Album Reviews: Web in Front’s Best Local Albums of 2009

Our Best Music of 2009 week continues (yesterday, we featured our favorite local EPs of the year) with Web in Front’s favorite local albums of 2009.  While entirely subjective (and, in the end, utterly pointless beyond their ability to generate discussion), these lists contains some of the finest music to come out of L.A. and into your ears in 2009, from knockout debuts (the Happy Hollows, Fol Chen, Fool’s Gold) to fantastic follow-ups (Silversun Pickups, Robert Francis, Division Day)–in all,  it was a banner year for L.A. indie.  Feel free, though, to quibble and/or firebomb in the comments section, and keep an eye out tomorrow for our Best Albums of 2009 list.  Also, you can check out our Best Local Albums of 2008 list here.

Various Artists – Ram on L.A.

Cover albums can be a tricky proposition, an artistic attempt studded with the landmines of creative missteps, awkward new versions and flat-out misguided covers of classic music—a great swath of the best and most powerful rock albums (though not all—I’m looking at you, Bee Thousand) often contain some kind of conceptual through-line or sustained mood that holds them together, and it’s exactly that sense of cohesion that is lost in translation when an individual artist’s POV is splintered into ten or twelve separate and distinct voices under a covers umbrella.

It’s exactly that reason, however, that the Aquarium Drunkard-orchestrated tribute disc, Ram on L.A. (covering Paul McCartney’s 1971 solo record, Ram), works so well—the original album, McCartney’s second, was such a kitchen-sink collusion of various rock and pop strands that the album’s through-line zigzags from one modestly ramshackle extreme to another as it skips from the whimsical strum and chug of “Too Many People” all the way down to the weary piano pop of “The Back Seat of My Car,” making stops at barnburning rock ‘n roll and country groovers along the way. So to refract it through the prism of eleven different local artists (including Earlimart, Frankel, the Parson Red Heads, Le Switch and the Broken West) covering twelve tracks serves only to enhance (though not exactly better—this is, after all, a Beatle) Ram’s endearingly cross-eyed mood and charming, wandering amble through a rustic pop landscape.

Stream “Dear Boy” by Bodies of Water

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Eulogies – Here Anonymous

Wiry, muscular power-pop ‘n rock, full of the kind of crunchy guitar riffs and glittering synth lines that made for stellar rock radio hits, back when there were such things.  From the insistent, glammy force of “Eyes on the Prize” to “Two Can Play,” the lovely duet with Silversun Pickup’s Nikki Moninnger, Here is the kind of rock record that doesn’t deserve anonymity.

Stream “Love is Strange”

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Eagle and Talon – THRACIAN

From the libidinously alluring and melodic “Hot Caught” to the languid, half-lidded jazzy sprawl of the anti-Bush track “Georgia” all the way down to the atonal and serrated Casio’d stomp of “The All Best,” it’s easy to hear that Eagle and Talon’s THRACIAN is anything but, well, easy. Despite opening with the lip-curled and hooky stop-start slithers of the aforementioned “Hot Caught,” THRACIAN is a collection of often violently powerful and difficult art-rock—cumulatively, the aching sum of tracks like the stabbing rumble of “All of My Guardians,” the arrhythmic howls of the slowburning “One Lark,” and the nervy jangle of “Coast That’s Closest” blur together to form an open wound of roiling emotional intensity barbed with deceptive hooks and the odd, punchy chorus. While it may not be for everyone—THRACIAN is a record that refuses to meet you halfway—those who make the journey into its juxtaposed worlds of jagged guitar bloodlust and keyboard whimsy will be well rewarded. And maybe just a little frightened.

Stream “Ice Life”

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Great Northern – Remind Me Where the Light Is

From the gauzy slash of the single “Houses” to the breathy strut and punch of “Story,” Rachel Stolte’s pristine and throaty vocals consistently soar above Solon Bixler’s wild-eyed and churning guitar lines, driving a record which all but demands attention—indeed, the album feels almost self-consciously epic, as if this was the band’s one chance to make their War, The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree all at once, marrying reaching, angst-powered lyrics to the tribal punch and synth swoons of “Snakes,” the buzzing, shoegazed drift of “Warning” and the epic, rumbling beauty and machine-gunned dynamics of “Mountain.”

And while they don’t quite succeed on that ambitious score—at times, especially near the album’s slowly ponderous midsection, they skirt more closely to a second-disc misstep like October—it’s refreshing to hear the element of danger inherent when a band sounds as if they’re betting everything they have on a single, make-or-break record like Remind Me. Whether or not is pays off commercially for the band remains to be seen, but artistically speaking, there’s no question where the light is on this powerful album.

Stream “Story”

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O+S – O+S

Atmospheric, ethereal, chilly, textured–the adjectives that coalesce around this disc essentially whorlprint together to form the name 4AD–so dream-popped and shoegazed is the debut record from Orenda Fink and Scalpelist that it could easily fit within a shelf of 4AD luminaries like the Cocteau Twins or Mojave 3. Blurry loops, glacial synths, lovely vocals—O+S is a gentle blast of breathy, buzzing nostalgia, one that doesn’t pander or insult as it insinuates itself between your ears.

Stream “Permanent Scar”

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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 image of 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 track, 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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One Trick Pony – Full of Life
Quite possibly the most accurate album title of the year—this is an album brimming with life as it skips from one gorgeous example of everything right with indie folk after another. Seriously, if you can find a prettier song than “Phonebook” being performed in a local L.A. music club, I don’t want to hear it—this record has broken my heart enough this year as it is.

Stream “Phonebook”

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Robert Francis – Before Nightfall

If One By One, Robert Francis’ debut of atmospheric Americana, was the singer-songwriter’s reflection of his own folk-stained inner world, then Before Nightfall is the sound of that folkie being thrust into the real world—gone is the airy spaciousness of his debut (along with its kitchen-sink aesthetic of mariachi horns sidling up next to arcing string sections), replaced by the hard-edged sound a four-piece road band.  What has remained, however, is Francis’ sonic ambitions and songwriting; songs like the bluesy, Townes Van Zandt-by-way-of-Jeff Buckley rumbles of gorgeous lead single “Junebug,” the stripped-down croons and riffs within the reprise of One By One’s title track, and the jazzy, minimalist ache of the smoky “Mescaline” all signal a restless young musician still exploring the sonic corners and alleyways of his sound and potential as he sifts through the gems along the way.  Before Nightfall’s title might conjure images of dusk, but one can’t help but hear the music as a new dawn.

Listen to “Junebug”

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Downtown/Union – Aurora Ahora

Guided by voices as disparate as Dinosaur Jr., Neil Young and a myriad of garage-based bands throughout rock history, D/U’s Aurora Ahora takes the sound of the electric, electric two-piece (Bo Bory and Jeff Electric) and marries it to the swagger of the Henry Clay People’s Siara brothers, who join the band on guitar and bass, creating a classicist garage-rock record that still manages to stray into folk and modern indie, and stands nicely next to the high-water marks that so deeply influenced it.

Stream “Wake Up Call from the Nexus”

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The Faraway Places – Out of the Rain, the Thunder & the Lightning

Shimmery psych-pop that wouldn’t sound out of place on one of Quentin Tarantino’s record-crate-raiding soundtracks of forgotten supersounds of the ’70s (imagine the harmony’d, sunshine crunch of “That Sun Goes West” sandwiched between “Little Green Bag” and Steeler’s Wheel), Out of the Rain, the Thunder & the Lightning more than lives up to its title–this is pure sunshine music, a summertime adjunct to barbeques, ballgames and the occasional blistering wildfire.

Stream “The Sun Goes West”

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Gliss – Devotion Implosion

Almost two years after their debut, Love the Virgins, Gliss returned with another album of lush shoegazed nebulae and crushing wall of squall discord, Devotion Implosion. Featuring such powerhouses as the electric shudders and bruised psychocandy melodies of “Morning Light” and the lovely, seductive ringing of “Lovers in the Bathroom,” Implosion is easily one of la la land’s best noise-fests of 2009, thanks to its blissed-out harmonies, crackling guitar work and detached, fractured beauty.

Stream “Morning Light”

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Correatown – Spark.Burn.Fade.

So open and unflinching that listening to it feels akin to eavesdropping, Angela Correa’s Spark.Burn.Fade. accomplishes the first two verbs in its title while never coming close to the last–this is a record that haunts, seduces and laments, sometimes all at once, threatening to crack your heart but never fade away.

Stream “All the World (I Tell Myself)”

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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 LP, 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 as you hear the band metamorphose beyond the stately collegiate pop of their last release, 2008’s Bloomsbury EP.  And while the band’s music may be too precious for some–the droll, sugary rush of a song like “Calypso Gold” may drive cynics to make snide, Zach Braff indie soundtrack comparisons (assuming that the song’s casual wit and burbling, insistent hooks don’t win them over)–those with open minds and open ears will find a disc brimming with oddball short-story lyrics,  hyper-hummable melodies and interwoven, disparate genre flourishes (harpsichords jut up against Afropop, synthy new wave bumps into mannered chamber pop).  If Bloomsbury was Princeton’s collegiate pop record, then Cocoon of Love is the band’s sonic graduation.

Listen to “Calypso Gold”

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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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Fol Chen – Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune’s Made
One of the more dichotomous releases in recent local memory (and best produced), Fol Chen’s debut, Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune’s Made, is difficult to break down or summarize, Rubik’s cubed as it is with complex lyrical elements concerning the demise of a Long Island radio station, a Vladimir Nabokov character, and Fol Chen’s fictional (?) battle to save progressive radio. And confusing as the narrative may initially be, it’s inextricably interwoven into (and reflective of) the very nature and fabric of the band’s sound: a hyperactive collision of elements that don’t belong together—grinding, near-industrial dread, breathy pop, skittering and crooning funk—yet succeed in forming something that sounds jarringly new yet oddly familiar.

Stream “Cable TV”

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Dawes – North Hills

As lightly sepia’d as its cover art, the music of North Hills is rustic, reaching and twang-burnished–it’s more Music from Big Pink than music from this decade, which is probably why Dawes’ debut is so affecting: it comes on like a strong wave of the best nostalgia, without pandering or placating the listener as Taylor Goldsmith and company pick up a trail (and burn a few new ones) within their gorgeous brand of authentic Americana.

Stream “Love is All I Am”

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Castledoor – Shouting at Mountains

The purest distillation thus far of the bracing arcs and gentle swoons that make up the band’s infectious rock and pop, Castledoor’s debut full-length, Shouting at Mountains, operates within the nexus of a bizarre timewarp in which Jeff Buckley lived to compose the soundtrack to one of Wes Anderson’s pastel phantasmagorias—translation: it’s excellent, giddy stuff, with tracks such as the rollercoasting, breathless gallop of “Fifth Tambourine” ringing between your ears long after the disc is done spinning.

Stream “Fifth Tambourine”

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The Voyeurs – Well Known Drag
Thoroughly Kinked and corner-turning rock-pop, The Voyeurs’ stately debut, Well Known Drag, rages and swoons with a kind of laser-honed songwriting precision not usually heard outside of a lavish, Rhino-released box containing the best of ‘60s powerpop. From the whiplashed and seasick dynamics of the gnashing, near-perfect “Thing People Say” to the ominous and piano-crashed menace of “The Trouble with Jerry” to the lazy, front porch acoustic haze of “New Beginnings,” Drag does anything but as it explores ringing vocal pop and percussive, sneering rock with a dedicated and knowing edge. By the time the beerhaul jaunt of “You’re a Wreck” closes the record with a playful, Merseybeat swing, the Voyeurs have not only issued a clever and catchy catalog of powerpop’s history, but they offer it a promising future as well.

Stream “Things People Say”

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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 on White Water, White Bloom (such as the exceptional orchestral stomp of“Wicked Blood”), crafting an album that sounds not only like a reinvigorated sense of purpose, but a powerfully eclectic and expansive step forward.

And while the album’s best songs tend to be those that most echo Leaves—especially the gorgeous and spare “Orion & Dog” and the rustic closer of “Winter Heir”—it’s refreshing to a hear a songwriter stretching beyond his comfort zone with such moderately bombastic fare, while still infusing each track with the quietly lush and powerful melodies that made his debut so indelibly affecting.  Mixing the intimate, wood-creaked acoustics of Leaves with a bristling orchestral backdrop, White Water, White Bloom is by turns lovely, electric, sparse and breathlessly driving, sometimes within the course of a single song.  It’s an album that not only lives up to the promise of its predecessor, but reaches beyond it as well.

Listen to “Wicked Blood”

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Sara Lov – Seasoned Eyes Were Beaming

Almost painfully beautiful, married to a clear-eyed restraint that keeps the proceedings from veering into coffeehouse schmaltz, Sara Lov’s Seasoned Eyes Were Beaming is a heartbreaker, armed as it is with Lov’s searing, soaring vocal prowess and sharp, nuanced songwriting (”How sweet is the revenge/ When you don’t want it anymore” begins “A Thousand Bees,” the disc’s best song).  Couched in a lush and supple production of shimmering atmospherics, laced with lyrical honesty and filled to the brim with ringing melodies, Seasoned Eyes is as good as intelligent L.A. pop got in 2009.

Stream “A Thousand Bees”

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Silversun Pickups - Swoon

While Brian Aubert’s almost feline yowl of throat-pealing howls and the band’s penchant for ripcord dynamics still abound, Swoon is by turns a more complex and overall dazzling album than Carnavas, as well as more difficult and harder to classify—it’s a record that is both self-consciously artier and yet far more mainstream than it’s predecessor, one that scales back the bloody valentine of fuzzbox guitar gigantism of Carnavas only to replace it with equally epic, 16-piece string sections; it’s a Billboard Top Ten-ready record that still requires several listens before surrendering all of its deeply buried gifts and secrets.

What at first appears to be an album composed of two diametrically opposed and separate threads—big and slick modern rock dancing amongst the ink-bloomed darkness of progressive, art-tinged sonic exploration—are in fact loosely intertwined strands that, as the album swirls to its climax, are pulled tight into a cohesive braid, rendering return visits to Swoon’s catchy darklands all the more satisfying and no less exciting. There may be far easier mainstream albums that spin across the modern rock airwaves this year, but there may not be any quite as interesting, idiosyncratic or cleverly constructed as this one–which is cause enough for the band and their listeners alike to swoon.

Stream “There’s No Secrets This Year”

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Fool’s Gold – Fool’s Gold

A name like Fool’s Gold with a band such as this has got be something of a joke, or at least a sly nod towards a clever irony.  A cynic could easily call this group aptly named, seeing as how they integrate and absorb various elements of world music and Afro-pop without actually being a band from Africa (or at least being a member of the Talking Heads), which seems to be the only way one can release such music and be taken seriously in a post-Vampire Weekend popscape, at least in the eyes of snarky hipsters.

The irony, though, kicks in within the first fluttery and polyrhythmic seconds of Fool’s Gold’s opening moment–the cool vocal ripples and jittery guitars of “Surprise Hotel”–in which co-frontment Lewis Pesacov (of Foreign Born) and Luke Top and company blend everything from Afrobeat to strains of Israel’s Mizrahi musical movement to forge a sound that is not only reminiscent of its influences, but is an authentic and bracing blast of true world music as well, erasing racial, continental and musical boundaries with a staggering ease and skill.  It’s a celebration of world music, one that allows Fool’s Gold’s influences to seamlessly bleed together into a shimmering loam of sound, one that sounds not so much like a tribute to its predecessors but a deserving extension of the band’s heady art, so much so that only a fool would state that this gold isn’t the real thing.

Listen to “Nadine”

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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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The Happy Hollows - Spells

As perfect a debut for the band as one can imagine, the Happy Hollows’ full-length debut, Spells, casts exactly that–a series of aural spells–as it deftly captures the band’s wild artpunk spirit with a song cycle so flawless it resembles a career-capping best-of rather than a well-sequenced album.  Even more impressive is that with one record (and on their first one, no less) the Hollows have issued a definitive artistic statement–this is the kind of all-or-nothing album that holds within it everything that the band is, and what is so wonderful about them.

And, like all excellent debuts should, it’s a disc that, despite pushing the 50-minute mark, wastes no time in laying out both the Hollows’ influences along with their own unique sonic topography, as the first three tracks alone constitute a roadmap for the band’s style and the album’s remainder: the opener “Faces” introduces the band’s rhythm-heavy take on straight-ahead rock ‘n roll, full of discordant slash-and-burn guitar riffage, a sinuous bassline, and Sarah Negahdari’s simultaneously sensuous and bracingly violent vocals; the second song, “Death to Vivek Kemp” is a wonderfully Frankenstein’d greatest-hits of the band’s best sugar-pop moments from “My Wet Tongue” to “Monster Room,” all gushing melodies and ringing guitars; and the shrieking “Silver” is the Happy Hollows at their most noise-damaged and punkish, a monolithic slab of vivid audio vivisection that traces a lineage from Sonic Youth to the Pixies to jet turbines.

And while one can deride about the album’s lengthy running time, an hour’s worth of the Happy Hollows’ best here seems entirely appropriate–Spells carries with it a do-or-die desperation in the best possible meaning of the word; it’s a record that sounds like the band wrenched the very best of themselves onto disc as if this would be their one and only shot.  And it’s that sense of immediacy and feverishness which allows Spells to capture and define the band to their rollicking, joyous core, and is nothing short of sonic enchantment.  Spells, indeed.

Stream “High Wire”

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December 1, 2009 | Filed Under Album Reviews, Exclusive Features, Music News, Site News 

Comments

4 Responses to “Album Reviews: Web in Front’s Best Local Albums of 2009”

  1. Twitted by aquadrunkard on December 1st, 2009 2:14 pm

    [...] This post was Twitted by aquadrunkard [...]

  2. ‘Full of Life’ on Best Local Albums of 2009 list | ::one trick pony's Official Band Site:: on December 3rd, 2009 10:50 am

    [...] The full list here. [...]

  3. Worlds End Creative Licensing » Blog Archive » Fool’s Gold In The Spotlight on December 3rd, 2009 5:38 pm

    [...] It’s been a big year for Fool’s Gold, and instead of cooling off, they’re only getting hotter for the holidays.  They’ve had a write-up on PopMatters.com which includes an in-depth interview with Luke and Lewis about the band’s background and how Surprise Hotel was created.  If you are falling in love with this band as I have, I highly recommend this detailed article – check it out HERE.  The band has just won the #4 spot on WebInFront’s list of the Top 25 Local Bands (Los Angeles locals, that is).  Check out the list and their feature at WebInFront.com. [...]

  4. Princeton & The Faraway Places in Best Local Bands of 2009 « Moonshine Inc. on March 5th, 2010 11:55 am

    [...] great music never goes out of style.  So read this article by music blog Web In Front on the Best Local Albums of 2009 featuring TWO BANDS that have music in Moonshine [...]




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