Personal favourites of 2005

The dawn of a new year usually coincides with the nostalgic summary of the old, whether just a mental rehash or - like I'm about to - a more lasting summary in the form of a Best of list. After having spent the first week of 2006 going through my purchases of last year, checking with my old notes to see how I felt about the different albums when new, I've come up with a 1-10 rating system and have compiled a list of all albums with a score of 8 or higher.

Albums with score 10/10

1. Röyksopp: The understanding
2. Depeche Mode: Playing the angel
3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Clap your hands say yeah
4. Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to paralyze
5. Kraftwerk: Minimum-maximum

Albums with score 9/10

6. Ljungblut: The other side of all things
7. Elbow: Leaders of the free world
8. Editors: The back room
9. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead: World's apart
10. Serena Maneesh: Serena maneesh
11. Ladytron: Witching hour
    

Albums with score 8/10

12. LCD Soundsystem: LCD Soundsystem
13. Bloc Party: Silent alarm
14. Nine Inch Nails: With teeth
15. Maxïmo Park: A certain trigger
16. Malcolm Middleton: Into the woods
17. The Mars Volta: Frances the mute
18. The Black Rebel Motorcyce Club: Howl
    
19. Out Hud: Let us never speak of it again
20. Arab Strap: The last romance
21. Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary
22. Pajo: Pajo
23. Gorillaz: Demon days
24. Coldplay: X&Y
25. Antony and the Johnsons: I am a bird now
26. Datarock: Datarock
27. Lightning Bolt: Hypermagic mountain

Non-2005 releases (late discoveries):

• The Knife: Deep cuts
• Arcade Fire: Funeral
• TV On The Radio: Desperate youth, blood thirsty babes
• Silverbullit: Arclight
• Mental Overdrive: 083

That's all folks, now I'm ready for what 2006 has to offer...

Clap Your Hands, Say YEAH!!

The great thing about music is that it's so hard to predict what will happen next, which new bands will enter the limelight with a brilliant release as is out of nowhere. No hype, just by word of mouth! In my opinion, alongside the strong debut by British Editors, I find a weird group that suddenly appeared on the rock scene in New York to be the most interesting new act of 2005:

The Brooklyn-based five-piece band Clap Your Hand Say Yeah made one of the most remarkable entries on the music scene in years. Not that they sold millions, like Nirvana, or made a lot of noise in the press, like Libertines. But the fact that the band was hardly known outside a few rock clubs in New York city when the summer started, recording and releasing the debut album all by themselves - with no record label backing them - and still making such a splash in the rock press around the world.

Their self-titled album was not only one of the best debut albums this year but one of the strongest albums overall. Musically it borrows heavily from a number of classic rock groups, artists like Talking Heads and Tom Waits spring to mind and every now and then a touch of Velvet Underground. This is a playful, unpredictable album and it has slowly dawned on me that this might very well become the "Remain in light" for a new generation of music lovers, much the way the classic Talking Heads album became for my generation some 25 years ago.

One of the most impressive debuts in a long time and one that spells greatness in the future, I can hardly wait for what Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will come up with next!

Heirs of Interpol?

Back in 2002, Interpol surprised the rock world with their potent debut album Turn on the bright lights that brought back the dark and moody rock of the 1980s (Joy Division, The Smiths) and mixed it with the more energetic guitar rock of the last decade (Fugazi). Though they didn't succeed with their follow-up Antics, they still set the standard that so many bands have tried to eclipse the last couple of years. Until now.

From out of nowhere, the city of Birmingham in the UK to be more precise, a quartet of young men - calling themselves Editors - suddenly appeared in 2005. And with a debut album, The Back Room released on Kitchenware Records in July, that can rival the best of Interpol!

With Editors the influence of 1980s bands, such as Joy Division and Echo and The Bunnymen, is even more pronounced than with Interpol. But they're also more English in style bringing in some elements of the contemporary British indie rock, in particular the intense guitars, from bands such as Bloc Party.

There is no denying that Joy Division has been a guiding star for Editors. Among the more typical Joy Division-inspired songs are the excellent Blood - where singer Tom Smith sounds just like Ian Curtis - and the wonderful All sparks where drummer Ed Lay pounds away like Stephen Morris did on Dead Souls, 25 years ago. Simply brilliant!

But the album is so much more than just Joy Division rip-off, it blends styles and intense walls of guitars to make the sound both dark and intense. The album contains a nice mixture of slower, more thoughtful melodies, such as Open your arms - an almost Smithsian song with Morrissey-like singing and reflections, and more uptempo tracks such as the opener Lights, with guitars sounding fainty like early U2!

There's nothing believable in being honest
So cover your lies up with another promise

Blood runs through your veins, that's where our similarity ends
Blood runs through our veins.
[Blood]

Most of the songs on this album are (hit?) Single material so it's difficult to pick out one or two highlights, but personally the ones that sit best in my ears are the uptempo Someone says and the before mentioned Open your arms and Blood.

Editors The Back Room may not be the most original album of the year, but it will get high on my list of Albums of the year!

New world leaders?

In the fall of 2003 the British rock orchestra Elbow released the highly acclaimed Cast of Thousands, an album that firmly put them on the rock map. With a music that is both mellow and rich, airy and rhythm heavy, they've carved out a niche for themselves in the history of rock - somewhere inbetween Genesis and Coldplay.

Now they're out with a new album, Leaders of the World, which holds few musical surprises but is carried on the strength of its melodies and the emotional voice of Guy Garvey - a modern day Peter Gabriel.

The album kicks off with the fairly intense Station approach which ends in a round of applauses, and well deserved too - it's among the stronger tracks.

I never know what I want
but I know when I'm low
that I need to be in the town
where they know what I'm like
and don't mind.
[Station approach]

In between the more energetic material the album is rich of the same mellowness that made its predecessor such a great album. Among the better songs of this type are The stops, the beautiful An imagined affair and the thoughtful and quiet The everthere.

But it's the energetic songs that stand out, if anything really does; along with the opening track and Mexican Standoff it's the 6 minutes long title track that for me provide the most memorable moments from this album.

I'm sick of working for a living,
I'm just ticking off the days till I die.
I miss you Louise,
and the sickest little pleasures keep me going in between pulling teeth.
[Leaders of the free world]

All in all Leaders of the World is a good follow-up to Cast of Thousands. There are no big surprises here and it may lack the highest peaks of its predecessor - but the overall song quality is truly excellent.

The year of Arab Strap

The year 2005 has turned out a very productive year for the Glasgowian duo Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton. This summer and autumn each of them released their own solo albums, Aidan in the form of his alter ego Lucky Pierre - with the experimental electronica album Touchpool - while Malcolm released another great melancholica album with his Into the woods (see a previous review in this blog).

Now, near the end of the year, they're back together as Arab Strab with their sixth proper studio album, The Last Romance. My initial reaction was that they've made another very typical Arab Strap album, a bit lighter than their previous albums perhaps but still with that melancholic piano and guitar carrying the melodies and with Aidan uncovering his feelings about women, relationships and sex. This is indicated already on the opening song, Stink, which is a very typical Arab Strap song. Here are the first few lines:

Burn these sheets that we've just fucked in
My weekend, weekend, I've been sucked in
Just one more time and then you'll get tucked in
I think you may still be my best

Come with me cause I need a thrill now
It's okay cause I'm on the pill now

Stink is followed by one of the album's highlights, [If there's] no hope for us. Musically it has a feeling of The Cure but the mixture of Aidans rusty voice and the nice female vocal also brings back the memories of the Fairytale of New York on which the lovely voice of the late Kirsty MacColl was balanced by the drunkard voice of Shane MacGowan. Unfortunately the CD inlet doesn't identify the female singer.

There are many other good songs on the album but my personal favorite so far is the lead single, Dream sequence, which is being driven by a dominant piano and nice low-key guitars in the background. It certainly has a hit potential!

Though it's too early to rate this album - it's a grower - I'm sure it will bring the band new fans and keep the old ones happy. It's a great work of art and another interesting look into contemporary life in urban Scotland!

Taking a long break

As September is nearing its end I'm closing in on my sabbatical month, October. I will remain offline for most of that month, so this blogspace will remain frozen for the next five weeks. I wish you all a colorful and musically enriched autumn.

In the meantime, expect great things from the new Depeche Mode album!

Depeche Mode, a pain that I'm used to

Another track from the new Depeche Mode album, Playing the angel, has been leaked onto the Internet. The opening track: A pain that I'm used to.

Like the upcoming single, Precious, the new track is a song that old fans should be able to enjoy, with it's Music for the Masses-feel. This is a hard, metallic and dark Depeche Mode, that compares favourably to their best efforts from the 1980s. Check out http://clientes.gimexico.com/edgar/ for an MP3-version of this song.

If I hadn't already heard Precious, I would have said that A pain that I'm used to should be picked as a single from the album - it certainly has the potential. And if these two songs are anything to go by, the album is bound to be their best in two decades!

Here's my take on the lyrics for A pain that I'm used to:

I'm not sure what I'm looking for anymore,
I just know that I'm harder to console.
I don't see who I'm trying to be instead of me,
but the key is a question of control.

Can you say what you're trying to play anyway,
I just pay while you're breaking all the rules.
All the signs that are defined have been underlined,
devils stride on the drive that is you.

<chorus>
All this running around but it's getting me down,
just give me a pain that I'm used to.

I don't need to believe
all the change you conceive,
you just need to achieve
something that brings fruit.
</chorus>

There's a hole in your soul like an animal,
with no conscience, repentance unknown.
Close your eyes, pay the price for your paradise,
devils feet on the seeds of a stone.

I can't conceal what I feel, what I know is real,
no mistake in the fate, I care.
We're a a pair, in the air, I will leave it there,
but I'm now full of hope, not despair.

<chorus> x 2

Playing the angel should be in a record store near you on October 17. Be there!