Here it is, indie eXclamations picks for the 10 best (mostly) indie albums of 2010!
This is part 3 of 3. Be sure to check out part 1 (
#30 to #21) and part 2 (
#20 to #11).
I would love to hear your own take on the year's best albums - so feel free to leave comments!
#10) Sleigh Bells - Treats
Sleigh Bells generated a massive amount of buzz back when their early demos began circulating on music sites and blogs. All the fuss even caught the notice of mainstream outlets like the New Yorker, ABC, The Guardian, and NPR.
Was all the hype worth it? Back in May, I posted
my review of
Treats:
Noisy, bombastic, and fun - that is my first impression of the debut album, Treats, by Sleigh Bells....
.... Comprised of the music of Derek Miller (guitars, beats, and songwriting) and the voice of Alexis Krauss, Sleigh Bells dish out a sound that has an almost over-the-top abandon to it. With waves of crunchy and soaring guitars and booming, sometimes machine gun style beats - this is music to crank up to let the world know your are in a rambunctious frame of mind.
It isn't just the guitars and drum machine that contributes to Sleigh Bell's sometimes cacophonous audio assault. The band tosses into the mix a range of snaps, claps, bleeps, distortions, and assorted other interspersed samples.....
.... Krauss' vocals hover over the din, sounding interchangeably sweetly angelic, liltingly ethereal and / or all punk girl attitude.The combination - let's call it beauty (Krauss' vocals) and bodacious bombast (Miller's guitar and beats) - just works, so long as you are in the mood for music laden with heaps of attitude. Translation: this is not chill-out or background music.
Sleigh Bells may have caught the fickle attention of the taste-makers and consequently had expectations pumped to near impossible heights. When
Treats finally dropped, it did not fail to turn heads - it was ambitious to the point of being brazen, loud as hell, and chock full of songs that were raw and frenzied.
In short, everything about
Treats screams "too much!" But it was also a damn fun and chaotic album that sounded different from most anything else that came out this year. Thus, by dint of bodaciousness alone,
Treats earns a spot squarely in indie eXclamations' top 10 of 2010.
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#9) New Young Pony Club - The Optimist
New Young Pony Club's 2007 debut
Fantastic Playroom was a catchy blend of danceable, poppy, punk delivered with half sweet and half saucy layered female vocals. It was a tad raw and had more than a bit of a retro new wave feel to it. Songs like "
Ice Cream," "
The Bomb," and "
Get Lucky" had a playfully sexy and winking sort of punkish-attitude that was hard to resist.
Fantastic Playroom was a brilliant electro pop debut. But with the genie out of the bottle, how would NYPC match it with their sophomore follow-up
The Optimist?
By dishing out plenty more of the same sparkling, new wave-inflected electro pop - that is how!
With
The Optimist, NYPC again dips into the 80s for a synth-driven vibe, but this time crafting a lusher and slightly more refined sound. Over the course of the albums' ten tracks, NYPC lays down one infectious synth-and-guitar hook after another. The album still has their trademark verve and sultry, mischievous attitude, but this time adds a dash of (dare I say?) sophistication to the mix.
This time out, the band even shows a softer, more thoughtful, and almost melancholy side with tracks like "Before the Light" and "Architect of Love." Far from the obligatory "slow songs" tossed into the mix for the sake of diversity, both ballads are solid (and a couple of my favorites).
So these particular UK ponies have definitely shown that they not the one-trick variety.
The Optimist is a solid album through and through and another excellent bit of electro pop.
#8) Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
With their third LP,
The Suburbs, the Canadian indie rockers
Arcade Fire have created an album as sprawling, amorphous, and ambitious as its namesake.
Arcade Fire has a sound that could best be described as orchestral indie pop. With their new LP, the multi-instrumental group reprises their lushly textured sound woven with guitars, drums, piano, and all manner of other string, wind, and keyed instruments. They also retain the pleasant interplay between male and female vocals of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne.
This time, however, they have set about creating a concept album of sorts, with most of the songs combining a sense of nostalgia coupled with a pervading critique of growing up in contemporary society and, in particular, suburbia. The academic in me gives them ample credit for following in the footsteps of other suburban critics (William Whyte, Lewis Mumford, Betty Friedan, etc) - but instead of dry prose, we get an epic and meandering 16 tracks of indie pop.
The songs do blend together a bit , but with a a couple two-parters and an intro / outro reprisal, it is clear that this was crafted as a definite album experience - a themed rock opera. Which gets back to my opening comment,
The Suburbs is indeed sprawling, amorphous, ambitious,
and a damn good album.
Definitely check out the interactive video for "
We Used to Wait" designed to use the Google Chrome browser and Google Maps to literally write your own youthful neighborhood into the music video.
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#7) Lovers - Dark Light
At first listen, the tracks on
Dark Light by
Lovers appealed to me as being in the vein of Metric, Halou, and other similar female fronted electro pop groups of which I am so fond. The main ingredients were there: pleasant layered female vocals accompanied by electronic beats and a bit of the retro new wave sound aesthetic.
But the more I listened, the more I realized that this was no mere clone of Metric. On
Dark Light, the Lovers give us songs that are thoughtfully poetic and often touched with a kind of bittersweet wit and an overall undertone of brooding intensity. The catchy electro beats, the vocals - soulful, breathy, and a bit tremulous - and heartfelt lyrics make for a whole that is emotionally evocative and simultaneously head- bob, foot-shuffle inducing (I can't quite say
danceable).
Thus, if you are fan of Metric, Halou and the like, you will probably take an instant liking to Lover’s
Dark Light. But you will keep listening to it because the emotive soundscape that this trio from Portland, Oregon create is alluring in its own right.
Take a listen to "
Don't You Want It" (mp3) and "
Figure 8" (mp3) and check out the live video below for "Peppermint." You can also get a listen to the awesome track "Boxer" via
RCRD LBL_.
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#6) School of Seven Bells - Disconnect from Desire
The songs on
Disconnect from Desire have a kind of symphonic expansiveness that defies easy categorization. Whatever you call the music that the
School of Seven Bells makes, the band has been getting a tremendous amount of well-deserved attention from a variety of sources since their debut release
Alpinisms (2008/2009). Their follow-up LP will undoubtedly wind up on numerous “Best of” lists – and for good reason – it is amazing stuff.
The music that Benjamin Curtis and sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza make seems bigger than anything any three people could produce. First and foremost, the songs on
Disconnect from Desire emphasize the beauty of the female voice – amplified by layer up layer of cooing, harmonious, and echoing beautiful female voices. On that foundation, the band weds a synth heavy aesthetic with subtle guitars and an eclectic sampling of incessant electronic beats.
The songs on
Disconnect from Desire are not written with pop constraints in mind. Several songs run over five minutes, a couple over seven and one hits the nine minute mark. And the tracks meander and evolve – building to crescendos, then returning for prolonged shimmering interludes, and finally fading. The end result is epic and mesmerizing – the School of Seven Bells make music that is easy to lose oneself in completely.
Below are a streaming samples of "Babelonia" and "Windstorm" as well as the video for "Windstorm" which you should check out. But you should definitely watch the awesome video for “I L U” that manages to be hauntingly erotic and touching on one hand, and disturbingly brutal and sad on the other.
#5) Allo Darlin - Allo Darlin
Allo Darlin', the self-titled debut LP by the UK-based
Allo Darlin', is pure whimsy set to music. Over the course of 10 fetching and simple tracks, the band delivers one gentle head bobbing and toe-tapping indie pop gem after another. The closest shorthand comparison I could make for Allo Darlin’ would be to liken them to an alternate-universe incarnation of Belle and Sebastian on happy pills.
Elizabeth Morris’ sweetly sings the band’s clever lyrics rife with cultural references and witty asides (“Woody Allen,” “If Loneliness Was Art,” etc). Into the airy orchestral mix, the band and guest musicians weave a ukulele, glockenspiel, piano, omnichord, korg, mandolin, guitars, bass, flute, violin, lap steel, Fender Rhodes, hand clapps, and a variety of percussion. The result is a wonderfully lush, sweet, and dreamy variety of cerebral indie pop
In fact, the band absolutely exudes sweetness. The cuteness surrounding the whole album is likely to bring out an inner grandma compulsion to pinch the band’s collective cheeks and coo “Allo Darlins” (hmmm, I wonder…..?).
But theirs is not a one-dimensional, happy-go-lucky, chirpy sort of sugar-pop drivel. Throughout the album, Allo Darlin’ offers constant glimpses of toil and trouble, of adversity, and underlying melancholy. However, there is also a willful, devil-may-care abandon to the songs. Whatever the troubles, Allo Darlin’ chooses to focus on – and sing about – the brighter side of life.
Take a listen to the album via the streaming player below, but also be sure to check out the
Breakfast Club themed video for "The Polaroid Song."
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#4) Beach House- Teen Dream
Beach House is generally labeled dream pop - and their three albums to date, including the latest LP
Teen Dream, do have a decided dreaminess to them. But theirs is not the airy sweetness that characterizes much of the dream pop genre.
Beach House has a sound that is like languid daydreaming in the afternoon sun: warm, vibrant and hazy. The voice of Victoria Legrand, like the bands' music, is rich and full with a deep resonance and subtle passion that bubbles and builds, but stays mostly understated. Legrand's organ and Alex Scally's guitar and keyboards further heighten the band's atmospheric sound.
That mellow intensity is beguiling. At any moment, you know Legrand's vocals could erupt with passionate ardor or the music could build and explode. But they never quite do. Somehow, the subtlety makes the constrained passion conveyed by the band's subdued sound palette all the more poignant and affecting.
To experience the hazy daydream that is Beach House's
Teen Dream, take a listen to "
Zebra" and "
Norway" (mp3s) and watch the video for "Used to Be" (below).
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#3) Scanners - Submarine
My review of
Scanners' second album,
Submarine, was one of the first I wrote hereabouts. Here is an excerpt:
....Start to finish, [Scanners] delivers a seductive dose of sweet-yet-angsty pop-tinged indie rock....
... Submarine has grabbed me from beginning to end. It starts strong and stays tight and focused - delivering several stand out tracks including "Jesus Saves," "We Never Close Our Eyes," "Salvation," and "Baby Blue" in particular. But the catchy and melodious hooks just keep coming .... Start to finish, Submarine fulfills the promise of the formula that Scanners was working through - with hit and miss experimentation - in their first album.
With this new album, Scanners blend the perfect combination of ingredients. First there are Sarah Daly’s vocals - one part sweet, one part jaded, and lushly expressive.... Then there is the tightly layered, slightly poppy, slightly dancey, alternative rock delivery. Despite the often peppy sound, there are undertones of menace and melancholy to the songs –augmented by Daly’s delivery of the band’s smart lyrics.
And that is probably what really sets Submarine apart – these songs reward more careful listening. ...Scanners delivers ample substance below the surface. The songs treat themes that are a little world weary, a touch cynical, a whole lot melancholy – and absolutely seductive. Scanners gives us songs about mortality, obsession, materialism, heartbreak, relationship dissolution, and painful self-reflection – but ... the mesmerizing whole does not wallow in despair. Somehow, Scanners has crafted songs that traipse into pseudo-existential brooding – but that still prove absolutely and enchantingly sexy.
I want to stress that this is definitely not brooding-for-brooding-sake shoegaze. There is a defiant zest in Scanners' songs. Sarah Daly, Matt Moles, Amina Bates, and Tom Hutt invite us to confront the bleaker aspects of the world around us with all of our damaged psyches, obsessions, and failed relationships. But they give us a beguiling soundtrack with which to relish the transient joys amidst the darkness. Stare into the abyss, hum a catchy tune, and embrace the auditory bliss of it all as you follow Scanners down into the depths with their wonderfully crafted Submarine.
Looking back at this early review, I cannot help but cringe for a couple reasons. First, it was even more long-winded than much of what I have written since. Second, when I wrote it, I was planning on implementing a 10-point rating scale and intended to be very stingy with my ratings. So not only could my previous review use some trimming and editing, the conservative 8.5 that I awarded
Submarine does not really match the degree to which Scanners' second album got in my head and took over my playlists for a time.
Simply put,
Submarines is an excellent album and if I were still attempting to maintain the pretense of a scale, one deserving something solidly in the 9-something range.
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#2) The National - High Violet
The single album I listened to most - leaving it in my car for weeks and weeks only to come inside an queue it up on my stereo - was
High Violet. Over ten years and now five albums into their career,
The National continues to create outstanding music.
A female acquaintance once described lead singer Matt Berninger's voice "as sex." For me, Berninger's gravely baritone and self-psychoanalytic lyrics coupled with the band's somewhat droning, layered, and occasionally sparkling guitar-rock nails a certain complex flood of moods and emotions. Namely, regret, insecurity, longing, jealousy, guilty hedonism, squandered potential, booze drenched escapes, and all the inescapable little phobias and obsessions most of us go through life confronting. This may have made that one girl think of sex, but for me, it channels my own and American youth as we shamble as a disheveled cultural mess into the twenty-first century.
Pardon my existentialist review of the album, but there is something epically melancholy and obsessively introspective about The National's music that make them the perfect poet troubadours for our modern times. At the same time, the band still manages to keep a stoic - even optimistic - romanticism. When in the thrall of their music, I find myself almost convinced that, well, "
baby, we'll be fine."
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#1) Warpaint - The Fool
The Los Angeles-based experimental indie rock band
Warpaint have a sound that does not quite fit comfortably in any of the labels that we often use to categorize bands. Although I lack shorthand descriptors for their music, their debut LP,
The Fool, nonetheless vaulted to the top of my list of best albums for 2010. It truly is an outstanding album that built on the obvious potential of their EP,
Exquisite Corpse (2009), but also managed to innovate from this rough starting point.
Warpaint – Emily Kokal (vocals/guitar), Theresa Wayman (guitar/vocals), Jenny Lee Lindberg (bass/vocals), and Stella Mozgawa (drums)—just plain ignore many of the rules for pop songs. Instead, the band’s songs proceed with a pacing and structure all their own.
Prominent in their sound palette is a throbbing, bass guitar driven vibe somewhat reminiscent of XX (but more interestingly varied) coupled with intricate lead guitars. On top of the guitars, they employ broken, stuttering beats that change, at points developing into complex layers, before morphing back to more simple and incessant pulses.
But Warpaint also has a predilection to break off into jam band style interludes that introduce jazzy and psychedelic elements into their songs. In short, their music, while at first listen seemingly simple, has all sorts of wonderful complexity and variety.
What really endears
The Fool to me is that Warpaint’s lush music serves as the foundation for lovely, often choral, female vocals. Emily Kokal’s lead vocals, just a touch breathy, seem at points to intermingle directly into flow of the music – and at other points erupt emphatically to crescendo in the foreground. Meanwhile, Theresa Wayman and Jenny Lee Lindberg join with Kokal to deliver richly layered and ethereal “ooohs,” soft coos and murmurs, a few banshee wails, and all sorts of other harmonious vocal flourishes.
The net effect of their three lovely voices rivals the dreamiest of the female-fronted dream pop bands. At the same time, however, the foursome behind Warpaint are also laying down dynamically textured music with a fair degree of technical complexity. It is this unique juxtaposition that makes Warpaint’s sound remarkable.
Somehow managing to be hypnotic, vibrant, intimate, and dreamy all at once, Warpaint’s
The Fool has left me completely entranced. Seduced from start to finish, it is my pick for the best album of 2010.
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