| 4 excellent |
| A Place to Bury Strangers Exploding Head |
| A Sunny Day In Glasgow Ashes Grammar |
| A Wilhelm Scream Mute Print |
| A Wilhelm Scream Ruiner |
| A.A. Bondy American Hearts |
| Against Me! The Acoustic EP |
| Against Me! As the Eternal Cowboy |
| Against Me! Searching for a Former Clarity |
| Air France No Way Down |
| Alkaline Trio/Hot Water Music Alkaline Trio/Hot Water Music Split |
| Anberlin New Surrender |
| Animal Collective Sung Tongs |
| Animal Collective Fall Be Kind |
| Animal Collective Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished |
| Arcade Fire Neon Bible |
| Following up a debut album with the amount of critical praise as 'Funeral' may seem a daunting task to some but Arcade Fire took it in their stride as Neon Bible took the critics and charts alike by storm. Further expanding on the dark beauty and rich grandeur of their debut, Neon Bible is an aptly titled criticism of both church and society, expressed through the sharp lyrics of Win Butler. Neon Bible is a vicariously arousing stunner, packed with the gloom of church organs, string arrangements that both soar and keep you levelled, and the more involved soprano of R?ne Chassagne to contrast the vocals of Win Butler in meloncholic fashion. Here's eleven of the most gorgeous, dark, and at times melodramatic, tracks of 2007. |
| Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am.... |
| At the Drive-In Relationship of Command |
| Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution A Call To Arms |
| Bat For Lashes Two Suns |
| Beach Boys Pet Sounds |
| Beirut Gulag Orkestar |
| Belle and Sebastian Dear Catastrophe Waitress |
| Belle and Sebastian The Boy With the Arab Strap |
| Belle and Sebastian The Life Pursuit |
| Belle and Sebastian Tigermilk |
| Benoit Pioulard Précis |
| Between The Buried And Me The Silent Circus |
| Between The Buried And Me Colors |
| Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle |
| Bomb the Music Industry! Album Minus Band |
| Bomb the Music Industry! Scrambles |
| Bon Iver Blood Bank |
| Brand New Deja Entendu |
| Brand New Daisy |
| Bright Eyes I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning |
| Bright Eyes Cassadaga |
| Broken Social Scene Broken Social Scene |
| Broken Social Scene You Forgot It In People |
| Bruce Springsteen Working On A Dream |
| Built To Spill Perfect From Now On |
| Built To Spill There Is No Enemy |
| Coheed and Cambria Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV... |
| Cursive Domestica |
| Cursive The Ugly Organ |
| Daitro Laisser Vivre Les Squelettes |
| Damien Rice O |
| Dan Deacon Bromst |
| Dead to Me Cuban Ballerina |
| Deerhunter Microcastle |
| Defiance, Ohio Share What Ya Got |
| Devendra Banhart Cripple Crow |
| Dillinger Four C I V I L W A R |
| Dillinger Four Situationist Comedy |
| Dinosaur Jr. Farm |
| Do Make Say Think You, You're a History in Rust |
| Dr. Dog Fate |
| dredg El Cielo |
| Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros Up From Below |
| Electric President Electric President |
| Elliott Smith XO |
| Feist The Reminder |
| Fever Ray Fever Ray |
| Florence and the Machine Lungs |
| Frank Turner Love, Ire & Song |
| Frightened Rabbit The Midnight Organ Fight |
| Gatsbys American Dream Ribbons and Sugar |
| Get Up Kids Something To Write Home About |
| Gifts From Enola Loyal Eyes Betrayed The Mind |
| Girls Album |
| Give up the Ghost We're Down Til We're Underground |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor F# A# ∞ |
| Grizzly Bear Yellow House |
| Grizzly Bear Veckatimest |
| Grouper Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill |
| Hans Zimmer The Lion King (Soundtrack) |
| Have Heart Songs to Scream at the Sun |
| HEALTH HEALTH // DISCO |
| Hot Water Music A Flight And A Crash |
| In Pieces Lions Write History |
| Iron And Wine The Shepherd's Dog |
| Iron And Wine Our Endless Numbered Days |
| Japandroids Post-Nothing |
| It's energetic, it's catchy, it's loud, and it's probably the best fuzzy garage rock you've heard this year. Japandroids are just two dudes with a guitar and a set of drums making music in the vein of No Age and Times New Viking, singing about french kissing French girls, and enjoying the shit out of life. |
| Jawbreaker Dear You |
| Jedi Mind Tricks Violent By Design |
| Jeff Buckley Grace |
| John Coltrane Blue Train |
| John Coltrane Giant Steps |
| John Mayer Continuum |
| John Mayer Where the Light Is |
| Jose Gonzalez Veneer |
| Joy Division Unknown Pleasures |
| Kings of Convenience Declaration of Dependence |
| Laredo Bury For Growth |
| Laura Radio Swan is Down |
| LCD Soundsystem Sound Of Silver |
| Les Savy Fav Let's Stay Friends |
| Letting Up Despite Great Faults Letting Up Despite Great Faults |
| Lisa Hannigan Sea Sew |
| Los Campesinos! We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed |
| Low Long Division |
| Magyar Posse Random Avenger |
| Manchester Orchestra Mean Everything To Nothing |
| Maps and Atlases You and Me and the Mountain |
| Meet Me in St. Louis Variations on Swing |
| Meneguar Strangers in Our House |
| Mew Frengers |
| Mew No More Stories |
| mewithoutYou Brother, Sister |
| mewithoutYou Catch for Us the Foxes |
| Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson Summer Of Fear |
| Minus The Bear Highly Refined Pirates |
| Minutemen Double Nickels On the Dime |
| Mission of Burma Vs. |
| Mogwai Young Team |
| Mogwai Happy Songs For Happy people |
| Mono You Are There |
| Moscow Olympics Cut The World |
| A tasty mix of shoegaze and post-punk from the Phillipines, Moscow Olympics use all the old tricks including and not limited to reverb, distortion, and tremolo. There's something different about Cut The World though. It seems nostalgic yet fresh; with production serving this what an anachronism does for literature. Highly recommended for fans of My Bloody Valentine or The Radio Dept. |
| Moving Mountains Pneuma |
| Moving Mountains Foreword EP |
| Moving Mountains would be a great post-rock band. If you took a song like "Foreword", stripped it of its vocals, and threw it on the next Explosions in the Sky album, no one would notice. They're more than that though. With four songs, each clocking in at over 7 minutes, Moving Mountains are simply huge. Although one would expect each song to follow a similar climax-driven formula (and they do, for the most part), there are enough moments such as the middle of "With One's Heart in One's Mouth" where we're surprised with full blown screams, whilst the instrumentation slowly gets more frantic, to keep us satisfied with the approach. Not to mention, the breathtaking ending of "Lights and Shapes", the slow vocal build up of "Armslength" and the recent obsession with moments of electronic ambience, and you have one of my favourite EPs of the year. |
| Muse Origin of Symmetry |
| Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea |
| No Age Nouns |
| No Age Weirdo Rippers |
| Oasis Whats the Story Morning Glory |
| Oasis Definitely Maybe |
| Okkervil River The Stand Ins |
| Okkervil River Black Sheep Boy |
| Ola Podrida Belly of the Lion |
| Orphaned Land Mabool (The Story of the Three Sons...) |
| Panda Bear Person Pitch |
| Passion Pit Manners |
| Patrick Wolf Wind in the Wires |
| Patrick Wolf The Bachelor |
| Paul Baribeau Paul Baribeau |
| Pavement Slanted and Enchanted |
| Pavement Wowee Zowee |
| pg.lost Yes I Am EP |
| pg.lost It's Not Me, It's You! |
| Phantogram Eyelid Movies |
| Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix |
| Pinback Blue Screen Life |
| Propagandhi Supporting Caste |
| Queens Of The Stone Age Rated R |
| Radiohead The Bends |
| Radiohead OK Computer |
| Radiohead Kid A |
| Refused The Shape Of Punk To Come |
| Regina Spektor Soviet Kitsch |
| Rx Bandits ...And the Battle Begun |
| Rx Bandits The Resignation |
| Say Anything ...Is A Real Boy |
| Set Your Goals Demo 2004 |
| Sigur Ros Ágætis Byrjun |
| Sigur Ros með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust |
| Silversun Pickups Swoon |
| Slint Spiderland |
| Spokes People Like People Like You |
| St. Vincent Actor |
| Stan Getz The Best of Two Worlds |
| Streetlight Manifesto Everything Goes Numb |
| Strung Out Exile In Oblivion |
| Strung Out Agents Of The Underground |
| Sufjan Stevens Illinois |
| Sunny Day Real Estate Diary |
| Teenage Cool Kids Foreign Lands |
| The Antlers Hospice |
| The Blood Brothers Burn Piano Island, Burn |
| The Decemberists Picaresque |
| The Decemberists The Crane Wife |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Irony Is A Dead Scene |
| The Dodos Visiter |
| The Dodos Time to Die |
| The Ergs! Dorkrockcorkrod |
| The Flaming Lips Embryonic |
| The Gaslight Anthem Sink or Swim |
| The Hold Steady Stay Positive |
| The Lawrence Arms The Greatest Story Ever Told |
| The Lawrence Arms Buttsweat and Tears |
| The Loved Ones [US] Build & Burn |
| The Mars Volta Frances the Mute |
| The Mars Volta The Bedlam In Goliath |
| The Microphones It Was Hot We Stayed In The Water |
| The Middle East The Recordings of the Middle East |
| The Mountain Goats The Sunset Tree |
| The Rural Alberta Advantage Hometowns |
| The Smiths The Queen Is Dead |
| The Twilight Sad Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters |
| The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground and Nico |
| The Walkmen You & Me |
| The Weakerthans Reconstruction Site |
| The Weakerthans Reunion Tour |
| The Whitest Boy Alive Rules |
| The XX xx |
| Thee Oh Sees The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In |
| This Will Destroy You Young Mountain |
| Thrice Vheissu |
| Thrice The Artist In The Ambulance |
| Thrice The Alchemy Index: Vols. I and II... |
| Tiger Lou The Loyal |
| Titus Andronicus The Airing of Grievances |
| Trophy Scars Hospital Music |
| Underoath Define the Great Line |
| Various Artists (Indie) Dark Was The Night |
| Washed Out Life of Leisure |
| Weezer The Blue Album |
| William Fitzsimmons Until When We Are Ghosts |
| With Honor Heart Means Everything |
| Yeasayer All Hour Cymbals |
| Yo La Tengo I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One |
| Yo La Tengo Popular Songs |
| 3.5 great |
| 65daysofstatic The Fall of Math |
| A Silver Mount Zion He Has Left Us Alone... |
| Aereogramme My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go |
| AFI Sing the Sorrow |
| AFI The Art of Drowning |
| Alkaline Trio Good Mourning |
| American Football American Football |
| American Steel Jagged Thoughts |
| Anberlin Cities |
| Andrew Bird Armchair Apocrypha |
| Animal Collective Water Curses EP |
| Animal Collective Here Comes The Indian |
| Animal Collective Prospect Hummer (feat. Vashti Bunyan) |
| Annuals Be He Me |
| Art Brut Bang Bang Rock & Roll |
| At the Drive-In In / Casino / Out |
| Atlas Sound Logos |
| Beck Sea Change |
| Beirut Lon Gisland EP |
| Beirut March of the Zapotec EP |
| Belle and Sebastian Push Barman to Open Old Wounds |
| Belle and Sebastian The BBC Sessions |
| Belle and Sebastian 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds of Light |
| Bibio Ambivalence Avenue |
| Billy Bragg and Wilco Mermaid Avenue |
| Bomb the Music Industry! To Leave Or Die In Long Island |
| Bomb the Music Industry! Goodbye Cool World |
| Bouncing Souls The Gold Record |
| Brand New Your Favourite Weapon |
| Brand New Fight Off Your Demons (Untitled Demos) |
| Bridge and Tunnel East/West |
| Bright Eyes Lifted or the Story is in the Soil... |
| Broken Records Until the Earth Begins to Part |
| Camera Obscura My Maudlin Career |
| Caspian You Are The Conductor |
| With layered, distorted guitars, uplifting melodies, and an inclination for the grandiose, it would sound like Caspian rehash the old, stale post-rock formula, but don't be fooled; With You Are The Conductor Caspian bring new spice to an old recipe. |
| Castevet Summer Fences |
| Chuck Ragan Feast Or Famine |
| Coheed and Cambria Good Apollo...No World For Tomorrow |
| Cold War Kids Robbers and Cowards |
| Crocodiles Summer Of Hate |
| Cursive Mama, I'm Swollen |
| Cut Copy In Ghost Colours |
| Damien Rice 9 |
| Dan Deacon Spiderman of the Rings |
| Dead to Me Little Brother |
| Deftones Saturday Night Wrist |
| Deltron 3030 Deltron 3030 |
| Department of Eagles In Ear Park |
| Desaparecidos Read Music/Speak Spanish |
| Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca |
| Discovery LP |
| Disillusion Back To Times Of Splendor |
| dredg Catch Without Arms |
| Dustin Kensrue Please Come Home |
| Eaststrikewest Wolvves |
| Eluvium Copia |
| Every Time I Die Hot Damn! |
| Explosions In The Sky Those Who Tell the Truth... |
| Explosions In The Sky All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone |
| Fake Problems It's Great to Be Alive |
| Fireworks All I Have To Offer Is My Own Confusion |
| Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes |
| Flight of the Conchords The Distant Future-EP |
| Freelance Whales Weathervanes |
| Freelance Whales succeed everywhere Owl City failed; that is to say, they manage to rip off The Postal Service without being musically-inclined towards the tastes of 13 year old girls. Depth isn't what you'll find in Weathervanes but charming, Gibbard-esque crooning over cute electronic beats and the occassional acoustic guitar is definitely on the |
| Fuck Buttons Tarot Sport |
| fun. Aim and Ignite |
| Glassjaw Worship and Tribute |
| God Is An Astronaut All Is Violent, All Is Bright |
| Have A Nice Life Deathconsciousness |
| Holiday Unheard Of Carta Marina |
| Hopesfall Magnetic North |
| Hopesfall A Types |
| HORSE The Band The Mechanical Hand |
| husband&wife Dark Dark Woods |
| Idlewild 100 Broken Windows |
| In Flames Come Clarity |
| Islands Arm's Way |
| Jack Johnson In Between Dreams |
| Japandroids Lullaby Death Jams EP |
| Jens Lekman Night Falls Over Kortedala |
| Jimmy Eat World Bleed American |
| Jose Gonzalez In Our Nature |
| Kings of Leon Only By The Night |
| La Dispute Somewhere at the Bottom of the River... |
| Lil Wayne Tha Carter III |
| Lily Allen It's Not Me, It's You |
| Look What I Did Minuteman For The Moment |
| Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love Ends of June |
| Lupe Fiasco The Cool |
| Lupe Fiasco Food & Liquor |
| Lykke Li Youth Novels |
| Manchester Orchestra Let My Pride Be What's Left Behind EP/DVD |
| A step-up in the songwriting ability that remained inconsistent on their debut record, original songs like I Can Feel a Hot One and I Was a Lid are far more mature (and better) tracks than any off I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child. Accompanied by excellent live versions of Wolves at Night (played acoustically) and Sleeper 1972, this EP is a sign of progress for Manchester Orchestra and hopefully an indication of good things to come from Hull and co. |
| Maps and Atlases Tree, Swallows, Houses |
| Mastodon Blood Mountain |
| MGMT Oracular Spectacular |
| Miike Snow Miike Snow |
| Minus The Bear Menos El Oso |
| Monsters of Folk Monsters of Folk |
| Mos Def Black On Both Sides |
| Muse Absolution |
| Muse Black Holes and Revelations |
| Netherfriends Calling You Out EP |
| No Age Losing Feeling EP |
| Noah and the Whale The First Days of Spring |
| Off With Their Heads Hospitals |
| Okkervil River The Stage Names |
| Owen At Home With |
| Pale Young Gentlemen Pale Young Gentlemen |
| Pale Young Gentlemen Black Forest (tra la la) |
| Paramore Riot! |
| Pinback Summer in Abaddon |
| Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here |
| Polar Bear Club The Redder, The Better |
| Propagandhi How to Clean Everything |
| Protest the Hero Kezia |
| Protest the Hero Fortress |
| Queens Of The Stone Age Songs For The Deaf |
| Ray Lamontagne Till the Sun Turns Black |
| Ray Lamontagne Gossip In The Grain |
| Red Sparowes Every Red Heart Shines Toward The Red... |
| Rise Against The Sufferer and the Witness |
| Rise Against Revolutions Per Minute |
| Santogold Santogold |
| Saosin Saosin |
| Saxon Shore Four Months Of Darkness |
| Say Anything In Defense of the Genre |
| Say Anything Say Anything |
| Seabear The Ghost That Carried Us Away |
| Sleepmakeswaves In Today Already Walks Tomorrow |
| Small Brown Bike Our Own Wars |
| Snowing Fuck Your Emotional Bullshit |
| So Many Dynamos The Loud Wars |
| Streetlight Manifesto Somewhere in the Between |
| Strike Anywhere To Live in Discontent |
| Strung Out Blackhawks Over Los Angeles |
| Sufjan Stevens Greetings From Michigan : The Great Lake |
| Sunset Rubdown Dragonslayer |
| Superchunk Here's Where The Strings Come In |
| Swan Lake Beast Moans |
| Taking Back Sunday Tell All Your Friends |
| Taxi Taxi! Still Standing At Your Backdoor |
| Telescreen The Solar Sea EP |
| Texas is the Reason Do You Know Who You Are? |
| The Acorn Glory Hope Mountain |
| The Appleseed Cast Sagarmatha |
| The Calm Blue Sea The Calm Blue Sea |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Calculating Infinity |
| The Format Dog Problems |
| The Hold Steady Separation Sunday |
| The Horrors Primary Colours |
| The Lonely Island Incredibad |
| The Mars Volta Octahedron |
| The Pains of Being Pure at Heart The Pains of Being Pure at Heart |
| The Pains of Being Pure at Heart Higher Than The Stars EP |
| The Pax Cecilia Blessed Are The Bonds |
| The Prize Fighter Inferno My Brother's Blood Machine |
| The Samuel Jackson Five Easily Misunderstood |
| The Swellers My Everest |
| Thee Oh Sees Help |
| In the same vein as 'The Masters Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In', Thee Oh Sees pack some hefty 60s psychedelic undertones into their jangly lo-fi and while this record certainly seems more focused than the last, they haven't sacrificed any of that vigour that made the clatter of the music so strangely enjoyable. Plus, killer album art. |
| Think About Life Family |
| Thrice If We Could Only See Us Now |
| Thrice The Alchemy Index Vols. III and IV... |
| Thrice Beggars |
| Times New Viking Rip It Off |
| Trophy Scars Bad Luck |
| TV on the Radio Dear Science |
| Underoath Lost In The Sound Of Separation |
| Uninhabitable Mansions Nature Is A Taker |
| Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend |
| Wavves Wavvves |
| Ween The Mollusk |
| Why? Alopecia |
| Wild Beasts Two Dancers |
| Will Stratton No Wonder |
| Yo La Tengo And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out |
