Aloha – Home Acres
Stars – The Five Ghosts
How to Destroy Angels – How To Destroy Angels
Fang Island – Fang Island
The Joy Formidable – A Balloon Called Moaning
God Is An Astronaut – Age Of The Fifth Sun
Sleigh Bells – Treats
Maserati – Pyramid Of The Sun
The Naked & Famous – Passive Me, Aggressive You
Autolux – Transit Transit
I’m not anywhere near clever or knowledgable enough to round out my music picks for 2010 with any sort of insightful commentary, but I just wanted to post up the stuff that really stood out to me this year. Aloha was a band I stumbled upon back in 2005 or so and though I liked the album (That’s Your Fire) I never really followed anything after that. Fast-forward to 2010; I heard a few tracks of Home Acres and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Aloha manages to cram so many influences and sounds into one album without it sounding like a discombobulated mess, every song is different from the last but fits into the overall mood.
Stars is a band I’ve loved for a few years but to be honest, they never really put out an album that I wanted to listen to start-to-finish… that is until The Five Ghosts. This album is definitely a concept album but the songs are so well crafted you’d never know it. Each song’s lyrics are subtly haunting fitting with the overall theme but they still maintain that pop element that makes Stars such a pleasure to listen to.
How to Destroy Angels is the brainchild of Trent Reznor and his new wife Mariqueen Maandig. The album carries all of the Nine Inch Nails trappings one would expect but the addition of the soft, sultry voice of Mariqueen really adds a totally different dynamic to the music. The video for ‘The Space Between’ is haunting and beautiful as well.
I discovered Fang Island’s self-titled album and I still don’t quite know how to describe it. It’s sort of a bizarre mashup of harmonized-choir-vocals and driving-guitar-riff-jams. The songs range from punk to progressive-rock but really don’t spend much time in any particular genre. The album is very upbeat and uptempo, definitely worth a listen if you like guitar heavy tunes.
I am dying to hear a full-length album from The Joy Formidable, which isn’t due til March 15th in the US, but for now A Balloon Called Moaning will suffice. This trio from the UK just really hammers every song home with purpose. The melodies are catchy and very well thought out and though there are only 3 members you really get a wide range of sounds on this album, extremely well crafted.
Dan Almasy 