See “Best of 2008” for a general
introduction.
Be warned fair readers. As we
step back in time from around here we’re getting into when nu-metal and other
things that haven’t dated super well were around. And that probably won’t all
be ignored because I was into some of it, even if most of that I haven’t
listened to with anything approaching regularity for years.
2003 was a minorly historical
year for a number of big names. For example, 2003 was the year of…Metallica’s
St.Anger! Full disclosure, I didn’t hate it at the time and still don’t, but yes
the snare drum sound is horrible, yes the record is about half an hour too long
(but there are 40 or so minutes of decent music buried within the bloated 70+
minute running time), no there are no guitar solos, yes some of the lyrics are
the worst they ever wrote (sadly, past the first four albums, that’s saying
something). As opposed to, say, Iron Maiden, who largely make the same record
over and over again (apparently AC/DC are the generally considered poster
children for that), Metallica do perhaps get points for trying new things every
so often. I did really like 2008’s Death Magnetic, except the cheap and empty
sounding production (apparently the guitar hero version of the album sounds
better!), but thought 2016’s Hardwired… was Metallica by numbers. Poor chaps
can’t win – I’d say they’re laughing all the way to the bank but I’m pretty
sure they take it all very seriously.
What else did we have? Ah yes,
Muse’s Absolution. Of course we had that song with that bassline, and this, the
prog/alt trio’s third record is the point at which they shook off the Radiohead
cover band label once and for all, but it is also the bridge to the overblown
ridiculousness that followed.
A Perfect Circle’s sophomore
effort, Thirteenth Step, had plenty of great tracks and moments, but I don’t
think if I’d heard it first it would have had the impact on me of the debut.
Deftones’ self-titled record has
some of the greatest songs of their career (Hexagram, Anniversary of an
Uninteresting Event, Moana) but also some of the most generic and uninspired.
And as much as I adore Chino Moreno’s Team Sleep I don’t think Lucky You was a
particularly successful experiment – better than Pink Cellphone on 2006’s
Saturday Night Wrist perhaps, but as an overall album I think the latter wins
out.
2003 is when The Darkness
happened. I don’t know if they ended up saving Rock n Roll, but it was fun at
the time.
On the other hand, 2003 is home
to some of my most favouritest albums of all time.
AFI – Sing the Sorrow
While this is the point the
Ukiah, California goth punks “sold out” (and joined a major label, etc), this
album is for this AFI fan an epic and masterful piece of art. I suppose if AFI
had stuck with their album formula (intro track, end on a ballad, secret track)
forever it would have got tired (we had it for one more album,
decemberunderground) but here they retained it and perfected it. Granted, the
album end is ambitious, arty, and experimental and doesn’t quite (nearly, but
not quite) have as timeless a ballad as God Called in Sick Today or
Morningstar, intro track Miseria Cantare – The Beginning is easily as good as
Strength Through Wounding. Although here is where they introduced electronic
elements, it is also where they showed how objectively great musicians they
are, and there are a plethora of banging tunes in among the beautiful deep
cuts. Finally, it is the last time Davey Havok’s lyrics were truly poetic and
beguiling, rather than the teenage-y nonsense that has dogged every release
since.
Cave In – Antenna
Speaking of selling out, this is
an alternative rock album. Cave In’s first album was incredibly growly metal
and their second was “space rock”. Antenna was so radio-friendly, melodic, and
infectious I can’t quite believe it didn’t go massive. I imagine if I’d been a
fan of the previous work at the time I would have found this distasteful, but
as the entry point I absolutely loved it. Yet another example of a band showing
how they can pen great tunes if they want
to. It’s like modern art – when stuff “my five year old could have done” is
done by someone who could quite easily paint a realistic picture of a nice tree
if they wanted to, that’s what makes it art.
Coheed and Cambria – In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
Is this the quintessential Coheed
and Cambria record? Very possibly. I think it best straddles the
pop-punk-adjacency of singer/guitarist/world-building/comic-book-writing
Claudio Sanchez and company’s debut the year before and the proggier material
that came after (they returned to pop, briefly, for 2015’s The Color Before the
Sun). So while we still have belters like A Favor House Atlantic, we also have
epics (the title track), suites (The Camper Velorium I-III) and a lovely
instance of the gorgeous little recurring theme (arguably perfected on Keeping
the Blade on the next album) The Ring in Return.
Cult of Luna – The Beyond
I told you the Swedish post-metal
masters would crop up again. There was a time when I found music too heavy. I
remember there was a compilation CD from a magazine like Metal Hammer which
featured the CoL track The Watchtower from this album. I found it far too
extreme, but that didn’t last long. It certainly is heavy (the production afforded by a band with day jobs on their
second album actually helps this) and perhaps contains less light and shade,
less respite, if you will, from the punishing attack, than we got later on but
it is still intelligent, and not a little political.
Dream Theater – Train of Thought
A friend had given me Images and
Words on tape a few years before and I found it super cheesy (I mean, I still
do, but I love it nonetheless). Back during the Portnoy days when DT wore their
influences on their sleeves (6 Degrees of Inner Turbulence – Tool, Octavarium –
Muse), Train of Thought was their Slipknot album. Or at least a heavy metal
album with distortion and riffs, y’know? Given when DT try to go it alone it doesn’t
often work (great playing, OK-at-best song-writing) it really helped to have
the whirlwind of a personality that is drummer-extraordinaire Mr Mike Portnoy
around to inject those influences (and movie samples!) and make it interesting.
Well anyway, ToT has some of my favourite DT tracks and solos on it, but it was
my first album of theirs I gave the time of day to, so it gets extra points for
that.
Envy – A Dead Sinking Story
The problem I have with this
Japanese post-hardcore / post-metal outfit is that I got into them via the
Invariable Will, Recurring Ebbs and Flows 14 LP box set, so I find it difficult
to pinpoint things about certain albums. That said, when I was reminding myself
about 2003 albums, I noted this down, then only this morning found it on two
independent best ever post-metal albums lists, then I listened to it and
remembered how amazing it is. Still a bit screamo though, mind.
Explosions in the Sky – The Earth is not a Cold Dead Place
I’m getting the impression that
in the post-rock world, it is cool to hate these guys - their music I mean. I
wonder if that’s something to do with its genre purity (in the same way as
Mozart is a great example to show to an alien what classical music is, but
there is way more interesting classical music in the canon) and ubiquity
(background music for TV). If most other post-rock bands put a spin on it,
EITS’s USP is that they don’t, perhaps. They are a centre point from which
others branch out. Shoulders on which to stand to see further. Etc. There’s
nothing wrong with a group of guys in a garage (or a rented house) with their
instruments coming up with something beautiful.
Four Tet – Rounds
Talented and prolific electronic
producer Kieran Hebden’s second best, or at least second most ‘classic’ album
(after Pause)? Yes I’d say so. But from a quick look at Wikipedia it seems the
professionals would have it the other way around. So what do I know.
Hell is for Heroes - The Neon Handshake
[EDIT March 23 - how could I have forgotten this?] I didn't get into HIFH until after the second album, 2006's Transmit Disrupt, so I tend not to distinguish between the first two records too much. I gather than most fans do, however, preferring the debut (2007's self-titled final album before the band broke up was underrated). It's not difficult to see why it's so beloved, ticking every conceivable box as it does - beautiful picked-guitar quiet bits, big riffs, strong melodies, alternative screamy vocals, passionate delivery, better than decent musicianship, catchy song-writing, a sprinkling of originality. Right time, right place, but perhaps you had to be there.
Joss Stone – The Soul Sessions
Stone at her most soulful, most
respectful, and by far the least annoying. Except the White Stripes’ cover,
perhaps, but I don’t really have an issue with that either. A pure and
relatively subtle and understated piece of work.
Mogwai – Happy Songs for Happy People
I have no idea what my favourite
Scottish post-rock album is. I know it isn’t Young Team (I’m not trying to be
edgy, I just don’t think it’s that mature) but other than that… I think HSfHP
is up there, not least because of epic centrepiece Ratts of the Capital. On one
hand I think it’s a good entry point for Mogwai – lots of guitar, mostly quite
pretty, but it is also quite
synth-heavy and processed. Perhaps not enough of a range, for some? I say this
because when trying to force more post-rock on people who are unfortunate
enough to tell me they like Sigur Ros or something, among the EITS, TWDY, Mono,
etc I have often dug out my CD copy of this. And it’s never caught. Strange.
Opeth - Damnation
Take all the pretty quiet bits
out of Opeth songs and make a whole album out of them (so no cookie monster
vocals or heavy distortion, for example) and this is what you get. A brave but
successful move by the genre-bending Swedes. To this day I find it slightly
unsettling that of the brace of albums of which this one, Deliverance came
first. One might have hoped it was the other way around! (I’m talking about the
concept of the titles here, not the music.)
Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts of the Great Highway
I haven’t listened to anything
between this and 2014 masterpiece Benji, so I can’t say for sure that this is
the most accessible record Mark Kozelek put his name to, but it must be up
there. It is the shortest Sun Kil Moon album (ignoring the Modest Mouse covers
record), at least! It is mostly more straight-forward and song based rather than
10 minutes of Kozelek telling a rambling story over music (on a record like
Benji absolutely nowhere near as awful as it sounds) but still manages to
feature the 15 minute epic Duk Koo Kim. If someone asks me what SkM sounds like
my knee-jerk reaction is to say one man with a guitar minimalism, but there’s
certainly a full band on this one, and it even gets a little Jesu (they have
collaborated on occasion) in places.
The Mars Volta – Deloused in the Comatorium
Even with the two minutes of
sparse noise in the middle of Cicatriz ESP, and ignoring the bonus track
Ambuletz, this record is absolute perfection from start to finish. If someone
hardwired my brain and said, from this note, what is the best note for you that
could come next, this album would result (meaning that for someone else it
would be completely different!). It still sounds both like the past (salsa, Led
Zeppelin, King Crimson, Miles Davis, a little bit of At the Drive-In) and a
futuristic sci-fi fever dream (or rat-poison induced coma). Stream of
consciousness nonsense they may be, but still some of my favourite lyrics ever.
For a while this album was my sun around which all other music orbited (I went
to see The Mars Volta 11 times, including a NYE show in San Francisco) and although
I don’t listen to it as much these days as I still do Tool’s Lateralus it still
holds an enormously special place in my heart.
Thursday – War all the Time
This is what post-hardcore and
emo sounds like done with a bit of intelligence and authority. It doesn’t quite
hit the same highs for me as Full Collapse does with a song like Paris in
Flames, but it is still a stunning record with many highlights like the huge
opening smack in the face of For the Workforce, Drowning, catchy scream-along
(single-worthy but wasn’t) Division St, twinkling interlude This Song Brought
to You by a Falling Bomb (which I learned on piano, once upon a time), and
anti-homophobic M.Shepard (equating the panicky killing of the eponymous
student with pulling the wings from a butterfly). I have a lot of respect for
ostensibly genre bands where the music is actually objectively interesting and
the members could play different music if they wanted to (it means that what
sounds like talentless noise to you, which is a criticism you hear a lot if
you’re in to heavy or alternative music, is actually music and art in the true
sense) – here for example, I once read a review complementing the alchemy of
Thursday’s two-guitar approach. I think that hit the nail on the head – see a
song like Love Has Led Us Astray for an example (awkwardly not on WatT but it’s
the one that springs to mind). Great drumming too. While frontman Geoff
Rickley’s vocals have attracted raised eyebrows in the past (he had the
nickname “Tone Geoff” in his inner circle for a while, apparently), his screams
and strongly literature-influenced lyrics are up there with the best of them.
A playlist
- A Perfect Circle – Weak and Powerless
- AFI – The Leaving Song Pt.II
- Biffy Clyro – The Ideal Height
- Brand New – Sic Transit Gloria – Glory Fades
- Cave In – Youth Overrided
- Coheed and Cambria – A Favor House Atlantic
- Cult of Luna – The Watchtower
- Deftones – Hexagram
- Dream Theater – As I Am
- Elbow – Grace Under Pressure
- Envy – Chain Wandering Deeply
- Evanescence – Tourniquet
- Every Time I Die – Floater
- Explosions in the Sky – First Breath After Coma
- Four Tet – She Moves She
- Funeral for a Friend – Juneau
- Hell is for Heroes - Night Vision
- HIM – Endless Dark
- Iron Maiden - Rainmaker
- Joss Stone – Super Duper Love
- Kings of Leon – California Waiting
- Korn – Counting on Me
- Lamb of God – Ruin
- Machine Head – Elegy
- Mogwai – Hunted by a Freak
- Muse – Hysteria
- My Morning Jacket – One Big Holiday
- Opeth – Windowpane
- Placebo – The Bitter End
- Prefuse 73 – The End of Biters – International
- Radiohead – Sit Down, Stand Up
- SikTh – Scent of the Obscene
- Snow Patrol – Run
- Sun Kil Moon – Carry Me Ohio
- Superjoint
Ritual– Sickness - The Darkness – I Believe in a Thing Called Love
- The Mars Volta – Drunkship of Lanterns
- The Pineapple Thief – Vapour Trails
- Thursday – For the Workforce, Drowning
- Zwan – Of a Broken Heart
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