Outside of my Top 3, these are my other favorites so far in rough order:

Pissed Jeans – Honeys
Shugo Tokumaru – In Focus?
My Bloody Valentine – m b v
Phosphorescent – Muchacho
Yo La Tengo – Fade
William Tyler – Impossible Truth
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away
The Men – New Moon
Iceage – You’re Nothing
Grouper – The Man Who Died in His Boat
Doldrums – Lesser Evil
Low – The Invisible Way

Iceage has grown on me a little, but it's still not as good as I want it to be.

I could add Shooter Jennings - The Other Life to the list. I've spent time with it and like it.

stu, i actually thought of you the night of this show as TRVE Brewing was just two blocks from the venue. i probably would have walked right by if you hadn't brought it up a few months ago. cool spot and surprising good beers. i thought their Tunnel of Trees IPA was excellent.

That Phosphorescent has some great songs on it. Damn.

I'm the opposite. This just adds to the charm for me.

Two favorite new albums are:

1. Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison - Cheater's Game
2. Daniel Romano

here's the title track for cheater's game



a whole bunch of stuff would be tied for 3 unless I wanted to cheat and put that TVZ double disc of demos at one and bump down these two. It's pretty great.

I like a few but havent really loved anything yet this year. Phosphorescent is good but I keep waiting for a song as good as "Love Me Foolishly" to come on and it never happens. Nick Cave is awesome, digging it a lot. I dug Free Energy and The Black Angels for a couple days each but tired quickly. Josh Rouse is good to listen to with my wife. I like what's going on on the Son Volt record but haven't gotten absorbed into the songs yet. I'm pretty intrigued by Wavves, but haven't listened enough to make a judgement.

Honestly, I've been sort of bored and listening to Outlaw Country and the indie channel on XM and KEXP and KCRW online and a little WRAS 88.5 on the radio trying to find something new to interest me.

And, call me crazy but I like at least half and maybe more of the new Strokes. It's got some pretty awesome songs. Good car record.

Basically, I'm a First Quarter Faildozer, Drink.

I'm still finding great stuff from 2012 (Low Cut Connie, Games, Jazz Butcher, FIDLAR, Mark Crozer & the Rels, Polly, Chains of Love).

From this year, I'm liking a lot of stuff from more established acts that need no introduction here. The new Steve Earle & the Dukes, for example, and the reunited House of Love. Also like enough of the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs to keep trying.

Other stuff that I'm really liking: Night Marchers, Palma Violets, Warm Soda, Red Jacket Mine, Foxygen, Slam Dunk, Jesse Dee, The Virgins.

Otherwise, to play along with the thread, there's these three:

Grapes of Wrath "High Road"
Reunited and sounding better than ever. Haven't changed much since their 80s heyday, but they may have perfected the Beatlesesque hook after all these years.



Dick Diver "Calendar Days"
Reminiscent of the Go-Betweens in terms of sound - a mostly mellow jangle and boy/girl vocals - but with a more modern, smart-ass sensibility in the songwriting.



Sugar Sugaar "Sweet Taste of Rock & Roll"
I can't help myself with these guys. Sleazy 70s glam, Keef geetar riffs, bubblegum trash - it's just so perfectly in my wheelhouse that there's no point fighting it.



And it's an EP, so it doesn't belong here, but The Biters "Last of a Dying Breed" is so awesome it needs to be mentioned:

Love that place. I'll go back every time I'm in Denver

Pete Swanson - Punk Authority: Dude is so close to finding that perfect balance between danceable blown out electronic and assaulting noise here. Probably my favorite thing he has done since Yellow Swans - Psychic Seccesions which is saying something as I have loved every release. RIYL: Wolf Eyes, Yellow Swans, Throbbing Gristle


Dan Friel - Total Folklore: This shit is crazy. Noisy, poppy, distorted loud party music. Was not expecting to like this one much, but it just got in my head and has stayed there. RIYL: Dan Deacon (maybe?)


Feast of Violet - Platform EP: This is a bit of a throwback album. A lot of the textures, and even the vocals to an extent, have a sort 1980s super cool dance club feel to them. It's pretty, really pretty, but nice and loose also. Looking forward to the full length in a big way. RIYL: New Order circa late 80s, Depeche Mode circe Music for the Masses, a bunch of other really cool shit that I don't even know about.

"Life Ends at 30" off of that Pete Swanson EP might be my favorite thing he's done since he got into this noisy EDM phase.

Yail, that Wavves album does actually have some good songs on it. A lot of it just sounds like lazy Nirvana/Weezer hybrids, though.

Oh hell yes. Great pop song, thank you. Will begin tugging on this thread in Spotify to see what else it unravels.



Holy Thin Lizzie, batman.

I mean, that Biters song is damn near a ripoff of "The Boys Are Back in Town". Almost to the point of Elastica/Wire or The Jam/Beatles.
Still. Pretty fucking good. (Just as those other examples are.)

iceage
kacey musgraves
night marchers

finally listened to this (living in Nashville and working in the music biz, I've been hearing for 6 months how great this album is). It's fine. I just don't like mainstream country production. I can't even enjoy the songs because of it.

Her co-producers, Luke Laird and Shane McAnally have worked only on pop country.

I listened to that Musgraves the day it came out and agree with you, Stu--the production kills it for me. Also, some of the songs suck. (To be fair, some are pretty damn good)

Great album cover though. (fuh)

yup

i don't love it all the way through, i suppose - but i think the melodies on almost all of the songs win me over. also, i like a good mainstream country album, production and everything.

i can recognize it's flaws (definitely not perfect), but it's a pretty solid step towards something good.

1. Phosphorescent - Muchacho - just a beautiful album
2. Mount Moriah - Miracle Temple - country album from a Durham, NC band signed to Merge
3. Cayucas - Bigfoot - sunny, socal indie pop-rock

Agreed on 1.
I've been meaning to check out Mount Moriah
Cayucas... it's fine. Kind of indifferent.

It kind of reminds me of Vampire Weekend some with his phrasing and the west africa influence, and I dig it.

I just listened to Hiss Golden Messenger's album Haw today and that could bump up to #3.

Altar of Plagues || Teethed Glory & Injury
Year of No Light || play VAMPYR

will be top 5....

$5 Amazon albums this month includes Phosphorescent, Foxygen, Men

http://www.amazon.com/gp/s/ref=pe_58930 ... 11&ie=UTF8

I actually like this album by The Men better than the last one. I think.