The Best Albums Of 2011

I confess: in agonizing over end-of-year pieces, the idea of greatness does enter into the equation, as opposed to just what I liked or listened to most this year. Yes, it’s all subjective anyway, but it gets tiresome listening to music critics year after year mock their contemporaries for trying to make a statement beyond “I enjoyed this”, as if he or she is the first unpretentious writer to take that tack. The designation of Album Of The Year ought to carry weight, whether you’re The Academy or some guy on Facebook; it shouldn’t just be the most-tallied record on your last.fm chart. And maybe I only say that because I know I’m going to be listening to several of these albums a lot in the coming months and years yet, and I know my appreciation for them will change so much that using “like” as the basis for a list makes it pointlessly transitory, possibly even inherently invalid, whereas considering greatness, trying (if in vain) to hypothesize an album’s impact, or even what I think its impact should be, makes the exercise more meaningful.

Then again, judging by the declining market value of music reviews that exceed 140 characters, perhaps this is an exercise in vanity only. Either way, regardless of greatness, my whole point is to get anybody who reads this to check out one or more of these albums that he or she hasn’t heard before, or look at them in a new light and revisit them. So here’s what I really liked an awful lot in 2011.

Mastodon: THE HUNTER

Clearly (mercifully?), everyone has blocked nü-metal from memory, like a teenage car crash or any other traumatic experience. How else can we explain the classification of The Hunter as “stoner” or “progressive”? Should we also rewrite history so that Sevendust and Puddle Of Mudd and Godsmack are actually “sludge metal”?

Wilco: THE WHOLE LOVE

It’s a hard road, becoming an experimental rock band: once you go there, you can never go back. You try, you make an unpretentiously catchy pop record, and critics and fans will desert you. “Not strange enough!” they’ll cry. So, ever since Wilco made Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and its follow-up, A Ghost Is Born, which featured a ten-minute noise barrage that most people at the time decried as impenetrable and pointless, the band has farmed increasingly familiar, folky, radio-friendly territory, orchestrating its own critical downslide. The gutsiest thing Wilco could’ve done in 2011 is release another slick album of ballads and shimmering pop-rockers. Instead, Jeff Tweedy and company took the safe route with The Whole Love and got a little bit weird again.

Loyal Divide: BODICE RIPPER

Once upon a time, there was a band called Lake Trout, and it was one of the best bands in the world, blending elements of jazz, electronica, punk and experimental indie rock into a powerful and ever-evolving stew of sound. Unfortunately, that band never hit it big, and its members evidently tired of the lack of recognition and moved on to other things. Let’s hope Loyal Divide doesn’t suffer a similar fate, because it’s the only other band I’ve come across that scratches a similar itch, as evidenced both by its live show and its new album, Bodice Ripper.

Colourmusic: MY___ IS PINK

True originality is becoming too much to ask these days (is that the most unoriginal thing I could possibly say?) so grudgingly, we’re all going to have to lower those standards a notch when discussing at least the early parts of the current decade. There hasn’t been an era of mimicry this blatant since the late 90s bands copped all the worst aspects of the early 90s bands and created post-grunge/nü-metal, ruining rock radio from that point on. Fortunately, a significant number of today’s crop of 80s-aping synthpop bands are actually making good music, and not just compared to Staind.

Yawn: OPEN SEASON

I don’t enjoy drawing snarky parallels between band names and album titles and the nature of the music they represent, but Yawn makes it impossible to resist. I wouldn’t even say the music of Yawn is boring, in and of itself; if it were its own bubble in a vast cultural vacuum, it would probably seem at least decent. And no, there are no hunting references or any major spring/summer/fall/winter themes--or if there are, I’m not going to bother poking around for them. It’s just that in the wake of the success of Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, we all knew (didn’t we?) it was going to be open season on the AC sound, and this is the most pathetic, blatant ripoff imaginable. I’d swear there are actual samples from MPP sprinkled amidst the Panda Bear and Avey Tare impersonations, and they should sue (for instance, aren’t those the “Brother Sport” yelps right there in “Acid”??). There’s nothing more to even say about it. *YAWN*

Across Tundras: SAGE

Of all the bands that have been ripping off Black Sabbath for the past 40 years or so, few have done it with as much passion and spirit of adventure and creativity as Tanner Olson.  In his quest for the perfect, all-encompassing riff, of course he’s going to stumble across a couple of Iommi nuggets along the way; shouldn’t “Hole In The Sky” be public domain at this point?  But unlike the entire stoner rock genre, there’s so much more going on in the music of Across Tundras.  So much, in fact, that I’d argue Olson has created a completely new genre by infusing rockabilly, country and tribal rhythms into his echo-drenched, spacious, quasi-metallic stew.  I know it’s the domain of the music critic to invent new labels and covet them like awards, but I’m abandoning that idea for now, unless I can coin “awesome” as a genre.

Fen: EPOCH

Fen ’s first full-length, 2009’s The Malediction Fields, gave no indication that the band would be capable of greatness; it seemed like an early bandwagon-jump into atmospheric black metal, a scene that’s getting close to its saturation point.  But these Brits have come a long way in two years; Epoch mixes things up while taking a more melodic approach, layering clean rock and crushing extreme elements in a natural synthesis and using unique percussive techniques to distinguish themselves in this overcrowded movement.

Primordial: REDEMPTION AT THE PURITAN'S HAND

Following not-so-closely on the heels of the band’s most overtly accessible and consistently successful album, 2007’s To The Nameless Dead, Ireland’s premier waltz-metal band has basically stuck with the winning formula for its new Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand.  The new album is a little more oppressive, a little less dynamic, and ultimately more of a regression than an evolution of the Primordial sound.

Blut Aus Nord: 777 SECT(S)

Riff for riff, scream for scream, there’s still no band that sounds more unholy and tortured than Blut Aus Nord.  Since the terrifying 2006 masterpiece MoRT, which virtually did away with all concept of song, the band has grown more interested in subverting traditional musical structures, but the new 777 Sect(s) is a slight return to the more avant-garde assault that sets this band apart from the rest of the black metal parade of the past decade or so.

Scattered Trees: SYMPATHY

Chicago’s Scattered Trees started up years ago, splintered apart and then reconvened to record Sympathy, a dedication to the memory of frontman Nate Eiesland’s father, whose death inspired Eiesland to write this collection of songs.  Listeners will have no trouble picking up on the mournful pathos and occasional bitterness that permeate the record; even the songs that don’t directly address mortality evoke a feeling of loss, making for a cohesive album that’s not as depressing as it could justifiably have been.

The Indelicates: DAVID KORESH SUPERSTAR

Please, God, tell me this is all just a bad joke.  Surely The Indelicates don’t intend this appalling stylistic mishmash of American music to be an actual artistic statement?  This is their way of getting back at the FBI for allowing two dozen British nationals to die in the Waco fire, right?  Consider the U.S.A. duly punished, then; David Koresh Superstar is by far the worst album I’ve heard in the past decade at least.

the wall for the first time

do you remember the first time you heard the wall?

Panda Bear: TOMBOY

The songs on Tomboy aren’t the best songs Panda Bear has ever come up with, although most of them are still really good.  Individually, they’re more interesting for what they evoke, what they remind you of.  For instance, I want to try superimposing Captain Beefheart’s “Bat Chain Puller” over “Afterburner”.  I think it might be awesome.  Also, I think if you strip the title track down to its bare bones, you’ll arrive at nothing but Panda alone strumming an electric guitar and singing.  It’s something we may never see him do, but that’s the essence of the song, like an old Liz Phair demo.  And “Surfer’s Hymn”--go figure--sounds an awful lot like a Beach Boys jam, except on more complicated, modern drugs.

Young Widows: IN AND OUT OF YOUTH AND LIGHTNESS

Young Widows’ previous album, Old Wounds, contained a song called “The Guitar”, in which Evan Patterson sang, “Got addicted at an early age.”  It seemed like a mission statement at the time.  Now on his band’s third album, Patterson’s addiction has manifested in a signature sound, something he was still working out on 2006’s Settle Down City but that he defined on Old Wounds, and now he’s reveling in it.  In And Out Of Youth And Lightness suggests that some day we might refer to Patterson as one of those guitarists you can't mistake for anyone else.