2010 In Music

This year saw plenty of great new releases, but I didn't have the time or money to check out everything I wanted. Last year had twenty "best" albums, and there were maybe ten or fifteen more that I bought or heard that didn't earn a spot on the list. I certainly bought more than five albums this year, but only a few were really remarkable:

Best New Albums:
1. Ted Leo and The Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks After two decades of relentless touring in three different bands and a strict one-album-every-two-years schedule with the Pharmacists, Ted Leo might be forgiven for slowing down. Fortunately he resists the temptation on his fifth full length, the tightest and most punk-oriented of his career. The Brutalist Bricks is an odd choice for album of the year: it doesn't have any one brilliant song, and it didn't immediately grab my attention when I first heard it, like the others on this list. But almost a full year after its debut, it's the one I listen to the most. I'm even starting to think this might be Leo's best overall album.

2. Kylesa - Spiral Shadow. After years of being an also-ran to fellow Savannah residents Mastodon and Baroness, Kylesa jumps ahead with an absolutely phenomenal album. Somehow this is simultaneously their most experimental record and their most accessible. Centerpiece Don't Look Back needs to be heard: it's far and away the song of the year.

3. Bad Religion - The Dissent Of Man They've still got it. Greg Graffin could be my dad, and my parents could have seen Brian Baker's first band, Minor Threat, play when they were students at Georgetown. It's a cliche that "matures" is a synonym for "adopts alt-country influences," and Bad Religion is a little guilty here. But these influences have been there since the beginning, and it's refreshing to see the BR songwriting team take them seriously. There's more depth here than on other recent albums: even on superfast songs like "Meeting Of The Minds," Graffin's lyrics are melancholy, reflective, and rewarding of repeated listens. This could end up being the definitive late-period Bad Religion record.

4. Envy - Recitation Everyone's got a band like this: you've wanted to get into them for a while, and you always buy their new CDs, but somehow never become a fan. OK, maybe that's just me, but Envy had been in this category for five years or so. Well, Recitation is the disc that finally converted me. It is this year's best post-rock album and simultaneously its best hardcore album. No one else combines those genres like Envy, but then again no one else really combines them at all. The contrast between pretty ambiance and throat-shredding screams will be a bit much for most listeners, but for those who are up to the challenge, the reward is worth it.

5. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening This probably seems misplaced given the albums above, but hey, it's good music. Given my other musical tastes, I can't really explain or justify the appeal of LCD Soundsystem -- they're the only band I regularly listen to that's even remotely danceable. I still regret having turned down the chance to see them live.

Rather than spend my cash entirely on mew music, I spent the past year filling in some gaps in my collection:

Best Pre-2010 Album Purchases
1. Sonic Youth - Goo It's pretty embarrassing to admit that I hadn't heard this album until this year, and it's even more embarrassing to admit that it's because I heard Daydream Nation and didn't like it all that much. Goo is a phenomenal album, and Sonic Youth could easily be one of my top five bands if I had heard this a couple years ago. It will take a while for them to work to the top of my list, but they're well on their way.

2. Converge - Jane Doe 2010 was the year I finally "got" Converge. It certainly wasn't for lack of exposure: I have been listening to them on and off since 2003 or so, when Fault and Fracture appeared on an Equal Vision compilation. For some reason I never really understood the appeal. Certainly, to non-fans, the "some reason" is obvious: Converge is simply unlistenable unless you have very particular tastes. Yet the things that turn most people off to Converge shouldn't have been a problem for me: God knows I listen to enough heavy, chaotic music as it is. Somehow Jane Doe made me realize what I was missing, and not a moment too soon.

3. Avail - Over the James I've always been a fan of Richmond punk, so it means a lot when I say this is the best album I've ever heard from a Richmond band. It really pains me that I never saw these guys play live. Bands like this make me proud to be from Virginia.

4. The Lawrence Arms - Cocktails and Dreams Billed as a b-sides and rarities collection, this has some of the Larry Arm's best songs: Quincentuple Your Money, 100 Resolutions, A Toast/[track], and many more. It easily could be their best album, if there were a little more focus and a little less filler. This album is the reason the Lawrence Arms are my second most played band.

5. Soul Control - Cycles It's always a pleasure to hear a band doing something new with classic hardcore. Snapcase is the closest reference point, and there's clearly a connection with fellow Providence residents Verse, but Soul Control have a distinct, original, and refreshing sound. This should have been on last year's "best of" list... procrastinating on music purchases never pays off.

I moved to Cambridge, MA this June, which put a serious damper on my concert-going habits. I still found time to go to some great shows:

Best Shows
1. Bad Religion - Three Nights at Irving Plaza, NYC. If I listed this as three separate shows, they would be #1, #2, and #3 by a huge margin. Bad Religion is my favorite band, yet I had only seen them once before. It was amazing to see them in top form in a medium-sized venue, playing a few songs from every album. Sure, they didn't play [track artist=Bad Religion]A Streetkid Named Desire, but for a band as old as Bad Religion, it would be impossible for them to pick a setlist that satisfies everyone. I was shocked to hear a song from Into the Unknown, plus two songs from No Substance. Absolutely phenomenal.

2. Envy - At Harper's Ferry, Allston, MA. All the emotional impact of Recitation (see above), condensed into a 45-minute set. Envy's show was an unbelievable example of the post-rock live tradition: an eardrum bursting, equipment-demolishing show. Openers Touche Amore and Trash Talk didn't disappoint either. Touche remains an awesome band to see live, but I haven't been able to get into their records.

3. Shellac - At Middle East, Cambridge, MA. Living legend Steve Albini managed to crawl out of Chicago for a quick tour of the East Coast, and I'm happy he did. For a band that doesn't play live very often, Shellac was incredibly tight and composed. The new songs were great; I'm really looking forward to the forthcoming album. Albini's legendary rudeness was on full display as well. I'm still holding out hope for my dream tour: Fugazi, Sonic Youth, and Shellac.

4. The Lawrence Arms - At T. T. The Bear's, Cambridge, MA. The exact opposite of the Shellac show: all the band members got so trashed that they could barely play their songs. That's OK though; the crowd sang along so loudly that all the gaps were filled in. Brendan Kelly has written quite a bit on his blog about how the Lawrence Arms aren't going to tour as often. Understandable, but a damn shame.

5. Bouncing Souls - Rocks Off Boat Cruise, NYC. It's impossible to go wrong with a concert on a boat. No stage, small crowd, cheap booze, good music. The Souls are as fun as ever to see live.

I didn't follow new music nearly as closely this year as I have in the past. Here are the albums that I never got the chance to track down:

Five Albums I Wanted To Hear, But Didn't
1. Alkaline Trio - This Addiction OK, granted, Alkaline Trio isn't my absolute favorite band, but I have enjoyed pretty much everything they have put out. This one barely registered on my radar when it came out, despite solid reviews. Pure laziness on my part.

2. Make Do and Mend - Make Do And Mend The few songs I heard sounded quite a bit like Polar Bear Club: always a good thing. But Amazon didn't stock the physical CD, so I never got around to picking this one up. Another album that has made quite a few year end "best of" lists that I simply passed over.

3. Heaven In Her Arms - Paraselene I have a better excuse in this case: Heaven In Her Arms has no US distributor. The songs that I heard combine the best of the Japanese extreme music tradition: there's enough noise, feedback, screaming, heaviness, and beauty to simultaneously make these guys the heirs to Envy, Boris, and Merzbow. The black metal influence doesn't hurt either.

4. Ceremony - Rohnert Park I have a sneaking feeling that although I don't "get" these guys now, they'll be one of my favorite bands in two or three years, and I'll wonder why I never went to their shows. "Still Nothing Moves You" was a little too disjointed for my liking, but Ceremony deserves a second chance.

5. Black Tusk - Taste The Sin A metal band from Savannah that I haven't listened to? You've got to be kidding me.

That's all I've got
What did you like this year?

Dan Simmons - "Hyperion"

Hyperion is a rather rare find: a literary science fiction novel.  The title is that of a John Keats poem, the structure follows The Canterbury Tales, and there are innumerable references to the poetry of Shakespeare and others.  Keats himself appears as a character, albeit in bizarre cyborg form.  As insufferable as all this may seem, it’s an excellent novel that any SF fan should read.  It’s one of the few novels that I’d recommend to someone who normally avoids the genre.

Hyperion is characterized by a pervasive sense of wonder that's often lacking in science fiction.  Much SF features a future that has been somewhat tamed; technological advances have reduced the number of unknown facts in the universe.  Pick your favorite future intellectual achievement: whether psychohistory, nanotech, strong AI, or something else, they all depend on knowing more about how the world works.  Hyperion turns this on its head: here, the universe is a vast and profoundly unknowable place.  Humanity has mastered FTL travel and colonized the galaxy, but ultimately we remain clueless about the true nature of things.

 

Yet this isn’t Lovecraftian pessimism.  Rather than retreat to the safety of the known, Simmons’ characters are driven to explore the reaches of the universe they find themselves in.  The characters themselves are refreshingly well done: space opera is notorious for forgettable protagonists who speak in dry, expository dialog.  The seven pilgrims here are believable and compelling; their unique and tragic histories drive them to seek answers to fundamental mysteries.  The novel’s structure supports the story well: rather than flip back and forth between subplots as is common in the genre, Simmons chooses to tell each story in sequence, at length, with only a few minor interludes.  The actual plot of the book is rather minimal; the true action is in each character’s novella-length history.  Yet the stories all exist within a common universe: the genre pyrotechnics of works such as David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas would detract from the overall atmosphere of awe and wonder.

The literary references are too many to count, and I am sure that most of them went over my head.  I am not well read in the Romantic poets, and I’ve missed out on most of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but they do appear here.  There are even some entertaining references to other works of science fiction: one character’s story is a straight rip on early William Gibson, and talk of semi-sentient dolphins and small, earth-destroying black holes reminds me of David Brin.  This is peripheral, though; one does not need to understand all or even most of the name-dropping to enjoy the novel.

It is worth discussing whether Hyperion is even science fiction.  It is certainly not speculative fiction, in the sense that it does not claim to make plausible guesses about humanity’s future.  The future as such is barely a theme: it’s just a convenient setting.  Is a novel science fiction because it uses the acronym “FTL” and expects the reader to know what it means?  Perhaps not, but it doesn’t really matter:  Simmons is tackling other equally big themes: the nature of religious faith, the power of literature, the problem of evil, the possibility of understanding other cultures.  

Ultimately, Hyperion is an extremely satisfying read.  It’s earned a place among my favorite science fiction novels.  I look forward to reading the sequels.

Charles Stross - "Iron Sunrise"

More than anything else Stross has written, "Iron Sunrise" is a pure genre novel: a sprawling, post-Singularity space opera epic.  Convention doesn't serve Stross well, though: he's best when he jams so many out-there ideas onto the page that the reader can barely keep up.  Stross's plotting and characterization have always been decent by SF standards, but they're clearly a vehicle for his mind-blowingly weird and strangely plausible visions of future society. 

"Iron Sunrise" follows a standard space opera template.  Page 1-100: introduce your characters and set up three or four plot threads.  In the second hundred pages, start to hint at a deep mystery, preferably of cosmological or eschatological significance.  Third, start weaving the plot threads and hint at a final confrontation, while leaving the central mystery unexplained.  In the last segment, wrap everything up in a really long passage of expository dialogue.  Recently, Stross admitted on his blog that he wanted to write such a novel: a reasonable goal, given that he was a new author and wanted to establish himself in the genre.  The problem is that space opera generally presents an inconsistent future: it's tough to imagine a society with all the trappings of the Singularity (nanotech, strong AI, biological modifications, maybe FTL travel, etc) but with mostly unaltered human characters (and token aliens that act like humans anyway).

Stross gets around this with the device of the Eschaton, the practically godlike AI from "Singularity Sky."  Without spoiling the details, it's a logically consistent way to bring conventional humanity to a space opera setting.  Unfortunately, it always felt like kind of a hack.  The details are glossed over in both "Singularity Sky" and "Iron Sunrise," which seems odd given the cataclysmic nature of humanity's transition to a spacefaring society.  It works in "Singularity Sky," though, since that novel is already packed tight with other concepts.  The Festival and its implications provide more than enough weirdness to keep the reader from worrying too much about the Eschaton.  "Iron Sky," by contrast, doesn't have anything else to really grab the reader's attention.  Stross used the Eschaton to allow himself to write a novel that doesn't play to his strengths.  It's decently executed, and fans like me will still have a decent time reading it, but it's far from Stross's best.

Trash Talk, Touche Amore, Envy: 9/28 at Harper's Ferry, Allston, MA

"This song's called 'Walking Disease.'  If you know the lyrics, get the fuck up front."  A squeal comes out of the amps, and the kids up front start getting restless.  Once the song begins, you realize the absurdity of vocalist Lee Spielman's exhortation.  The music is fast to the point of incomprehensibility: everything comes out as a giant slur.  But the crowd loves it.  There's a gigantic pit with bodies going every which way.  There's a stage dive every second or two.  People aren't screaming the lyrics back at the singer or even just being conscious of the whole thing.  None of this is voluntary.  Trash Talk aren't musicians: they're neuro-linguistic programmers.  They're tuning in to some deep and vital impulse, and it's awe inspring to watch.

Touche Amore is similar, though their music is a lot more traditional.  Musically and aesthetically, they're the heirs of the late Modern Life Is War.  They played well and the crowd enjoyed them, but it's harder for me to get into this kind of music.  Still, it's always fun to see people enjoying a show.  I mostly sat this one out.

Envy, on the other hand, was spectacular.  See my review of "Recitation" below for more information about the music.  The show had all the hallmarks of a great post-rock show: ear splitting volume, incredible emotional intensity, an all-encompassing guitar tone, and weird dudes twiddling knobs on their guitar pedals.  If you've been to one of these shows, you've been to them all, but somehow it never gets old.  It's tough to imagine someone getting into this if they're not already a fan of the genre -- but if you are, Envy absolutely deserves your attention.

Torche - "Songs For Singles"

Torche stays focused after 2008's "Meanderthal," one of my top three records of that year.  On "Songs For Singles," the songwriting is tighter, the tempos are faster, and the guitars are less heavy.  It even says on the cover: "it's just a bunch of radio rock bullshit."  If you're looking for a new Floor record, you're going to be pretty let down: there's no sign of Floor/Torche's former trademark dropped guitar tuning.  Fans of "Meanderthal" should be thrilled, though.  Standout track "Cast Into Unknown" captures the same feeling as "Across The Shields," the best track on their previous album.  Worth buying for that song alone.

Envy: "Recitation"

I saw Envy last night at Harper's Ferry; a review of the show is forthcoming.  In the meantime, I can't resist saying that their new album, "Recitation", is fucking unbelievable.  This is why I listen to music.  Imagine all the beauty and emotional weight of your favorite Explosions In The Sky song, combined with the viscerality of hardcore.  The melodies are gorgeous, the guitars are crushingly heavy, the vocals are throat shredding.  This is looking like the best album of 2010, and it's on a fast track to become one of my favorite albums, period.

Absolutely stunning.  Go buy it.

Emo vs. Post-Hardcore

A user on Quora asked about the difference between emo and post-hardcore.  Here's a slightly modified version of my response:

Tough one to call, since the emo label has a lot of negative connotations these days.  Lots of bands that would have fallen into the emo bucket now self-identify as post-hardcore.  Lyrics are the key identifier.  Emo lyrics are, well, emotional: that's kind of the point.  Post-hardcore doesn't have any associated lyrical themes: it's just as likely to be political as it is to be romantic.  Musically, emo and post-hardcore can be pretty similar, since they both have roots in the late 80s hardcore punk scene.  Post-hardcore tends to be a little more adventurous and progressive; emo often has ties to pop punk.

Post-hardcore bands that aren't emo:

• Fugazi
• Refused
• Q And Not U
• Fucked Up
• Nation Of Ulysses

Emo bands that aren't post-hardcore:

• Sunny Day Real Estate
• Taking Back Sunday
• The Promise Ring
• Mineral

Four Tet: "The Motion Makes Me Last (Eluvium Remix)"

This one's been posted online for a while, but it's so good that it merits its own blurb.  Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet) might be the only artist who can successfully remix post-rock.  Even excellent solo artists are generally unable to turn others' material into anything worthwhile: Justin Broadrick is a notorious offender, washing otherwise good songs into boring drones.  Hebden, however, has a remarkable talent for identifying the underlying emotional theme of a song and elaborating further.  He did this to great effect on Explosions In The Sky's "All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone" bonus remix disc, and does it once again for this track from Eluvium's most recent long player.  Well worth a listen.

http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/14764-the-motion-makes-me-last-four-tet-remix/