Sunday, January 11, 2009

Well, the years keep slogging on by and for or better worst, I continue to be as dullard as I've always been.

For the nth time in the last two years, minutes after my Top 10 for 2009 post went up, I realized that there was a handful of albums I'd completely forgotten that most certainly deserved a mention of some kind in my year-end review.  Of course that moment of realization is far gone now, so even the memory of those forgotten bands is a little blurry.

Regardless, there's five great bands (and an olllllld discovery I just needed to share) I completely spaced on and I'd like to throw them some love in my first column back for the new year.

Hope everybody ended lap-dancing a friend's mom wearing nothing but a sock, a pleated light shade, and smile.  It's the only way to ring in the New Year.

Five Forgotten Albums (in no particular order):

Foals - Antidotes

I stumbled in to a free Sub Pop put on show at Chop Suey last March without nary a clue as to who the Manchester-based group Foals was.  I left said show with my ears ringing, my musical loins aroused, and a feeling of superiority over those suckers who'd decided to sit that one out.  Lead singer Yannis Philippakis has the stage antics of a PMSing fourteen year old, sure, but their debut release Antidotes on Sub Pop is one of the great danceable rock albums in recent memory.  It's catchy, it's hard, it's full of well used empty space, and if I've listened to another album more this year I'd be completely shocked.

:Foals - Cassius:
 

The Black Keys - Attack and Release

The Black Keys are a great band.  You, or anyone else, can't argue against that very axiomatic statement.  They are rocking and rolling like the greats of yesteryear and since hearing Rubber Factory I've been salivating over their bluesy, heavily guitar-based brand of rock and roll.  This said, on occasion this duo from Akron can get a little repetitive.  Enter Danger Mouse, pockets full of tracks off a canned album intended for deceased soul maestro Ike Turner, and everything gets a little tossed up.  Soul is injected, songs are slowed, a new level of sonic inventiveness comes to the forefront ... my mind is blown just a little bit more.  Is their any producer working right now who is more trustworthy in terms of our favorite bands?  I believe not.

:The Black Keys - Remember When (Side A):
 

The Builders and The Butchers - S/T

My brother, briefly, dated a real shit-stain of a lady who was a former member of Portland based outfit Loch Lomond.  She made my skin bunch up at the base of my neck, but on the one, slightly painful, night I spent with her, she introduced me to The Builders and The Butchers.  For that I grant her some reprieve.  This album is a rangy, twangy, angry slew of darkness tinged songs about railroads, hard men, and the lipstick stained women they kill for.  Their live show is as rag-tag and broke down pawn shop as you can get, but hell if it isn't more fun than punching mimes. 

:The Builders And The Butchers - Red Hands:
 

Department of Eagles - In Ear Park

This has sort of been a year of Grizzly Bear for me.  I've been poo-pooing the stuffing out of Grizzly Bear over the last 15 months or so, only because I couldn't believe that any outfit that overly jerked off by the hipster mafia (whom I love) over at Pitchfork could really live up to the hype.  Cut to me, mouth agog, the gentle swirls of Knife echoing in the background.  Department of Eagles, the side project of GB's Daniel Rosen and his college mate Fred Nicolaus, blows me ever further away, because, hell, I like it better.  It's heavier on the strings, but almost more aggressive in it's compositions.  This is certainly a GB-related album, but one with just a little more oomph in it. 

:Department Of Eagles - Teenager:
 

Maus Haus - Lark Marvels

This album wasn't forgotten, it just wasn't known about until moments before I composed the first list.  A special lady I know in San Francisco popped this on when she was in Seattle, and the organic robot machinations of this offbeat sixtet floored me.  I couldn't think to include them at the time as I'd only heard two songs off the album.  After finally getting ahold of this gem of an album though and listening to it on repeat far far too many times, I am ready and willing to allow that I screwed up royally in not including this my tops for the year.  Dear Maus Haus, I hope you will forgive me, you're multi-piece orchestrations dampen my forehead and leave me exhausted, yearning for more. 

:Maus Haus - Rigid Breakfast:
 

- Noah Sanders -



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