Panopticon Blog

This is the second of my annual Top Ten lists: BEST ALBUM OF 2008. This year was full of solid releases from established artists that failed to live up to their best work (Nine Inch Nails, Sigur Ros, The Roots, and many more released good but not great records) and others who totally dropped the ball (My Morning Jacket, The Mars Volta and more). That being said, the year also featured a lot of new talent, career best albums from perpetually underrated artists, and one unexpected comeback that trumped all others.

10. Deerhunter – Microcastle

Shoegaze meets 50s boy-pop on this rich collection of songs, headed by indie darling Bradford Cox and his band Deerhunter.

9. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

Soaring vocal harmonies, one of the year’s very best tracks (“White Winter Hymnal”) and a whole lotta good vibrations set Fleet Foxes apart from many other Beach Boys influenced indie-rockers.

8. Black Mountain – In the Future

This charmingly retro throwback wears its Led Zeppelin influences on its frilly sleeve. What saves it from over-preciousness (LOTR reference intended) is the consistently absorbing songwriting and co-vocalist Amber Webber’s beautiful counter-point to all the cock-rock.

7. TV on the Radio – Dear Science,

Dear Science may not be the classic that TV on the Radio’s breakout album Return to Cookie Mountain was, but it’s still better and more eclectic than most indie rock. Co-mingling funk, industrial and soul with David Sitek’s always-impressive, swirling production, Dear Science includes many songs – the Prince-y “Golden Age,” the hip-hop flavored “DLZ” and the gorgeous “Family Tree” – that stand side-by-side with the band’s best.

6. Meshuggah – obZen

The aural equivalent of one of those black and gray H.R. Giger paintings, math-metal veterans Meshuggah unleash their most direct collection of songs since Destroy Erase Improve. This relentlessly heavy album gradually reveals impeccable songwriting beneath its technical virtuosity. Drummer Tomas Haake again proves he’s one of the genre’s greatest talents.

5. Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Lay Down in the Light

Quite possibly the least downbeat record of Will Oldham aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s career, sort of a lighter cousin to his also excellent I See a Darkness. With more than a passing country flavor co-mingling with Oldham’s usual art-damaged folk, Lay Down in the Light is a deceptively simple album without a wasted moment. Guest singer Ashley Webber adds a dimension of warmth to one of the year’s most listenable albums.

4. Marnie Stern – “This is It and I am It and You are It and So is That and He is It and She is It and It is It and That is That”

Proudly not for everyone, guitar virtuoso Marnie Stern’s berserk This is It… exists in the admittedly tiny overlap between the twee freak-folk of Joanna Newsom and the art-damaged prog-metal of Lightning Bolt. Immeasurably helped by prog band Hella’s ace drummer Zach Hill and Stern’s confident songwriting buried beneath the technical wizardry, This is It… is the year’s most unique album.

3. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid

It’s time to put a moratorium on Elbow being referred to as “the working-class Radiohead.” Sure, the band’s lyrics are more salt of the Earth, and its members are seemingly more blue-collar than their ethereal contemporaries. But lead singer Guy Garvey’s singular voice (“The Lonliness of a Tower Crane Driver” may be his greatest vocal performance in the one of the year’s best songs), the band’s superior and wildly varied songwriting (from the rollicking “Grounds for Divorce” to the touching album closer “Friend of Ours”), and the career-best album The Seldom Seen Kid should finally liberate the band from Radiohead’s shadow.

2. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

Justin Vernon recorded this album in isolation in a wintry cabin in Wisconsin, and the result is almost uncomfortably intimate – like stumbling across a journal that you know is personal but is so poetically written that you can’t help but read. There’s many things that set For Emma, Forever Ago apart from other alt-folk albums – Vernon’s cracked, imperfect vocals, his nakedly emotional lyrics, the off-kilter and often surprising musical arrangements – but the album’s stirring evocation of a certain time and place in one man’s is Bon Iver’s greatest accomplishment. NOTE: This album was self-released in 2007, but only in 2008 was it available on a record label.

1. Portishead – Third

The first time I heard Third, I was driving through the most industrial area of New Jersey on a foggy March evening. The trip-hop pioneers had been on sabbatical for nearly a decade, with only two albums in their discography before calling it nearly-quits, and I honestly had no idea what to expect from the re-emergent Portishead. I actually had to pull the car to the side of the road several times – so in concert were the lonely steel structures and the 11 bleak, propulsive, downright devastating tracks on Third that I could not safely concentrate on the road. I listed to the album at least 3 more times in a row, bowled over the by the twin monoliths “We Carry On” and “Machine Gun” at the album’s center, moved by the sad beauty of “The Rip,” and shaken to the bone by the haunting album closer “Threads.” That Portishead actually released Third is reason to cheer; that it’s a wholesale reinvention of sound (from unearthed film-noir soundtrack of Dummy to the industrial-psychadelic hybrid that is Third) that manages to sound nothing and everything like Portishead is reason to celebrate; that Third is the band’s best album, even better than Dummy, is simply mind-blowing.

Now’s the time of the year where we take a look back, consider the last 12 months worth of experiences in entertainment, politics, food, whatever… and stack them into totally arbitrary lists. Top ten lists are one of my guilty pleasures — and I also feel like, as arbitrary as they are, they can open many doors to new things. This is my first of four top ten lists for the year: TOP TEN SONGS.

 10. Grails – Destination Blues

Startlingly prolific Portland based post-rock band had an amazing year – two fantastic LPS in 12 months. Oddly flavored world music sounds clash with furious guitar stabs on this standout from Doomsayer’s Holiday.

9. Frightened Rabbit – The Modern Leper

This charmingly Scottish band’s album The Midnight Organ Fight can tend toward the melodramatic, but toes the line perfectly on this opening track. The perfect combination of tuneful folk rock verses and dramatically emotive choruses.

8. Beck – Chemtrails

Merely a solid record that could have been a classic – Beck collaborating with on-fire producer Danger Mouse – Modern Guilt fulfills its promise on “Chemtrails” — a song in permanent climax (those drums!) with Beck’s soothing vocals melting on top.

7. Goldfrapp – A&E

Seventh Tree may have been too mellow for many of Goldfrapp’s longtime fans, but I’m all for stylistic shifts if they produce songs like “A&E.” Featuring brilliant production by Will Gregory and a knockout vocal performance by Allison Goldfrapp, the song’s serenity catches you off guard.

6. TV on the Radio – Family Tree

Dear Science may not be the unified classic that Return to Cookie Mountain was – some of the new album’s tracks fail to connect – but its bright spots are worthy of TV on the Radio’s best moments. “Family Tree” is a great synthesis of David Sitek’s sprawling production and Tunde Adibempe and Kip Malone’s offbeat but beautiful harmonies.

5. Santogold – LES Artists

The pop song of the year off the pop album of the year, “LES Artistes” boasts top-notch production, a stirring vocal performance by Santogold, and the most infectious pop hook of 2008. If only more top 40 radio sounded like this.

4. My Morning Jacket – Librarian

One of the only bright spots on the disappointing Evil Urges – but oh, what a bright spot. Lead singer Jim James allows that reverb-drenched falsetto to find all the touching/creepy nooks within the narrative about a man crushing on a sexy librarian. This is vintage MMJ – beautiful, catchy and totally off-beat.

3. Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal

Fleet Foxes fuse heartland Americana with west-coast harmonies, and never more effectively than on “White Winter Hymnal,” a glorious standout from their solid self-titled album. Galloping drums propel a strikingly simple guitar melody and the Foxes’ soaring, gorgeous harmonies.

2. Portishead – We Carry On

The most foreboding song on a hypnotically dark album, “We Carry On” stands out from the rest of the amazing songs on Third because of its sheer magnitude. Previously known for smoky, moody music, Portishead drops “We Carry On” like a bomb – the pulsating synth, guitarist Geoff Barrow’s downward cascading guitar hook and Beth Gibbon’s chilly, frightening vocals.

1. Elbow – The Lonliness of a Tower Crane Driver

The centerpiece of Elbow’s Mercury Prize winning album The Seldom Seen Kid, “The Lonliness of a Tower Crane Driver” somewhat epitomizes the otherwise backhanded compliment that Elbow is the working class Radiohead. Lead singer Guy Garvey’s haunted, echoing performance of the song’s brilliantly evocative lyrics (“I must have been working the ropes/when your hand slipped from mine…send up a prayer in my name”) slow-burn atop a compelling arrangement that crests in an eerie choral blast reminiscent of the best songs on OK Computer. Like much of Elbow’s work, the song creeps into your consciousness (it didn’t catch my ear until I heard the band play it live) and, even after months of listening, the song still gives me goosebumps.