Slicktiger’s albums of the year ’09

Posted on 24. Nov, 2009 by slicktiger in Music, featured

Ok, here are my top 10 albums of 2009, starting from least favourite to favourite:

10. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone.

A really surprising album for me because a) I had no idea who Neko Case was and b) her lyrics are so powerful, you’d swear an angry man wrote them. The second track hooked me the first time I heard it with the killer line ‘The next time you say forever, I will punch you in your face / Just because you don’t believe it, doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it’ (from the song ‘The next time you say forever’). Haunting, folksy rock music at its best.

9. Heartless Bastards – The Mountain.

Think The Black Keys with a female vocalist. Sounds like vintage 60s / 70s era rock music and is almost instantly likeable. From a technical stand point Heartless Bastards aren’t doing anything we haven’t heard before, but they do it well.

8. Pearl Jam – Backspacer.

The surviving titans of the Grunge Rock era impressed me at first with their ninth studio album which is extremely punchy and upbeat in its brevity, but after a couple of listens I quickly tired of it. It’s a good album, but it doesn’t live up to previous albums such as Yield or my personal favourites No Code and Riot Act.

7. Gallows – Grey Britian

Another surprising album for me becuase I don’t usually go for fast, hard and heavy rock, but these angry Brits just do it so damn well, I can hardly fault this album. It’s angry, it’s powerful and there’s no pretense to it whatsoever. The vocalist sounds like Johnny Rotten on roids. It’s tight and heavy and well worth a listen.

6. Kasabian – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

Kasabian’s third studio album is their best to date. They’ve taken their sound, twisted it completely, added an edgier, darker tone and the results are phenomenal. Hugely experimental, the whole album has an undertone of insanity that I really enjoyed. Watch this band, they’re destined for great things.

5. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz

An excellent example of how to break out from indy into dance / electro without completely selling your soul. The album has a strong pop flavour on the first listen and is much more mainstream than anything the band has recorded thus far, but it’s catchy as swine flu and is guaranteed to play from start to finish without your girlfriend switching it off. She might think you’ve turned slightly gay though… Buy the iTunes version with the acoustic remixes at the end, they’re exceptional and in some cases better than the original tracks.

4. Billy Talent – III

Billy Talent is the best post-punk band currently playing and their third studio album, while not really much of a departure from their previous albums is still one of the best albums I’ve heard this year. Though some might find their sound a little over-produced, they still write great hooks and material that is original and delivers a solid kick to the groin.

3. Alice In Chains – Black Gives Way To Blue

I loved this album because it sounds so close to the original band, it’s uncanny. However, I also loved this album because if you’ve never heard the original AiC (with ex-vocalist Layne Staley) and you’re a fan of old-school grunge, you won’t have to listen to the band’s entire catalogue to get into this album. The acoustic tracks are also brilliant, a great example of how to write acoustic rock that isn’t cringe-worthy.

2. Arctic Monkeys – Humbug

Recording a third album is possibly the most difficult thing for a band to do. Bands have as much time as they want to write their first album, for their second they just need to stick with the same sound as the first and it will sell, but for the third, if they stick to the same formula, their audience is gonna start getting bored. In the case of Arctic Monkeys, they took a huge risk in enlisting desert rocker Josh Homme who fronts Queens Of The Stone Age as a co-producer on the album and the results are like nothing you’ve ever heard before.

It’s the band we know and love, only much darker, smoother and sexier. There are at least 5 tracks on this album that really stand out for me because the second you hear them it instantly becomes apparant just how much this band has matured. They’ve stretched their sound a long way away from the first two albums and that takes huge balls. Buy this album, you can thank me later.

1. Them Crooked Vultures

You might not like this album, but I sure as hell did and last time I checked, this was MY list and not yours so nener nener ne-ner.

Yes, it sounds like a Queens Of The Stone Age album, yes, Homme had more influence than Grohl and Jones, yes, it sounds like a jam session in some places and has tracks that are a minute or two longer than people are used to, but I don’t give a fuck. I understand this album and it speaks to me on a level that no other album has this year.

Every track is distinctive, so much so that depending on the mood I’m in, a song I liked the first few times I heard it will sound weak while a track that I didn’t connect with previously will jump out at me, hitting me right between the eyes in a ‘How did I miss that?!’ moment that I’ve never really experienced with any other album.

Musicians and anyone who’s spent time in studio will gravitate toward this album naturally and probably ask the question, ‘Seriously?! How the fuck did they just do that?’ countless times when listening to this powerful superband.

Non-musicians will probably miss a lot of what’s going on here, but I still reckon there are at least three tracks on this album that will hook you, which should make it a good album in anyone’s books.

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