The Drift is a nearly indomitable album. It took me many listens and hours of contemplation to get my head around it. It sounds nothing at all like Walker's first four masterpieces, all spectacular pop albums, but has more in common with the abstract experimentation of Tilt and Climate of the Hunter than the orchestra-laden folk-pop of his early work. Dark and haunting melodies coupled with Walker's deep, drawling voice that can sound drunk or operatic at a moments notice while the music can be ambient and serene then burst into a "solo" from some jungle horn or a wall of synthesized noise. Lyrically lines like "I'll punch a donkey in the street, then run away" hardly lend themselves to easy interpretation, and most of the album follow in that abstract route. There are not breaks from the drudgery of this album, like a black-hole it sucks in everything and leaves you with a barren wasteland of bizarre music. Thankfully, once you're sucked in, you won't want to leave.19. Deerhoof: Apple O'
Apple O' is, I consider, Deerhoof's peak of their noise/math rock style, after this album the band started to experiment more with broader arrangements and more instruments. The beginning signs of this change is found on the album with things like the horns in "Sealed With a Kiss" or the acoustics of "Adam+Eve Connection" but for the most part the band stays true to their dueling tech-crazy guitar and wispy female vocals. The most incredible thing about this album is how the band can go from quiet, ethereal tracks like "Apple Bomb" and "Blue Cash" and then on the very next track explode into riotous guitar jams. This is amazing because on paper, the bands noisy, oddly structured arrangements combined with Satomi Matsuzaki's high vocal delivery shouldn't even work one way, let alone two. But it does.18. Yo La Tengo: And Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
Of all the many things Yo La Tengo are lauded for, lyrics are usually absent from the list, which is a shame, though in some ways slightly understandable since you can't always understand what's being said over the washes of distortion and feedback, but whatever the reason, it's a shame since the band has considerable skill at laying down interesting lyrics. Take the hushed male/female harmonized "Last Days of Disco" for example, the lyrics capture perfectly that time of your life when everything influences you, when you're young and heartbroken and a song can either make you happy thinking about your girlfriend, or sad thinking about your ex. It's all in your head how you want to interpret it. Musically, with a few exceptions such as the ultimate Tengo rocker "Cherry Chapstick", the album is a lot quieter, with more emphisis on ballads than on distortion, but that just gives the bands lyrics a chance to shine.17. mewithoutYou: Catch For Us the Foxes
Before the first song of this album is a quarter over, you know that you're experiencing an album unlike any other. Sure you've heard indie rock before, and you've heard post-hardcore before, and you may have even heard them both coming from the same band, but the type of music found on this album is truly one of a kind. The waves of droney guitars mixed with pounding riffs, throbbing bass, propellant drums switch from atmospheric ambiance to aggressive punk at the drop of a hat, and lead singer Aaron Weiss sings, screams, shouts, yells, and talks to recite his writing, which are more poetry in the classical sense than lyrics in the modern, but even then he has a strong sense of melody and flow within these poetic ramblings, which range from death and murder to God and love and are full of obscure Christian, Jewish, and Muslim ideas as well as influence from people like Rumi, Oscar Wilde, Kierkegaard, and Jack Kerouac, which Weiss recites without reference whatsoever, but simply ties them all together and then yells them while the rest of the band noodles and jams.16. Circulatory System: Circulatory System
Circulatory System is Olivia Tremor Control minus Bill Doss, but not minus any of the awesomeness. That might seem a knock on Doss, but it's not. Instead of trying to make another Olivia Tremor Control album Will Cullen Hart decided to try something a little different. His patented layered sound is still there, and his penchant for noise collages is still there, but there's significantly less of the 60s pop that was his former band's trademark. Instead he's created a bizarre and introspective lo-fi psychedelic album chock full of abstract sounds and buried melodies. It's trippy fairyland that owes a lot to Indian music, such as the raga banjo track "Time or Dateline" as well as more modern psych artists. Just like the Olivia albums, this one flows perfectly, so perfectly that it all seems like different movements in a grand symphony, with each track flowing into the next seamlessly with Cullen Hart's patented interludes paving the way to as cohesive and wild an album as you'll ever hear.15. Deftones: Saturday Night Wrist
Coming from a music scene that glamorizes the image and deemphasizes content and experimentation, Deftones are a true anomaly. Instead of being satisfied with simple alternative metal and rock tunes, which certainly would have brought the band more success, Chino Moreno and company bring in a wide variety of influences, ranging from trip-hop and electronica to dreamy shoegaze and even turntablism. Opening track "Hole in the Earth" is a pounding rock tune, while the next song "Rapture" is a distorted screamo track, but the really interesting songs are the ones where Moreno does trippy experimental songs like "Beware" and the divine "Cherry Waves". These songs are loaded with washes of effects-laden guitar, light beats and ambient electronic blips, and Moreno's own surreal and trippy vocals cutting through the swirling noise. Saturday Night Wrist is a dense album, full of unexpected twists and left-field twists, that make Deftones much more of a experimental band than and alternative one.14. The Samuel Jackson Five: Easily Misunderstood
There's been a movement afoot in post-rock in the last couple years, though some might just say it's just the genre expanding and becoming more popular, but I'd call it "dilution" or "lameness". There are countless instrumental acts out there these days that are just plain boring, they follow in the dull and repetitive path of Explosions in the Sky by creating "epic" songs that are really just simple melodies repeated over and over that grow slowly in volume. This can be done interestingly and well, however, but artists that can do it are rare. Into this landscape of uninspired tedium come The Samuel Jackson Five, a group of guys with serious chops that make music that is just plain fun to listen to, as well as extremely well made. They have free-jazz guitar jams like "Charlie Foxtrot Queen" and "If You Show Off the Milk, Who's Gonna Buy the Cow?" piano and string duets such as "Michael Collins Autograph" and the title track, as well as progy experimental tracks like "No Name". The band can slow things down if they want and do the "atmospheric" thing if they want to, but the don't slow down for long and before you know it there's more psycho riffs coming your way. One thing that is clear throughout the album is that these guys are really having fun with their music, and not crying in the bathroom or trying to be a classical composer with no where near the skill, they are just making the music they love, and also happen to be geniuses at creating.
13. The Knife: Silent Shout
If you hadn't already figured it out by my constant use of "ominus" "gloomy" and other such words, when describing a lot of the albums on this list, I love dark music. Whether it be dark in lyrics, tone, atmosphere, everything. The more the better. I also love electronic music, and The Knife's third album happens to have a lot of darkness and be electronica, so the fact that it's so high on the list shouldn't come as much of a surprise. The opening and title track mixes minimal beats and arpeggiating synth lines with vocals that sound like vocalist Karin Andersson is singing a duet with Lucifer. Other tracks provide complex dance structures, while still others have pounding beats and tinkering metallic samples. All the songs find Andersson's vocals being given dramatic changes with effects and pitch-shifting, to the point that she sometimes sounds like a beefy man, but all this just adds to the twistedness of the album's entire sound. Like demons from the forests of Sweden, Andersson and her brother Olof, the DJ in the duo, create archaic electro music, best described by another reviewer as "haunted house".12. Joanna Newsom: Ys
The Milk-Eyed Mender proved that Joanna Newsom could create intimate and complex freak-folk on a small scale, Ys shows us that she can do so on a grand scale, with even better results. With an average song length of around ten minutes, one might expect that Newsom's harp and voice style might grow a little tired, but that's so far from the case it's scary. Newsom's otherworldly, fairytale lyrics are make listening to the album worth it even if you hate the music, but there's not much to hate in the music either. Newsom's untraditional and detailed harp playing is a pleasure to listen to, and the addition of huge string and arrangements by baroque master Van Dyke Parks as well as little touches such as little bits of bass, jazz guitar, mandolin, and banjo. The truth is, the opening track is 12 minutes long and you don't want it to end by the time it's done; the rest of the album runs along those lines as well.11. The National: Alligator
If someone were to ask me to recommend one album and one album only, Alligator would be my choice every time. The albums great appeal comes from just how well constructed it is. Matt Berninger's baritone occasionally sounds soothing while it can also emulate a drunken drawl, which suits Berninger's hopeless, depraved, barroom lyrics perfectly. Musically, the band keeps things simple, but tight with dueling electric guitar riffs and occasional piano, with everything being tied together with Bryan Devendorf's propulsive drumming, something that really anchors the album. Each song here is meticulously crafted, yet sounds so spontaneous and breezy in performance. Alligator really put The National on the map, and put them in contention to knock of The Hold Steady as "most literate bar band ever".
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