10 Albums

10 Rock Albums You Should Hear but Probably Haven’t

01 Refused
The Shape of Punk to Come
Aggressive rock charged, techno and jazz spiced anti-capitalist manifesto. Who knew a punk rock album could have a harmonium, upright bass and electronic interludes? This album is more than punk; it’s just blatantly awsome.

02 The Fire Show
Saint the Fire Show
“The Making of Dead Hollow” begins with a vocal only beatnik type poem into a murky, yet harmonized guitar coda, and “Deviator Feels like Crook” has the lyrics and riffs in reverse chronological order. Saint has the tendency to trick the listener into thinking the opposite will occur at every twist and slant The Fire Show ride, so ride this one.

03 Television
Marquee Moon
If you like to rock out with your rooster and other assorted barnyard animals in the vicinity, please do yourself a favor and play Marquee Moon on your loudest speakers. Rock music didn’t sound this pure since The Velvet Underground.

04 Interpol
Turn on the Bright Lights
One of the brightest shinning indie rock albums to have received more press than its contemporaries, and well deserved. Sounds like Joy Division more than most bands sound like their biggest influences, but this album trumps Joy Division like a pack of apes on a lone banana.

05 Modest Mouse
This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About
This album will sweep you off into a drugged out semi-consciousness even when your bong is out of commission. The first song is not just lyrically about carsickness (“Dramamine”) but musically tends to induce images of short curvy roads. If you drive with this album on your mind will be somewhere completely different from the road your tires tread, but you will be on a road nonetheless.

06 Broken Social Scene
You Forgot it in People
Sounds like a collage of sounds pasted together tastefully enough not to mask the shy heart felt in the vocals. Leslie Feist is breathtaking and she is only one-tenth the talent.

07 Laddio Bolocko
The life and times of Laddio Bolocko
Laddio Laddio Laddio Bolocko! Three notes fired into glass shape shifted in sweltering heat over prolonged periods of brooding, looming and grooving. Every song is a mess you love to clean. Listen to this and find yourself bobbing your head in even repetition to chaos… Yes, it can be done.

08 TV on the Radio
Return to Cookie Mountain [Bonus Tracks]
Electronic, punk, indie and eerie atmospheric sounds all meshed together with enough clarity, you’ll think they started their own genre. Like 50’s and 60’s pop music, the instrumental here is primarily a force for accenting the full-bodied pipes at center stage. Tunde Adebimpe (with bandmate Kyp Malone, David Bowie etc) layers vocal patterns like an artist mixing paint for his perfect color, and he hits each and every color flawlessly. Apart from the vocals, the albums sounds nothing less than stunning as a whole, with funky horns that conger up images of Fela Kuti, bombastic percussion, sound modulated wind chimes, sitar and stand up bass to taste.


09 The Microphones
Glow, pt. 2
“We didn't talk and silently we both felt powerful, and like the moon my chest was full.” Softly sung under waves of brilliant low-fi imagery begging the listener to let oneself get swallowed by this gentle monster of an album. Phil Elvrum creates audio landscape, and all that is possible in perceptual experience is joined together without over-stepping into Gods territory. The album is his creation; opening its eyes from the first note and looks directly inward for substance while simultaneously looks outward for inspiration and conception.

10 The Liars
Drums Not Dead
Get lost in the dense soundscapes protruding from the artistry of three men, which mirror an army. Recorded in a bombed out Berlin Mineshaft turned recording studio, all sounds acquire a character uniquely their own including haunting echo’s and baroque, hovering vocals. As with the title, most songs are built upon heavy, tribal drums. The wild percussion symbolizes the romantic expression in contention with the unforgiving Mt. Heart Attack. Each song exposes the battle further with the mountain and drum competing for attention causing metaphysical disorder until the beautiful resolution of “The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack.” The Liars vision of pure creativity fighting for breath in such a treacherous location mirrors their own unique vision and the stagnant music industry such art fights against.