Atlas Sound- Parallax

Though the album begins with the ringing sound of feedback, Parallax is actually the most accessible and pop oriented release of Bradford Cox's career. However, this doesn't mean it's an easy or mainstream record; it's all a matter of degrees. After all, the last Deerhunter album was the most accessible and pop oriented thing that group has released to date but it's still weirder and more experimental than anything you'd hear on modern rock radio. In the same way, Parallax may lack the abrasive/off-putting elements of Cox's past work but it still manages to be a meaty and eccentric record, moving from classic rock/retro influenced pop songs to dreamy/spacey daydreams with surprising ease and coherency.

As de-facto leader of Deerhunter and solo artist under the Atlas Sound moniker, Cox has quietly become one of the finest songwriters of his generation. A track like 'Angel Is Broken' would be the clear highlight of most other artists' careers but it wouldn't even make my top ten favorites by him. While even I still primarily think of him as the guy who uses lots of effects pedals and always has a druggy bent to his music, the reality is that underneath all that adornment, his songs (at least most of them) boast memorable hooks and affecting lyrics. True, like all of Atlas Sound's recordings, Parallax sounds best on a pair of headphones but this doesn't stop it from also being an album that sounds great in the car or on a stereo. 'Te Amo' is packed with detailed touches that are lost without said headphone listening though it still sports a strong enough hook to trap you on first listen when heard out loud.

After I was left a little cold by Logos, I began to wonder if Cox would continue getting more—for lack of a better term—accessible in his two projects. And I don't mean “accessible” in a good way. True, the main failing of Logos was its lack of focus and the spotlight stealing guests, but it also didn't help that the songs were sometimes too stripped down for their own good. It gave one the impression Cox still wasn't sure what the Atlas Sound project would be. I began to think of it as his tinkering space for where he wanted to take Deerhunter. Parallax, then, represents both a return to spacier/dreamier pastures as well as finally nailing down why Atlas Sound was a separate affair from Deerhunter.

Whereas Deerhunter is more about a full rock band approach, stopping off to try out shoegazer, garage rock, and psych-pop, Atlas Sound as codified on Parallax toes the line between full band, retro influenced pop/rock songs like the title track and 'Mona Lisa' and the staying-in-bed-and-spending-the-day-alone spacey ambient/pop of Atlas Sound's first album. Not that they're always separated. It effectively mixes the two styles, too: the aforementioned 'Te Amo' may be one of the poppiest tracks but there's also all sorts of little flourishes and electronic sounds in the background.

Indeed, the last half of Parallax spends more time drifting off into the ether than it does rocking out, giving the record a sense of progression that makes it a more cohesive listen than the scattershot Logos. The two part finale, 'Quark', is actually more experimental than anything on even Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel, the first part a seven minute collage of clattering percussion, spacey looped sounds, and, near the end, some pretty xylophone lines. The shorter second part, meanwhile, blooms beautifully with the sort of bright, gleaming acoustic guitar loops he often uses when playing live as Atlas Sound (check out this performance to see what I mean).

Parallax isn't as special to me as the first album yet I would say that it's a more complete album, succeeding where Logos nearly-failed despite having a wider variety of sounds. It's tempting to call it his most accomplished work to date, but perhaps a better way to think of it is that it's his most finessed and committed work to date. If Atlas Sound always sounded like a sideproject with songs leftover from Deerhunter recording sessions, made on a whim alone by Cox, this should be the record that proves he is putting his all into Atlas Sound, too.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Great Album Covers: Parallax

It has been a year of very memorable album covers, from the classic 4AD aping cover of Wye Oak's Civilian to the crying crude drawing of Panda Bear's Tomboy to the oblique, borderline-suicidal looking cover of Destroyer's Kaputt. None, however, seems as in tune with its musical content as this.

Atlas Sound is Bradford Cox's solo project outside of Deerhunter, and his covers have featured deformed looking men with Marfan's syndrome-like bodies similar to Cox's own (I think Logos may even have him on the cover). This one, however, glamorizes Cox in a classic 50s/60s pop-vocalist way, with a washed out color style. Yet as close as he is to the camera on the cover, and thus to the viewer...as mellow and accessible as Parallax is as an album...it's all still quite distant and confused. Cox is deliberately averting his gaze, or perhaps he's distracted with a thought of someone or something from the past. Also note that he is still half in darkness.

Anyway, maybe I'm over-analyzing again. All that artsy intellectual ruminating aside, it is a hell of a great cover. And a hell of a great record. But that is a blog entry for another time.

Weekly Whiskey Episode 8

Hey presto, it's episode 8!

Essay: Personal Reflections On Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel

Once you reach a certain age and are unmarried, I'm willing to bet that, like me, you have that one person for whom you will eternally pine. They understand you, and more importantly, they accept and love you for who you are whereas no one else can or does. To paraphrase Department of Eagles, no one does it like them. Yet for any number of reasons, things between you both never work out. Perhaps they only see you as a friend. Maybe one or both of you are too fucked up to make things work. Or maybe it's a simple case of them having someone else and not needing you. Whatever it is, your friends and family tell you to stay away, that you'll only receive pain and torment, that you've been down this road before, etc. However, that simple sense of commonality and understanding is so potent a draw you would cut off an ear, Picasso-style, if it would make them love you (or love you again).

A girl, no, a woman I love very much fits in this category. I could never explain how I feel about her in any rational way. Moreover, it's a distinct possibility that I will never be with her in a traditional relationship sense, and we'll come in and out of each other's lives like ships passing in the night. We don't even live in the same State anymore. The point I'm getting at is that I didn't even understand how much Atlas Sound's Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel meant to me until I introduced her to his music via Pitchfork.TV's mesmerizing live performance of his at a church for their Cemetery Gates series. I was simultaneously introducing her and re-introducing myself to this incredible music. We both became briefly obsessed with the performance, and by extension, his two albums. I never would or could have finally connected with this record if not for her, and I am eternally grateful to both the music and her for it.

To me, Bradford Cox's music in Deerhunter and Atlas Sound is completely tied up in the tension between nostalgia and the present, between accepting one's own weirdness and trying to fit into society, and between concrete emotions and a numbed, druggy indifference. Let The Blind... goes a step further by bringing in his own experiences, in particular his unrequited love for friend/Deerhunter member Locke Pundt and his troubled youth--parental divorce, drug use and abuse, and most importantly for me, his teenage surgeries and hospitalizations for Marfan's Syndrome.

Careful viewers of the Weekly Whiskey video series may have noticed a line-like scar running along the left side of my head. I won't bore you with the details as to its origins; suffice it to say that I had three or four surgeries by the time I was in kindergarten. Those experiences, along with all the feelings and thoughts a child has while facing such things, have shaped me as a person ever since. I'm willing to speculate that Cox would agree that it's not the physical scars I bear, or his emaciated, sickly appearance thanks to Marfan's, which really have the profound, lasting effect on us. Instead, it's all the associated mental and emotional baggage that comes from them and from the reactions of others.

Strange, then, that the first few times I listened to this record, it struck me as numb and detached. It still sometimes strikes me as the kind of music someone who was perpetually stoned (on weed and/or psychedelics and/or prescription meds for insomnia and anxiety) to the point of indifference would make in an attempt to reconnect with their feelings. This was all on the surface, though. Listen carefully to Let The Blind... and his other music in and out of Atlas Sound, and you'll find one of the most self-aware and emotionally connected musicians of our time. Just as Dinosaur Jr. rock harder than almost anyone yet often have nakedly-emotional/personal songs underneath all the blare and distortion, on this album Cox swaddles his feelings in seemingly cold/distant music. The more I listen to this record and the more I decipher the lyrics, though, the more warm and comforting it becomes. Just as the woman I spoke of earlier is one of the handful of people I've ever met who truly understands and accepts me, this is one of the few albums I feel a strong personal connection to. I don't mean this in the broad sense of "wow, I relate to Beatles songs", which play to many people in many vastly different situations. It's much more specific for me and this record. For example, though my own experience with 'sleeping til I threw up' wasn't drug related as on the song 'Ativan', the first time I heard that line goosebumps and tingling shot up my limbs and spine and the memory came roaring back.

What Let The Blind... represents to me is making something creative, positive, and therapeutic out of an abjectly terrible period of one's life. You can get so hung up on your own perceived issues and memories that you don't attempt to do anything about them, to make peace with them and yourself. I'm sure that making music hasn't "cured" Cox, but if it has helped him half as much as Let The Blind... and other albums have helped me, and writing in general has also helped me, perhaps a cure isn't the answer. He and I don't need to force ourselves to become normal people; we have to learn to express ourselves and be OK with who/what we are.

This is an album of purging personal demons, of displaying the most vulnerable and pained memories and pieces of one's self to the world. Most important of all, it's about being unafraid to do so anymore. I would never and could never review this music in any traditional sense because, in some other lifetime and series of events, I might've made this album.

NOTE: I apologize if it seems like I'm attempting to parallel myself and my life to Bradford Cox too much. I don't know him at all except through his music, interviews, and random blog posts I've read. I'm making a lot of assumptions in this essay and I acknowledge that. I'm sure my experiences were not much like his at all, and his were likely far worse, so take it all with a grain of salt.

Panda Bear- Tomboy

Panda Bear's Person Pitch wasn't just another album. It has that intangible special-ness that separates the great albums from the masterpieces, albums that not only make year end lists and 'best of decade' lists, but also—and perhaps most crucially—personal lists of favorite albums by both fans and critics.Panda Bear's much anticipated new album, Tomboy, will likely make many lists for best of 2011 even though I don't think it will be as beloved and embraced as Pitch was. I will still be thinking about, listening to, and recommending Person Pitch for decades to come; Tomboy, perhaps not as much.

Whereas Pitch felt like something special, one of those once in a lifetime records that will go down in history, Tomboy is, let's say, more of a 'normal' album. It's excellent music yet it lacks that utterly unique sound and special-ness that made Pitch such an immediate and lasting delight. First things first, though:Tomboy is not a sequel to Person Pitch. Secondly, you can rest assured that, even though all but one of the tracks he's released on 7” singles leading up toTomboy's release appear on it, too, they have different enough mixing, sonic elements either brought to the fore or pushed to the background, that you won't feel fleeced. They're the same songs following the same structure, true, but 'Surfer's Hymn', for instance, is much improved on the album, sounding less electronic and claustrophobic, the extra set of buried vocals excised entirely.

Lastly, Tomboy follows in the pattern of fellow Animal Collective member Avey Tare's 2010 solo release, Down There, in that it's a surprisingly dark record. Whereas Down There was going for a “hellish swamp” vibe according to Tare, following his divorce as it did, Tomboy feels more insular and inner-troubled. During the record's latter half, I get a mental image of Panda Bear sitting alone in a basement studio with no windows, particularly during 'Scheherezade' and its looming, cinematic piano chords. Hell, the extreme reverb he uses on his voice during this track makes it sound like he's stuck inside a well.

Or hiding in a cave. It seems the man who once admonished listeners that he didn't want us to take pills anymore may still be struggling with unnamed internal issues. In fact, the general theme of Tomboy seems to be about pulling back and focusing on yourself and the ones you love. Ironically, then,Tomboy is more listener friendly and inviting than Person Pitch. The melodies and hooks come frequently and in intriguing ways on the album's first half, including one of his most impressive vocals ever on the soaring 'Last Night At The Jetty.' As said before, this album is also more 'normal' than Person Pitchwhich further adds to the listener-friendly-ness, by which I mean, the songs are shorter and self-contained. Nothing here is as slow burn-y and trance inducing as Pitch centerpieces 'Bros' and 'Good Girl/Carrots', and nothing is as unique and indescribable as 'I'm Not' or 'Comfy In Nautica.' Yet for all the talk ofTomboy being a more guitar oriented album, this descriptor proved as accurate as Radiohead's claim that Amnesiac would be more of a guitar album than Kid A. It was, to a degree, but very little on this record sounds much like guitars as used by most rock bands, even by Radiohead in fact, other than the one on the title track. Rather the guitar is employed as another textural tool in Panda Bear's arsenal and ends up making the music sound more mechanical—that is to say, programmed and sampled and looped and tinkered with via computers—than the organic sounding Person Pitch.

With this in mind, the best touchstone for Tomboy is the stuff Bradford Cox of Deerhunter has been doing as Atlas Sound, that kind of “solo artist but using lots of guitar pedals and electronics to fill out his sound” sort of thing. Indeed, Panda Bear guested on the last Atlas Sound album, and if you took the vocals away, I could see Atlas Sound producing something like 'Alsatian Darn.' Still, only Panda Bear could pull off these vocals, and only he would have the guts to follow a buoyant pop song like 'Last Night At The Jetty' with what is ostensibly the album's most dissonant track, the aptly named 'Drone', which I recall being more abrasive on the 7” single version. Anyway, if Panda Bear wanted to shake the notion that he's the 'pop' member of Animal Collective while Avey Tare is the 'noise/experimental' guy, I guess he should've made an album more like Down There.

Or even Danse Manatee.

Not that I think he really cares about such a perception, since he's clearly too busy recording, touring, spending time with his family, and/or doing drugs to have time to worry about such things. What's more, whatever darkness crept into Tomboy isn't likely to last. Though not as special as Person Pitch, this record is a must-hear; though not as bright as Person Pitch, this record still ends with the impression of having come through darkness rather than leaving us still stuck in it. The final redemptive washes of 'Benfica' fade away like the pervasive crashing-waves sounds heard throughout the album, and Panda Bear gets up to leave his basement studio, ready to start the long wait til his next batch of music begins to form. What am I most looking forward to from him next? A new Jane album, obviously.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Deerhunter- Halcyon Digest

On Pitchfork's TV site, you can find a performance of Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox performing as his Atlas Sound solo project. Seated, and with only an acoustic guitar and Bob Dylan-style harmonica holder on, he performs an almost funereal selection of songs inside a church, using a loop pedal and various effects to layer and sculpt the music, a strange mix of 60s folk-rock and psychedelic dream-pop. Watching it for the first time, my initial impression of Atlas Sound's Logos as unfinished and skeletal finally made sense. With an acoustic guitar as the music's locus, this was a major departure from the electric and electronic music Cox had been making for years. In this way, Deerhunter's new album, Halcyon Digest, feels as much like an extension of Logos as it does Deerhunter's Microcastle.

As with indie contemporaries such as TV On The Radio and Animal Collective, Deerhunter have charted a musical development that has taken them from their experimental roots to greater and greater degrees of accessibility and pop songwriting. Microcastle and its 'bonus' album Weird Era Cont. are the obvious jumping off point for Halcyon Digest, since they had an even split between the band's earlier shoegazing/dream pop/noisey side and the modern pop stuff. This new one goes all the way toward the pop stuff, so much so that Deerhunter have finally cleaned away enough of the grit and syrupy psychedelic sounds to qualify as a rock band instead of...well, whatever they were before. They may have actually gone a few steps too far in this direction, unfortunately: Halcyon Digest seems stripped down, plain, and samey sounding, as if the band is working in blacks and whites instead of all the colors of the rainbow. The album does throw a curveball from time to time, though this ends up making it feel uneven and disjointed. Opener 'Earthquake' oozes out of the speakers, a woozy haze of vocals and guitar set to a minimalist drum machine. Guitarist Locke Pundt's 'Desire Lines' spirals out into a three minute guitar solo and reminds me of Murray Street-era Sonic Youth. It and 'Earthquake' could easily have fit unto Microcastle, which is a good and bad thing as I'll eventually get to.

Halcyon Digest is, like Cox's previous music, defined by his ever present nostalgia and remembrances. This time out, these themes surface in the music as much as the lyrics. There's a strong 50s/60s vocal pop/girl group feel to most of these songs, albeit filtered through Deerhunter's aesthetic. Remember how the Pixies almost sounded like a surf rock band on Bossnova? Well, Deerhunter almost sound like a 60s band on Halcyon Digest, right down to having a frontman who primarily plays acoustic guitar. 'Don't Cry', 'Sailing', and 'Basement Scene' pick up where Logos tracks 'Sheila' and 'My Halo' (and Deerhunter's own 'Famous Last Words') left off. Cox's harmonica punctuates the propulsive 'Memory Boy', a fun retro-ist quickie; unfortunately, it shares the same very basic drum beat with nearly every track on Halcyon Digest and makes it have a plain, samey feel. Due to this, from time to time the album actually sounds like Deerhunter turning into or wanting to become a stripped down rock band. Think a more overtly retro Walkmen and you're halfway there—the sax solo and use of piano on 'Coronado' are right out of their playbook. What's more, Cox's sometimes muffled, reedy vocal delivery on Halcyon Digest recalls the guy from the Strokes. Which isn't a good thing, just to be clear.

The reason I didn't fall in love with Halcyon Digest, and I suspect many people won't, is that it lacks the unified atmosphere and consistency of earlier Deerhunter albums and EPs. Before I continue, remember that this is still really good music, and it has some of the band's best songs ever in the euphoric 'Helicopter' and Jay Reatard tribute 'He Would Have Laughed.' However, the latter was recorded by Cox separately and should probably have been an Atlas Sound track, thus demonstrating my final point. Halcyon Digest is like some weird hybrid of a Logos sequel and a Microcastle sequel, and this subsequently reveals the differences between the two projects as well as why Cox has kept them separate. Thus you get basic/stripped down tracks like 'Don't Cry' and 'Fountain Stairs' that are good-but-not-great lumped in with 'Earthquake', 'Desire Lines', and 'Helicopter', which sound like evolutionary but not revolutionary steps from Microcastle. As this is the first time you could genuinely call Deerhunter a rock band and not have to qualify it with genre and sub-genre labels, Halcyon Digest strikes me as a transitional album, one that went too far in one direction and yet not nearly far enough to complete said transition.

4 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Atlas Sound- Logos

Listening to Logos over the past few days, I've realized that I don't consume media (or, if you will, art) like I think I should. See, I've always felt that I should go into everything with an open mind: even if I've read reviews of a movie or album ahead of time, I should still try to approach it with just my critical lens and non-critical gut reactions in tow. Now I have to admit that I actively go into everything wanting to like it. I'm not sure if this is a better or worse way to do things. It might be amplifying my initial love or disappointment artificially, but then again, I reserve final judgment for later. This is why I don't write "previews" of any kind. Assuming I did, I might've dropped Logos right away and not gone back for more listens.

I'm struggling with a way to explain this as succinctly as possible, but Logos doesn't leave a good first impression. Bradford Cox has been on such a string of greatness in his main band, Deerhunter, and with his solo project. Atlas Sound, that it's hard not to hold this album to a very high standard. So that might be part of it. Also, at least on first listen, the album feels like a collection of Microcastle (and Weird Era Cont.) leftovers, skeletal demos, and two collaborations that sound less like "Atlas Sound meets Panda Bear/meets Stereolab" and more like "an Atlas Sound remix of a Panda Bear/Stereolab song." Compared to the surprisingly hook filled Microcastle or the consistently brilliant ambient-pop/electronic atmospheres of the previous Atlas Sound album, Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel, Logos offers no immediate delights beyond the aforementioned Panda Bear and Stereolab guests.

Since I wanted to like this album, I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did. Logos, like Deerhunter's Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP from earlier this year, is still a step down from Cox's previous releases, but it's still solid. Furthermore, my initial misgivings may just be a case of over-familiarity with the artist and his style. Once I listened to Logos a few more times past my initial disappointment, it began to reveal its subtle, interesting nature. Where Atlas Sound's last album, Let The Blind..., was a nuanced and dreamy piece of bedroom ambient-pop magic, this album is relatively straightforward bedroom indie rock. Logos may sound unfocused and unfinished at first--it did to me--but once I began to get what Cox was likely going for, these issues turn into assets. Namely, variety and stripped down songs. I don't know if it's actually true, but this album seems to have less layers of sound and instruments than the rest of Cox's work.

Logos retains the intimacy of the previous album while feeling less clinical and withdrawn. 'Sheila' contains one of Cox's simplest and warmest melodies, while the title track wraps his vocals in lo-fi fuzz. The irony of all of this is that once I got into Logos, I ended up liking the two collaborative tracks much less. 'Walkabout' and 'Quick Canal' are fine by any measure, but they sound too much like Panda Bear and Stereolab largely because the respective singers of both bands are at the heart of each song. The former kind of reminds me of a more 60s style remake of the electro-loop from Animal Collective's 'Water Curses', while the latter doesn't even feature Cox's voice (at least that I can recall) and only starts to feel like an Atlas Sound track when the song short circuits halfway through and a wall of shoegazer noise descends like a curtain.

Anyway, yes, Logos does feel like a step down from Cox's last Atlas Sound and Deerhunter releases, and the collaborative tracks, while good, kind of don't work for me in the context of the rest of the tracks. But it's still a very good album and one that fans of his work are sure to enjoy; they may just need to dial down the expectations or give it some time to fully appreciate it.

Shuffling II

Right, then. It's another installment of Shuffling!!

1) The State by Destroyer: I'm beginning to wonder if I was too hard on Trouble In Dreams when I reviewed it. Subsequent visits to it have revealed an album that is perfectly fine and borderline great on its own terms. But it bears the unfortunate mark of following in the wake of Destroyer's Rubies, an album that I trust future generations will dig from their parents' iTunes libraries or whatever future people are using just as I dug Bringing It All Back Home from my parents's record collections. Anyway, this song is really damn good. I adore the moment around the 2:20 mark where the organ dies away and Dan Bejar comes back in full force. It's magical and one of those effortlessly brilliant songwriting moments that I listen to so much music for in order to experience it as often as possible.

2) Jenny by Sleater-Kinney: One of my friends (Hi, Pat) had a girlfriend named Jenny. I also had a crush on a girl in junior high and her name was Jenny. Somehow I had forgotten about that until just now. Well, anyway, Sleater-Kinney are awesome as usual. This song is almost plodding for them, with a wall of background guitar noise and those crunchy mid 90s indie rock sounding guitars that make me weep with joy. I used to worry about whether or not I like this band so much because they were women, but screw it. It doesn't matter what sex you are if you make music this good.

3) Bite Marks by Atlas Sound: Just as John Lennon's voice had a distinctive sound when ran through a reverb unit, whatever effects are always on Bradford Cox's voice make it unique and all his own. He has a very specific way of singing that's both flat/emotionless and, paradoxically, very emotive and either beautiful or painful. In another decade or so, I think critics and music fans will come to the conclusion that the stuff he's doing within Deerhunter and with his 'solo' project Atlas Sound is essential noise pop, and to this decade what My Bloody Valentine was to the late 80s and early 90s. This song has the same quality that My Bloody Valentine did, of being painfully noisy/loud while also being pretty and entrancing.

4) 61e.CR by Autechre: I remember once drunkenly telling a friend on AIM that Aphex Twin/Richard D. James would be known and appreciated throughout history like Beethoven and the Beatles are today. I think what I meant was how forward thinking and visionary his music is. That kind of thing can equally apply to Autechre, who release an album every so often that is 5 to 10 years ahead of what we're capable of appreciating. I think that their modern music works best for me when I think of it in terms of experimental beatmaking and texture creation instead of the old ambient techno/IDM thing of rhythms and melodies. Draft 7.30 only made sense to me when I thought of it as like a series of austere sonic sculptures instead of an album of songs. Songs like '61e.CR' are named like obscure computer files or viruses and sound like Autechre recorded an album of straightforward techno with block rocking beats and then remixed the whole thing to a ridiculous degree. Still, this song manages a relatively follow-able beat, like funk or hip hop made by/for the cold logic of computers.

5) Winter by The Dodos: What got The Dodos's foot in the door was releasing an album that was compared to Animal Collective circa Sung Tongs. But what kept them in my parlor as they sold me on their music were songs like this, which have a pounding primitive rhythm and incessant acoustic guitar but never sound repetitive or annoying. If Animal Collective can/have approximated organic techno music--making repetitive, highly rhythmic music with acoustic instruments and other sounds that aren't typically associated with the genre--then The Dodos picked up the thread of Sung Tongs, making music that is entirely acoustic but operates like techno would. Kind of. Well, this is still a great song and apropos given the weather in Ohio lately.

The Best Albums of 2008 Part 1

16) Beck - Modern Guilt
While he hasn't been releasing flat out bad music, Beck's cache has been muddled in recent years by a series of merely good albums with few surprises. Though it wasn't on the same level of the return of Portishead, Modern Guilt was one of my main surprises of 2008. The album sounds fresh and new, borrowing from modern day hip hop and 60s pop/rock and producing a concise, polished album of great songs.

15) and 14) Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster.../We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
While I haven't gotten around to reviewing these yet, Los Campesinos have, with the two albums they released this year, proven themselves to be as consistent and catchy as indie pop bands twice their age. The band deftly walk the indie rock line between sincerity and irony: song titles like '...And We Roll Our Eyes In Unison' may read more like titles of bad MySpace poetry but in actuality are damn good songs crammed with ideas and hooks. Fans of Belle & Sebastian and Architecture In Helsinki need apply.

13) The Dodos - Visiter
You initial point of reference for this album will probably be Animal Collective circa Sung Tongs, but The Dodos are much less psychedelic and drone-y and much more energetic and buoyant. The songs match intricate acoustic guitar to spastic, flailing percussion that recalls all sorts of exotic African/non-Western influences. All of this is more impressive because The Dodos are only a duo yet produce full bodied music ripe with dense production.

12) Atlas Sound - Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel
While Deerhunter gave their noise/pop a restraint and polish with their album from 2008, Bradford Cox explored the electronic, ambient, and dream-pop headspaces with his 'solo' work under the Atlas Sound moniker. Let The Blind... makes for a hell of a headphones album, all glistening synthesizers, looped guitars, and longing, pained vocals. While not as immediately impressive as most of the albums on my list from this year, this one has been a return pleasure for me since its release very early in 2008.

11) Deerhoof - Offend Maggie
Deerhoof get better with time just as much as they stay good. Offend Maggie wisely adds a second guitarist to the line-up after an album with only one, bringing the band back to their 'classic' sound circa Milk Man and Runner's Four while still adding new wrinkles and twists to their now established sound. I suspect this new line-up have something even better ahead of them, but Offend Maggie is a damn good new beginning.

10) No Age - Nouns
Bands like No Age are the reason I haven't given up on music or hung myself. What I mean is, if you had asked me who No Age were at the start of 2008 I wouldn't have had a clue. Yet here I am, a few days before 2009 begins, and a band I had never heard of is on my list of best albums of 2008. This is why I love music: that endless discovery of new, great bands. That rush of new-ness coupled with excellence. Nouns is such a succinct, effortless slab of noise-pop that it's easy to underrate it in the grand scheme of things. My Bloody Valentine may never release another album or if they do it might be crap, but that's OK. Bands like No Age ensure that noise-pop will always have a future. And, err, a present.

9) Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
It's odd to revisit this music in the middle of winter because it's so quintessentially made for the warmer months, when you hear about breezes instead of wind chill factors and at the very worst you might have to wear jeans instead of shorts. Nevermind that this was one of the most hyped up and talked about releases of the first part of 2008. Nevermind all the comparisons to Afro-pop and Paul Simon's Graceland. Mind, though, how infectious and addictive this album is.

Album Vs. Solo Album

It's often the case that a band releases an album and a member of that band releases a solo album in close proximity. This can just as often make for an interesting compare/contrast comparison, revealing how much of a band's sound or brilliance is up to that person, or at the very least, how much the band can bring to their work.

Album: Deerhunter- Cryptograms (2007)
Solo Album: Atlas Sound- Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel (2008)
What Say You??: While Cryptograms adheres to a mixture of kraut rock, shoegazer, ambient, and noise pop, Bradford Cox's solo album under the Atlas Sound moniker falls closer to the dream pop, ambient, and electro-pop borders of the musical lands. You might be fooled into thinking Let The Blind Lead Those... is the next Deerhunter album because they sound close enough for unknowing ears to accept, but you'll definitely notice a difference in texture and mood.

Album: Animal Collective- Sung Tongs (2004)
Solo Album: Panda Bear- Young Prayer (2004)
What Say You??: I've gone into this in greater detail elsewhere, but Sung Tongs is Animal Collective's landmark release. This is not so much due to the fact that they were playing on mostly acoustic instruments but that they were writing actual songs--and catchy ones, at that. Panda Bear's solo album from that era takes the same starting aesthetic but goes in a different direction with it, featuring acoustic guitars almost exclusively, and all the while driven by Panda Bear's full range as a vocalist. It may be a step back toward abstraction versus songs, but it's more affecting for it.

Album: Broken Social Scene- Broken Social Scene (2005)
Solo Album: Kevin Drew- Spirit If...(2007)
What Say You?? Though released two years apart, and under the confusing label Broken Social Scene Presents..., the implication was that this would be a solo album, and so it wasn't unreasonable to expect that Spirit If... sound different from the last BSS album. However, I'll be damned if I could tell this wasn't a Broken Social Scene album. All of which confuses me, because it was recorded with seemingly the entire usual BSS crew, and it sounds like the sequel for their self titled album. But, whatever. I'm not complaining here--that album is better than You Forgot It In People in my opinion, and in this case, more of the same is "more of the awesome" in my book.

Album: The New Pornographers- Electric Version (2003)
Solo Album: A.C. Newman- The Slow Wonder (2004)
What Say You??: There isn't as much difference between these two albums as may initially appear. Though The Slow Wonder isn't the only "solo" album of a New Pornographer from this era, it would infect the band's sound most obviously. On their last album, Challengers, the band's sound evolved toward a more nuanced, orchestrated, and acoustic sound--not unlike The Slow Wonder. However, I don't really want that from the New Pornographers. What I want is something like Electric Version, which is a modern classic of indie pop/power pop that gets better and better with time, as do their other pre-Challengers releases. I also love The Slow Wonder though I love it expressly because it is a solo album, which implies something. But I digress. My case against Challengers will have to be made another day.