Semiannual

It's the half way point of the year, so here's a little overview of some of my favorite albums so far for 2010.


Bison BC - Dark Ages
A French horn? METAL!!!! Opener "Stressed Elephant" blew my mind when I first heard it. The rest of the album comes close to matching it for pure awesomeness. This is powerful, sludgy thrash from one of the best metal bands in the world


Caribou - Swim
A gorgeously layered and disorienting headphone record from a guy who is good at making headphone records.

Cathedral - The Guessing Game
After 2005's The Garden of Unearthly Delights, I had pretty much given up hope of hearing a new Cathedral album ever again. I only discovered that a new one was coming out by chance actually. Anyways, this is a solid Cathedral album which continues and even expands on Garden's overt prog leanings. It is a double album after all. That said, there's still enough heavy riffage and cock-eyed Lee Dorrian cackling here to satisfy most fans, unless you are the kind that are still pining for a return to Forests Of Equilibrium.

Dead Meadow - Three Kings
Dead Meadow have a pretty good handle on their sound. Over the last decade their heady, heavy and hazy sound has not really changed a whole lot. This live multimedia album/Song Remains The Same homage serves two purposes: It acts as a sort-of greatest hits compilation, and also lets the acolytes know that Dead Meadow have a better sense of humor than they might have imagined. Anyways, the performances are good, and die hards will enjoy hearing how they vary from the originials. A side of new studio material is here as well, and these 5 songs are no more and no more than what you would expect- Fuzzy, shoegazy stompers with plenty of Jason Simon wah-guitar solos all over them.


Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
As a general rule I try not to talk about stuff like this too much in this blog, because a) I'm worried about revealing my ignorance of the intricacies of the very wide world of electronic music, and b) if you're reading my thoughts about obscure hard rock bands like Budgie and Stray, there's a good chance you've already made up your mind about what you think of electronic music, and nothing I say will change your mind. Suffice it to say, COSMOGRAMMA IS FUCKING CRAZY! I've never heard so many styles of electronic colliding and conflicting with one another, but somehow, instead of a tangled mess, it's an impeccably produced masterpiece. The stylistic schizophrenia can be off-putting, but there's no question that the music here is a serious accomplishment.


Harvey Milk - A Small Turn Of Human Kindness
Apparently, some long time Milk fans were disappointed with Life... The Best Game In Town
's supposed accessability, and it appears the band took the criticism to heart. This album features none of the uptempo sludge-sprints to the finish line or thrashy, blown-out Motörhead-style barnburners that made up most of that album. Instead, this is album composed entirely of crawlingly slow Melvins-inspired agony. Torture-victim vocals neck-shackled to a wall of feedback and suffocatingly heavy doom-riffs. Lift with your knees.

High On Fire - Snakes For The Divine
No need to rehash the review I wrote when this came out, suffice it to say that it's awesome.

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
Okay, so here's the thing. I don't like dance music. I don't like dancing. I didn't ever really like LCD Soundsystem very much before I listened to the first song on this album. But when that fat, gnarly synth bassline in "Dance Yrself Clean" hits, it'll wipe your memory clean of any preconceived notions. Just awesome. The rest of the album is an exercise in arty electro-pop in the vein of Bowie's late 70's Berlin trilogy or like-minded art-rock and post-punk experimentalists like Robert Fripp, David Byrne and Brian Eno. Worth the time if that sounds like something you'd be into.

The Liars - Sisterworld
Experimental rock band adds another winner to its vastly interesting discography. Full review is in the archives somewhere.

Pontiak - Living
Nothin' fancy here, just good heavy rock with a pile of great riffs and ferocious power-trio ensemble playing and a handful of really good songs too.

Sleepy Sun - Fever
Everything that makes a rock n' roll album great is here. Fantastic and memorable songs, melodically informed vocals, ferocious guitar playing and an incendiary production job courtesy of Vancouver's own Colin Stewart. The album is supremely well-paced, as calm, psychedelic passages melt into pyrotechnic guitar eruptions, and the whole thing seems much shorter than its 42 minute run time. If that isn't the mark of a truly awesome collection of rock n' roll music, I don't know what is.

Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
The indie-blog world is going nuts for these psych-pop revivalists from down under, but with good reason. Beatles comparisons are inevitable, but to these singed eardrums, the lineage of Sweden's Dungen is immediately apparent, not to mention crimson-hued 90's indie psych experimentalists like Apples In Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control and Mercury Rev. Tame Impala up the accessibility factor over these bands by actually singing in English and displaying a greater ratio of song-craft to sound manipulation.

Ufomammut - Eve
Cosmic Doom titans Ufomammut have returned from their journeys beyond the Kuiper Belt with their mightiest slab of space metal yet. Eve is a 5-part musical odyssey which delivers exactly what you would expect from the band. Nothing new for them, but they have certainly raised the bar once again. The riff in the third section is about as heavy as anything EVER.

UNKLE - Where Did The Night Fall?
Trip-Hop iconoclasts UNKLE wheel in a few friends to help them make another album, this time shooting for a woozy psych feel. The end result is closer to kraut-pop dreamers like Stereolab and Deerhunter than Pink Floyd however. Plenty of chilled, elongated grooves and wet, subdued beats. Works for me. Various guest vocalists including members of The Black Angels and Sleepy Sun show up and pitch in, but the highlight for me is Mark Lanegan's turn on the mic on the closing number, "Another Night Out."

Vex'd - Cloud Seed
Master producer brings another album of HEAVY dubstep for the ladies. They'll dance the night away for sure.

Woods - At Echo Lake
Although I preferred the somewhat darker Songs Of Shame from last year, this band has again crafted a set of superb Crazy Horse inflected lo-fi roots rock. As I am not generally a fan of that kind of stuff, it speaks volume of the quality of their music that I can so thoroughly enjoy it.