The Top 50 Albums of 2011 - 10-1

1. Earth - Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light (Part 1)
Dylan Carlson, the onetime drone doom godhead and heroin buddy of Kurt Cobain, has spent the last deacde reinventing his Earth project by crafting deliberate guitar themes that evoke desolate landscapes and dusty dirt roads. Carlson's guitar style on recent records is about as far as one could get from the ultra distorted ur-riffs of his early work. Instead, Carlson has focused on crafting cinematic epics out of clean tones and endless sustains, with songs deliberatly marching towards some unseen horizon. His playing incorporates elements of folk, country and jazz, all the while revolving around his remarkable phrasing. His beautifully assured improvisations never cease to captivate the patient listener, and if you are willing to come along, Earth will take you on a wonderous aural journey. Since Earth's reboot in the early 2000s, Drummer Adrienne Davies has provided the solid backbone necessary to weld Carlson's airy playing to a terrestrial framework, and her delicate touch gives emotional heft and dynamic range to Earth's music, at any volume. It is to Davies' credit that this music at once seems reliably on time, and yet seems to exist outside of any concept of time itself. Carlson sounds like he could have been playing these tunes for years, exploring every harmonic corner suggested by their lonley chords. The lineup has been tweaked since the equally gorgeous The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull, as departed organist Steve Moore has been replaced by cello player Lori Golston. Golston's contributions give this record a warmth and stark simplicity that the more layered and psychedelic haze of the last record. As usual however, Carlson's guitar playing is the key here, as he plays with different accents and pauses, in love with pure sound. This time the sound is drier and more arid, a long trek though the mesas and deserts of eternity. The sound is more expansive than ever before, the sense of space evoked by these tunes seemingly infinite. Still, this sounds like an intimate gathering of friends making music together, even if it does seems like they could be alone on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Carlson journeys far and wide across the landscape without ever leaving the listener behind. Nothing about this is challenging for the casual listener, but the songs are so intricate in their construction that they are never boring. Although its somber mood and immaculate tones are enjoyable as simple background music (in fact, I've drifted off to a fantastically restful slumber while listening to this music more times than I can rememeber in the past year), you will get much more out of close, detail-obsessed listening. The production here is immaculate, capturing every nuance and subtlety in Carlson's playing, while leaving enough grit to keep these songs sounding road weary and rough. Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light (Part 1) has cemented Carlson as one of the guitar's great innovators. Truly there is nobody making music quite like this today, and for that reason I have to say that this is my favourite album of the year. The best part is that there is no shortage of material where this came from. Part 2 comes out in about a month, and I can't wait.

2. Rwake – Rest
Don’t let the tranquil album title and delicate tones of the opening track fool you. When the guitars drop at the beginning of “It Was Beautiful But Now It’s Sour,” it’s apocalyptic. Rwake’s command of light and shade is truly breathtaking here, balancing bonecrushing heaviness, mighty crescendos, moody interludes and downright pretty passages. The shadows of Mastodon and Neurosis loom large here as they do over the entire post metal genre, but Neurosis have never been as willing as Rwake is here to put dramatic and technically adept guitar solos front and centre in their music. Meanwhile, Rwake is less concerned with overwhelming the listener with technical wizadry and textural density than Mastodon, and more interested in sucking the listener in to a world of their own creation. Rest is a masterful example of space and colour, rewarding patience and careful listening with intricate sonic details and massive payoffs. This makes for a more expressive sound than the effects storms millions of Isis clones are capable of. Songs here might be twelve or sixteen minutes long, but Rwake never sound like they’re killing time, and you’ll never check your watch. Each movement is so singular of purpose that the record moves forward with inexorable momentum, continuously climbing in intensity and power. The vocals are delivered in suitably triumphant bellows, emphasizing these extended pieces stratospheric pieces even further. The playing by each of the musicians is impeccable, with the entire unit proving itself equally adept at complex, off-time passages, straight forward bottom-end rumble and subtle shifts in mood. The pacing here is brilliant, with each track building sequentially on what preceded it. The final track, “Was Only A Dream” is a majestic obelisk towering over everything else up until that point, and it culminates with a bloody apogee. A vivid production job brings the music ferociously, immediately to life, seizing the listener and refusing to let up. The whole album is a force of nature. There are ghostly chasms and crashing waves all over this landscape, a place that is dangerous and harrowing, but entices the adventurous listener onward with promises of great rewards.

3. Radiohead – The King Of Limbs
After 2007’s In Rainbows, I felt that Radiohead had finally settled into a recognizable style and could be expected to produce similar albums from here on in. After all, they had already completely reinvented their sound with each successive release over the preceding decade, leaving me to wonder what they possibly could do to expand their palette any further. In all the hype over In Rainbows’ “pay what you want” scheme, it was generally not pointed out that the record was as conventional and Radiohead-sounding as anything they’d done since The Bends. Imagine my surprise the first time I spun this disc when the opening track “Bloom” sounded like a Flying Lotus track, all skittering beats and warped sonics. Whereas the guitar rock sound that the band originally made its name on had crept onto Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows in a slightly re-aligned form, this record embraces modern electronic music the way Kid A and Amnesiac did a decade ago. The rules have certainly changed since then, meaning this record really does sound like nothing the terminally creative band has done yet. It is perhaps the most rhythmically alluring record the band has made, with each of these songs anchored by Phil Selway’s inventive drum patterns. Radiohead is above all a band however, and each member brings his unique talents to the table in service of the song. At 37 minutes there is no fat on the record, just a tidy collection of solid tunes. Of particular note is the somber “Codex,” a hauntingly beautiful song which acts as the record’s emotional centerpiece. Keep ‘em coming boys.

4. Wolves In The Throne Room – Celestial Lineage
This is a glorious monument of a record, majestic and devastating. Songs here evolve gradually, shifting from pools of placid beauty to briars of total metal holocaust. This is black metal, meaning you’ll be subjected to quadruple time thrash beats, dense tremolo picking, and harsh, screechy vocals, but there is so much more. If you can drop your preconceived notions about corpsepaint and church burnings and give it a listen, you’ll find that the appeal of this record could be much wider than your average Mayhem fan. Relatively little of the album is actually all that brutal though, it’s much more hazy and ethereal than crushing. There is a lightness and delicateness of touch here that would be positively alien to any Immortal or Marduk record. The epic opener “Thuja Magus Imperium” features desolate female vocals and shimmering psychedelic guitar work before exploding into relentless metallic fury. Each piece signals a new approach to heavy music. “Astral Blood,” with its dense fog of grey fuzz gradually intensifying into a suffocating wall of noise, plays with dynamics in a way that metal bands rarely attempt. “Prayer of Transformation” opens like a relentless metal pounding in the vein of Krallice or Liturgy, but it retains a freezing atmosphere that is more likely to envelop the listener. As the piece develops it takes on a stately grandeur, eventually spiraling into a delicate, spacey interlude complete with neoclassical acoustic guitar before settling back into a soaring Burzum-esque ice storm for its mighty apogee. These seemingly contrarian impulses make for an incredibly enjoyable listen that is actually quite easy to get into. Don’t be scared off by the black metal tag. Wolves in the Throne Room have transcended the rules of black metal, crafting a record that is a straight-up classic by the standards of any genre.

5. Russian Circles - Empros
I've read that Russian Circles are considered a post rock band, but from the sounds of Empros its pretty hard to comprehend how these guys got lumped in with Explosions in the Sky or Mono. Their complex instrumental rock might bare some passing resemblance to those bands, but unlike those bands who are content to explore dynamic shifts and texture, Russian Circles are a much hairier proposition. This record opens with a few seconds of ambiance before the doors are kicked in with a rampaging ur-riff over which the huge drums trigger a response in the listener to headbang uncontrollably. This is soon followed by a turnaround section featuring a swinging bass line and strutting half time break down. These guys are much more physical and aggressive than regular post rock bands, not simply loud. They clearly have an understanding of sonic weight too. This record gets HEAVY. It's not really a metal record though. Like Chicago's Pelican, Russian Circles are working a middle ground that allows them freedom to explore their ideas without being caste-bound not to get to pretty or too brutal. "Atackla" progresses from an alluringly majestic build before blindsiding the listener with a crushing stop-start riff that could have come straight from a Neurosis record. These guys have major chops, but they know to supply the blunt force trauma without getting too fancy about it. The album is a finely constructed piece of work that showcases all of the bands' strengths and doesn't overstay its welcome despite runtimes of 6 to 11 minutes on most of these songs. This is a great rock record by one hell of a band.

6. Thee Oh Sees – Castlemania
Thee Oh Sees have never been a headphone band. As prolific purveyors of gloriously sloppy beer-soaked garage rock, they would be about the last band you would ever guess would hole up in a recording studio and begin conducting extensive multi-track recording experiments. They have also never been a band to be held to anyone’s expectations, and damned if Castlemania isn’t a complete clusterfuck of mind-expanding pretensions and sonic tomfoolery. With 16 tracks that clock in at less than 40 minutes, it’s a glorious mess of a record that recalls the most indulgent and hallucinogenic work of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, complete with weird overdubs, mellotrons and backmasking effects. The crazed rave-ups that John Dwyer and crew are known for are still here, but many of them have been bent into odd shapes. There are sunny power pop numbers that recall any number of flower power hits of yesteryear, but these typically take on a warped lyrical perspective or sometimes simply dissolve into a cacophony of formless, tuneless noise. Although it might seem a bit jumbled at first, repeated listens reveal the layers and layers of detail that went into the construction of this record. Castlemania is a fantastically strange record, almost certainly the best the band has made yet, and a true triumph of human creativity.

7. YOB – Atma
The Maryland doom trio returned from hiatus in 2009 to make the unremittingly bleak and disgustingly heavy comeback album The Great Cessation. This time out they add a little bit more colour to their palette, such as the strange eastern-inspired tunings of “Before We Dreamed of Two” and the beautiful coda to “Adrift in the Ocean.” This makes for a more varied and expansive listen. Close listens are rewarded with tiny sonic details that reveal themselves over time. These new stylistic flourishes are noticeable, but YOB hasn’t forgotten its bread and butter, and the crushing riffs flow here in abundance. The songs ebb and flow with suite-like purpose, the whole album giving the off the impression of a tightly constructed work of art while still retaining a loose feel to the performances.

8. Wooden Shjips – West
I was never really sold on these guys until I heard this excellent number three. Their mix of fuzzy Spacemen 3 atmospherics and psychedelic jamnation was interesting, but somehow something was missing. West changed my opinion. Lushly produced, this record sounds much thicker and fuller than any previous release by this band. Not only that, but now there are songs. They are built the same way, by locking into a head-nodding rhythm and not letting up, but Erik “Ripley” Johnson’s forays into more pop-inspired territory with his Moon Duo project seems to have given him a better ear for hooks and songcraft. These tracks are simply more memorable than anything on either of the Shjips’ first two records. The best one here, “Flight” offers up a stone groove that manages to somehow be catchy and mantra-like, and lays down layers of fuzzy guitars over top of it. This basic formula is repeated on all the tracks here, but it works. Here’s hoping these guys continue to hone their approach, because they just keep getting better.

9. Warbringer – Worlds Torn Asunder
I’ve long been a proponent of California’s thrash revivalists Warbringer, even naming their excellent 2008 album War Without End as my 8th favorite record of that year. Well I’m happy to say that they have truly outdone themselves this time out. Worlds Torn Asunder is the biggest, heaviest, best album they have made yet. Unfortunately for these guys and other bands that go about their business faithfully paying homage to a specific style and time period, condescending words like “originality” and “relevance” get tossed around by critics to mitigate what success they might achieve. I submit that it takes some serious balls to try to make a go at a career playing a style of music everyone thought was dead twenty years ago. In any case, the real criteria should be in the head and body of the listener, and I have to say that the chugging guitars, devastating double kicks and gleefully deranged vocals of Worlds Torn Asunder get my blood pumping and my head banging as hard as any Kreator or Exodus classic you can name. From the truly awesome opener “Living Weapon” to the catchy and relentless closing blast “Execute them All,” this record is a true masterpiece of the genre, even if it does arrive a couple decades late. If these guys’ biggest crime was being born too late, at least they’ve made up for lost time and crafted a record that synthesizes the best moments of all my favourite vintage ‘80s thrash titans and runs it through a clean and powerful production job that one ups the best of what was possible back in the day. A stone classic of the genre.

10. Battles – Gloss Drop
Battles’ 2007 debut Mirrored was one of the most daring and unique records of the past decade. Its fusion of real human musicianship melded seamlessly to a bank of cybernetic gadgetry to create a new type of experimental music. It pointed towards the future. The departure of Tyondai Braxton last year cast doubt on whether or not the band could ever follow up such a statement, but fortunately, the band returned in early 2011 and released a fantastic new album. Making extensive use of looping effects and samplers along with their extensive technical abilities allows Battles to construct songs that are instrumentally complex and rhythmically intricate but strangely catchy. They’ve even brought some friends along to help out. Musicians as diverse as synth pop godhead Gary Newman and Yamantaka Eye of the Boredoms are on hand to lend their own unique perspectives to Battles’ warped take on pop music. Strange non-western scales and heavily treated and cut up instruments constantly keep the listener off balance, while a thick, heavily distorted synth anchors several tracks. This music is quite unlike anything I’ve ever heard, yet it quickly reveals its pleasures to a curious listener. Tunes like “Africastle” and “Ice Cream” are bouncy and fun enough that you could sneak this on at a party. Some guests might get freaked out a bit, but fuck ‘em, they’re squares anyways. It may not be as revolutionary as Mirrored was, but Gloss Drop demonstrates once again that these guys own as singular a band voice as exists today.