Top 15 Albums of 2009 (10 – 6)

10.

Rain Machine – Rain Machine

Key Tracks – Give Blood, Hold You Holy, Free Ride

There’s a beautiful lead-back feeling throughout most of Kyp Malone’s first solo effort. The swirl of simple clean guitar and African-inspired percussion gets repetitive near the end of the album, as the pace starts to dip, but the individual tracks are skilfully built up. Though the length of songs such as “Desperate Bitch” give the album a slow-burning feel, so it is imperative to keep attention focused on Malone’s soulful tones and sly lyrics to ensure the album never gets tedious.

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9.

Kasabian – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

Key Tracks – Underdog, Vlad The Impaler, Fast Fuse

There is a particularly strong mood running through Kasabian’s third album. A swagger that is much more difficult to achieve than it may first seem. The album is largely consistent, and Kasabian are happy to mix up their styles and drop musical red herrings (see the opening to “Fast Fuse”) before getting down to the business of delivering track after fist-pumping track that drips passion and confidence.  Dumb and brash, yes, but infectious too.

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8.

Bat For Lashes – Two Suns

Key Tracks – Daniel, Moon And Moon, Siren Song

There has been a lot of attention given to “Daniel”, I’ve noticed, and deservedly so. But doing so at the expense of the rest of the album would be doing it a disservice. There is much to enjoy, as Natasha Khan’s stunning vocals shape around dark, moody electronica. The overriding solar theme represents isolation and desire to connect in much the same way as classics such as “Space Oddity”. A consistent, often surprising album.

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7.

Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications

Key Tracks – Angela, Further Complications, I Never Said I Was Deep

So, maybe the Pulp hiatus will be going on a bit longer than we imagined. The insanely cool Jarvis Cocker has produced a second solo effort than improves upon the last in nearly every aspect, and is as clever and vitriolic as any Pulp record. Cocker vocally leaps around standard Britrock guitar, mixing up shouts of anguish with grumpily delivered non-sequiters. Your enjoyment of this album will depend on whether you consider “I met you in the museum of palaeontology/ And I make no bones about it” to be sickeningly embarrassing or one of the best pieces of lyricism you’ve heard all year.

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6.

The Decemberists – The Hazards Of Love

Key Tracks – The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid, The Hazards Of Love 1, The Rake’s Song

The Decemberists doing a concept album about the pains of infatuation… what’s new? Well, musically, the interweaving threads and repeated phrases are interesting and do not grow wearisome, whilst Colin Meloy’s vocals range admirably from soft to hard as and when the story demands. The Decemberists have always been good at weaving tales together, but this, I feel, is them at their peak, testing out small chunks of material and then mixing them in between and around each other to great effect.

The Wednesday Countdown: Short Songs

Here come list number two of my Wednesday Countdown series, concentrating this time on the songs that may be short in girth, but are large in impact. The criteria for this particular list is the following, tracks must be shorter than two minutes (it’s worth noting that Blur’s slight classic “Song 2” comes in at 2 minutes 1 second), maximum one per artist, and the selection is based around both the quality of the song as well as how it fits onto the album it occupies. That last point is there because short songs are often interludes, designed as a transition between tracks. Thus the movement into the next track is taken into account, as you can probably tell looking at the top few songs, if you are aware of the albums involved.

Anyway, here it is.

Top 10 Short Songs

1. Laura Marling – Crawled Out Of The Sea (Interlude) (1:16)

2. Pink Floyd – The Happiest Days of Our Lives (1:50)

3. Portishead – Deep Water (1:39)

4. The White Stripes – Hypnotize (1:48)

5. Modest Mouse – Wild Packs of Family Dogs (1:49)

6. Foo Fighters – Doll (1:23)

7. The Decemberists – The Wanting Comes In Waves (Reprise) (1:31)

8. Radiohead – You Never Wash Up After Yourself (1:44)

9. Iron & Wine – Die (1:07)

10. Elbow – Puncture Repair (1:48)

Laura Marling perfectly anticipated the question “can a 76 second song be anthemic?” with “Crawled Out Of The Sea”, an elegantly simple love ode that does both jobs, leading smartly into “My Manic & I” on the album, but sounding very well-rounded in its own right. I confess that its position at number one was finalized not by the track itself, but by quite how amazing it sounds live. The sound of a number of hip London folk artists coming together and crying the main refrain together is one that will not soon leave me.

As ever, let me know what songs are missing, I don’t mind being reminded how wrong I am sometimes!

(Side Note: Does this compensate for me missing out “Mexico” on the last list? Because on further listening, it really is good…)