20:09, Part 2: Albums

It's that time of year where music bloggers and publications post their picks for the best music of the past twelve months. I'm just following the crowd. As a gimmick to force me to narrow down my selections, I'm presenting my list in the form of the nine (09) best albums and songs. Go here for the songs. Below are the albums:

:09) The Devin Townsend Project - Addicted

Devin Townsend has always been on the fringe of what I tend to like in a metal band, but somehow he manages to impress me where similar artists bore me, or worse, make me laugh. I'd given up on him after a so-so latest release from his full-time band, Strapping Young Lad, but I'm glad I gave Addicted a shot. With Swedish-style industrial pop tracks like these, it should be easy to see why “HevyDevy” and I are on good terms again.

:08) The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

At War With the Mystics is what happens when the Flaming Lips try to sound like the Flaming Lips. Embryonic is what happens when the band goes balls to the wall and see where it gets them. I like that Flaming Lips much better. This album starts off sounding like 70's krautrock mixed with Kid A-era Radiohead, and goes all over the place from there. Sometimes their experiments prove unsuccessful (take the annoying “I Can Be a Frog”...please*rimshot*), but for the most part, everything works, and works together to create what should be remembered as one of the best albums of their career.

:07) Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights

Maybe the most amazing thing about Lightning Bolt is that I've yet to grow tired of them. What we basically have here is a band with about 1.5 songs repeated ad nauseum, spread across a ten year career and (now) 5 albums. But maybe I just find it hard to be super critical of a band who is constantly doing this to my face:

Earthly Delights came after a four year hiatus and they haven't missed a beat. Still melting faces.

:06) Dälek - Gutter Tactics

Dälek are like that friend you don't always like to hang out with because all they ever wanna do is talk radical politics. Oh sure, the conversation starts with your new kitten, but before you know it, it ends up with how the government plans to use the microchips implanted in pets to emit a mind control signal that will expel minorities from America. Good thing the music is so damn good. DJ Oktopus seems to mature with every new album, and this is his darkest, most consistent, and overall strongest effort yet. To give credit where it's due, MC Dälek's doomy lyrics fit the mood, and his thoughts are often passionate, well-researched, and perhaps agreeable. But...damn dude, can we just talk about kittens for a minute?

:05) Converge - Axe To Fall

I've figured it out: Converge are not human. They look human, but that's just a ruse. Any bit of human they may have one point had in them belongs to a power far more sinister. They've sold their souls for rock and roll, which has given them an uncanny level of stamina that allows them to thrive at a pace that would've destroyed other hardcore bands. What's more impressive is that Axe To Fall is what most people consider a “weak” Converge record. This does not bode well for their hardcore peers.

:04) The Mars Volta - Octahedron

A funny thing happened in 2009: the Mars Volta made their comeback record; only many of those who might have cared have long since given up on the band. Octahedron is the album many people thought they no longer had in them: a shorter, straightforward album that significantly trims down on the elongated prog-rock passages they've indulged in as of late and brings back the hooks. This is what people wanted to hear after De-loused In The Comatorium, and after six years, they finally have it. Better late than never, right?

:03) Mastodon - Crack The Skye

Let's take notice of a few things working against Crack The Skye: 1) it's Mastodon's most progressive and indulgent album yet (which is saying something). 2) It's a concept album in which the concept sounds like it was written while on acid, at 4AM, by a monkey that has been trained to type. 3) The lead singer was a douchebag before the band found success and is an even bigger douchebag now that they've made it kind of big. 4) The band were coming off their weakest album to date in Blood Mountain, and many thought they'd only go downhill from there. And now here they are with a collection of songs that can't seem to decide which riff it wants to settle upon and it still manages to be among the best things to come out of 2009. Though the lead singers' massive ego needs to be deflated a little, I can't find reason to do so after listening to this album. The most hyped metal release of the year totally deserves it.

:02) maudlin of the Well - Part the Second

I really want to hate this band. Look at those fucking song titles (“Another Excerpt: Keep Light Near You, Even When Dying”, and “Laboratories of the Invisible World (Rollerskating the Cosmic Palmistric Postborder)”, to name two)! Look at that fucking all-lower-case-except-the-last-word band name! Look at that fucking haircut! Anyone who's been exposed to Toby Driver's music has figured out that he's frustratingly pretentious, but goddammit if he doesn't strike gold sometimes. On Part the Second, he strikes five times. Yeah, the pretense is still abundant in the music, but these melodies do too good of a job calming the part of me that wants to punch him in the face.

:01) Ancestors - Of Sound Mind

The lead guitarist of this band found a review I wrote of this album and personally thanked me for my kind words. I could speak about his act being humble, but when you're as overlooked and unknown as this band is, humility has yet to enter the picture. I could spend most of this space speaking of how criminally overlooked this record has been, but when it all comes down to it, I'm not that surprised. A little-known psych rock/doom metal band channels 70's progressive rock and records an album full of 12-17 minute epics? Not the kind of thing that's going pique the interest of a press stuck on the discussion of where Merriweather Post Pavilion ranks among the best of the decade. Oh well, that's their loss. I have little hesitation in calling Of Sound Mind a modern classic. I can only hope that time will earn this album the more widespread praise that it deserves.