Musing

Top Ten Albums of 2009 - #2 Doves' Kingdom of Rust Surprised? Yeah, I bet you are. This was an early pick for the best album of the year before I'd heard a single note. It's Doves! And thankfully, it IS awesome (despite the miserable wait while songs were recorded, re-recorded, scrapped, re-re-recorded, etc.). It flows a little better than Some Cities , if not so well as the first two. Yet the one thing that gets me is the tracklisting. Four new b-sides were released in various ways from this album (counting "The Last Son" and "Ship of Fools") and every single of of them was better than "The Outsiders." Too harsh and with little direction, "The Outsiders" is the biggest reason this album derails at all. The best album of the year, along with the usual year-end awards and the "But What About Album [X]?" list will be out just after New Year's. Happy Holidays!

Top Ten Albums of 2009 - #3 Sea Wolf's White Water, White Bloom I was really excited when I finally read that this album was finished. Sea Wolf's first album is in my top 10-15 albums of all time, and it's one I desperately hoped to see released on vinyl (never happened). When WWWB was announced and pre-orders were listed online, I took the enormous step forwards (or backwards?) of ordering it strictly on vinyl. It came with a download card that included the two vinyl-only tracks, so luckily I didn't have to wait till I could grab a copy of the CD, because it's that damn good. True - it's a different beast. Leaves In The River was a far more stripped back, acoustically-driven effort. Yet WWWB retains just the right measure of the past and mixes in enough lateral progress to make itself a different kind of amazing. Also, the bonus tracks should have been full album tracks on every format. "Fighting Bull" is one of the best songs of the year.

Top Ten Albums of 2005 - #4 Muse's The Resistance The top four albums posed a bit of a problem - they're all so damn good. The all-important album flow is finally and deeply present on each of these albums. At this point it comes down to who controlled that flow best. This is a very classical album - Matthew Bellamy brings the piano to the forefront in a manner that recalls their breakthrough album Origin of Symmetry . We're not talking about simple three chord structures anymore. "United States of Eurasia/Collateral Damage" even ends with part of one of Chopin's Preludes. So why is it #4? While the Exogenesis Symphony is great, it's a long slow piece following the frantic heights of "MK Ultra," which leaves you expecting an upward jump in tempo which just never comes. Quibbles really, but that's all it takes to separate albums at this level...

Top Ten Albums of 2009 - #5 Andrew Bird's Noble Beast [Limited Edition] This may come to a surprise to long-time readers, who might remember that I pegged this as having the potential to be in the top 20% of the year end list. But this is the point at which I start really picking apart the contestants. For me, the measure of an album is very much related to the material which proceeded it. And while NB has a couple of the best tunes that Bird has ever written, the album as a whole suffers from a slightly disjointed sense of the whole, particularly when compared to his last album. I feel like the instrumentation lends itself more to the label "pop," with the violin taking a decidedly back-row stance in many of these songs. Maybe it's because he let his virtuoso side roam so freely in the limited edition disc; maybe that's why that disc exists at all - it's either to appease us or to appease himself. Either way, the combination of the two is much greater th...

Top Ten Albums of 2009 - #6 Jet's Shaka Rock Shine On , it ain't. This is the simple but powerful three chord rock that made Get Born a few years ago, with less introspection and more face-punching. If I could shout-sing, "She's a Genius" would be known by everyone on my block.

Top Ten Albums of 2009 - #7 Dave Matthews Band's Big Whiskey & The Groogrux King To put it kindly, DMB's last outing was a disaster. That raw energy that brings people to their concerts year after year had been completely washed out by a slick setup and digital effects. Enter Big Whiskey. Some of that slickness is still there (and despite my fetish for large string sections, they're overused here), but in the absence of a sorely missed LeRoi Moore, the band invited several of their touring members/collaborators to chime in. With that, the live sound of the tour was reborn. This is a solid effort and it's the first in this list with fewer than 4 disappointing tracks.

Top Ten Albums of 2009 - #8 Sister Hazel's Release SH threw me for a loop here. If I didn't know the order in which their albums had been released, I would have put this down as their third: It rolls with their earlier, more acoustic tunes as often as it goes electric. After their last album, I definitely agreed with them when they decided that they needed to record something a little different this time. But somehow, rather than sounding different and fresh, a number of these tracks come across as simply washed out as the cover art. I can only name half of the tracks on the whole album - that should say something, even after repeated listens. Still, "Vacation Rain" and "Take a Bow" are extremely catchy, and drivers on the toll road may occasionally catch me playing air guitar to "Ghost In The Crowd."* ALWAYS a good live show; I'd love to catch them touring this album. * - File this under "Bad Driving Advice."