Here’s the thing about Ross’s favorite albums of the year: he’s only kind of into them. He heaps almost as much criticism on them as praise. I don’t understand it. Pretty good list, though. You won’t go wrong spending some serious time with any of these. [Correction. He’s actually really into them, but middle aged? I don’t know.]
The Decemberists – “Calamity Song”
From: Ross Angeles
To: Brandon Hall, Chris Mollica, Sarah Braunstein, Chris Atto
Hey everybody,
I had prepared an opening treatise on the slow fade of the album as an art form, but was running long on words so why don’t I just keep with the theme of opening with a joke.
Bacon and eggs walk into a bar. Bartender looks them over, shakes his head and says, “Sorry, we don’t serve breakfast here.”
All right, now onto the records.
THE DECEMBERISTS – The King is Dead
Colin Meloy has put down the flensing knife. He has dropped the Deadliest Catch obsession. He probably even saw The Cove. Whatever it is that happened, there are only a mere two mentions of bodies of water on The King Is Dead. No ships in a bottle. No contemplation on the rising prices of whale oil. No overwrought description of the surf breaking onto the sallow shores of the Faroe Islands. Colin Meloy is seemingly done with the water. His attention has turned to terra firma.
Scattered among the ten songs on the album there are multiple references to mountain peaks, riverbeds, ivy, jasmine, garland and trillium. Motherfucking trillium. Meloy invokes flora/fauna more often than Toby Keith sings about freedom. And apparently while auditing the undergrad botany class that apparently inspired this album, Meloy also picked up a lesson on self-restraint. After previously employing the philosophy “if it ain’t baroque, don’t sing it” and subjecting the band’s fans to The Tain, only one track on The King Is Dead checks in at over five minutes.
The record is filled with hummable, country-tinged songs like the opening track “Don’t Carry It All” which cribs it’s table-setting harmonica and percussion from Tom Petty. And but so it appears that Meloy now knows well enough to leave the highest of high-brow allusions to his creative collaborators. One of the record’s minor cuts, “Calamity Song,” was turned into an homage to the Eschaton sequence in David Foster Wallace’s epic, post-modern novel, Infinite Jest, and delivered the year’s geekiest confluence of song, image and written word.
YUCK – Yuck
I liked this record because I like 1997. In a musical landscape with an unsteady outlook on what a rock album is supposed to be, these kids from London apparently found the formula Rivers Cuomo wrote on the back of his binder at Harvard. Some straight forward songs with driving guitars interspersed by a couple ballads where you let the percussion slowly build before vocally slipping out of tune on the final chorus to signify unchecked passion to your audience. This has always worked for me. Still does.
Yuck – “Georgia”
CULTS – Cults
We’ve all heard “Go Outside” enough at this point to justifiably loathe it, but it’s what this s/t debut does beyond the hit single that earns it a spot here. The album may be debatably disposable and offer up female empowerment of the thinnest slice, but Cults manage to balance some heavy hooks on their willowy shoulders. Propped up by her wall of sound, Madeline Follin channels classic Roni Spector and creates a hybrid of modern and classic pop music.
Cults – “Abducted”
FLEET FOXES – Helplessness Blues
I’m not typically a fan of barn rock. The warble n’ roll of My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses has always cut a little thin with me. But something about Helplessness Blues really struck a chord. Wanna know what that something was? “Montezuma.” The funereal first track of the album, is the most beautiful four minutes of the entire year. Apparently to enrich the sonic quality on this song the band enlisted a Moog. I don’t know what that is, but I want two of them.
Fleet Foxes – “Montezuma”
YOUTH LAGOON – The Year of Hibernation
This was my gem. My point-scorer. This under-discovered record was set to solidify my artistic bona fides and up my indie credit score. Then I listened to the lyrics.
In the defense of Trevor Powers – the Boise, Idaho solo act who records as Youth Lagoon – he is only 22 andThe Year of Hibernation is an ideal headphones record that doesn’t really need lyrics to communicate feeling. Unfortunately he wrote lyrics. For each song. Pretty much all of which read like bad dorm room poetry.
Normally I wouldn’t take him to task for this crime. Back before I was brittle, I was an earnest, emotional collegian. It was only the lack of Garage Band and no feel for melody that shielded me from similar minor success and the resultant message board ridicule. So I can forgive Trevor his undercooked lyrics. He was at least smart enough to shroud them in enough fuzz to render them primarily unintelligble. The problem is his label wrote this:
“Throughout the course of 2010, Powers began to write an album about things he had a hard time talking about. He claims that when he tries to talk about it to people, he doesn’t make sense.”
Turns out Trevor’s instincts were accurate. He doesn’t make any sense. And for some reason Fat Possum Records wants you to be aware of his mental deficiencies. Some selected lyrics from the album include:
“The demon likes the moon / Like a stroll against the wall / I’ve watched all afternoon / I’m not watching at all.”
“My mother said to me / Don’t stop imagining / The day you do is the day you die / Now I pull a wanton carriage / Instead of the horses, grazing along / I was having fun / We were all having fun.”
Overall this record confirms two things about Trevor Powers – 1) he is a melodic talent that all music lovers should keep an eye on, and 2) he is a real-life Patrick Bateman that the federal government should keep an eye on.
Youth Lagoon – “Cannons”
Youth Lagoon – “Montana”
“Hold my hands, rip at the seams, I’m not a Catholic but I know what it means”
Ross
***
From: Brandon Hall
To: Ross Angeles, Sarah Braunstein, Chris Mollica, Chris Atto
Wait, are you sure these are your favorite albums? You seem almost as critical of them as effusive!
“The album may be debatably disposable and offer up female empowerment of the thinnest slice…”
“Unfortunately he wrote lyrics. For each song. Pretty much all of which read like bad dorm room poetry.”
Not to mention, it seems like you may only like the first song on Helplessness Blues.
And all of these made your Best Of 2011 list!? Man. Must have been a rough year for you.
b
***
From: Ross Angeles
To: Brandon Hall, Sarah Braunstein, Chris Mollica, Chris Atto
I legitimately loved all these albums – I’m just an insecure man nearing middle age obsolescence who feels the need to undercut the things he enjoys by copping to their deficiencies.
Plus I burned a lot of words on the whaling tradition of The Decemberists so I had to leave it short on Helplessness Blues, but tracks “Battery Kinzie,” “Helplessness Blues,” and “Lorelai” rip.
***
From: Zach Evans
To: Ross Angeles, Brandon Hall, Chris Mollica, Sarah Braunstein, Chris Atto
It was totally worth it. All articles about the Decemberists should expound as much on their past nautical obsessions.
***
From: Sarah Braunstein
To: Ross Angeles, Zach Evans, Brandon Hall, Chris Mollica, Chris Atto
The Decemberists are the founders (and only members?) of Nautical Rock as a genre.
…Oh wait…except for Gordon Lightfoot.
***
From: Zach Evans
To: Sarah Braunstein, Ross Angeles, Brandon Hall, Chris Mollica, Chris Atto
That will change when my side project “The Call Me Ishmaels” takes off.
***
From: Ross Angeles
To: Sarah Braunstein
Sarah, those in the know call it Naut-Rock.
***
From: Sarah Braunstein
To: Ross Angeles
Touche, Ross. Tew. shay.
AudioVole 
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