Vikings & Beekeepers

90. Passion Pit Manners (2009) 

The older I get and the more focused I am on the realities of life (work, kids, marriage, etc.), the less I care about the fickle nature of the Internet backlash or the cool capital of social currency. I no longer have time to worry about which bands I should be snubbing and which bands I should be championing. All I can rely on are my two ears and a few of my other parts for what’s good and what’s not. That’s why I have yet to turn my nose up on Passion Pit. A Seattle weekly recently described Passion Pit as a band enjoying the spoils of success that belonged to Cut Copy. By my ears (and heart and ass and crotch), Cut Copy has nothing on Passion Pit’s giddy and unabashed chipmunk-soul electro pop (neither do MGMT, Justice, Hot Chip or the Junior Boys for that matter). Maybe it’s my more rockist leanings that lead me to appreciate only the least subtle corners of electronic music, but Manners has an “It” factor that no other artists of a similar ilk have. It could be the joyous rainbow explosion that is album opener “Make Light” or the way that “Moth’s Wings” runs laps around Arcade Fire. Or maybe it’s the take-it-to-the-next-level drum shots that bring “Little Secrets” out of its first chorus or the call-and-response kids choir chorus on “The Reeling.” Or maybe it’s the pretty “Ooh woo oohs” of “Folds In Your Hands” or the over the top lead line that sets “Eyes In Candles” in motion. Or maybe it’s just “Sleepyhead.” Who knows? The highlights are plentiful; the music is fun, fresh and beautiful; and my ears, heart, ass and crotch are always happy to greet Passion Pit. Truth is, when Manners is playing, it becomes my favorite thing ever.

“The Reeling”

89. Boris Heavy Rocks (2002) 

Named after the only two adjectives necessary to describe the album, Heavy Rocks is Boris at their most direct and monochromatic (that color? Orange). There’s probably less sonic variety here than on any other album by these prolific Japanese headbangers, but that’s hardly a complaint. This is stoner metal through and through, like an ultra noisy and agitated Master of Reality. But even if the constant riffage may seem daunting for an extended amount of time, every glorious guitar squelch and wash of unrepentant feedback remains invigorating. Heavy Rocks is a concept album about the power and majesty of barely contained guitar noise. Embrace the orange at your own peril.

“Rattlesnake”

88. Future Of The Left Travels With Myself And Another (2009) 

Future Of The Left’s Andy Falkous is a real cheeky bastard. He’s the kind of guy who can’t help but aggressively take the piss out of everyone he meets, slapping “Kick Me” signs (or worse) on his own grandmother’s back, hocking a fat loogie in his hand before shaking hands with his girlfriend’s father, calling you a “twat” to your face and pretty much rubbing everyone’s face in shit. But at the same time you kind of like him. He’s a little bastard, but he’s also really smart and witty, with a pithy and disarming comment for everything. And you’d probably want him in your corner during a fight, too. He might not throw a single punch, but he’ll do a good job of verbally lacerating your opponents prior to throw down time and he’ll be there to cheerfully rib you while you rub a frozen steak on your swollen eye. He’s the kind of guy to go to a Satanic orgy and have the gall to openly complain about standard orgy cleanliness, babysitters and his choice of socks. He’s the kind of guy who makes sure the entire world knows he’s pissed with a guy named Rick. He’s the kind of guy to roll his eyes at lapsed Catholics. He’s the kind of guy to happily forget that Morgan Freeman isn’t dead. He’s the kind of guy to watch his first, ridiculously awesome band dissipate only to return with a new band that somehow manages to put together a more impressive discography in less albums. No matter what moniker Falkous chooses to go with to present his music, his band is still better than your band and that’s probably the way it always will be. Cheeky bastard.

“You Need Satan More Than He Needs You”

87. Sleep Dopesmoker (2003)

It’s an hour-long song called “Dopesmoker.” How could it not be awesome? This stoner metal Holy Grail, originally released as “Jerusalem” in the late 90s, takes a particularly pious approach to the religion of reefer madness with biblical references duking it out with cannabis catchphrases. Still, this metal marathon is a lot to take, especially when served sober. Sleep, whose members would go on to form High On Fire and Om, two bands that couldn’t sound more different from each, but both sound a lot like Sleep, were never ones for wild solos and unrelenting speed. On Dopesmoker, the riffs don’t change, singer Matt Pike’s cadence never speeds up and no one moves far out of the Saint Vitus playbook, but that would be the point. This is slow moving metal, but it’s certainly deserving of your fear and trembling. Dopesmoker is gargantuan but sleepy, menacing but numbing. Tune in, drop out and hold the fuck on.

 86. Dinosaur Jr. Farm (2009) 

That J Mascis and Lou Barlow were able to bury the hatchet and reunite Dinosaur Jr. was unlikely. That they would return and release the excellent Beyond was shocking. That they would come back to top nearly all their albums ever with Farm is nothing short of miraculous.

In a time when guitar-loving power trios are quickly going the way of the, well, dinosaur, the re-emergence of Dinosaur Jr. feels practically essential, as Mascis and Co. tear through one inspired rocker after another. Farm stands tall in the Dinosaur catalogue due in part because they are truly the last of a dying breed. Listening to Mascis rip into monster solos like the centerpiece solo in slow-moving ballad “Said The People” feels truly anachronistic, but far from misguided. Mascis’ potent guitar squall is a priceless noise, and his ability to write ragged rocks songs drenched in hooks, pathos and fury is unparalleled. On Farm, Mascis shows that he’s as adept at crafting hook-filled, crunchy pop (“I Want To Know,” “Over It”) as he is a writing sprawling power ballads with a flare for melancholy (“Said The People,” “I Don’t Want To Go There”). Even as songs stretch out past the six, seven, eight-minute mark, they don’t feel tired; they feel liberated and cosmic. On Farm, Dinosaur Jr. aim high and hit the mark nearly every time.

“Said The People”

85. Shellac 1000 Hurts (2000)

1000 Hurts begins with “Prayer To God,” a black-hearted and depraved piece of carnal destruction where the narrator summons the almighty to strike down an ex-lover and her new beau. Of course, singer/engineer/asshole extraordinaire Steve Albini holds a special spot for his former lover, asking her to “go quietly, by disease or by blow.” The new man? Well he’s not so lucky. Albini petitions God to “just fucking kill him” and make it hurt. And actually, while the Lord’s at it, “make him cry like a woman.” Once those minor requests are out of the way, Albini gets back to the matter at hand: “Just fucking kill him.”

“Prayer To God” is a shocking beginning to the wonderful 1000 Hurts, but it’s 100 per cent Albini – brutal, unblinking and permanently transfixed on the ugliness that exists inside (hopefully not) all of us. Bob Weston’s drums crack like fatal gunshots, the guitars grind like a cute white bunny caught in the gears of a ’67 Chevy (there’s rabbit blood everywhere!) and the ever sinister Albini sings with the seething rage of a man who could have seen those deaths through himself. “Prayer To God” is Albini’s wonderful and often misunderstood career in a nutshell. On 1000 Hurts, it’s only the beginning, as there are nine more brutal killing sprees contained on the album. This kind of rage and venom may be best in small doses, but that’s because the smallest sample size of 1000 Hurts is as cathartic as a million hours of beating hookers on Grand Theft Auto.

“Squirrel Song”

84. Shining In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster (2005) 

Led by multi-instrumentalist and teen prodigy Jørgen Munkeby, Norway’s Shining dabble in a strange hybrid of metal, prog and jazz, creating a heavy, heady concoction that points to the Mahavishnu Orchestra as much as it does King Crimson. Shining create a form of free jazz that is almost too heavy and muscular for jazz heads and a form of experimental metal that is perhaps too horn-happy for metalheads. Call it HARD bop. Pinning the label on the Norwegians is not of great concern, however, especially when…oh shit, here it comes…those drums (my God, those drums) begin to swell on “Goretex Weather Report” and all hell breaks loose. “Goretex” hits harder than the first time I ever heard “New Noise.” “Gortex” could steal an entire album if it didn’t lead into “REDRUM,” which plays like Ornette Coleman with a glitchy fuzz pedal – fast, tight and noisy. In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster tempers itself a bit in the subsequent eight tracks, but make no mistake, there is no room to relax here. “Perdurabo” sounds like “21st Century Schizoid Man” era Crimson plowing through their oeuvre while the Titanic sinks, “The Smoking Dog” tears through nearly every kind of sound possible in four minutes all while holding to a relatively linear structure (linear by jazz standards) and “31=100=21 (It Is By Will Alone I Set My Mind In Motion)” is perhaps the most terrifying song of the decade. This may be one of the more challenging and strange albums on this list, but its overwhelming power and complexity make this an undeniable treat. Monster is a monster.

“Goretex Weather Report“

83. Blitzen Trapper Furr (2008) 

A recent post on the meta-critical blog, Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, recently leveled Blitzen Trapper’s music as being “more of an exercise in songcraft and imitation than a translation of the singer’s experience.” This is a fair observation and could possibly serve as a legitimate criticism if this Portland, OR band’s form of imitation and genre-aping weren’t so wonderfully realized and sincerely performed. Who of us hasn’t listened to an older album and thought, “Wow, I wish I could write a song that sounded exactly like that”? Blitzen Trapper’s grab bag of late 60s/early 70s influences (including but not limited to Bob Dylan, The Band, Lynard Skynard, The Byrds and a whole lot of sci-fi synths) may not be hip, but it seems genuine. Eric Earley and his band run the gamut on all things Americana and they do it by playing wild and loose, jumping from genre to genre, influence to influence, without stepping into any of the hoaky twang of the y’allternative set. Listen as the band swings from the unhinged space-folk party of “Gold For Bread” to the solemn and sweet (and very Dylanesque) title track to the gorgeous piano ballad “Not Your Lover.” That the third suite of “Echo/Always On/EX Con” starts to sound like Clinic (hey, look below!) seems like the snake eating itself is no matter. Blitzen Trapper may be nothing more than a tribute band, but dammit if these imitations don’t occasionally trump their own inspirations.

“Not Your Lover”

82. Clnic Internal Wrangler (2000) 

When I first heard about Clinic, they were being described as “Radiohead for Radiohead” or something to that effect. I didn’t know what that meant, but my take is that they were crazy weird and obtuse. Imagine my surprise then, when I first heard “The Return Of Evil Bill,” a loose and bouncy piece of Spaghetti Western garage rock. That wasn’t Radiohead. Then again, nothing on Internal Wrangler sounds like “Evil Bill” either. Clinic power head first into tribal surf rock, agitated krautrock, screechy punk-funk, moody electronics and hyperactive Nuggets-style rock and cobble it all together with some gargled, nonsense lyrics (the Can influence is strong with this one) to make for an album that feels cohesive in spite of itself. There’s even an emotional element to be found here, as “Distortions” provides a melancholy heartbeat to the whole affair, setting every playful and giddy moment in sharp contrast. It’s a beautiful singular moment and it only adds to the entire experience of listening to Internal Wrangler.

“Distortions”

81. Baroness Red Album (2007) 

Of the Georgia Four (Baroness, Mastodon, Kylesa and Harvey Milk) it seems that Baroness are the most quickly dismissed. Many see what Baroness do as merely an approximation of what Mastodon had already done. But listening to Red Album, it’s quite obvious there’s much more to it than that. While Baroness tread in the same kind of churning, vaguely melodic epic metal that their peers do, they also have embraced a wider range of influences, adding heavy doses of southern rock (“Grad” and a hidden track that couldn’t be confused as anything but), atmospherics (“Wailing Wintry Wind”), major key melodic metal (“The Birthing”) and just a touch of moody DC-style post-punk (“Aleph”). Red Album is a blast to listen to, with hundreds of pleasure centre pummeling moments crammed into every nano-second of the album. Very few albums, metal or otherwise, are this satisfying front to back. Baroness may be seen as second-rate by a metal community that tends to be dismissive to a fault, but Red Album is overwhelmingly essential. This is one hell of a metal record.

 ”Isak”

80-71 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 9:51 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.