The Top Ten:

10. Butch Walker - Sycamore Meadows

Blood On The Tracks. Jagged Little Pill. Sea Change. Iconic break-up records all, but they’re all just a little bit gloomy. Sycamore Meadows isn’t all about a break-up- in fact it’s not so clear there was a full-blown break-up at all- but it’s a record that hits on the full range of emotions that accompany a great loss. Highlight ‘Here Comes The...’ is Walker’s most moving and emotionally vulnerable composition to date, flawlessly evoking the fear and isolation of a relationship going wrong, while ‘Vessels’ takes a more whimsical approach, recalling the exciting “having sex on the hoods of cars” stage of a relationship. The glammy, horn-filled ‘Ponce De Leon Ave’ celebrates the letting loose period after the fact, ‘The Weight Of Her’ channels Elvis Costello in its righteous dismissal of petty post-relationship politics, while tracks like 'Going Back/Going Home' and closer 'ATL' explore the concept of “home” through the eyes of somebody who knows what it’s like to be unexpectedly homeless.  / Dave De Sylvia

MP3: Butch Walker - 'The Weight Of Her'  //  Review

9. Protest the Hero – Fortress

Ever since A Calculated Use of Sound came out in the summer of 2003, Protest the Hero have been a wildly polarizing outfit. Even as their voices dropped, lyrics advanced and their techniques improved, the complaints and praise have always been more or less the same. Yet these polarizing elements---the vocals, the frenetic leads, the highly literate lyrics and generally over-the-top aesthetic---have remained key components of their sound. Fortress, their most polarizing release yet, has spent the past 12 months garnering reactions primarily on opposite sides of the spectrum. But what really matters is that Fortress consists of wildly contrasting sounds and moods. It walks a fine line between being serious and a joke; it shreds without being gratuitous; it's influenced by Broadway and Dostoevsky and, most significantly, it’s an inspiration to both ugly dudes with beards and gender conflicted teenagers. Arguably, Fortress is the most intriguing metal album of the year.  / Tyler Munro

Protest The Hero @ MySpace  //  Review

 8. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

Steven Ellison, a.k.a. Flying Lotus, a.k.a. the guy whose music is used on Adult Swim commercials, followed up his 2006 debut LP 1983 with the attention-grabbing release Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a careful, but ultimately substantial, progression from his previous efforts. The cornucopia of samples that defined 1983's varied soundscapes have been mushed together, thrown through a few distortion filters, and yanked even more out of quantization to produce an album that shuffles, sludges, and grooves harder than any other out this year. FlyLo's unique taste in samples for his drum kits yields a rich flavor that, when squeezed into his off-kilter timing and beats, gives a sound that is absolutely throbbing (additional visual evidence of this can be witnessed in his video for "Parisian Goldfish"). This album really is best new music.  / Nick Greer

MP3: Kanye West - Love Lockdown (Flying Lotus Mix)  //  Review

7. pg.lost - It's Not Me, It's You!

In a genre of music dominated by mainstay artists and their various side projects, pg.lost have risen with seemingly no hype to achieve the highest ranked post-rock album on this list, It's Not Me, It's You!. A mix of deft and beautiful guitar work with dynamic changes in the songs, it may all seem too EitS-esque at first, but as soon as you hear the end of ‘Siren’ you'll forget about who may or may not have influenced pg.lost and focus instead on what they have brought to the table. Their ability to wrangle you into a song and hook you is currently unparalleled in the genre, and hopefully pg.lost can expand their relatively small fan base with It's Not Me, It's You!.  / John A. Hanson

pg.lost @ MySpace  //  Review

6. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

There’s not much that can be said about Bon Iver’s full-length debut that hasn’t already been said. Every critic and his fruit fly has more or less passed some sort of comment, however brief, on just about every conceivable aspect of For Emma, Forever Ago. Yet not a single one could ever even begin to tell you anything about just what the weight of emotion that Justin Vernon’s minimalist acoustic masterpiece carries with it. For Emma is simply too… personal. It’s the sort of intimacy that carves its own meaning in the deepest confines of the heart, skipping with bounds and strides across ears and into the chest with piercing clarity. It’s never hurt more than this but, sometimes, it’s the pain that reminds us that we’re all really alive in the first place.  / Alex Silveri

MP3: Bon Iver - 'Skinny Love'  //  Review

 

5. Have a Nice Life - Deathconsciousness

Deathconsciousness is a special album. It was recorded in a home studio over the course of five years by two friends, Tim Macuga and Dan Barrett (ex-In Pieces), who wanted to combine their love of My Blood Valentine, Joy Division, Nine Inch Nails, and Xasthur into one unified sound. After speaking with Richard McFarlan, a Religious Anthropology professor at UMass Amherst, they were inspired to write a concept album surrounding the life and mysteries of Antiochus, an exiled Roman religious leader. In their words, “[w]e're playing songs in a dead genre about believers in a dead religion.” Despite, and maybe thanks to all of this death consciousness, Have a Nice Life have produced an album that is startlingly nuanced, intimate, and emotionally gripping. Amidst fuzzy shoegaze tones and industrial beats, it treads the line between despair and hope; neither too brittle and cold, nor too lush and intricate. The result is esoteric and challenging, yet unexpectedly catchy.  / Nick Greer

MP3: Have A Nice Life - 'Bloodhail'  //  Review

4. Blue Sky Black Death - Late Night Cinema

Maybe the one thing lacking from modern trip hop and instrumental hip hop is a truly great sense of the moment. Not since DJ Shadow's Endtroducing have listeners been treated to an album that makes good on instrumental hip hop's many strengths by fixing its one glaring weakness. On Late Night Cinema, Blue Sky Black Death effectively combine post-rock song structures and sense of poignancy and escalation, with trip hop's usual strengths (atmosphere, groove, diversity, etc.), to create the first album since Endtroducing that moves the listener as much as it soothes. The expansive, ever-changing arcs feel monumental when coupled with smooth trumpets, fluttering violins, soulful vocal samples, and thick, awe-inspiring beats.  / Nick Greer

Blue Sky Black Death @ MySpace  //  Review

3. TV on the Radio - Dear Science

With Dear Science, TV on the Radio took in a step in a new direction. Toning down much of their sonic undulations and ramping up the production value, Dear Science adds a poppy, Prince-like quality to the band's already enigmatic sound. Mashing soul, pop, hip-hop and even electronica into a post-punk foundation, Dear Science defies the odds by being both highly coherent and easily digestible. Most importantly, TV on the Radio seem to have recaptured the indefinable “it” factor that made their first two releases so special. As dense as it is fun, Dear Science is one of 2008’s most colorful albums, as well as one of its finest.  / Tyler Munro

TV On The Radio @ MySpace  //  Review

2. Off Minor - Some Blood

Some Blood is the culmination Off Minor's steady rise to becoming one of the most relevant and original hardcore bands currently playing. Mixing their traditional preference for jazz phrasing with the dynamic nature usually associated with emo, Some Blood exists as a truly 21^st century hardcore record, building on the past while clearly looking towards the future.  / Jared W. Dillon

MP3: Off Minor - 'Everything Explicit'  //  Review

 

1. Cynic - Traced in Air

Focus' biggest criticism was in the heavily vocoder-laden vocals - some people endured it, others cringed and blindly dismissed the record - but gone (for the most part) are the robotic, mechanized vocals from Paul Masvidal. Opting for cleaner, more melodic vocals in his upper-register (newcomer Tymon Kruidenier handles the harsh death growls on this record - he sounds awesome on "The Unknown Guest"), Masvidal's new delivery is stellar. Tracks like ‘Evolutionary Sleeper,’ ‘Integral Birth,’ and ‘Adam's Murmur’ showcase these higher vocals, while stellar guitarwork from Masvidal and Kruidenier whips around the vocals. The solos are stunning - just listen to ‘Evolutionary Sleeper’ and its concluding solo - and the lead/rhythm parts juxtapose to near-perfection throughout the record.  / Jom

MP3: Cynic - 'Integral Birth'  //  Review

Individual Lists:

Share: Facebook Stumble Digg Del.icio.us

Comments