The Best Albums of 2008

Here is my take on the best albums released this year. It felt like the real gems were a little bit harder to find in 2008. It seems like there’s someone saying that every year, but in 2008 I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some truth to it. It has been a year with more than its fair share of disapointments and let-downs, but it also had plenty of slow-growers, pleasant surprises, and new discoveries. In fact, most of my favorite albums from this year were hardly on my radar before hearing them, and the most gratifying albums to fall in love with are the ones you never saw coming. So what were my favorite albums of 2008?

30.
The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely


Song Highlights: Salute Your Solution, Old Enough, Many Shades of Black
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29.
Cold War Kids – Loyalty to Loyalty


Song Highlights: I’ve Seen Enough, Something is Not Right With Me, Against Privacy
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28.
To-Mera – Delusions


Sounds like a mix between Evanescence and Dream Theatre, but more complex than the latter and less obtuse than the former. The production quality gives them away as newcomers, but I look forward to future releases.
Song Highlights: Temptation, The Glory of a New Day, The Lie
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27.
Cloud Cult – Feel Good Ghosts


Song Highlights: No One Said It Would Be Easy, When Water Comes to Life, Everyone Here is a Cloud
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26.
Unjust – To Lose a Name


Song Highlights: The Cloud Collectors, Reactions, It’s Not Enough, Choose Nothing
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25.
Gavin Rossdale – Wanderlust


The first solo album by Gavin Rossdale after his career with Bush and an album with the band Institute.
Song Highlights: Forever May You Run, Drive, Another Night in the Hills, Lose Myself Tonight
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24.
Secret Machines – Secret Machines


Song Highlights: Atomic Heals, Now You’re Gone
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23.
Cog – Sharing Space


Song Highlights: Sharing Space, Are You Interested?
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22.
The Dears – Missiles


Song Highlights: Lights Off, Demons, Disclaimer, Meltdown in a Major City
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21.
The Stiletto Formal – ¡Fiesta Fiesta Fiesta Fiesta!


This debut album goes in many directions, to the extent that they often sound like several different bands performing on one disc.
Song Highlights: Sleeping Our Way to the Top, 6 p.m. Your Time, 50 CCs of Anything Potent
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20.
TV on the Radio – Dear Science


I have never like an album by TV on the Radio after the first listen, but as always it grew on me with every spin.
Song Highlights: DLZ, Family Tree, Red Dress, Golden Age
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19.
MGMT – Oracular Spectacular


The pop music debut of the year, a well deserved success.
Song Highlights: Time To Pretend, Electric Feel, Weekend Wars, Kids
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18.
Phantom Planet – Raise the Dead


My favorite Phantom Planet album to date.
Song Highlights: Geronimo, Do the Panic, Raise the Dead
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17.
10 Years – Divisions


Originally I didn’t think this album lived up to its predecessor, partly because it doesn’t do much of anything different. The songs however, are quite good and overall and at this point I would say that Divisions is the better of the two.
Song Highlights: Actions and Motives, Beautiful, Picture Perfect (In Your Eyes)
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16.
Adebisi Shank – This is the Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank


Adebisi Shank has packed 8 songs at only a half-hour full of energetic, experimental, challenging art-rock that pushes boundaries without ever losing the listener.
Song Highlights: Snakehips, I Answer to Doc, Mini Rockers, Colin Skehan
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15.
Blowing Trees – Blowing Trees


An impressive debut by this Austin, Texas group. They’ve got a sound reminiscent of late 90s alternative groups and a strong voice in singer Chris Maddin.
Song Highlights: Airplane Fixation, Goblins, The Day the World Left Me
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14.
The Out Circuit – Pierce the Empire With a Sound


This is a really interesting album, as it plays off ambience and low key electronica with a range of soothing and abrasive vocals.
Song Highlights: Across the Light, Come Out Shooting, The Contender
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13.
The Mars Volta – The Bedlam in Goliath


Not quite as good as Amputechture or De-loused, but having several top notch tracks. Also has a few of those overly dense songs, but not without redeeming features.
Song Highlights: Ilyena, Metatron, Goliath
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12.
People in Planes – Beyond the Horizon


I really never cared for their earlier work, but this album really clicked with me. It is radio friendly but interesting enough to hold the attention of more discerning listeners.
Song Highlights: Last Man Standing, Mayday (M’Aidez), Pretty Buildings, Tonight the Sun Will Rise
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11.
Tiger Lou – A Partial Print


Another great release by Tiger Lou.
Song Highlights: The Less You Have to Carry, A Partial Print, An Atlas of Those Our Own
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10.
Klimt 1918 – In Case We Never Meet Again


Initially I was a little disapointed that this might be a let-down from 2005’s Dopogeurra, but this album has grown on me a lot over the year.
Song Highlights: True Love is the Oldest Fear, Just An Interlude in Your Life, Suspense Music, Disco Awayness
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9.
Ours – Mercy… Dancing for the Death of an Imaginary Enemy


Another album that I thought might not live up to past releases, but Mercy… has also proven not only a great album, but a great return for Ours after being silent for nearly 6 years.
Song Highlights: Mercy, The Worst Things Beautiful, Ran Away to Tell the World, Black
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8.
Facing New York – Get Hot


After losing a pair of their original members, Facing New York reinvented themselves a bit for Get Hot. Their new album is a bit more laid back and light than their first self titled album, sounding a little like a groovy version of The Dismemberment Plan. Favorite song is a toss up between “Hardwood Floors” and their ode to twenty-something aimlessness, “Me ‘n My Friendz”.
Song Highlights: Hardwood Floors, Me ‘n My Friendz, Give Love, Get Hot
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7.
The Music – Strength In Numbers


Always a band that I had liked but never loved, Strength in Numbers is finally an album by The Music that I can really get into. Almost every track on the album is full of gloriously catchy brit-rock goodness.
Song Highlights: Drugs, The Spike, The Left Side, Fire
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6.
Woven – Designer Codes


It was a pleasant surprise to find out about a new album by Woven, who had not released anything since 2005. More pleasantly, Designer Codes turned out to be some of the best and most cohesive work these guys have done yet.
Song Highlights: Cosmonaut, Do You Feel the Same?, One, Prickly Pear
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5.
The Helio Sequence – Keep Your Eyes Ahead


I’ve long felt that these guys are one of the most underrated groups out there, and Keep Your Eyes Ahead only adds to their excellent catolague. Hallelujia may have been the most addictive song of 2008.
Song Highlights: Hallelujia, The Captive Mind, Lately, Broken Afternoon
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4.
Ebu Gogo – Worlds


Anyone willing to give the unorthodox a try may want to look into Ebu Gogo, who released one of the most extraordinary albums of 2008. The music by this self-described action/adventure band is like a wonderfully bizare soundtrack to every movie and video game you’ve ever enjoyed.
Song Highlights: Late Due to Sweatpants Boner, Training Montage, DSurfNA, Waterworld Pt. 1, Neo-Uranium Matress, Marchinial Bahls, Camera Jenkins
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3.
Pitchblend – The Lines of Unreason


This debut album was probably the first truly great rock album I heard in 2008. The Lines of Unreason perfectly satisfies my fix for upbeat, intelligent, forward thinking progressive metal. Fans of dredg, My Vitriol, and Oceansize should consider this a must listen.
Song Highlights: Revelations, Foundation For Reason and Science, Sirens, Somewhere I Could Never Find, Balance Restored
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2.
Damiera – Quiet Mouth, Loud Hands


Their first album M(US)IC received some very good reviews and a lot of buzz, and despite some very significant lineup changes Damiera have concentrated on their strengths and grown to develop and improve their sound for Quiet Mouth Loud Hands. The band continue to focus their songs (and the album as a whole) into concise, intricate packages. The album is jam-packed with fast-paced, catchy hooks and riffs, and at only 31 minutes in length the prospect of listening to it multiple times end-to-end was usually irresistible.
Song Highlights: Teacher, Preacher; Weights for the Waiting, Nailbiter, Quiet Mouth Loud Hands
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1.
Idiot Pilot – Wolves


An album that I decided to check out on practically a whim, with almost no prior knowledge or reference, Wolves has been my favorite album and easily the most pleasant surprise of 2008. Their music draws a little something from a lot of different styles to make a very unique and refreshing sound, something that I can’t easily liken to anything else I’ve heard. There are elements of electronic rock, post-hardcore, and dreamscape ambience (in Cruel World Enterprise, particularly) overlayed with Michael Harris’s superb vocals. I was curios enough to check out their previous album Strange We Should Meet Here, and it’s obvious since then they’ve been able to refine that raw creativity and focus it with tremendously improved songwriting and cohesiveness on Wolves.
Song Highlights: Retina and the Sky, Last Chance, Red Museum, Cruel World Enterprise
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Jason Mraz – We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things

Anyone who visits this site or knows me understands that my taste in music changes regularly, and moves back and forth depending on my mood, time of year, life events, and many other circumstances.  With that said, you should not be that surprised to see a review of Jason Mraz’s new album “We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things”.

I admit, I found the debut by Jason Mraz, no not his staple radio hit filled “Waiting for my Rocket to Come”, his acutal debut (or what most people who have been longterm fans deem his debut), “Live at Java Joes”, an acoustic filled, intimate performance that had the feeling of something great to it.  But after signing to a major label he sort of seemed to cave in to the demands of that label and tried to produce “hits”.  He had a few.  But the music suffered.  I’m sure that his bank account didn’t, but his soul must have.  Otherwise why create something like “We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things”?  It is everything those previous records were not.  It’s not “Remedy” or “Word Play”.  It’s something much better and much more enjoyable.

Jason still has that quick tongue and incomprehensible craziness within his lyrics, but they do seem more meaningful and thought-out than his previous record, “Mr. A-Z”, which really missed the mark.  The most enjoyable part of this album is the presence of the horns and strings and the grandiose feeling each track has; from the horn filled danceable “Butterfly” to the beatlesque “Love for a Child” or “If it Kills Me”, which turn it down a notch and bring the listener closer to the man behind the guitar and mic.

The album isn’t all one senerio, it has it’s highs and lows, it’s ups and downs, and meshes genre’s, decades, and cultures…and tosses convention out the window; the end product is a very appealing effort from an artist that had been losing credibility.  He has found his actual singing voice, he created music you can dance to, and he stole a little bit of muscianship from those that came before him; but who cares, “We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things” is too good to bother worrying about a small about of theft from those who came before him.

Death Cab For Cutie – Narrow Stairs

After years of creating underground hits that generated a mass following and major label interest, Death Cab for Cutie eventually released the album “Plans”. It was pummeled by longtime fans, as is expected when a independent hero turns to the darkside of a major label, yet it was well received across the board, and wasn’t much of a departure for the band.

Fast forward….

Now we have the band’s second major label release, this one titled “Narrow Stairs”, and unlike “Plans”, is a departure for the band at times, and yet should please their longtime followers and those who have only recently come on board.

The album starts with the oddly titled: ” Bixby Canyon Bridge “, yet is instantly recognizable as a Death Cab album; from the soft sound of the vocals, to the interesting delivery of the lyrics, and the sudden onset of change in tempo and volume. The second track, the single ” I Will Possess Your Heart ” begins with a long instrumental, that proves an interesting choice as the single, until the actual song begins, over 4 minutes into the track. The song is almost a “piss off” from the band to casual fans and mainstream success; as not many singles that are over 7 minutes in length gather extended radio playtime…

The remainder of the album goes from typical type songs for the band to something a bit different and reaching. The album is more hit or miss than say “Plans” or “Transatlanticism”, but still delivers when it has to, and provides another chapter for a band that has never done things the easy way.

Favorite Tracks: New Twin Size Bed, Bixby Canyon Bridge

Jack Johnson – Sleep Through The Static

Jack Johnson is primarily known for his subtle, refreshing, and laid-back acoustic work, but with his newest album “Sleep Through The Static”, Johnson picks up his electric guitar, adds some sound effects, and comes out on top.

His subtle, delicate, and wordy sound remains, but was has been added is a refreshing instrumental sound and platform for which he crafts his songs and the album.

The title track is easily a hit single and while fans of his from the “Curious George” soundtrack may be a bit baffled, those who have followed his work from the start will accept the small change of pace and realize that even an artist such as Johnson can become bored and repetitive if he doesn’t mix it up a bit…

….thankfully for our ears he succeeds exponentially.

The Best Albums of 2007: #10-1

The Best of 2007 finale. It’s been a year full of great music and I hope you’ve enjoyed some of these as much as I have. Here’s what has already been mentioned:

#50-41

50. Interpol – Our Love to Admire
49. Mel Gibson and the Pants – Sea vs. Shining Sea
48. Sylvan – Presets
47. Film School – Hideout
46. Ghost Brigade – Guided By Fire
45. Linkin Park – Minutes to Midnight
44. Hopesfall – Magnetic North
43. Red Fox Grey Fox – From the Land of Bears, Ice, and Rock
42. God is an Astronaut – Far From Refuge
41. Tiger Army – Music From Regions Beyond

The Best Albums of 2007: #20-11

Continuing the countdown of the best albums of the year. Here’s what has already been mentioned:

#50-41

50. Interpol – Our Love to Admire
49. Mel Gibson and the Pants – Sea vs. Shining Sea
48. Sylvan – Presets
47. Film School – Hideout
46. Ghost Brigade – Guided By Fire
45. Linkin Park – Minutes to Midnight
44. Hopesfall – Magnetic North
43. Red Fox Grey Fox – From the Land of Bears, Ice, and Rock
42. God is an Astronaut – Far From Refuge
41. Tiger Army – Music From Regions Beyond

#40-31

40. Damiera – M(Us)ic
39. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – In Glorious Times
38. Chevelle – Vena Sera
37. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Baby 81
36. Feist – The Reminder
35. Bat For Lashes – Fur and Gold
34. Holy Roman Empire – The Longue Durée
33. Paramore – Riot!
32. !!! – Myth Takes
31. Stateless – Stateless

The Best Albums of 2007: #30-21

Continuing the countdown of the best albums of the year. Here’s what has already been mentioned:

#50-41

50. Interpol – Our Love to Admire
49. Mel Gibson and the Pants – Sea vs. Shining Sea
48. Sylvan – Presets
47. Film School – Hideout
46. Ghost Brigade – Guided By Fire
45. Linkin Park – Minutes to Midnight
44. Hopesfall – Magnetic North
43. Red Fox Grey Fox – From the Land of Bears, Ice, and Rock
42. God is an Astronaut – Far From Refuge
41. Tiger Army – Music From Regions Beyond

#40-31

40. Damiera – M(Us)ic
39. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – In Glorious Times
38. Chevelle – Vena Sera
37. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Baby 81
36. Feist – The Reminder
35. Bat For Lashes – Fur and Gold
34. Holy Roman Empire – The Longue Durée
33. Paramore – Riot!
32. !!! – Myth Takes
31. Stateless – Stateless

The Best Albums of 2007: #30-21

The Best Albums of 2007: #40-31

Continuing the countdown of the best albums of the year.

Recap: #50-41

50. Interpol – Our Love to Admire
49. Mel Gibson and the Pants – Sea vs. Shining Sea
48. Sylvan – Presets
47. Film School – Hideout
46. Ghost Brigade – Guided By Fire
45. Linkin Park – Minutes to Midnight
44. Hopesfall – Magnetic North
43. Red Fox Grey Fox – From the Land of Bears, Ice, and Rock
42. God is an Astronaut
41. Tiger Army – Music From Regions Beyond

The Best Albums of 2007: #40-31

The Best Albums of 2007: #50-41

Here is my take on the best albums released in 2007. By the end of the year, I will have built up to my #1 album of 2007, but I’ll start with some notable EPs, the albums that deserve an honorable mention, and albums #50-41.
In thinking about my personal take on 2007, the exceptional volume of good albums released stands out. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it was a better year–I look back at 2004 and 2005 and see some incredible releases on top-heavy lists, and I remember that while there was less of a clear distinction as to what my top 10 of 2006 would be, there was little drop-off in quality well down the list. And here in 2007, while I had planned on cutting off a formal list at 40, it now seems like 50 is the only way to go. So, better get things started.

First a look at some notable EPs, some honorable mentions, and then on to albums #50-41.

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Kaddisfly – Set Sail the Prairie

Kaddisfly is one of those bands who are so much like myself it’s downright scary.  That’s not to say I am anywhere near as talented as a limb of one of its members; instead I’m talking about how we view music in general, as an art form.

The first time I heard Kaddisfly was on their album “Buy Our Intention; We’ll Buy You a Unicorn”, catchy title huh…I was mesmerized by the stylings, the ideas, and the way the music seemed to have meaning and purpose.  Songs were not  there to fill time and space on a CD, but instead lead the listener to a bigger picture, they had a reason for each.  These practices reminded me of the band dredg and the whole concept record idea; something I deeply love. 

For their latest record, “Set Sail the Prairie”, Kaddisfly once again return with a concept, this one, the journey over the months of the calender year…including the solstice’s (is that a word?).  The result?  A even more cohesive effort then their previous outings, as well as a record that has very high repeat value, something lacking in todays music scene.  “Set Sail” has every element needed to grab me; great lyrics and vocal delivery, amazingly spacey guitar riffs mixed with heavier elements at times, bass lines that sound punchy enough that the drums are not needed….until you hear the drums, which are so downright thoughtful and deliberate that you have to wonder if the song was written around them as opposed to the other way around.  Top all that off with the “hook” factor, and I am in, for the long haul.

Kaddisfly are one of those bands it’s hard not to love if you are someone who analysis music and albums.  They not only have create two concept albums, but those two albums are part of a bigger picture, a trilogy, that of which the third chapter has not been released.  Look out, the best may have yet to come.