December 19th, 2006
13. Mew, And The Glass Handed Kites (Columbia)
In spite of having been around for more than a decade, Denmark-born Mew is still working on name recognition here in the States, and with And The Glass Handed Kites, the group has done its best to make its rafters-reaching intentions clear. Jonas Bjerre's Ian Masters/Neil Tennant-like vocals mingle perfectly with the huge production and even bigger songs, which lean arty but contain enough hooks to keep pop fiends mesmerized.
14. Make Believe, Of Course (Flameshovel)
Tim Kinsella is the punk-rock equivalent of Corey Haim's character in Lucas: obnoxious, cerebral, and possessed of an insane surety that sees him through all manner of ridicule and abuse. But Kinsella has rebounded from Joan Of Arc's crappy The Gap in 2000 with some seriously stunning shit. Of Course takes the cake: Written and recorded in less than a month, the disc sheds his ingrown wordplay in favor of gasping weirdness and blunt sloganeering. (Yes, he really dares to scream "Kurt Cobain lives"—albeit in a structuralist kinda way—over some wicked U.S. Maple-on-Tussin shredding.) Speaking of guitar: Sam Zurick has finally become the post-hardcore Robert Fripp. Only better than that sounds.
15. The Dears, Gang Of Losers (Arts & Crafts)
Murray Lightburn wears his influences—and emotions—on his sleeve, but he celebrates beautiful loserdom with more passion and wit than anyone since idol Morrissey, so such pretension is easily forgiven. Gang forgoes the maudlin preening of The Dears' debut for a stripped-down sound married to clever lyrics, resulting in some of the year's most incandescent pop.
16. Lupe Fiasco, Food and Liquor (Atlantic)
Lupe Fiasco looked to ride the momentum of "Kick, Push" and "Touch The Sky" to multi-platinum sales with his ahead-of-its-time debut Food And Liquor. But rampant bootlegging, a weak Neptunes-produced single ("I Gotcha"), and an adventurous vibe far removed from rap's mainstream foiled his crossover dreams for now. Fiasco can take comfort, however, in the knowledge that his wildly imaginative tales of skateboard romance, giant robots, and surrealistic adventures will still be listened to and treasured long after his chart-topping colleagues are forgotten.
17. Phoenix, It's Never Been Like That (Astralwerks)
France's premier guitar-pop-dance band made a latter-day version of New Order's Brotherhood and Technique, combining moody music and charging rhythms into an insanely catchy collection of songs about being young, idle, and anxious.
18. Ricardo Villalobos, Fizheuer Zieheuer (Playhouse)
Fizheuer Zieheuer is all about sublime repetition and subtle modulation, which wage battle in two 35-minutes-plus tracks that run druggy minimal-techno rhythms under a Balkan brass band foreshortened to abstraction. Both are outlandish for their length, but they're also outrageous for how much variety they squeeze out of tracks that sound the same until you really hone in and get lost.
19. Cold War Kids, Robbers & Cowards (Downtown)
On Robbers And Cowards, Cold War Kids retrace the sonic steps of two indie-rock touchstones, merging the stark, tribal minimalism of The Velvet Underground with bravura vocals instantly reminiscent of Jeff Buckley. Charismatic frontman Nathan Willett propels the resulting suspension forward with a plaintive sincerity that feels almost evangelical.
20. Scott Walker, The Drift (4AD)
While 2006 was a banner year for the Left Hand Path (see John Zorn's Astronome and nearly every black-metal album licensed by Southern Lord), the year's creepiest release had nothing to do with Crowley-quoting headbangers. With The Drift, Scott Walker—an Ohio-born, 63-year-old former British heartthrob whose last album surfaced in 1995—tore pop music to its roots and fashioned harp strings from the nerve endings. Slow, deliberately paced, and as unnervingly dreamlike as a Kubrick scene, the album is horror cinema for the ears, with Walker's topical-yet-obtuse themes indicating that we don't need Old Scratch when humanity is the real devil.
21. LCD Soundsystem, 45:33: Nike+ Original Run (no label)
A digital-only release made to take along on 45-minute jogs, Nike+ Original Run finds LCD Soundsystem paying equal mind to its lust for punk-funk disco and celestial electro. The gapless sequencing illuminates links between parts that might not fit so well otherwise, and the chartable rising-and-falling action testifies to LCD's increasingly impressive range.
22. Califone, Roots & Crowns (Thrill Jockey)
For a band that pretty much bites live, Califone makes some amazing records. And while nothing it's released scales the same heights as There's A Star Above The Manger Tonight by its predecessor, Red Red Meat, Roots & Crowns strikes a similar accord between grumbled, husky twang and mixer-abstracted psychedelia. Country concrète? Sure beats yet another tear in the beer.
23. Pernice Brothers, Live A Little (Ashmont)
Joe Pernice pleads for "the rags, the neurotic, and the sweet lament" on Live A Little. But too many songwriters are trying to provide those things, so any listener's capacity for empathy can get strained. Live A Little is a sneaky cure, offering sweet detachment, but delivering unexpected uplift on songs like the bouncy piano sing-along "PCH One."
24. The Black Keys, Magic Potion (Nonesuch)
Two aging bluesmen disguised in young white bodies, The Black Keys have conjured in Magic Potion a thunderclap of back-alley blues so dark, wretched, and negatively charged with Mississippi Delta voodoo, it's easy to imagine Beelzebub leaving the Detroit basement in which it was recorded, carrying two bloodstained IOUs.
25. Destroyer, Destroyer's Rubies (Merge)
With Destroyer, singer Dan Bejar assumes a persona so arch it makes Bryan Ferry sound like Bruce Springsteen. But if there's any irony to it, Bejar doesn't let it show on these strange, and unexpectedly rousing, art-damaged bohemian glam fantasias.
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