Prior to the release of The Hold Steady’s fifth album I was preparing myself for a let down. 2008’s Stay Positive was the group’s first glimmer of a transition to more modern rock sound and away from their “bar band” roots, and with the group that much older in 2010, it could only be expected to see that movement continue. The band hinted at a “less anthemic and more complex” album which raised a huge red flag for all THS fans and then of course, energetic keyboardist Franz Nicolay left the band taking his accordion and mustache with him. So with all that said, everything seemed to be lining up for a bit of a bust, but after listening to Heaven is Whenever, I can honestly say I was not let down nearly as much as I expected.
There are still plenty of jams on Heaven is Whenever full of sing along choruses that fans have come to expect making the whole “less anthemic and more complex” warning maybe a bit of a ruse. Tad Kubler still gets a couple guitar solos in, most notably on “Weekenders” and “Rock Problems”. And who needs an accordion when you have a freakin’ clarinet?? (See solo on “Barely Breathing”.) Lyrically, the themes of partying and adolescent uncertainty are still captured and Craig Finn still does a masterful job of referencing his own work, this time even harkening back to their debut Almost Killed Me possibly as a way for the band to say they’ve grown up and it’s time to look back and see if they’ve carried through with what they set out to do…i.e. held steady.
Where the album falters is that it just seems to be a more restrained version of The Hold Steady. There are less of those jams I spoke of as compared to their previous work, and it’s the first album where I really noticed Finn singing rather than doing his usual speak-singing throughout the songs. For whatever reason, this seems to sacrifice some of the relatable qualities that has always characterized the band. The raw energy of the group doesn’t show up as much which in part can be attributed to those dreaded over-production techniques that has claimed oh so many albums. And make no mistake about it; this band misses Franz Nicolay. But if I can be blatantly cliché for a moment, while Heaven is Whenever is probably the band’s worst album, that’s more of a testament to the greatness of their previous four.
The mystery of exactly when “heaven is whenever” is doesn’t come until pseudo title-track, “We Can Get Together”. Turns out “heaven is whenever we can get together, sit down on your floor, and listen to your records.” For a band that is always preaching about the redemptive power of rock ‘n’ roll, this should come as no surprise. They may be transitioning to an older rock band, but Craig Finn and the boys still know who they are, where they come from, and what they stand for, and as long as that spirit continues to pervade throughout the band, there should be no fear of a Hold Steady let down.
Here we are in April, so it’s time to recap the first quarter of 2010 and pick out some of the albums that highlighted the first three months. I reviewed a couple albums here and here, so I’ll leave those out for this recap and just focus on a few standout albums that I have yet to mention on the blog. (There’s a lot of them…I’ve been lazy) So lets get to it…in order of release date.
Laura Veirs – July Flame
January was a very busy month for album releases and one of the more under the radar records that unfortunately didn’t quite get the hype of some others was July Flame, the seventh release from the Portland based folk singer-songwriter Laura Veirs. Granted, it’s a bit hard for a singer-songwriter to break free of the pack, much less a soft spoken folk singer from Portland, but on July Flame, Veirs does her best to set herself apart with her songwriting, and she does it quite well. She has to be one of the more under-appreciated artists in her genre, but with a release like this, maybe she’ll start to get a bit more love.
[“July Flame” – July Flame]
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Owen Pallett – Heartland
Previously known as Final Fantasy, Heartland is Pallett’s first album under his own name and I found myself enjoying this album much more than I expected. I was never much of a Final Fantasy fan, mainly because when the last FF release came out 4 years ago, experimental music wasn’t something I was quite ready to…uhh…experiment with. Since then, I’ve opened my mind up a bit and after hearing great things upon Heartland‘s release, I decided to give it a shot. It is such a well crafted album and listening to Heartland, you just get a sense of Pallett’s songwriting ability and musicianship in his compositions. It’s not something that will immediately grab you, but if you’re will to put in the effort, it’s quite easy to appreciate.
[“Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” – Heartland]
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Surfer Blood – Astro Coast
After garnering loads of praise from their single “Swim” released in 2009, Astro Coast was one of the more highly anticipated debut albums in the first part of 2010, and the record displays plenty of the 90s era alternative/indie rock that made “Swim” so intriguing. Surfer Blood is a five-piece from Florida and their brand of high energy rock-pop has been compared to early Weezer and other 90s indie groups, and a few of the tracks on Astro Coast even have a bit of Vampire Weekend feel as well. It’s an immensely fun listen of straightforward rock complete with some awesome melodies…an impressive batch of tightly written pop songs indeed. (And fyi, I had a hell of a time choosing which song to feature here…”Floating Vibes” or “Swim”. The tiebreaker is always handclaps, so “Floating Vibes” it is.)
[“Floating Vibes” – Astro Coast]
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Los Campesinos! – Romance is Boring
I debated leaving this one off this post because I feel like I’m always talking about these guys, but then I realized I actually don’t have one post on here about my beloved Los Campesinos! It has been so much fun watching this group of youngsters from Wales grow up through their first three albums, and while I don’t think I can say Romance is Boring is their best album, it is their most mature and shows how they’ve grown as songwriters. It’s still packs the energy of their early releases when they burst onto the scene back in 2007 with the internet sensation “You! Me! Dancing!” (absolutely one of my favorite songs of the decade), but displays a little more depth in the songwriting, and the lyrics…oh my lord, the lyrics. Gareth Campesinos! was never one to hold back and he sure as hell doesn’t on this release. The confidence of this group is mind blowing.
[“There are Listed Buildings” – Romance is Boring]
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Beach House – Teen Dream
Many people’s clubhouse leader for album of the year comes from Baltimore’s dream-poppers Beach House and their third album Teen Dream, their first on Sub Pop Records. I’ve always thought Beach House was a bit overrated, and a bit boring. They always seem to have that one song that sticks out on their releases that gets a huge amount of hype from indie-pop lovers everywhere, and then the rest of the album is just kinda, there. So while Teen Dream was certainly on my radar, I didn’t have huge hopes for it. But man, from start to finish it is easily their strongest and most consistent release yet, and when thinking of the best albums from the first quarter of 2010, Teen Dream is always one of the first that comes to mind. Is it my clubhouse leader for album of the year?…I’ll never tell.
[“Zebra” – Teen Dream]
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Phantogram – Eyelid Movies
The debut album from New York’s Phantogram is a bit hit or miss, but it has enough hits to make it one of the most beautiful records of the year, thanks in part to it’s very fine production. The duo makes a brand of electro-pop that borrows hip hop beats but manages to create a very atmospheric listen. It’s a fusion of multiple genres and Eyelid Movies manages to pull it off almost seamlessly. As I said, it is a debut album so there’s still room to grow and improve but it’s a fine introduction to where Phantogram is headed and very well could set them up for much greater success in the future.
[“When I’m Small” – Eyelid Movies]
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Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
I remember hearing a Local Natives track back in December (I think it was “Sun Hands”) on another blog and came away impressed, but then completely forgot about them despite the hype leading up to the release of their debut album Gorilla Manor. The Los Angeles five-piece has drawn comparisons to Fleet Foxes mainly due to the three part harmonies, but that’s really where the comparison ends as Local Natives is much more of a rock band and has none of the folksiness that characterizes Fleet Foxes. They actually remind me of an little known defunct emo band in the early 2000s named Lewis that I always thought was immensely underrated. So for me Local Natives is a bit of a nostalgic trip and gives me an idea of what Lewis would sound like today if they were still around. Gorilla Manor is a very impressive debut, and the excitement leading up to this album (thanks in part to it’s successful UK release in ’09) doesn’t hurt it’s appeal one bit as it’s a release that shows they are worthy of the hype.
[“Wide Eyes” – Gorilla Manor]
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Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
Coming into 2010, a new Joanna Newsom release wasn’t really on my radar as there hadn’t much talk of a new album, but then just a few weeks prior to the release of Have One On Me, Newsom and her label started to drop hints of…well…a new album. Then news came that it was a triple LP, and my excitement grew even more. Have One On Me is the follow up to the brilliant Ys (my #5 album in 2006), and features 18 songs broken into three separate albums for grand total of 2 hours of her harp playing freak-folksiness. While Ys was a masterpiece, it was much more of an entire composition broken into 5 movements, so it was hard to really jump into and immediately grasp. Have One On Me is much more accessible and you can actually listen to a song here or there without feeling like you’re missing something. For Have One On Me, Newsom also branches out from just her harp playing to employ the various other instruments in her arsenal. We already knew Newsom was one of the best songwriters in the business, and Have One On Me does nothing to dispel that fact.
[“Good Intentions Paving Co.” – Have One On Me]
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Fang Island – Fang Island
It’s pretty hard to resist any band that describes their sound as “everyone high-fiving everyone”, and after listening to the self-titled debut full-length from Fang Island, I’d say that’s a pretty legit descriptor. The Brooklyn by way of Rhode Island five piece plays highly energetic and infectious indie-pop with a flare for prog-rock and the tunes are guitar hooks galore. The songs are short on vocals as the guitars absolutely dominate the album, but when vocals do come in they bring the same great excitement and instant joyfulness as the rest of the music. It’s only 10 tracks long and just over half and hour, but with the amount of energy these guys put into this release, I don’t know if would have been possible to make it any longer without them passing out during the recording process. It’s as exhilarating of a listen that you’re going to find in 2010.
[“Daisy” – Fang Island]
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These New Puritans – Hidden
The second album from the British art rockers is a complex and bold, but overall stunning achievement of some of the most densely packed compositions you’re going to find. Listening to Hidden is nothing to be taken lightly as it transports you into it’s dark, eerie universe and leaves you contemplating what you’ve just heard even after it’s 45 minutes are up. It’s like going to a movie that you’re not exactly sure what’s going on as your watching it, but afterwards you can’t get it off your mind and eventually realize what you’ve just experienced is a pretty extraordinary work of art. I don’t know if I can find another way to describe Hidden, other than saying it’s unique and demanding and goes without saying that it’s not for everyone.
[“Orion” – Hidden]
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Titus Andronicus – The Monitor
The most epic release so far in 2010 comes from New Jersey rockers Titus Andronicus and their second album The Monitor. It’s so refreshing to hear a straight up rock record with this much intelligence, a la The Hold Steady, and at 65 minutes you’d think it would be an exhausting listen, but it’s not…at least not for me. The Monitor is a loose concept album based on the Civil War, hence some of the song titles, and those themes really carry the album from being just another energetic and rocking release to a stunning effort of 10 heartfelt and smart tracks that Springsteen himself would appreciate. The hooks are killer, and the songs pack some amazing sing along choruses and recurring themes. It’s an ambitious and remarkable achievement that at its heart is evidence of the power of true rock ‘n’ roll.
South Carolina by way of Seattle…by way of South Carolina (confusing, I know) rockers Band of Horses released a video today in support of their upcoming full-length Infinite Arms, which drops on May 18th via Fat Possum/Columbia Records. The track is called “Compliments” and as of now I’m having a hard time deciding what I think of it. It isn’t bad by any means, but it’s a much bigger sound than their previous efforts and some of the charm found in Cease to Begin and especially their brilliant debut Everything All the Time seems to be sacrificed. The verse definitely does it for me, but the chorus kind of takes me by surprise as it comes across much more arena rock and almost cheezy. Maybe not a bad thing, but I’m still digesting. Anyhoo, judge for yourself below. There’s no doubt it’s a catchy listen, and a great teaser for the upcoming release. May is going to be an amazing month for new releases, and this one is still near the top of my most anticipated.
I love my subscription to Paste Magazine, not only because it’s a great read, but also for the sampler CD they include with every magazine that features some new music. I usually just pop it in my car’s cd player and keep it on repeat for times when I don’t have my iPod with me. On average I’d say there’s about 10 artists included in each CD that I haven’t heard of, and with usually 2 or 3 of those sticking out to me. And every now and there’s one that intrigues me enough to do some research and find out more about that artist. On the Issue 59 (Dec ’09/Jan ’10) sampler, buried all the way at the very end is a track from a group called Oberhofer called “Away FRM U” that immediately stood out to me. When I first heard the song, and the vocals came in I assumed it was a new project of Frog Eyes frontman (and Swan Lake member) Carey Mercer. But then I thought, wait no, this isn’t nearly weird enough.
Turns out Oberhofer isn’t really a band as much as it is just 19 year old Brad Oberhofer. Originally from Tacoma, Washington but now based in Brooklyn (of course), Oberhofer is another one of those bedroom artist that records his own stuff and hopes the internet can help him along. So far, so good. The guy has been showing up all over the blogosphere recently, and Paste Magazine included another one of his songs as part of the Issue 60 Sampler bonus tracks. As I said, his voice certainly compares to Carey Mercer and Spencer Krug of Frog Eyes/Swan Lake/Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown fame. Those are British Columbia based groups so I’m sure there’s a bit of influence from those guys considering Tacoma’s close proximity to BC, and musically you can hear a little bit of that. I would, however, compare Oberhofer quirks and sweetness a little more with another Canadian band, Islands (although not from BC). His stuff is absolutely infectious and it’s been stuck in my head for weeks. What’s also cool is that he’s giving away his 7 song EP for free! Originally, if you signed up for his e-mail list you were sent to a link where you could download it, but after some technical difficulties, he ended up just providing this link via his myspace page. So go there, and grab the EP. It’s free…what do you have to lose? I can’t wait to hear more stuff out of this guy and I’m betting he’ll be blowing up the indie world sooner rather than later.
Followers of Jonathan Meiburg’s career to this point can certainly attest to his knack for theatrics, from his work in the Austin, Texas folk-rock group Okkervil River to his latest release, The Golden Archipelago, which is the most recent in a series of concept albums by his Shearwater project. Although, with Meiburg’s official departure from Okkervil River as of a couple years ago to focus 100% on Shearwater, project is no longer an appropriate descriptor for the band. Initially founded in 2001 along with his Okkervil River co-founder, Will Sheff, as an avenue for the pair to create quieter songs with increased instrumentation, Shearwater became more and more Meiburg’s baby as years went on. It all came together in 2008 with the band’s breakout album, Rook, an epic masterpiece that placed the group on the same pedestal as their sister band and emphasized Meiburg’s flare for grandiosity in his tunes maybe even Okkervil River couldn’t match.
The Golden Archipelago continues on the theme of man’s impact and ongoing relationship with this earth that was prevalent in the groups previous two albums, this time focusing on island life, something Meiburg can draw influence from considering his experience taking part in a travel fellowship shortly after his undergraduate days that sent him to numerous islands across the globe to study remote cultures and communities. Meiburg has a graduate degree in geology specializing in ornithology (hence the band name), so there’s no surprise his music features such an ethereal feel and contains so much imagery of the natural world. His education certainly plays a part in the intelligence of the music and Meiburg does admit he worries “that people think they’re getting a dissertation instead of just a record.” To which I respond: Why can’t it be both? However, that’s not to say the music can’t stand on it’s own, because it most certainly does, but it’s nice to have some muscle backing it up when the listener wants to delve a little deeper.
Musically, The Golden Archipelago still contains the bombast and triumph that Rook perfected so well, but doesn’t quite match the abundance of climactic moments found throughout Rook. The grandiose is sustained more throughout the songs of TGA rather than the building crescendos leading into crashes of grandeur that characterized it’s predecessor. It only hurts the music in that the songs aren’t quite as memorable as songs past, and don’t contain the amount of immediate hooks to grasp the listener. There are moments of that in The Golden Archipelago, such as songs “Black Eyes” and the excellent “Castaways” (which I wish was longer…only complaint), but for the most part, the songs create a more atmospheric feel, which is just as good, but maybe not as instantly accessible to the casual listener. So in the end, The Golden Archipelago doesn’t have as many standout tracks as Rook, but might actually work better as a complete album. The musicianship, especially from percussionist Thor Harris (and yes, he looks just like you would picture a Thor to look like), and Meiburg’s soaring vocals create another gorgeous and epic listen that rewards anyone willing to travel along with Meiburg on his ambitious journey.
Deciding which albums I choose to review here on A Round of Sound is not necessarily an arbitrary process. Rarely will I give a review to an album I don’t like, but I do save some negative reviews for those albums that I found more disappointing than horrible. I’m usually not going to review a so-so album that really offers nothing spectacular to talk about. There can be an amazing album that I won’t review because really whatever needs to be said about it has most likely already been said, and I can’t come up with anything new to say. Basically, it’s all about talking points. If an album speaks to me in a way that offers up some talking points, I’ll try to give it a review. Trust me, with Yeasayer’s Odd Blood, there’s pleny to talk about.
Yeasayer first hit the scene with 2007’s excellent All Hour Cymbals, an album full of worldly influences ranging from African drum beats to a little bit middle eastern flare. The first taste of what to expect on Yeasayer’s sophomore release came back last Fall when the band released lead single “Ambling Alp” which was an indication that Yeasayer was ready to release a pop album. The Brooklyn based group’s first album drew poor man’s Animal Collective comparisons, and while it took AC 9 albums to venture into pop, Yeasayer decided to go ahead and take the plunge on Odd Blood. The results, while mixed, are positive overall.
Sonically, Odd Blood is much bigger than All Hour Cymbals with a more polished production and “everything but the kitchen sink” songwriting techniques. Opener “The Children” features distorted vocals with a driving back beat full of electronic manipulations to create enough intrigue that keeps the vocals from being distracting before giving way to the aforementioned “Ambling Alp” which is the album’s best song, perfectly combining the group’s world music style with their pop ambitions. The couple songs that follow continue down this path but employ an unexpected twist with a bit of 80s style. It works to near perfection, especially on the excellent “Madder Red” which probably hasn’t gotten released as a single to this point because of it’s songwriting similarity to “Ambling Alp” which opened the door for “O.N.E.” to be the latest single released from the disc. By the time “O.N.E” closes out the front side of the record, Odd Blood has evolved almost into a dance album, and the second half of the disc only exemplifies this notion, especially on “Rome” whose intro immediately conjures up images of Christopher Walken dancing in that Fatboy Slim video.
It’s no stretch to say that Odd Blood is quite front-loaded, with the most memorable moments all coming in the first five songs. It certainly has its missteps on side two especially with the five minute “Love Me Girl” which struggles to find an identity and comes across as a bit of a jumbled mess and plainly just doesn’t do it for me. With more upbeat songs comes more uplifting lyrics so I suppose I’ll forgive some of the cheese found throughout the songs but hearing stuff like “Don’t give up on me, and I won’t give up on you” or “You’re stuck in my mind all the time” isn’t very creative and really isn’t saying much of anything. Likewise, while catchy and easy to remember telling us to “Stick up for yourself, son” doesn’t really come across as inspiring as Yeasayer may have hoped. So, it’s not all perfect, but then again the 2nd half of All Hour Cymbals wasn’t nearly as strong as the first, but overall it still ended up as a fine album. All in all, Odd Blood can’t quite match the excellence of their debut as this one just doesn’t quite have that epic feel to it that All Hour Cymbals had, but there’s no doubt Yeasayer had a vision when they set out to create Odd Blood, and I think as a whole they accomplished those goals and pushed aside any notion of a possible sophomore slump, son.
Now that the countdown is complete, all that is left is to present my 2009 Mixtape, an annual mix of the songs that helped shape the past year in music. This is maybe becoming my favorite part of my yearly top albums tradition because it’s fun to see what tunes I can pack into an 80 minute disc. I started doing this on my own just to make a mix cd of some of my favorite songs of the year to keep for listening in my car, but it has evolved into a way for me to kind of summarize the best music of the year in just a “mixtape” form, especially since I find it pretty impossible to do a ranking of the best songs of the year. And people seem to enjoy it, so here we are again. By the way if you want to see my complete top 25 Albums of 2009 on one nice, put together page, head on over to my Amazon.com list to give it a look.
So, here’s some stats about the mix. This year I packed 19 songs on the disc (down one from last year’s 20), but as usual this does not necessarily mean these are my 19 favorite songs of the year. There a plenty of songs that I had to leave off because they were too long, or maybe they just didn’t fit with the mix. Also, as usual the order here is how they appear on my mix, but it is not a ranking. The songs are placed based on how they appear on their respective albums. For this year, 9 of the songs are off albums in my top 10 (Antony & the Johnsons is the only top 10 album not represented). Five of the songs are from albums in my #11-#25 range and two songs come from albums outside my top 25. The lowest ranking album with a song in the mix is Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free by Akron/Family (ranked #44) with “River”. And finally, three songs (“Blood Bank”, “My Night With The Prostitute From Marseille”, and “It Gets Your Body Movin'”) are songs off of EPs, and thus came from albums not eligible to be in my rankings. Most of these songs have been featured somewhere on this blog in the past, or in the top albums countdown, but now here they are all in one place!
The picture above is thanks to Amy Boyd, who for the second year in a row has provided me with the album art for the Mixtape. Another fine job indeed. Today is her birthday (as well as Zooey Deschanel’s) so she also has that going for her. Enjoy!
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[“French Navy” – Camera Obscura :: My Maudlin Career]
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[“Blood Bank” – Bon Iver :: Blood Bank]
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[“1901” – Phoenix :: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix]
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[“Two Weeks” – Grizzly Bear :: Veckatimest]
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[“River” – Akron/Family :: Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free]
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[“My Girls” – Animal Collective :: Merriweather Post Pavilion]
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[“Young Adult Friction” – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart :: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart]
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[“Crystalised” – The xx :: xx]
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[“Funeral Singers” – Califone :: All My Friends Are Funeral Singers]
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[“Now We Can See” – The Thermals :: Now We Can See]
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[“Stillness is the Move” – Dirty Projectors :: Bitte Orca]
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[“Don’t Haunt This Place” – Rural Alberta Advantage :: Hometowns]
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[“Never Seen” – Lightning Dust :: Infinite Light]
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[“Home” – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros :: Up From Below]
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[“Two” – The Antlers :: Hospice]
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[“My Night With The Prostitute From Marseille” – Beirut :: March of the Zapotec & Realpeople: Holland]
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[“Marrow” – St Vincent :: Actor]
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[“Sleepyhead” – Passion Pit :: Manners]
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[“It Gets Your Body Movin'” – Suckers :: Suckers EP]
Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest [Warp; released 5/26/2009]
“While you wait for the others to make it all worthwhile, all your useless pretensions are weighing on my time.”
“While You Wait For The Others”
Much of the year’s best releases owe their success to a new found accessibility in the music, and no band refined their sound more from a previous release than Brooklyn’s (where else?) Grizzly Bear, whose 3rd album Veckatimest makes it to the top of my list as the best album of 2009. It wasn’t as if 2006’s Yellow House was a bad album, but it did peg Grizzly Bear as a ambient and boring band whose music didn’t really go anywhere, save for a couple excellent exceptions. However, the songs on Veckatimest don’t meander nearly as much and contain actual, honest to God, melodies. Grizzly Bear still retains their atmospheric tendencies and signature harmonies that characterized Yellow House, but the the songs are more traditional and much more memorable and strike a perfect balance between their experimental ambitions and straightforward pop to create an absolutely triumphant album.
You don’t have to look any further to find what Veckatimest does so well than the two opening tracks “Southern Point” and my song of the year “Two Weeks” which are rivaled only by the openers on Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix as the best one-two opening punch of any album this year. “Southern Point” is the psych-folk opener led by Daniel Rossen that introduces the album in a way that almost seems like an appetizer for 11 tracks that follow. It leads into “Two Weeks” which is as standard of a pop song Grizzly Bear has ever written. An instantly memorable piano hook backs the entire song which is carried by glorious harmonies thanks in part to guest vocals from Beach House’s Victoria Legrand. From there the album wonders back and forth from orchestral tunes to other examples of sophisticated pop such as “Cheerleader” and “While You Wait For The Others”. Veckatimest is a meticulously crafted record in every sense, from its production to superb songwriting. It’s an album that many bands in similar boats as Grizzly Bear have probably tried to create, but not every band has the dedication and better yet, ability, to be able to create something so majestic.
The Antlers – Hospice [Frenchkiss; released 8/18/2009]
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that.”
“Wake”
The absolute out-of-nowhere success story of 2009 comes from The Antlers with Hospice, the 3rd release from frontman Peter Silberman, but first with a full time band. The Brooklyn-based trio was relatively unknown prior to this year, but Hospice became a web sensation largely thanks to high praise from NPR’s All Songs Considered who featured it on their weekly podcast and even named it the year’s early leader for best album. Initially self-released, the original pressing sold out before Frenchkiss eventually picked up the disc and remastered it for an August re-release.
Written during a extended period of isolation from the outside world, Silberman emerged with Hospice, a tour de force of powerful and tragic anthems that serve as an emotional journey that trumps even last year’s similar cathartic success, Bon Iver’s For Emma Forever Ago. A concept album, Hospice centers around the story of a relationship forged between a nurse and cancer patient at Sloan Kettering Cancer Ward in New York City. Every song is a chilling look at the human emotions involved when a relationship is based around such tragedy. Silberman’s vocals are an eerie falsetto that add to the heartbreak and coupled with the striking imagery found in not only the lyrics, but also in the music, an atmosphere of sorrow is created so palpable it’s truly startling. Once drawn into Hospice, and it’s impossible not to be, Silberman ensures that you will be haunted long after the 10 songs have passed much like this experience haunts his characters.
#4) Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix [Glassnote; released 5/26/2009]
“Do you remember when 21 years was old?”
“Countdown”
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the 4th album from the French pop-rockers is one of, if not, the most easy to listen to, and enjoyable albums of 2009. That’s not to say there isn’t depth in the music, but trying to delve into what makes the album such a success is completely unnecessary and a waste of time, especially when there’s an album this good to be enjoyed. Whether it’s the ambient electronics that create an almost nostalgic feel, or just the abundance of danceable hooks that make up Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, one thing’s for sure, it’s masterpiece of sophisticated pop that takes Phoenix to a whole new level. It’s 10 songs and 36 minutes of tightly constructed synth driven pop-rock songs that don’t try to be more than what they are, but still display a craftsmanship of detail so fine that not a second is wasted. Oftentimes the joy of listening to an album can be lost in trying to over-analyze all it’s intricacies that make it what it is. But for an album as fun as Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, sometimes it’s best just to sit back and enjoy the ride…preferably in a Cadillac.
[“1901” – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix]
#3) Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion [Domino; released 1/20/2009]
“I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things, like our social stats. I just want four walls and adobe slats for my girls.”
“My Girls”
The hype for Animal Collective’s 9th full-length album was built up long before all the glowing reviews started rolling in upon its release in mid-January. For all intents and purposes, the critical consensus for album of the year was already set in stone not even one month in. And when all was said and done for 2009, Merriweather Post Pavilion reigned as the best reviewed studio album of the year according to Metacritic. So 9 albums in, what is it that sets this AC release apart from any of their others? Well, it’s pretty simple; MPP is the most accessible and therefore easiest listen of the Brooklyn/Baltimore band’s career. However, the originality and weirdness still remain in these psychedelic tunes making it invariably an Animal Collective album that would be impossible to mistake for anyone else. Melodies abound in MPP in ways they never have on an Animal Collective release and while tagged as their “pop” album, there’s no shortage of the textured electronica and experimental songs that have characterized the group to this point. Merriweather Post Pavilion can be seen as an Animal Collective re-boot in a sense; one that by no means will alienate longtime fans, but will do wonders in garnering a brand new appreciation for those willing to open their minds to one of the most inventive and important American bands of this era.
Prior to the release of The Hold Steady’s fifth album I was preparing myself for a let down. 2008’s Stay Positive was the group’s first glimmer of a transition to more modern rock sound and away from their “bar band” roots, and with the group that much older in 2010, it could only be expected to see that movement continue. The band hinted at a “less anthemic and more complex” album which raised a huge red flag for all THS fans and then of course, energetic keyboardist Franz Nicolay left the band taking his accordion and mustache with him. So with all that said, everything seemed to be lining up for a bit of a bust, but after listening to Heaven is Whenever, I can honestly say I was not let down nearly as much as I expected.
Posted by Hawkins 
A Round of Sound 