December 14th, 2005
JOSH MODELL
1) The National, Alligator (Beggar's Banquet)
If slowcore got angry and drunk and started listening to Nick Cave instead of Bread, it might approximate The National, a brooding, brilliant Brooklyn outfit that seemed to reach a zenith with 2003's Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers, but trumped that album handily with Alligator. Literate, moody, strange, and beautiful, the disc doesn't waste a second: It roughs up Tindersticks moods one minute and scrambles indie assumptions the next.
2) Crooked Fingers, Dignity And Shame (Merge)
3) Chad VanGaalen, Infiniheart (Sub Pop)
Chad VanGaalen's American debut Infiniheart feels less like an album than a jumble of amazing ideas, which makes sense considering it was cobbled together from dozens of songs recorded in his Canadian bedroom. When he hits, he channels some sort of otherworld Neil Young, twisting weird little melodies into timeless, ghostly folk-rock.
4) Death Cab For Cutie, Plans (Atlantic)
5) Sigur Rós, Takk… (Geffen)
Sure, it's the most easily digested album by Icelandic soundsheet technicians Sigur Rós, but that just means the swells and crescendos of Takk… only feel like they're from a different planet, not a different universe. The lyrics are still incomprehensible, but the crashes and moods inspire with symphonic hugeness, not microscopic character studies.
6) Maxïmo Park, A Certain Trigger (Warp)
Though lumped in—sort of fairly—with British bands like Bloc Party and The Kaiser Chiefs, Maxïmo Park thinks of British post-punk with a wider scope, plucking influence from The Jam, XTC, and even later Brit-rock. More important than their sound is what they do with it, and what they do with it is house economical, spunky, and almost painfully catchy songs like "Apply Some Pressure" and "The Coast Is Always Changing."
7) Low, The Great Destroyer (Sub Pop)
8) Bloc Party, Silent Alarm (Vice)
9) Clem Snide, End Of Love (SpinArt)
10) Troubled Hubble, Making Beds In A Burning House (Lookout)
Great Songs From Releases That Didn't Make The List
Bloc Party, "Tulips (Club Version)"
The Decemberists, "Of Angels And Angles"
Fiona Apple, "Not About Love"
And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, "Worlds Apart"
Coldplay, "Speed Of Sound"
New Order, "Krafty"
Spoon, "The Two Sides Of Monsieur Valentine"
Beck, "Hell Yes"
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, "The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth"
Art Brut, "Formed A Band"
Rogue Wave, "Publish My Love"
M83, "Don't Save Us From The Flames"
New Buffalo, "I've Got You And You've Got Me"
Boards Of Canada, "Chromakey Dreamcoat"
Broken Social Scene, "Windsurfing Nation"
Kaiser Chiefs, "I Predict A Riot"
Kanye West, "Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)"
Bright Eyes, "Easy/Lucky/Free"
Punk Is Almost Surely Dead, But Its Chosen Delivery Method Lives On
This year trended hard toward non-physical music ownership—every kid on the block has an iPod, and their little brothers and sisters might think of CDs the way we think of rotary phones—but small bands of vinyl loyalists in the indie and dance worlds still cooked up desirable discs with attractive extras. Death Cab For Cutie's terrific Plans featured a gatefold sleeve, heavy-duty vinyl, and an extra track; The Decemberists' Picaresque did one better, fitting in an oversized booklet and a whopping five extra songs (called Picaresqueties). Interpol made its inessential remix EP more attractive with a quadruple(!) vinyl version. On the smaller side, plenty of weird nuggets surfaced on seven-inch discs, including Pedro The Lion's annual Christmas single, several beautifully packaged Arcade Fire discs, and a bizarre take-off on the '70s novelty hit "Mr. Jaws" based on a legendary collaboration between Will Oldham and The Silver Jews. It's called "Mr. Jews," of course.
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