I feel motivated to write. And I like making lists.

...and so I will. This is a lame excuse on a Thursday night to document my favorite albums for the first half of the year 2010. And as an added bonus, I will also document the process of figuring out the list, so here goes!

Now will there be anything in the rest of June I'll be excited enough about to include in this? *checks various websites* PAPA ROACH GREATEST HITS COLLECTION?? FUCK YEAH!!! *moving on...* ok, now to make a list. This could take a while. *I should record everything I say as I'm talking to myself about this.* *quickly listening to before today and forgiveness rock record to see if they deserve a mention because i haven't gotten a chance to hear them yet but want to assess fair judgment* *getting there* We have 10! Now to rank them...

Done.

10. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor

On their first album, they gave us crazy, loud, drunken party songs that you didn't have to know how to dance to dance to and didn't have to know how to party to party to (although you probably wanted some basic partying knowledge first). Now, Patrick Stickles and co. have released a slightly more mature album, based on the Civil War (another thing to yell about), and on some of the tracks, actually calms down a bit. But when Titus Andronicus calms down, that doesn't give way to any worse musical output; rather, it translates to epic tracks such as "Four Score and Seven" and builder "To Old Friends and New." And speaking of epicness, all but two of this album's tracks are over 5 minutes long, most hanging around 7, and one chugging all the way out to 14. Shame we can't play half the tracks on air because they have foul mouths.

9. In the Year of the Pig - Jamón

I had never heard of this band before this album, and that sucks. Maybe it doesn't, because my lazy self has not gone out to purchase (or rip from the radio station) all of their other material, a lot of that due to this band being obscure as fuck and not being able to find their shit anywhere (I should probably try CDBaby.com). But in any case, this band has provided me with one of the most unique post-sludge-prog-metal amalgamations I've ever heard, and while it is rather inaccessible for the most part, there are things about it that may catch the ear to even the most casual of listeners. Take the first two tracks for example; sure, they may be grating and noisy (and delicious), but you don't even have to listen to the driving beat that propels the two songs, which flow seamlessly together, into a building, dare I say it, JAM. (Well, almost.) Even the casual listener could be entertained by this... OK, probably not, but if you like to dig and you dig noisy metal grooves, check this shit out.

8. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

Broken Social Scene's format for albums has been pretty steady since the 2002 masterpiece You Forgot It In People: rocker, jam, ambient filler, rinse and repeat. It works, and it makes for quite good records. What sets this one apart is that as the title implies, it is a rock record and therefore heavy on the rockers, which makes this better in more ways than it is worse than its predecessors (which by simple math makes it better, but it's quite hard to top YFI²P). In any case, math aside, Forgiveness Rock Record delivers most things between pounding and pretty, sometimes to the point of being a pretty waste of recording time, but those moments are very few and far between. Most of the pretty moments that are worth listening to in fact build into rock songs, such as opener "World Sick" and "Romance to the Grave." "Ungrateful Little Father" closes with prettiness, and the album's best track, "All to All," mixes their ambience with a peppy beat behind it to move it forward. So I guess this isn't entirely a "rock record," (it's hard to be straight up anything in a 19-member band) but it rocks enough to make it to this spot on my list, and therefore you should check it out, because I'm your local music authority, right?

7. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

This is the one where I take a band that's been around for a few years that I had never listened to before today (ha, ha) that everyone else seems to know better than me and likes their new album a lot and put said album on my halfway-through-the-year list and it'll seem like I gathered my opinion from everyone else and Pitchfork and the radio station because it's their job to make up my opinion for me. No, while it is true that this is the first I have ever heard of Ariel Pink, sadly enough, this had summer jam written all over it, and I appropriately hereby deem it to be awesome. This seems a lot to me like an album that would be conceived if the band Girls had the harmony of the Beach Boys and THEN wrote Pet Sounds. So why, you ask, is it not higher than #7? Well, while tracks like "Bright Lit Blue Skies" and the amazing "Round and Round" being on the same album could put any record on a list like this, it seems like Ariel got bored with the second half of the record. I wouldn't go so far as to call it "filler," as Side B still has its merits to it, but there seems to be a severe imbalance of power when it comes to full-album track balancing. But other than that little nitpick I have, this is definitely worth owning, so go buy it from your nearest record store (because I have no access to one here in Morgantown so I have to rely on the radio station).

6. Delorean - Subiza

Pitchfork hypewave rejoice! Yes, I have ranked these Spaniards' latest release on my list and that is because as I listened to it, not even minding the superjams that this band produces, this reminds me a good bit of one of my favorite records of the 1990s, Primal Scream's Screamadelica, which you should go listen to right now, then come back to read the rest of this. Done? OK. So you'll probably ask me now, what exactly links the two? Well, once you get through the first four awesome tracks, you'll hear the track "Simple Graces," whose piano riff and repeating soulful vocal sample you can draw easily from a couple of Screamadelica's more jammy tracks. The vocals, however, are VERY evocative of Animal Collective, so much as to question whether Avey Tare and Panda Bear just guest-sung the entire thing, which certainly wouldn't be a bad thing, but it also, for those who are tired of it, could lump this band in with all of the AC rippers that lots of hipsters seem to hate so much. But I would disagree, because though the vocals are extremely similar (seriously, listen to it, you'd think AC just went to the club), as my little parenthetical quip states, this is a club record, and it gets more danceable with each track, so look someday for some lazy DJ who you paid 10 bucks to play your daughter's anti-MTV sweet 16 to just spin this the whole way through (not likely). Bargain of the year.

5. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

Women as attractive as Joanna Newsom who make such beautiful music and are so weird, cultured, and artful should not be dating men on the level of Andy Samberg. Seriously, Joanna, when are we going out? Anyway, this foxy lady put out a hell of an epic album early this year that will most likely show up on my year-end list and not just this excuse to write about lots of music at once. Convenient that Newsom's latest effort contributes a LOT of music - 3 discs' worth - and it spans from accessible to weird to folky to bluesy and back again. My favorite off of the album, for example, "Good Intentions Paving Company," is a 7-minute track that starts off as a moderately fast-moving driving song and then gradually breaks down into a harmonized, jazzy tune that gives you a bright end of the road feeling, or maybe just a short break. The almost-bluesy "Soft as Chalk," while as slow as most of the rest of the album, stands out as it features Joanna's eccentric voice in all of its quirkiness in front of frantic piano and percussion. The rest of the tracks could not be deemed as filler, but there are a lot of them. Probably better if you give it a listen.

4. Beach House - Teen Dream

I'm a big Grizzly Bear fan, and if you are, you should check out their friends in this band and their new awesome record they put out at the beginning of this year. Steadily building on their ambient pop sound since they first released their self-titled, their major-indie-label (I can call Sub Pop that, right?) debut and third record overall is their best and most accessible, and also features what one could refer to as "jams." Namely, single "Norway," one of the best tracks of the year so far, gave a new use to the vocalization "eh eh eh" that I must say is used rather superior to Rihanna's usage of the phrase, and while it is not a club jam by any means (this is after all Beach House), you may find yourself subtly bobbing your head to this one instead of just sitting there, thinking, smoking whatever leaves you may have rolled up in your recycled rolling papers. The rest of this record also features more upbeat tempos, and even what could be termed a "driving song" in "Used to Be." So as Beach House gets out of the bedroom and into the sunlight, we see a more happy yet just as thoughtful album come from them, and I personally can't wait for what they'll do next. Sucks I missed the show in Pittsburgh though.

3. The Depreciation Guild - Spirit Youth

When I saw that two of the members of this band were members of a band who put out one of my favorite releases last year (The POBPAH), I immediately got excited. Then I wanted to make a radio set out of tracks that had the word "dream" in it, so along with Weezer's "Only In Dreams" and possibly my favorite track of the year so far, the Apples in Stereo's "Dream About the Future," I played "Dream About Me," and goddamn if that didn't also compete for a spot on my top tracks list. This entire record, in fact, is packed with jams. You have the first two tracks to warm you up, then a break with the third track, then "Dream About Me;" really, this one doesn't give you much of a break in the action except for on 3 of its tracks, two of which are near and at the end of the record. Spirit Youth doesn't skip out on its more ambient tracks though; there may be less Game Boy, but you're instead taken through its world of slow Cure songs with more reverb. The rest can be more attributed to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, which is saying a lot for what was once just another Brooklyn indie band and hopefully will become a band that I get to see more of (123, please? They're not too big yet...). So if you're not convinced yet, go and convince yourself; you won't be disappointed.

2. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

When you can have as complex lyrics as James Murphy writes stick in your head, you know you're onto something good. "Pow Pow" may feature the longest lyric sheet I've ever seen in a dance track, and it seemed like he improvised the song when he came to Bonnaroo (because he was SO FUCKING DRUNK), but James Murphy has once again worked his genius and created a record of dance music so great that it would seem a crime to not crown it the best album of the year, Animal Collective-style (though if you know me, you'll know why this is only #2). Even like Animal Collective's trump card, this record's first track starts out slow, then halfway through the lights come on, the disco ball starts spinning and you have your favorite old LCD back again. (Yes, Mr. Murphy, that was an age joke.) The next track, "Drunk Girls," could even get a frat house fist-pumping (and it seemed like it did at Bonnaroo), because those bros would probably not care about the all-important deepness James Murphy will throw into any party song that makes an appearance just at the end of the track. The rest of the record is pretty much what you'd expect from a James Murphy creation; the sexy dance jam ("One Touch"), the token brooding track ("Somebody's Calling Me"), the other jams that replace would-be filler, and the one-two middle-of-the-order power move that just blows the rest out of the water. Apart from "Pow Pow," my favorite track here simply because of how ridiculous it is, "All I Want" and "I Can Change" stand like twin towers above most of the rest of this record. "All I Want" is what would happen if "All My Friends" and "Someone Great" had a baby; not necessarily a track with a "dance beat," but a track with deep lyrics that just builds and builds until it explodes at the end in a cry of "Take me home!!!" "I Can Change," however, takes LCD on the path of a surprisingly obvious love song, which takes home the prize for the funkiest beat on the record and also doesn't let its blunt lyrics give way to cheesiness. No matter what is your jam, anyone will find something to love about this record, and I feel very lucky to have been able to see these guys at Bonnaroo, because James Murphy is breaking the band up. What the fuck, man.

1. Jónsi - Go

Did you really think I'd pick anything else? Here's a review. Go listen. Go be amazed. Go-od night.

*insomnia defeats sarcasm*

OK, so here's what I have to say about Go. Remember all those sample-based albums that came out in the past 2 decades that were so awesome? Remember how they all seemed to create a genre of their own? Remember the time around when Ágætis Byrjun came out that Jónsi said that Sigur Rós was out to change the way people thought about music forever? Well, Jónsi is back, on his own, creating this decade'sÁgætis Byrjun, this time in his own style. I'm not saying I've already crowned the best album of the decade, but goddamn is this an alright start (get the joke?). This record is everything Sigur Rós was trying to be when they moved in their poppy direction, except this time, with no other bandmates to moderate the democratic writing process, Jónsi took full control of his ship and turned what started out as what was quoted to be a "mellow, acoustic record" into THIS, which is entirely jubilant, happy, wild, crazy, childlike, angelic, running out of adjectives, the whole way through, and then some. Even on the slower tracks when Jónsi seems to take a break, he's still drawing you in with the sheer brilliance of his musicianship and his still-fresh-sounding Icelandic beauty that is imbued into each song that he produces. It's as if Jónsi took the music of Sigur Rós and rebirthed it into that angel fetus from the cover of the 2000s' greatest record and this time shot it up with a whole shit-ton of caffeine and adrenaline that just made it go! As the album title implies, this record goes and goes and goes like the Energizer bunny, just brimming with excitement, and even as it seems to slow down on closer "Hengilás," you're still coming down off of that rush that was started by the album's raucous opening and hung high up in the air with penultimate track "Grow Till Tall." As Jónsi states, "in the end, we'll fall," but this music could probably pick anyone back up, and for that, along with countless other reasons, Go runs away with the title of best album of the first half of 2010, and it will be a daunting task to top it come December.

Honorable mentions:
The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night
Crystal Castles - s/t II
Four Tet - There is Love in You
Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
Vampire Weekend - Contra
How to Destroy Angels - s/t
Nik & the Central Plains - s/t (no bias here, this was the shit)

A few tracks from 2010 Part 1 that I think you should listen to:

Gorillaz - "On Melancholy Hill"
The Apples in Stereo - "Dream About the Future"
Jónsi - "Go Do," "Boy Lilikoi"
LCD - "Pow Pow," "All I Want"
The Depreciation Guild - "Dream About Me"
Beach House - "Norway"
Nik & the Central Plains - "Courtyard Dreams"
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - "Round and Round," "Bright Lit Blue Skies"
Kings Go Forth - "Don't Take My Shadow"
Donora - "I Think I Like You"
The Besnard Lakes - "Light Up the Night"
Figure out the rest for yourself.

In closing, good job, musicians of the first half of the year; let's hope this doesn't go downhill.

- T.K.

Album Review: In the Year of the Pig - Jamón

Score: 9.1/10.0

2010 has seen an unsettlingly small smattering of truly awesome metal albums. We've had High on Fire, Ihsahn, Bison B.C. (maybe), and Shining (which is probably the only other metal release this year offering something new), but really that's about it. Everything else seems to either blatantly ape an already-hip genre or fall short of replicating a classic (or it's just some generic shit for the masses). And then, we have Jamón, and oh how refreshingly unique it is.

Right from the first track you know this is a sludge album, so that might get you thinking, everyone seems to do sludge these days, haven't I heard this before? The first couple minutes of the 10-minute opener "You Want to Live, but We Will Die Free," if you're not into epic tracks, might dupe you into thinking these guys are trying to lovingly rip an extra noisy Isis. Now, an Isis comparison is a decent one, but as the beat locks down through the next couple of minutes, you have a song that would be on some mix CD that a metalhead would put in his car (think Merzbow meets Motörhead), and with that there is something awesome. As the track progresses you have the background noise, the driving beat, and the ever-so-subtly low-in-the-mix vocals that one would otherwise find irritating, but work marvelously here.

Then comes the anthemic would-be single, "For the Glory of Man," which is easily the album's most accessible track. With this track you have melodic metal done right; not generic-sounding death metal with somewhat subtle melodic basslines, but what even some uncultured bro would actually be able to define as enjoyable music, as throughout the track you hear harmonized vocals, almost poppy guitar riffs, but still the same noisy sludge you expected from the first track. And this motherfucker builds - going from calm, harmonized vocals into a screaming, noisy guitar assault a bit more than halfway through the track that clearly displays the post-sludge influence that permeates this entire album.

I'm not going to sit and write five track reviews (although I could, as the album only has five tracks), but once you get through the first two, you get the general idea of what kind of ride you're in for, and you still have about 42 minutes left on the album. This record flows beautifully; plus, there's something here for every metal fan to enjoy, and even a few things here for those who aren't normally accustomed to this type of music. You can draw a lot of influence from various bands - to name a few, Isis, Neurosis, and Boris (see a theme here?); but as you take a closer listen, you'll notice that even some of the pioneers of heavy metal itself get their dues paid here (note: "And Remember the Good Times"). There is not one relatable band in particular that stands out here though, which makes Jamón something new, unique, and the best metal album of 2010 so far.