TIGER ATTACK TWINS: ALBUMS OF 2011

Pete here. As most of y'all know, I get a little nuts in December about my year end Top Albums list. I've been compiling a list for over 10 years & each year they tend to get a bit more elaborate & thought-out.

Below you'll find a Top 15 Albums of 2011 list, along with a short list of some honorable mentions.

Please feel free to drop a comment below with yours!

TIGER ATTACK TWINS TOP ALBUMS OF 2011

15. Youth Lagoon - "The Year of Hibernation"

While we've already reached one apex of bedroom rock popularity in the past few years (the great chillwave explosion of 2009, anyone?), we're at an amazing moment in time, technologically speaking. A musician can fuck around & write an album entirely on a computer, then toss it into the great void known as Teh Internetz. If they're lucky & it's really good (but mostly if they're lucky), it'll take off & hit the stratosphere like Paula Deen riding on a stick of butter. And so we have Boise's Trevor Powers, a kid who's name sounds like the first result you get from an Adam McKay character name generator. In reality, Powers sounds like Daniel Johnston reinterpreting Arcade Fire's "Funeral" underneath a couch cushion pillow fort after reading Where the Wild Things Are as the flashlight batteries start to flicker & fade (if you've ever heard Radical Face, they would be the nearest comparison). Kids like Trevor Powers have been making music this good, this personal, this homespun for an extremely long time. The simple fact that Powers is living & making music in a veritable 'steroid era' of bedroom rock, where distribution channels are flat & a catchy song can take the internet by storm faster than a flicked cigarette can catch on some tinder & set a thousand acres to ash. Still, that fact actually makes his rise all the more impressive. He's not the only wannabe melodymaker camped out in his bedroom throwing songs together, after all. "The Year of Hibernation" wouldn't stand out in a crowded field unless it were actually this good.

14. Toro y Moi - "Underneath the Pine"

For all his accomplishments, Chaz Bundick to me is first & foremost a torchbearer for our college town of Columbia, SC. Most of his videos are shot there, & beyond that fact he's a fantastic ambassador to the city simply by staying there. When I lived there, one of the best things about Columbia (added to a list of a hundred other amazing points) was the potential of greatness, both musically & otherwise. I moved back home to New York in 2001, when Columbia's indierock scene had a major case of Athens-envy. The Elephant 6 collective (Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, et al) had been blowing our minds from 3 hours due south in Georgia & everyone felt Columbia's scene could get there as well...we just didn't have any evidence at the time. The aforementioned Chillwave Explosion of 2009 - the one that catapulted bands like Toro Y Moi, Neon Indian & Washed Out into thousands of 4 Loko-fueled house party conversations - was significant not only due to the fact that the kids had found a replacement for Sparks (I'm sorry, but Sparks was at least somewhat drinkable!), but also for being the first musical subgenera to spring up in the era of the realtime status update & the reblog. Because for every house party conversation, there were five times as many Tumblrs broadcasting that Shit was Getting Real. But "Underneath the Pine" shows a lot of growth since Bundick's first record, & flexes his deep appreciation for the sonic accomplishments of 70s Solid Gold-era funk & disco. It's not swaggerless, but definitely airs more on the polished side of the genre. An absolutely great driving/party record.

13. Bon Iver - "Bon Iver"

With apologies to Justin Vernon's most passionate fanatics, the "lonely in a cabin with a guitar writing raw, gut-wrenching songs about my ex-girlfriend" approach to the songwriting craft ain't my thing (too angsty!). And so this is why "For Emma, Forever Ago" was a record I just couldn't quite stomach. My decision that I "don't like Bon Iver," though it has stubbornly persisted in many conversations, frankly doesn't stand up to the fact that his new record is vastly, wildly different, more daring...like a walk out onto the ice behind that cabin on the lake in March after a week of warm days. Vernon's not resting on any laurels from that record, but the impressive thing here is that we all know he could. Sure he's still got that falsetto thing goin' on, which is still a bit too Bon Iver-y for me at times. But frankly, there are moments here that anyone who likes & appreciates good, interesting & challenging music will get pulled into. Specifically the album's closer, "Beth/Rest," is what brought me to the point where I can listen & appreciate. Ironic 80s-inspired ballads are a dime a dozen but lest we forget, Vernon's been stuck in a cabin feeling heartsick for the better part of the last decade (I kid, I kid). Somehow he manages to work in synths, sax solos, flute flourishes & various other slick production techniques with painful sincerity. For me, it's the first Bon Iver song worthy of absorbing an emotional gut-punch over, & it sounds like the dancing of Phil Collins tears down a pair of warm cheeks. Just a pitch-perfect 80s soundtrack ballad. This song is Stallone arm wrestling for the love of his son. It is Dudley Moore walking by his lonesome in the New York night. I can absolutely imagine myself gazing out at the ocean walking barefoot slowly at sunset while wearing a cream blazer with comedically oversized shoulder pads. Without this song, I doubt I would've given the rest of the record a chance. Not ready to declare it a Grammy winner, but it's definitely grown on me. I don't know that anyone's compared this record to Talk Talk's later work, but it seems inspired by "Spirit of Eden" & "Laughing Stock", both of which are quiet, brainy masterpieces that I'm mostly too impatient to digest.

12. The War On Drugs - "Slave Ambient"

My first impression upon hearing "Come to the City" (arguably the crown jewel on the record) was 'if Kurt Vile was force-fed a bunch of Tom Petty & Arcade Fire while driving 90 mph with the windows down, then asked to reinterpret "Born to Run" from atop his overheated Pontiac Firebird on the side of a desert highway', which I think pretty much nails the song & the record. Of course at the time I didn't realize The War on Drugs is actually Vile's former band. Which makes perfect sense. "Slave Ambient" is really reverb heavy, but it's certainly not a chilled-out-blissed-out-stoner record. These boys are restless & they don't waste any opportunity to express that sentiment. It's a road trip record for that moment on the trip where you've been driving all night & it's morning & you're beyond exhausted but you can't sleep because even if you did stop now you'd feel the buzzing of the road throughout your body & see the horizon on the inside of your eyelids so you just drink some more coffee & try to push through it. But that road trip is just a daydream for Adam Granduciel - he's exhausted from thinking about it, but he's confessing that he hasn't even had the guts to raise anchor. It's enough to make you wonder...is this what it's like to live in Philly? Vocally, he channels a fine line between Petty & Dylan. Lyrically, he's a beaten down Springsteen - someone who feels like he's just about pissed out his fire. Maybe there are some embers buried in there, but he's not sure if they can be stoked back to a roar. "Your Love is Calling My Name" sounds like losing your sense of direction somewhere on the Jersey Turnpike & not knowing which rest stop you're at or what direction you're heading in - is this Clara Barton or Vince Lombardi or somewhere in-between? "Baby Missiles" channels Arcade Fire channeling Springsteen, in the best way possible of course. This is a record for the restless, for the rooted, for the road as an actuality but more as an idea or a concept in a book you re-read until the pages were dog-eared but never had the guts to act out. But what Granduciel seems to have figured out is that some of the best escape artists in the world don't even need a road or a vehicle to convince those around them they're elsewhere.

11. Wilco - "The Whole Love"

Wilco have gone through many various metamorphoses since "AM" came out in 1995. Having been a fan since 1996's "Being There," I'd say it's been about one per album. They're one of the few bands who have managed to stay pretty fresh & interesting with each new record over the span of more than 15 years. I've gotta confess, though, they kinda lost me on "Sky Blue Sky" (too jammy...the album that thrust them into dad rock territory) & "Wilco (The Album)" wasn't quite strong enough to redeem them for me. It seemed like Jeff Tweedy was mailing it in. "Being There" was a twangy masterpiece, "Summerteeth" was almost like a lost Big Star record, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" was...well, one of the best records of the past 20 years. Even after Tweedy jettisoned Jay Bennett (long thought of as Wilco's secret weapon), they unleashed "A Ghost Is Born," a dark, deliriously great lab experiment of a record. I don't want to rehash my overall Meh-ness of those next two records when the point here is how "The Whole Love" employs the perfect mix of swagger, songsmanship & singalong-ready tracks. Tweedy has clearly been having fun on all the records since "Ghost..." but this is the first record that makes me believe the man no longer needs to find new ways to emotionally torture himself in order to write brilliant pop songs. There's a comfort here that comes from the experience of knowing that you're working with a group of talented, driven, professional musicians (frankly, Tweedy never seemed too comfortable in that jacket before, but it looks just dandy on him now). "Sunloathe" sounds like a lost track from "Summerteeth," (like the self-assured kid brother of "Pieholden Suite", itself a song that should've been sung by Elvis Costello) but at the same time it's vastly more mature. "Dawned on Me" is a rollicking whistle-ready tune (the whistling is even in there already - less work for you!) that closes out with a lot of oohs & aahs. The album closes strong - "Rising Red Lung" is gonna please the jammy dad rockers who've caught onto Wilco over the past few records, but at the same time it's just a joy to listen to in general. The title track could be the most confident & fun Wilco song to date. Finally, "One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)" is a touching 12 minute eulogy that wrestles with faith & death & family & the light we're all drawn to but afraid of reaching. "Bless my mind I miss being told how to live, what I learned without knowing, how much more I owe than I can give," Tweedy confesses, seemingly telling his demons why it was time to move on. The man used to have to make up stories for the sake of compelling songwriting that felt heavy & complex. And yet now his own sadness & wisdom have a light playfulness to them.

10. John Maus - "We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves"

John Maus must be really pissed off right now. Having carefully crafted a reputation for making deliberately grating music (& collecting lots of panned reviews from critics in the process), Maus actually throws together a record here that sounds like Devo inviting David Bowie & Nick Cave over for dinner having planted some acid in the meatloaf, then gradually turning the thermostat up to 90, flipping on a bunch of rented fog machines & waiting for the drugs to kick in before giving the three-stomp-signal to that friend they paid to dress up like Freddy Krueger who's hiding in the basement. It's a frequently brilliant record coming from a dude who prides himself on art haus statement jamz, which doesn't exactly lend itself well to success (not critical, & especially not commercial). But the critics love this record, which is why Maus is probably at least little bit pissed. Anyway, it's super post-modern & I don't really have the capacity to understand it is the point. Nobody does. But seriously, the Ariel Pink connection here is pretty obvious when you hear the similar mumbly echoed vocal stylings (he's also played keys with Animal Collective, FYI). The record itself warms considerably as it progresses. "Head for the Country" is EXTREMELY Talking Heads-ish, if you replaced the entire band with robots. "Cop Killer" is a classic art school anarchist fuck you to the establishment (whatever that is) that's straightforward message is enough to make Ice-T blush like a schoolgirl & get your average run-of-the-mill Republican to boil under the collar. "Matter of Fact" sounds like the song Count Dracula's butler would play in the foyer to kick-start a dance party. Ironically, Maus' unleashes his most straightforward & sincere moment - "Believer" - at the bitter end. The fact that it doesn't really fit as a closing song may be the point here. One could almost picture Maus tracking the record at random to make some kind of statement against the digital era. Anyway, considering that Maus is a dude who had tried really hard to make inaccessible post-modern music in the past, this record on the whole is pretty great from a pop-sensibility standpoint.

9. Panda Bear - "Tomboy"

Noah Lennox has always exuded a sort of cosmic surfer vibe that defines just about everything he creates. In the Animal Collective senior superlatives, he'd certainly be voted most likely to move to the Carribbean & live in a shack on the beach. I'm going to get the obligatory Brian Wilson (the Beach Boy, not the bearded SF Giant) comment out of the way here. You can almost imagine Lennox waking up every morning, rolling a spliff & listening to "Feel Flows" a few times before throwing on "Cocomo" just for the fuck of it. "Slow Motion" sounds like a marching army of Kingstonian dancehall forces, dreads swaying in unison as they perform elaborate bayonet drills. "Surfer's Hymn" can't even be described once you've seen the absolutely incredible video - itself a tribute to all the surfers who have been taken by the sea. On "Last Night at the Jetty," we find Lennox singing yet another bro tribute in what sounds like an underwater fortress of blissed-out reverb. Basically what I'm saying here is that most songs that inspire a sense of bromance are a) terrible, & b) not bromantic in nature. Noah Lennox is a major exception to this rule.

8. Fleet Foxes - "Helplessness Blues"

The Foxes' self-titled debut was a frequently brilliant record that had an almost Chauceresque feel...if you were permitted to replace the characters from "The Canterbury Tales" with a band of merry minstrels strolling the countryside spreading glee to unsuspecting villagers. By contrast, "Helplessness Blues" is a much more mature effort that, yes, absolutely borrows from the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young playbook from all the appropriate places, while focusing on a darker season. The strolling minstrels don't have the same spring in their step this time around (not sure if the black plague decimated their families or what). It's still got a lot of the same soaring choral harmonies, but that carefree spirit has clouded over a bit. "Montezuma" starts out with an echoing plucked guitar that quickly hides behind soaring harmonies as Robin Pecknold starts in on the gushing over growing pains. On the superb "Bedoin Dress," he sensitively lays down some of those regrets, remembering fondly that girl in the geometric patterned dress. The title track starts out with a little "Two-Headed Boy" fake-out strum (Neutral Milk Hotel, people) & once again sees Pecknold confessing "I was raised up believing I was somehow unique". As the album progresses, you get the sense he's scooted further onto the edge of the proverbial chair & is glaring out the window onto a grey afternoon as he delivers a range of shiftless mid-20s anthems with an earnest "what's it all mean" yearning. Pecknold is certain there are some answers just out of his grasp. This is a man adjusting to feeling small for the first time & trying to convince himself that he's going to make a difference, leave a mark on the world, get remembered. What Pecknold does seem to understand is that he's in the midst of a personal evolution - change is inevitable, so he might as well be the one making the hard decisions, leaving the creature comforts he's amassed behind. Overall it amounts to a sort of hopeful sadness, & the album closes with "Grown Ocean," a pitch perfect exclamation point to this slow burning wick of leftover youthful angst he's is trying his best to smoke off. This is gonna sound backhanded, but the future film adaptation of the dude version of "Eat, Pray, Love" will totally feature this song as the soundtrack to the hero's triumphant moment when he summits atop Machu Picchu having just fallen in love with his female sherpa, or something like that. Okay, that didn't SOUND backhanded, it kinda WAS backhanded. I just can't help myself - Fleet Foxes are so sincere & earnest here, but in a way that we can all relate to. A beautiful record.

7. Ford & Lopatin - "Channel Pressure"

Formerly known as Games but forced to change their name (due to a lawsuit with Hasbro or Parker Bros or something), Ford & Lopatin have fully hit their groove under the new monicker. "Channel Pressure" sounds like Jan Hammer emerging from a neon-lit back alley in a shredded, blood-stained cream blazer after once & for all vanquishing arch nemesis Harold Faltermeyer in a knife fight. That was my first impression, & it's a fitting one on account of the fact that F&L actually tracked the record at Jan Hammer's studio in Miami. No shit. No word on whether Tubbs & Crockett were involved, though several of these jams would be worthy should some enterprising film editor ever decide to splice them into episodes of Vice. "Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)" needlessly asks for forgiveness here, though come to think of it I am a bit offended that F&L could so severely underestimate my capacity for MIDI. Straight up, this is one of the most perfectly epic throwback 80s jamz I've ever heard, & perfect for highway driving if that's your thing. "Joey Rogers" sounds like some burner took a bunch of e & stole Marty McFly's art car on the playa, landing back in the old west to show Mad Dog Tannen & his crew how to dance a REAL moonwalk. It goes toe-to-toe with just about any synth-driven pop song from the 80s & out-grooves it. Play this record for one of those guys dressed head-to-toe in silver paint who hang around tourist spots performing for spare change if you want to see a short circuit Johnny No. 5 would be envious of. Despite how I'm making it sound, "Channel Pressure" is NOT a tribute to/emulation of sticky 80s electro grooves. F&L don't confine their grooves to the neon geometric patterned trapper keeper Screen Powers used to tuck his math homework into. There are some real r&b-centric inspirations here (beyond the usual Chromeo comparisons). Their sound is completely fresh & very much of 2011. This is definitely the most FUN record of the year, for me.

6. Wild Flag - "Wild Flag"

If you're like me & you think Sleater-Kinney's best moments were mostly led by Carrie Brownstein (yes, the same Carrie Brownstein who's recently inspired a thousand hipster crushes by lampooning her hometown with Fred Armisen in "Portlandia"), then this is your moment to let your Wild Flag fly. If I could impart some wisdom upon my high school self, among a long list of advisable points of note would be to slip lil' me a copy of the first two Sleater-Kinney records (both of which which came out while I was still in high school). For starters, maybe it would've inspired a true punk phase - a phase I never had - & secondly it might've given me some more worthwhile crush material. Or at least I might've taped a Sleater-Kinney poster to my wall next to Cameron Diaz & Jennifer Aniston. All riot grrrl non-regrets aside, Wild Flag is hands down one of the most infectious records of the year. "Glass Tambourine" is imminently singalongable & features a phenomenal breakdown of three part harmonies dissolving into pulse-pounding kickdrum heartbeats & glass-shattering reverb. Something will come over you during "Something Came Over Me," but don't be shy & fight the urge to bob your head in agreement & turn up the volume when Brownstein purrs "let's let the good times roll". This is exactly the record you'd hope & expect from a collection of some of the most influential female rock musicians of the past 20 years, yet it still manages to be surprising, fun & one of those rare albums you can listen to three times in a row & not get sick of.

5. Destroyer - "Kaputt"

Whoa, Dan Bejar, WHAT HAPPENED here? Listening to "Kaputt" is like witnessing an evolutionary leap - a gilled creature growing lungs & leaving the ocean to walk on land (due to the overwhelming sense of ennui brought on by the sea, no doubt). Destroyer has always toed that Roxy Music line perfectly, but this is more like Yacht Rockxy Music. Bejar delivers that same old literary free-association but here sounds like a man who's fading fast at the end of the party. Crunching guitars & yelping staggered spit-take vocals have been toned down like a clock in need of a good wind, & breezed over with sax solos, breathy female vocal accompaniment (Tenille, is that you?) & slick disco beats. Here, Bejar - in dirty captain's hat - channels John Fahey walking down a supermarket aisle with shelves stacked with books rather than colorful boxes of cereal, 70s orange creamsicle floor tiling lighting up underneath his feet as he moves, a la Billie Jean. But Bejar's collared shirt is unbuttoned too low & his grey suit is wrinkled with the ease - or exhaustion - of a man who slept on the couch last night & is too tired to remember what he came here for. Graceful shabbiness really thrived in the softrock era but style rarely trumps substance as movements go. Bejar has always brought both along in spades, here he really raids both war chests heavily. The title track - and a few others, for that matter - have a 'conflicted man with a heavy heart self-medicating in the big city' vibe a la Dudley Moore's 'Arthur'. But lest you think Bejar is only caught between the moon & New York City, here he confesses to a lot more than that. It's a record for the man drinking alone at the end of the bar in a divey old nightclub frequented by aging party girls, then walking the streets all night so he doesn't have to go home to his empty houseboat. And before he does go home & pass out, he'll stop by the store to pick up a box of cereal & some milk.

4. Neon Indian - "Era Extraña"

This one's a grower, big time. While Alan Palomo's 2009 debut under the Neon Indian monicker ("Psychic Chasms") sounded like your cool older cousin's "Radical Summer Mix" that had accidentally been left on the dash at the beach for a long day in the hot sun & warped itself silly that one fateful August afternoon back in '87, "Era Extraña" shows a sonic maturity building on that same formula. The production is much slicker, though it still has that someone slipped you a tab right before you stayed up all night playing Nintendo games feeling to it. Actually, the album is more of an unwritten game soundtrack - with more than its fair share of Boss Round songs, IMHO - about a kid who needs to battle his way across an endless landscape of dance clubs to locate & defeat that pesky guy who shouts Last Call right before they won't let you order any more drinks. "Polish Girl" starts off like a Swat Team armed with keytars kicking down your door. "Hex Girlfriend" is one of the catchiest, hookiest, can't-stop-bobbing-your-head songs of the year & will absolutely make you reach or the volume knob on more than one occasion. And "Fallout" is a total hipster makeout song (really the best & only way to put it). Apparently, Palomo was really influenced by French synthpop around this record. Not exactly sure what that means or how it influenced his sound here, being a bit of a non-expert on French synthpop, but I'm happy to report this ain't a sophomore slump. "Era Extraña" is one of the most infectious records of the year, hands down.

3. Active Child - "You Are All I See"

Honestly, there isn't a better opening song on any album that came out this year than the title track of Active Child's first full-length. The goosebumps kick in on second :01 - right when a plucked harp flocks & falls down like a thousand mystery birds over a frozen field of synths - & don't let up for a solid four minutes. It's such a ridiculously beautiful song that Esme & I nearly used it as the processional track for our wedding in October. The one thing that's been said most about this record is that it's very personal, & if you feel like you've snuck into into a confessional booth here, you're forgiven. Pat Grossi tends to have that effect on people. Not only does he pour his heart out with the best of them (major major r&b undertones on much of this record fyi), he's also a former choirboy & does his best to fill up St. Patrick's, Grace Cathedral, the Vatican & pretty much any imaginary giant stone-carved stained-glass-clad testament to God here. I nominate Grossi as the artist most likely for a future world tour playing all the most bumpin' basilicas. How did we get from "confessional" to "party"? Listen to "Playin' House" & you'll know what I mean (I'll redirect you back to the r&b comment between my last set of ellipses). "Ivy" sounds like a sonata written for God by a cyborg struggling with its emerging sense of self as it learns how to question the meaning of life. I know...now it totally sounds like a sci-fi nerd is writing this, but bear with me. "Ancient Eye" kicks off with creepy space ship synths & devolves into a kind of madness that can only be found in the depths of a man trapped in a void. And Grossi pulls off the role of cosmonaut contemplating his own decisions - & his own existence - with aplomb here. You can almost imagine him in the front pew, eyes glazed over, slowly mouthing prayer & thumbing a rosary as the gravitational pull of his own regrets slowly pulls him in & pulls him apart like a massive black hole.

2. Wye Oak - "Civilian"

The first moment you here Jenn Wassner step into "Two Small Deaths," you'll drop what you're doing. It's at the same time gothic, grungy & graceful, like the sonic equivalent of letting yourself into a beautiful old house that's boarded up at the fringe of your neighborhood knowing that you're going to sleep here tonight & then burn it down in the morning. Initially "Civilian" struck me as being a child of grunge - the kind of sound you'd imagine Frances Bean's future band to aspire to - yet it's very much spiritually alive in a way that grunge tried so hard to bash to smithereens with a million carelessly smashed guitars. The end result is one of the most haunted albums in recent memory. At first, "Holy Holy" sounds like a Sonic Youth soundtracked chase scene through the woods, then suddenly it's all teeth & nails, prey becoming predator. "Dog's Eyes" starts out an electric jangle before exploding into the aforementioned house fire, then panning out to the front lawn before repeating the progression as the neighbor's house catches. The title track is a second line funeral march, but grey skies soon give way to a wall of waves & fury as a hurricane bears down. "Plains" trudges along like an injured animal with plenty of fight left in it, & gnashes its jaws menacingly before heading towards the light. "Hot As Day," while not necessarily the finest song on the album, definitely has the benefit of being the catchiest & most vocally gorgeous. All in all, this is an infectious & dark album, capable of subconsciously reminding you of everything you loved about grunge while not sounding at all like anything from that era. It's like you planted a mini Soundgarden in the back corner of the yard behind your Beach House. This record lingers & leaves itself behind like a bouquet of flowers decaying on a tombstone.

1. M83 - "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming"

From the :20 second mark of 'Intro,' right at the moment you realize your arm hairs are beginning to stand at attention, you'll know this is a special record. It's the kind of record that can lend a sense of gravity to just about anything you're doing. Time will slow down. You'll detect scents in the air you hadn't smelled a moment ago, see things on the horizon that hold a promise you thought was dead. Before the record was released, Anthony Gonzales said in an interview that "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming" would be "very, very, very epic," & folks...he wasn't kidding. It's an extremely rare gift to be able to lift & drop an emotional sledgehammer time & again over the course of a record, let alone a double album. I've been an M83 fan since "Before the Dawn Heals Us" in 2005, & having spent more than a few moments lying on the floor while 'Teen Angst' filled the room near the tail end of some monumental dance party, I get the electro John Hughes soundtrack thing. Just like you, Gonzales puts his pants on one leg at a time...but when his pants are on, he writes anthems. There's more polish here than on past efforts - his production skills have really come into their own. But let's not kid ourselves - the real difference is in Gonzales' lack of inhibition. It's in his conversion from penning perfect angsty nostalgia-driven synth anthems to celebratory anthems, & his presence behind the mic has never loomed larger. He has fully emerged from his own shell here. Listen to "Soon, My Friend" & you're hearing what it sounds like to capture longing on a hot summer night in your parents backyard, take it inside & put it in a glass jar with a few holes poked into the lid. But as the song winds down & wisps away, it's clear that Gonzales is a master of the catch & release. You can't keep a moment forever. The best you can do is borrow it, then honor it & keep it alive by remembering. 'Midnight City' is the kind of song that volume knobs were meant to be broken for. Hell, even the fact that it soundtracked a Victoria's Secret ad couldn't bring me to love it any less. Listen, I tried to do the "their early stuff was better" thing here. I really did. But I just couldn't convince myself. For starters it's a lame tactic, & secondly it just isn't true. No disrespect to his previous work - it's brilliant - there just isn't anything that approaches this level of raw epic glory. "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming" is a crash cart shocking life back into a kicked dead heart. It's music for stargazing, for that sense of wonder & exploration that seems all the more fleeting as you get older. It's the kind of primal scream you haven't been able to muster since you were 17. Thematically, comparisons to the films of John Hughes are apt & unavoidable - listen to "OK Pal" & tell me you don't want to dance around in a library or walk across a football field in front of a sunset then pump your fist in the air, I dare you - the remarkable achievement here is that Gonzales is able to capture all of these complex, innocent emotions with a depth of sincerity & maturity that everyone felt they possessed at 17 years old & let slip somewhere along the road since. The kind of sincerity that regularly went ignored or patronized or misunderstood at that age is displayed here in earnest. Gonzales doesn't want to give his younger self any helpful advice - he'd rather keep that innocence alive & well nourished. And here he's helping the rest of us do the same.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Pure X - "Pleasure"

Austin's Pure X sound like a shoegaze summer to Galaxie 500's winter. A lethargic, confident record, "Pleasure" is an intimate conversation sitting on the edge of a pool at 3am after too many Lone Stars when it's still 90 degrees out - even punctuated by the title of the opening track, "Heavy Air," which sounds exactly like the name implies. The whole record almost drips with sweat. In fact, the record was recorded as three dudes jamming together. No overdubs, no edits. And it's THICK with reverb, guitar distortion & steady no-nonsense Charlie Watts-style drumming. Weirdly, it's the bass that holds the line here & keeps the record from spiraling into stoner rock territory. "Pleasure" is a record built for latenite listening - a soundtrack for your nightcap, perhaps? - ideally in headphones, where the full glory of its blown-out, so-fuzzy-it-makes-you-sneeze guitar work can be best appreciated.

Kurt Vile - "Smoke Ring for my Halo"

His haters assert that Vile is nothing more than a slack-jawed stoner. Though he knows how to trail off on a thought with the best of 'em, Vile here is like Tom Petty seeped into a sonic relaxation tea. There's no genre-bending going on here - just a dude who has respect for the kind of classic rock he discovers in his dad's record collection, the will to let what he's learned inspire what he creates, & the nonchalance necessary to make it feel like it's his own sound.

Sandro Perri - "Impossible Spaces"

"Changes," the opening song on Sandro Perri's tripped out prog masterpiece, sounds like Sam Prekop teaming up with Dirty Projectors to form a Steely Dan tribute band. It's also one of the most uplifting, remarkable & beautiful songs of the year - the kind of song that'll give you goosebumps the first 100 times you listen to it (seriously...it's fucking gorgeous). The record on the whole is a strange shapeshifter - from flourishes of flamenco guitars backed by vaguely menacing synths on "Love & Light" to some weird funky jazz flute (yes, jazz flute) on...well, on multiple tracks actually. In actuality, the record on the whole is pretty weird - interesting but weird. But "Changes" being one of my favorite songs of the year propels this into my honorable mentions.

Sleep∞Over - "Forever"

I'm a big fan of their side project, Boy Friend (which sounds like a low-fi basement cassette version of Sleep∞Over with more haunty beautiful pop hooks), though I think "Forever" definitely has its moments. A few of the songs on this record sound like creepy occult music inspired by those scenes from 'Friday the 13th' when Jason is about to show up with his axe & hockey mask, but in its best moments, "Forever" floats with ease into a hazy beautiful dreamscape. Give them an album or two - these girls will find the right blend of style & substance.

Puro Instinct - "Headbangers in Ecstasy"

If you listen to this & think "Ariel Pink's baby cousins steal his Cocteau Twins records, grow up, get pretty, rent a fog machine & head to the basement with a sack of weed," you're not far off. "Stilyagi" was one of my favorite songs of 2010, & it also makes an appearance on this record. Actually, it's the best song on the album. Still, for being a coupla teenage girls (seriously, one of them is still in high school), they're off to a pretty solid start.