I thought this year would go  much differently.  All the bands that I love were releasing albums this year, I thought I'd see them all here.  But Children of Bodom returned to their classical ways at the expense of hooks and In Flames made album of mediocre radio-friendly snorers.  Opeth's album is solid, and has some great songs (Burden, The Lotus Eater), but lacks the overall memorability that marks their previous efforts.

This was definitely the year for black metal Pink Floyd worship.  I thought Nachtmystium had taken the cake with Black Meddle, opening with a cover of One of These Days.  Then Enslaved reminded us why they're the kings of experimental black metal.  They take floydian harmonies into dark realms they've never seen before, but retain the darkness and dirtiness that made their straight black metal efforts so great.

Burst and Cynic are the kings of progressive metal this year.  As impressive as Cynic's reunion is after 14 years, Burst's album is perfect.  Each of the songs holds a very specific place in the album.  The fierceness of it is something that's been missing from prog, since Metallica abandoned their long form efforts.  The drama, too, reminds me of the classic metal that came from Cliff Burton and Dave Mustaine, it's not like Gojira, where you're pummeled with one sound for an hour - Lazarus bird swings from beautiful intro into full assault into spacey breakdown, uncoiling and tightening, and never losing your attention.  Meanderthal is a similarly tight effort, in a different way: the album is metal, but all of the songs are hook-laden pop songs that stick in your head and won't leave.  They'd be radio friendly, if mainstream metal existed in any way that wasn't insulting to the genre.

5: Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1
4: Torche - Meanderthal
3: Enslaved - Vertebrae
2: Cynic - Traced in Air
1: Burst - Lazarus Bird

Top 5 non-metal albums

I know, it's a weird distinction.  Nonetheless, combining my favorite metal albums into this list would result in a very odd top 10, that would only hold value for people very close to my musical taste.  Cloud Cult's most epic album to date needs to be recognized in a stronger way.  Their secular mythologies (he served us communion of cola and twinkies), fit the sound perfectly.  It's absurdly artsy, but in a good way.  Why?, too, is overly artsy with his prose, set against an organic hip-hop background of xylophones and simple drum kits.  The songs suck you in, seeming bigger than the sparce instrumentation that holds them.

Nine Inch Nails released 2 albums as free downloads this year.  While The Slip is easily passed off as Radiohead-wannabe-marketing, Ghosts squarely frames all of the issues with what the recording industry has become.  Not only does the first quarter play loss-leader to the remaining 3 parts, but the music itself would never be released on a major label.  The songs are short experiments, hanging pieces of the various incarnations of NIN, the acoustic intimacy of Still, the angry glitch of their heyday, and the dark groove of the last few years.  The songs play against each other, any sense of atmosphere is gone, you're forced to pay attention to each piece individually.  A record company would want a single, and they would want similar songs to sit near each other to form some coherent whole, some marketable aesthetic.  The album isn't about that, it's about experimentation, and experimentation doesn't sell.  Except it did, to NIN fans, many like me, who've wanted to see Trent flex his writing outside of pop formulas.

Fleet Foxes and Dengue Fever belong to a resurgence of psychadelia, both in warm happy tones (especially as compared to the floyd worship referenced above).  The aesthetic is certainly pop, but not in a formulaic sense.  Fleet Foxes rely on complex harmonies and lush instrumentation, crafting music that's endlessly interesting, while staying hook-y and memorable.  Dengue Fever writes Cambodian pop ditties, led by an iconic female voice, but the songs wind far afield.

5: Dengue Fever - Venus on Earth
4: Fleet Foxes - (s/t)
3: Why? - Alopecia
2: Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I - IV
1: Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghosts

Top 5 EP's

EP's are a weird space - Some of these bands (Mogwai, The Gaslight Anthem, Jesu) released full albums that either had too much filler, or just lacked the punch of the EP tracks.  Agalloch and Cassettes Won't Listen just left me begging for more.  Agalloch's EP shows their neo-folk influences without their black metal ones.  The White EP is finely tuned, including the paired Birch White/Birch Black.  Unfortunately the EP is truly limited edition, it's completely out of print and unavailable.  The Gaslight Anthem's gruff vocals over catchy punk sound marries perfectly to their increasingly Americana/nostalgic songs on Senor and the Queen.  Unfortunately, The '59 Sound, released later this year, relies too heavily on classic storytelling, and waffles in mediocre.  Mogwai's Batcat EP snatches the heaviest song from Hawk is Howling, and adds a collaboration with Roky Erikson that's absolutely beautiful.  Their full length doesn't have the punch that this EP has, or that Mr. Beast had.   Jesu tends to be too precious in large doses, but paired against the heaviest output from Battle of Mice, they make sense.

5: Mogwai - Batcat
4: Jesu/Battle of Mice split
3: The Gaslight Anthem - Senor and the Queen
2: Cassettes Won't Listen - Small Time Machine
1: Agalloch - The White EP

Songs To Check Out:

1. Cassettes Won't Listen - Paper Float
2. Battle of Mice - The Bishop
3. Cloud Cult - When Water Comes To Life
4. Agalloch - Birch White
5. Dengue Fever - Tiger Phone Card
6. Burst - We Watched The Silver Rain
7. Torche - Across The Shields
8. Why? - The Hollows
9. Cynic - Evolutionary Sleeper (live)
10. The Gaslight Anthem - Senor and the Queen

Indie

It's not that i didn't listen to independent music this year: Voxtrot's EP's made my year. but somewhere this spring, it all started sounding samey. i suppose my picks are odd in the context of that remark, since they're all new albums by bands i've been listening to since 2003.

Cursive - Happy Hollow
Let's be honest. The Ugly Organ is still Cursive's best work. It's in the running for my top 5 albums of the decade. I thought i would have to hate every cursive album after it for not being in the same league. Especially after i heard that gretta cohn, the cellist, had left the band. Tim Kasher turned the band around and added a horn section that gives 'happy hollow' a new energy, that's totally different from anything they've done previously. Also vastly different is the anti-christian theme, which leads them well out of the emo cliches.

Mates of State - Bring It Back
after burning out on the first two mates of state albums, i never got into team boo. it's hard to keep up with new music from a band, when you find yourself describing all of their songs as "you know, that one, where they sing in a round... ?" Bring it Back is their first proper album. it flows well and the songs are more varied than anything else they've done. "Think Long" and "Fraud in the 80's" are great pop songs that stand on their own, whether you like the couple-rock moog-and-drums aesthetic of mates of state or not.

Mogwai - Mr. Beast
Mr. Beast got slammed by pitchfork for being 'restrained', in their songs length and scope. i think i better word for these songs is 'distilled' the album has the same breadth and scope as their previous works, but the songs on this album stay within their own themes. They play off of each other, like a proper album. The whole albums works in a way that their previous works haven't. Veering from quiet piano to the volume and fury of metal, the album is more memorable precisely because each song is so distinct.

Metal

In Flames - Come Clarity
Hands down, this is the best album of the year. This is the reason my taste diverged. I haven't loved metal this way since i was an angsty suburban pre-teen. The intricate, technical riffs, and the layered progressive songwriting took me right back to the first metal i ever loved. I'll admit, It was tempting to give up on in flames after 'soundtrack to your escape'. it sounded like they were selling out for good, buying into corporate american 'metal'. Turns out, they were just biding their time. come clarity is their best album, ever. It's as intense as clayman, but they've layered in the songwriting they learned from the two intervening albums.

Dog Fashio Disco - Adultery
I'm not really sure DFD qualifies as metal. They span punk, funk, jazz, and a dozen more genres. But the dark, scary Noir themes of the album, and the mike patton influence make metal a decent attempt to categorize them. Every album on this list has an excellent flow and dynamic, but there's a special place in my heart for concept albums. The strange and different musical influences all find their own niche in this dark murder mystery.

Mastodon - Blood Mountain
there's not much i can say about mastodon that hasn't already been said. They're being painted as the saviours of metal. That's is a bit much, metal is clearly alive and well, and 1 band didn't save it. but they have that indie/hardcore cool that makes them accessible. I don't feel like an angsty pre-teen when i'm convincing people to give them a listen. The metal is technical and progressive, but maintains that gruff, aggressive edge that keeps it from being as egomaniacal as metal sometimes is.

Hip Hop

Peeping Tom
It's pretty much a given that of the albums mike patton releases in a given year, one of them is going to be one of my top 5. 5 years in the making, and with an amazing guest list, this album had an impossible amount of hype leading up to it. It blew it all away. the album is pop perfection, in the dark and twisted sense only patton could make it. This album showcases mike patton's vocal range in a way that's enjoyable, not just awe-inspiring. The songs are catchy and melodic, which is a change for patton, but each song is so different, he still manages to tour the entire genre before the album closes.

Cut Chemist - The Audience's Listening
This album is everything that i expected from DJ shadow and Jurassic 5, that they didn't deliver. It's smooth, dancey, intricate, and progressive. Clearly, Cut Chemist is the reason that J5 was so good, and isn't anymore.

Pop/Rock

i don't know what else to call this section. Some of these bands were indie when i started listening to them. Some of them have always been 'alternative top 40'. it's hard to find a common thread in the albums, so i'm just going with the most general category there is.

Muse - Black Holes and Revalations
Outside of a few songs with sentimental value, I've never been much of a muse fan. This album is completely different. Every song has more groove than their entire previous collection. There's something else about the album, too. The previous albums were showcases for Matthew Bellamy's incredible voice. This time, most of the songs have Queen-esque harmonies that give it a punch that makes them better than previous efforts.

The Dresden Dolls - Yes, Virginia
It's hard to listen to the dresden dolls without developing a crush on amanda palmer. the lyrics are personal to a disturbing level, and her wild vocals give you the feeling that you've caught her before she's had a chance to collect herself. The cabaret style piano leads the songs careening from gleeful violence to angry stomp to quiet sadness and back again, in a single pop song structure. The songs are so catchy, it's almost their downfall. I'm now afraid to listen to "Backstabber", for fear of going another week unable to listen to anything but Dresden dolls.

Honorable Mention

that's 10. in no particular order (other than In flames, at #1). It's thoroughly unfair to stop here. It's not that there were so many good albums to choose from, it's that the good albums were all great, and each nearly flawless. In another year, these albums would probably be in my top 5:

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - So Divided
I'm still confused by this album. It's a pop album. It has brilliant and clean songs like "Wasted State of Mind" that hang in my head long after i'm done listening to it. Confusing, because my first introduction to the band involved lots of emo and atonal singing. By contrast, "Naked Sun" is a straight ahead rock song that's clean and fun, and catchy. i don't know when they switched gears, but i hope they don't switch back.

The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
The quirky indie-pop here isn't as polished as their 'EP', but the songs here are more well rounded and diverse. This brother-sister team is probably the creepiest thing i've listened to this year, which is saying a lot, considering the goth brother-sister team mentioned above. You never know what bizarre revelation is going to leap out of the lyrics next, or how the music is going to suddenly twist and shift around to highlight them.

Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
After the awkwardness of their self-titled album, and the general 'meh' i got from team sleep, i had given up on the deftones. i figured white pony was an accident. Saturday Night Wrist isn't another white pony, but it is the follow up i've been waiting for. it's dynamic and intelligent all the way through. It has the experimentation that was missing from team sleep, and the lean songwriting and emotional vocal intensity that was missing from the self titled album.

hey, look at that: 13 albums and no emo! granted, The Appleseed Cast and Thursday turned out great albums this year, but they're at least farther down in the list than Yakuza and ISIS. With so many great albums, it's no wonder i bought more CD's this year than the last 2 combined.

#5: bonnie prince billy, matt sweeney - superwolf: good god, i swore it would never happen. a country album. a COUNTRY album. granted, i found out about will oldham through tweaker, a spin-off from nine inch nails, but still. and yes, i owe a huge mea culpa to ben for this, since i berated him for will oldham's tortured vocals when he played them at k2. granted, none of the vocals on this album have that off-key faltering stuff that i so fiercelty objected to on his older stuff, but nonetheless, i do owe an apology.

#4 spoon - gimme fiction: this album could get the nod if it only included 'i turn my camera on' and 'the infinite pet' don't get me wrong, i like the rest of the album, and it's great rock music all the way through, but those two songs are instant eargasms. it's not as straight-ahead-rock as 'girls can tell' but it's just as good an album.

#3: wolf parade - apologies to the queen mary:this album is a dance party for sad kids. the first ten songs are sooooo dancable and soooo angsty. even the last two songs, which are considerabley weaker, are amazing live. and 'i'll believe in anything' makes a good run at the best song of the year.

#2: opeth - ghost reveries: yeah, i grew up a metal kid, and it still shows up sometimes. this is their first normal(?) album since the black/white trade-off of 'deliverence' and 'damnation', which is probably part of why i like it so much. the album has so many standout moments, from the moog stomp of 'baying of the hounds' to the ambient pink-floyd-esque wanders of atonement' and 'hours of wealth'. and 'reverie/harlequin forest' uses clean vocals all the way through, making it the best song for showing non-death-metal people the genius that is opeth.

#1: dredg - catch without arms: if your 2005 mix disc doesn't start with bug eyes, minus 10 points. interscope did everything they could to dumb down and pop-ify this album, and it's excellent IN SPITE OF IT. more memorable than 'el cielo', albeit less varied than 'lietmotif', it's their best album thus far. it's not the best that they can do, though. dredg's perfect album is still coming. in the mean time, check out b-sides like 'stone by stone' on their myspace page

Previously:
Retractions
top 5 of 2004

Top 5 Albums of 2004

5. Zoo Hypothesis - Tub Ring

4. Porcelain - Sparta

3. Summer in Abaddon - Pinback

2. You Fail Me - Converge

1. Good News For People Who Love Bad News - Modest Mouse

what should be noted here, tho - tubring fucking rocked. they played about 300 times tighter than their album release party. plus, i actually knew their songs this time around. the keyboardist was a little less crazy this time, but turns out he was playing both sets cos the mindless keyboardist was on injured reserve.

i guess the johnny urine tried a little to show some energy, but having him kneeling on me and the crowd while he sang didn't really compare to the whole "i touched richard patrick's ass" thing. i think he had to try to hard to sing decently to put much energy into the performance.

my main complaint, tho was the audience. here's where LBC comes in. the house of blues is just way more fun of a place to get crazy. the metro is too small, and there were too many people to really move much. although the goth chicks were cuter and crazier, they were still mostly in high school (look, don't touch) - except for one girl who couldn't seem to stand up on her own for about 15 minutes. about 90% of that time i had my hand under her back so she didn't wind up getting stepped on. but at the metro, the floor doesn't bounce, so it can't really compare.

so - you've waited, here it is:

top five most dissapointing/worst shows (all time)

#5 - Enon - Fireside - Perfect example of the fireside sound: way too loud. and the set was a half hour, headlining: wtf?

#4 - The Mars Volta - Riv 11/03 - Bad sound, whiny little bitch singer, and way too much jam

#3 - Local H/LBC/Box-O-Car - Uic Pavilion - bad sound, bad singing, local H sux, and we missed box-o-car

#2 - Tomahawk/Melvins - Vic 09/03 - Mike Patton is good on cd, but not live anymore

#1 - Cursive/Blood Brothers - Metro 10/03 - sold out while we were in the car on the way to buy tickets. and i fucking love cursive

top 5 shows of all time

#5 - Kenny Wayne Sheppard Band/Van Halen - I still loved eextreme - and gary fucking rocked out all those great DLR lines. best stage presence on this list.

#4 - Mr. Bungle/Incubus/System of a Down - Riv Winter 2000 - a confluence of greatness

#3 - Touniquet - somewhere - one of my few good memories of jay mathes: him, ryan nesslerode(sp?), and nick gray.

#2 - Dredg - fireside 12/02 - the elbo room show was good, but this was perfect. el cielo played dead on like fucking metal.

#1 - Nine Inch Nails/A Perfect Circle - UIC Pavilion 12/01 - needs no explanation, just wish we were