Just a few of the releases that I liked this year since I am quite drunk and am in no mood to piece together every record I discovered this year.
Here come the Tears blew me the hell away. It was like "What if Suede went pop and Bernard Butler was along for the ride?" Hearing the new tracks "Berlin" and "Europe After the Rain", I cannot wait for the second album by The Tears.
"Late Registration" Now, I didn't love this album. However, I thought one of my favorite producers' earlier work, Danger Mouse, would begin a hip hop movement towards this direction and I was right. This relies on Jon Brion, with a lot of classic sounding music going along with great beats. I didn't like all the featurings, though.
Speaking of Brion, Extraordinary Machine was quite good. Fiona Apple has improved greatly with this album, and this blows the prototype version away. That makes the apprectiation of this album even greater.
Decemberists - Picaresque. Wonderful, catchy music that is involving at the same time. I don't think much needs to be said about this one, as I spot it on many a list.
Motion City Sondtrack was a band I had never heard of, but they really surprised me as did their producer, Mark Hoppus of Blink 182. The songs are emotional but not sickening. The music is amateur, but the drummer is amazing. The album isn't perfect, but inviting and catchy with the general riffs and vocal performance. Justin's voice sounds fragile, but can hit the notes with such precision that you want to listen to more.
Elevator is an album currently making the rounds on my Karma, and I suspect it'll be a keeper. I honestly didn't expect to like this, but I like how Hot Hot Heat definitely borrows from post punk era and twists it with their modern pop stylings. The vocalist sounds particularly affected and that makes for a very welcome style which acts as a bridge between the songs on the album. I hated Goodnight Goodnight but loved their sophomore single, Middle of Nowhere. I noticed the background riff on that song is ripped from XTC's "Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" but they change it up so well and copy from a good band so I don't particularly care. It can be disposable at times, but with the few politically charged songs stands as the biggest surprise among my selections.
