December 12th, 2007
14. PJ Harvey, White Chalk (29 points]
"When Under Ether" by PJ Harvey
P.J. Harvey has never been shy about reinventing her sound, but White Chalk takes her way outside her comfort zone. Abandoning guitar for piano and wails for whispers, she delivered an album of hauntingly spare songs about despair, discomfort, and the way sometimes even staying close to home can leave you feeling lost.
13. Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank (29 points]
"We've Got Everything" by Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse waited three years to follow up its mainstream-cracking Good News For People Who Love Bad News, and the interim produced an unlikely cohort: Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr co-wrote We Were Dead and joined Modest Mouse full-time. The alt-rock world swooned at the possibilities, and We Were Dead delivered. Mainstream success hasn't watered down the group's considerable quirks, and Dead boasts an unprecedented number of hooks.
12. Jesu, Conqueror (30 points]
"Old Year" by Jesu
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2007 was Justin Broadrick's year. The former Napalm Death member and Godflesh mastermind rode in on January's Conqueror, a full-length that somehow upgrades the greatness of 2006's Silver EP from stunning to celestial. Broadrick followed the album with three incredible EPs and a compilation of previously unreleased songs, but Conqueror remains the apex: No metaphorical allusion to outer space, arctic wastes, or plate tectonics can do justice to the disc's heaviness, vastness, loneliness, and elemental grace. It took 16 years for someone to touch My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, but Broadrick pulled it off.
11. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (35 points]
"The Ghost Of You Lingers" by Spoon
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Adding a horn section can smack of bloat and desperation, and while indie-rock's most economical band may have stretched itself by adding layers of Philly soul on its sixth album, the tunes within are as nattily dressed and whip-smart as ever. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is further testament to Britt Daniel's maturing singularity as a songwriter, too: He slips from hooky FM pop to experimental abstracts to ragged post-punk, but always with an unmistakable bite. With the bouncy, horn-sweetened come-ons of "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" and the Van Morrison-esque retro-pastiche of "The Underdog," Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga swung for the fences and landed the band its first ever Top 10 debut. But as Middle America-friendly as those tunes are, the highlights are the relatively more modest "Eddie's Raga" and "Finer Feelings," both of which sound like nothing more revelatory than great Spoon songs—a commodity that becomes more valuable with each passing year.
10. Bloc Party, A Weekend In The City (36 points]
"Hunting For Witches" by Bloc Party
They say that you have your whole life to write your first album, and a year for your second. While that may seem daunting, even more intimidating is having to follow up a wildly popular left-field debut that had people calling you the next version of an international phenomenon. The Franz Ferdinand comparisons now seem kind of silly, as does the assumption that Bloc Party would suffer a sophomore slump: A Weekend In The City doesn't have a perfect single like "Banquet," but it's more interesting than Silent Alarm, offering lots of energized, epic moments and clever hooks to go with Kele Okereke's bleak pictures of the world around him. But as with all good pop creations, a song like "Hunting For Witches" can be enjoyed simply for its driving guitar, electronically assisted danceable beat, and catchy chorus, even as Okereke sings about racism and blood.
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