RICHARD YOUNGS
Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits
Jagjaguar (2010)
British musician Richard Youngs has released over 60 albums (half of them solo) over the past 20 years. Have you heard of him? Probably not. How can an artist so prolific remain so obscure? By making difficult, experimental, music for one’s own amusement. Apparently one of his friends “dared” him to record a “proper pop album” and Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits was the result.
MOUNTAIN MAN
Made the Harbor
Partisan Records (2010)
First of all, the name of this band is misleading. There are no men involved and the music is the opposite of rough and savage. Mountain Man is 3 women from Vermont singing pure folk songs in close harmony, either a cappella or accompanied by a single acoustic guitar.
BEST COAST
Crazy For You
Mexican Summer (2010)
I have no love for surf music and little patience for doo-wop. 1960s girl band pop makes me cranky. I do not like cats. So, I began listening to this album fully intending to dislike it.
ARCADE FIRE
The Suburbs
Merge (2010)
64 minutes of near-perfect indie pop bliss. Heartbreaking, uplifting, dreamy, sober… this is Arcade Fire’s most emotionally dynamic record yet. Listening to The Suburbs in its entirety is akin to watching American Beauty. You may leave the theater crying but you feel like you’ve grown, somehow. Believe the hype: this is an amazing record and will most likely be my album of the year.
Below is a fan-made video for the title track. It encapsulates the overall feel of the album quite well. Be sure to view the lyrics, too. They are absolutely dynamite on this record.
MENOMENA
Mines
Barsuk (2010)
Menomena is an eccentric indie music trio who clearly have great musical skill and can come up with some very unique instrumental arrangements. Unfortunately, that combination doesn’t necessarily guarantee great songwriting ability and that is where Mines suffers the most.
SUCKERS
Wild Smile
Frenchkiss Records (2010)
Label Frenchkiss has built up quite a solid roster of quality bands and Suckers is another quality addition to the list. Indie rock fans, rejoice. This eclectic “art” indie rock done very well.
STEEL TRAIN
Steel Train
Ingrooves (2010)
5 member indie rock band from New Jersey. Pretty straight forward indie rock masquerading as stadium rock here. It’s hard not to hear the Springsteen via Arcade Fire influence at times but that is a nice fountain to draw from. While there is nothing wrong with this album — no tracks stood out as being awful — I came away feeling a little underwhelmed by Steel Train’s lack of distinguishing identity.
PULLED APART BY HORSES
Pulled Apart by Horses
Transgressive Records (2010)
With a Satanic black metal-looking logo, Anal C*nt-sounding song titles (“I Punched a Lion in the Throat”, “I’ve Got Guestlist to Rory O’Hara’s Suicide”), and what appears to be Skeletor holding up a skull on their debut album cover art… I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Pulled Apart By Horses.
INDIAN JEWELRY
Totaled
We Are Free (2010)
We are 30-ish years removed from Suicide, Bauhaus, and all of that nascent darkwave nonsense and here we are today, still having this same breed of music heaved upon us, touted as some sort of revelation.
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I AM KLOOT
Sky at Night
EMI (2010)
It takes a certain kind of singer-songwriter band to really win me over. More often than not I quickly grow tired of their self-indulgent navel gazing or their cryptic melange of lyrics that sound like they should mean something but are really just Gordian knots of gibberish. There are exceptions to this, though, and I Am Kloot is one of them.
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