The Year in Review: The 25 Best Albums of 2006 (Pt. 2, #20-16)
20. Comets on Fire-Avatar I once read an interview with Ethan Miller, lead singer of Comets on Fire and in this so-called "interview," this so-called "Miller" tried to claim that he and the rest of the band don't take acid.I call bullshit. First off, Comets on Fire are from Santa Cruz, a town where it's easier to get acid than red meat. Second of all, Avatar itself sounds like the missing link between Moby Grape and the Quicksilver Message Service, all squalls of blistering psychedelic freek-outs set to howling bluesy vocals.
Third, the fucking Sub Pop website itself describes Avatar as having "riffs from mighty warriors on acid." Nice try Miller, but all those "kids, don't do dope" proclamations don't fool me.
So stoners and trippers of America, get yourself a copy of Avatar, the album of the year for the narcotically inclined.
(Don't believe that DARE shirt Miller was trying to rock. It's just hipster irony) College kids this means you. Throw it on right after bong rip #4 and watch it perfectly soundtrack a night of staring at the black light with glazed eyes, studying the trippy suddenly glowing Pink Floyd poster on your wall.
(Not that there's anything wrong with that). Don't be fooled by the respectable but unspectacular reviews that this album got ( ..
. ), Avatar is consistently mesmerizing. Retaining the thrashing guitars of their Sub Pop debut, Blue Cathedral, the Comets have expanded their sound to include slower, stoned ballad/jams, perfect to play on repeat when that high is waning.
If you somehow aren't convinced by the album, be sure to check out this band's live show. The sound is so thunderous it practically melts faces.
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19.
Danielson-Ships
Out of the 100-plus albums I listened to this year, Ships is by far the best album that I expected to hate. That doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement, but it is. And to be completely honest, I can't see how I would've thought otherwise, considering that reviews often compared Ships to the Blueberry Boat and Sung Tongs, two albums that will forever have a special rung in Passion of the Weiss hell for making me waste my hard-earned money on such indie-rock wankery.
But it wasn't just the Animal Collective and Fiery Furnaces comparisons that had me convinced Danielson would be Public Enemy #1 (or at least #3) in my mind. To quote Pitchfork's review:
"In his decade-long run as the ringleader of art-rock collective the Danielson Famile, Daniel Smith has practically defined the term "cult artist." His records-- most of them highly conceptual paeans to God-- can be exhausting, barraging listeners with surprise twists and turns and tangled song fragments.
Smith himself has an inimitable vocal style: a twisted melange of bleating, twinging yelps, whoops, and screeches."
I like my music listenable, so needless to say "bleating, twinging yelps" usually aren't my thing. But beneath its penchant for avant-garde experimentation, Ships has a pop heart.
Sure, it retains certain annoying qualities endemic in indie rock (song titles include "Ship That Majestic Suffix" and "He Who Flattened Your Flame is Gettin' Torched) and sure, half the time I listen to it, I debate who would win the ultimate nautical-themed indie rock celebrity death match between Danielson and Colin "Herman Melville Gets Me Hot" Meloy (coming in 2007 on the Passion of the Weiss...
stay tuned), but its quirkiness feels like real authentic weirdness rather than obnoxious gimmickry. Ships should serve as a blueprint for how to balance experimentation and melody, bleating yelps with infectious keyboard strokes and triumphant trumpet blasts. It might suffer at times under the weight of its own pretensions, but Ships is a fun and compelling record, one way better than it should have the right to be.
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18. The Game-Doctor's Advocate I've written at length about this album before, giving it a and naming it the third best hip-hop album of the year, so I won't spill many more words in its defense. It's earned a great deal of praise and an equally great deal of criticism, some of it warranted, most of it not.
But I'd just like to add one more thing that Doctor's Advocate's detractors should consider. Namely, the high caliber of the guest appearances that it features. Now I know it seems a tad strange to defend a Game album by lauding people who aren't the Game.
But there's often more to a guest appearance than meets the eye. Rappers are notoriously competitive and are loathe to get one-upped. That's why it was such a big insult when Nas chided Jay-Z for getting killed by Eminem on "Renegade.
"
In truth, the better a rapper is, the better his guest appearances are. Compare Kanye West's pathetic and empty braggadocio on the Pharrell track "I'm #1" to his well-written and funny verse on The Game's "Wouldn't Get Far." But it wasn't just Kanye who stepped up to the plate on Doctor's Advocate.
Veterans like Snoop, Daz, Kurupt, Nas, Xzibit deliver fierce verses recalling their mid-90s heyday. Why? Because they all know what you should: that like it or not The Game is one of the best five best rappers in major label hip-hop.
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17. LCD Soundsystem-45:33 No, I haven't jogged to this yet. But I imagine it'd be kinda' cool.
45 minutes of light airy instrumentals, with soul samples and eerie voices scratched into the background. After all, what says "I really shouldn't have eaten all those chips and guacamole when I had the beer munchies" than a ghostly voice buried in the mix, whispering "Shame on You." Or something.
Forget any "sell out" accusations that people might've thrown at James Murphy, this is damned good stuff, even if Phil Knight is using the profits made from this Nike tie-in product, to buy his fourth vest made of real gorilla chest. Truth is, I'm becoming convinced that James Murphy is a genius. Yeah yeah yeah, I know that's "like so totally dance-punk/2003" (seriously guys, not everything's a trend) but truth be told, I dismissed it as mere hipster blathering.
But that all changed with 45: 33 and the recently leaked and staggeringly good, Sound of Silver. I'm convinced that this guy could write jingles for Cosco hot dogs and it would come out sounding transcendent (and tasting delicious.) Forget all that jogging nonsense that this track was made for and just focus on the fact that this might be the best electronic album made in 2006.
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LCD Soundsystem-
16. Brightblack Morning Light-Brightblack Morning Light
I have a feeling that if Brightblack Morninglight had gone to my alma mater Occidental College, they would've fit right in with the sizable hippie population, which generally broke down into two distinct tribes. The first were a sour-lipped and self-righteous bunch, future-hipsters-to-be, who listened to Rage incessantly (not like there's anything wrong with that) and never seemed to do anything other than issue vague proclamations about "the man" despite having never actually worked a job or known anything other than their upper-class white bread private school lives.
The other sect of hippies was more peaceful and fun-loving. The kinds of kids who might've belived in all that hippy dippy nonsense but were less prostylizing in their approach. The kinds of kids who you might've disagreed with occasionally, but were more than happy to kick it with for a quick game of hacky-sack or a trip down to their dorm room to take vaporizer hits underneath their poster of Bob Marley.
In short, good people.
Brightblack Morning Light would seem to fall into the latter category. They aren't about to shove their beliefs down your throat, even if it isn't hard to tell where they stand (their website boasts links to the Circle of Life Foundation, Coyotes and Wolves Forever and Free Leonard Peltier).
And like the friendly tribe of hippies at Occidental College, Brightblack Morning Light's music seems less about convincing you to start the revolution and more about good vibes and like "the tunes...
man!!" Accordingly, the tunes on Brightblack Morninglight, their Matador debut, are nothing short of stellar, 10 druggy songs emerging from the shadows, full of whispered vocals, rolling drums and drowsy Rhodes organs that sink fast into your dazed cerebellum.
This isn't protest music. This is the music for the after-party, around 3:00 a.m.
when most of the guests have left and the girl next to you starts telling you about the cosmic experience she had at Burning Man 2002. Far out, man. Far out.
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