Your best album of 2012

[neil]

What was your best album from 2012? Post one album with a bit of a writeup and perhaps linking to some online source for others to listen to.

 

For me:

 

Six Organs of Admittance - Ascent

 

This is the music of mainly just Ben Chasny, who typically plays acoustic. He's massively talented, but most of his previous stuff didn't do that much for me. However, on Ascent he gets back together with an old band of his and lays down some incredible psychedelic riffs on this record. If you're not into more psychedelic/desert rock type stuff this might not appeal to you, but for me it's a great blend of solid grooving bass lines and blazing guitar solos.

 

A great example of the difference between his previous work and this is the song One Thousand Birds:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LBkUpfdBdA

 

The album isn't purely songs like the above, there is a really good mix of subtle understated songs as well.

 

 

NOW POST YOURS

[Amazing_Red_Fan]

As much as I loved Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city I'd have to go with Bruce Springsteen's fantastic Wrecking Ball.

 

I'm a huge Springsteen/E Street fan, especially the 70s and 80s stuff. Born To Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River are three of my favourite albums of all time. I don't even mind the 90s stuff (Human Touch and Lucky Town specifically) as much as most.

 

Saying that, I was really, really disappointed with Working on a Dream. It had a couple of good tracks on it but really fell flat and kinda killed the Springsteen millennium revival that had come with The Rising and Magic. It was no surprise that he pretty much ignored the album on the Working on a Dream tour in 2009.

 

So when Wrecking Ball was announcing I was a little bit sceptical and was hoping he didn't produce another stinker. He didn't. The album, whilst coming across as a little bit jingoistic at times, is absolutely first-rate. It is loaded with angry anthems and is often stylistically ambitious - it departs from the E Street formula.

 

Favourite songs would probably be We Take Care of Our Own, the title track and Death to my Hometown. The only disappointed is the studio version of Land of Hope and Dreams. It's much better live.

[Mr. Seven]

'We Take Care Of Our Own' is horrible. One of the most Bruce-by-numbers songs of all time. Found the album to be fairly routine, tbh. I'm surprised anybody would pick it as their #1 considering most diehards even seem to think it's a bit meh.

[Amazing_Red_Fan]

Really? The song's really grown on me! I saw it as a return to form after the shambles that was Working on a Dream. Plus there weren't many albums that did anything for me last year to be honest apart from Kendrick Lamar and Iris Dement's Sing the Delta.

[Mr. Seven]

Some really strong albums last year, imo.

 

America by Dan Deacon is fucking amazing, a real blitzkrieg of a record. He can be a bit out there but it's so well structured and the textures and lifts are off the charts great.

 

'Prettyboy' -

 

Really loved The Mars Volta's Noctourniquet. As you might expect, it's prog-rock that demands patience and often self-indulgent but as a swansong, it's gorgeous.

 

'Empty Vessels Make The Loudest Sound' -

 

Chromatics are still very much hipster band du jour but Kill For Love is sonically beautiful if a little long.

 

'Kill For Love' -

 

Hip hop/RnB wise, I loved El-P's Cancer4Cure and, of course, Frank Ocean's channelORANGE

 

'Drones Over Bklyn' -

 

'Thinking About You' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15IjgyHd60

 

But, for my #1... I think it's a tie, to be honest.

 

 

Matthew Dear is one of my favourite artists. He does reinvention so well, because it's never a huge attention-seeking things. It's just little shifts in his sound that move him further up the ladder. Beams is note-perfect in every sense and one of the best-produced albums of recent years. Guy's a fucking genius.

 

'Her Fantasy' -

 

 

I'm a Converge fanboy. I was never not going to worship this record. They are like Slayer in that you know what you're getting with each release but for my money there is no greater band out there today at putting across pain in such unflinching and somehow utterly beautiful fashion. It's otherworldly. All We Love We Leave Behind may not be Jane Doe (nothing ever will be) but it's yet another flawless effort.

 

Full album stream, because like every Converge record, its true power is in its entirety:

[HarmonicGenerator]

I'm with Amazing Red Fan, it would have to be Wrecking Ball for me. It's a choice from a very small ballot, admittedly, because I only bought a handful of albums last year - I probably bought more film soundtracks than actual albums (Brave's a bloody good one) - but Wrecking Ball's a cracking album. I wouldn't be quite as hard on Working On A Dream as ARF because I love 'Outlaw Pete' and my version of the album had 'The Wrestler' on it. But Wrecking Ball is a big improvement.

 

Part of my buying it was curiosity - it had come almost out of nowhere, and up until it was announced, I wasn't convinced the band would even continue without Clarence Clemons. But they did, and I wondered how they were going to do it; the addition of the horn section has worked really well and brings a different sort of feeling to the songs. We Take Care Of Our Own is a great way to ease into it, evoking the 2000s Springsteen before evolving into the 2010s sound (though I'd certainly argue against jingoism; this and songs like 'Death to my Hometown' and 'Jack of All Trades' certainly aren't all WOO USA). The title track is lots of fun, We Are Alive is nicely spooky and a good story, there's a studio version of American Land on there I've been waiting ages for... It's not all fantastic (I can't get on with 'Rocky Ground') but there's a lot to like.

[Chest Rockwell]

Max Tannone - Ghostfunk

 

This was a free mashup album released online, but was my most listenened to album of 2012 that was released in 2012.

 

It just happened to catch me at a perfect time, as I was getting more into afrobeat, funk, psych rock and soul from all over Africa, mostly from what is fast becoming my favourite decade for music, the 70s.

 

Wu Tang mashup albums are ten a penny, and I'm not nuts about the other two projects that this guy has done, but this one just works perfectly. Ghostface's style is really well complemented by the this sound, and his work matching the originals to the choice of Ghostface tracks is excellent.

 

If I have any complaints it's probably over his drums, but then again overall I like that he hasn't fucked with the tracks and layered in too much - he's preserved the feel of the original tracks well.

 

This, again, suits the style of beats that Ghost often raps over (and when he's at his best): loop-based beats where the original sound hasn't been messed with too much.

 

It's a free listen and download and I've just seen was released in 2011 so.... fuck you I'm leaving this here.

 

My other favourite album of last year that was definitely released last year was Rakka - Sotou. They're a Finnish jazz band that have absolutely no online presence as best as I can tell and I bought their CD when I saw them when they came over for the London Jazz Festival. It's great, but you'll just have to take my word for that. Bollocks.

[Scott Malbranque]

I'm gonna go with a tie between Until The Quiet Comes by Flying Lotus (which took me completely by surprise) and America by Dan Deacon.

Honourable mention to Ode by Brad Mehldau, Pure by Solarstone, The Grey score by Mark Streitenfeld and the Laborintus II album, purely coz I swallow anything Mike Patton feeds me whole.

[ColinBollocks]

 

The first thing that pops in my head is The Seer by Swans. A real return to form, after they made the lackluster comeback album My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky. Michael Gira was hyping this thing for ages saying it's 30 years worth of work, so it was surprising that it surpassed such hype. It's a beast of a thing that growls away for nearly two hours. It's probably the best thing Swans have released, too.

[neil]

Matthew Dear is one of my favourite artists. He does reinvention so well, because it's never a huge attention-seeking things. It's just little shifts in his sound that move him further up the ladder. Beams is note-perfect in every sense and one of the best-produced albums of recent years. Guy's a fucking genius.

 

'Her Fantasy' -

This really reminded me of 808 State. Good though, I will be listening to some more.