The Bloglin’s Best of 2009: Best Albums, #40-21
We’re at part four of our five day wrap up of the years 100 best albums! Yesterday we counted down #60 through 41 and we’re heading right into the meaty portion of the list. 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)
• For #80-61 of The Bloglin’s Best Albums of 2009 (Click Here)
• For #60-41 of The Bloglin’s Best Albums of 2009 (Click Here)
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40) The Juan Maclean – The Future Will Come [DFA]
More actual songs than random dance tangents, and definitely DFA-friendlier than their previous release, The Future Will Come is a pretty predictable shift for The Juan Maclean…but that doesn’t make it boring. I mean, B Movie is a band worth ripping off, as are Human League and Devo. And The Juan Maclean ape that chilly new-wave so well, it totally doesn’t matter that he doesn’t so much care to innovate.
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39) Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall [Matador]
An unlikely followup to 2006′s Blood Visions, Watch Me Fall is a Jay Reatard curve ball. An album of short, singalong garage pop cuts mark a stylistic deviation from his vast back catalog, but if you give Watch Me Fall a chance, you’ll find all the same energy and emotion characteristic of other Reatard releases. Watch Me Fall may be different, but in this case different is very good.
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38) Asobi Seksu – Hush [Polyvinyl]
It’s sad that Asobi Seksu’s most mature and fulfilling album left many fans of their previous album Citrus so underwhelmed. Moving away from simply aping My Bloody Valentine as they did on Citrus, Asobi Seksu truly come into their own on Hush. A beautiful and melodic slice of Dream Pop that veers as close as anyone has to matching the utter ethereal beauty of the Cocteau Twin’s Blue Bell Knoll.
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37) Former Ghosts – Fleurs [Upset the Rhythm]
Collab project featuring members of Zola Jesus, This Song Is A Mess But So Am I and Xiu Xiu that sounds exactly like the lovechild of those bands: agony-fueled and vaguely industrial with an ice-cold, ghostly ambience. It has its Joy Division moments to be sure, but they’re so muffled by terrifying reverb, I promise you’ll be too creeped out to give a shit.
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36) Memory Tapes - Seek Magic [Rough Trade]
Seek Magic had me at hello…if hello means the dance explosion about a minute into “Bicycle”. A little Deerhunter, a little The Knife and a whole lot a Outhud, this pushing together of Weird Tapes and Memory Cassettes results in some of the most dynamic indie-dance released all year. It wanders into some seriously downtrodden territory for sure, but the sickly, detuned synths and ghostly pentatonic harmonies always amp up the slowest moments.
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35) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – S/T [Slumberland]
Drawing from shoegaze, new wave and pop, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart put out one hell of a debut this year. The band’s effortless, soft melodies are a quiet explosion of style and grace. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart emulate the sound of 15 years ago so well you’d swear it was 1985 again.
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34) Wavves – Wavvves (2009) [Fat Possum]
Say what you will about Wavves—we’ve all said a lot over the past year—but this kid writes some effin’ great songs. For every person calling bullshit on his simplistic, lo-fi schtick—or every band whining about how they could’ve done it too—there are at least two more 100% in love with it, and for good reason. Breezy, funny, silly and emblematic of a certain teenage “who gives a fuck” ignorance, Wavvves captures you on a purely primal, emotional level. And despite all the well-publicized drama surrounding its creator, the album never truly gets old…even when you feel like it should.
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33) Bear In Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth [Hometapes]
Fill an arena with the quintessential 4AD sound and maybe, maybe, you’ve captured the sheer giganticism of Beast Rest Forth Mouth. A shoegaze/psych/industrial/indie-pop mishmash that feels as epic and unending as a cross-country drive—and all but bursts at the seams with so much glistening ambience and hollow noise. I’ve listened to at least one BRFM song per day since its release; it’s just that beautifully haunted.
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32) Silk Flowers – S/T [Post Present Medium]
Another in a long line of Joy Division references, but lo-fi faves Silk Flowers make it more apt than ever. Instead of looking solely to Ian Curtis for inspiration—several of these songs are vocal-free anyway—the album suggests the way Sumner, Hook and Morris nervously played off each other pre-New Order. Maudlin and jittery, just like a depression-fueled panic attack.
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31) Fukpig – Spewings from a Selfish Nation [Feto]
Take your face and smash it against your desk, then take a nailgun and crucify yourself. Fukpig’s Spewings from a Selfish Nation will turn you into a masochist. 30 minutes of rib-crushing intensity that just won’t stop! One of this years most essential Metal releases.
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30) Telefon Tel Aviv – Immolate Yourself [Bpitch Control]
What a sad fucking story: Charles Cooper, half of Telefon Tel Aviv (and longtime friend of other half Joshua Eustis) dies of an overdose just as Immolate Yourself released. Whether that colors the songs for you is obviously a personal thing, but let me just say this: all circumstances aside, this album is honestly the best of the duo’s career. A sort of less-is-more exploration in terms of both concept and technical preference, Immolate Yourself chooses to focus on the perfect dance song rather than another series of IDM beats. The result is celebratory, joyous and seriously fun—the perfect, if horribly unexpected, wave goodbye from this decade-old incarnation.
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29) Oneohtrix Point Never - Zones Without People [Arbor]
Hypnotic, robotic and totally sans percussion, Zones Without People feels exactly like Brian Eno’s most rambling atmosphere work, with an even more finely tuned sense of the organic (if such a thing is possible). And though it’s built of little but lithe arpeggios and analogue loops, the album evokes a full range of emotion—empathy, joy, even panic—in ways I seriously don’t understand.
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28) Kylesa – Static Tensions [Prosthetic]
Building upon their previous efforts while channeling back to the crust legends Damad (which would spawn them), Kylesa’s artistic direction is not only brought full-circle but to a finite culmination with the release of their 4th full-length album, Static Tensions. Without losing their edge, Kylesa has proven that doom and sludge can be refined.
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27) DOOM – Born Like This [Lex]
MF Doom returns as DOOM after a lengthy and quite noticeable absence with some of his best work to date. Gone are the high concepts that have dominated so much of his recent work as DOOM returns doing what he does bestm dropping clever lines over some of the best production you’ll ever hear.
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26) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! [Interscope]
The perfect third album. Rather than rehash the sound they built via Fever To Tell and Show Your Bones (which, let’s be serious, would’ve been a total snoozefest this many years on), Karen O & Co. explore a whole host of new ideas: synth-driven, poppy but still rough-edged tracks that barely need remixed to be dancefloor suitable. Stubborn fans may call it a shark-jumper, but we think the turnabout is pretty brilliant.
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25) Mount Eerie – Wind’s Poem [P.W. Eleverum & Sun]
Phil Elverum magnificent and haunting return to the beauty his albums lost once he changed monikers from The Microphones to Mount Eerie. Wind’s Poem is a delicate yet completely engulfing experience that you can take away from as much as you want to put into. It’s a challenging piece of work that once digested is one of the most rewarding things you’ll hear all year.
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24) Nocturnal – Violent Revenge [Death Strike]
Grab your skateboards and thrash the fuck out of a pool. Violent Revenge fucking rules! While they have a slew of 7″ and splits to their name this is only the second full-length that Thrash/Black Metal crossover ace Nocturnal has put out and man does Violent Revenge fucking deliver!
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23) Kings of Convenience – Declaration of Dependence [Virgin]
Who’d have thought it possible for Kings of Convenience to get even quieter, but alas: here we are at an album so tremendously hushed, it barely registers as sound. And yet, Declaration of Dependence is hands down the most sophisticated of the duo’s career; a testament to what happens when you leave a project for five years, only to return as real live grown-ups capable of shedding the impish awkwardness that, while charming, killed the sensuality your songs so desperately wanted. A must-listen for anyone, anywhere.
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22) Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport [ATP/R]
Pseudo-microhouse that epitomizes reluctant progress: the sound of machinery destined for obsolescence. Partially produced by Andrew Weatherall, Tarot Sport is the ideal soundtrack to our shattered technological dreams, an epic EPCOT eulogy that abandons most of the band’s previous abrasiveness for boatloads of shimmery melody. Departure? More like evolution. And definitely the best thing Fuck Buttons have done yet.
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21) Woods – Songs of Shame [Woodist]
Woods most mature effort to date is also the ultimate in Lo-Fi pop. Marrying the rough and tumble charm of home recording with a deep and profound skill set of songwriting and musicianship. While keeping with the clandestine atmosphere within which Lo-Fi thrives, Songs of Shame opens the curtains, lets the light in but fully makes use of the shadows still being created.
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Stay tuned tomorrow as we wrap up our The Bloglin’s Best albums of 2009 with #20-1!
