The Rock Blogger

The Rock Blogger turns 1 today and to celebrate, I am starting my countdown for this year’s best albums. I can’t believe a whole year has passed since I’ve started this blog and I must say its been an enjoyable and enriching experience. Through this blog, I have discovered incredible records that I may have never come across otherwise and I have become more attuned with diverse musical scenes from around the world. I would just like to thank all my readers who have supported me over the last 12 months. I know I haven’t spent as much time on this blog as I would have liked over the past little while, with law school and all, but I can promise you that many more featured songs and album reviews are on the way. So, in hopes that I’m not overlooking too many great records, here are my picks for 2008’s best albums. I encourage you to leave your thoughts and choices in the comments as well! Thanks for reading.

50 . Nadja. Desire in Uneasiness . Full Review

Yet another LP from Toronto’s prolific drone doom masters. Desire in Uneasiness is a noticeably more organic sounding record with fluid rolling drums cascading against earth-shaking waves of noise. All five songs are long instrumentals that revel in a relaxed, spacey atmosphere, making this an ideal album to simply sit back and vegetate to. The hypnotic drones, driven along by the swirling percussion, are crushingly heavy but also show the duo’s newfound restraint, as they pare back their more chaotic tenancies to produce something more transcendent.

49. Loma Prieta. Lost City. Full Review

Short and sweet, thats how I would describe Loma Prieta’s Last City . This Oakland CA band plays speedy hardcore/screamo jams with impressive technicality, running through time signatures and epic melodies with incredible ease. As the mathematical riffs swirl around cymbal crashing and rapid fire rhythms, the howling vocals provide the emotional release for all the tension that’s built up. The occasional piano melody and gentle guitar parts help balance things out as well.

48 . Russian Circles. Station. Full Review

Chicago’s Russian Circles play kinetic and aggressive post-rock in the same sludgy tradition as city mates Pelican, crafting expansive instrumental songs that are filled with shimmering guitars and powerful rhythms. Continuing on with the success that was their 2006 debut Enter , Russian Circles’ latest offering pares back on their metal flourishes as they venture to cosmic planes, opting for a sound that is interstellar but not pretentious. These virtuosoes avoid self-indulgent noodling and instead anchor their songs with strong driving beats and deep, fluid bass lines. By carefully blending their metal and post-rock aspirations together, Russian Circles steer clear of derivative Mogwai and Isis worship and create something that is both intense and stratospheric.

47 . This Will Destroy You. S/T Full Review

This music is graceful, trippy and emotionally engaging. These qualities are amplified further by the ambient, celestial atmosphere that carries over this LP’s entirety. So post-rock fans, of everything from Slint, to Caspian, to Explosions in the Sky, you’ll find something to like in these guys.

46 . Nine Inch Nails. The Slip Full Review
Trent Reznor is on a roll. Just two months after NIN’s epic ambient release Ghosts I-IV , and not even a year after the excellent dystopia that was Year Zero , Reznor has unveiled another full length work - a more traditional sounding album that merges noisy industrial metal with hook-laden arena rock jams, all for free from the band’s website. Presented as a gift to NIN’s loyal fan base who made Ghosts a financial windfall, The Slip is a solid and accessible collection that, while not groundbreaking, still showcases Reznor’s newfound artistic freedom and energy.

45 . Urfaust. Drei Rituale Jenseits Des Kosmos Full Review

Urfaust is a maniacal black metal band from Holland that incorporates noise rock and doom elements into their swirling, disturbing compositions. This recent EP features three long untiled tracks that waver between hypnotic drones, terrifying screeches and some stunningly operatic vocals that give this a baroque edge. The level of experimentation here is impressive and pushes their sound into dark ambient passages. Intense and expressive, Drei Rituale is one of the more unique contributions to the genre and serves as an adequate introduction to a challenging band.

44 . Her Name is Calla. The Hertiage Full Review

The Heritage is a mini-album from a Leeds based post-rock band that places emphasis on haunting vocal performances and tense song writing as well as instrumental passages and atmosphere. The attention to lyricism, in tandem with melodramatic buildups, gives Her Name is Calla a slight advantage over the competition.

43 . The Drift. Memory Drawings Full Review
San Francisco’s The Drift specialize in chilled out, emotional post-rock that is heavily influenced by jazz and dub traditions, crafting a warm and boisterous sound that should please fans of Tortoise and Toronto’s own Do Make Say Think. Relying on tight interactions between the trumpet, synths, wiry guitars and offbeat drumming, the melodies on their sophomore album Memory Drawings are instantly captivating.

42 . Conifer. Crown Fire . Full Review .

Confier play psychedelic sludge metal in the same vein as Pelican and The Russian Circles, pushing heavy, wiry instrumentals to stratospheric heights. Making Crown Fire stand out, aside from its stellar musicianship, is its organic flow and Eastern-tinged flourishes. Its spiraling riffs and cyclical percussion roll on hypnotically, creating a immersing, stoner-friendly torrent of sound.

41 . Harvey Milk. Life…The Best Game in Town Full Review
Life…The Best Game in Town succinctly summarizes the essence of Harvey Milk’s sound - thick as a brick and just as heavy and dangerous. Yet for all its violent outbursts there lies a tragic and longing heart within, hopelessly sentimental in its whiskey-soaked stumbles. I personally wanted to see more of the fragility that stealthily peaks its head out amid the Southern-fried mayhem, but oh well, sludge bands are rarely subtle in their approach anyways, so even the slightest nuance is quite remarkable. So yeah, if you like doom, sludge, hardcore punk and all that, check out Harvey Milk, they seem to encompass all that gritty territory quite well.

Matthew Good Band. The Future is X-Rated.

Kerbdog. Kerbdog. 1994. 4 stars.

This sick grunge/alt-metal band is from Ireland, so that probably explains why I have never heard of them (sorry Emerald Isle, but I only know of U2 and Primordial). Seriously, they sound like they were from the Seattle scene, though have more have a metal touch to their heavy slabs of riffs, perhaps resembling early Soundgarden. The vocals are expressive, loud and melodic. They almost have a Metallica or Kyuss type roughness to them, and they go brilliantly with the chugging guitars.

If you like early grunge records, i.e. the only good grunge records, get a hold of this underwritten album. It has great psuedo-thrash guitar work and cool vocals. Its very accessible and may even bring back fond memories of a long dead scene. Hits for the bong.

“Dry Riser”

Agalloch - Falling Snow

The water pours its embracing arms around the stone
Decay drips from the unquiet void where the ice forms, where life ends
The stone is by the crimson flood, swallowed
The red tide beyond the ebon wound, contorted
My sacrifice bids farewell in this river of memory… a wave to end all time
Red birds escape from my wounds and return as falling snow
To sweep the landscape; a wind haunted, wings without bodies
The snow, the bitter snowfall
You wish to die in her pale arms, crystalline, to become an ode to silence
In the soul of a mountain of birds, fallen
The cascading pallor of ghostless feather
The snow has fallen and raised this white mountain on which you will die and fade away in silence

Godspeed You Black Emperor - The Dead Flag Blues

Some glorious time lapse photography from an Antarctic research station, stretching across a year.
Beautiful and inspiring.

Photo by Sorina Dragusanu

Ulver - Ulvsblakk

Lycia. A Day in the Stark Corner. 1993. 4.5 stars.

Good God, this is a beautiful album. Lycia play gloomy, down-tempo Gothic rock that bears neofolk and darkwave/industrial influences. Soothing synth drones slowly pulsate throughout, as chilling keyboard passages careen across, providing a dreamy atmosphere where harsh whispers and stark percussion pierce through the darkness. A Day in the Stark Corner is haunting and alluring, conveying a psychedelic state lying somewhere between a mystic trace and modern romanticism.

In spite of Lycia’s reliance on a synthesized aesthetic, with cold electronic beats and echoing reverb, this album still has an organic feel, as each composition moves fluidly into the next. Several of these songs do sound strikingly similar in length, pacing and mood, adding to the spacey effect of its overall presentation. Calls for more variety may be warranted, but the fluid cohesion of this record is hardly anything to pass over. From the opening beats of “And Through the Smoke and Nails”, this album sucks you into its misty, vaguely menacing landscape. While the lyrics may be hushed and undecipherable, the spooky ambiance speaks volumes on its own, opening a world of vivid sonic detail.
There is a lot of depth to A Day in the Stark Corner and its emotional power is hard to deny. Recommended.

Lycia - And Through the smoke and nails

Some parallel universe, a spiral staircase
In the morning I heard your soft steps
There was some light snow falling outside, over the lake
And the smell of pines had wafted in from the doorway

I can sit and stare, look and think
About the warm sunlight whiting out the edges of the room
As your hands run over my back and neck
Things that were once before us, distant things
Now miles away from the Black forest

Wolves In The Throne Room - The Cleansing

Photo by Sorina Dragusanu

In about a month’s time, I will be making and posting a list ranking my favorite albums of 2008. I’m curious as to what picks you guys have. Feel free to leave your top choices in the comments below. I hope to count the votes and compare the results to my own early in December. All genres and types of releases are acceptable, as long as they have been released this year.

Go at it!