Started in 2009, I've kept it up ever since, and even managed to dash one out last year with my daughter a mere two months' old. 2019 might be tricky given I'm definitely getting to that stage where I can't be arsed to seek out new and innovative stuff anymore, but there may at least be "ten records I enjoyed listening to this year" or something as equally tired. But I have been thinking of going back to 2008 and earlier. As well as the nostalgia element, which I find irresistible by itself, there is the advantage of hindsight. Which records have stood the test of time? What do I still listen to? If I redid 2009-2018 (I won't) I would definitely remove a few things I thawed about and replace them with albums that either didn't make the cut at the time or I got into later. So does this make my 2008 list more definitive? No probably not, but here it is anyway. (Having dispensed with an ordering a few years ago, I continue with this lack of order now.)
United Nations - United Nations
The self-titled debut album (just about, it's 38 minutes long but 12 minutes of that is silence, which I reckon makes it shorter than Slayer's Reign in Blood) of a fabulous but somewhat mysterious hardcore punk supergroup, whose membership has never been official for contractual reasons but purportedly includes members of Glassjaw, Thursday, Converge,... (just typing that makes me salivate). Managing to be greater than the sum of its parts, this was lightning in a bottle.
Thrice - The Alchemy Index Volumes III & IV
Technically two EPs packaged together, but if two wrongs and three lefts make a right then I'll count it. Starting with 2005's Vheissu, the four Alchemy Index EPs were the culmination of Thrice's masterful experimental "prog" phase, but despite the potential for accusations for gimmickry (four EPs of six tracks each, with each EP named after one of the four elements and the songs on each collected according to evocations of those elements - so "Fire" featured the heaviest tracks, for instance) they really pulled it off. After this they became more of a straightforward rock band, but fair play.
Sky Eats Airplane - Sky Eats Airplane
I largely ignored technical metal for a long time but a few years ago a friend introduced me to such bands as Glass Cloud, The Contortionist, and Sky Eats Airplane. It can be cheesy, literally every aspect of it - the music itself, the harsh vocals, but particularly the style and content of the clean vocals - sample lyric "no hospital's going to save you from a broken heart") but my gosh is it catchy.
Sigur Ros – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
While admittedly this is where the quality of the Icelandic post-rock magicians' output started to drop off, this was only a slight dip compared to what came later. It is arguably their most playful and, dare I say it, 'fun' album but they still managed to create an atmosphere and cram in moments that sound like nobody else. Sigur Ros remains one of the few bands where I've never quite worked out exactly what they do and how. The advantage of being a super enthusiastic but actually tone deaf music fan is that I can still enjoy music as a child might, hearing ethereal strains of sound seemingly from another world.
Rolo Tomassi - Hysterics
One of the most underrated but consistently good bands around, every album after this has featured in my best-of lists (except for 2015's Grievances, whose omission is unfathomable to me now) and the debut full-length was fantastic too. Less melodic and perhaps less mature than the later material, Hysterics nevertheless captures what makes the Sheffield experimental hardcore band both great and unique.
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Old Money
While in 2008 I was still very much in my Rodriguez-Lopez hero-worship phase, back then his hit rate was still pretty good and this record stands the test of time I think. Seemingly a mishmash of both material and musicians, this collection of ten instrumental tracks apparently started life as The Mars Volta jams and compositions, and I find it to feature both flashes of beautiful brilliance and consistently high quality throughout.
Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts / The Slip
My second use of journalistic licence here, including both NIN albums released that year. Interestingly, both were self-released and with little warning! But anyway I can't decide between them. Ghosts is an epic double album of instrumentals which both references the instrumental elements of The Fragile and foreshadows the soundtracks Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross would later win oscars for. At the other end of the spectrum, The Slip is the sound of Nine Inch Nails as a band jamming in a garage (albeit the sort of garage Reznor could afford).
Meshuggah - Obzen
Having been peripherally aware of the Swedish metal/"djent" titans' existence, it wasn't until 2012's Koloss that I took proper notice and then subsequently delved into the back catalogue. Obzen is probably Meshuggah's most iconic record, and perhaps their tightest and most cohesive body of work too.
Melvins - Nude with Boots
Melvins was another band I had read and heard was some sort of icon, and 2008 was the year I finally took the plunge. I'd started exploring the back catalogue earlier in the year, but then new release Nude with Boots has ended up being one of my favourites. It is hardly their most experimental work, but it is another example of how much you can do with so little - three/four guys in a garage (less fancy than Trent Reznor's, alas) coming up with some of the best riffs, lines, and beats ever written. And I love that if you're going to add a fourth member to your three-piece you make it a drummer (although I don't think Nude was the first album where they did that).
Cult of Luna - Eternal Kingdom
This is the Swedish (again) post-metal titans' (again) last (so far) record that is great from start to finish. 2013's Vertikal has two of CoL's best ever songs on it - I,The Weapon and In Awe Of - but an awful lot of filler, and although it's grown on me I still find 2016's Mariner, recorded with Julie Christmas, an ultimately minor and good-experiment-at-best entry in the catalogue). It was not, in fact, despite what they said at the time, based on a diary the band found in their practice space. It does feature prominent solo guitar on third track 'Ghost Trail' and trumpet on final track 'Following Betulas', both to wonderful effect, and the rest of the tracks and interludes are expertly constructed.
A playlist
https://open.spotify.com/user/
1. Antony & the Johnsons – Epilepsy is Dancing
2. Cult of Luna – Following Betulas
3. Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip – Thou Shalt Always Kill
4. Dance Gavin Dance feat. Chino Moreno – Caviar
5. Elbow – One Day Like This
6. Flogging Molly - Float
7. Laura Marling – My Manic and I
8. I Was a Cub Scout – Save Your Wishes
9. The Mars Volta - Agadez
10. Melvins – Suicide in Progress
11. Meshuggah – Bleed
12. Metallica – That Was Just Your Life
13. Mogwai – I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead
14. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez – Old Money
15. Opeth – Burden
16. Panic! At the Disco – Do you know what I’m seeing?
17. REM – Living well’s the best revenge
18. Rolo Tomassi – Abraxas
19. Slipknot – Dead Memories
20. Sky Eats Airplane – Long Walks on Short Bridges
21. Sigur Ros – Við spilum endalaust
22. Thrice – Come All You Weary
23. United Nations – Say Goodbye to General Figment of the USS Imagination
24. Zach Hill – Dark Art
25. 36 CF – Vast and vague
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