I may be the only person to not think Gurren Lagaan was the best anime of 2007. Not even an honorable mention. I await your death threats.

Honorable Mentions

Darker than Black

I’ve already said a lot on this matter here. Darker than Black excels at deliberate obfuscation. The viewer isn’t allowed in on the world’s secrets because the viewer is supposed to feel like someone who lives in the anime’s world. No one knows the secrets behind the gates. No one knows why contractors exist. Not even contractors know why they have to pay renumerations or why they have strange powers. At the same time, very few people seem to be seeking answers to these questions. Even people in the know seem to be more concerned with stopping the threat of contractors and keeping everything in the shadows rather than trying to solve the mystery. This is especially true for the main characters. Hei, Mao, and company don’t care about solving the mystery because it isn’t relevant to their personal goals.

Most anime series play upon some aspect of discovery or revelation. Someone, usually the main character, is seeking to discover some lost fact, trying to find a missing person, find their purpose in life, or otherwise come to some revelation. While Hei is seeking the truth behind his sister’s death/disappearance in the first season, and Suou is seeking her mother in the second season, Darker than Black is not about these quests. The overarching theme of the series is not “discovery.” Darker than Black’s theme falls more along the lines of H. P. Lovecraft’s work, which is to say that Darker than Black is about mankind’s futile attempts to fight against powers beyond their comprehension.

While Steven King’s The Mist doesn’t function within the Lovecraftian/Cthulhu mythos proper, it functions as a perfect mirror for Darker than Black. In both The Mist (the movie version at least) and Darker than Black, “gates” appear on Earth. With the appearances of these gates arrive forces of nature that tower over humanity. In The Mist, various horrific creatures bellow forth and wreak havoc across Maine. In Darker than Black, there’s a far more subtle invader: the contractor. Contractors possess abilities beyond human potential. Many can manipulate energy to violent effects. Some can perform supernatural feats like teleportation or time manipulation. Every contractor is “superior” to a human in terms of their ability to compete, much like how the creatures in The Mist are seemingly far more adapted to the whole “survival of the fittest” battle and readily kill and devour humans in no time flat.

Unlike The Mist, and more like the traditional Lovecraftian story, contractors exist just beyond humanity’s sight. The average human, at least in the first season, is unaware of the existence of contractors. The same is the case in a Lovecraftian story; humans are unaware that beings that have existed for eons dwell in the far reaches of time and space and are awaiting the time when “the stars are right” to rise up and vanquish Earth and all life that dwells within. And much like a story from the Cthulhu Mythos, when a normal human is confronted with this reality they are helpless to do anything about it. Misaki and her fellow cops are well aware of the existence of contractors, but they can do little to stop their actions. Try as they might, but their mere guns and training do little to stem the violence perpetrated by contractors who choose to use their abilities for actions we humans deem to be wrong or illegal.

Much like a Lovecraftian ”hero,” Misaki is obsessively pursuing “BK201,” and like most Lovecraftian heroes she will lose herself in the process. While she doesn’t succumb to the madness of those that see “that which man is not meant to know,” she sees almost everything that she believes in destroyed in the process. The further she investigates into the contractor mythos, she finds that her superior is a conspirator in a vile plot, she’s all but forced to leave her life behind to pursue her goal, and she sees many innocent people die at the hands of forces that may as well be writhing masses of tentacles raping your mind and soul.

This sense of hopelessness also leads into the way that Darker than Black mirrors the Cold War. With the advent of contractors, countries seem to be vying for control of their powers and use them to infiltrate other countries to obtain secrets, kill targets, and carry out other deeds which a mere human couldn’t. At the same time these contractors are a constant threat to national security and the safety of the public. The race by the countries of the world to accumulate contractors and use them to achieve their own goals is like the nuclear arms race of the Cold War, and the ever-present threat of annihilation is prevalent in Darker than Black. The incident at Heaven’s Gate that wiped out much of South America is akin to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This let those in the know discover the true power of contractors: they’re the new “weapons of mass destruction.”

And with the Cold War came an oppressive, fatalistic sense of impending doom. When will the nukes come? Will we survive? Is there any hope? These questions are also asked by those that know about the contractors’ potential for destruction. These powerful “weapons” may aid in getting what we want, but they’re also devices that can lead to the deaths of everyone on Earth. So yeah, contractors are a clever allusion to the sort of nuclear fears that are often touched upon in Japanese literature and pop culture. The idea isn’t dealt with using the typical heavy hand of Grave of the Fireflies and other similar stories, but the idea is there.

Darker than Black is about the horrors of a world out of humanity’s control and the fact that humanity willfully allowed the world to come to this point. Humanity read from the Necronomicon and unleash eldritch horrors upon the world and promptly ran to its corner to cower.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Much like Darker than Black, I’ve already said a good deal about Zetsubou in another post. Unlike Darker than Black, there isn’t much left to say.

This being a comedy, there’s only so many ways one can say “that was funny.” One thing I haven’t touched upon is the way Zetsubou thoroughly destroys the concept of the harem anime. Zetsubou isn’t a parody of the genre. Parody implies a certain fondness of the source material, with the humor coming from the way the source’s stereotypes are poked fun of and teased. I see none of the fondness that one sees in a parody in Zetsubou’s treatment of the harem anime.

Each female character is mentally disturbed in some manner. Even Nami is a little touched in the head due to the fact that she’s pathologically, obsessively “normal.” She adheres to every stereotype of a “normal girl” despite said stereotype cannot truly exist unless someone deliberately goes out of their way to adhere to its tropes. Every other girl has her own problem. Chiri is obsessed with order and predictability. Meru refuses to communicate through any means other than text messages and even then she usually communicates in vulgar, insulting ways. Certain girls have fetishes that interfere with their abilities to function properly in society. It isn’t normal to want to pull the tails of animals or to take one’s yaoi fandom to extremes. Kaere outright has a split personality, and both personalities are illogical extremes.

There’s nothing redeeming about any of these girls. They all need serious psychiatric help. And that’s a fundamental criticism of the harem genre. The only way a woman could be driven to the sorts of extremes that are seen by members of an anime’s “harem” is if said woman was mentally ill. More often than not such characters have to endure actions at the hands of the “lead” male that border on sexual harassment and abuse, and despite the fact that they often show displeasure at being subjected to such actions they always run back to the object of their irrational obsession and ask for more. This isn’t a mere abusive relationship that they can’t escape because the male character often has no leverage or ability to pull back the woman. There’s no threat of physical violence. Tenchi doesn’t threaten to stab Ryoko with his space sword thing. At the same time, in order to compete for the affections of the main male these female characters are subjected to experiences that may as well be outright physical violence.

The only logical conclusion that can explain why a female would remain in such a terrible “relationship” when there’s other options and when the object of their desires has no way to keep her from running away is mental illness. These characters have to have serious issues that blind them from reality, and Zetsubou confronts this fact head-on. There’s no way in hell that any of these girls would be interested in a suicidal, neurotic, pathetic man like Zetsubou other than the fact that they’re just as sick as Zetsubou. That’s exactly the case.

The series isn’t poking fun at harem anime, it’s exposing the genre for often being the source of exploitive trash. While there are examples of harem anime that don’t fall to these levels, the genre has that potential and often meets and exceeds that potential. Zetsubou is a criticism of the genre and does that criticizing through humor.

Best of the Year

Baccano!

Baccano reaches the top spot for many of the same reasons Haruhi reached the top spot in 2006. Baccano is a masterpiece in terms of narrative storytelling. The series gives us the ending in the first episode, after which it proceeds to jump in time across several years to explain the events that led up to the ending given in the first episode.

Much like Haruhi, by giving us an ending that we don’t quite comprehend, we’re drawn into the story. How can this guy have his finger cut off, only to have them reattach themselves? Why are all these people meeting up and talking like they’ve known each other for a long time? Why is it that seemingly unrelated characters are investigating the events that took place on this train? By giving us the resolution without the events leading up to said resolution, we’re given a series of questions that will be answered throughout the series. It’s sort of like those old “I Spy” games you’d play in the car. You’d have a list of stuff you’re looking for on a Bingo-like grid, and whoever got a “Bingo” first won. That’s Baccano, to a certain extent. The only catch being that everyone hits that “Bingo” at the same time: the last episode.

Baccano is also the best pulp anime series since Cowboy Bebop. It plays upon the trappings of fantasy, ghost stories, gangster flicks and noir, and even throws into the mix a little modern stuff like Highlander. It’s a similar cocktail to Bebop, with the only exception being a lack of truly great music. Despite having a soundtrack that’s merely good, Baccano manages to be just as powerful a fusion of genre archetypes.

Baccano also has one of the coolest anime characters ever: Ladd Russo. He may not be as awesome as Sakiyama from Air Master, but he’s pretty damn close. He has such a gleeful manner to him. He genuinely loves violence. He’s sadism made incarnate. De Sade would be proud of him. He’s also one of the all-time great badasses of anime. He’s a normal human being, but he’s capable of going toe-to-toe with two particular characters who have significant advantages over him in terms of non-human potential. To say anything more would be spoiling things, but he pulls off some impressive moves towards the end of the series. And he does it all not though force of will, like many similar “badass normal” types, but through joy. He enjoys murder and pain and destruction, and it’s this love of mayhem that grants him his power.

Baccano was the most fun I had watching an anime series this decade. Haruhi might edge it out if I were to rank all of these series, but that’s due to Haruhi being slightly more clever in terms of its narrative tricks. But in terms of sheer joy, Baccano is top dog.

Also-Rans

Gurren Lagaan, Moyashimon, Lucky Star

Fully two-thirds of members from Ottawa indie bands who in 2007 were listed by popular blogs as “the hottest” of the year have this year made the hottest list of them all: the Government Electronic Directory Services (GEDS). From humble but portentous blogosphere mention, they have advanced boldly to full-time positions with Assisted Human Reproduction Canada, The Dairy Commission, Customs and Revenue, Privy Council Office, and a host of other government departments.

“When I tell my friends I’m in the ‘Laurentian Pilotage Authority,’ they totally think it’s a band,” says former lead guitarist for The Absinthe Killers. “But the best part is now I can buy groceries, and I’ll totally have a pension after like 45 years.” Many former indie rockers, like Kelly Greerland, formerly of the Concrete Blankets and at present an Admin Assistant, concur. “The NAFTA Secretariat … yeah, that would have been a great band name for us. I guess if you think of GEDS like a giant MySpace page, but without the downloads and pictures, there’s still an element of fame you can achieve in the Government of Canada.”

A lot of people have devoted a lot of ink to praising this record, and I can’t disagree with any of them. It is strikingly different from Young Prayer. It does evoke Pet Sounds. It is a romp through musical history. It is deeply personal and worth of the “Best of 2007” tag. There is no sense in summarizing the tracks or dissecting the sound. The charm is not conveyed in words (see album art). Simply put, it is a marvelous, marvelous record.

That being said, every time you listen to this record it sounds different. It deserves monthly, if not weekly revisiting. I remember for the first year I had this record I could barely wrap my head around it. I thought I had it all figured out, absorbed even. It sounded so lush, so layered, so effortless, and so perfect. Little by little, ever so slowly, all those thoughts changed shape.

It is sparse now, simple and minimalist and heavily labored. It shows its seams like deep scars. It’s like the record was packaged with an accompanying haze, an obscuration to distract from itself and propel the listener’s focus down this deep rabbit hole, a dreamland of false doors, back alleys and dead ends. With time and revolutions the haze slowly dissipates; the false doors are painted on, the back alleys just exercises in artist’s perspective, and the dead ends all tie together. You see it. You finally see it, and it’s even better than before. It is by no means flawless, and that’s what makes it perfect.

The Portland International Film Fest is still going strong. Don’t miss your chance to see amazing films from around the world, now through Feb 21st.

And after the film fest is over, don’t miss out on these movies from previous festivals:
 

Avenue Montaigne (France)
A diverse set of strangers from all walks of life are transformed by their interactions in a chic bistro.

Beaufort (Israel)
Based on the book by Ron Leshem, a group of young soldiers struggles to protect a fortress in Lebanon that is sacred to both Israelis and Arabs.
Border Cafe aka Transit Cafe (Iran)

Flouting tradition, a recent widow takes over the running of her dead husband’s truck stop cafe.
Days of Glory (Algeria)
Four Algerian men who enlist in the French army during WWII find themselves fighting discrimination from their fellow soldiers in addition to Nazi oppression.
Fido (Canada)
A fifty-style “boy and his dog” movie. Only the pet in this case is a six-foot-tall rotting zombie who eats the next-door neighbor.
Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (Bosnia)
A touching film of a mother and daughter in post-war Bosnia struggling to raise the money for the daughter’s school trip.
In Bruges (Great Britain)
A couple of London hit men ordered hide out after a botched job make very bad tourists & make their boss very unhappy.

The Italian (Russia)

After discovering his mother is alive, a 6-year-old runs away from the orphanage to find her.
The Lives of Others (Germany)

A surveillance officer finds himself increasingly obsessed with the subjects of his surveillance.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (France)
In the tradition of Maxwell Smart and Inspector Clouseau, comes a tale of a secret agent who succeeds in spite of his own ineptitude.

Priceless (France)
In this romantic tale of double-crosses and star-crossed lovers, Audrey Tatou stars as a gold digger who mistakenly targets a penniless bartender.
The Secret Life of Words (Spain)
A hearing impaired woman on an isolated oil rig cares for a burn victim who’s lost his sight, but who helps her break her self-imposed silence.
Tell No One (France) 
In this French horror sensation, eight years after his wife was murdered, Alexandre again finds himself a suspect when two bodies are left near where his wife’s body was found. The mystery deepens when Alex receives an anonymous email with a video clip that seems to show his wife is still alive.
The Trap (Serbia)
A film about the moral wasteland of a post-Milosevic society in which a father is forced to choose between life and the death of his own child.
Under the Same Moon (Mexico)
A young boy sets out on a perilous journey to find his mother in America at the same time she comes looking for him.
The Violin (Mexico)
A farmer and his grandson use their status as musicians as a cover for their support of the peasant guerrilla movement, hiding munitions in their cornfield and fooling the soldiers. 

The Year My Parents Went On Vacation (Brazil)
A 12-year-old boy fends for himself when his parents disappear in 1970s communist Brazil.

If you’re a fan of foreign films, you’re in for a treat this month. The Portland International Film Festival is scheduled for February 5-21. PIFF will include scores of feature films, documentaries, and shorts from 44 countries. The festival will also include 28 films that are Oscar submissions in the Best Foreign Language Film category. With so many selections, there’s something for everyone.

If you can’t make it to the festival, or just can’t get enough foreign films, You can still enjoy many of the films from previous festivals on DVD. Here are a few of my favorites:

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Romania)
Two college roommates find their plans spinning out of control as they try to obtain a black market abortion.
Amazing Grace (Great Britain)
Portrays politician William Wilberforce’s efforts to abolish the British slave trade and John Newton’s writing of the famous hymn.
Away From Her (Canada)
A man deals with putting his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife of 40 years into a care facility, heartbreakingly acted by Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent.
The Band’s Visit (Israel)
When a policemans band on route from Egypt to Israel for a cross-cultural exchange concert gets on the wrong bus, they end up stuck in a small town overnight.  What follows is a charming night of  confessions and quiet connections with the townsfolk .
Bothersome Man (Norway)
A man finds himself in a city where everything seemed oddly disjointed and people seem divorced from their emotions. So when he finds a crack in a wall through which light and music seep, he decides to find a way through.
Into Great Silence (Germany)
The director lived in a monastery in the French Alps for sixth months to make this documentary. The result is an intimate, meditative immersion in the monks’ everyday lives.
Men At Work (Iran)
What happens when four immovable men meet an irresistible object? A comic tale of four friends who become obsessed with dislodging a rock spire gradually disintegrates into a tale of recrimination and betrayal.
Mongol (Kazakhstan/Mongolia)
A sprawling epic, lushly filmed, chronicling the early life of the man who would become known as Genghis Khan.
Offside (Iran)
Because women are banned from sporting events, the girls who want to watch a soccer game have to sneak in, disguised as boys. When they’re caught and rounded up, the girls find themselves spending the exciting game listening only to the distant cheers, guarded by bored soldiers who wish they too were at the game.
The Page Turner (France)
After having her childhood dream of being a concert pianist crushed by a famous pianist, 10 years later Melanie insinuates herself into the pianist’s family to wreak her revenge.
Ten Canoes (Australia- Aboriginal)
Based on an Aboriginal myth, and alternating between color and black-and-white, Ten Canoes tells an age-old story of forbidden love, betrayal, and revenge.
Where’s Molly (US- documentary)
When he was six years old, Jeff Daly’s younger sister was taken away and his family refused to talk about it. It took him 47 years to learn the truth that she’d spent most of her life in the Fairview Home for the mentally ill in Salem Oregon.
XXY (Argentina)
Puberty is hard enough for most teenagers, but 15-year-old Alex is a special case. Born with the sex organs of both males and females, and raised as a girl, Alex must now choose how to live from now on.

The previous two times I put together the compilation posts (found here and here) I never covered a whole year.  This time it is different in that I was able to include a whole year – a calendar year, no less!  The following are posts from 2007 (listed chronologically) that I feel are some of my better posts.  The choices we’re difficult and I was surprised by some I chose to include and equally surprised by some I chose to exclude.  Needless to say, there is plenty to be read in the archives that would be well worth the time to look for it.

The  first post of the year to be chosen concerned a fairly large event – the hanging of Saddam Hussein.  Saddam Hangs…Video at 11 is a commentary on the nature of government and force on a mass scale.

The next selected posts takes a different tack; instead of looking outward to examine the world, I looked inward to myself.  What Lies Beneath the Foamy Head of the ‘Stout? is a pretty succinct analysis of myself and some labels I always try to self-apply.

Back to the external evaluations, I commented on a series of NPR stories about underground economies.  This post got good responses, like many of the posts of this time period – probably because I posted more frequently.  Underground Agorism: A Contradiction That Needs Fixed and the subsequent post, The Black and Blue of Black and Gray Markets, all revolve around the same book and various media outlets reviews and discussion about it.

Bread and circuses have nothing on a Gourmet PB&J, a post about expectation and being sold short.  This one triggered discussion on and off the blog.

Of all the posts picked from 2007 (and all the posts written since this blogs inception),  Tearing Down the Wall Between Church and State is probably pretty high in the running as an all-time favorite.  I am tickled at the concept I discuss and the point I make, especially in regard to the title.  I also think I did a fairly good job at conveying this concept in this post; thus, a favorite.

The concept discussed in Anarchy: Much More Than Nothing is held in equally high regard and expounded upon further in subsequent posts (that may not have made this list).  I have included this post because it was originally written for another blog and reading it is like watching the idea formulate and coalesce into something right before your eyes.

Collander Accuses Kettle of Not Holding Water (Also Black Adds the Pot) was a exploration of the relationship between concepts and the reality in which we attempt to apply them.  Specifically, it was questioning my job and my role in contributing to the State in some way.

The concept explored in Have Job, Will Power was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I had my fingers crossed, as well.  I had just read Hemingway and was attempting to emulate his style in the opening paragraph.  A fun read, IMO.

This next post I’m not including for the post itself so much as the faux narrative of the fake home improvement book I put in the comments.  If a Blogger Blogs Amongst The Noise and Nobady Hears It, Is He Really Writing? is just another examination of the egoistic nature of this forum.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly – or even sporadically – knows I use a LOT of metaphor.  Stale as Office Coffee is one extended metaphor regarding elections, hope, and change.  There are several posts in 2007 and 2008 in this same vein (with different metaphors) due to the presidential election circus.

Like my introspection in the second post listed above, “Identity” Theives: The Joke Is On Them! is an exploration of identity and the dialectical opposite mistaken for identity in our serialized world.

In yet another post about the election, Meanwhile Down at the Crossroads expounds upon the old fable of selling one’s soul to the devil, and explains why it would be better to deal with the devil than candidates for public office.

Finally, in a post that put kind of a fun spin to a more serious topic, No Votes For Non-Believers is included because I found the writing clever.

Even after better than a year, I still find it hard to narrow them down to just a dozen or so posts that deserve to be labeled “best of”;  but here they are.  It is my hope that a brand new home for this blog would come online before I find the need to post another entry.  All I need is the time to work it out, Iguess.  Keep your eyes and browers peeled for that announcement.  In the mean time, read up; it’s on me!

Here’s what’s left now that the dust has settled:

10. Amiina – Kurr

End-of-year music list season is in session, and I don’t typically finalize anything until just after the year is over, so I figured I would post my list from last year.  I’d elaborate more about my picks with descriptions, but I always think too hard about it and this would never get posted as a result.  

Normally (for me), I think lists like these are bullshit because there are a lot of albums from late in the year that I don’t get a chance to listen to it’s a few months into the next year.  Therefore, I’ll post these today, and then post what my actual favorite albums of 2007 are after having another year to digest everything…..and trust me, they’re quite a bit different.

10. Justice – †

9. Amiina - Kurr

8. The Besnard Lakes – Are the Dark Horse

7. Handsome Furs – Plague Park

6. Okkervil River - The Stage Names

5. Radiohead - In Rainbows

4. Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls

3. Panda Bear - Person Pitch

2. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

1. Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover

So, annually, I do this thing. I call it “I WRITE LOTS ABOUT ALBUMS”. Basically, it’s when I take the albums I liked most from a year and, well, write lots about them. I don’t dive into indie kid obscurity or Billboard popular music charts. The secondary reason I do this (the main is it’s fun) is to provide albums that I feel are hallmarks of life in 2008, not just music. Of course, my attachment to music is a little weirder than most, but that’s another long winded post.

However, 2008 isn’t over. Last year, I did an album by album run down of things as I listened to them, but that ran out of steam about halfway through the year, and I ended up just putting something incredibly long winded. This year, though, I’m going to start the runup with a recap of 2007’s list, and how I would change it in retrospect. Everyone makes mistakes, and I made a few both with albums I missed, and others that didn’t age as well. So here’s the top ten from 2007, with short reviews, after the break.

1. Battles – Mirrored : Inspiring & Genuinely Exciting

2. Radiohead – In Rainbows : The light at the end of the experimental tunnel

3. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible : Like watching a bomb explode in slow motion, and getting hit with shrapnel as the last

4. Neurosis – Given to the Rising : Return to form but with lessons learned from TEoES

5. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver : Elegance through blunt, dancable minimalism.

6. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Some Loud Thunder : The audio equal of seeing the evil side of a friend for the first time.

7. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – Living With The Living : Hopeful punk with killer lyricism

8. The National – Boxer : Sounds like that hour between night and sunrise, where things are visible but it’s still dark

9. Kanye West – Graduation : I don’t even know where to start.

10. Gogol Bordello – Super Taranta! : The best excuse to go back on tour

And now, with all that out of the way, I present to you the I WRITE LOTS ABOUT 2007 ALBUMS 2008 extravaganza! With a revised top ten and reasoning! The last one read from top to bottom, so this one will read from bottom to top! For the old albums, I’ll just post the reviews I originally wrote.

Justice – Cross
Link: D.A.N.C.E. (live from Jimmy Kimmel)

Every time I play this album for someone, the connection drawn first is Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, based on the sounds of “Genesis.” As it advances, the album morphs into an entity all it’s own. I look at the album as a golem. It’s made from familiar elements, and there are recognizable tricks and features, but as it moves toward you with it’s mission- to make you dance till the sun comes up- you’re more concerned about that look on it’s face than all the things it’s made of. What I’m getting at is that while it’s familiar in construction, almost to a fault, it’s put together so well that you can’t help but enjoy it.

Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Link: Don’t Make Me A Target

This was my first Spoon album, so I’m not gonna make any “in comparison to Gimme Fiction” or that sort of comment. Spoon, somehow, manages to have just enough swagger that they sound like they should be professional musicians, but not enough to be annoying or pompous. Britt Daniel’s voice has a very odd kind of dexterity. His falsetto is incredibly smooth and melodic, akin to Thom Yorke’s higher range, but when he starts singing, there’s a kind of rasp in his voice that doesn’t really sound like anyone else’s. Their sense of rock rhythms is impeccable; “Rhthm & Soul” sounds like it could have made it back in the 70s, but the production is such that it sounds decidedly modern. While I’m not a big fan of “The Ghost Of You Lingers”, the rest of the album is of a quality that demands mention.

Neurosis – Given To The Rising
Link: Neurosis sorta doesn’t make videos. So here’s a link to an older video, of Locust Star, from Through Silver In Blood, and the closest they’ve ever come to “a single”.

Neurosis said this album was going to be their heaviest since Through Silver in Blood. This worried me. Firstly, referencing your bands best works in comparison seems to be certain doom. Secondly, the single, “Water is Not Enough”, worried me a great deal, because it almost sounded generic. I was looking forward to the album between my fingers as I pretended to cover my eyes. The title track tore the hand off my face, and subjected me to horrors and wonders the same. It’s a decadent assault, an avalanche that hits and overwhelms. The claims were true, and best yet, they were right. Given to the Rising proves just absolutely how obsolete all metal is in the face of their creativity, how useless growls are in front of Steve Von Till, how childish shredding guitars to second divisons are. For all the talk of heaviness and ugliness, and all of these things metal bands try to be, it takes a listen of “Distill (Watching the Swarm)” to realize that they have it all wrong. While it was noise record label Load Records that said “slow is the new loud” to hype up one of their bands, Neurosis shows the middle ground is the higher ground.

Ungdomskulen – Cry Baby
Link: Modern Drummer

I found them completely by accident, but it was the best accident ever. I was watching Wolf Parade videos on Pitchfork.TV, and if you’re in A to Z mode, it keeps going down. I had tuned it out, focused on other things. Suddenly, I brought the window back up and was faced with… well, that. While I first wrote them off for the silly video, as I listened, something struck me: the sound. It was bold like little else; immediate and uncrowded, standing in the open and forcing itself upon my ears. And for a three piece, they sure make a hell of a racket. The rest of the album is full of strong, charging rock with a wall of sound. And not in the sense of the Phil Spector technique: The tonal skill shown through the entire album is perfect and unified. There’s never a moment where it sounds like they don’t have confidence in what they’re doing, and that confidence is infectious- frankly, it’s a sound I’ve been waiting for years to hear.

HEALTH – self titled
LINK: Triceratops

Sufjan Stevens, a musician and composer, has this thought that all states have their own sort of sound and soundtracks. Of course, to make a living, he decided that he would make these soundtracks, and that’s incredibly pompous. However, I think that the soundtracks for each state exist outside of what he thinks they are. California’s soundtrack was, for many years, “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys. It was a tonal landscape of hope, harmony, love, and anxiety, greatly representative of the mindset of those times. However, as time went on, people changed. Not just people, everything. California is not a hopeful place. It is a terrible, miserable place, full of bitter cynics, utter fools, and the worst opportunists in the world. “Pet Sounds” reflects the Californian ideal. However, the current Californian soundtrack is more like HEALTH’s album. I could spend pages on how the album, to me, is like arriving in California for the first time and watching that experience just go to utter hell. The album is a difficult listen, as evidenced by the video, but as a Californian, it is an absolutely vital and important piece of art. Even if you don’t live here, listening to it will give you the best idea of what happens here, more than whatever “Los Angeles is Phony” song some pop band will put out.

Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
Link: Keep the Car Running

In March of this year, I said to a friend that it is going to take a hell of a lot to be a better album than this one. While the albums above it are those albums, neither of them sound quite like Neon Bible. If “Funeral” was wringing a tear soaked cloth dry, “Neon Bible” is them showing it to the world, the tears making a watery mirror. The album has a sense of urgency that is difficult to describe. The way I look at it is a nuclear bomb going off, and the atmospheric sounds at the start of Black Mirror are equal to hearing it in the distance. I can apply this theme to the rest of the album, but the metaphor is good enough to serve a general purpose. The point is that the album picks up strength as it rolls on, growing more rambunctious and critical as Win shows the world what it looks like to him. It all builds up to one specific moment: The full blast of My Body Is a Cage. In my bomb metaphor, this is the fire hitting, the pain of loss and the power of dynamics assaulting until I’m nothing but dust. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and it made me want to curl up and weep for months, clawing at myself and howling at nothing. An amazing album, start to finish.

Radiohead – In Rainbows
Link: Reckoner

I stumbled upon Radiohead in 2006. That sounds absolutely crazy, I know. They’ve have been around longer than I’ve been alive, and the growth and strength the band has is most assuredly strong. And one summer vacation, with nothing to do, I bought eight albums for a day of music to listen to, and one of those albums was Kid A. To say it fractured me puts it lightly. So I’ve spent the last three years listening to Radiohead, in a different context than “oh, they’re this indie band that made it, that’s cool.” In Rainbows feels, to me, like it’s paying me for finding them. It’s a culmination of everything that I liked about the other albums, without the things I didn’t like. The Bends and OK Computer were near perfect rock albums, and I wasn’t really done with that sound. I was hoping it’d come back. Kid A and Amnesiac were a perfect mix between soundscapes and a man yelling at you, commanding your attention, but it seemed like most of the band disappeared behind the music. Hail to the Thief had both, but it switched between and was unable to blend it. And suddenly, after Thom Yorke was able to squeeze out a full techno solo record, they’re able to combine everything of the last 21 years of music they’ve been making into a concise ten song package that is nearly perfect. This would be album of the year in any other year. It’s certainly the feel good story of the year in both the distribution model, and “Radiohead is back.”

Kanye West – Graduation
Link: Flashing Lights (not work safe)

I’m rewriting this because the old review don’t properly express how I feel about this album. Kanye is rapidly becoming my favorite new artist to watch with intense focus. This album is what’s standing at the frontier of what modern music needs to be and needs to sound like. Sure, he’s a bit of an asshole and maybe a little bit of a priss, but man, if you put out albums like this, you can act however the hell you want. Prince is still coasting off of Purple Rain (forget the movie, the album is awe inspiring), as evidence. College Dropout and Late Registration serve as basic pretense for the sheer bravado of this album. While some of the stories are familiar, Kanye’s lyricism is on top of the world, and it’s aided by the kind of music you’d expect from some French house band, not a diehard east coast producer. No, instead, what Kanye West has created here is No Coast, a contradiction of the coastal mentality and musical styles, instead just making some goddamn awesome music, pulling from everything and anything as inspiration. And now that the media embraced it, Kanye has wholly embraced it, if his new single “Love Lockdown” is any sign. We’re in for an interesting few decades.

Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals
Link: 2080

“You can make really pretentious art that only a couple rich people can afford it, and only a couple hundred elitist white kids with art school backgrounds can appreciate, or you can make pop music.” That would be disrespectful to artists if they weren’t so goddamn good at making pop music. With a sense of worldliness that you’d expect from late era Talking Heads and a focus on vocal harmony above complicated composition, Yeasayer’s album is mindblowing for me on a number of levels. The production is deep and colorful, creating soundscapes around the grim hooks Yeasayer constructs. The instrumentation is less defined, and while you can make out what instruments are what, you can also just turn off that analysis and let it flow through, only recognizing sounds and sensations. The lyrical delivery dances between frantic howls and soft harmony all album long, and the lyrics themselves are compellingly dark (the first two singles, 2080 and Wait For The Summer start with “I can’t sleep when I think about the times we’re living in”, and “life is easier when one of us is dead”, respectively). By the time Red Cave wraps up, there’s this sense in the air that what happened wasn’t just an album, it was an experience. What people do with that experience is their own business, but I left it with a sense of awe for the world and excitement for music.

LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
Link: All My Friends

I’m also rewriting this, because it was more a review of one song. Sound of Silver is akin to listening to an existential crisis being expressed without any kind of overwrought drama, mostly because James Murphy simply does not have that kind of verbiage in him. His attempt at that kind of grandiose lyric style is positioned in the opener, “Get Innocuous”, but it’s entirely a prelude to the album. . He possesses a certain anti-gravitas that, on first listen, makes his lyrics sound blunt and simple, until it occurs that he means every single thing he’s saying. After that sinks in, things like “North American Scum”’s approach to performing in Europe and the existential magnum opus of “All My Friends”, which I am not afraid to say is this generation’s “Like A Rolling Stone” as far as expressing what everyone’s thinking while telling his own story, each word is that much stronger, and the stories have a unity that’s frankly missing in a lot of music. Murphy’s lyricism works entirely in support with the minimalist dance music he makes. Taking an approach of all-is-melodic-rhythm, the music blends together without cancelling each instrument out. By the way, Murphy recorded all the instruments himself in the making of this album. The finished product takes stories of love, loss, and uncertainty, but softens the blows with dance music that keeps the tone mostly light (barring “Someone Great” and “All My Friends” ) and never leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Battles – Mirrored
Link: Atlas

Where the hell did this even come from? What the hell is there to say about it? It’s like super-prog, but it’s basic and danceable in the rhythm section. It’s techno with guitars everywhere. It’s instrumental with vocals. I lack the tools to sufficiently explain what’s happening with “Tij”, much less the rest of the album. As foreign as it all sounds, though, it’s all really, really good on very base levels. There’s this sense of satisfaction between the band members as the album progresses, where I felt their love for music just flow out of them, and into me. Speaking as a musician, Battles makes me excited for where music’s going, and it makes me want to get better so I can be a part of what they’re trying so hard to do. This album really opened my eyes to what music is capable of. In a field of depression and melodrama (as well executed as that can be from some of the other bands listed), Battles is this ray of sunlight, that gives me a renewed wonder for the world. No other album moved me like Mirrored, and it’ll be a long damn time before anything else can.

Honorable Mentions: Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago”, Lupe Fiasco’s “The Cool”, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s “Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo”, and all the albums that didn’t make it onto the new list

EDIT: I was recently informed that “For Emma, Forever Ago” came out in 2008. My ID tags on the album said 2007. So, thanks, to whatever smartass that did that and threw me off.

Jeff VanderMeer’s recent Omnivoracious post about the “conventionality” of the just-announced World Fantasy Award finalists, with his suggestions for alternates that he felt were as good as the books named, reminded me to look back at my late December 2007 post that named what I felt were the Best 2007 releases that I had read by then.

Out of the three major American-oriented SF Awards (Nebulas, Hugos, WFA), I had two of their combined Best Novel finalists in my Top 12, Nalo Hopkinson’s The New Moon’s Arms (Nebula) and Emma Bull’s Territory (WFA). In addition, Shaun Tan’s The Arrival was nominated for a Hugo for Best Related Book, Tim Pratt’s Hart & Boot & Other Stories received a WFA nomination for Best Collection, and the John Klima-edited Logorrhea also was nominated for a WFA in the Best Anthology collection.

Not too shabby, I suppose, and if I had read Michael Chabon’s Nebula winning and Hugo nominated The Yiddish Policemen’s Union in 2007, it likely would have been added to the list. However, of the books on those lists that I have read, the majority of those wouldn’t have come close to being on that list of mine; they were mostly solid, but rather pedestrian in feel compared to the ones I chose. What I found interesting about VanderMeer’s suggested alternatives was that in virtually every case, I had either read the book and had it either in my top 12 or on the “next 10” or I read it earlier this year and enjoyed it enough that I likely would have had it on either one of my two lists. I still have to read Daniel Abraham’s A Betrayal in Winter, John Crowley’s Endless Things (have the book, but I am waiting for the revised editions for the other Ægypt novels to be released first), and Paul Park’s Roumania novels. I have read the first in each of their series and each was a joy to read, so I do have high hopes for the sequels.

Shall be quite interesting to see how my upcoming Best of 2008 lists will rank with the nominees for next year’s awards.

My final 2007 wrap-up in June, oh my! One of my most visited blog entries was my prior I Coulda Been a Contender 2006 which listed great, wonderful albums that for one reason or another did not make my Top 10. Alas, why should these albums be put out to pasture just because there were 10 other albums ahead in line?

I think another thing that makes this post so joyful is its sheer eclecticism — the strange sitting alongside with the obvious, the rare with the (indie) popular. The major condition to be on this list is that I listened to these albums. Alot. Or, I enjoyed them. Alot. These are ordered (sorta) alphabetically and that’s it! I hope that you find something new, too.

Tomlab Alphabet Series: Q by Alig Fodder
Tomlab has this wonderful series of 7″ records that has been coming out over the past several years, each one for each letter. Alig Fodder from Family Fodder fame shows up on letter ‘Q’ and later as an Idol Fodder EP. Addictive elements both aboriginal and electronic, and looping laughs.

• Death and the Maiden, The Onliest Thing

Strawberry Jam by Animal Collective
First album released on Domino, hailed as their most pop-oriented yet. For me, this album was eclipsed by drummer, Panda Bear’s, solo album, and Sung Tongs and Feels are still landmark albums in my mind. Nonetheless, Fireworks (and the live blending with Essplode) and For Reverend Green do stand out as the best Animal Collective songs ever made.

• Peacebone, Fireworks / Essplode [Live @ KEXP], For Reverend Green

Neon Bible by Arcade Fire
The slow leak that was their sophomoric album on Merge could not contain the raw excitement over their debut, Funeral. Any band that starts with a landmark album automatically sets themselves up for failure, no matter how good the follow-up. I’m happy that they received KROQ love, but their listeners only knew Intervention at the amazing Greek performance. Take another listen to the following layered, dark gems and lookup my favorite, (Antichrist Television Blues).

• Black Mirror
  

In Camera by Arthur & Yu
I became so captivated by the first Hardly Art (a SubPop sublabel) release that I have the promo disc as well! The finest folk this side of the Mississippi, as many readers know I discovered them on the 5th track of Dntel’s Dumb Luck. They remind me of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, like OP8 featuring Lisa Germano, and everything good about Peter, Paul and Mary.

• There Are Too Many Birds, Come to View (Song for Neil Young), The Distance (featuring Arthur & Yu)

Load Blown by Black Dice
I’ve known about Eric Copeland by proxy on other Paw Tracks releases, most notably from The Sailor by Terrestrial Tones, although I didn’t start listening to Black Dice until Mr. Copeland opened for the Animal Collective show at the Henry Fonda. It was very LOUD but it perked my interest enough to buy their latest album, full of quirks, beats, and other transporting soundscapes.

• Roll Up, Kokomo

Spiderman of the Rings by Dan Deacon
Another great artist on Carpark, and his video is the cheesiest. I saw Dan Deacon at Coachella this year and I have to say it was the best show at the festival, the best show I’ve ever gone to and I need to posted pics and movies later. Dan Deacon is interactive, he’s a fun sing-along, with electronic cannons made with casiotone sugar. Also get all of Dan Deacon’s old MP3s

• The Crystal Cat, Okie Dokie, Wham City

The Enemy Chorus by The Earlies
I think I love this Secretly Canadian release if only for the song When the Wind Blows. This Austin based band plays it with syncopated electronic beats, power chords on what sounds like a baby grand, and softened with melodic strings. Yet when I hear this bluesy proggy, and ambitious album, there is so much that is good with it, it simply takes its time to sneak-up and arrest you.

• No Love in Your Heart

We Don’t Just Disappear by Future Conditional
I read a pan of this album somewhere and I conject you are not ready for Piano Magic’s side project or the 80s electropop seems to slippery to grasp. Both of these of which I fell victim. Still, for the sheer hotness of The Switchboard Girl should give you enough pause before moving on. Below the surface of this album are 80s drum machine references to New Order (Substance Fear) and other musical nods I’ve yet to place (Typos).

• We Don’t Just Disappear [Future Con Remix]

Panic Prevention by Jamie T
My only major label (Virgin), I love these hyper-masculine, boyish rhymes, (rap, um, not so much) from Jamie Treays debut. I listened to these tracks intensely for about a month and even won a Flavorpill trivia contest to see him at the Troubadour but alas I had (writing) class. Still, almost a year later songs like Calm Down Dearest and So Lonely Was the Ballad are emotional charged and poignant. I hope for good things to come.

• Calm Down Dearest, Salvador, On Holiday

Broken Social Scene Presents: Spirit If… by Kevin Drew
Arts & Crafts is certainly becoming one of my favorite labels, steered in part by Broken Social Scene founder, Kevin Drew. His first solo album in what will be a Broken Social Scene Presents series featuring each member, it is both a departure from the mega-group’s broad arrangements, and also an amplification of the intimate chamber pop that makes it so good. My only regret is how little I’ve listened to this album.

• Age of Consent, Frightening Lives

Loney, Noir by Loney, Dear
SubPop has been pushing all their releases into my life this past year, and this swede is no exception. With almost english titles, I previously proclaimed that I bought the title track, I Am John, within 30 seconds of hearing it. Along with the cutest video, and a 7″, his prior releases (anything before Sologne) are difficult to find. Have a listen to this multilayered, pop-stylist. It’s addictive and sweet as Swedish Fish:

• I Am John, Hard Days 1,2,3,4, Saturday Waits

Sticking Fingers into Sockets by Los Campesinos!
I had the pleasure of seeing this this Wales band from Arts & Crafts at the Troubadour last Saturday with the Parenthetical Girls and they are Twee as Fuck. They have a firm understanding of the C-86 bands: not to say they’re only as sweet as Sarah Records, they firmly put their own little punk spin on their collection of songs. Plus, I think they’re a little fey — makes me go all smiley inside.

• You! Me! Dancing!, It Started with a Mixx, Death to Los Campesinos!, We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives

Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? by Of Montreal
Their latest release on Polyvinyl is both the band’s darkest and best release to date. I find it rare that a band gets better with each release, but when that happens, it’s a joy to hear how the album becomes more refined while pushing its own limits. Hateful dance hippy intellectual glamrock. It’s ABBA’s evil twin, but better. How can you go wrong?

• Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse, Faberge Falls For Shuggie

Book of Bad Breaks by Thee More Shallows
Here is a case where anticipating a bands latest release, their first on Anticon, I fall in love with their prior albums. And that’s what happened, I listened to More Deep Cuts to a dirty grave (ironically, Ave Grave being my favorite song on the album) and then Monkey vs. Shark. I still intend to wrap my head around the Book of Bad Breaks, but I still am charmed by earlier moody releases. Alas!

• Night at the Knight School, Freshman Thesis, 2AM

Our Ill Wills by Shout Out Louds
I’m not sure I did the right thing by not having their first Merge album in my top 10. Another case where I happened upon their first album Howl Howl Gaff Gaff first which stuck to me like Swedish Superglue (Re: Loney, Dear). It took a little while to warm up to Our Ill Wills, the maritime flagship of a follow-up album. “Yeah, but they sound like The Cure!” Um, hush now and and have a good listen.

• Tonight I Have to Leave It, Tonight I Have to Leave It [Russian Futurists Remix]

Tromatic Reflexxions by Von Südenfed
Two parts Krautrock inspired Mouse on Mars and one part Mark E. Smith, the punk pioneer and The Fall’s repetitious frontman, their Domino debut proves (against all odds) to be amazingly harmonious, integrated, and awesome. The deep beats of the DJs fully support the rhyming rhythms that play within that structure to make for some unique and playful songs that together raises the stakes on the sum of its parts.

• The Rhinohead, Flooded, Fledermaus Can’t Get It

The current issue of The Believer features the results of the reader’s poll, as well as the editor’s top pick, for the best books published in 2007. The editors chose Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, which we haven’t read, and the readers picked Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, probably because the hero is such a nerd. The list follows with our comments; titles are linked to our reviews.

1. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao—Junot Díaz
2. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union—Michael Chabon: We didn’t like this book and are frankly astounded at all the praise it’s garnered.
3. The Savage Detectives—Roberto Bolaño: It’s in a stack waiting to be read. The stack is very big though, and the book is very big, so, who knows (in all likelihood it will beat out last year’s reader fave, Pynchon’s impossibly large Against the Day).
4. Tree of Smoke—Denis Johnson: We loved it. Top pick of the year. Very divisive, strangely–just read through the Amazon reviews.
5. Then We Came to the End—Joshua Ferris
6. No One Belongs Here More Than You—Miranda July: Oh my gosh. Seriously? Really? I read half of this at a Barnes & Noble, no exaggeration. I sat and drank coffee and read it. I’m not saying that a book has to take a while to read in order to have weight or substance, but in this particular instance, no, nothing, fluff. This is the kind of thing that people who quit reading after high school mistake for literature.
7. On Chesil Beach—Ian McEwan: The library has this on CD; I’ll listen to it this summer. I’ve grappled with the first five pages of Atonement too many times to bother, really. And then I saw the movie, and it sucked. So…
8. Zeroville—Steve Erickson
9. Like You’d Understand, Anyway—Jim Shepard
10. Slam—Nick Hornby: We suspect that The Believer’s readers are partial to Hornby; would they have given another Young Adult novel a nod? We doubt it.
11. Divisadero—Michael Ondaatje: Also in the stack.
12. Bowl of Cherries—Millard Kaufman: A pamphlet containing the first three chapters was published as an insert in an issue of McSweeney’s. It was pretty funny.
13. Varieties of Disturbance—Lydia Davis
14. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian—Sherman Alexie: This was fantastic. And it was YA! We rescind our Hornby complaint.
15. The Abstinence Teacher—Tom Perrotta
16. Call Me by Your Name—André Aciman
17. After Dark—Haruki Murakami: Murakami is the writer we wished that we love but we just can’t get into. We remember reading some of his short fiction years ago, in Harper’s and other places, but even The Elephant Vanishes was a trial to get through.
18. Darkmans—Nicola Barker
19. Diary of a Bad Year—J. M. Coetzee
20. Falling Man—Don DeLillo: Dry, self-important, rarely engaging, and not nearly as good as it was pretending to be, Falling Man was only a step above its dark twin, Cosmopolis.
21. Five Skies—Ron Carlson
22. God Is Dead—Ron Currie, Jr.
23. Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name—Vendela Vida
24. Shortcomings—Adrian Tomine
25. Samedi the Deafness—Jesse Ball
26. The Gum Thief—Douglas Coupland: We consistently forget about Coupland. Why? We loved Microserfs, after all…
27. Remainder—Tom McCarthy
28. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—J. K. Rowling: We listened to all the HP books on mp3 over the winter and spring breaks. Deathly Hallows was okay. Lots of time in the forest. Kinda boring, really.
29. Acme Novelty Library #18—Chris Ware: We love Chris Ware!
30. An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England—Brock Clarke
31. Exit Ghost—Philip Roth: Never made it through an entire Roth novel.
32. Bad Monkeys—Matt Ruff
33. The Last Novel—David Markson
34. The Raw Shark Texts—Steven Hall
35. Inglorious—Joanna Kavenna
36. Mister Pip—Lloyd Jones
37. Spook Country—William Gibson: We passed on this one. Gibson has disappointed us too many times now.
38. Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey—Chuck Palahniuk: Should we give it a shot? Isn’t this guy just a dirty hack?
39. The Indian Clerk—David Leavitt
40. The Terror—Dan Simmons

I didn’t buy very many albums that came out in 2007. Actually, I only bought 4 that I can think of off the top of my head. Here’s the skinny.

Beastie Boys The Mix-Up and Bad Brains Build A Nation

These albums were intentionally released on the same day and Beastie Boy MCA produced the Bad Brains album. That’s only one part of why I’m lumping these 2 albums together. These bands have long been associated with each other and have been recording for a million years (1980 Bad Brains, 1982 Beastie Boys). Another thing that these albums have in common is a lack of surprises. The B-Boys album is mostly made up of the funky instruental jams they’ve been making since 1992. It’s pretty much devoid of any hip-hop and I think the reason is clear: they were lazy. It takes a lot of time to put together a bunch of samples to make a good beat and just as long to come up with some stupid lyrics and memorize them. They probably wanted to avoid annoying fans complaining about long gaps between albums and they decided this would be the easiest way to get around that. There’s nothing wrong with the album but given the Beasties’ pedigree it doesn’t leave much of an impression. More than any other band I can think of, each Beastie Boys album was an EVENT, even including their lackluster 2004 effort. The albums never came out very close to each other and there was always something really NEW and exciting about each of them, not to mention that they were always jam-packed with 20-some songs. You didn’t even know which members of their extended backup band would be contributing.

The Bad Brains album certainly reflects more effort but not a great deal of innovation. It seems like they’ve been somewhat influenced by current trends, pouding out some bone-headed drop-D riffs while H.R. occasionally finds some strong melodies. Other tracks are stronger and, of course, there are the obligatory reggae tracks. Overall it just doesn’t have the immortal and iconic feeling that their earlier albums had. It’s a good album for Bad Brains fans but might not win anyone else over.

Both of these albums come across as a bit unnecessary.

Straight grade: B
Graded within the context of their overall careers: C

El-P I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

lol – Nice fucking title. And the album? Booooooooooring. My overall interest in Definitive Jux Records was already on life support after weak efforts from Cage and Mr. Lif and this album may have completely killed it. El-P has always had some big weaknesses and this is the album where he gave in to all of them. One of these weaknesses is that he takes himself very seriously and clearly thinks he has some important things to say. He really lets this element run the show this time around, becoming as humorously dark and broody as Trent Reznor, who happens to be a guest on the album. This may be getting old, but El-P has also always been a pretty weak MC, but his beats have always kept him afloat. Now the beats are confused and boooooooooooring. I appreciate the fact that it doesn’t sound jut like his previous work but that doesn’t excuse it from being bad. Five years ago I found Def Jux to be a very exciting group of artists and now YAWN.

Straight grade: C
Graded within the context of his overall career: D

Tomahawk Anonymous

This is the 3rd album from the band that features former members of Faith No More and The Jesus Lizard and it’s easily their best. It’s also an interesting experiment in its own right. The band perused 100 year old transcripts of traditional Native American songs and arranged them for a 4 piece rock band. As Tomahawk is a metal-ish band with artsy leanings you might expect the songs to simply be typical metal songs with Native American melodies on top. Thankfully, the only thing hard rockish about the album are the instruments and the tones. The performances attempt to capture the feel and rhythms of the original songs. The band doesn’t riff away over straightforward rock beats. Instead, they play some variation of the main melody which results in a somewhat simple but haunting and powerful delivery. There are some missteps, like a section where singer Mike Patton does his dumb suave, talk-rap thing, but for the most part Native American feel is intact and works very, very well.

Grade: A

kicknz