Top Albums of 2008: Part 5, 20-16
——
20) Beach House – Devotion (Bella Union)
Do any of you remember that band in Twin Peaks that would play at The Roadhouse? They would play the same song, but it was beautiful & very ominous? It was the sound of a 60′s girl group coaxing you into reassurance over some inevitable dread. Beach House’s Devotion is a lot like that, marrying the pop inclination of 60′s girl groups with the shoegazey, ethereal feel of the Cocteau Twins.
——
19) Sombres Forêts – Royaume de Glace (Sepulchral Productions)
I’ve mentioned before that black metal is not my favorite of metal genres. Every so often, though, one black metal band comes along and delivers what I want. Canada’s Sombres Forêts do it right. The really great (and probably sacrilegious) thing about this album is it isn’t straightforward black metal. A lot of the sound has elements of grindcore and power violence, and a good deal of the guitar work is just straight doom metal. This is a truly epic and engulfing album that sucks you in, right from its opening notes and chills you to your bones.
——
18) Woods – Woods Family Creeps (Time-Lag)
This album plays like some long lost home recordings that your weirdo uncle made, which have been buried in the attic for decades. Very simple, intimate, and heartfelt. It’s almost like music you were never meant to be listening to because it was recorded as part of some cathartic exercise. Woods feature a reshuffling of the members of one of my favorite bands, Meneguar, but unlike that band, go into a more freak-folk direction. This reminds me a lot of Daniel Johnstoon, Jandek and even Lou Barlow’s 4-track recordings in how personal this recording is meant to feel. It’s a really sad and beautiful little album that’s like being whispered a secret. With the right mood and atmosphere, it’s captivating.
——
17) Cut Copy – In Ghost Colors (Modular)
Cut Copy has gone and done something that would normally go against reason, which is to make an album where every song blends into one another to the point that you are never really certain where one song ends and another begins. This usually wouldn’t work, but being that I’ve rated this album so high, Cut Copy has bucked the odds and proved they knew exactly what they were doing in making an album this way. This album is like playing Sega’s Out Run (with the Psychedelic Furs as your navigator), Driving 100mph down some digital landscape of an endless road in the middle of the night with only the flickering of stars, neon lights, signs, and the occasional blur of a passing automobile to let you know you’re not standing still. Out from the dark, you hit the Grand Canyon at dusk and Venice Beach by morning, only to be back on that dark endless road again at night.
——
16) Love Is All – A Hundred Things to Keep Me Up at Night (What’s Your Rupture?)
I was really surprised at how great an album this is. As much as I enjoyed Love Is All’s debut, I always pegged them as ”one and done” indie darlings, but they’re proving me wrong. A Hundred Things to Keep Me Up at Night is another album of lovelorn tales, in the vein of X-Ray Spex. In many ways, this is a cleaner and better realized version of their debut. Love Is All clearly honed their chops in between releases and it shows in the even more pop friendly sound of this album. And while that isn’t exactly doing something new, for now it’s a formula that really works well for the band. On a second go around, it does make for a better and more enjoyable album than 9 Times the Same Song.
Be here tomorrow, only 15 albums to go!
• For albums 25-21 on the list click here!
• For albums 30-26 on the list click here!
- My Pal the Crook