Hollyzone's Musical Charts – Albums 2008 Part 2

And the top 25. Including a surprise no.1. But when I applied my main criteria (“if I could only keep one of these albums which one would it be?”) the no.1 choice, and thus Hollyzone album of the year was…

1 Malajube – Trompe L’Oeil

Huh? What? Who? Just some of the responses I get, even from seasoned music nerds, to this lot. But yes, this is the best thing Hollyzone has heard all year. Perhaps being Canadian it was inevitable there’d be a few tags of “like Arcade Fire” but really the only comparison is the in ambition. Just a few guitars, drums and bass, and an arsenal of French lyrics… woah, French lyrics? Yes and that’s what makes this album’s impact all the more impressive, the fact I didn’t understand a single word of it. The lush soundscapes, the sometimes danceable tunes, the range of songs all add up to something unexpectedly fantastic. It is consistently brilliant and manages to touch upon things as diverse as quiet melodic interludes, massed ranks of soul raising harmonies, and the generally superior French way of rapping (I cannot be the only person out there with an inexplicable love of rapping done in French of French). It’s appearance in roughly 0 other end of year lists is a massive shame. Really, it is. Do yourself a favour and have a listen.
Best bit The massive storm of noise and harmony at the end of ‘La Monogamie’.

2 LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver

Dance music with a soul? Grooves with good lyrics? Bang, suddenly it’s considered indie-dance! Who cares about genres though, this is completely superb. One of the few albums which has proven itself in the living room, the bus and the dancefloor. Jamie Murphy has managed to reign in the tendency to overextend his songs beyond the point when they should finish, as demonstrated on his sprawling debut. This time around the cowbells, synths and smartness are utilised perfectly. ‘North American Scum’ will raise both a smile and a few eyebrows, being as it is one of the best treatments of cross Atlantic relations committed to record. ‘Watch The Tapes’ has a wonderful shoutalong quality. But it’s the emotional tracks, the yearning rush of ‘All My Friends’, the heartbreaking simplicity of ‘Someone Great’, and the unexpected piano lope of ‘New York I Love You’ are the standouts.
Best bit The outro to ‘All My Friends’, as Murphy sings “If I could be with my friends tonight”.

3 Tegan And Sara – The Con

Not technically released in this country until February, but I thought this might serve as heads up on this. It’s great. No really it is. I know this band, if they have a reputation at all in this country, are seen as ‘lesbian’ singer-songwriters, i.e. whiny females with acoustic guitars, and there are one or two tracks of that sort here, but there’s also a lot more. Electronic-influenced stuff like ‘Are You Ten Years Ago’ nestles up with beautifully OTT rockers like the title track. In fact the only duffer is first single ‘Back In Your Head’ which feels too simplistic compared to what’s going on around it. There’s out-and-out pop moments combined with moments of intimacy and genuine feeling. It’s one of those records with something for everyone in the least cheesy way.
Best bit The chorus to the title track when it all breaks out around Tegan’s cracked vocal.

4 Manic Street Preachers – Send Away The Tigers

The phrase “a return to form” is used so often by journalists desperately hoping that the album they’ve listened to once really is a return to the sort of songs which made the band big/popular/noticeable in the first place. But just for once, after two previous supposed returns to form, Know Your Enemy (overlong and trying too hard) and Lifeblood (not trying hard enough), Manic Street Preachers actually have returned to form. Send Away The Tigers throws in big guitars, lyrics which swing between silly and great, and James Dean Bradfield’s superb voice. It feels like they’ve stopped being self conscious and started writing songs which are punchy and concise. It isn’t their best, partly because on songs like ‘Indian Summmer’ and ‘Autumn Song’ they are extremely reminiscent of previous, better, moments. But damn, it’s so close to their best this becomes largely irrelevant. ‘Second Great Depression’ and ‘Imperial Bodybags’ demonstrate why they’ve managed to reinvigorate themselves and their fans. Best of all is the self awareness, not always a Manics strong point, on display. They aren’t trying to be something they’re not, and it’s worked. Oh, and I know there are a lot of Manics haters out there, but fook you, this rocks!
Best bit Nicky Wire’s lines on ‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’.

5 Klaxons – Myths Of The Near Future

Ignore the NME hysteria (in the highly unlikely event you don’t already do so), this isn’t a perfect album, a chart topper. What it is is a debut that’s packed with hope that finally we have a hype band able to fulfil their promise. Even when the ideas don’t really hit the spot perfectly the fact there are ideas (the stomping menace of ‘Isle Of Her’, the pure pop of ‘Golden Skans’, the bellowing madness of ‘Four Horsemen of 2012’) floating around left, right and centre, points to a promising future. And when it does work, as it does on the singles most spectacularly, there are few bands or artists to have produced such excellence this year. Indie, pop or dance, it doesn’t matter, at its best this tears up dancefloors, living rooms and journeys.
Best bit “OoooOOOOooooAAAH!” – ‘Golden Skans’.

6 Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

Not as good as Funeral but nothing this decade has been (my blog, don’t argue :p). It’s still Arcade Fire and thus worth more than 99% of all music released this year. Still passionate, still tugging at the heart strings, the gut and the soul of the listener. Even recycling an old song, ‘No Cars Go’, was inspired as the new version was 200% better than its previous, also ace, incarnation. If you don’t like Arcade Fire (blasphemer!) then this won’t convince you. The histrionics are all present and correct, the endless instrument changes all accounted for. But an increased role for Regine’s vocals, and a willingness to be more upbeat and more low key adds variety even if there’s nothing to quite top ‘Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)’ or ‘Wake Up’, though ‘Intervention’ and ‘Black Wave/Bad Vibration’ come so close it makes the listener applaud at their ability to hit their heights whilst moving on.
Best bit The change between the ‘Black Wave’ and ‘Bad Vibration’ tracks.

7 Bloc Party – A Weekend In The City

For a long long time I really didn’t think I liked this album much. Individual tracks were great, but the whole thing didn’t seem to hang together, didn’t seem to hold the attention. But by the end of the year I had to admit I do really like this. Not as good as the debut, and it does run out of steam towards the end, but AWITC has enough good and great songs to be worth the effort. Songs with real development on them like ‘The Prayer’ and ‘Hunting For Witches’ showed the same imagination as their debut, and the more emotional stuff like ‘Uniform’ and ‘I Still Remember’ were not necessarily perfect companions on the album, but as songs they were great.
Best bit “We have nothing at all to say” from ‘Uniform’.

8 Radiohead – In Rainbows

£3. But I bought the CD on New Year’s Day for the normal price so that’s more than I’d usually pay for a CD. And yes, it is a ‘return to form’. Yes, it’s Radiohead with guitars and songs with choruses and tunes. Low key by Radiohead’s standards, but some of the stuff on their was breath taking. ‘Weird Fishes/Apreggi’, ‘Nude’, the lot, were slow burning slices of sonic masterfulness, each one revealing more with each listen as the carefully constructed moments were allowed to wash around the listener. Does that sound pretentious? Did Radiohead’s venture come across as pretentious? Does it matter? Best they’ve managed to sound since the 1990s.
Best bit When ‘Weird Fishes’ kicks in.

9 Robyn – Robyn

Turns out pop music can be essential. It can be indier than most ‘indie’ bands. It can be witty, clever, emotional, the lot. Robyn has assembled a dream lineup of producers, songs and lyrics, the pinnacle of which managed to dent the popular imagination, ‘With Every Heartbeat’ rightly getting the no.1 slot in the summer. It’s interesting that it took a Swedish former manufactured starlet to show most of the pop world how to blend perfectly with the coolest producers (The Knife on ‘Who’s That Girl’), put the feeling into the tunes (‘Be Mine’) and mangle/manage the English language with style (the hilarious and addictive ‘Konichiwa Bitches’). Better pop than Girls Aloud in 2007! And that’s high praise.
Best bit The genuinely funny monologue that ends ‘Curriculum Vitae’.

10 Battles – Mirrored

Obtuse, unpredictable and about as far removed from pop whilst still being catchy, tuneful and intoxicatingly good at getting lodged into your head. Battles’ album may be a fantastic example of ridiculously over-talented musos indulging, but somehow every seven minute symphony of vituoso drumming, complex riffs and distorted, at times chipmunk-esque vocals, sounds just great. It shouldn’t be, it should be an excuse to chinstroke and alienate casual listeners, but Battles have managed to find a perfect median point. I’ve managed to get people as diverse as a big prog lover and my fifty-something parents to like this album. It’s not hard.
Best bit When ‘Atlas’ starts. Those drums are brilliant.

11 Shy Child – Noise Won’t Stop

I can imagine a lot of people not liking Shy Child purely because Pete Cafarella has a somewhat divisive yelp of a voice, similar in a lot of ways to Hollyzone love/lots of other people’s hate Stellastar*. But oh, the frenetic fast paced synth pop he creates with his drummer mate. Or his drummer mate and Spank Rock sometimes. It’s insanely fast until the last few songs when the tempo collapses into whispy, less interesting stuff. But when it’s up there, hammering away, it’s thrillingly mad. What happens when AHDH kids are given keytars and told to write music? This. Not for the feint hearted.
Best bit Spank Rock and Shy Child teaming up on ‘Kick Drum’. That verse alone is worth the album price.

12 Kuichek! – Not Enough Night

Overlooked indie, all cowbells and hi-hats and harmonies, reminiscent of bands like Sunshine Underground meeting The Futureheads, but with a slower more elegant side. When half the songs sound like missiles destined for the dancefloor, and the other half sound like a **CHECK WHERE BAND FROM* attempt at (of all things) Sigur Ros, albeit without the high-pitched vocals. Another debut which presents the possibility of future brilliance, Kubichek! have been unfairly left behind in the rush of indie taking over the charts and festivals.
Best bit The way it jumps from jerky post-punk style indie to effects drenched guitars in seconds.

13 Simian Mobile Disco – Attack Decay Sustain Release

Finally dance music is fun again rather than forced jollyness. And sexy rather than cheesy-sleazy. And with character rather than repetitive synths and mind numbingly dull female warblings over the top. SMD might have such a distinctive style that 99% of their remixes sound the same, but over an album this works giving it a neat coherency and some fat riffs. It’s cheeky upstart music. It’s also dance music which can be enjoyed outside of the club whilst sober. As it loops and swirls around, from knockabout stuff like ‘It’s The Beat’ to more soulful stuff like ‘I Believe’ and the sheer bleeping joy of opener ‘Sleep Deprivation’ (best opening track of any album here barring Klaxons) it never grows dull though it also never strays from the SMD template. Hard task, well done.
Best bit The moment when you realise dance music’s going to be ok. It’ll happen at different times for different people but it will come.

14 Les Savy Fav – Let’s Stay Friends

Long time indie darlings, LSF have made an album which has finally endeared them to ever-so-fickle music press, and it’s not hard to see why. Like a heavier, less countrified take on Grandaddy’s wilful oddness, odd tunes about over enthusiastic drummers and scary women, no two tracks sound the same. From heavy moments like the overdriven guitars of ‘The Equestrian’ to the Mercury Rev-esque swoop of ‘What Would Wolves Do?’ it’s an album which demonstrates the breadth of ideas which can be accommodated by one indie band. All indie fans should have a listen as there’s bound to be something on this record which will appeal.
Best bit The gorgeous verses on ‘What Would Wolves Do?’. And Tim’s beard.

15 !!! – Myth Takes

Do !!! do songs, per se? No, but this album is closer than their debut to maybe one day writing a song rather than an asre shaking groove. Still, who needs songs when your arse is in constant motion from the endlessly inventive percussion and basslines nicked from all the funkiest songs ever made? Nic Offer’s vocals are perhaps a little more sing-a-long this time around, ‘Heart Of Hearts’ and ‘Must Be The Moon’ are almost anthemic, were they not also ridiculously sleazy yet sexy slices of indie funk. Yes, indie funk, a genre that should be shocking, and largely is. Best ignore the tag and just listen to this.
Best bit When ‘Must Be The Moon’ breaks down and the bass kicks in again.

16 The Cooper Temple Clause – Make This Your Own

If the sheer quality and diversity of the first half of this album had been carried over to the rest of it then this would be top five material, at least. Sadly the standards are allowed to slip in the second half, but the first half contains genius rock outs like ‘Homo Sapiens’ and ‘Damage’ as well as the sort of keyboard fuelled indie-rock like ’ Connection’. Three different vocalists (and I mean different, one sounds like an angrier Liam Gallagher, one like a less America Brian Molko, the other like… well, himself) add up to a strangely enjoyable disconnection between the songs. If only they’d kept it up.
Best bit The intro to ‘Connection’.

17 Future Of The Left – Curses

McLusky split up so what do the singer and drummer do? Exactly the same. Just as loud, just as angry, just as lyrically inspired and just as capable of throwing in a curveball (final track ‘The Contrarian’ is soft-ish and piano-y). They’ve managed to get press attention and acclaim where McLusky couldn’t and it’s only fair. Brutal without being painful, clever without being smug, and there’s a song called ‘Fuck The Countryside Alliance’. What’s not to love?
Best bit The ceaseless ace mix of loud guitars and clever words. So every song.

18 M.I.A. – Kala

The most forward looking album on here and one which will probably divide more than any other, M.I.A.’s second effort could, to some ears, sound like nothing more than noise, clanking, clanging and pummelling away at the listener. But this dismisses the genius of the album, that the noise is actually carefully, artfully constructed, and addictive with it. ‘Jimmy’, an undoubted high point for the year musically, is a curveball, not really indicative of the harsh mix of brutal beats and political points, but it still makes sense in context. The myriad influences make this better than any other rap or r’n’b Hollyzone has heard this year by some considerable way. She should be bigger.
Best bit “M.I.A.’s coming back with power power”.

19 Jimmy Eat World – Chase This Light

More of the same from the best ‘emo’ band around – one of the ones who are actually emotional, rather than just whiny and annoying. Every song sounds like a Jimmy Eat World song, but in a good way, one which suggests each one will be worth the loan of your ears, rather than tired parodies. With both JEW’s (big fun pop-punk JEW and moody cellos and minor chords JEW) catered for with a typical mix of aplomb and humbleness (see single ‘Big Casino’) you will know what this means already. Not as good as Bleed American but little is that good.
Best bit The way ‘Big Casino’ is so obviously about the band themselves, yet is entirely non-egotistical at the same time.

20 Oceansize – Frames

Still plowing their own “progressive-death-indie” furrow, Oceansize were back with another wall of guitars to impart menacing tales of abstract angst and thunderous riffs. Severely underrated, their almost unclassifiable noise will never be mainstream, but their commendable determination to make songs which they want to make has endeared them to fans who want to hear the sound of the apocalypse without the unnecessary mess of an actual apocalypse.
Best bit The ‘chorus’ to ‘Unfamiliar’.

21 Interpol – Our Love To Admire

Not up to the heights of their previous efforts, but still sufficiently Interpol to be worth it. You know the routine, clanging bass, chiming guitars, Paul Banks’ booming voice, completely nonsensical yet captivating lyrics… it’s just so much like what they’ve done before, only not quite as good. Mind you, this still makes them better than most.
Best bit The backing vocals. Not present on every song, but their existence for the first time adds something new.

22 Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position

In which Patrick makes a ‘pop’ album. No really, there was a single which had its own dance moves and everything (the title track which is quite simply wonderful). Naturally it;s the sort of mature pop which most would give their right arms to be able to make one song of, nevermind an album which shifts from big electro bangers (‘Accident And Emergency’) to brooding epics (‘Overture’) and quiet plaintive duets with legends (Marianne Faithfull on ‘Magpie’). Few other albums had the ambition and scope.
Best bit The sound on ‘Overture’ which sounds like falling stars.

23 Asobi Seksu – Asobi Seksu/Citrus

Ok, technically on Citrus is from this year, but both were released in this country this year, and both sound remarkably similar, all sweet Japanese girl vocals overlaid with walls of guitar noise. It’s all early 1990s indie round Asobi Seksu’s house, but what it lacks in startling originality it makes up for in gorgeous melodies and a genuinely adorable frontwoman. When she sounds up the songs are ridiculously uplifting. When she sounds sad you want to get a baseball bat and go find the bastard who upset her. Excellent work.
Best bit The delightful mismatch of vocals and instrumentation.

24 We Start Fires – We Start Fires

Dumb fun pop rock, like Elastica used to come up with. Perhaps a tired comparison, many young female fronted bands seem to suffer it, but as Hollyzone is massive Elastica fan, to even use their name as a positive comparison suggests something good. WSF won’t change anyone’s life, but they’ve some great shout along indie tunes, and a real sense of fun about them, which is refreshing. One of the last bands John Peel liked. Says it all really.
Best bit the breakdown in ‘Let’s Get Our Hands Dirty’.

25 Digitalism – Idealism

Ah, more excellent dance music. More underground than SMD or Justice, but still good enough to merit the attention of more than just the dance-heads out there. A wry sense of humour and some banging beats are all Digitalism needed to slay dancefloors.
Best bit ‘Pogo’... doesn’t it sound really indie, hahaha?

Holly Cruise : 11 Jan 2008 00:10 |  Tags: Music |  Comments (11) |  Report a problem