Apologies for taking so long to complete this! I’ve recently acquired a job promoting a bar in Liverpool so that’s been taking up my time and then I spent 3 days selling door-to-door in a job I hated but now I’ve finally had chance to finish off this list. Here’s the last 11 of my choices, still in no particular order…
11. The Kills- Blood Pressures (2011)
The Kills are another band I should have got into a long time ago but for some reason or another I haven’t. They are now on their fourth album ‘Blood Pressures’ and still the retaining the lo-fi garage/blues rock style catapulting them to success. The sole two members are Alison “VV” Mosshart and Jamie “Hotel” Hince. This male/female minimalist duo set up has inevitably led to comparisons being made with The White Stripes. However, the band cites Captain Beefheart, PJ Harvey, LCD Soundsystem, The Velvet Underground, The Fall, Patti Smith and Suicide amongst its influences, quite the impressive list to name drop. Whether or not you can hear that array of an average hipster’s ‘bands to listen to list’ in the music is beyond the point. ‘Blood Pressures’ follows hot on the critical success of ‘Midnight Boom’ and is basically an inferior version of that album but still fucking good. ‘Future Starts Slow’ is a brilliant, catchy opener and is up there with anything from their previous 3 albums. ‘Satellite’ is The Kills trying something almost operatic for them and is pretty successful in what it achieves.
The rest of them the album pretty much continues in The Kills dynamic, showcasing all their qualities again, just like the last 2 albums, but somehow it isn’t boring yet… it still feels new and fresh. This is a weird quality of The Kills, they haven’t really changed their sound much in years but it is still really good to listen, so they must be doing something right. ‘Heart is a Beating Drum’ and ‘Nail in My Coffin’ cranked up loud are perfect for any indie party. BUT there are inevitable problems though, for instance ‘DNA’ sounds like a very bad Yeah Yeah Yeah’s b-side. Overall, it is an album very worthy of your listen… however, ultimately, Midnight Boom is their best record.
10. Grails- Deep Politics (2011)
There’s nothing really like a bit of epic instrumental post-rock is there!? If you are in favour of the preceding sentence then this is the album for you. Grails are one of the lesser known bands in the genre, paling in popularity with the likes of Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky. They are just as good though and I think criminally underrated. Their sound is a combination of world music, contemporary post-rock, electronics and Pink Floyd. A weird mix you may think but if you listen to ‘Deep Politics’ you will hear the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Tortoise, Explosions in the Sky but strangely alongside a 70′s prog-rock style with occasional Asian influences shining through.
The album breaks straight into an Indian groove with ‘Future Primitive’ then shifts into the battle cry of ‘All the Colors of the Dark’. ‘Corridors of Power’ sounds like oriental trip-hop, I never thought I’d hear a song in that genre! The title track ‘Deep Politics’ sounds like GY!BE with added piano and capturing the atmosphere of the aforementioned band’s songs. ‘Daughters of Bilitis’ is Tortoise with strings. Then the album finishes with 3 over 7-minute closers, ‘I Almost Grew My Hair’, ‘I Led Three Lives’ and ‘Deep Snow’. There’s a lot to comment on the twists and turns of these songs but I think they can only be best experienced sitting comfortably on some sort of chair/sofa, contemplating your mere existence.
All in all, ‘Deep Politics’ is probably Grails best album and a great place to start in their discography. If only all post-rock albums were as diverse as this…
HEALTH- Get Color (2009)
Get Color came at just the right time for me. I had previously ignored HEALTH despite friends praising the band and this album literally blew me away. I would say one of my favourite areas of music is noise rock and this album provides something very new and exciting in an area of music with so much reusing of sounds from bands of the past like Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine or Sonic Youth. The album does not beat around the bush, ‘In Heat’ opens with an immediate grabbing of your balls, showcasing the truly relentless nature of their sound. ‘Die Slow’ is probably the most iconic song on the album with its thundering drum beat, schizophrenic noise effects and trademark soft vocals. That’s what makes HEALTH so successful in my mind… combining noise and crazy effects with dreamy vocals. ‘Death +’ highlights their electronic influences with the industrial noises and tribal, systematic drumming flowing in and out of the song. My two favourite songs on the album are ‘Before Tigers’ and ‘We Are Water’, both easily standing up as two of the greatest noise rock songs for me.
I saw HEALTH in 2010 and I said to the members that ‘Get Color’ was my favourite album of the last decade… it might not quite be the best but it definitely up there with one of my favourites. I’m glad that bands like HEALTH continue to push boundaries and try new things in a very saturated genre. The next album I feel may be completely different, moving towards a more synthy sound as used for the song ‘USA Boys’… it’ll be interesting if they manage to pull that off or if they surprise me again with something else.
8. Wild Beasts- Smother (2011)
I was initially not a fan of Wild Beasts at all, it took me a long while to get into vocal style of the band. I’m still not the greatest fan of it but it is impossible to ignore the sheer talent of an album like ‘Smother’. They can safely be credited as the best band to ever come from Kendal, Cumbria but that is a pretty trivial accolade.
I listened to ‘Two Dancers’ and I pretty much thought that Wild Beasts were another one of those NME hyped bands that everyone would forget within a year. Although it was a solid album, I just could not see how the band’s style could last. Then ‘Smother’ hit me in early 2011, providing all the pop hooks and fine-tuned vocals of ‘Two Dancers’ but with a twist. ‘Lion’s Share’ is a tremendous opening statement of what Wild Beasts can achieve and is quickly followed by the mechanical synth sounding ‘Bed of Nails’. By the time of arriving at ‘Loop the Loop’, I’m already in the Wild Beasts loop and this is excelled by the realistic human nature of the lyrics, ‘People are the strangest/hardest things’ and ‘How many do I forget now?’. The reflective nature of the lyrics on the album accompany the often dreamlike, sombre music perfectly. The first single from the album, ‘Albatross’ is definitely one of the catchiest songs of 2011 and was slipped into some of my indie nights I DJed at the end of my 3rd year of University. Most of the album is the Wild Beasts from the previous records, albeit fine-tuned to perfection, but I did mention there would be a twist. The last two songs on the album, ‘Burning’ and ‘End Soon to Soon’, showcase a side of Wild Beasts I hope is experimented further in the future, a tendency towards ambiance. ‘Burning’ is a blissful, emotional, ambient song and is probably my favourite of theirs thus far. The simple, yet mesmerising hook in the background gently glides with an incredible vocal performance. ‘End Come Too Soon’ is truthful in its title as the albums floats off to its inevitable conclusion, with the second half of the song at times sounding like an old Brian Eno classic.
‘Smother’ is an excellent album and one I was never expected to enjoy so much. It is definitely safe to say it is one of the best albums from 2011.
7. MF DOOM- Born Like This (2009)
Alas, we have my sole hip-hop entry in the 33 from the past 3 years. Naturally, I think of that as quite a sad reality but unfortunately nothing else has impressed me enough. Tyler the Creator and his crew have potential but at the present moment they may have the inventiveness but not the maturity, which I’m hoping will emerge in the next 3 years. Back to DOOM, ‘Born Like This’ marked a kind of comeback for the king of underground hip-hop. Over the course of the previous 10 years, Daniel Dumile aka MF DOOM, reinvented what a hip-hop artist can do without ever hardly hitting the mainstream surface. This all started with the now modern hip-hop classic ‘Operation: Doomsday’ in 1999, which ranks up with one of my favourite 90′s rap/hip-hop records with Nas’ ‘Illmatic’ (1994), A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘The Low End Theory’ (1991) and GZA’s ‘Liquid Swords’ (1995).
‘Born Like This’ proves that DOOM can still cut the mustard despite rumoured health issues and his increasing age. ‘Gazillion Ear’ is a perfect example of what makes MF DOOM so special- very clever, tight lyrics rapped over music never heard on any ordinary hip-hop album. The song even caught the attention of a certain Mr. Thom Yorke who decided to remix the song to pretty damn good results and following this success it has been announced they will collaborate in the future. Hip-hop stalwart Raekwon from Wu-Tang Clan even gets into the mix on ‘Yessir!’, which shows DOOM’s appreciation amongst peers. The samples throughout the album are as impressive and varied as usual, for instance on the 1950′s film sounding ‘Angelz’ to the paranoid, politically charged ‘Cellz’ commenting on a broken society in terms of law, war, energy and health. There’s even time for a seemingly leftover song from 2004′s ‘Mm.. Food’ in ‘Microwave Mayo’.
I would say that ‘Born Like This’ is probably one of the weaker MF DOOM related albums, paling in comparison to an album like ‘Operation: Doomsday’, ‘Madvillainy’ or ‘Vaudeville Villain’ but it still well deserves a place in his discography and warrants repeated listens.
6. Yuck- Yuck (2011)
I think Yuck have to be taken with a pinch of salt really. They don’t just wear their influences on their sleeve, they wear them on their jackets, trousers and shoes! Their self-titled debut uses a mix-match of 80′s and 90′s alternative rock from Sonic Youth to Pavement to Smashing Pumpkins to Dinosaur Jr. Any half decent outfit using these templates is likely to succeed and Yuck do just that.
The opening single ‘Get Away’ could easily be a lost classic from ‘Bug’ by Dinosaur Jr. and the video for the song is a tribute to ‘Today’ by Smashing Pumpkins. ‘Shook Down’ literally sounds like it could be a ‘Siamese Dream’ era Pumpkins song. ‘Operation’ is ‘Teenage Riot’ by Sonic Youth with different lyrics. I could easily go through every song on the album and do the same routine but I shan’t waist your time! Basically if you want something innovative and breaking boundaries, this is not the right album for you. However, if you are a fan of alternative rock and want a fun throwback released in 2011 and won’t be offended by your favourite bands being shamelessly ripped off then it is well worth a listen.
5. The Brian Jonestown Massacre- Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? (2010)
“My god where do I start!?” was the thought in my head when I contemplated reviewing this album. ‘Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?’ cements increasing evidence over the past 15 or so years that Anton Newcombe is insane. I’ve only just recently got into The Brian Jonestown Massacre, unfortunately, after a suggestion from friends and them being on the playlist of a club night I’m promoting. I recently watched ‘Dig!’, which documents the first 7 years of the band and the turmoil of burning through band members like waste paper, Anton physically assaulting various members of the band and crowd at live shows, the band going through more drugs than a chemist and the inevitable consequences of these. Also humorously Anton’s obsession with trying to stir-up an ‘Oasis vs Blur’-like rivalry with peers ‘The Dandy Warhols’, which at times bordered on the ridiculous, as the two bands popularities went in different directions in terms of mainstream success. At the peek of this the film shows Anton turning up outside a ‘Dandy Warhols’ live show giving out the latest BJM single for free, ‘Not If You Were the Last Dandy on Earth’, a bitter skit at the rising fame and style of TDW.
Many members, styles and drugs later, ‘Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?’ was released in 2010. From the first song you’d be forgiven for thinking you had put on an early 90′s rave album and this is the first in a series of surprises I got from listening start to finish. ‘Let’s Go Fucking Mental’ sounds like an English football stadium chant over experimental background music. ‘This Is The First Of Your Last Warning [Icelandic Version]‘ features female vocals over more dance/experimental background music. ‘This Is The One Thing We Did Not Want To Have Happen’ is a full blown Joy Division tribute starting with a ‘She’s Lost Control’ drumbeat later merging into lyrics from ‘I Remember Nothing’ with rave and noise effects scattered throughout. This theme of all kinds of nods being directed to British music and culture carries on throughout the album- whether it be Spacemen 3, Joy Division/New Order or late 80′s/early 90′s rave culture. But it doesn’t even stop there! There’s even enough space for weird bouts of industrial music such as on ‘Someplace Else Unknown’, using the themes and vocal style of a Spacemen 3 song with industrial noises in the background. Then there’s ‘Detka! Detka! Detka!’… which had me actually laughing to myself on the train as I was listening to it. It has a strange oriental undercurrent with German techno-esque vocals in the style of a band such as Atari Teenage Riot but IN RUSSIAN. I hope that accurately explains the song, it’s one of those you have to listen to really to believe. ‘Super Fucked’ and ‘Our Time’ use past shoegaze influences previously dabbled with on early records such as ‘Methodrone’ (obviously a reference to the drug used to take people off heroin and the drone sound of the music- one of many clever wordplays used by the band, including the band name itself!).
And after the exhaustion of trying to work out the album like a puzzle, Anton throws in one last test tube into his experiment, ‘Felt Tipped Pictures Of UFOs’. It is basically ambient music with a famous John Lennon interview about his comment of religion and the rising popularity of The Beatles in the 1960′s… followed by a young, scouse woman talking about the hypocritical nature of John Lennon (followed by other Lennon related banter) in a very crude and inexcusably, bolshy way that only a scouse person can!
‘Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?’ is an incredible album drawing from many influences- culturally and musically, which BJM have been doing continuously since the 90′s. Anton’s head must be a challenging but very interesting place but I’m pretty sure I’d never want to meet the man… partly due to being afraid he would knock me out.
4. The Horrors- Primary Colours (2009)
In 2007, The Horrors were gothic, garage rock poster boys annoying the hell out of me. Fast forward two years and I’m sitting on a couch with my mates watching MTV and ‘Sea Within a Sea’ comes on. I literally sit there blinking. Is this even the same band I was thinking to myself… from the opening krautrock-esque keyboards and drum beat to Faris’ complete change in vocal and lyrical style to a weird freakout and ending with producer Geoff Barrow (Portishead) recycling the synth end of ‘The Rip’. The 8 minutes were over and The Horrors already had my money… I bought the album soon after and was not at all disappointed.
The album opens with an ambient intro to ‘Mirror’s Image’ shifting soon into a shoegaze mirage. The Horrors still are retaining some of their gothic past with the lyrics sounding like something from a horror novel but the style has changed. Whereas they were once known more for their image, it is certainly not like looking into a mirror. Gone is the daft make-up, hairspray and custom designed clothing and in comes real musical talent. ‘Three Decades’ uses shoegaze sounds very similar to one of my all time favourite bands, ‘My Bloody Valentine’, but unlike a band like Yuck for instance, they incorporate it in their own style, resulting in something you would expect if MBV sounded more like their horror film name suggested. The single ‘Who Can Say’ is very Joy Division influenced and is one of the strongest songs on the album… even if it does have a very cheesy moment where the music dies down and Faris gets all poetic on us. The rest of the album oscillates on the same wavelength, ebbing and flowing between shoegaze, Joy Division, Bauhaus and other 80′s/early 90′s influences with personal highs on ‘Scarlet Fields’ and the title track.
For the next album ‘Skying’ released in 2011, The Horrors yet again changed their style to an amalgamation of baggy Madchester and 80′s romantic pop. This has left me thinking what in flamingoing jeopardy will they come up with next!? Acid house-folk or progressive jazz-krautrock anyone? I jest… it is impressive a band producing their first 3 albums with completely different sounds and styles… even if they started off on the wrong foot (very). In conclusion, so far ‘Primary Colours’ is my favourite and ‘Sea Within a Sea’ is one of my favourite songs of the 21st century.
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- It’s Blitz! (2009)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs arrived on the scene in the early 2000′s at the right time when their New York counterparts ‘The Strokes’ were all over every indie playlist and infiltrating radio waves all over the world. Hard-hitting, post-punk influenced guitar rock was back in and when ‘Fever to Tell’ was released in 2003 they became an overnight success. In 2009, the YYYs reached the difficult third album syndrome. More of the same or a dabble with something new? The latter was the answer as the guitars were put in the closet and out came the keyboard.
‘Shake it like a ladder to the sun’ and ‘get your leather, leather, leather on, on, on’ Karen-O calls out over music literally impossible to withstand dancing to in any indie disco. ‘Zero’ is a perfect opener to an album reinventing a band’s sound. Then suddenly you are swung into ‘Heads Will Roll’, which expertly manages to encapsulate the band’s punk origins in a dancefloor stomper, I suppose akin to the transition of Blondie in the late 70′s to early 80′s. The next song ‘Soft Shock’ is probably my favourite song on the album- using the raw emotion of an early song like ‘Maps’ over disco synths. The rest of the album carries on in that kind of fashion with some retaining of guitar based punk bursts like on ‘Dull Life’ and even an emotional piano piece in ‘Runaway’.
Overall, a very effective transition for the New Yorkers, lacking in any major hiccups and more unexpected positives than waking up on an ordinary Monday morning and being showered with presents from your family/friends/pets.
2. Bat For Lashes- Two Suns (2009)
I first became aware of Bat For Lashes when watching the Mercury Prize in 2007 with the performance of ‘Horse & I’ from the debut album, ‘Fur & Gold’. I instantly fell in love with the music, thinking to myself I had found a new talented female artist in the same echelons as past greats such as Kate Bush, Cat Power and Bjork. She may not be anywhere near as talented as any of those three mentioned but she definitely exhibits a lot more than most of the samey, mind numbingly boring female artists/bands presented by record labels on a regular basis as the next big thing… *cough* Florence and the fucking Machine *cough*.
‘Two Suns’ is just quite simply a brilliant album, even better than my opinion than the debut. One of the boxes vital for any successful album is all importantly ticked with the opening song ‘Glass’ being a tour de force in what makes Bat For Lashes special. From the haunting, misty intro sounding like Natasha Khan lost in some desolate city landscape to confident strides into the unknown referencing the album theme of ‘Two Suns’. ‘Sleep Alone’ is a sweet yet somehow mildly unsettling song, which is a key recurring theme in the Bat For Lashes output. ‘Daniel’ was the lead single from the album, acting as the ‘Two Suns’ equivalent of ‘What’s a Girl to do?’, using themes of love and uncertainty.
On the whole the album is pretty consistent, maybe with one or two dull moments but this is made up for with powerful songs like ‘Pearl’s Dream’. The video for this song features 2 countering personalties of Khan, casually accompanied by a wolf in a theatre, playing on the duel theme of the album. In short, more people should be listening to Bat For Lashes and less to Florence and the Machine and the such like… but I suppose that most people’s ears are on a different frequency.
1. Warpaint- The Fool (2010)
Warpaint are an all girl alt-rock band from Los Angeles, California. ‘The Fool’ is basically just sublime, jangly guitar music layered with beautiful, delicate vocals provided by the two lead vocalists Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman. Warpaint have already received all kinds of praise in their short lifespan, notably from LA-rock veterans Red Hot Chili Peppers, extending even to John Frusciante and current RHCP guitarist Josh Klinghoffer helping out on their first EP ‘Exquisite Corpse’. Other connections include actress Shannyn Sossamon, the sister of bassist Jenny Lindberg, originally having a stint at drumming in the band.
The album starts off with the hypnotising ‘Set Your Arms Down’, this is a characteristic of Warpaint, with the songs gently intoxicating you into the album. A few of the songs feel quite stoner/desert rock influenced to the extent I’m thinking of them as the beautiful, tender female equivalent of Kyuss, for instance on the song ‘Warpaint’. The big single from the album ‘Undertow’ is a sweet, wavering unconscious love song with a burst of raw energy towards the end. It has been a hit on the festival circuit in 2011 as Warpaint have rigorously toured all over the world, stopping off at Glastonbury and Reading/Leeds on the way. The rest of the album follows in this similar fashion with a mixture of textured desert rock riffs, mechanical drumbeats and soft, flowing vocals, which at times crescendo with the music such as on the stand out track ‘Bees’. But this does not mean they are completely stuck in one groove, for instance things change pace on the slow, acoustic love song ‘Baby’.
In reflection, it is not a record that is going to change the world but instead it is seductive, soothing art-rock music from 4 talented female musicians I hope we hear more from in the future.
Me and the man himself (I think he said he was called Tsukusa)
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