Top Albums of 2011

Okay, so this year end list is fucked beyond belief. I was writing new reviews for some of these records complete with uploads and whatever, but then my old laptop got a gut bug and I am currently building a new hard drive from scratch. Hell on earth. So here is what you get, a requisite top album list that means less than shit. The ones I don't have links to are ones that I lost on my old computer data machine.


In no particular order...


Raw Nerve- Tall Tales

I didn't actually start listening to this record until late in the year and it quickly soared into my favorites. Chicago hardcore put out on Youth Attack! records and carrying the expected traits that such a description entails. Wrenching noisy hardcore that blends the originality and depth of VOID with what could have been a faster and angrier (is it even possible?) version of Drunkdriver. Seriously buy and download every fucking thing that these guys make. Expect to hear more from me on Raw Nerve next year.


Kurt Vile- Smoke Ring for my Halo

Indie rock darling and Matador Records resident troubadour fucking killed this year with Smoke Ring for my Halo. I remember smoking out of a friends window and hearing his rendition of "Peeping Tomboy" playing faintly from Block Party like it was yesterday. Sadly, I misssed his set, but I spent the first half of this year with this record nearly always playing. Kurt Vile delivered his most palatable, creepy, and intricate record in his career to date.


Iceage- Iceage

http://tryburningthisone.blogspot.com/2011/06/iceage-new-brigade-lp.html
Danish punks with miles of press behind them. Blah blah blah, hype machine whatever. These kids are young and dumb and made one of the best punk records to break out the past ten years. Bold statement, but one I stand by. Sure, they benefit from a near perfect recording, but that is all part of the game. Worth the hype. Also a bonus seeing these guys play a sloppy set situated in a parking lot in Vancouver with Cult of Youth. Again, worth the hype.


Total Control- Henge Beat LP

http://tryburningthisone.blogspot.com/2011/11/total-control-henge-beat-lp.html
I love the Australian scene far too much. This is the best record to come from down under this year, followed closely by the UV Race record, "Homo". Anyways, this album is perfection. Kraut-synth darkwave spattered throughout an amazing rock and roll record. Seriously, the music that has happened in Australia for the past five years is unmissable.  

Mikal Cronin- Mikal Cronin

http://tryburningthisone.blogspot.com/2011/10/mikal-cronin-mikal-cronin.html
This San Francisco rock and roll heart-throb rose to prominence quickly this year with this self titled album, and for good reason. From the venerable San Francisco garage scene, but with a little more heart and breathing some much needed fresh air into said group of unarguably talented musicians. The song, "Apathy" might very well be my favorite song of the year. Watching him play it live last month vindicated my previous feelings on that song and this record. This is a seriously solid release for 2011 and I am genuinely excited to see where he takes his music next.


Atlas Sound- Parallax

Bradford Cox's newest album might very well be his most personal and beautiful one yet. Continuing his streak of dedicating records to his recently deceased artists, this one was dedicated to Trish from Broadcast. It's heart wrenching, confusing, and original as hell, but would you expect anything else? Best interview quote from this year... " I need punk rock. It's the medicine for me, but it's bitter and sickening. I feel like if you don't need it-- if you're happy and healthy-- run toward that. [Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt] is very happy now, and his life has changed a lot. I'm 100% sincerely happy for him that he doesn't need punk anymore."


The Men- Leave Home

I feel like this record really took off with its dizzying ability to effortlessly mold so many different sorts of music into an opus of rock and roll. It is very striking how the music can transparently transform with perfect tack. They just announced the follow up to this record that is coming out early next year, and I am patiently waiting for it. 

Total Control- Henge Beat LP

Total Control- Henge Beat LP

No new records in a month? Horseshit. It has been crazy. To make up for it though, I give you what possibly may be the best album released this year. Iron Lung Records (right?) gives us the long-waited for, critically acclaimed full length that was follows a slew of selectively released seven inches by Total Control. Fuck if this album isn't near perfect. Featuring members DX Stewart (UV Race) and Mikey from Eddy Current, this Aussie record continues the multiple year excursion of bands from down under pushing the envelope.

Nothing like the members former bands, this is a brilliant take on 70's rock a la Swell Maps with a perfect Eno touch. A beautiful, seamless record that slides up and down the post-punk scale. You will find touches of KBD punk followed immediately by confidentially krauty synth leads. In the heart of the album is "Carpet Rash," a perfect synopsis for the band. The monotone vocals reminiscent of darker new-wave, healthy electronics, and sharp guitars all collected with the perfection you would expect from such experienced musicians. Songs like the closer, "Love Performance" provide a striking resemblance to the repetition and hopelessness of prime Joy Division.

I suppose the most impressive part of the album is how educated is sounds. It is obviously an album written by people well-versed in the music that they are playing, both in how it is put together and where it comes from. This is not a thrown together accident, where the shit sticks to the wall. Like I said before, easily one of the best albums of 2011, hands down.

Link after the jump...

Mikal Cronin- Mikal Cronin

The San Francisco garage scene sure has exploded in the past five years. The newest (public) addition to this ever growing group is Mikal Cronin. While Cronin has been a part of the scene for a while, playing drums for Ty Segall, with The Moonhearts, and releasing a few singles, this is his first foray into long play recording. His eponymous debut is just beautiful. This here is a warm, satisfying and downright sexy pop record with perfect touches of everything from 60's rock and roll and surf to late nineties indie rock.

The lyrical content was devised during the winding down of Mikal's college career, but it is really the instrumentation and composition that shines in this record. The first song on the record, "Is it Alright" spends two and a half minutes where you think it could be, whimsical yet crunching garage rock. This song ends with a furious minute that crescendos with Jon Dwyer (Thee Oh Sees) playing a maddening muddle of a freakout flute solo. The record continues down this same path, finely walking the line between ravishing pop music and the true grit of rock and roll. In the song "Green and Blue," mixed up with a true wall of sound for garage rock, I hear a faint Kurt Cobain influence in the vocals of Mikal. I'll take it.

You should too. This is a great record, just dark enough to get you through the coming fall but still positive enough to not drive you off the deep end.

Trouble in Mind Records
2011

Link after the jump...

Paul Simon- Songs from The Capeman

Paul Simon- Songs from The Capeman

Wow, so it's been a while since I posted, but since the grey has returned to the grey coast, I suppose I can start finding more time to write on here.  I'll come back with a post that comes out of left field.

For almost ten years, the legendary Paul Simon worked on a screenplay for a Broadway show based on the life of Salvador Agron, or "The Capeman." Agron was a real-life Puerto Rican gang member who was convicted of murdering two Irish boys who he had mistaken for opposing gang members.  At sixteen, he was the youngest person at the time to be sent to death row.  His case was polarizing and invited attention from unlikely places. At the time, Elenor Roosevelt campained for a new look at his case and sentencing. In the seventies, there was a made for television movie based on his life as well.

Paul Simon spent over 5 million dollars comprising a band to play the music that he had written for his show.  It's an unusual departure musically for Simon, with a mix of Latin American drumming, doo-wop songs, blues, and rock and roll.  The album is diverse and in a full listen, tells an amazing story of the seedy side of New York in the fifties. The songs are beautiful and thought-provoking, the vocals heartwarming and honest to a point of unnerve.  The fifth song on the album, "The Vampires" will forever be one of the most important songs in my life.  It enthralls me. 

The downside to this rosy review is the fact that the musical was a disastrous flop.  In the lead-up to opening day, the production went through three directors.  Simon was superfluously difficult in his role.  He insisted on having a full hand in almost every stage of the project.  The show only lasted 68 days at the Marquis Theater, and lost 11 million dollars.  Simon stood by his project and eventually released this album, keeping the vision alive.  I described this album recently as "World Music with balls," and I stand by that statement.  Long live The Capeman.

Masshysteri- Masshysteri

Masshysteri- Masshysteri LP

This now defunct Swedish Punk band has a roster that reads like a who's who of the last ten years in the Umea punk scene. Featuring members of (International) Noise Conspiracy, Regulations, Vicious, Lost Patrol Band, and Insurgent Kid, Masshysteri immediately has quite a reputation to uphold. This eponymous second album meets and exceeds any standards that could be set for a band with this high of a bar set. Robert Pettersson's Swedish-sung vocals sound natural, crisp, and comforting. This album has a darker, slightly more palatable sound than their first album, "Ver Del Av Stan". It seems that they really figured out their formula to complete the seemingly impossible task of writing original sounding punk songs that are easy on the ears while not being tacky.

Masshysteri really popularized the newest wave of bands singing in their native Swedish, and it seems everyone else has followed. I read an interview at one point with Pettersson where he said something along the lines that he was sick of having to use an internet translator to write his lyrics, and if people didn't hearing vocals in Swedish, fuck 'em. It sounds perfect, and I think that this album is close to perfect.

Link after the jump...

Joy Division- Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979

Joy Division- Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979

Once a rarity, a full set recorded in Paris months before Ian Curtis' tragic collapse. Not much else to say. 

Link after the jump...

The Omegas- Blasts of Lunacy LP

The Omegas- Blast of Lunacy LP

Best hardcore record so far in 2011. Traditional hardcore that seamlessly transfuses the cream of the crop of hardcore styles. Breakneck riffs lead out into slow chugs a la Regulations "Police Sirens", while molding unnoticeably to brooding parts that could facilely be mistaken for NYHC. For me, Omegas quickly joined a club of contemporary North American bands who correctly and effortlessly have channeled the best of 1980's hardcore (Double Negative, Government Warning, Police and Thieves).

Blasts of Lunacy really the name of the game. Working in waves of starts and stops, the slow and heavy parts are the radical equilibrium to the swift, punch in the face fury that follows. Parts Unknown records delivers with this record.

Link after the jump...

Drunkdriver- Drunkdriver LP

Drunkdriver- Drunkdriver LP

I've been hesitant to share this album because of some strife that occurred regarding this bands breakup.  I do however think it was handled properly, and if you want to know more about it, you are on the internet, so do your own research.

A friend in Chicago told me that this band, Drunkdriver was playing at a loft near my house. I asked him what it sounded like and he just told me, "It's music your girlfriend would hate." Something along the lines of pure anger. From the slower opening chugs in the menacing and properly named first song "The Accident", the the chunky, hate-anthem that is "Quality of my life" this record literally sounds like frustration. With abrasion around every corner and in every valley, it is easy to say this record is not for anybody.  It's at times a two note hardcore band, twisting in circles like a convoluted adolescent. The drums drive this band to a point of pure anarchy and slob, then seconds later bring the songs right back into reality.

All this being said, I rarely meet people who DON'T like this band. They were and still are a breath of fresh air in hardcore, noise and punk. They were groundbreaking and prophetic. I can't even begin to mention the intensity, commitment, and lust of their live show, which people who saw should feel literally lucky to have been graced with seeing. They are palatable, and I'll bet your girlfriend will actually like it. Featuring members of Wives and Pygmy Shrews, this defunct Brooklyn band might have just broken up at the perfect time, albeit under unfortunate circumstances. Download this album, now.

Link after the jump...

Kitchen's Floor- Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress

Again, I'm painted such a bleak disturbed picture of Brisbane. While there are other Australian bands that currently have the swagger and drug vibe down to perfection, Kitchen's Floor hold down the teenage kids drinking in the day and fucking with tourists. Just when you think that this record is all apathy, it breaks with some heartfelt and almost Vaselines influenced parts. The song "Back Home", could easily be on a K Records comp from the mid-nineties.

I love the recordings, lo-fi for the hell of it. Dirty, messy and all over the place. I am reluctant to use the word, but at times this record even has a "jangly feel". This three-piece knows exactly what they are doing, playing good music poorly and making it sound perfect. I think that there is much much more to this record than meets the eye. It's deliberate.

Link after the jump...

Baddat For Trubbel- Baddat for Trubbel

Baddat for Trubbel- Baddat for Trubbel

I definitely have a problem with geographically categorizing my music. I fervently follow fashions from certain regions while completely disregarding whole musical scenes based on location alone. That being said, Sweden makes some of the absolute best punk rock, garage rock, and hardcore. They have for decades now, and the scene is diverse, porous, and constantly evolving. Baddat for Trubbel is so fucking good. Baddat takes a step away from punk and more towards Swedish pub rock. Done correctly, although it sounds impossible. It keeps an edge while remaining remarkably palatable.

Ever since I heard that first Masshysteri LP, I'm stuck on the Swedish vocals. It sounds so natural, so smooth, and unbelievably cool. Baddat is riding the same hype machine that Iceage is, albeit to quite a smaller degree. They have an LP out on Punks Only titled, "Det Här Är Inte New York" (This is not New York). Their eye-catching seven inch, just came out earlier this year and turns the fuzz on in comparison to their rough and tumble full length.


Anyways, I can't find the whole LP, so I have uploaded 11 of the 15 tracks for the LP. It's frustrating, I know... but this record just isn't showing up online. I uploaded the seven inch to make up for it.. Enjoy.

Baddat For Trubbel- Det Har Ar Inte New York (only 2/3 of the album)
Punks Only, 2011 2010
http://www.mediafire.com/?rrmckmjf6m4vcba

Link after the jump...