The Bloglin’s Best of 2009: Best Albums, #80-61
Today we hit part two of our five day wrap up of the years 100 best albums! Yesterday we counted down #100 through 81 and had a load of fun doing it! We hope you’re all keeping track and picking up some of these records along the way.
• For #100-81 of The Bloglin’s Best Albums of 2009 (Click Here)
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80) Claws – Absorbed In the Nethervoid [Razorback]
Finland’s Claws debut album is an brutal and authentic throwback to the 90s heyday of Scandinavian Death Metal. It’s raw, heavy and demented. In an age when just about every album is described as “old-school death metal”, Absorbed in the Nethervoid truly deserves this title. Complete with great album art, Claws delivers.
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79) Twin Stumps – S/T [Dais]
A total pigfuck flashback…but even more abrasive. Twin Stumps seem to get in your face just for the sake of doing it, which makes the album succeed not just in terms of sound—and with an album’s worth of straight-up furious pounding, it totally does—but also a sheer, fuck-you attitude
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78) Fondlecorpse – Creaturegore [Razorback]
Sci-Fi, porn and horror clips litter the first full-length from Fondlecorpse. It’s a cluster-fuck of thrash and death metal that brings you back to your childhood nightmares. Just like the films it’s influenced by, Creaturegore is lo-fi and filled with nostalgia. Some call it a thrash-revival, but I don’t think these guys give a damn about any of that. They’re just in it for a blood and guts.
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77) Dam-Funk -Toeachizown [Stones Throw]
Damon Riddick, LA’s Ambadassador of Boogie Funk takes you back to the golden days of Prince and Egyptian Lover on Toeachizown, a vast 2-CD debut (that complies tracks from his 5 volume Toeachizown releases from this year) of otherworldly funk produced on vintage gear. Impressively robust and definitely unique, Toeachizown is a comet of synths shooting from the opposite end of the galaxy.
Not originally reviewed on the Bloglin
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76) Thee Oh Sees – Help [In The Red]
John Dwyer’s can always be counted upon to release some of the most compelling Garage Rock, year in and year out. 2009 is no different with two full lengths (Help & Dog Poison). Rough and jangly, Help is the sort of wonderful fun, fuzzy and even frightening garage-psych that has become Dwyer’s trademark. Help is the sort of album with the power to appeal to both Garage snobs and casual fans alike.
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75) Factums - Flowers [Sacred Bones]
Not so much haunting as downright disturbing, Flowers is like a Silent Hill sound collage: radio static, the crash and clang of metal on glass, ominous and squealing guitars. Think psychobilly through a Throbbing Gristle lens; when Factums actually form a full song, it’s weird, disarming and strangely structured. But the spooky snippets that make up the rest of the album seethe like a night terror…and it’s effing terrifying.
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74) Death – …For the Whole World to See [Drag City]
Originally set to release in the late 70′s Death (not to be confused with Chuck Schuldiner’s Death) debut was shelved for refusing to change their name to something more marketable. The “Politicians In My Eyes” 7″ they managed to press has long been a holy grail among many vinyl collectors , but now thanks to Drag City the whole world can enjoy what would have been a legendary proto-punk album ere it have originally come out way back when.
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73) Blank Dogs – Under & Under (2009) [In the Red]
The most fully realized release from this insanely prolific, self-proclaimed “shitgaze” band. Full of weirdo pop songs with a fuzzy, lo-fi edge, Under & Under makes short work of totally trumping everything Blank Dogs have done before, as if their previous releases were mere warm-ups. Finally, a band that actually develops instead of exploding into a stressed out, over-hyped mess.
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72) Coalesce – OX (2009) [Relapse]
Who cares if this band was once considered as hardcore. Even if Coalesce toured with hardcore bands in the 90′s, they’ve grown out of that old skin and matured into a great metal band. OX takes Coalesce’s fans down a new path and hopefully introduces a new generation of hardcore kids to real music.
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71) Uzi Rash – High & Phree (2009) [Freedom School]
Dinosaur masked Brooklyn rockers, Uzi Rash issue a wonderfully cluttered and weirdly hypnotic debut of lo-fi Americana. The sort of aural excursion that will leave you with something new to love with each repeated listen. A cult classic waiting to be discovered, so what are you waiting for?
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70) Clipse – Til the Casket Drops (2009) [Columbia]
You’d think straying from an entire album of Neptunes produced beats would be the first misstep in Pusha and Malice’s career, but the modern gods of coke rap return with their third album to only further ingrain why they’re kinda like a big deal.
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69) The Anals – Total Anal (2009) [Permenant]
Total Anal sits high atop three lists: 1) Most Exciting New Release That Totally Reminds Us of Pigfuck, 2) Most Exciting New Release to Come Out of Metz, France and 3) Most Exciting New Release That Will Probably Bother the Hell Out of Lots of People. All this deathly abrasive, caustic noise makes one hell of an experi-industrial album and is sure to rattle a few ears…just the sort of confrontational shit we love.
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68) Major Lazer – Guns Don’t Kill People… (2009) [Downtown]
Dancehall damage from Diplo and Switch’s Jamaican commando based alter ego, Major Lazer. After teasing fans for a good long while Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do dropped to provide possibly the most perfect backdrop to keep every summer party in 2009 moving until the crack of dawn.
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67) Municipal Waste – Massive Aggressive (2009) [Earache]
Modern day Crossover Thrash gods release their 4th album of the catchiest, face melting, fist pumping, circle pit inducing metal you could imagine. It’s becoming apparent that besides the certainties of death & taxes, Municipal Waste are good for 30 minutes of beer bonging party anthems every few years.
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66) Nothing People – Late Night (2009) [S.S.]
Imagine Pavement on a Chrome induced acid trip, then imagine it magnified by 10 more tabs! This is one dark, strange journey that’s unbelievably spellbinding. Insanity never sounded so catchy or felt so welcoming.
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65) Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (2009) [Warp]
Veckatimest is an exercise in the magic that can transpire when a band forgoes assigned roles in favor of true collaboration. For their third full-length studio album, all four members of Grizzly Bear contributed to the songwriting and the results are immense. Veckatimest is the band’s catalog standout, refined, lush and bursting with tiny hidden details.
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64) Mika Miko – We Be Xuxa (2009) [Post Present Medium]
The gals of Mika Miko go out and release their most fully realized, balls to the wall album of Punk goodness and then promptly call it quits . We Be Xuxa is chock full of the sort of art-damaged and anthemic Punk (in the most traditional sense) that gets us wet over here at the Bloglin. And now with the band broken-up it may be a while ’til we get something this earnest and good in the world of Punk again.
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63) The Pink Noise – Alpha (2009) [Almost Ready]
Montreal Noise-Poppers, The Pink Noise’s third full length is a drug addled trip back in time that dots everything from No Wave, Snyth Punk and even Power Pop that transcends beyond being merely just another revival LP. Rather than reminiscing about scenes we wish we were around for, Alpha transporting is a direct wormhole to them.
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62) Trail of the Dead – The Century of Self (2009) [Justice]
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead return with their most ambitious and expansive album to date. Finally free of the expectations of their sudden success earlier this decade, The Century of Self is exactly the sort of album the band has always hinted it was capable of.
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61) Tor Lundvall – Sleeping and Hiding (2009) [Dais]
Ghostly electro compositions that surge forward from twilight to midnight black in a matter of minutes. Lundvall is the master of gorgeous and enveloping ambience, but he’s upped the dark ante something fierce; his heady vocals combined with heart-buzzing bass (plus a recurring, nightmarish whistle) feel both detached and totally desperate. Perfect for either a seance or a suicide pact.
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Stay tuned tomorrow for parts 60 through 41!
- My Pal the Crook
December 16th, 2009 at 4:41 am
It’s nice to see Razorback get as much praise as it has this year. Hands-down, the best metal label around. Still waitin’ for the new Blood Freak.