Best music of 2005

See “Best of 2008” for a general introduction, and the 2006 one for comments about how the years around now seem to be where it all came together.

Antony and the Johnsons – I am a Bird now

I thought this wasn’t my sort of thing at the time, and I couldn’t have cared less about the Mercury Music Prize and the controversy around singer/pianist Antony Hegarty’s (now Anohni) UK vs US eligibility. But with a little encouragement from a friend far more forward-thinking and open-minded than I can be (hopefully just sometimes, I flatter myself), I gave it the time of day and then I fell in love with it. A totally unique and beautiful sound.

Coheed and Cambria – Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Volume 1: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness

Less pop-punk than its two predecessors, this record wears its prog-rock influences on its sleeve (Led Zeppelin – Welcome Home, Pink Floyd – The Final Cut), perhaps, but this is definitely an example of great artists stealing than mere good borrowing, I’d say. It still manages to be a little emo in places and is a towering opus of a concept record where the sole dud, a product of storytelling trumping song-writing and musical craft, is the mercifully short second track.

The Fall of Troy – Doppelganger

This band started off post-hardcore with plenty of math (e.g. odd song structures and some truly insane guitar playing), before they went poppy and song-based, and this, their second album, is the magnum opus by far.

Four Tet – Everything Ecstatic

The third in producer Kieran Hebden’s ‘great trilogy’ of albums, this is nearly as good as 2001’s simple masterpiece “Pause”, but not quite.

Gojira – From Mars to Sirius

I have to admit I got into this French metal band much more recently than 2005 and so only found this record when I delved into the back catalogue, so it doesn’t have much nostalgia value from the time, but it is objectively a great album nonetheless and finds itself on many ‘best of’ metal album lists.

John Frusciante – Curtains

The end of an incredibly prolific era and the last in 2004-2005’s ‘Record Collection’ (the label) releases, another deceptively straightforward but still devastating release from the then nearly-ex Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist. Also Frusciante’s last record before he went all-out on the production and didn’t play the guitar as much.

The Mars Volta – Frances the Mute

This was top four material for a long while (along with the same band’s Deloused in the Comatorium and Tool’s Lateralus and Aenima) but probably isn’t these days. It is book-ended beautifully (like Pink Floyd’s Animals), contains more than its fair share of flashes of brilliance, features superlative playing from everyone involved, and includes a good bit of improvisation-like jazz it would later turn out I would be a huge fan of. It had a fascinating concept with suitably dense poetic lyrics and at the time I would hang on the edge of my seat for an internet (notably Wikipedia) update about either of those. Unlike Deloused, however, I must admit it isn’t perfect from start to finish, getting especially patchy around the middle.

Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth

If you google ‘Nine Inch Nails albums ranked’, which I admit I do a lot of with various band names, the lists you’ll find generally place 2007’s Year Zero above this. I find that inexplicable (just my opinion). In fact, Year Zero is probably my least favourite of Trent Reznor’s (Nine Inch Nails, I mean) records after Hesitation Marks. Anyway, I thought With Teeth was an incredible comeback – not that Reznor needed one per se, it’s just that it had been a long time since The Fragile in 1999. I think this album had some amazing singles in “The Hand That Feeds”, “Every Day Is Exactly The Same”, and “Only”, a good bit of punch in “You Know What You Are?”, and arguably the most beautiful end-of record ballad yet, in “Right Where It Belongs”. Maybe this album just hit me at the right time.

Oceansize – Everyone Into Position

A very British slice of prog-rock, this, but with plenty of other influences thrown in for good measure. It is very easy to forget just how good Oceansize were at one time. How good they were as players and musicians. This is probably overall their best work, certainly their most varied, and among many other things it shows off their mastery of dynamics.

Opeth – Ghost Reveries

I’m not sure this ‘observation’ (as everyone’s favourite Swedish crossover death metal outfit likes to put it) is necessarily better than albums like Blackwater Park and Deliverance, but it certainly comes close. Heavy, beautiful, brutal, and sometimes even a little brooding. Dark and gothic, sure, but it lets the light in from time to time.

Panic! At the Disco – A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out

I never liked Fallout Boy or most of their peers, but there was something about this band and their astonishing debut. One of the most infectious records ever, it caught me from first listen, and I became pretty obsessed with it for a time. Some of the greatest lyrics ever, too, although I am given to understand mostly ripped off from Chuck Palahniuk. (Again, I’m thinking to trot out the ‘great artists steal’ cliché.) I suppose I’d describe it as dance-rock if that didn’t sound awful. On the second album they tried to sound like The Beatles and I never went back to them. I don’t listen to AFYCSO much these days, to be honest, but given how much I did at the time I probably wore it out.

Sigur Ros – Takk

While this is the record that lots of things on television took bits from (football, nature shows,…) I suspect that was less to do with this Icelandic post-rock band doing something different so much as the world sitting up and taking notice. As well as the perennial Hoppipolla (which is no worse for its ubiquity), there are plenty of magical deep cuts on here. While the dip in quality for the record after this wasn’t enormous, Takk is perhaps the third of Sigur Ros’ great trilogy. It is probably weaker than its two predecessors, but that’s not really relevant or fair to point out.

Team Sleep – Team Sleep

This is, for me, the quintessential left-field supergroup album. It has Chino Moreno (vocals, Deftones) and Zach Hill (drums, Hella), who more could I want!? (I should mention Hill’s playing is very restrained.) It manages to be an incredibly accomplished body of work, with some amazing songs, soothing moments of serenity, and the odd clever literary reference here and there. It didn’t excise Moreno’s love of dream pop from future Deftones releases, and helped cause tension during attempts to record and release 2006’s Saturday Night Wrist, but I don’t mind that.

Thrice – Vheissu

This is where Thrice stopping being a post-hardcore band and started with the prog-rock (these days it’s more just ‘rock’). I’d heard a lot about this band, and this album in particular, but again it was sometime later I picked this up. The hype was deserved though. While I admit I wasn’t familiar with the band’s previous sound, I think they absolutely pulled it off. It just goes to show how good musicians Thrice must be to change their sound and be equally as adept at it. I’d compare it to Refused’s genre-defying “A Shape of Punk to Come” except it isn’t quite as expansive or referential as that record. But the spirit is there.

A playlist (not quite up there with 2006’s, alas. Note there that both Suns of the Tundra and Tool are now on Spotify. The American Head Charge song I include below is, however, not)

https://open.spotify.com/user/angesthebull/playlist/6TMEvJeRrvrARqKPVVUW45?si=JmI57FSzQqSfa7beKCxxCQ

1. American Head Charge – Ridicule
2. Antony and the Johnsons – Hope There’s Someone
3.  Bloc Party – Like Eating Glass
4. Cave In – Trepanning
5. Coheed and Cambria – Welcome Home
6. Deftones – Digital Bath – Acoustic
7. Depeche Mode – Precious
8. Dream Theater – Panic Attack (I really want to say the album’s title track, Octavarium, but it’s a bit on the long side)
9. Elbow – Leaders of the Free World
10.  Explosions in the Sky – Day Six
11. The Fall of Troy – Mouths Like Sidewinder Missiles
12. Four Tet – a joy
13. Funeral for a Friend – Monsters
14. Garbage – Run Baby Run
15. Gojira – Ocean Planet
16. Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc.
17. Holy Fuck – Tone Bank Jungle
18.  Ill Nino – Everything Beautiful
19. Jamiroquai – Talullah
20. John Frusciante – The Past Recedes
21.  Korn – Love Song
22. The Mars Volta – The Widow (although really I want to say Cygnus…Vismund Cygnus)
23. Minus the Bear – The Fix
24. Nine Inch Nails – Every Day Is Exactly The Same
25. Oceansize – New Pin
26. Opeth – Atonement
27. Panic! At The Disco – I Write Sins Not Tragedies
28. Pineapple Thief – Clapham
29. Polar Bear – Was Dreaming You Called You Disappeared I Slept
30. Porcupine Tree – Arriving Somewhere But Not Here
31. Red Sparowes – Our Happiest Days Slowly Began to Turn into Dust
32. Reuben – Nobody Loves You
33. Sigur Ros – Saeglopur
34. System Of A Down – Holy Mountains
35. Soulfly – Soulfly V
36. Team Sleep – Ever (Foreign Flag)
37. Thrice – Of Dust And Nations