10. Bitte Orca - Dirty Projectors
(Domino 2009, Dave Longstreth)
Innovation doesn't always lead to success no matter how creative you are, and on previous efforts Dave Longstreth and Dirty Projectors have often created intriguing works but found themselves too often venturing into the extremes of inaccesibility. Bitte Orca sees a fundamental shift, it feels no less creative, imaginative or remarkable but suddenly the Dirty Projectors have presented the world with an album full of sharp addictive melodies and ground breaking pop music. Only a cursory listen to the brilliant album opener Cannibal Resource unveils the great strength of Bitte Orca. Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian's sweet high pitch harmonies take the role of the entire orchestra providing beautiful instrumentation and a adding a great depth and contrast to the melodies of Longstreth. In conforming to convention and presenting more traditional song structures, more welcoming to uninitiated, Longstreth has not lost his core sound he has instead found a way to transform and subvert traditional conventions.
After the layered vocal arrangements of the openers Cannibal Resourse and the warped guitar of Temecula Sunrise the crunch of a conventional guitar lick becomes a surprising thrill on the brilliant The Bride before we are treated to the first r'n'b ballad of any interest in what seems like an eternity Stillness Is The Move. It's at this point that you realise just how hard Bitte Orca is to describe, it's been a common complaint among critics, Bitte Orca is an album that makes you look stupid, that sentence alone proves my point. The harmonies and burbling electronica combine with rich orchestral undercurrents creating a beautiful europhia but it's almost impossible to define in conventional terms, even on Dirty Projectors most conventional album to date. Two Doves is one of the albums clear highlights, it has a approachable enough plucked guitar lick but the infusion of sharp stagger classical jabs and swift fleeting timing changes provides the music with a tense sensation which is almost at odds with Ambers high floaty croon, the end results is a luminescent sweet pop song that shouldn't work but of course does. It's at this point you realize the ultimate triumph of Bitte Orca is that, Dave Longstreth has managed to produce a fiercely challenging and intelligent album whose abrasive edges are smoothed by it's own undoubted beauty. Therefore Bitte Orca can be strange, challenging and defiantly different without making it's potential audience feel like outcasts or unwelcome visitors.
9. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
- The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
(Fortuna Pop! 2009, TPOBPAH)
Another entry in the top twenty five and another reference to My Bloody Valentine, I don't know why but the shoe gaze asethic appears to be thoroughly back in vogue. Thankfully, the influence here is subtle, similar to those seen on Primary Colours earlier in the countdown, the glorious hazy dream pop contrast gives The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart a glorious pop punch and their melodies a wonderful sleepy and demure charm. Rather than providing a exploration of noise and beauty the foggy haze ascends over their impeccably tight indie pop jaunts. Young Adult Friction burst out early in the record with a sense of fond retrospection, it sounds like detached reflective pogo-along hymn, at the start you could be mistaken for thinking this was the best track the View had ever written, but then of course after thirty seconds you realize no it can't be because this isn't shit. The guitars jag and bounce relentless throughout the album, and it almost makes you sad, you feel as though we've missed out on a generation of potentially brilliant guitar music. Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have seamlessly blended the dreary day dreams of MBV and Pavement with the Strokes and Libertines' post-punk 21st Century jangle, you can't help but feel this is what the last ten year of music should have sounded like. There's even a healthy dose of The Stone Roses in the mix as the straight lo-fi jaunt of This Love Is Fucking Right! manages to feels distinctly like the offspring of UK pop and US alt, resulting in a glorious union. The whole of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart does bear the scar of it's influences, it never feels challenging, and while it's certainly distinct in the current pop market, it doesn't feel particularly fresh or new, if there's one word to describe this album it's cosy, it fits like a warm slipper. Now in the world of rock and roll the world "cosy" is about as abhorrent as any imaginable, but by the time you've ploughed through ten tracks each more catchy, more bouncy and more irresistible than the last, artistic nit picking seems fruitless. Similar to The Strokes Is This It The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have crafted a debut so direct and so punchy that any criticism seem pointless. To create such an assured work so early in one's career is simply a feat to be applauded not dissected.
8. XX - The XX
(Young Turks 2009, The XX)
Their is no doubt as to 2009's most staggering album, the long awaited debut of London's The XX was a record that stopped you dead in you're tracks. Everything about their debut had a rich emotional power, every subtly guitar lick, every pound of the bass drum, and each down beat melonconic croon. The albums intro a two minute instrumental track set the tone, it resonate ominously, it was gloriously minimalistic but it's winding central riff and pounding drum arrangement was designed to fill wide open spaces, not with blistering noise but with sheer atmosphere. It was that one word that encapsulated the entire album, atmosphere, this was an album that loomed large, it was emotionally tense and powerfully haunting as the two duelling vocalist slowly elided together. As a result the albums emotional core is hard to define, it has an incredible immediacy, and it has the feel of dispear and desolation but it's simply too harmonious and too accessible to ever be a downer.
The albums has two truly great facets, first the gorgeous interplay between the male and female vocals, both wonderfully dead pan but with each coo carrying the air of faint hope. Second the subtle guitar work, the riffage is minimal, and the arrangements are sparse and rhythmic but the real strenght is the timing, every time you want a clang of emotionally terse guitar to chime or the big concluding thud of bass pedal to emerge it always does. The end sensation is not predictability but a deep rooted sense of satisfaction, everything is truly in it's right place, each track evolves naturally giving you the climax you desire, without ever over stepping the mark or encroaching on the strong captivating vocal performances. As a result the album creates a magical atomsphere, far richer than the relatively bare bones arrangements would suggest, it's all to do with timing and pitch, the thudding blurry thud of bass on Fantasy is a perfect example, combining with a ghostly strained riff it creates grand imagery of eerie uncomfortable surroundings. The XX aren't afraid to let tracks linger even in the space of three or four minutes tracks are allowed to brood; the gorgeous Shelter is in no rush, they allow every syllable to sink into you're subconscious. Minimalism is The XX's friend, and it's their weapon of choice, they feel shy, reluctant but most importantly truthful and this decision to choose bare bones honesty over rock and roll gusto serves them well, creating an intelligent honest powerful and spooky masterwork.
7. The Fame Monster - Lady Gaga
(Interscope 2009, Darkchild)
It's tricky when running you're own blog, not to repeat yourself, when reviewing The Fame Monster earlier in the year, I lavished an almost unending stream of praise upon this very album, I felt I said everything that needed to be said, capturing a moment in Lady Gaga's evolution. However it's been a couple of months since I last sampled The Fame Monster, and I wonder does my assessment still hold true, does this record still thrill? The answer is of course a defiant hell yes! The Fame Monster still seems like the awakening of a true pop icon, and album that shows Lady Gaga's potential not just as a vapid iconoclastic celebrity but as a true artist, whose shock tactics now pale in comparison to her undoubted hit making capability. The scariest facet of The Fame Monster was it's consistency, the quality set by album opener and uncontainable single Bad Romance is held throughout, and while the obvious Madonna references still abound, the strength of this collective work points more in the direction of Bowie. Not in terms of the crazy outfits but in terms of the mad cap creativity.
The improvement on The Fame is marked, her debut seemed like a necessary breakthrough, a victory of style over substance with a series of irresistible hits carrying cleverly postured filler. The Fame Monster is the opposite; it is a thirty minute lightening bolt of slick and irresistible electro pop. The songs feel richer, the arrangements are sharper and the melodies inescapable. The songs are no longer structured around potential dance routines and opportunities to strike a pose; the tracks are now shaped from beginning to end to create emotional peaks and those perfect fist in the air moments. Monster lives up to it's name as a monster of a pop track, Alejandro is still hilarious and Speechless contrasts Gaga's own sense of the ridiculous with genuinely epic song writing sweeps. Speechless is perhaps the albums scariest moment, we all knew Gaga and her crew could make the club bangers but in this ballad she shows a flare for cinematic and inventive, who would have expected to see orchestral arrangements and folk stomps on The Fame? Every last inch of The Fame Monster suggests that come 2020 Lady Gaga will be this decade and this generations enduring Icon. And to think this was just a set of throwaway tracks to flog a few copies of her debut album, who knows what's she capable of on her true follow up to The Fame.
6. Two Dancers - Wild Beasts
(Domino 2009, Richard Formby)
One of the greatest accomplishments in all of the arts whatever you're medium is to take the grotesque and make it beautiful. Wild Beasts accomplish that feat with assured ease on their sophmore effort Two Dancers. Two Dancers is an album that sees the emergence of a remarkable song writing talent in the form of Hayden Thorpe. Moving to Leeds obviously did Wild Beasts a power of good as Two Dancers feels like a concept album with Hayden Thorpe examining in great almost Shakespearean verse the ills of society, however this is not a condemnation, this is an exploration; we are given these rich narratives through the eyes of the common thug, whether he be brutally beating a rival, taking part in a visceral gang rape or simply putting the erh...boot in booty call (and yes that does actually form the chorus of Fun Powder Plot). What makes this album remarkable is how these themes are explored, this depraved world of gangs, blood shed and rape are explored not in furious gritty post-punk indie but instead in europhic shimmering rhythms and through a desperate almost heavenly yelp combined with a warm welcoming if subtly sinister croon. The interplay between the dead pan vocals and the feral falsetto grate at first but in time create a heavenly contrast on an album that defies expectation by becoming almost instantly accessible.
The album starts at lightening pace and the three punch combo of Fun Powder Plot, Hooting And Howling and All The King's Men leave you stunned by an infeasibly brilliant opening. This tremendous opening is concluded with the alcohol fuelled We've Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Mouths a truly intoxicating track that's beauty is contrasted hilariously with it's menace "Us Kids Are Cold And Cagey Rattling Around The Town, Scaring The Oldies Into Their Dressing Gowns", his lyrical structure is so charming you can't help but feel a roguish affinity with his tales of inner city depravity. The album concludes with a more sombre and reflective pace with the albums two part title track, providing a pause for thought mentally, before blowing us away with one last should have been classic single This Is Our Lot. Two Dancers by it's end is an album set apart by it's lyrically approach; a style that is so distinct, refreshing and unique it's only matched by the sweet subtly of it's arrangements; it's insightful, powerful, challenging, beautiful and most importantly crammed full of divine pop sentiments, no band has achieved this feat so successfully since messieurs Morrissey and Marr parted ways. High praise, thoroughly earned.
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