Deaf Center - Owl Splinters (Type)
Marcus Fjellström - Schattenspieler (Miasmah)
Hella - Tripper (Sargent House)
KK Rampage - Crawlspace (Self-Released)
Kreng - Grimoire (Miasmah)
Liturgy - Aesthethica (Thrill Jockey)
Mr. Dream - Trash Hit (God Mode)
Satanized - Technical Virginity (Skin Graft)
Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread (Drag City)
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - The Tape Club (Polyvinyl)
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy (4AD)
25. Dope Body - Nupping (Hoss)
From the ruins of rap-metal, Dope Body have shown that there's no reason you can't improve on your source material. With an outstanding drummer, a guitarist the love-child of Tom Morello and Arto Lindsay, and a barking bro-tastic drill-sergeant lead singer who rarely keeps his shirt on, Dope Body are too weird for the frat, and too cool for the schooled.
24. Givers - In Light (Glassnote)
It's not surprising that Givers' debut name-checks Talking Head's classic Remain In Light, considering its make-up: three vocalists, short-circuit guitar playing, and a skewed Afro-beat sensibility. Givers' infectiously upbeat album was has broad, full-band widescreen feel refreshingly different than the cloistered bedroom pop of recent years.
23. bbigpigg - Phantom Photography (Self-Released)
Okay, it's just an EP, but bbigpigg (along with Doomsday Student, The Men, White Suns, Dope Body, Satanized, et. al.) are an affirmation that despite the pull of chillwave's sun-kissed nostalgia, there is a rising tide of noise more indicative of the world as it is, not as we'd wish it to be.
22. White Denim - D (Downtown)
While a lot of credibility is placed in a band's "consistency," there's definitely something to be said for the band talented enough to pull off the kitchen-sink approach so effortlessly. With a second guitarist, White Denim embraced all its proggy tendencies, while still showing they can write the hell out of a damn good pop tune as well.
21. Braids - Native Speaker (Kanine)
Sure, this album is pretty shamelessly Animal Collective, circa Feels, but Braids take AC's modern shamanism into tougher territory: contemporary suburbia, and like Avey & co., they're able to capture all the strangeness and wonder of what it is to be human.
20. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (Sub Pop)
I'm not much of a hip-hop aficionado, but that further underscores Black Up's universal appeal: it's just that good. An *album* in its truest sense, the songs are amazing, the pacing is perfect, and it conjures a place unto itself.
19. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)
A lot has been made of this album's cover and the way it was recorded, but moreover, to me, it's about what Hecker does best: makes gorgeous sentient drones that sound bigger than any set of speakers can reproduce.
18. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L (4AD)
I was afraid that the lo-fi quirkiness of Merril Garbus' debut was part of its charm, but her follow-up showed that it had more to do with her amazingly elastic voice, great arrangements and smart songwriting. A political album without beating the listener over the head with it, Garbus questions gentrification, violence and sexuality without sacrificing a single song.
17. Battles - Gloss Drop (Warp)
Speaking of reinvention, what does a band do when they lose one of their most recognizable members? In Battle's case, they made the smart move of hiring great collaborators-- among them, Gary Newman?! I didn't expect such a cerebral band to make such a goofy album, but it's living proof that Battles too just wanna have fun.
16. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
It may sound crazy to say, but you've gotta feel a little bit sorry for Radiohead. After the complete genius one-two punch of OK Computer and Kid A, everybody expects them to both: A. completely reinvent themselves; and B. make another masterpiece. Isn't consistency a great thing for such a long-lived band to have? Maybe Radiohead have set the bar too high for themselves, but overall, they're too consistent for us to take for granted.
15. Real Estate - Days (Domino)
Real Estate make it sound easy-- almost *too* easy, but that's sort of the point. It wouldn't work so well if the band wasn't so self-aware-- as singer Martin Courtney sings on "Green Aisles": "those endless drives down green aisles/our careless lifestyle/it was not so unwise." Beneath all the sunny jangle there's a real melancholy for a youth that's either fading away, or-- sadder still-- already gone.
14. The Men - Leave Home (Sacred Bones)
The Men's singer was seriously ill at the time of this recording, and it shows (in the best way possible). Careening from the shoegauzy opener to the immolating storms of "L.A.D.O.C.H." and "Bataille", this is the sound of a band coming apart at its seams. But, like any good punk-rock catharsis, there's redemption to be had here-- both exhausting and exhilarating, this album shows off the eternal power of youthful bile.
13. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners)
Better than any other album, this one best exemplifies "hauntology." Using old pre-war 78s, Leyland Kirby accentuates the surface qualities of the old vinyl-- the pops and scratches-- and gives us only the ghosts of the songs themselves. The songs endlessly loop fragments of hazily recollected tunes, and create something that's cozy familiarity is slowly eroded by the tension of their own trapped dementia.
12. TV Ghost - Mass Dream (In the Red)
TV Ghost's lead singer, Tim Gick, doesn't so much sing as he does *channel*. While Gick and co. are creators of the music's haunted-house paroxysms, he sounds less like a willing participant and more like a terrified bystander. But as their name and album title suggest, they're here to tell us that sleepwalking through what's real may be the scariest thing of all.
11. The Psychic Paramount - II (Thrill Jockey)
Like Liturgy's amazing track "Generation" (also from this year), no other band rocked a single chord so fully, so inventively and so completely. With the "post-rock" tag being applied to seemingly everything without vocals, here's an entirely instrumental band that could finally lop off that overused prefix and both reclaim and remake "rock" into something new and yes, utterly rocking.
10. Balkans - Balkans (Double Phantom)
I have a tendency to underrate "pop" music (with the notable exception of UMO, below), and it's hard to say exactly why; is it because nowadays albums seem singles-based, or because I lack the attention span to enjoy an entire album of "pop" music? For whatever reason, this classic twin-guitar/drums/bass lineup captivated me from the start, and reaffirmed my love of albums made up of well-crafted, singable, danceable, enjoyable music.
9. United Waters - Your First Ever River (Arbitrary Signs)
An album so organic sounding, you can scarcely believe anyone had to actually record it. An ambient album with actual hooks, but ones buried under others, rendering the entire experience nearly subliminal.
8. Doomsday Student - A Jumper's Handbook (Anchor Brain)
What if your favorite band came back after a near 10-year hiatus, and instead of sucking, in fact rocked harder than ever before? If it's not completely unprecedented, someone please email me both chapter and verse, as I'm still not entirely sure this recording is real.
7. Colin Stetson - New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation)
In a day when looping technology has become commonplace, the fact that Colin Stetson built this album with a single saxophone and his breath is nothing short of heroic. And it *sounds* heroic; insectile clicks, deep, sonorous drones, shimmering ostinatos-- often all happening simultaneously while Stetson is *singing* through his instrument-- this is an entirely different breed of soul music.
6. Skoal Kodiak - Kryptonym Bodliak (Load)
Who knew raw noise could be so danceable? Like Holy Fuck led by a schizophrenic karaoke robot, or Black Dice congealing into a fragrant new concrète, this band occupies a uniquely disorienting space between cold, harsh electronics and pulsating human junk.
5. Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans)
I heard this album described brilliantly as "the sound of Tears for Fears turning themselves inside out." A wonderful example of how a band can embody and combine their influences while at the same time being entirely and inimitably themselves.
4. Grouper - A I A: Dream Loss / Alien Observer (Yellowelectric)
Not just one, but *two* amazing albums from Liz Harris; the first disc harkens back to her darker drone work, while the more redemptive second album capitalizes on the hushed hymnal grace of her more recent recordings.
3. Grooms - Prom (Kanine)
Their debut album was a favorite as well, but didn't prepare the listener for the depth and complexity of this follow up. A concept album with a subtly small 'c,' this group of songs perfectly captures the bittersweet confusion in bloom that is high school.
2. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Fat Possum)
Their debut manages to be irresistibly funky, weird, ramshackle and consistently fun with every listen. The name's a hint at the sound; like a golem cobbled together with old 45s, UMO is both warmly familiar and utterly strange.
1. Amen Dunes - Through Donkey Jaw (Sacred Bones)
From the opening chords of "Baba Yaga", this album casts a spell that lasts its entire duration; it's a place, and its own transportation device, as every great album should be.
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