I seem to be fashionable late with this again. Yes, it’s that time where I round up my favourite releases of the past year and write a small amount about each one. Months late. I’m restricting it to a top ten this year, though I may go back and go over a few disappointments from the year in a follow up post.
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz
Had I been quicker off the mark with this, this album wouldn’t have made this list. As it is its relatively lowly position in the list is perhaps due to limited exposure to its charms. This has some excellent synth pop, some of which is true dance floor filler stuff. Heads Will Roll in particular is the sort of pounding, pulsating song which I would genuinely like to hear in clubs. The album has this strong synth pop edge, but a gentle heart of fragile songs like the brilliant Skeleton. So synth pop + fragility + clean guitar = a highly enjoyable album.
9. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
With his second solo album, Jarvis Cocker brought his trademark witty lyrics to bear with an album which was much more satisfying than The Jarvis Cocker Record. There was something which I just didn’t enjoy all that much about The Jarvis Cocker Record in retrospect. Further Complications is the album I was looking for. The heart of this album is all about good fun, with songs like Caucasian Blues featuring the whitest instrument known to man (the recorder) playing the blues. Jarvis’ lyrics usually delight on this album, be it lines like “I never said I was deep, though I am profoundly shallow” from I never said I was deep, or the corny “I met her in the museum of Palentology, and I make no bones about it” he finds a way to delight in most songs. What lets the album down however is that its best song is a million times better live. You’re In My Eyes (Disco Song) this version including an amusing improvisation with the lyrics at the start.
8. Sky Larkin – The Golden Spike
Sky Larkin are a band I find hard to explain in the context of most of what I listen to. They are easily the closest thing to pure pop that’s on this list. The album is all about simple hooks, a clever vocal harmony here, a well placed breakdown there, it is pop and unashamedly so. There’s something undeniably likable and honest about the band, they’ve made an album that’s just good honest fun and you can’t really ask for much more than that. Katie Harkin’s vocals really make the album in a way, it’s unlikely the album would feel even remotely the same with another singer.
See also this fantastic video for the song Molten (not the album version if I’m correct though).
7. Grammatics – Grammatics
Grammatics are a band whose album I was really looking forward to in the early parts of last year. In all honesty they only appear so low on the list because of the sheer quality of the releases higher up. They are everything I like from a band, male falsetto singing, female backing vocals, super clean – super delayed – guitar, an interesting extra instrument (double bass), a good sense for the stereoscopic and some fantastic songs. One or two songs prevented the album from being a real great. Check out D.I.L.E.M.M.A. but my favourite song (Relentless Fours) wasn’t a single, so here’s a live version.
6. Graham Coxon – The Spinning Top
The Spinning Top is a return to form and a return to the more acoustic stylings of Coxon’s earlier solo albums. Coxon’s last effort Love Travels At Illegal Speeds seemed to indicate that as an artist he was determined to plough the successful commercial furrow first explored in Happiness in Magazines. Instead Coxon has brought things back to a simpler, yet more satisfying folk style. More importantly the album is whimisical in places and doesn’t take itself too seriously. The two combine to ensure that the album feels enjoyable and also achieves true beuaty in some places. Caspian Sea even manages a riff that sounds like it’s straight out of a 1970s children’s television show.
5. 65daysofstatic – Escape From New York
I won’t dwell on what was essentially a live album. They’re very good. It is very good. The only downside was the relative lack of new material, that has to be expected on a live album though. A band who can only be described as emotional and visceral.
4. The Appleseed Cast – Sagramartha
A band line-up that constantly changes probably helps the sense of progression, or at least difference, from album to album. This may well be their best to date though. As a band they’ve developed to a point where they create truly affecting soundscapes. It ticks all the boxes for something I like, clean guitar, delay, slow build ups, interesting percussion, all mixed together with a hint of piano. South Facing Col is probably the best track on the album. It builds to a crescendo then morphs into something altogether more beautiful, before crumbling in fragility near the end. Excellent stuff.
3. Johnny Foreigner – Grace and the Bigger Picture
Grace and the Bigger Picture is definitely Waited Up ‘Til it was Light’s smarter, wiser older brother. The album was constructed in a much more careful way than its predecessor. There’s a lot of call and response between different tracks, not least the excellent duo Choose Yr Side and Shut Up! and Illchoosemysideandshutup, Alright. These also help form the perfect live trifecta with the addition of Salt Pepa and Spindarella from their debut album. The album pulsates with energy moving at a quick pace before finally ending in relative chaos by the end of album closer The Coast Was Always Clear. The album isn’t without its quieter moments, though most of them come in the early part of the aforemention Illchoosemysideandshutup, Alright and Every Cloakroom Ever.
2. Dananananaykroyd – Hey Everyone!
A brilliantly constructed album. Every song is an absolute riot. The album doesn’t quite convey the energy of their live shows, but that it comes close is testament to its quality. Standout tracks are probably the hand-clapping, “woo”-ing pop number that is Black Wax and the simply brilliant Some Dresses. Not forgetting The Greater Than Symbol and the Hash. Some Dresses is probably just about my favourite song that ever deconstructs itself and re-emerges in a completely different state.
1. Jeniferever – Spring Tides
I once rather cruelly said that while Jeniferever are a great band, I could never see them being anybodies favourite band. That was after seeing them play songs from their debut album Choose A Bright Morning live at King Tuts. Their second album Spring Tides made me eat my words. It is a marvellous piece of work and hardly a week has gone by since its release that I’ve not listened to it at least once. Spring Tides takes the post rock of the first album and infuses it with more strings and more Bowie. Somehow that’s a combination which works fantastically well. They know how to build up a song and then release the tension with a rock out, followed by a calming soothing section which almost always leaves you wanting more. While Nangijala is definitely the centrepiece of the album, Green Meadow island is probably my favourite track.