OK finally caught up with all I'm going to listen to from last year, so will now unveil my thoughts and the results.
Close to making the top three, but no cigar.
Lightning Bolt's Hypermagic Mountain is a pretty fierce album, and is really good, I'd recommend a listen to it by anyone, and was probably a close fourth this (last) year. You have to stand up while it's playing, and the biggest praise I can give it is it gives you itchy legs, you need to get up 'n' jump around playing 'air drums' while it's on. Only criticism is it was a bit overlong for me and maybe not that different from Wonderful Rainbow.
Earth's Hex or Printing in the Infernal Method is also a goodie. Really mellow and quite elegaic, it 's really nicely packaged too with some great Steve O'Malley work on archive piccies of the American west as settlers desecrated their way along to the coast and peace and love. That the album symbolises all that really effectively musically is a big testament. It's not for everyone though and is a bit slow, so you need to be focussed to play it (does that make sense?).
Top 3
3. Woodbine Best Before End. This is a really good follow up to their great but slightly disappointing first album (1999's Woodbine). It captures their live 'feel' better than the first one, and is a great collection of songs. I Feel Fine, Me Me Me, Ban Everything, Tea Time Assortment and Cope particularly affected me, they're really good, and like I've said before are a great hangover band, being quietish but slightly snidey-sarky off-kilter. Hard to describe, but worth a try.
2. Goldie Lookin' Chain Safe as Fuck. Is a great rap album, period. OK thematically it's really similar to Greatest Hits but it's funny observant and creative. There is a clever mind behind them make no mistake. I would argue that the last 3 tracks (Short Term, Paranoia and Sister) are hard to better anywhere as a three in a row. Only criticism I could level at the album is it's not much of a progression I suppose, and maybe I am partial because it portrays my own SE Wales lad culture, but bloody hell they're funny. If nothing else it's the album I play more often than any other from last year.
Album of the Year Sunn 0))) Black 1. Am I getting predictable?? Anyway I was kind of gearing not to like this as I worry about O'Malley's dalliances with Norwegian death metal bands and their Aryan supremacy spouting, as well as his use of war images that could be taken either way (cf. the War memorial of a thousand skulls on this album). Anyway this is a definite development from the White gigs/albums. OK it's trad metal territory, but the sense of gloom is amped up. And as I've said before Sunn 0))) are the logical conclusion to all rock music. The textural sub-bass sculpturing Greg and Steve put out on this are awesome, and they've found more left-field collaborators that again expand the idea. No downside for me, the fact that you'll love them or hate them, no inbetweens, adds to their attraction. Marvellous, and dooooooooooomy. Top cock, looking forward to seeing them next week.
Comments