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December 27, 2005

BEST ALBUMS OF 2005 - THREE TAKES - PART 1 - Jeff Klingman

Jeff Klingman kicks off our week long Best Albums of 2005 series. Check back each day this week for two more takes on the year's albums, culminating with an MP3 buffet of our picks for your New Years Eve CD mixes.

1. Wolf Parade – Apologies to the Queen Mary
Can a band be too good for its own good? Drinking problems aside, I fear for the future of Wolf Parade. It seems almost inevitable that the center will one day not hold, that Montreal will be too small for the songwriting talents of Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner, that two bands will form in its stead. Maybe Spencer will wig out some more and inch more fully into obtuse keyboard art, Dan will get more earnest and maybe hire a lap steel player. The two will be compared to each other endlessly, and maybe they’ll be alright, but everybody will wish for the cloudy days of 2005 and throw Apologies to the Queen Mary on one more time. I’m cutting out the middleman.

2. The Fiery Furnaces – E.P.
In which, Matt Friedberger takes his Ritalin. The best set of songs the band has ever put to tape, without a grandmother in sight. Made up of singles and unreleased material, and branded an EP in spite of its full-length, it actually flows together more coherently than some of their overlong, switch ‘em up album suites. The first five song cycle is flawless, with the aching “Evergreen” as its centerpiece. Later multi-part songs have a more consistent lyrical focus than some of the lesser Blueberry Boat tracks. If the wheels start to come off a bit at the very end its forgivable, if only because Matt sat still for so long (although it turns out we shouldn’t have encouraged him).

3. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
The album that makes it clear that the biggest obstacle to Sufjan Stevens finishing his fifty states project is the cruel march of time, not any deficiencies as a songwriter. At this point SS could write a good song about anything. Just yell a word out. Zombies! Serial Killers! Superman! Cancer! Abe Lincoln! Carl Sandburg! Wasps! All are turned into affecting personal narratives built with a diverse instrumental palate and a sharp knack for melody. All are fully realized with a bigger, more expansive sound than the quieter Michigan. All states got words, man.

4. Sleater-Kinney – The Woods
Wait an established band that’s actually better now than they were when they started out over a decade ago? Was that supposed to be happening for everybody? So many good moments, but here’s a few. The awesome switch from nervous art rock verse to classic rock bombast chorus of “Jumpers.” Janet Weiss bringing the group back from the wandering noise brink in “What’s Mine is Yours” with an enormous John Bonham drum fill. The Killers/ Louis XIV baiting in “Entertain.” The ten minute blues workout was one toke over the line (Sweet Jesus), but this one cements the ladies as a rock band for the ages.

5. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (s/t)
Big voice, big sound, big hype. Guess which two will end up mattering? Surreal lyrics and vocal tics earned a lot of David Byrne talk, but in the end CYHSY is less cerebral and warmer than that. Without any record company cash funding the recording process, they manage to delight with small touches. The bent note played against the pounding beat in “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth.” The soaring interplay between overlapping voices in the breakdown of “Is This Love?” The way “In This Home on Ice” amps up the intensity just shy of two minutes in and then tops itself a minute later. Home crafted with love beats knocked out in a expensive studio with a team of experts. It makes the internet hullabulloo sort of heartwarming instead of grating. Good feelings all around.

6. Animal Collective – Feels
Listening to Feels, one word that never comes to mind is “folk” Freak yes, folk no. Boy is this record dense. Voices, drumbeats, strings, keys, harmony, cacophony exploding out of any track at any given time. But its not meek and pastoral by any means. The lyrical content is pretty firmly suburban, tales of swimming pools and fledgling relationships. In contrast, the sound is huge and confusing, a forest of ideas, not trees. When a clearing is found and a burst of melody shines through it’s gratifying for the effort spent sifting through branches (idea branches!) in the first place. For the first time Animal Collective spend equal time on the mysterious and the direct, and the results are worth getting lost in.

7. Xiu Xiu – La Foret
The quintessential room divider keeps soldiering on. Still histrionic and insane at turns, Xiu Xiu demands a reaction and it’s certainly not guaranteed to be positive. He’s growing as a songwriter, though. While last year’s Fabulous Muscles opened some ears as to Jamie Stewart’s ability to write art damaged songs with a pop heart, La Foret did so more consistently. More subdued, maybe, but more listenable on a track to track basis. Incorporating a rollicking auto harp solo as easily as he breaks out a squeal of white noise or a chorus of la-la’s, Xiu Xiu stands as a singular presence in a musical landscape that’s often easy to pin down.

8. LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem (s/t)
To say that LCD Soundsystem, and its frontman/ songwriter James Murphy are derivative is a bit beside the point. His devotion to cherry picking the best parts of rock history and trotting them out for the dance floor is no secret. I mean this is a guy who announced his presence to the world by name dropping basically every underground band at once, over a kicking beat. It’s that spirit that informs this eclectic set. Why can’t a band do smart funk like the Talking Heads, thrash like the Fall, swoon like the Beatles, start a New Order dance party, and then end it all up with a hazy Brian Eno ballad in the course of one album? No reason, apparently.

9. The Clientele – Strange Geometry
Clientele come back from their boring first album to fulfill the promise of the Suburban Light singles. Comforting like listening to an oldies radio station on the way to school with your mom. A mythical station, whose DJs will only play the Zombies, girl groups, and an occasional Beatles guitar freak out. Very pretty, very poetic, very good.

10. Deerhoof – The Runners Four
Listening to Deerhoof albums has always been more academic than fun. Yes that’s an interesting guitar part, yes its weird that such a violent racket is paired up with such a innocent sounding female vocal, yes it’s always this much work to get into. Sometimes it all came together (like the title track from Milk Man), mostly it didn’t. This album is twelve times more listenable than that. It’s like somebody told these guys, “Hey you were supposed to throw in a few pop songs on every album.” They were like, “Oh shit, really? Here’s twenty we had saved up.” But still gloriously weird, don’t get me wrong.

Honorable Mention: (11-20)
M.I.A.- Arular
All the zeitgeist political discussion of this album does a disservice to its high fun level.
Black Mountain – Black Mountain (s/t)
Heavy (with good singing).
Ladytron – The Witching Hour
Last electroclash band standing escape extinction by writing better songs and (somehow) getting even darker and sexier.
Serena Maneesh – Serena Maneesh (s/t)
Noisier AND sweeter than My Bloody Valentine, though not usually at the same time.
Silver Jews – Tanglewood Numbers
David Berman is good lyricist. The sun is big.
Oneida – The Wedding
Brooklyn’s most underrated band embraces the Left Banke, records their best album, remains underrated.
M83 – Before the Dawn Heals Us
Picking up the “band of French robots” torch from fallen Daft Punk, but sadder and more concerned with rock music and car crashes than dancing about.
Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have it So Much Better
Not the gut punch thrill of the debut, but a grower, and slagging these guys off for continuing to write fun and clever rock songs is jerky.
The Joggers – With a Cape and a Cane
Complicated guitar and impassioned yelping, always a winning formula.
Giant Drag – Hearts and Unicorns
Sort of a guilty pleasure and I’m skeptical of the shelf life, but I definitely underestimated my desire for a Breeders/ Hole/ Veruca Salt alterna-chick revival before hearing this album.

Let the arguements begin! If you would like to disagree directly with Jeff, email him here.

Tags: Best Albums 2005,
Wolf Parade, Fiery Furnaces, Sufjan Stevens, Sleater-Kinney, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Animal Collective, Xiu Xiu, LCD Soundsystem, Clientele, Deerhoof

Posted by Merry Swankster at December 27, 2005 08:00 AM

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Posted by: Julie at December 28, 2005 09:13 AM

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