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FUCKING EPIC PRETTY DAMN GOOD IT'S AIIGHT
If I could describe one singular indie release this year that blew my fucking mind, like just knocked my head right off my shoulders, it'd be Kasabian's Velociraptor!. I LOVE that album! However this multi-day best-of 2011 project of mine is not made to highlight just one album. It's meant to highlight a few of the best that I have heard this year. So I will continue with this list.
My previous two editions of the best of 2011 have all been listed in order from albums I liked the least to albums I liked the best, but now I'm gonna switch it up and start from the Indie and Alternative albums I liked the best to the ones that I like the least and then throw on the notable mentions. Cool? Cool. So without further ado, number one.
KASABIAN!!!! - VELOCIRAPTOR!
From the first fucking opening chime on this album, it's badass. It ooooozes cool. It just reeks of awesomeness. Kasabian are a bunch of dudes who I'd really like to get to know cause they just seem really genuinely cool. They have this awesome style that emanates through their music. The first track on the album sounds like they're gearing you up to stumble into drunken madness or a hazy night of insanity of some sort. It's like they're reminiscing with you over past crazy adventures and exploits and trying to trick you to come back out again. I love it.
The flow of the album feels like you're about to embark on like a crazy middle-of-the-night type mission to some party-city to spend off your life savings on booze, gambling and hookers, it's great! When Velociraptor is slow, it's hazy and sultry like on the track La Fee Verte. Then there are tracks that just make you wanna jump up and dance like Switchblade Smiles. In my mind this could be the soundtrack to a movie like the Hangover, if they cross-bred it with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and staged it in 2011. This could be the soundtrack. Maybe I'm on crack, but I love this shit. Fave songs on the album include: Re-wired, Days Are Forgotten, Acid Turkish Bath & Switchblade Smiles.
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| Crosses - Crosses |
2. Crosses - Crosses EP | Officially dubbed as the best side-project by Deftones front-man, Chino Moreno; Crosses may be just an EP but it's fucking amazing. When it came to making these best of 2011 lists, I didn't really care if the album was a full LP or just an EP, that didn't really matter much. As long as the album had more than 5 songs over 3 mins each that I could hit the repeat repeat button on, it could make this list. Henceforth, Crosses is number 2 baby!!
This album sounds like an angry, lustful, pseudo-resentful love letter to a psychotic ex-girlfriend. Part ballad on certain tracks (
Option,
Thhlyghst) and part wistful rant on others (
This is a Trict,
Bermuda Locket) this album is an emotional roller coaster and I'm totally down for the ride. Fave songs: ALL OF THEM, especially: Option. Hands down favourite song on the album.
3. Tune-Yards - W H O K I L L | An indietronic blessing. This album is filled with so much sass it hurts. Some of it comes off very alt-downtempo-ish, like for example the song
Es-So, which is coated with a dope jazzy feel. That song is almost
Bad Plus sounding. The vocals on this album are PHENOMENAL! Yes, PHENOMENAL - that loud - in all caps locks! That's how awesome the vocals are. The whispery, harsh yet soft, broken vocal arrangements are insanely sexy. There are some afro-beat, world-music feeling licks to it as well, and the tribal sounding singing and drumming really enhance the uniqueness of w h o k i l l. When I first heard this album I couldn't stop listening to it and that's why it's numero three. Fave tracks on the album include: Business, Gangsta, Powa & You Yes You. All those tracks are BIG tunes.
4. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes | Lykke Li is a monster of a singer. She's got this voice that's almost somewhere between very young woman and old ass woman. It's soft and raspy. This album is dope. It's funny cause I was playing the song
I Follow Rivers in the apartment on Christmas and our brother came to visit and was like "yo Chantel WHAT IS THAT? Yo put that on this iPod right now." Her unique voice and the unique and diverse beats of all the songs on Wounded Rhymes is enough to convert anyone who's never heard her music before. This album is yet another positive step in the right direction for the young Swede. It's a beautiful album. Fave songs include: I Follow Rivers, Love Out of Lust, Get Some & Silent My Song.
5. Cold War Kids - Mine Is Yours | My homeboy Marco turned me on to the Cold War Kids awhile back after a series of late insomnia-tic album exchanges. I fucking love Cold War Kids because their music is just really really upbeat and positive. Sometimes you just need that shit. You need the fresh air of people not trying to preach on you, you need the fresh air of people not talking about their insane amounts of artistic, creative, and emotional turmoil. Sometimes you just need a break and you need someone who's gonna talk that good shit in your ear. Someone who'll tell you to get up off your ass and live. Cold War Kids does that & fuck I need that sometimes. I bumped this album so much this year since I was shown the light of Cold War Kids. Definitely one of my indie favourite albums of 2011. Fave tracks: Mine Is Yours, Royal Blue & Sensitive Kid.
6. Blood Orange - Coastal Grooves | There's something underrated about subtlety. This album is subtle in the sense that there are songs on here that are just so sparse sonically but so well crafted. That and I love the singer Dev Hynes' voice. Top Notch. Fave tracks: Forget It, S'Cooled & The Complete Knock.
7. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know | Laura Marling has a charming and strong, folk filled voice that I just can't get enough of. Her lyrics are cute, funny, real and introspective. It's dope. This year, L. Marling completely outdid Feist for me. A Creature I Don't Know just had something more endearing than Metals. The thing about me is that when I hear albums, for the first or millionth time, I always compare them to other things that I've heard, subconsciously. It's all "..well this person sounds like this..." or "...there's tinges of this that sounds like blah..." - I think we all do it. I heard this album before I heard Feist's Metals (which is also good album), and I thought damn if I'm gonna listen to Metals, I might as well go listen to Laura Marling cause this album is dope. Plus, L. Marley Marl reminds me of Joni Mitchell so yah there's that too. Fave songs on the album: I Was Just A Card, Salinas and My Friends.
8. City and Colour - Little Hell | I have this incredibly weak, weak spot for Dallas Green. As a huge fan of Alexisonfire and a HUGGGGE fan of City and Colour and HUUUUUUUUUUUGE fan of C&C's 2007 album, Bring Me Your Love - which is probably one of the best albums I have ever heard, in my entire life, I have to say that I wasn't as impressed with this album as I was with Bring Me Your Love. However, you cannot EVER go wrong with listening to Dallas sing. His voice is just fucking unbelievable. Poweful, overwhelming, emotional and just... - damn I'm turning into a major pile of mush writing this so imma get to album already. - The lyrical content on this album is nowhere near as good as his previous works but the melodies and the arrangements and just the vocals make this album a stunner. It's sweet, it's continuously loop-able, I could play this shit over and over and swoon and just be like - "yo that's some crazy romantic shit right there." He's got some more uptempo sort of tunes on this album like
Natural Disaster and stuff which is cool, but it's not as effective as say a track like
As Much As I Ever Could off of Bring Me Your Love, which is just like a completely emotive, soulful, passionate, slow-burner. Anyway, Little Hell is a good album, my fave tracks include: O Sister, We Found Each Other in the Dark, Sorrowing Man and Hope For Now.
9. Liam Finn - FOMO | I loved this album as well this year, but just like Dallas Green, Liam Finn's second solo release wasn't as good as his previous effort. Whereas I'll Be Lightning was a crazy genius musical outpouring, filled with so much insanity, FOMO is just really decent. It's good. That's it. One of the most stand out tracks on the album to me is
Real Late, which is also my favourite track on the album and the most exciting because of the fact that it's a step towards the indietronic for Liam. Seeing as how very very little of I'll Be Lightning was even remotely electronic sounding, songs like Real Late seems like a new venture for Liam Finn but it works so damn well. Seeing him preform that song in concert earlier this year was a highlight of all the indie shows that I've seen over the last little while. Other good tracks on the album include: Roll of the Eye, The Struggle and Don't Know Your Name.
10. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy | Some people may think I'm nuts but to me, St. Vincent sounds like a younger, indie-washed, very experimental PJ Harvey, which is why I like her. The way she plays guitar reminds me of PJ Harvey circa - Is This Desire, or Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. It's dope. Fave tracks include: Dilettante, Surgeon & Northern Lights.
11. Bombay Bicycle Club - A Different Kind of Fix | I love the airiness on A Different Kind of Fix. Light music with good poetic lyrics is something Bombay Bicycle Club knows how to do well. A Different Kind of Fix reminds me of the 90s for some reason, but that's said in the most positive of ways. Fave tracks include: Bad Timing, Leave It and Still.
Notable Mentions: The Black Keys - El Camino - El Camino was a great record, it just sounds a lot like their previous release Brothers, which means at like nearly 6 albums deep and you're dancing the same dance; you're really just rolling into RHCP territory. Not a bad thing, but it's just meh.
I Got You On Tape - Church of the Real - Church of the Real was a great release this year. My only problem with it is, the dude's voice is kinda annoying after a couple of plays. I Got You On Tape's Church of the Real was a great release but dat dude's voice killed it's lasting potential.
Wild Beasts - Smother - I been listening to Wild Beasts for the past couple of years and I really like em and Smother was a really good album as well but I just felt like I needed more.
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake - This was a badass record. It was emotive and filled with tons of social commentary which is cool. As a PJ Harvey outpouring, I accepted it for what it was and I loved it, but the passionate fire I feel for PJ Harvey's music is all wrapped up in her style prior to White Chalk. Although, I did love A Woman A Man Walked By; that shit was bomb!
Did any indie / alt. albums you love not make it on this list? Let's talk about em. Tell me on
Twitter or
8tracks.
@torontoreviewer - I always answer back / even if it is with digital spit in your eye. :)
Coming Up Tomorrow: Best R&B & Soul Albums of 2011.