Album Reviews: The Best Music of 2009 – Part Three (July – September)

By Travis Woods

As was the case last year, in an effort to make our obligatory end-of-the-year music lists easier to compile, and because I’m music-obsessed to a ridiculously self-parodic degree, I’ve compiled a guide to our favorite sounds of 2009 (so far).

Also, quite simply: music nerds like to make lists.

Moving along, these are my picks for the best rock music releases, both national and local, of the year thus far, July through September. The January to March list is here, and the April through June list is here.  As we inch closer to 2009’s home stretch, we seem to be entering a hot streak for this year–more of my favorite ‘09 albums were released in the past three months than in any other period.  So, the next time you’re standing in Amoeba and have no idea what to buy (for those 20 of you still buying albums), be sure to snatch something off of this list.  Album selections are after the jump–let me know if I missed your favorites, if I’m dead-on, or way off.

The Antlers – Hospice

One of the more profoundly depressing concept records released since Lou Reed’s Berlin, the Antlers’ Hospice would be too morose to sit through (let alone return to over and over) were it not for the band’s staggering blend of My Bloody Valentine-styled guitarfuzz overdrive, Arcade Fire earnestness and the simmering, slo-mo postrock etherea of Sigur Rós.  The story of a woman dying of cancer as the man who loves her sits beside her, helplessly, in a cancer ward, Hospice is a simultaneously crushing meditation on memory, hope, loss and regret, as well as a dazzling display of rainbow’d sonic details, from the bristling and explosive guitars sears of “Thirteen” to the weary, whispered resignation of the closer, “Wake.”  Few other records released this year are quite nearly as brutal, or beautiful.

Listen to “Two”

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Aushua – Limbo EP

While Aushua’s No Harm Done stood as a debut and unified declaration of the band’s sound and style, Limbo is that disc’s inversion–it stretches into multiple directions at once, fraying this way and that, chasing noises and riffs down one melodic, twisting alleyway after another, and forms an eclectic image of a band discovering its potential.  Songs like the ethereal grooves and howls of “Tuck (How it Feels Away)”, the coolly rippling and glistening crunch of the noisy “Pedestrian,” the one-two punch of hymn-like shouter “Hiding Place” and the closing shimmer of “God in Search of Man” whorl-print together into a dizzying chain of sound, one that feels like anything but limbo; rather, it sounds like a quantum leap forward.

Stream “Tuck (How it Feels Away)”

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Dinosaur Jr. – Farm

Coming on the heels of Beyond, their 2007 reunion record, Dinosaur Jr.’s Farm does exactly that—move beyond—as this album surpasses its most immediate predecessor (as well as most everything else the band has done since Green Mind in 1991) by fusing the band’s traditional and blistering molten crunch to a series of laidback and lived-in grooves.  Creating a ruckus that’s both familiar and new, J Mascis and company zigzag from basic and pleasing Dinosaur Jr. fare like the opening “Pieces” to an almost country-rock swagger on tracks like the Crazy Horse gallop of “I Want You to Know,” the stinging roll of “Friends” and the rowdy, barnburning “Over It.”  It’s the sound of a band hitting their stride once again, comfortably stretching out into new territory while continuing to dominate the old.  Beyond may have been when Dinosaur Jr. reunited, but Farm will be remembered as the album in which they came back.

Stream “I Want You to Know”

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Division Day - Visitation

Taking the synth-washed New Romanticism of their debut, Beartrap Island, and submerging it deep within oily pools of marrow-crushing rhythms, high-tension guitars and keys, and the claustrophobe whisper of singer/ keyboardist Rohner Segnitz’s vocals, Visitation is not so much a step forward for Division Day as it is an evolutionary leap, taking the heady collusion of their influences—everything from Bowie’s ‘Berlin Trilogy’ to Japan (the band) to black metal—and creating a darkly original and compelling work of their own.

From the buzzing, dive-bombed kinetics of “Malachite” to the endlessly hook-barbed and spinning “Chalk Lines” to the breathless crunch and stomp of “Surrender,” Visitation marks the moment in which Division Day has staked a claim to their own sound and vision, one that bleeds a myriad of influences and inspiration into an ominous yet thoroughly satisfying whole.

Listen to “Chalk Lines”

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Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – Up From Below

Up From Below, the strange polyphonic spree of 1960s revivalism by way of Ima Robot’s Alex Ebert and his 11-piece band, is such a lovingly crafted, nuanced and lived-in blast from folk-rock’s past that even the band’s occasionally off-putting peace ‘n patchouli aesthetic take on rock ‘n roll can be easily disregarded, especially after immersing oneself in the opening sprawl of the majestic “40 Day Dream,” in which Ebert (with a little help from his friends) summarizes Motown soul, 60’s pop and 00’s indie in four lush and swooning minutes of Lonely Hearts Club-styled psychedelia and Laurel Canyon jamming.

And, yes, while “40 Day Dream” may be Up From Below’s most arresting moment, the chain of lovely little moments that follow–the twang-stomped backporch acoustics of the title track; the whistle-laced and bluegrass-tinged Southern jam of “Home”; the winding whimsy and lilts of the intimate “Brother”–make Up From Below a flashback that was worth waiting for.

Stream “40 Day Dream”

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Foreign Born – Person to Person

Polyrhythmic and propulsive, Foreign Born’s second album is a shiny and heat-shimmered burst of indie rock crossbred with the kind of jittery and caucasoid-inverted Afro-pop that cat’s-cradles between everything from Paul Simon’s Graceland to the both overhyped and over-maligned Vampire Weekend debut.  And while that latter record occasionally tried too hard ingratiate itself into its listener’s ears, Person to Person feels lived-in and relaxed, living up to its title–from the percussive, windtunneled chime of “Blood Oranges” to the citrus-laced sugar rush buzz of “Vacationing People” to the joyous and skittering stop-start wails of “Winter Games,” Foreign Born’s sophomore salvo never betrays its laidback intimacy for an overreaching chorus or saccharine hook; rather, it feels like a late-night L.A. jam session between friends, you included.

Stream “Blood Oranges” by Foreign Born

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Frankel – Anonymity is the New Fame

Breathy and buzzy, criss-crossed with gently swaggering melodies and detailed textures, Frankel’s (aka Michael Orendy) Anonymity is the New Fame (the follow up to the encyclopedic pop of 2007’s Lullaby for the Passerby) is both a retreat from its predecessor’s expansive surveys of the last half-century of popular music, as well as a more nuanced exploration of mood and tone.  Translation: it’s a tightly controlled, endlessly melodic disc, with songs like the piano-laced stomp-and-jaunt title track, the hazy, cough-syruped slow burn of “Weather Balloon,” and the irresistible grooves of the strummy “Faux Science,” webbing together to form a quietly dazzling pop weave that more than lives up to Lullaby’s promise.  While Anonymity may not dispel the constant comparisons to everyone from Harry Nilsson to Lennon/McCartney to Grandaddy, it most certainly earns them, which may be even better.

Stream “Faux Science” by Frankel

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HEALTH – Get Color

Two years after the frenzied and red-lined splatter of their mind-bending debut, L.A. noise fetishists HEALTH have capitalized on that record’s excellent critical momentum and their own evolutionary leaps of artistic development to create Get Color, a record that streamlines the aural chaos of its predecessor without losing the slightest bit of the band’s taste for bloodied noise and sonic experimentation.  What has changed is HEALTH’s wielding of melodies and hooks–whereas on HEALTH the melodies would only, desperately, seep through the tangled noise when they could, shimmering like sun-glinted glass slivers beneath a head-on traffic collision, on Get Color the harmonies are allowed to shine, flowing and interweaving between songs, binding the collection together in a cohesive, nine-song noise groove that feels like My Bloody Valentine’s infamous 20-minute concert-closing noise jam, but with actual hooks and direction.  While the electro-palpitations of the dance-twisted “Die Slow,” the nerve-snapped epilepsy of the shrieking and shimmering “We Are Water,” and oddly hushed and restrained album-closing ballad, “In Violet” may not be for everyone, as far as noise rock goes, Get Color may be the year’s best.

Listen to “We Are Water”

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Girls – Album

Armed with a lead singer/songwriter who was born into an extremist religious cult until his escape at the age of 16, Girls’ Album sounds like someone discovering pop music for the first time—and then messily, lovingly reveling in it.  Songs skip from Elvis Costello snark to Buddy Holly rock to lo-fi powerpop, all filtered through a distinct, and distinctly odd, San Francisco-based mood of golden sunshine and breezy melodies, with every track seemingly investigating one new sonic alleyway after another with an air of exciting, carefree abandon.

Listen “Lust for Life”

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Manhattan Murder Mystery – Skull EP

Opening with the gentle acoustic strum and moody croons of “Encyclopedia,” a bleakly glowing and gallows-humor’d ballad (“Encyclopedia, give me the words to say when she walks away”), Manhattan Murder Mystery’s Skull EP is a seemingly endless (as far as six songs go) series of pleasant sonic surprises, ranging from third-album Velvet Underground cool to Edwin Collins-styled awkward heartbreak to—best of all—the band’s own inimitable and endlessly listenable take on post-punk, which never sounds derivative (in a genre bloated with calculated posturing and theft) but writhingly assaultive and alive.

Elsewhere, the title track, “Skull,” gently kicks yours in with Matthew Teardrop’s frenzied warble and a series of lockstep rhythms; the harmonica-laced and rumbling “Ulysses,” with its boy/girl vocals and hook-lined choruses, may be the best pop song you’ve ever heard to name drop James Joyce; and if the closing “In the Parking Lot,” all epileptic throbs and nerve-sheathed howls, doesn’t cap off every mix you make from now until December, you simply weren’t listening.   While I suggest you rectify that now, Skull simply demands it.

Stream “Skull”

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Mew – No More Stories Are Told Today / I’m Sorry / They Washed Away / No More Stories / The World Is Grey / I’m Tired / Let’s Wash Away

Played forward, Mew’s opener to their newest and most labyrinthine-titled disc is the clattering and propulsive “New Terrain.”  Play the song backwards, however, and  you get an entirely new tune, “Nervous.”  Such is Mew’s style—here, as with their past records, they’re playing fast and loose with structure and form, experimenting with more commercial songwriting while at the same time detonating cinematic epics of multilayered prog and pop.

Listen to “New Terrain”

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Monsters of Folk – Monsters of Folk

Coming on like an indie-fied version of the Traveling Wilburys, Monsters of Folk (featuring Jim James, Conor Oberst, M. Ward and Mike Mogis) sound exactly as you would expect, with a mesh of crackling Americana-rock and acoustic-hemmed balladry binding the band together.  While most supergroups falter under weighty expectations, like the Wilburys the Monsters seem to have purposely kept their ambitions modest, turning in fifteen amiable tunes (with Wards’ impressionistic, crooning “Sandman, the Brakeman and Me” and James’ spectral bookends, “Dear God” and “His Master’s Voice” being the obvious highlights) that may be light on capital ‘I’-importance but run heavy and overfull with charm, hooks and wit.  While there’s nothing as indelible as “Handle with Care” to anchor the disc, Monsters of Folk is about as fun as casual summer flings get.

Listen to “Say Please”

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Princeton – Cocoon of Love

Expanding ever so slightly upon the band’s chamber-popped take on Village Green-era Kinks and breezy V-necked tropicalia with lush, lovely string arrangements, horn lines and light synth touches, the music of Princeton’s full-length debut, Cocoon of Love, sounds as if it came from exactly that—like it emerged from a cocoon as a labor of love, with tracks such as the buzzing trickle and stomps of “Korean War Memorial” and the schizoid Stax soul/ indie pop shapeshifter “Show Some Love, When Your Man Gets Home” simply demanding repeated listens.

Listen to “Calypso Gold”

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Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall

Or, Psychopaths Are for Lovers—Watch Me Fall, Jay Reatard’s follow-up to the freewheeling garage rager, Blood Visions, is a marriage made in dementia, as it weds Reatard’s misanthropy to a cast of sweet sunshine power-pop and foot-stomping rock, resulting in a disc that shines with an irresistible sing-along luster despite the snarling, punkish attitudes that roil in its shadows.  Whatever—Reatard’s development can stay as arrested as he wants; as long as he continues to make music as ludicrously addictive and joyous as the ear-bashing opener “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” and the swooning closer “There is No Sun,” there will always be those of us willing to watch (and listen to) his glorious fall.

Listen to “Watch Me Fall”

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Sea Wolf – White Water, White Bloom

Backed by a full band this time and armed with his continually disarming, elegiac and acoustic-bloomed songwriting, Alex Brown Church has cast the autumnal mood of his Sea Wolf debut, Leaves in the River, over a far more energized set of songs (such as the exceptional and driving “Wicked Blood”), crafting an album that sounds not only like a reinvigorated sense of purpose, but a powerfully eclectic and expansive step forward.

Listen to “Wicked Blood”

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Soulsavers – Broken

A dark, bleak and gorgeous collaboration between the Soulsavers (UK production duo Rich Machin and Ian Glover) and the gravel-throat’d Mark Lanegan, Broken, the follow-up to 2007’s vastly underrated It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Way You Land, wildly slithers from gospel shouts to Ennio Morricone soundscapes to duets with Will Oldham, Jason Pierce, Mike Patton and Gibby Haynes, with every note and salvation-seeking howl shot through with an appropriately broken and bruised worldview, best exemplified in the Soulsaver’s take on Oldham’s “You Will Miss Me When I Burn,” in which Lanegan repeatedly whispers in a doomsday vocal, “When you have no one/ No one can hurt you.”  A devastating, and devastatingly perfect, dark night of the soul record.

Listen to “You Will Miss Me When I Burn”

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Wilco – Wilco (The Album)

If the short history of rock music is any indication, shapeshifting pop prisms like Wilco nearly always hit an impasse mid-way through their varied careers—they either keep evolving with each stylistic about-face of an LP, a la PJ Harvey (for the purposes of this hypothesis we’ll do as everyone else did and just ignore Uh Huh Her), or they can lock themselves within the gleaming, freeze-framed amber that offers hazy reflections of their in-rainbowed past, as post-Hail to the Thief Radiohead has done, or spin of an endless series of waterlogged copies of their breakthrough record, as Beck continues to do.

And while this record is, like Beck’s Guero or Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, a summation of all that has come before it, it also manages to be a far better record than either of those— holding Wilco (The Album) together is not only a honed, passionate and experienced sense of songcraft balanced with a love of experimentalism, but a self-conscious attempt on Wilco’s part to define themselves, to find their identity as a band.  After fifteen years of shapeshifting, Jeff  Tweedy and company have set off to discover themselves, and what they find—a rugged Americana-rock sound tinged with a love of pop and risky noise—serves only to confirm and solidify the promise of their previous records.  At a time in their career when most bands release comprehensive albums as a sign of artistic fatigue, Wilco’s definitive new album sounds like a vital statement of purpose and identity.  Ladies and gentlemen, meet Wilco (The Band).

Stream “Wilco (The Song)”

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The XX – XX

Sex-obsessed and driven by a passion for modern R&B and postpunk, London’s the XX could easily be shrugged off as the latest in a long, skinny-jean’d line of relentlessly hyped UK bands, were it not for the alluring lunar pull of their coolly passionate sound—an odd crossroads staked somewhere between Bobby Wommack and Interpol (seriously) that generates such tracks as the sensuous boy-girl call and response of “Heart Skipped a Beat,” the breathy wonderlust and gallop of “Crystalized” and the  restless bassline throbs of “Stars.”  Almost criminally good—which, considering the band’s aesthetic, is entirely appropriate.

Listen to “Heart Skipped a Beat”

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Yim Yames – Tribute To

Full of fragile acoustic strumming, a heart beating with grief, and Yim Yames’ (aka Jim James of My Morning Jacket) wavering, heat-shimmered tenor, Tribute To is an EP’s worth of George Harrison covers, recorded in 2001 immediately following the Quiet One’s death.  And while the disc may be more reverent than revolutionary–no major changes or revisions are to be found here, with the original melodies left intact, however raw and naked–with songs this good, there’s not much need for change:  “Long, Long, Long” opens the EP with a mournful hymn of sighs and wails; “Behind That Locked Door” is a rousing, melodic eulogy; and “All Things Must Pass” is a resigned and red-eyed farewell, all strummy laments and reverbed vocals.  For such a short, ruminative and heart-busted disc, the real surprise and quiet joy found here is that while all things must past, they need not be forgotten.

Listen to “Behind That Locked Door”

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September 16, 2009 | Filed Under Album Reviews, Exclusive Features, Features of 2009, Music News 

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One Response to “Album Reviews: The Best Music of 2009 – Part Three (July – September)”

  1. jeff reed arrested | U.S Trend Keywords on October 19th, 2009 9:16 am

    [...] Album Reviews: The Best Music of 2009 ? Part Three (July ? September)By Travis Woods As was the case last year , in an effort to make our obligatory end-of-the-year music lists easier to compile, and because I’m music-obsessed to a ridiculously self-parodic degre [...]




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