Albums of the Year 2012

In alphabetical order by artist

Blood Red Shoes – In Time To Voices

Blood Red Shoes will not be remembered as the greatest band that ever walked the face of the earth. They may not even be remembered as the best band from Brighton. Boy-girl duo Steven Ansell (drums and vocals) and Laura-Mary Carter (guitar and vocals) produce simple rock n’roll music without frills or concern for decibel levels. The solidity of their records does not even speak to the noise they produce live which is at odds for the minimal set-up the band have on stage. Indeed, on a large stage they look positively vulnerable until they tone up and blast off. And while the songs have very little clever poetical wordplay, deep thoughts or progressive music, they are catchy and pleasingly melodic in places.

Best Track – Stop Kicking

Fang Island – Major

Fang Island describe their music as ‘everyone high-fiving each other’ and their first self-titled album lived up to this, providing bouncy instrumental tracks supplemented only with yelps and ‘woos’. Any tracks with lyrics, ‘Daisy’ being the obvious example, were slurred to the point of being incomprehensible. The realisation that their follow-up would include full, intelligble, vocals was met with concern from fans of the first, who worried that their playfulness and joy might be lost. While the album is a more considered effort than the first and has seen the band develop, they’ve not grown into a stifling maturity. First track Kindergarten even makes this clear in its chorus of ‘and all I know, I learnt in Kindergarten.’ The energy and vibrancy of the first album is still there but have been joined by pithy lyrics which lend themselves to sing-a-longs. The vocals themselves are not particularly strong or with any great character, but in their simplicity comes a real stadium rock feel that the average tone deaf fan can belt it out to. This mixes in with charming moments of deftness in the first and last tracks on the album, the aforementioned ‘Kindergarten’ and ‘Victorinian’, which driven by piano are lighter than the rest of the album but no less sunny or singable. This is a grown up record by a young and youthful band.

Best Track – Chime Out 

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

The world failed to end, as predicted by the Mayan calendar, on the 21st December this year but you feel had Godspeed You! Black Emperor climbed to the top of Mount Zion that day and cranked their amps to eleven the rapture may have arrived on schedule. Given that several songs on this LP date back some ten years, written and performed but not included on previous albums, it is no surprise that this does not move GY!BE in any new directions. But what Allelujah! does is to refine and refocus. Gone are the several minutes of near silence in the middle of movements and the sampled inserts which, while they do add to the atmosphere of the songs can deny them momentum. But this album has largely done away with these and is all the better for it. While the individual tracks do contain discernible movements within them, they flow between and build, seen best on opening ‘Mladic’ which builds up to a final six minutes of jaw-dropping doom-laden guitar work. The third track, ‘We Drift Like Worried Fire’ is also a particular highlight on an album which is as good as anything GY!BE have produced before.

Best Track – Mladic

Sigur Ros – Valtari

The new Sigur Ros album ‘Valtari’ bears similarities to Godspeed’s Allelujah. GY!BE had reformed to produce their album, while Sigur Ros had been hiatus some years previous and had not since produced new music, and GY!BE modfied their sound, which was also true of the new Sigur Ros record. In breakthrough success ‘Takk’ and follow-up Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust’ (2005 and 2008) there had been a move towards more ‘radio friendly’ songs which, while unmistakably in the sound of the band, were more concise and conventional than early albums. ‘Valtari’ was released with the band stating that it would be ‘floaty and minimal’ and this was exactly what was produced. More in time with the ‘Untitled’ era Sigur Ros and clearly owing a debt to lead singer Jonsi’s work with Alex Somers on ‘Jónsi & Alex’, the tempo is far slower than on recent albums and has a more spaced-out quality which is likely to turn off some recent converts and delight purists.

Best Track – Ekki Mukk

Sleigh Bells – Reign of Terror

Sleigh Bells were simultaneously one of the most maligned and celebrated bands when they released their début album ‘Treats’ in 2010. For some their hyper-loud brand of electro-pop was a revelation whereas for others it was brainless party music. With drum machines. For the fans, the combination of swaggering guitars and lead singer Alexis Krauss’ sugar sweet vocals, which along with their look and lyrical themes evoked the stereotypical image of American High School, made not only great party music but just great music period. The new album was promoted by the band as being heavier and more serious and while the guitar sounds produced by Derek E. Miller, the instrumentalist of the duo, are indeed crushingly heavy the pop influences can be heard clearly too, with songs such as ‘Leader of the Pack’ and ‘Comeback Kid’ are far too sparkly to be mere grunge. But equally there are songs like ‘Road to Hell’ and ‘Born to Lose’ which showcase the darker side of the band, both musically and with lyrics about suicide and lost love. For those that previously scorned the band, there will be little to change their minds. The songs are still loud enough to sound fuzzy and under-produced and the album wouldn’t sound out of place at a house party. But for the fans and the new discoverers this is a dirty gem of a record.

Best Track – Road to Hell 

Honourable Mentions:

Dan Deacon – America / Best Track: Lots 

Moonface – Heartbreaking Bravery / Best Track: Headed for the Door 

We Are Augustines – Rise Ye Sunken Ships / Best Track: Chapel Song

Alt-J – An Awesome Wave / Best Track: Ms

El-P – Cancer 4 Cure / Best Track: For My Upstairs Neighbour (Mum’s the Word) 

The Gaslight Anthem – Handwritten / Best Track: Handwritten 

Yeasayer – Fragrant World / Best Track: Reagan’s Skeleton