Best music of 2004

See “Best of 2008” for a general introduction.

I’ve been saying these were my formative years, but I’m not entirely sure how many of my favourite records of 2004 I got into at the time. Some, definitely, like Slipknot, Head Automatica and 36 Crazyfists, but most of the rest? It wasn’t long after this that I fell bigtime for John Frusciante, Isis, Mastodon, and Cult of Luna. Others like Converge, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, Melvins, Mono, and Joss Stone came a bit later. I’m not sure what the point of that was, other than to reinforce something I already said (in my 2008 best-of post) about hindsight. While it also serves to highlight the arbitrariness of 1 January – 31 December release times it is of course still possible to place a lot of music in its historical and cultural context.

Well anyway, try these on for size.

36 Crazyfists – A Snow Capped Romance

I swear I wasn’t trying to be edgy, but when Slipknot’s Iowa and System of a Down’s Toxicity albums came out, I didn’t think much of either. The odd track aside, I never really changed my mind on that. 36 Crazyfists’ second (major label) album, on the other hand, I did grow to love. Here’s what I said in my 3-star review on amazon:

“After the sheer (granted, nu-metal but done with so much class!) spectacularly excellent debut Bitterness The Star I was expecting a lot from A Snow Capped Romance. But apart from the stand-out first two tracks it kind of goes downhill from there. The bass and vocals and, well, everything really, seem exactly the same in every mediocre song past this point!...it seems the mighty 36CF have shrunk to nothing but a heavier Linkin Park (…Brock's vocal work is nothing short of amazing). But ASCR is just not good enough to hold a candle to the first album, or much else either, even Linkin Park. For an album crammed with classics, check out "Bitterness the Star".”

What utter nonsense! It is much slicker than BtS, sure, but how can I describe a second album half that contains Installing the Catheter and (the beautiful interlude) Song for the Fisherman as “mediocre”. Madness. The wintry artwork (a lot of hearts in Roadrunner Records album artwork around this time – see: 36 CF’s next album, Killswitch Engage) and provenance of the band cemented my still-held desire to visit Alaska (it was many years later I discovered things like red states and Sarah Palin, but still).

65daysofstatic – The Fall of Math

The debut album from the Sheffield experimental electronic post-rock quartet. Generally considered to be their magnum opus and something of an iconic record, which considering their career since is no small praise. I saw them play the whole thing at the tenth anniversary shows, but I got the impression that the band member with the microphone wasn’t a fan of this type of show - he seemed more interested in playing their most recent material, but, hey, we got both.

Converge – You Fail Me

I already said I prefer 2006’s No Heroes to this, but it is still home to many of Converge’s best loved ragers (Last Light, with its crowd-pleasing scream-along refrain “This. Is. For. The hearts. Still. Beating.” and Black Cloud, for example). I don’t think its quiet moments are their best but elsewhere it’s Converge at the top of the game. A great example of how to follow up a masterpiece (2001’s Jane Doe).

Cult of Luna – Salvation

This doesn’t get as much love as 2006’s Somewhere Along the Highway, but it probably should. It contains some of the Swedish post-metallers’ finest moments (Leave Me Here, the clean and quiet Crossing Over) but perhaps serves as a bridge between the less polished first two records and what came later. Unlike, 2013’s Vertikal, though, the rest of the album holds up too, as a masterclass in the post-metal quiet/loud build/explode tension/release standards of song-writing. I realise that while this is the third (going backwards in time from 2019) (probably not the last) incidence of me thinking CoL put out one of the best albums of the year, they’re one of my favourite bands because their albums fit that criteria and not the other way around.

edIT - Crying Over Pros for no Reason

A beautiful and emotive slice of glitchy electronica. There was one more album in 2007 but it's a pity we didn't hear more from producer Edward Ma.

Head Automatica – Decadence

As many people who know me know, I’m not overly into party music (or generally any happy or non-serious music of any kind) but occasionally a record will come along that is so fun and so damn infectious I can’t help but get into it. The fact that the vocalist is Glassjaw’s Daryl Palumbo helped a lot too of course. And if even the chorus of a song called “Dance Party Plus” manages to be poignantly beautiful you’ve got something truly transcendent on your hands.

ISIS (the band) – Panopticon

Some more post-metal for your cathartic pleasure, if you please. If 2002’s Oceanic was ISIS’s green album, this is the blue album, named after the philosophical idea of a circular prison with a guard tower in the middle and nowhere to hide. I’m not a huge fan of 2000’s Celestial so I consider Panopticon the middle of ISIS’s ‘great trilogy’ (a concept I will continue to flog long past its death) and possibly their magnum opus – more powerful than 2006’s In the Absence of Truth but more polished than Oceanic.

John Frusciante – Automatic Writing (with Josh Klinghoffer and Joe Lally, under the name Ataxia) / Shadows Collide with People / A Sphere in the Heart of Silence (with Josh Klinghoffer)

A bit of a cheat putting in three records here perhaps but a) I nearly put The Will to Death in as well and b) it’s not without precedent (e.g. last year’s post-rock round-up). But anyway, the point is this was an incredibly prolific time for the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist (as he was at the time) – as well as the aforementioned he also released the album Inside of Emptiness and the DC EP (together with 2005’s Curtains, and excluding Shadows Collide with People, these six records formed Frusciante’s “Record Collection” releases (a record label on which he has since continued to release solo records)).

Shadows Collide with People is in large part a straight-forward folk/rock record (but with plenty of sound effects and other things thrown in to mess with that categorisation), it features Omar Rodriguez-Lopez on a couple of tracks (this makes me think I would have got into Frusciante’s solo work even without the strong influence of a super-fan friend of mine), and is possibly my favourite of all Frusciante’s solo records.

Sphere is heavily electronic and often very beautiful. A good late night record if one is feeling a little emotional.

Automatic Writing is a guitar/bass/drum garage-jam album between Frusciante, Klinghoffer, and Fugazi’s Joe Lally. Across the 5 tracks there are 5 basslines, most of which are up there with anything Peter Hook ever wrote, so it’s often a bit of a showcase for Frusciante’s excellent guitar work.

Joss Stone – Mind Body & Soul

While it’s this album that propelled Stone to the stardom that likely contributed to her very public breakdown, she was at that time rather sweet – she has been again for several years but she’s not the big star anymore. Mind Body & Soul (quick, call the comma police!) is far more pop than the purer soul of her debut but there are still plenty of soulful (in both senses of the word) moments to be had. It is perhaps a bit long and some songs are filler but the singles were great, Security was a lovely deeper cut, and the special edition featured a mind-blowing version of The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows. I think she has a great voice and doesn’t generally overdo the vocal show-offs.

Keane – Hopes and Fears

Not an obvious choice for me, but I think it’s a sublime pop record. At the time a big deal was made of the fact that they had a keyboard instead of a guitar but they got away with it, crafting infectious and gorgeously melancholy melodies time and again across an album of very little filler. I can’t help but like all the singles, and Your Eyes Open is another achingly beautiful cut.

Killswitch Engage – The End of Heartache

This isn’t the purists’ choice, but I for one very much enjoy the more emo and hook-laden metalcore stylings of the Howard Jones era albums (this was the first of three). People who know what they’re talking about often go with 2002’s Alive or Just Breathing. Much like with label-mates 36 Crazyfists, this was perhaps an attempt for a more crossover appeal. If nothing else it’s a great example that heavy music can be incredibly melodic, although it is maybe a bit sickly at times.

Lamb of God – Ashes in the Wake

This isn’t an album with a massive hook that makes me remember to revisit it time and again (few of Lamb of God’s are, except for a track like Embers with Deftones’ Chino Moreno on guest vocals) so much as a consistently high quality expression of the genre, in this case something like groove metal. I am currently uber-fanning Lamb of God a bit, buying their beer from Brewdog and reading frontman Randy Blythe’s memoir, but this record is home to much of their best work, regardless, leading right off with live set staple Laid to Rest.

Mastodon – Leviathan

Another obvious retrospective pick here, it being a bit raw and heavy for me at the time. But once you get on board with what Mastodon are trying to do it all falls into place. The riffs are absolutely gigantic (one might even say…mammoth), the solos are epic, the drumming is as octopus-like as Brann Dailor soon came to be known for, the time signatures are head-scratching and the song-writing is gloriously off-kilter.

Melvins – Pigs of the Roman Empire

While Kurt Cobain’s (and Adam Jones’ from Tool too I think) favourite band is one of the most prolific out there, of course not everything they produce is a gem. This one is though, fusing two of Melvins’ chief features – razor sharp basslines and ambient noise, the latter provided courtesy of Lustmord (who has also worked with Tool) particularly on the 22 minute plus title track. I really enjoy listening to this record while reading graphic novels, for some reason.

Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez – A. Manual Dexterity

There was a time when Rodriguez-Lopez hadn’t released over 50 solo albums. The day before 31 August 2004, he hadn’t released any. There are better produced and more professional, and, frankly less avant-garde, albums in his oeuvre later on but this one holds a special place in my heart as where it all began. It starts ever so quietly then this lovely little guitar motif starts up and off the record goes. It’s a bit of a mishmash I guess, with a couple of vocal tracks (including one with Cedric Bixler-Zavala), guitar solos, free jazz saxophone, and typewriter key percussion. It is technically a soundtrack to something but I don’t think the film is available.

Saul Williams – Saul Williams

This is probably my favourite hip hop album of all time. It certainly has metal-head crossover appeal, both through its samples (e.g. Bad Brains) and collaborators Serj Tankian (System of a Down) and Zach de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine). (Williams has elsewhere also collaborated with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.) The poetic lyrics are great too, which you’d think would be a baseline for rappers, but often isn’t (I don’t think he says his own name at any point, for example). I suppose he’s more political than, say, gangsta.

Slipknot – Vol.3: The Subliminal Verses

I keep banging on about how great this album is and how I think it’s far and away the masked Iowan nonet’s greatest achievement. It’s certainly the most adult, mature, and varied record, and I think it has dated far better than the more teenage appeal of the first two records (particularly Iowa, although People=Shit, album deep cut I am Hated, and the epic 15 minute dirge of the title track, are all still special to me). I’m not sure how to make sure I cover everything so I don’t have to keep banging on about it, but let’s try it track by track:

1. Prelude 3.0 – the best intro track they ever did (it’s almost a proper song, but not quite)
2. The Blister Exists – the perfect example of Slipknot as the devil’s marching band. That dual marching snares and kit trade-off that persists throughout the track and then ends it on its own is pure class
3. Three Nil – decent enough but nothing particularly special
4. Duality – quite possibly the best single they ever did
5. Opium of the People – unlike some of their later efforts, the chorus stays just the right side of saccharine
6. Circle – acoustic guitars! And some nice DJing
7. Welcome – as for Three Nil
8. Vermillion – one of the greatest tracks they ever did, from any angle (musical and lyrical)
9. Pulse of the Maggots – an epic pummel-er of a track with a heavy focus on rhythm. I love the air raid siren and spoken word at the start (the whole album features Corey Taylor’s best lyrics, I think. In a backlash to criticism he’d received for Iowa, there is no swearing on this record)
10. Before I Forget – yet another example of Slipknot’s ability to write a song with a fantastic chorus that is not sugary and out of place
11. Vermillion Pt.2 – a successful experiment with variations on a theme, this time featuring acoustic guitar, piano and cello
12. The Nameless – now I know what I said about the ‘Knot’s penchant for cringe-y choruses, and this is on paper the worst offender (it could almost be Backstreet Boys) but it’s the audacity and the contrast that makes it. And after a couple of acoustic-only backed renditions, the third chorus sours over the distortion
13. The Virus of Life – one of the worst songs they ever released. What became the obligatory late-album dirge hardly ever worked, and this one least of all. The only track on the album I can live without
14. Danger – Keep Away – a lovely little bookend of a song that ends the album calmly and perfectly

While there is plenty to like in the second half of Slipknot’s career, it is a shame they ditched so many of the elements that made this album so incredible - the arrangements, the more complex percussion, the flow through the record, the bookending, the lyrics that don’t rely on endless death metaphors (one of these days when I’ve got nothing else to do I’m going to count how many there are on 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind), hell, the use of acoustic instrumentation. I wonder if to a lot of people, and the band themselves, it just doesn’t sound like a Slipknot record.

A playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1IyQ9nPWJjErFLC5twexT0?si=e6WydmMNQCutTUtIrAbSgw

1. 36 Crazyfists – At the End of August
2. 65daysofstatic – I Swallowed Hard, Like I Understood
3. Alexisonfire – No Transitory
4. Ataxia – The Sides
5. Biffy Clyro – Glitter and Trauma
6. Bjork – Who is it?
7. Converge – Last Light
8. Cult of Luna – Leave Me Here
9. edIT - Ants
10. Faithless – Mass Destruction
11. Head Automatica – Dance Party Plus
12. Incubus – Sick Sad Little World
13. Iron & Wine – Naked As We Came
14. Isis – Wills Dissolve
15. Jimmy Eat World – Pain
16. John Frusciante – Time Runs Out
17. John Frusciante – Time Goes Back
18. John Frusciante – A Corner
19. John Frusciante – 666
20. John Frusciante and Josh Klinghoffer – Communique
21. Joss Stone – Security
22. Keane – Your Eyes Open
23. Killswitch Engage – The End of Heartache
24. Kings of Leon – Day Old Blues
25. Lamb of God – Laid to Rest
26. Mastodon – Blood and Thunder
27. Melvins – The Bloated Pope
28. Morrissey – First of the Gang to Die
29. Norah Jones – Sunrise
30. Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez – Around Knuckle White Tile [not on Spotify]
31. Razorlight – Somewhere Else
32. Reuben – Let’s Stop Hanging Out
33. Saul Williams – Telegram
34. Slipknot – Duality
35. Suns of the Tundra – Paper Wraps Stone
36. Tegan and Sara – Walking with a Ghost
37. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Unretrofied
38. The Prodigy – You’ll be Under my Wheels
39. The Used – Sound Effects and Overdramatics
40. U2 – Vertigo