The Best Albums of 2009: 40-31
The countdown continues! And today, we bring you the albums that finished between 40th and 31st in our Top 50. For more information on how we arrived at that figure and how we feel about lists, you can whet your inner geek with a bit of this.
40) Metric – Fantasies: Moody and with more space than the poppier Live It Out, the gloom is given space to breathe. Emily Haines’ songs feel strong, and the echoey new-wave keyboards are pretty darn enticing.
39) Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle: Managing warm nostalgia without overwritten lyrics, this album is equally wry and hopeful. A durable and lyrically subtle listen.
38) Various Artists – Dark Was The Night: Featuring new things by the likes of The National and Yeasayer, and a collaboration between Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner; sometimes hasty, mostly worthwhile, it’s an indie-dream come true.
37) Mew – No More Stories…: Majestic and swirling, the Danes’ fifth album hinted at proggier tendencies with back-masks played forwards (!) and the additional of an occasional gamelan ensemble. The overall sound is of an inter-splicing of layers; it’s crystalline.
36) Dananananaykroyd – Hey Everyone: A slightly glossier version of their crowd-pleasing live show, this album’s energy became its defining feature. Boundlessly enthusiastic, it rip-roared through its own self-awareness while with an adorable sense of humour.
35) Why? – Eskimo Snow: Starkly emotional but sticking to a safer ground than Alopecia and the other three, a newly melancholic Yoni Wolf ditched the hip-hop and moves into new territory sounding more realised than ever before.
34) The Leisure Society – The Sleeper: Nick Hemming’s honeyed tones melted expertly into a combination of pastoral strings, flighty woodwind and sterner thumb piano, songs of intricate craft and beauty. The Willkommen Collective’s poster-boys.
33) The Maccabees – Wall of Arms: Orlando Weeks became Win Butler as his band got bouncier and lost the post-punk. Brass was added, riffs were sieved of non-catchiness and, well, I thought it fairly sterile as a whole but this lot seemed to disagree… <<<WHOOPS>>>
32) The Decemberists – Hazards of Love: A gloriously arranged album with fully-fledged characterisations, gallant wordplay and depraved song structures. That it met its colossal ambition is almost a shocker, in spite of The Decemberists’ impressive track-record.
31) The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love: Aesmeric vocals situated themselves suavely over heavy, pounding drums; it’s a loss to me why you’d choose to listen to this over its forefathers but the writers disagreed… <<<UH OH>>>
If you missed the 50-41 rundown, it’s here. More dissent featured, but arguably more deservedly.
Now stay tuned for the 30-21 tomorrow!
