Kingblind.com Top 15 albums of 2008 (Part 3 of 3)

Well folks here it is... Our final top 15 albums of 2008. From writers in 8 countries we have tallied all the votes, crunched the numbers and POW... this is it... broken down into 3 groups (15 to 11. - 10 to 6. then 5 to 1.) Here is our list for the year. ENJOY! Now for the top of the heap, Number 5 to 1!!

Hope you enjoy our selections, See you in January!

1 Tv On the Radio: Dear Science

(Halfway Home- Video)

New York's TV On the Radio used to make difficult music that was easier to admire than to like. However, their fourth album seems to answer the conundrum of how to make experimental music popular. Led by guitarist/production wizkid David Sitek, Dear Science comes laden with awkward drums, avant jazz squawks, the hum of electric pylons and what at one point sounds like the whirr of a recorded hedge trimmer. However, the noises inhabit tunes that are never less than singable. With influences as diverse as The The, afrobeat and the funky guitar sound favoured by Chic and Haircut 100, Dear Science is both visceral and cerebral. Tunde Adebimpe sings everything from pop critique ("Angry young mannequin, American apparently") to old-fashioned sauce ("I'm gonna shake you, I'm gonna make you come"). The driving Spector-Numanesque Halfway Home may be album opener of the year, while the spectacularly lovely Family Tree is, implausibly, an art rock ballad. Career-defining stuff. And our album of the year.

2 White Denim: Exposion

(Shake Shake Shake- Video)

Right off the bat on Exposion, it’s hard to pin White Denim down. The first riff could be one jagged and broken guitar line. Or it could be a breakneck, two-guitar interplay. Or it could be samples of guitar notes cobbled together to make a fractured riff. It’s broken down and crackled enough to be made of busted parts, but based on a string of notes so quick and infectious that it is the perfect hook to pull you into the album. It also sets up an album where things that appear broken or backwards are actually the driving forces. On “Transparency”, you can hear the dry ruffle of the guitarist’s hard strumming almost as clearly as you can hear the chords coming out of the amplifier. “Migration Wind” opens with a cacophony of battling guitar notes and deep-underwater bass lines. “Shake Shake Shake” is almost too fast for its own good, the guitars so full of treble they sound like they might crack. But nothing ever does crack on Exposion. It always manages to just barely hold together. Not only does it keep its jagged pieces knotted together to make a whole, it meshes different sounds throughout the record. The frenetic energy on every track works against the album’s bluesy intentions in a very interesting way, making the emotion on these songs sound more exasperated and desperate than beaten down and sad. The vocals, even at their quietest, are full-throated howls of want and not keening wails of melancholy. And our baying hawkers—the whole band shouts in the background throughout the record—lead us through a rough and beautiful freak show of sounds. There’s the psychedelic pop of “Ieieie”. The atmospheric southern rock of “You Can’t Say”. The pastoral folk into sawdust power-pop of “Heart from All of Us”. From song to song, the band surprises the listener with a new take on a sound that is all theirs. Even when they take a break from the rough speed of most of their songs, they don’t lose any of their boundless energy. “WDA” has the laidback jazzy feel of mid-career Sea and Cake, while “All Truckers Roll” is all country road feel, but both break away from their starts in their own way. The former gets crunchier as it goes, while the latter crumbles from its sweet beginnings into the scratch and fizzle of cymbals and distortion squeaks.
From beginning to end, Exposion threatens chaos, but White Denim know the value of pushing to the edge without going over. The pop sensibility behind all this sprawling, sweaty R&B, mixed with a heavy dose of the roadrunner speed and snarl of garage punk, is what drives the haphazard beauty of this album. At its most out of control, this album exudes an impressive amount of focus, and in the end, White Denim gets to have it both ways. They’re as catchy as any pop band going, but they also handle strange sounds, texture, and off-kilter compositions as well as your favorite noise experimenter. No matter what music you’re into, Exposion probably has something for you.

3 Tabacco: Fucked up Friends

(Backwoods Alter- Video)

Solo debut from the main constituent behind Black Moth Super Rainbow. Features vocals from Aesop Rock. Early version of Fucked Up Friends' audio was featured on Tobacco's limited DVD collaboration with visual artist Beta Carnage. Follows up Black Moth Super Rainbow's 2007 smash hit, Dandelion Gum. On his first solo album, Tobacco explores a darker, starker, and altogether more badass dimension of his complex vision. With his group, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Tobacco distinguishes himself as a master of jagged beats, glowing melodies, and pronounced tension. This time, he works alone, in rural Pennsylvania, away from conventions and interference. And the results? They are magnificent.

4 Calexico: Carried to Dust

(Two Silver Trees- Video)

It's impossible to experience any undue tension or stress while listening to Calexico. Despite time spent in Los Angeles, where they met, founders Joey Burns (vocals, guitar) and John Convertino (drums) produce sounds more reflective of their sun-blasted Tucson environs. Since spinning off Howe Gelb's indomitable Giant Sand and forming their own collective, their songs have always been too hushed, too much like lullabies not to soothe the most savage breast, and Carried to Dust marks their most relaxed and confident effort to date. Burns and Convertino pursue such a mellow, yet expansive muse that they blur the lines between indie rock, imaginary soundtracks, and ethnographic explorations. As with the work of Douglas McCombs (Tortoise) and Sam Beam (Iron & Wine), who contribute to their sixth long-player, this isn't such a bad thing (the duo previously collaborated with Beam on 2005’s In the Reins). What they lack in edge or, God forbid, trendiness, the band makes up for in beauty and creativity. Note, for instance, the cascading keyboard figures of "Two Silver Trees" or the way toy piano and chimes entwine on lovely closer "Contention City." Calexico don't make music to get the party started, but to bring it to a warm and satisfying conclusion.

5 Deerhunter- Microcastle

(Nothing Ever Happened- Video)

Deerhunter wants to stay put. To be locked in windowless rooms. To never age. To sleep. To be dead. In a way, it's ironic that the Atlanta band gets tagged as punk, even when it's attached to prefixes like "psych," "ambient," or "art": Punk music agitates for upheaval, but Deerhunter seeks only stasis. "I had a dream no longer to be free," goes "Agoraphobia," and the line summarizes Microcastle: Deerhunter's latest is a complete fantasy, a shimmering depiction of what it's like to wish fervently for calm, but know it's not coming. The harsh, ambient darkness of 2007's Cryptograms is mostly absent on Microcastle, replaced by blazing gold and orange hues, warmly whirring guitar solos, pepped-up drumming, pop hooks, and gauzy echoes of Motown and krautrock. The bolder sound signals that Deerhunter is now less concerned with the scarring effects of loss, conflict, and the passage of time, and more concerned with the ways to escape those things—even if that escape is fleeting. On "Little Kids," a group of drunken youths symbolically reject aging by lighting an old man on fire. But as the flames rise, so does the sumptuous shoegaze squall and Bradford Cox's soft insistence that those kids will "get older still." Freedom from hurt: Deerhunter realizes it's impossible, but Microcastle shows it's a beautiful idea all the same.

Kingblind.com Top 15 albums of 2008 (Part 2 of 3)

Well folks here it is... our final top 15 albums of 2008. From writers in 8 countries we have tallied all the votes, crunched the numbers and POW... this is it... broken down into 3 groups (15 to 11. - 10 to 6. then 5 to 1.) Here is our list for the year. ENJOY! Now on to part 2 ( Number 10 - Number 6. )


6 Black Keys: Attack and Release

(Strange Times- Video)

Of all the two-piece rock bands (Dresden Dolls, The White Stripes, The Kills, John & Jehn) out there making a royal racket, The Black Keys are by far the least affected by the last three decades of popular music, and evolution. Even more so than Jack & Meg. Which makes you check the album credits twice and then seek a second opinion--produced by celebrated uber-producer, superstar DJ and one half of Gnarls Barkley, the ubiquitous and really quite modern Danger Mouse?! No, your eyes do not deceive you, but thankfully neither do your ears. He may have brought a discipline and expensive sheen to Attack & Release, the riffing is buffed up real good, but this is essentially the same band that continues to live less of a life and more a Jimi Hendrix Experience. If there is a change it's that for the first time their foot is teased off the accelerator, with "Lies", "Remember When (Side A)" and "Oceans & Streams" loosening their shoulders and playing a more chilled brand of dusty sunset southern blues, adding in keys and new layers of texture (is that really a flute on "Same Old Thing"?!). There's still plenty of chance, on the massive Zeppelin-esque "Strange Times" and "Remember When (Side B)" for instance, to leave a boot mark though. More release than attack this time around, but the key still fits.

7 Crystal Stilts: Alight the night
Crystal Stilts : Dazzled (MP3)

Despite coming from Brooklyn, the hipster mecca that spits out 'now' bands like sunflower seeds in Yankees Stadium, Crystal Stilts somehow manage to distinguish themselves from the crowd. Formed in 2003 by singer Brad Hargett and guitarist JB Townsend, the now-five-piece doesn't fall into the trendy musical trappings of its neighborhood. Instead, the sound on Alight of Night is a swinging, noisy, glammy and overall dark evolution of garage rock. The opener "Dazzled" sways with a foreboding jangle and twang that, when coupled with Hargett's languid and somber bellow, invokes images of a Texas vampire saloon ala From Dusk til Dawn. Hargett's voice in fact looms like a gray, but welcome cloud over the whole record, especially on "Graveyard Orbit," a psych-goth tune littered with traces of Ennio Morricone and the Velvet Underground.
The proceedings aren't overly funereal, though. "Prismatic Room" is an upbeat pop number with melodies that wouldn't be out of place on a Phil Spector production. "The SinKing" is a driving quickie with all the implied sex and swagger of the Gun Club while "Shattered Shine," despite its title, is about as radiant as Psychocandy-era Jesus & Mary Chain. After honing their act in New York's bars and backrooms while opening for inspirations like The Vaselines, the Stilts have fleshed out a classical sound that was first realized on singles and an eponymous EP. Rather than overzealously mine the past and carry their influences on their sleeve, the band simply chooses to ride alongside them…and spill a little blood along the way.

8 Magnetic Fields: Distortion

(California Girls- Video)

Fans of the Jesus and Mary Chain will surely be thrilled with Distortion, which lives up to its title in the first few seconds of the jovial opener, "Three Way." The entire album is awash in a bed of feedback and noise sharp enough to match bandleader/Svengali Stephen Merritt's notoriously wry lyrical jabs. In its willful obfuscation of simple melodies, Distortion recalls MF's earlier, more electronic, more reverb-soaked output. Of course, Merritt's songs could probably work with any arrangement, cacophonous or otherwise. His lyrics and succinct melodies survive the treatment, and his inner Cole Porter remains intact. "California Girls" features regular collaborator Shirley Simms cheerily plotting a battle-axe attack on some of the more blonde and plastic elements of California society (Simms handles vocal duties on about half the tunes here). "Mr. Mistletoe" is an anti-carol with a forlorn Merritt attaching his romantic betrayal to various holiday symbols. "Too Drunk to Dream" is classic Merritt, with an upbeat but down-on-its-luck refrain: "I gotta get too drunk to dream / Because I only dream of you." Drenched in distortion, MF's now-expected acoustic instruments--cello, piano, accordion--create some remarkable textures. Merritt and crew remain full of songs and surprises, and in finding their ability to make a ruckus, have created an inarguably singular offering

9 My Morning Jacket: Evil Urges

(I'm Amazed- Video)

With a title like Evil Urges and the somewhat macabre cover image of an eye in a box, the uninitiated would be forgiven for thinking that Kentucky's My Morning Jacket have morphed into a mediocre metal band. Judge not a book by its cover, nor an album by its artwork. After the psychedelic rock offerings of 2003's It Still Moves and 2001's At Dawn, the band’s fifth release has stepped away from the reverb-heavy noisemaking which originally garnered them widespread critical acclaim. The sound has since been adopted by a whole slew of imitators, including Band Of Horses and Fleet Foxes, but My Morning Jacket are now concentrating on using a more eclectic range of instrumentation. However fans should fear not; the signature duelling guitars are most definitely back. With elements of country, rock, prog, pop, and indeed a good mix of other genres, the album is unrelenting in its diversity of sounds. Slow burner Evil Urges sports Kid A style guitar lines, sparse and wide and peppered with electronic whirrs, while Highly Suspicious has pure pop sensibilities; sounding more than a little like Prince, with singer Jim James descending into falsetto territory. In terms of variety, this album is about as widely based as they come. Complimenting this, the band tip their hats to their roots and with I'm Amazed, which is complete country rock, so much so in fact, it could almost be the work of an artist like Garth Brooks. Evil Urges is a curious package. You are treated to a veritable feast of different musical styles and genres, but often feel a little perplexed by the fare on offer. The sheer amount of choice is befuddling, but somehow, in a strange way, it all works. And it works well.

10 Mars Volta: The Bedlam in Goliath

( Wax Simulacra- Live on Letterman- Video)

No one has ever accused the Mars Volta of subtlety. But even so, the cyclonic caterwaul of Bedlam in Goliath is the band’s fullest starburst to date. Sure, the songs have titles that seem indecipherable, from "Aberinkula" to "Conjugal Burns." The important thing, though, is the molten, guitar-spiraling, drum-thundering core at the heart of the whole endeavor. "Aberinkula" opens the album with an unfettered explosion of clustered guitars and a dense keyboard haze pierced by Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s coarse, pitched yowl. A scouring soprano sax solo cuts across the songs’s midsection, and that vibe spreads throughout Bedlam, but so does the most pervasive melding of herky-jerk rhythms, post-punk speed, uber-funk bass, and chaotic riffage that you’re likely to find in rock & roll. If it’s Bedlam you want, you can’t miss here.

Kingblind.com Top 15 albums of 2008 (Part 1 of 3)

Well folks here it is... our final top 15 albums of 2008. From writers in 8 countries we have tallied all the votes, crunched the numbers and POW... this is it... broken down into 3 groups (15 to 11. - 10 to 6. then 5 to 1.) Here is our list for the year. ENJOY! Now let’s get things started with our 1st batch, Number 15 to 11.

Number 11- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

(Dig!! Lazarus Dig!!- Video)

Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! finds Nick Cave back at the helm of his long-term band The Bad Seeds after some impressive soundtrack work--2005's The Assassination of Jesse James--and a busman's holiday in the raw, rocking Grinderman. As the title suggests, Lazarus finds Cave returning to familiar themes of God and redemption, although some of the raw poise and wild-eyed humour that resurfaced in Grinderman remains: take the opening title track, which retells the Biblical story of the resurrection of Lazarus as transposed onto the sleazy, poverty-stricken backdrop of modern-day New York City. Musically, the likes of "Moonland" and "Night of the Lotus Eaters" have a swampy feel, all skittering drums, simmering bass and smoky organ riffs; elsewhere, there are rockers that tie on dissonant guitars without losing their dissonant touch ("Lie Down Here"). Probably the album highlight comes with "We Call Upon the Author", a sprawling, "Sister Ray"-like chugger that shows off Cave's skill for magnificent, sung-shouted narratives: "Now mixamatoid kids roam the streets, we've shunned them from the greasy grind/The poor little things, they look so sad and old as they mount us from behind".

Number 12- Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs

(I will possess your heart- Video)

Narrow Stairs might be the first album recorded by Death Cab for Cutie since Ben Gibbard's former solo project went unexpectedly stratospheric, but Gibbard hasn't let it go to his head. Oh, OK, maybe a little: lead-off single "I Will Possess Your Heart" is an eight minute jam that speeds off on one long, luminous curve before Gibbard's distinctive vocals swing in, sweet and plaintive as ever. Even when indulging their grander visions, though, Death Cab for Cutie are still familiar as the same band that wrote those fragile, winsome songs back before teen drama The OC came knocking. Never knowingly overstated, built from driving rhythms, flourishes of piano and intricate melodies, Narrow Stairs builds grand, emotionally loaded narratives from small, subtle parts. "Your New Twin Sized Bed" hides a deftly articulated tale of heartbreak and loneliness amidst soothing tangles of guitar, while "You Can Do Better than Me" is a sweet miniature that's part Pet Sounds orchestration, part wistful Dear John. This isn't, as Gibbard would previously hint, a dissonant or especially adventurous album. It proves, however, that Death Cab can extend their scope without diluting the pathos or energy of their music, and it not only sounds great, but bodes well for the future

Number 13- Stereolab: Chemical Chords

(Neon Beanbag- Video)

Being released by the iconic legendary label 4AD, Chemical Chords is a collection of purposefully short, dense, fast pop songs, according to Gane, brimming with Motown-like drums, O'Hagan's finest baroque-pop brass and string arrangements and etched with some of Sadier's most eloquent, mellifluous vocal performances to date, it is, nonetheless, classic Stereolab; like all their best work, a perfect equipoise between an implausibly cool past and a shamelessly exotic future. The eleventh album in an illustrious career, Chemical Chords began life in early-2007 when Tim Gane started messing with a series of about seventy tiny drum loops on top of improvised chord sequences using piano and vibraphone. Building them up from there later slowing the tracks down or speeding them up a totally new way of doing songs for us With typical prolificacy, the band laboured over the summer at their studio, Instant Zero (in Bordeaux, France), helping transform these blueprints into 32 luminous new songs, with keyboardist/technician Joe Watson manning the mixing desk. Half the new repertoire was selected for this album, which, for all the breathless spontaneity of its invention, is arguably the band's tautest, most highly focused work this century.

Number 14- The Hold Steady: Stay Positive


(Stay Positive- Video)

The Hold Steady's ascent and eventual breakthrough with 2006's Boys & Girls in America was never pre-ordained. If anything they did it without the tastemakers' consent. Their shtick is old-fashioned through and through, beginning with Thin Lizzy and ending with Bruce Springsteen, performed by men advanced enough to have experienced those touchstones first or second hand. And look at them--not exactly The Strokes, are they? But it was precisely their enthusiastic unoriginality, the fact that the clichés were piled on so thick and so fast, that they triumphed. And placed next to that unapologetically feel good record, that Stay Positive sounds so immediately brighter and more muscular is undoubtedly a great sign. Production is really cranked up--see the horns wedged into "Sequestered in Memphis", the REM mandolin texturing of "Both Crosses" and the surprising harpsichord flagrancy of "One for the Cutters". They're clearly determined to not be so easily pegged this time around, though admittedly they never exactly go that far off-piste. "Our songs are sing-along songs," announced Craig Finn semi-helpfully, and though the spirit is right, with such a conversational lyrical style that is rarely the case. It's more about the rock gestures and knowing when to punch the air. And there are instances aplenty, from the Pete Townsend-esque windmill power-chords in "Constructive Summer", to the overblown solo in "Lord I'm Discouraged" that is so "November Rain" it's practically going through Stephanie Seymour's trash (those not watching MTV in the mid-90s, hit Youtube).

Number 15- REM: Accelerate

(Supernatural Superserious- Video)

In the decade since the departure of drummer Bill Berry, R.E.M. could seem at times schizophrenic. Their albums of the era, which veered from the experimentalism of Up and reaffirmation of Reveal to 2004's more diffuse, reflective Around the Sun, often stood in stark contrast to the vibrancy of their live act. But here the alt-rock godfathers have resolved that dichotomy with their most focused and satisfying album in over a decade; a collection that doesn't so much revisit the bracing ethos of the band's '80s coming-of-age, as boil it down to its essence and supercharge it with the energy of their contemporary stage shows. That sensibility is evident from the opening track, "Living Well's the Best Revenge," where Peter Buck's aggressive, distortion-drenched riffs and Michael Stipe's gruff snarl set the tone for "Mansized Wreath," "Horse to Water," and "Supernatural Serious"; rockers that bristle with the abandonment and aggressive energy of a band half their tenure. Yet it's no mere blast-from-the-past. The inclusion of the band's recent touring musicians (Scott McCaughey on second guitar and drummer Bill Rieflin) into the session mix, as well as working out much of the material live onstage in Dublin, has yielded something more sonically akin to R.E.M. 2.2. Stipe's penchant for the lyrically opaque has been largely supplanted by an edgy, articulate passion that variously explores "Houston'"s displaced Katrina refugees, the bluegrass-tinged "Until the Day is Done," and the more typical, quiet self-examination of "Hollow Man," before exploding in the album's unlikely, upbeat elegy "I'm Gonna DJ," where singer and band find renewed hope in not only music, but themselves.

White Denim- Let's talk about it (Video)

Kanye West- 808 and Heartbreak (Album Review)

I have this vision of Kanye West sitting in a hotel room, sad-eyed and head down, listening to his lady break up with him. She rattles off a long list of reasons why it's not working, and West storms off in a huff, angry yet devastated.

The next day, he goes straight to the studio and records "808s & Heartbreak," which is out today, just a little more than a year since his last album, "Graduation."

That's probably not how it happened, but on "808s," West holds a serious grudge. He sounds reactionary, ready to exact revenge on anyone who's broken his heart. It is by far the strangest record he's ever made: a willfully sullen and uncompromising electro-pop album from one of hip-hop's biggest stars. Aside from the first two singles ("Love Lockdown," "Heartless"), much of "808s" sounds like a sonic wasteland, with West's digitized voice floating in like a tumbleweed.

It's his first serious attempt to sing more than rap. But he relies so heavily on Auto-Tune, the du jour studio trick that dominates Top 40 urban radio, that you don't get a real sense of his vocal chops. He doesn't sing so much as he allows Auto-Tune to bend his pitch, flattening out all the nuances.

But his vocals are easy to overlook because the production values are so interesting. The songs have a lot going on, yet they sound bone-dry, sometimes industrial and cold. "Say You Will" opens the album on a spartan note, trailing off into three minutes of blips pinging back and forth.

The biggest problem here is West's songwriting. Some of his better lyrics would be clever as one-off rhymes in a rap song, but they're not strong enough to build into full-blown choruses. The shockingly shallow hook of "Amazing" is just West looping the words "so amazing"; not even guest rapper Young Jeezy, sounding like he's just snuffed out his 100th cigarette of the day, gives the song much life. Similarly, Lil Wayne's talent is squandered on "See You in My Nightmares."

After a foreboding cello intro, West hints at inner turmoil on "Welcome to Heartbreak," but it's hard to feel sorry for a guy who seems to have it all. "My friend showed me pictures of his kids/ And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs," he sings.

He's more in his element on the dance track "Paranoid," perhaps because he's back to rapping. He's quick on his feet as he glides over the kind of pulsating '80s synthesizers you might expect from Lupe Fiasco. And West finally gets in some good lines: "You wanna check into the Heartbreak Hotel/ But sorry, we're closed."

At least the brokenhearted star gets in the last word - it's just too bad he decided to sing it.

Live Earth India Canceled After Terror Attacks

The Live Earth India concert, scheduled to be held in Mumbai on Sunday (Dec. 7), has been called off after terror attacks in India's financial capital killed nearly 200 people.

Jon Bon Jovi, Roger Waters and Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan were to share the stage at the event to raise funds for lighting homes with solar energy in places where people do not have access to electricity.

Islamist gunmen held Mumbai hostage for three days last week using assault rifles and grenades at two luxury hotels and other landmarks, killing close to 200 people, including 22 foreigners.

"We are all shaken up by this event, and even though we believe in the cause of global warming, we have indefinitely postponed the Live Earth concert," said Viraf Sarkari, director of the Wizcraft event management firm, the local organiser.

Many international artists due to perform at the event were bound by advisories issued by their countries asking citizens not to travel to India, making this an "overriding factor" in the decision to cancel the concert, he added.

"We have artists like Jon Bon Jovi and Roger Waters, so we had to take this into account as well," he said.

The statement was issued by Live Earth founder Kevin Wall, former United States vice president Al Gore and R.K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Inter-government Panel for Climate Chang