White Rabbits: It's Frightening

Artist: White Rabbits
Album: It's Frightening
Date Released: May 19, 2009
Genre: alt-rock, indie-rock
Rating: 7.2

It's Frightening is the sophomore release from White Rabbits, a sextet featuring two drummers and a piano player. Hailing from Columbus, MO, the White Rabbits refer to their music as "honky tonk calypso" -- a sound that isn't too far removed from other bands like The Walkmen and Spoon. In fact, for It's Frightening, the band recruited Spoon's Britt Daniel to produce.

The end result is undeniably Spoonesque and not nearly as fresh as their beloved debut, Fort Nightly, but it's a solid album nonetheless. The infectious and upbeat rhythms work beautifully with the ever-important White Rabbits piano, but this time around the band has refined their sound by adding the dynamism of improved guitar and vocal arrangements.

It's Frightening may not capture the spontaneity of their debut, but White Rabbits are quickly maturing as a band whose primary focus is in producing expertly arranged and well written songs. Track highlights include "Percussion Gun," "Rudie Fails," "They Done Wrong/We Done Wrong" and the Radiohead inspired "The Salesman (Tramp Life)."

Alice in Chains: Black Gives Way to Blue

Artist: Alice in Chains
Album: Black Gives Way to Blue
Date Released: September 29, 2009
Genre: hard rock, grunge, alternative metal
Rating: 8.0

With Black Gives Way to Blue, Alice in Chains wins the most surprising album of the year award.

It's fair to say that expectations were justifiability low given that it's been 14 years since their last album and seven years since the untimely death of vocalist Layne Staley. Moreover, given the recent surplus of over-the-hill bands trying -- and mostly failing -- to recapture former glory, it would be easy to dismiss this as another self-serving money-grabbing effort.

But not so fast. Black Gives Way to Blue is a very good album. Jerry Cantrell and company have introduced William DuVall to the team, and while he doesn't have that wounded-animal quality that Staley had, his vocal presence is nonetheless impressive and completely aligned with the band's characteristic gloomy sound. With DuVall onboard, Cantrell can once again arrange those gorgeous harmonies that were an integral part of their sound from a decade ago.

And the songs are great. Right from the opener, "All Secrets Known," the band plays goose-bump inducing grunge that picks up right where they left off. Other track highlights include "Check My Brain," "Your Decision," and "Acid Bubble."

Call me sentimental, but it's great to see this band back together again and sounding so damn good.

Om: God is Good

Artist: Om
Album: God is Good
Date Released: March 2009
Genre: stoner metal, minimalist metal, psychedelic rock, post-metal
Rating: 7.1

Om is a duo formed in 2003 by the rhythm section of the disbanded stoner doom metal band Sleep. God is Good is their fourth studio album and was recorded at Electrical Audio by Steve Albini. It's the first studio album by Om to feature the new drummer Emil Amos of Grails.

Om's music is slow and droning and at times similar in structure to Tibetan chanting. On God is Good, the album's four tracks feature the drawn-out wailings of sitar, tamboura, steady tappings of the ride cymbal and mantra-like vocal stylings. The arrangements are sparse and spacious. There is no rushing here; the band takes their time to express meditative and heavy music. Fans of Sun O))) and Earth will feel right at home with Om.

Nile: Those Whom the Gods Detest

Artist: Nile
Album: Those Whom the Gods Detest
Date Released: November 3, 2009
Genre: death metal
Rating: 7.5

Death metal veterans Nile have long been known for their high-speed and frenetic metal attack, but they are also renowned for their Discovery Channelesque attention to historical detail. In a genre laden with Satanic references to the point of nausea, Nile have gone against the grain by incorporating ancient Egyptian themes to heavy metal, along with Egyptian scales, modes and other Middle Eastern ear candy.

Their latest album, Those Whom the Gods Detest, is no exception. More than ever, Nile have seamlessly integrated these otherworldly elements into their music while remaining one of the heaviest and most brutal death metal bands in the business. As always, the band's talent as performers bleeds through the deathiness and growly vocals; Those Whom the Gods Detest features some fantastic guitar solos and relentless drum blasts.

Death metal fans will be pleased with this effort.

Porcupine Tree: The Incident

Artist: Porcupine Tree
Album: The Incident
Date Released: September 15, 2009
Genre: progressive rock, hard rock
Rating: 7.4

Porcupine Tree's The Incident is by no means their best work, but as many PT fans will acknowledge, they're still light-years ahead of most bands working in the prog genre. Though the songs often feel hurried and not fully realized, Steve Wilson's magical studio touches and his ability to weave gorgeous melodies from thin air contribute to a very listenable and hooky 2-CD album.

The Incident's tracks are at times overly sentimental and derivative ("Time Flies" borrows a little too heavily from Pink Floyd's Animals for my liking), but it's hard to not get caught up in the thought provoking lyrics and the teasingly infrequent but infectious chugga-chugga guitar riffing. Track highlights include "Black Dahlia," "The Incident," "Octane Twisted," and "Circle of Manias."

Baroness: Blue Record

Artist: Baroness
Album: Blue Record
Date Released: October 13, 2009
Genre: metal, sludge metal, progressive metal, alternative metal, hard rock
Rating: 8.5

Thunderous and Mastodonesque rockers from Georgia, Baroness have released the follow-up to their 2007 full-length, Red Record. On Blue Record, the band retains its Southern hard-rock sensibility ("Swollen and Halo" would make QOTSA proud) while continuing to lay out tracks that exude power and confidence.

The rhythm guitars are riffy and sludgey while the leads pour out crisp and melodic phrasings. The vocals are a mix of styles, sounding at times like Aaron Turner of Isis (check out the first few lines of the opener, "Bullhead's Psalm") while at others a touch more relaxed and clean. And the drums are unrelenting and fierce, providing the perfect support for the front lines.

Baroness is truly one of the best bands in the business, defying simplistic labels and expectations. Blue Record is a must-have for any lover of heavy and well-crafted music.

Irepress: Sol Eye See I

Artist: Irepress
Album: Sol Eye See I
Date Released: February 17, 2009
Genre: post-rock, post-metal, progressive, experimental
Rating: 7.6

Hailing from Massachusetts, Irepress have released Sol Eye See I, the follow-up to their 2007 debut, Samus Octology. Irepress play an extremely challenging and proficient brand of post-rock that borders on everything from post-metal through to jazz-fusion, math-rock and sludge. Unsurprisingly, the tracks themselves on Sol Eye See I are as frenetic and chaotic as these descriptions would imply.

The chug-a-chug metal riffs are often interspersed with washes of fuzzy guitar soundscapes, frenetic drumming and the electric guitar pickings that are characteristic of the post-rock genre. The tracks are all over the map, frequently starting and stopping on a dime. This isn't stuff you play in the background -- it commands attention and lots of patience.

Irepress is not for everyone, but listeners looking for something a bit different and daring will adore this album.

If These Trees Could Talk: Above the Earth, Below the Sky

Artist: If These Trees Could Talk
Album: Above the Earth, Below the Sky
Date Released: March 11, 2009
Genre: post-rock, progressive rock, instrumental rock
Rating: 7.2

If These Trees Could Talk is an instrumental post-rock group from Akron, Ohio. Above the Earth, Below the Sky is the follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2006 self-titled debut. The new album features much of the same elements found on their debut; ITTCT are emblematic of the post-rock genre, skillfully integrating elements from such artists as Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai and even Tool (check out "Rebuilding the Temple of Artemis" for a taste).

Above the Earth, Below the Sky is a solid and listenable effort, but the production values sound frustratingly thin and uninspired. If These Trees Could Talk are a very talented group of guys who have yet to reach their full potential. The best is still yet to come.

Future of the Left: Travels With Myself and Another

Artist: Future of the Left
Album: Travels With Myself and Another
Date Released: June 23, 2009
Genre: indie-rock, garage punk, punk revival
Rating: 7.8

Travels With Myself and Another is the third full-length release from the punky Welsh post-hardcore rockers Future of the Left. The tracks are high-energy and caustic with lyrics that are angry, scathing and downright obnoxious. But what else would you expect from a band that sounds like a bizarre intersection between Public Image Ltd. and Shellac? Track highlights include "Arming Eritrea," "Chin Music," "Throwing Bricks at Trains," and "Lapsed Catholics."

Promoted: Tortoise: Beacons of Ancestorship

I bumped Tortoise's album, Beacons of Ancestorship up to 8.7 from 8.2. Just love this CD.

Caspian: Tertia

Artist: Caspian
Album: Tertia
Date Released: September 15, 2009
Genre: post-rock, progressive rock, instrumental rock
Rating: 8.3

Massachusetts's Caspian hits the mark with their third studio release, Tertia. The tracks have the usual atmospheric and dreamy Caspian touches, but this album is blessed with a particularly strong melodic sensibility. Sonically, Tertia features moments of grandiose and richly textured soundcapes (including choral elements) that are often intermingled with softer touches, such as solo piano, acoustic strummings and clean electric guitar pickings (all laden, of course, with generous amounts of doubling, reverb and digital delay). The album will at one moment sound as heavy as post-metal Isis but at other times sound like Joshua Tree era U2. This is a beautiful and dynamic album.

Russian Circles: Geneva

Artist: Russian Circles
Album: Geneva
Date Released: October 20, 2009
Genre: post-rock, post-metal, progressive rock
Rating: 8.7

Geneva is the third full-length album by the Chicago post-rock three-piece, Russian Circles. This album comes only one year after their excellent and transitionary Station, and it finds the band continuing to explore new sonic spaces and possibilities.

Geneva features a broader arrangement than their first two releases, namely the addition of cello (Allison Chesley) and violin (Susan Voelz). The tracks are still epic and fiery, as exemplified by the goose-bump inducing "When the Mountain Comes to Muhammad" -- but now, with the added emphasis on more nuanced pacing and song-progression, the band is able to create sprawling and often meditative tracks.

Russian Circles, once regarded as being purely about the post-metal, is clearly moving away from sheer heaviness and the cliched progressions that have often marred the genre. Sounding much less like Pelican and more like Evpatoria Report, the band is continuing to evolve. And with Geneva, Russian Circles have produced their most realized work to date.

maudlin of the Well: Part the Second

Artist: Maudlin of the Well
Album: Part the Second
Date Released: May 14, 2009
Genre: progressive rock, indie metal, avante-garde
Rating: 8.5

Five years after their transmutation into the ponderous and esoteric 'chamber-metal' ensemble Kayo Dot, band leader Toby Driver reunites maudlin of the Well (abbreviated motW) for Part the Second [free download], an exuberant, fan-funded effort that is both a maturation and culmination of their unique 'bricolage' compositional style. Like Kayo Dot, motW revel in dream imagery, lush, dense arrangements and a seamlessly through-composed approach to writing. But unlike Kayo Dot, who, especially in their most recent work, tend to entangle listeners in lengthy, free-time, atonal jazz-rock enigmas, motW conjure melodically rich and inviting explorations of genre, providing vistas that are at once familiar and yet, like all of Driver's work, wonderfully strange and ephemeral.

By all appearances, Kayo Dot has had a strange and difficult road in the past few years, chiefly for having survived a reconstruction that began with the loss of all their personnel apart from Driver and violinist Mia Matsumiya. As a listener, it's difficult not to psychologize by drawing some comparison to the band's equally strange and difficult music. With that in mind, it's heartening to hear something so unencumbered, so pure and playful born from this reunion. Take "Clover Garland Island", which begins with stabbing drums and sinister chords and then innocently morphs into a laid-back funk groove overlayed with guitarist Greg Massi's wah-fueled explorations. Or "Rose Quartz Turning into Glass", the early part of which is borne on a piano riff evoking Steve Reich. This slowly trails off until it is only Matsumiya's violin, which is eventually joined by somberly strummed guitar and Driver doing his best impression of a wraith skulking through a graveyard. And then, well, it starts to sound a little like Floyd. You can almost see the smiles creeping onto everyone's faces during recording.

Admist all of this there are moments of stirring beauty, especially manifest on the final track "Laboratories of the Invisible World (Rollerskating the Cosmic Palmistric Postborder)". The song begins with a lone, meditative guitar and then Driver's wistful voice adds "We are bound together by a current of electricity." And then a voice seems to call to him from somewhere far away: "I want you to think about '93". The rest of the track is a breathtaking flurry of ideas building to a sprawling amphitheater of sound. And just when it all seems through, a piano shimmers in to deliver a brief, stirring epilogue to the album.

Part the Second is likely to be motW's swansong. And though their spirit continues on in the form of Kayo Dot, it has been clear since their second album Dowsing Anenome with Copper Tongue that Driver has very different and very ambitious designs for that moniker (Kayo Dot's first album, Choirs of the Eye, serves as a bridge between the bands' styles, and is considered by many to be Driver's finest moment). Hopefully, then, Part the Second will draw listeners to seek music from motW's earlier incarnation, who were, in their own time as they are now, as complete a musical anomaly as anyone is likely to hear.

Reviewed by Jayar La Fontaine.

Promoted: Anters: Hospice

As the year comes to a close, and as I revisit my reviews from the year that was, I will be adjusting some of the ratings. Some ratings will go up, some down, and some albums may be removed from the list altogether.

The first album deserving of a re-evaluation is Hospice by The Antlers. I initially gave it a 7.9, but this album is better than that. Much better.

It's a good one folks, so I bumped it up to 8.9.

Atlas Sound: Logos

Artist: Atlas Sound
Album: Logos
Date Released: October 20, 2009
Genre: post-rock, experimental, indie rock, alt-rock
Rating: 8.9

Atlas Sound is the solo project of Bradford James Cox, the lead singer of Atlanta four-piece Deerhunter. Logos is the follow-up to his debut, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel.

Often awash in ambient textures and post-rock zone-outs, Logos is a gorgeously produced and intricate album that pays as much attention to texture and sound design as it does to sheer track strength. Featuring guest appearances from Noah Lennox (Animal Collective, Panda Bear) and Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab) the album is blessed with some excellent talent. The Sadier track in particular, the epic and washy "Quick Canal," is emblematic of Cox's ability to intertwine atmosphere with melody.

Though Atlas Sound could be considered more experimental and daring than Deerhunter, closer inspection reveals a highly accessible album. Don't let the labels fool you: Logos will appeal to a wide cross section. Don't miss this one.