Hey, in my big-headedness, I'm gonna attempt to do a 2010 review thread like Drinky and whoever else has one going. Idk. I'm not as good a writer as Drink, but I have a different take than him or any other boarder for the most part on many different records. And I have a wide enough taste range that I think I can pretty much find some common ground with everyone who boards here. We'll mix it up, no rhyme or reason and I'll update whenever.
I'll also do like some sort of summary/bottom line thing at the end rather than a numerical rating that basically states where that album sits in relation to everything else this year. So we'll get some "deletes" and some "best of the year" things. Anywho, lets start.


Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

Disappointing. I didn't have particular high hopes for this record, but still - it bums me out on how lackluster it is. "You Forgot It In People" is definitely one of the very best records of the last 10 years, with it's guitar upon guitar upon guitar upon guitar upon all other 30 different things. That record went all over the place but still wound up sounding cohesive, like all the musicians had the same vision for each song. It worked, and it still moves me. Their followup in 2005 was a lot more sloppy, quite a bit louder - and for a few years after it's release, my favorite BSS record. Putting it on in the car and rocking out, it was perfect. But 5 years in between records for a band that does in fact have about 20-30 members obviously isn't the best way to operate. As far as solo albums and BSS side projects, the only albums I actually really enjoy are Feist's, whereas Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning sound like BSS lite and unfortunately wherever they went wrong in those many years prior to this release, all these half-baked ideas got recorded for this release. It's not terrible, I can say that. It still sounds like Broken Social Scene, but it isn't exciting. Most of the songs meander and don't go anywhere, don't feature those amazing climaxes that their best songs have. There's a handful of good songs, but they blend into the mundane and just-not-quite-there that the rest of the album is. It's just like, I expect to come away from a Broken Social Scene album and be like "FUCK YEAH" but I am just bored with this.

In Summary: Not nearly as good as their other releases, I'll keep it around for now - but it's on the fence of disappearing forever

Oh yeah, a couple things: I'm sure there will be lots of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes and stuff. I'm not proofreading for the most part.

Also, there is the definite possibility that albums will appear more than once if my opinion significantly changes over the next few months. Like if I decide that holy shit that BSS album is great suddenly, then I'll make a new entry for it.

Sweet, i look forward to reading it.

Superchunk - Majesty Shredding

Prior to "Majesty Shredding", I'd never heard a Superchunk album. My experience with the band consisted of a couple songs gathered from mixes friends have made and a couple different soundtrack entries. For whatever reason, I always resisted this band - primarily because of the name. Even though I knew they weren't, I somehow lumped them in with a bunch of subpar British-themed ROCK bands from the 90s that have this huge support of dedicated fans, but whose appeal I'd never understand.

Well, "Majesty Shredding" is going to be my impetus for checking out other releases by these dudes. I mean holy hell, what a fun album. The two-guitar onslaught, Mac's classic pop-punk styled vocals, the drums that blow holes in my speakers. This is the kind of rock n roll album that I'm always looking for, but it seems that few bands are ever actually able to pull it off. It reminds me of that ridiculous skate punk I became obsessed with while playing the Tony Hawk videogames, it reminds me of the best moments of Ted Leo and why I thought he would one day become the savior of "indie rock". It's the first new album I'm listened to in a while where I didn't try to gather some sort of critical view of the record, no "well this presents something entirely new..." blah blah blah. It's good because when it was done playing through for the first couple times, I had just felt relieved, happy - it's just fucking fun, classic, pop-influenced, no frills, all-rocking music. All pretension out the window, all nostalgia turned up, enjoy this shit.

In Summary: Big surprise and one of my favorite new straight-ahead rock n roll records of the year. In the lack of sunny days that are about to come - this will soundtrack those few days where the sun is showing it's face

Oh also, if I review something that isn't in the Twentyten thread or you can't find it on google or whatever, let me know if you want it uploaded.

Cool, glad you're doing this. I am interested in your take on things, and to start you're covering two things that I haven't bothered checking out.

I actually just heard my first Superchunk record recently, too, but I started with No Pocky for Kitty. I'm pretty unimpressed with it. Once you dig into their back catalog, I'd be curious to know how you feel this new album compares to the older stuff.



I want to do this, too, if I can. Maybe not a full new entry, but a brief update or something.

I keep forgetting to check out that Superchunk. I mean, I have and like a lot of their 90's output, so why not?

just got that Superchunk in the mail today, listened to it on the way in from work. Sounds pretty good, but I've always been a fan.

Mike Stinson - The Jukebox In Your Heart

I don't know where this album came from, what made me acquire it or who Mike Stinson was before I started listening to this. Listening to "Jukebox In Your Heart" though, I am overcome with this feeling that I've known Stinson's songs my whole life. This is country music in 2010 that sounds like it could've come from the best country records of any time period. Where many americana and country records get this production effect that either dials the "true" feeling of country so much it makes it sound like a novelty record or gets such glossy production that the decent songs seem to be masked in Goo Goo Dolls music, Stinson and his production partner Jesse Stayton have crafted a product that stands in the middle, retaining a song quality reminiscent of the best Wille Nelson concept albums, but featuring a slightly clearer production sound. Stinson's voice complements the music excellently, with a delivery that brings to mind Willie, but a twangy inflection that screams of Gram Parson's most forelorn moments, Stinson's voice has a quality that seems all its own in this day in age, can be arresting at first - but is ultimately rewarding and comfortable. Drinking songs, love lost, odes to California, this album has it all. For my money, this might be the best pure country recording of the year - and is unjustly flying under the radar.

In Summary: A country album that hearkens back to the best of the 70s, but doesn't feel out of place in 2010. One of my very favorite americana records of the year.

Damn, I didn't know Stinson had any fans here. I've seen him play as a drummer behind Randy Weeks and Tony Gilkyson a bunch of times and have always meant to check out his own work which I've heard is pretty good. If that isn't already in the TWENTYTEN thread, I'd appreciate it if you'd up it.

yeah i doubt it's in the thread, but I'll up it later tonight. At work.

Thanks and no rush at all. I don't know when I'd find time to listen right now anyway.

For a while now I think about doing something like this as well. I realize that I listen to a lot of music which isn't mentioned here at all and, well, it's going to be sort of a language challenge for me to find proper words for the description in english.

what

what? a thread like this.

Just go ahead and write all your reviews in German, and assign some kind of arbitrary, indecipherable rating system to them, like colors or Zodiac signs or both. Give an album a rating of "purple aquarius" or whatever that would be in German.

Thomas Fehlmann - Gute Luft

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know how people who actually write about electronic music (and more specifically, minimal techno) actually determine what makes a release "good". Out of the hundreds of techno albums, singles, eps, and everything else - what are the grounds and benchmarks that make certain things stick out. Who's pushing the envelope or who's going through the motions? I don't have a working knowledge strong enough to ever accurately rate techno music other than in the simplest way: I either like it or I don't. Some things that come out I enjoy that the critics slam, some things that are praised I just think are boring. Some things just fit right in between, like "Gute Luft". Apparently the score for a 24-hour television special about Berlin, Fehlmann has created an album that sounds just like that - something that could just float in the background for 24 hours. It doesn't move me, doesn't make me dance, doesn't really even trip me out - it's just there. I can't call it bad, because it does work for background music, unless I'm trying to just zone out or have something on that isn't too distracting, this isn't really working for me.

In Summary: Not "bad" I guess, but not interesting enough for me to call it "good". It's just...there. I'll keep it around for a little bit, close to deletion though.

Odd Future - Radical

The teenage internet shock-rappers who are poised to be the next biggest thing in hip hop and who probably deserve all the hype they get. "Radical" is a compilation tape that features all members of the Odd Future gang that basically gives a small sampling of what they're all about. Ridiculous, blunted out raps about weed, murder, rape, everything is fair game. If you can get beyond the initial shock of what most of these dudes rap about, you find that some of their rhymes/metaphors are really dope. I hear some lines in here that make me juts crack up and wonder how other rappers hadn't thought of it. It's enjoyable, it is a good introduction to the group - but all the individual releases that have come out are better and more cohesive. Lots of this just seems half-baked, just the dudes having fun and rapping over some of the hottest beats of the past couple years - but it doesn't really showcase the talent these dudes have well enough. Still, worth having around and telling your friends about.

In Summary: Decent introductory album to these dudes but not "essential" or the best release from the crew.

never heard of them but downloading it now.

you'll probably dig it if anyone does. get Earl Sweatshirt's album "Earl" too, thats the best thing in their repetoire

will do.

haven't heard this but the 24-hours-documetary was nice.

Here is the Mike Stinson. Again, it's a bit more honky tonk than some of you typically like, but it's definitely worth giving a shot and being surprised by. One of my favorites for sure.

http://bit.ly/9tiCpG

ASC - Nothing Is Certain

I can count the number of "Drum-n-Bass" releases I have on one hand. I've never been heavily into the genre and most of what I've heard, hasn't interested me enough to look further into it. It might have been revolutionary at the time of it's inception, a sharp twist into an increasingly stale dance scene, but most of traditional DnB just sounds dated and not in a good way.

Before "Nothing is Certain" I didn't even know there was a new subgenre of DnB - this "Autonomic" thing that apparently describes the sounds of a handful of mixes I've enjoyed over the last year or so. The names dBridge and Instra:mental have become familiar, but not so much that I would necessarily pull them out as special among the hundreds of other new electronic producers I don't know much about. But apparently, this movement of spacey DnB that veers into IDM and Dubstep territory more often than not has been creating quite a stir. Me? I just thought it was the new sound of dubstep, taking some of Burial's sounds, removing the choppiness and adding more of a dancefloor beat.

What is apparent is that I don't know anything about this genre and very little about the people making this new, innovative music. ASC, who has been in the DnB scene for years has released this, one of the very first full lengths in the style, and whatever genre we want to label it as, the fact remains that it's one of the most interesting and engaging electronic releases of the year. It's deep, some tracks have traditional DnB rhythms, most don't. The ambient soundscapes permeate all of the tracks, giving a distinct nighttime vibe to the tracks. Great vocal samples, interesting drum patterns, the list goes on. This is exciting, invigorating music and one of the true standouts this year.

If this is what the future of Drum N Bass is going to sound like, I'm going to have to start considering myself a fan after all.

In Summary: Great electronic release for those who like the darker, looser DnB stuff. Mixes dance music with headphone music, really complete statement.

Peter Case - Wig!

I never listened to Peter Case's solo albums until 2007's "Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John" - with the promise of Case's always excellent songwriting being put out in a folk-blues format ala Sleepy John Estes, it was an album I loved from the get-go, one of my very favorites in 2007, but one I have very nearly forgotten about since that year. "Wig!" is an entirely different affair all together. Culled from a short few days in a studio with friends and studio players, this is the sound of Peter Case gaining his life back, writing the things that have inspired his entire career and just letting loose - letting his musicianship shine through. The songs seem simple, effortless. The grooves are there, the guitar is loud, Peter's voice is in top form. This is the type of album that we wish our elder statesmen of rock would make more often. I didn't like it at first - but with every listen, this album grows on me. It's solid rock n roll, with the added advantage of being Peter Case's brand. If you like it sloppy, with little frills, this album is yours.

In Summary: Didn't like initially - am starting to love. An all out rocker.