-up dance rock and even earnest ballads (?!) this album proves that the YYYs are good enough to be able to put gimmickry aside and churn out an album full of amazing songs.

2.) The Crocodiles - Summer of Hate -- I've had this on heavy rotation since I caught them at Union Pool last month.  The recipe is simple: snotty vocals, analog synth, blazing guitar tone, drum machine.  Imagine, say, a bratty Suicide mixed with J&MC's noisy melodicism.  No less than 3 positively stellar competitors for the title of best-song-of-the-year: the title track, "I Wanna Kill" (what a fucking triumphant chorus!!) and "Sleeping With the Lord."  [Interestingly, the singer is apparently a substitute teacher at a special ed school.  I had several similar jobs years ago so I think think is awesome.]

3.) Crippled Black Phoenix - The Resurrectionists/Night Raider -- Sprawling double-album companion piece to 2007's pretty good A Love of Shared Disasters, this surpasses Disasters in every way that matters.  Several distinct styles are explored, from galloping, Floydish numbers ("Rise Up and Fight") to more traditional post-rock ("Burnt Reynolds") to folk (um, lots of 'em), with cleverly varied instrumentation.  The real improvement is in the haunting melodies, which creep their way into your mind -- have fun trying to get the accordion riff from "200 Tons of Bad Luck" out of your head.  Is there a significant amount of filler?  Yes, and some of the songs seem to take forever to get where they're going (the payoff is worth it more often than not, however).  Although the pervasive mood can be characterized as "morose" or "downcast," there's more than enough light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel hopefulness to transcend mere mopiness.  Yes, this album is uplifting enough to beat the misery of an hour on the 4 train.  Several days a week. 

4.) The Dead Weather - Horehound -- Man, I hated the first single ("Hang You From the Heavens") when I first heard it, but consider me totally 180'd on that one... as it turns out it's actually one of the year's finest songs thus far.  In many ways, this album is the exact sum of it's parts: there's a definite old-school Kills sound on most of the songs, some bluesy crunch courtesy QOTSA, plenty of the White Stripes' minimalism and quiet/loud dynamic, as well as some vintage Raconteurs-style blandness.  Probably Alison Mosshart's most soulful vocals ever, too, which says quite a bit.

5.) Goes Cube - Another Day Has Passed -- I've liked every one of these guys' self-released EPs, but this one is the first that actually approaches the furious intensity of Goes Cube's thrash-tastic live show.  Highly fucking recommended. 

6.) The Thermals - Now We Can See -- No, this doesn't come anywhere close to matching '06's landmark The Body, The Blood, The Machine, but if you pick this one apart (say, like an orange) there's still several good songs for all your mix-tapin' needs.  The rave-ups and more solemn songs are fine, but at times the sappiest of this bunch manage to plumb the sickeningly sweet depths of '02's smarmy-as-all-get-out Hutch and Kathy project.  Just skip those ones, though.

7.) Children - Hard Times Hanging at the End of the World -- Rockin', technically precise thrash that's fun as hell.  The video for their lead single shows that these guys have a sense of humor to match their formidable chops.  Great, great listen.

8.) Kylesa - Static Tensions -- 3 bona fide sludge classics on here ("Scapegoat," "Unknown Awareness," "To Walk Alone") framed by some lesser-but-still-pretty-darn-good stoner jams. 

9.) Heartless Bastards - The Mountain -- The bluegrassy shit is terribly boring but the 3-chord grunge jams are emotive, soulful and rockin'.  Employ your skip button judiciously.

10.) Dead Mellotron - Ghost Light Constellation EP -- How rare is it that a random band you've never heard of friends you on MySpace and it turns out their music is actually really good?  Several lo-fi, hazy, shoegazy gems on this one, and you can download it for free here.

11.) Dan Deacon - Bromst -- Easily Dan Deacon's best songwriting ever, and the first thing I've heard by him that displays any real heart to speak of.  But fans of his spazzier stuff can rejoice: plenty of wackiness (notably the goofy sound effects and pitch-shifted vocals) remains.

12.) Hull - Sole Lord -- Let me start by saying that 2007's Viking Funeral is one of the most aggressive, arresting metal epics I've ever heard, and for anyone who's had the pleasure of seeing Hull perform it live, you have to think "man, they're going to have to tone down the next thing they do a coupl'a notches if they're going avoid burning themselves out."  That being said, I was a little disappointed with this album's subdued, at times even new-agey feel.  Don't get me wrong, there are still several great bonecrushing moments on this record, but nothing here matches Viking Funeral's singular awesomeness.

13.) Death - ...For the Whole World to See -- A few people have hailed this as an "unearthed classic" or whatever which isn't exactly the case -- the material's good overall, but not great.  Although there are only two truly great songs here ("Keep on Knocking," "Politicians in My Eyes,"), understanding the context in which it was written, recorded, and ultimately forgotten for a quarter century is pretty neat. 

14.) Big Business - Mind the Drift -- The bass should be louder, the vocals should be turned down, and the guitar parts should just be fucking erased.  Seriously, with Big Business, the sludgier the better, and here the head-scratchingly awful production choices almost -- almost, mind you -- ruin it.  "The Drift" is one of the year's best songs, though.

15.) These Arms Are Snakes - Tail Swallower and Dove -- Several killer, bone-crushing grooves on this one ("Ethric Double," for one, is undeniably great), although at times it degenerates into what comes across as mathed-up emo. 

(EDIT: it turns out this album actually came out in 2008, so don't be all "where'd the These Arms Are Snakes album go on your year end list?!")

16.) Black Math Horseman - Wylt -- Typically serviceable stoner metal.  Yes, it's plodding and monotonous, but either way, it's still better than that Black Mountain "light bright light bright light bright" horsecrap. 

17.) Dinosaur Jr. - Farm -- I had really high hopes for this one after the awesomeness of 2007's triumphant comeback Beyond, but the second half of this record really drags.  On the positive tip, they did drastically improve the mix in comparison to Beyond: rather than placing the vocals front and center, the grunginess and fuzz really suit these guys.  (Think You're Living All Over Me.)  Also, I should mention that Farm does not lack for stellar guitar solos, if you're into that sort of thing.

18.) Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown -- At nearly 70 minutes this bad boy is overstuffed to the point of being comically bloated.  Tough to get through in one sitting, although there are some decent tunes on here (I'm partial to the title track).

19.) LiveFastDie - Bandana Thrash Record -- Potty-mouthed gutterpunk by these drunken louts who (presumably) named their band after one of GG Allin's tats (peep his left tit).  Very fun at times, but sometimes too retarded for their own good.  Plus, "Fat Guy with an iPod" hits a bit too close to home *SNIFFLE*

20.) Dex Romweber Duo - Ruins of Berlin -- Somewhat of a disappointment after seeing their garage-filthy live show.  Some tepid guest spots (Cat Power, Neko Case) take the music in the wrong direction: in a sane world this would be presented as distorted, raucous fare, not mild-mannered imitation bar-band averageness.  Dex's amazing voice (part Roy Orbison, part Jerry Lee Lewis) saves this one.

21.) Stinking Lizaveta - Sacrifice and Bliss -- Dexterous, proggy licks crammed together, kind of in the vein of a more stoned Fucking Champs (if the Champs had an electric stand-up bassist). 

22.) Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP -- I'm used to Bradford Cox putting out tossed-off sounding stuff under the Atlas Sound moniker and saving the good shit for Deerhunter records, but this one pretty much splits the difference there. 

23.) Mono - Hymn to the Immortal Wind -- Not bad, but I can't understand why you'd bother with this when there's so much other great post-rockish stuff out there.  Yes, the instrumentation sounds painstakingly orchestrated, but the music just isn't great enough to warrant the feeling of timelessness that they're clearly shooting for.

24.) Franz Ferdinand - Tonight! Franz Ferdinand -- Pointless beyond the first single, "Ulysses," which was actually quite good.

25.) Los Straitjackets - The Further Adventures of Los Straitjackets -- Might as well have just named this one Etc. because while it's in the same vein of their previous output, it's nowhere near as good as much of it.  Remember - while these guys are probably best known for their "Wipe Out!" soundalikes and film/TV theme covers, it's on their more original-sounding compositions ("University Blvd.," "Pacifica," "Casbah," "State Fair," etc.) that they've really earned their mettle up till now.  Alas, this is record is mostly uninspired rehashes. 

26.) Moby - Wait for Me -- Good background music; nothing more, nothing less. 

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NOTE-- albums below here are all interchangeably crappy, so I didn't bother numbering them.  Why bother writing reviews for them then, you may ask?  Three simple reasons: 1.) I don't have a real job; 2.) I'm bitter about having spent money on them; and perhaps most importantly, 3.) I'm fresh out of pork rinds so I'm going to need something to occupy my hands for the next hour or so.  Happy?

- Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion -- I doubt I'll ever "get" these guys mainly because I'm a fan of memorable melodies.  You will find none of those on this album.

- Art Brut - Art Brut vs. Satan -- Loved the first album just like everyone else, but it's time to send this one-trick pony to the glue factory already.  Not even production by Frank Black can save this one from being wholly inessential.

- Boston Spaceships - Planets are Blasted -- The "Pay Bob's Mortgage You Sucker" campaign fumbles onward with this, yet another horrible album.  And still, like a total fucking moron, I hold tight to the misguided notion that at some point Bob may rediscover the brilliance that made me such an eager devotee for several years.  Y'know what?  Fuck "brilliance."  At this point I'd settle for Fiction Man II or some such.  [Note: yes, I did preorder Bob's newest forthcoming solo record yesterday.  I hate myself.]

- Isis - Wavering Radiant -- Another band that I'm "supposed" to love because I like Tool and I enjoy all kinds of good post-metal-ish stuff, but frankly I just don't see it.  The riffs are poor-man's at best and what's worse, the sung vocals sound like Nick Hexum.  Shudder.

- Mastodon - Crack the Skye -- A major turn for the worse.  First off, if you're going to jack up your (crappy) vocals, you may want to think about writing a decent fucking melody first, no?  Second, for a band frequently cited these days as being among The Best Metal Bands in the World, whither all the great riffs?  I'll tell you exactly where: "The Czar" at about 4:00 and again in the same song at 7:40; the intro to the title track; and 8:25 or so into "The Last Baron."  Seriously, that's it.  Weak.

- Maximo Park - Quicken the Heart - Futureheads>Bloc Party>Young Knives>Arctic Monkeys>Maximo Park>Kaiser Chiefs.  Nuff said.

- NODZZZ - NODZZZ -- Useless.  For all the kids out there that think horrendous crap like Nodzzz or Wavves or Vivian Girls or The Beets perfected lo-fi, please spend some quality time with Alien Lanes and see how this shit's really supposed to be done.  Thanks!

- Pelican - Ephemeral EP -- First thing by these guys I've heard that I haven't absolutely adored.  These 3 songs suck ass.  (Full disclosure - I think City of Echoes is one of the two finest albums of the aughts.)  

- Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - I think this is trite, and the songwriting's poor-at-best.  Discuss!

- Praxis - Profanation: Preparation for a Coming Darkness -- Unfortunately, the emphasis here is not on the band (killer B's Bill Laswell, Buckethead, Bernie Worrell and Brain)'s formidable chops, but on shuffling a new, different guest vocalist in on each and every track.  Does not for good listening make.  

- Seventh Void - Heaven Is Gone -- Long-awaited side project from the guitarist and drummer of Type O Negative.  The title track is decent, but the rest is sub-generic stoner metal crap.

- The Soft Pack - The Muslims - The Meh-slims is more like it.  T'heh!

- Wavves - Wavvves -- Manages to be both overrated and underrated at the same time.  No, this guy isn't the Antichrist, and no, he's also not the "savior of lo-fi" or whatever.  He's just some spoiled SoCal kid with an incredible publicist and no perceptible talent.