2009 album reviews

Not sure if anyone here will care, but I just finished posting reviews of the 2009 albums I listened to on another site so I may as well post them here. They're mainly all metal and indie, so if you're not into that they probably aren't worth reading.

All 2009 stuff I listened to (Might be more, this is off the top of my head) in absolutely no particular order:

Do Make Say Think - Other Truths - 4.5/5: This might be my favorite DMST release. While they haven't had a bad one yet, I feel this is the most consistent and eventful, despite having the least number of songs. The album's second song, Make (The songs are Do Make Say and Think, can't figure that one out) is easily the best, starting off with a low back beat on the drums and builds up to something ridiculously chaotic by the end of it's 12 minute span. The whole album is very strong however, and makes its point quite well without doing more than necessary.

The Happiness Project (Charles Spearin of DMST's side project) - 2.5/5: The Happiness Project is quite interesting. Mr. Spearin had the idea that when people converse, there is a natural melody and musical qualities to it. So basically, this album is a collection of recordings of his neighbors and family members conversing, with musical instruments played over it. Sometimes the samples were looped to make basic, easy to understand musical passages, while others the full conversation is played out making for a chaotic nonsensical arrangement of fairly nice music. The conversations recorded range from (as Charles described it) a wise, old Jamaican women describing what she thought happiness was, to Mr. Spearin's young daughter just being a kid, to my favorite, Vanessa, a deaf woman who had a microchip implant that allowed her to hear for the first time and describing what that experience is like. Overall I think this is a good idea, I just found that the novelty of it wears down a bit, so it's not something you can regularly listen to.

Years - Years (Ohad Benchetrit of DMST's side project) - 1.5/5: This one unfortunately is far less interesting, just being a collection of acoustic guitar based-DMST like songs (Don't Let The Blind Go Deaf in particular uses almost the exact same guitar notes as DMST's A Tender History In Rust from You, You're a History in Rust) with somewhat cheesy electronic drums occasionally thrown in (some ambient in there too). The one saving grace on this album is the track The Major Lift which is a pretty fun, peppy trumpet based song and has (electronically mixed) acoustic drums. All this said, when I saw them perform as the opening act for Do Make Say Think, some back story for each song was given, such as Ohad using a "toy" guitar he bought for his daughter which made it a bit more understandable. But still, the music doesn't really do anything for me.

Pelican - What We All Come To Need - 4.5/5: One of the most solid releases of the year in my opinion, and Pelican's second best to 2005's The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw (love the irony of overly long titles for instrumental bands). Their last album was fairly good but not very memorable so it was a bit of a letdown for me, but this one takes care of all that. It's dynamic (though, my one complaint about it would be that it lacks the extreme pauses and buildups of Fire In Our Throats which makes that album so special), hits hard, the drummer has improved (one of the bigger complaints about this band) and overall it's just plain good music. The last song has vocals, a first for them, and it was a nice surprise when I found out it was Allen Epley of the defunct Shiner doing the singing as I like them quite a bit (they are also pretty unrelated bands so it was a nice combination). Other guests include Greg Anderson of Sunn O))), Ben Verellen of Harkonen, and the infamous Aaron Turner playing guitar (on the same song as Allen Epley singing...Just awesome). This band is quickly gaining legendary status in the underground metal scene and this album shows exactly why. I also need to mention the album artwork, which in itself isn't anything special, just a simple red-filtered HDR picture of a beach, but something about it has made it my favorite art of the year.
(Just a side note, they also released an EP this year that I'm not entirely familiar with (only having one listen so far) though I have heard a song off of it live. They also played a song written by Earth on this EP, so it will get more time from me in the future, so I may add a review then).

Isis - Wavering Radiant - 4.5/5: Isis is one of my favorite bands so I had been anticipating this release for a long time, especially after not being particularly fond of their last album (2006's In The Absence Of Truth). This album did not disappoint. While not up to the excellence that is 2002's Oceanic, which might be my favorite album ever, this album hits pretty hard. Two major aspects of their music have changed for this album however, which I have mixed feelings about. Both the vocals and percussion were mixed differently, which took away somewhat of a signature sound they both had in the past. That said, they brought in a great addition which might be my favorite part of the new album: they used a genuine Hammond B3 organ which more than makes up for the two things I'm on the fence about. The album itself (progression of the songs) is average for Isis which means it's high quality, though not as good as Oceanic or Panopticon (2004), but far better than Absence. Overall great album, worth checking out if you're into metal. Higher quality than anything mainstream right now by a lot.

We Were Promised Jetpacks - These Four Walls - 4/5: Fun Glaswegian indie-rock that has more dynamics than one might expect from this type of music. Very solid for their first album, These Four Walls, has a nice mix of fairly basic indie-rock riffs mixed with some nice breaks as well as very fast pacing. There's also a numbers station song which I'm a huge fan of...In my opinion these make awesome samples (Google it if you're unsure what it is). I'm not sure what else to say about this one, but I enjoy it a lot.

Twilight Sad - Forget The Night Ahead - 3.5/5: A much darker play on the Scottish indie rock scene than Jetpacks, Forget The Night Ahead is Twilight Sad's second full release. While not as memorable as their first, it's still a quality album with some great songs on it. James Grayham's thick scottish accent contrasts the droning wall of sound guitars perfectly making for a sound that is quite hard to describe. While at times this album can be a little difficult to grasp as it can seem like you have to wait for things to happen, those things do indeed happen in a huge way with a buildup to an explosion of sound usually. Overall worth checking out, though I think their first album Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters is a bit stronger.

Tombs - Winters Hours - 4/5: Tombs' sound is a bit of an oddity. They combine a bunch of different genres such as sludge metal, black metal, and even hardcore in some cases, which makes for a sound that seems like it should be fairly big right now yet I've never heard anything else like it. I first heard these guys when they opened for Isis. Prior to the show I had never heard of them, nor had anyone else I talked with. Afterward, I saw a few of the same people, and we all agreed they were impressive. Winters Hours is just as impressive as their live show. It mostly consists of faster than usual paced sludge metal, with non-sucky black metal (rare!) passages occasionally making for a quite gritty and raw (yet fairly accessible) sound that leaves you wondering why it hasn't been done before. Not sure what else to say about it, other than if you're a metal fan you'd probably like this album.

Mastodon - Crack The Skye - 2.5/5: I've only listened to it a couple times, but there's something I'm missing here. Yes, it's better than nearly all mainstream metal (how hard is that?) but it isn't the circa 2004 Mastodon I fell in love with. There was a time when Leviathan (2004) was my favorite album. I had never heard anything else like it. The overly long, droning Hearts Alive from that album was a sound I had in my head and was searching for for years, but didn't know actually existed until I heard that song. It opened a whole genre of music that is mainly all I listen to now. Unfortunately, that is gone with Crack The Skye. Instead we get a rehash of 2006's Blood Mountain, which wasn't all that great either. No songs except maybe the first are memorable to me. Forget anything like pace and progression which was a prominent feature of Leviathan....here we have just another collection of average Mastodon songs in seemingly random order. Again, I still think it's of higher quality than pretty much all other mainstream metal...But that still doesn't mean much to me. Check out Leviathan (or Remission if you want to get your ass kicked with heaviness) if you're wanting to get into this band.

Caspian - Tertia - 2.5/5: This album was a huge disappointment to me. Caspian rode the fine line of being interesting and energetic (Some Are White Light comes to mind) but still always one step away from what I like to call "Explosions in the Sky clone band syndrome" with their first album, The Four Trees. Unfortunately they crossed it with this one. The music in my opinion is dull and relatively uneventful, unless you're a huge Explosions fan in which case you'd probably love it. From a technical standpoint, the mastering of this album is pretty poor. It has boosted mids or recessed everything else, so anything with treble is extremely dry and bass doesn't have any impact either. So that plus the already uneventful music just makes it boring and a letdown compared to their last album. That said, I will still probably listen to it occasionally, as I do have a mood for the aforementioned Explosions-Clones, but it's not my favorite choice of music.

Giant Squid - The Ichthyologist - 3/5: The first impression I got from this album, and the impression I'm getting right now as I'm listening to it while typing is trying too hard. Their first album, 2006's Metridium Field, had this natural and effortless raw sound to it that was what I loved about this band. However with this one, it seems like the forgot exactly how they did that and were trying desperately to remember. This album is flashy as hell; dynamics everywhere, female vocal jazz passages, everything that people love from art rock. The problem is it's just too much. Their first album was very sludgy and deep, with the occasional accent thrown in when absolutely necessary. On the other hand, this one throws them in at every opportunity, making it come across as desperate. That said, it's not as bad as it could be, It's just simply too much....they need to relax a bit.

maudlin of the Well - Part the Second - 4/5: Rather than melodic death metal based Leaving Your Body Map (2002), Toby Driver has taken Part the Second in a much more Kayo Dot-esque direction (albiet a lot more accessible) with classical-inspired experimental metal. This album is much more relaxing than anything he's done with motW or Kayo Dot I think, this one being really easy to get into and enjoy without much effort. This one also has a bit more prog-rock influence to it than anything else Driver has done before (that I've heard at least). This album is actually avalable for free and was recorded/produced based on donations (both time and fiscal) from fans. Overall I think this is a solid album and makes a good accessible doorway for getting into avant-garde rock/metal.

Minsk - With Echoes In The Movement Of Stone - 2/5: This album is nowhere near as good as their second album (The Ritual Fires of Abandonment) in my opinion, so it's a step backwards. While their second was dynamic and had thoughtfully placed peaks and nulls, this album just seems to drone on through 60 minutes of monotone...droning?...(and not in a good way like Sleep's Dopesmoker/Jerusalem). The one exception is the album's closer I think is the one exception...While it remains monotone and blends the rest of the album, it has some accents to it that make it stand out a bit. Still, this isn't their best effort. When they're firing on all cylinders, I think they make some of the best modern doom/drone out there...but this isn't it.

Russian Circles - Geneva - 3/5: I don't think this effort was as strong as their first two (Enter and Station. It's quality music for sure, but it's getting repetitive and this album is left without anything memorable. Whereas Pelican (who are very similar in not just being instrumental but overall tone of the music) have evolved and grown, Russian Circles I think is kind of at a standstill. The one thing that has changed is they've got a new bass player, who I think is a better fit for them, and clearly the bass is better on this album than on the first two, but the overall presentation remains largely the same.

Swervedriver - Mezcal Head (remaster/reissue) - 5/5: One of my favorite albums made even better due to the remastering. Whoever produced this did a fine job, leaving the wall of sound in tact while still giving the instruments excellent separation. Besides the sound quality, this has always been a fine album with great songwriting and a staple of the shoegazer movement of the early 90s, while not totally being stereotypical (for lack of a better word) of the genre like My Bloody Valentine's infamous Loveless (which is considered to be one of the finest albums ever made). The bonus tracks on the remaster are quite good, but don't really add anything to the feature portion of the album in my opinion. They are clearly B-sides in every sense of the term. Overall I think this is one of the best albums of the early 1990s with vastly improved sound quality while still retaining the aesthetic of the genre which is not an easy thing to do.

Overall it was a good year for music in my opinion, with a lot of big names (at least in my style of music) releasing new stuff. Unfortunately not a lot of it was their best efforts, but most still good in my opinion. The last two decades has been excellent for indie/underground music in my opinion, hopefully the next is just as good.