Better late than never. This was a weirdly weak year for albums, despite an incredible crop of singles. Its possible that this was due more to my listening habits than anything, but it wasn't like I wasn't finding time for complete album listens. It just seemed like the quality level on albums was very uneven.
Neither The Mint Chicks nor the Phoenix album felt like a #1 to me, but I gave the nod to the former because I got more front-to-back enjoyment out of it than any other albums of the year. I suspect the Phoenix album is better, and may even age better, but it didn't actually rock me as hard. The rest of the top 6 is rounded out by 4 interesting albums with very specialized uses, the japandroids and wavves albums provide energetic slices of post-grunge, and the Islands and TPOBPAH albums start off strong, but both crap out in the second half (which is becoming something of an Islands specialty). The grouping is more coincidental than planned, but its a concise way to stand in for my usual mini-reviews.
Don't get me wrong, there's good stuff on here, it's a combination of interesting experiments and solid rock performers. There's just not much that really blew my mind out. The good news is, 2010 looks to more than make up for it.
01. the mint chicks - screens
02. phoenix - wolfgang amadeus phoenix
03. dan deacon - bromst
04. dirty projectors - bitte orca
05. future of the left - travels with myself and another
06. busdriver - jheli beam
07. japandroids - post-nothing
08. wavves - wavves
09. islands - vapours
10. the pains of being pure at heart - the pains of being pure at heart
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