For those about to Rock....

or, if everyone else is doing it why don't I (to paraphrase the MSPs). Yeah Bruce's Top10 albums of the year, and since I care, I've put them in some form of order. Numerical even.
there's been some reports that this year wasn't the best for music, I beg to differ. I think the level of variety in my top10 suggests that it was a superb year. Ok, so I might not have found many new bands this year (well Yeasayer, but their album was 2007) but it's been a varied year.

Those that missed out, just, from the top10: Van der Graaf Generator "Trisector", what a return to form, refreshing, slightly pretentious lyrics, stunning music; Steve Wilson "Insurgentes" mmm very very tasty and I'm not sure why it missed out, well ok it's so I could put one of hte #10s in there; Shihad "Beautiful Machine" I loved this, great rock album with almost emo undercurrents, this could be an interesting direction for Shihad; Isobel Campbell/Mark Lanegan "Sunday at Devil Dirt" only reason it's not on the top10 is the number of alt-country kinda things already on there.

10= Guns'n'Roses Chinese Democracy I bumped Steve Wilson for this. So sue me. I'm putting it here as it's exactly what I want from Axel, loud OTT rawk. It's had crap reviews from just about everywhere, Simon Sweetman excluded, but I really enjoyed it. Even the touches of nu-metal in there. It all works and there's some brillant tracks in there. There's also some filler - but hey it's GnR, you expect that. Was it worth however many years we waited? Well certainly it's much better than Metallica's latest which is being lauded as the best in 17 years (saying absolutely nothing). So this goes in to encourage you to give it a spin, the reviews are missing the point, it's good.

10= Willard Grant Conspiracy - Pilgrim Road wonderful solo gig this year at SFBH. But I've been a fan for awhile since a friend lent me an earlier album. Complex americana. A more delicate approach to song-wrting than Ryan Adams, but that's a good reference point. Darker too, so let's say between Adams and Nick Cave.

9 Calexico - Carried to Dust This band can do no wrong. They dragged the usually turgid Iron and Wine up to produce one of my favourite EPs (In The Reins); they rock live - and it's impossible not to be moved by them live, the entire gig was such a positive vibe. And they've returned with another dusty exploration of border country americana. This album seems more filled out than previous attempts, less of the sparse arrangements, but it still works.

8 Sam Flynn Scott - Straight Answer Machine was a toss-up whcih of the three Phoenix solo albums I'd put in (Luke Buda and TC Wedde), but Sam's song-writing is stronger than Luke's. The mish-mash of Sam's first album, which I loved, has been trimmed down to a more consistent style - again Americana, but it's allowed stronger lyrics and song development. Now we just need a new Phoenix album...

7 Mesuggah - Obzen I've been aware of them for awhile and liked the odd track I'd heard, so I went on a limb and bought the new album. Wow. Brutal. Points of reference are hard, but imagine a metal version of Krautrock. It's icy, it's brutal, and it's utterly mesmerising. Paradoxically there's a level of emotional investment in the songs which you wouldn't expect from the metronomic approach to prog-metal. I have no idea what label to give Mesuggah TBH, prog-metal seems as good as anything else.

6 Nas - untitled ha bet you never thought you'd see a hip-hop album on my top10. Except for those of you who I've been raving about this album to. I'd never really spun any of Nas' albums before, but some review I was reading suggested this one was worth listening to. Glad I did. Very intelligent lyrical rapping, and great music backing it. If you want to check out a couple of tracks first, spin Sly Fox (ripping the crap out of the Fox network) and NIGGER (the slave and the master). Great stuff. I should pay more attention to this genre...but like pop music there's too much dross for me to sieve through.

5 The Pineapple Thief - Tightly Unwound I lost my Pineapple cherry this year with the lovely GrizzledDog. This album isn't a huge departure for the band - but is their first on a larger label (KScope). Again lovely tunes, depressing lyrics, and huge hooks. Imagine Coldplay meets Travis, but with more interesting tunes. Well it's kinda hard to describe the thief, but if you like your slightly depressed English bands, please give them a spin. They deserve a bigger audience.

4 The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride this time, low-fi (ish) Americana. Or Alternative? hell I dunno. But this is their best album since Sunset Tree. Live, again they rock, and it's impossible not to have a good time since JD is a very funny frontman. This year they brought a drummer to the gig, which opened things up a bit. The line-up I'd seen previously was just JD and the bass player. The album is, as expected, full of short-ish (well I am a prog boy, so most things appear 'short-ish') songs, which blindside you with the directness of the lyrics. And that's what I love about the Goats, the music is sweet, the lyrics are biting, sharp, and very very funny (in places). There's a free download of an EP of theirs whcih I've blogged about recently...

3 Nick Cave - Dig, Lazarus, Dig Mr Cave returned. Mr Cave kicked some serious bottom. Not a bad track on the album. Again biting, cynical, biblical references (hard to miss given the title) all the stuff you'd expect from a Cave and the Bad Seeds album. Worth spinning 'And we call upon the author to explain' and the title track.

2 Marillion - Happiness is the road The boys return, and this time they make the top10. Now Mr Psychochicken and I have discussed this, he's a big fan of Somewhere Else. I like it, I liked the changes they were trying to do - successfully - but thought there were too many weak tracks. It does however have one of Marillion's best tracks in The Wound. But they've come back with a double album (Essence and The Hard Shoulder). I do think it could have done with editing. the emotional trip that is Essence, is sublime, but could lose 10 mins without missing too much. At the moment I'm preferring THShoulder, which is the more rocky of the two. It sounds like a band discovering fun again, having tried too hard to write rock/pop songs, they're going back to what they are good at. And that's resulted in a very natural sounding album. I think I prefer it to Marbles - it's also less over-produced - something Marbles really suffers from.
It's not available in the shops, yet, so pop along to marillion.com and get it. Then I'll stop harrassing you to listen to Marillion.

1. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid The title sounds like a Tom Waits character, and that's not a bad place to start a review of Elbow's brillant album. Like Tom? you'll like Elbow...not that musically or vocally there's any similarities. I've been a fan since Cast of Thousands, and have never understood why no-one else around here was listening to them. Brillant stuff. Again slightly depressed, quirky British music. But everything came together in this new album. It is sublime, and it kept Marillion of #1, which should say something. It also cleaned up at the brit music award thingies apparently.
I finally convinced S2H to grab this album, I think last I heard he was getting hooked, albeit slowly.
There isn't a bad track on the album, and it's hard to isolate one or two to recommend listening to. But as most of the online retailers are flogging it off cheap (well iTunes anyway), go get it...oh hang on, An Audience with the Pope might be a good introduction.

So there you have it. As usual my reviews are bollox, as I rely on vibe :D there's too much Americana in there, must find another genre...

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Love, B