Review: Good Albums from 2009

Too Lazy to provide a round-up of the best 100 albums of 2009, GEORGE OSBORN settles for ten.

Album Duckworth Maps Music Twilight Sad XX Year

 It’s that time of year again, the collective wank fest of best album of the year accolades are handed out to those albums that come up smelling of roses in a sea of abject shit. Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love buying albums but there is a huge amount of pap that comes out every year and praised as good stuff. Albums by Jason Mraz, Newton Faulkner and even the Arctic Monkey’s latest woeful effort have shaken my confidence at times but with enough faith you can find the gems in the poo pile.  So here are ten of my favourite albums of the year and I’ll bestow upon one of them “The Tab’s Album of the Year” title to give the article closure but really just give them a go and if you don’t like them you’re a fuckwit. Simples.

The Resistance – Muse

I think we’ve all met one of those Muse fans. You know what I mean. One of those who comes up to you, nudges your arm and quietly goes “yeah (insert latest Muse album title here) is good, but Origins of Symmetry is still the best” and gives you that look that says “you know I’m right”. Unfortunately for them, they’re wrong. Absolution was better, Super massive Black Hole was miles better and The Resistance metaphorically indulges in violent arse rape of betterness over it. Yes, it’s mental, it’s a bit hard to listen to without time to indulge it and yes it does sound like classical music conducted by Freddy Mercury. But this is what makes it one of my favourite albums of the year: it combines moments of genuine tuneage (the title track, United States of Eurasia and the entire Exogenesis symphony) with mind blowing ambition and lunacy throughout to make something genuinely thrilling. If you don’t like it, you are obviously cut from the same cloth as “The Bends is best” twat who masquerades as a Radiohead fan and should fuck off back to your cave of musical idiocy.

Hands – Little Boots

“No more poison, killing my emotion, I will not be frozen, dancing with my remedy….” Oh sorry about that, I didn’t realise I was singing out loud to the computer. And neither will you when listening to Victoria Heskarth’s frankly ace debut release, which jams itself into my brain’s happy cortex and wiggles it’s tiny CD hips off ‘til I can take no more. Forced jovial links aside, Hands is pretty fucking ace. “Remedy” is, for my money, one of the best fricking tunes I’ve heard all year and the album is packed full of catchy and fun songs. It’s not all perfect, I’m not stupid enough to suggest that, but it’s not trying to be “Ok Computer” it’s trying to be fun and it succeeds at almost every point so CUT HER SOME FUCKING SLACK VARSITY, YOU PRETENTIOUS ARSEWIPES!!!!!! Breathes.

Forget the Night Ahead – The Twilight Sad

To those of you more familiar with my work, you may have spotted my review I did for this in TCS and how generally marvellous my writing was (despite what my supervision reports “claim”). If you did: well done, have a cookie. If you didn’t I’ll pretty much reiterate what I said there: it’s fucking good like.  Seriously, to the wanky fuck twats who are complaining about Muse changing direction this is pretty much your grim antidote to that: songs about prostitutes, guitars more claustrophobic than a fart in a broken lift and a Scottish accent thicker than a Stevenage based 15 year old school dropout. I love this album a serious amount and it makes for a bloody brilliant listen when in the rain or in a bad mood and as a student at an academically cruel British based University you should get a lot of listen out of it. This round-up may have done it a disservice by being too jokey but this album screams of excellent musicianship and should be bought. Now.

The XX – XX

I’ve moaned before on a regular basis that there aren’t really that many genuinely cool British bands out there. When you think of the Strokes, Interpol or even say Air, thinking about a comparative band from these isles is pretty damn hard (The Libertines were not cool and neither are the Arctic Monkeys so you know). The XX’s debut finally fills the gap and I’m pleasantly surprised and delighted that it does. After hearing that they were from music school, I assumed that we’d get some Kooks indie fluff stylings that were totally inconsequential to anyone else than twattishly dressed teenage boys and excitable teenage girls. Instead, The XX delivered a minimalist masterpiece akin to the Velvet Underground’s best moments which drips with genuine cool. If you’ve ever wanted to be in a band which has some genuine style in the music, you can do a lot worse than follow the example set out here.  XX delights in its own simplicity and I’m happy to be delighted by it too.

The Sleeper – The Leisure Society

Elbow didn’t release an album this year, forcing me to stretch out further afield in desperate attempts to fill the void that the melodious Mancunians leave in their wake. The Leisure Society’s debut thankfully provided exactly what I needed. It’s an album that sounds quaint, sincere and generally beautiful and I know I’ve told you lot how much I love them in my first Tab piece it’s worth reminding both you lot and myself quite how pretty this album is. What “The Sleeper” does so well is master the atmosphere of fragility and yet show the beautiful side of it with truly fantastic songs. Rather than feel like a shopping bag caught in an up draft like, say, Newton Faulkner, this feels more like a feather gliding through the spring air. And by god, if I write an analogy as twee as that again I will blow my face off but the first warning was worth it. Bloody brilliant album.

Junior – Royksopp

Yet another pop album slips into the list, but then again Royksopp deserve to be a lot more popular than they are. After the fantastic Melody AM was ruined by advertising companies picking the songs up like vultures on an elephant carcass and a second album that doesn’t bear mentioning, it’s nice for “Junior” to come along and remind me quite why I like these Scandinavians so much. Pumping pop songs, with a definite hint towards a more Justice-y sound now, that should be blurting out across a (good) dance floor near you this album feels clean and nice but with beats that are ripe for getting dirty very soon. “Tricky Tricky” is probably my favourite from the bunch but in a rare step, this is a dance album without a single dud on it and because I so rarely say that this kind of has to go on the list because of that. Genuinely good stuff.

Windmill – Epcot Starfields

You probably don’t know who Windmill is, which marks you out as a massive cretin if you don’t. Alas, I joke but if you haven’t come across Matthew Thomas Dillon’s musical alter ego then you are missing out a tad. “Epcot Starfields” crosses Eels’ finest moments with hints of the Flaming Lips and a dash of Clap Your Hands say Yeah! to create one of the sweetest albums all year. Dillon’s vocals are delicate and beautifully recorded, making you want to reach into your Itunes and give him a hug to assure him that he’s safe with you. It’s a strange little record, but a downright pretty one and comes highly recommended if you, like me, was a tad disillusioned with Sufjan Steven’s newest oddity and want someone new to steal your heart away.

Engineers – Three Fact Fader

The release of this album made me a happy, happy man. Engineer’s original self titled debut remains one of my favourite albums ever released and the wait for a new album was turning my life into general frustration at points. Fortunately, Three Fact Fader has ended my agony with one easy stroke of my metaphorical opinion erection, spewing delight into my brain with disgusting ease. The album is as effortlessly innovative and fresh sounding as I’ve come to expect while still retaining the borderline orgasmic soundscapes that the band are so amazingly able to build up (Brighter as we fall, take a bow). I genuinely love this album and although I can’t really describe it very well here, it’s mainly because it’s effortlessly original and pretty unique. Picture Mercury Rev against Doves against the decent Coldplay stuff, and you’re still not close. Give it a listen and it’ll make sense, and this is something this album deserves.

Maps – Turning the Mind

I’ve seen some baffling reviews around that might make you think this album is a big pile of dogs poo (Drowned in Sound is the chief culprit) but I’d recommend that you ignore it. In terms of concept, I can accept it isn’t exactly the most original album that you are going to hear all year but Maps second release is a fine successor to We Can Create. Euphoric electro rides brazenly through the album like Lady Godiva in Coventry but it’s done so goddamn slickly that you can’t help but be impressed. As a result, it ends up being a hell of a lot more than just an electro album becoming a combination of a trippy escape a la Spiritualised and the most triumphant Faithless moments to create a hell of a listening experience. Happy to live in the background and happy to be an engrossing headphone listen, it’s a worthy album for the top ten this year.


Album of the Year

The Duckworth Lewis Method – The Duckworth Lewis Method

'Why is this the album of the year then Osborn?' is something I’ve imagined you’ve screamed at the computer with fury. It’s probably not the most musically complicated album you’ll hear, it’s probably not as deep or as affecting an album to listen to either and it’s not even that long. But what the Duckworth Lewis Method’s album has that no other album this year has are three things: fantastically crafted songs, buckets of charm and a joyous sense of glorious fun. From the opening bars of “The Coin Toss”, DLM transports you into a fantastic world of whimsical cricketing glory from odes to Gentleman, praises to Mr Miandad and cursing Shane Warne’s jiggery pokery while still retaining a beautiful sense of simplicity and clarity of purpose. The fact that in December I’m still regularly listening to an album based on cricket suggests something damn special. Mixing the Kink’s Village Green Preservation Society to Jim Noir’s pop stylings is an absolute bleeding spell of fresh air in a musical world full of proverbial arse gas so it’s my favourite album of the year. Fuck you if you don’t agree, but when I’m quoted in promotional material and you are picking up needles from a rubbish heap for pennies I’ll have that last laugh. Though I’m thinking that “proverbial arse gas” will be omitted from the material.

 

(Stay tuned for George's round-up of the best albums of the decade. It cunts all over the ones in TCS and Varsity I promise.)