The 10 Most Delicious Albums of 2010

When I had the idea to do this post back in June, I was worried that it would turn into "The Ten Albums that I At Least Kinda Liked This Year."  Fortunately for the world of music and unfortunately for my sanity, there ended up being a hefty load of albums to consider.  Of course, this means that I had to keep on top of contemporary music, which was, well, not exactly my forte.  This year, there was no tour-de-force album like Light Grenades, no Good Apollo, no De-Loused in the Comatorium, no Ten, no Systematic Chaos, no Who Are We Living For? no By The Way, or even a Stadium Arcadium.  I don't think there was even an In Absentia.  But we got some good releases this year, so we can at leas celebrate that.


Before we begin, I would like to give a bit of a disclaimer.  First of all, even though these albums are ranked in a hierarchy, that doesn't necessarily mean that one is "better" than the albums below it, or that there is really any objective and quantifiable way to measure how good or bad an album is.  These are my picks for the purposes of this post.  But please, controversy is appreciated.  And of course, I am no authority on the matter.  My taste shouldn't dictate or even influence your taste.


All right, well here we go...

10) Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks


This came as a surprise, as I really didn't think this album would be making it into the top ten.  But here it is.  It's not deep, it's not complex, but I'll be dipped in molasses and called Shirley (what?) if this album doesn't make you jump around.  And nothing but a cocktail of endorphins and dissolved ecstasy injected directly into your brain stem will elevate your mood more than the song "Bottled in Cork."










9) Mutiny Within - Mutiny Within


This album made me fall in love with screaming all over again.  My hair also grew three inches during my first listen through this album, my clothes turned black, and I found myself fighting a midget at four in the morning on the Sunset Strip.  They remind me of Avenged before M. Shadows vocal chords self destructed, augmented with the melodic sensibilities of Dream Theater.  Since this is their debut album, they also get the nod as newcomers of the year.









8) Jason Moran - Ten


Who said piano jazz wasn't cool.  Ok, this album won't exactly become the anthem for today's youth, and listeners who aren't familiar with the genre probably won't get many thrills out of this album.  But the musicianship of Moran's trio, the Bandwagon, is exceptional, honed over their ten years of playing together.  Moran's sound can shift from slow, stripped-down bluesy to McCoy Tyner-esque franticness in an instant.  Definitely an album worth checking out for anyone who gives a flying fuck in the direction of jazz.









7) Bettye LaVette - Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook


R&B singer Betty LaVette created what may be the most interesting album of the year: covers of British Invasion songs in her own unique style.  In my opinion, this is exactly what covers should be.  Rather than simply re-creating a song, a cover should be a re-interpretation of the song, and cast it in an entirely new light. LaVette does this on every track in this album, covering songs by the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles, The Animals, and Pink Floyd, among others.  The album was inspired when LaVette performed a cover of "Love, Reign O'er Me" at the Kennedy Center Honors, a performance which was considered by many to be the highlight of the event.  Two years later, this masterpiece emerged.  The best part: her signature soulful moaning on an incredibly sexy and strutting rendition of "All of my Love."









6) Gogol Bordello - Trans-Continental Hustle


In a way, this album by gypsy-punk outfit Gogol Bordello is the soundtrack to globalization, combining eastern European musical traditions with frantic, uptempo, and sometimes angry, good-ole-fashioned punk rock.  This album delivers a heavy dose of mayhem and madness, perfect for everything from fist pumping to lining up a row of grain alcohol shots.  And while I'm not necessarily sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, it kind of makes me want to charge, head first, at full-tilt, into a brick wall, because I'm sure I could break through.  









5) Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone


Mavis Staples praises Jesus for salvation, and I praise Jesus for Mavis Staples.  Improbably produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, this album takes the most famous Staples Sister (don't deny it) to a whole new dimension.  Whether it's the uptempo gospel tracks or the Wilco-infused ballads, this album is guaranteed to cause an entirely healthy euphoria.*


*This statement has not been certified by the Surgeon General.








4) Coheed and Cambria - Year of the Black Rainbow

This album kind of sounds like what would happen if one of the most iconic alternative rock bands of the 00's picked up the drummer from the Dellinger Escape Plan and then had Atticus Ross produce their new album.  Oh wait, that is what happened.  While the outcome isn't as great as the masterpieces of In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth and Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, this is a solid album of solid rocking, something that was conspicuously hard to find this year.  Completing the band's five-part story arc of concept albums, this album fills in the first chapter.  It follows the same general structure as the band's other albums, starting with a quiet instrumental track, segueing into the anthem, then a smattering of vocal hooks and guitar assaults with a power ballad or two thrown in for good measure, and then concluding with a long and brooding song.  But it's a structure that works.  I noted in another post that Coheed is a Passover Sedar, which I guess would make the band's first four albums Exodus.  If so, then this album is a kind of Genesis, an epic of creation, flaws, failure, and then dealing with the consequences.  It's kind of like getting hit over the head with a pillar of salt.













3) Bill Frisell - Beautiful Dreamers


On his umpteenth album, Jazz/Folk/Americana guitarist Bill Frisell teams up with drummer Rudy Royston and Violist Eyvind Kang and expands the sound that he has been pioneering over his decades-long career: a richly textured blend of spacey post-bop and American folk music.  And while the mood ranges from upbeat, on tracks like "Better than a Machine," to melancholy, on tracks like "No Time to Cry," the album feels like one piece of through composed music, the breaks between tracks being only pauses between movements.  If this album were a food, it would probably be a chicken fried cocktail olive - classy yet folksy.

2) The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang


New Jersey punk rockers The Gaslight Anthem have produced another album of, driving riffs, gritty vocals, and Jersey angst.  It's softer, and, yes, not quite as punky as their previous albums, but it is by no means any less intense.  And whatever it loses in it's punkliness it gains in soulfulness.  This is music for nostalgia, for regret, for bitterness, for dreamers, and for the hopeless romantics.











1) Pete Francis - The Movie we are In


No, unlike everyone else, I did not pick Kanye for the top album of 2010.  In fact, I picked an album that most people won't even be considering for their top x albums of the year, let alone #1.  So I guess I had better explain myself.


Pete Francis is much better known as being a member of Dispatch.  When they broke up and pursued their respective solo acts, it seemed as though they devolved into two dime-a-dozen singer-songwriters and a politically minded wanna-be Jamaican.  Of course, each of the three respective acts - Pete Francis, Braddigan, and State Radio - all ended up coming into their own, but without the same kind of fandom, and, of course, the synergy.  I've stated that State Radio is Dispatch without the fun, and that Braddigan is Dispatch without the attitude.  This album takes a lot of what I love about Dispatch (but of course far from all of it) and gives it a gritty reboot: Francis' singer-songwriter style is augmented with electronic drum beats and synthesizer tracks.  And even though it is a contemporary singer-songwriter writing for contemporary electronic instrumentation, parts of the album seem to be channeling Tom Petty, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Revolver-era Beatles.

This also gets the nod for the best album cover of the year, because it depicts what most of us did: pay out the nose to wear silly little glasses that were supposed to make us think a terrible movie were better.









Albums on the Bubble


Portugal. The Man - American Ghetto
Soulive - Rubber Soulive
Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate - Ali & Toumani
Brad Mehldau - Highway Rider
Taking Dawn - Time to Burn
Broken Bells - Broken Bells
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - I Learned the Hard Way
The Young Veins - Take a Vacation!
Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited - Exile
Cee-Lo Green - The Lady Killer
Against Me! - White Crosses
Eels - End Times
The Disco Biscuits - Planet Anthem


Biggest Disappointment: A Tie Between The Black Keys' Brothers and MGMT's Congradulations


Also check out the somewhat posthumous release by Jimi Hendrix, entitled Valleys of Neptune.  Unfortunately, due to its posthumous status, it could not even be put in consideration.




And that, ladies and gents, was what was in 2010.

Review: Coheed and Cambria's Year of the Black Rainbow

This review is awful, I'm warning you.  Not that it's a bad review like I don't like the album.  I just review it very badly.

It's easy to make comparisons between Coheed and Cambria's new album, Year of the Black Rainbow, and their previous efforts: that it's a departure from the prog sound they adopted in 2007's No World for Tomorrow, that it's way more tightly produced and in your face than their first two albums, that it lacks the instrumental hooks of Good Apollo, while seemingly shifting much of the melodic emphasis to the vocals.  But in the first few seconds of "The Broken," after you're assaulted by a fleshy metal riff, topped by Claudio's distinctive vocals, you know it's still Coheed at its finest.  Coheed's fifth album comes off as more polished but certainly no less refined, the logical culmination of a sound that somehow seems to thwart attempts at classification.

Coheed and Cambria combines two things that I love: rock music and science fiction.  (The first which makes me cool, the latter which makes me extremely uncool.)  Their five albums (to date, hopefully) chronicle an epic science fiction saga, conceived by frontman Claudio Sanchez and illustrated in a series of graphic novels.  This essentially makes Coheed's work a step beyond the concept album; seeing as all of their material to date is related to this story, Coheed and Cambria is a concept band.  (Take that, Springsteen!)  As a result, their songs haven't always made sense but can be interpreted in any number of ways, from the profound and open ended ("In your last hour stand / you'll notice / the one that you have loved in dreams / is here among the others") to things that are seemingly profound, but aren't ("You may be invited / But you're not coming in"), to the absurd ("Die white girl! / Die white girl!")

The sound is definitely fuller and denser because of the addition of Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie, but the real change in sound comes in production.  By enlisting Nine Inch Nails producer Atticus Ross, the band took a step away from the prog direction and has cultivated a sound that sounds more like their sound before No World for Tomorrow with a bit of an industrial infusion.  This is evident on tracks like "Far" and "Here We Are Juggernaut," which sound more produced, more enhanced, more artificial.  The album sounds powerful, not really like getting punched in the face, but more like having your head held underwater.  At times it can be overwhelming, but never off-putting, as long as you are accustomed to Claudio's vocals, which have been known to turn many away.

The biggest complaint I have with Year of the Black Rainbow is the lack the instrumentals sections that punctuated the band's previous albums.  Yes, there are guitar solos a-plenty, but there are precious few of the long riffs and more technical and vocal-free passages that were one of Coheed's unique attributes.  There is no track like "2113" on Year of the Black Rainbow, and I feel that absence is the album's dark matter; something that feels like it should be there but can't be found.

I hate to give out a number of stars or some other form of conventional rating.  I would equate this to a food, seeing as I seem to have some bizarre form of synesthesia, but I have already determined that Coheed and Cambria is a Passover Seder.  All I can say is that I would order seconds.