The Tillers - Lantern Lullaby from Pete Ohs on Vimeo.
Yes, I know Hometowns was first released in 2008, but it wasn't until this year that it was exposed to the world at large by Saddle Creek. I'd much rather reward the album with a "Best of" mention rather than leave it off due to a technicality. So here it is, a wonderfully dynamic album with a range of styles all connected with Nils Edenloff's unique vocals. A few tracks -- "The Deadroads," "In the Summertime," and "Don't Haunt This Place" -- stand out nicely on their own, but more importantly the entire album is listenable from beginning to end. A great band with a quaint backstory that I look forward to following in years to come.
You'll notice The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are also on my "Over-Hyped" list below. Not because their music is bad -- quite the contrary, I love their nostalgic '80s shoegaze-ish fuzz rock. I just don't think this is all that original and sometimes I feel like the songs are formulaic. That's my hyper-critical side though. The rest of me loves this album. I'm a sucker for the feel, the wall of guitars and the accessibility of it all. It feels like a guilty pleasure of an album, but without the guilt.
I'm also a sucker for female vocals. And man, does Bat for Lashes' Natasha Kahn deliver. In Two Suns she runs a gambit of emotions all backed by wonderfully immersive melodies. Each song is like a world you can get lost in, making the entire album very engaging and worth quite a few listens. Hate that last song though.
To be honest, I had expected whatever The Decemberists did this year to be the best album of the year, no questions asked. The Crane Wife is simply amazing and is one of the few albums I've never grown tired with or sick of. I don't see that happening with The Hazards of Love. It's an impressive album, don't get me wrong, a concept album of the 21st century that takes dedication to figure out. I saw the band perform the album from start to finish at Lollapalooza and it felt like watching an opera. And that's fine. I'm just not always in the mood for an opera. Some of the harder elements in the album didn't really gel either. That said, expecting The Decemberists to repeat themselves is like expecting to wear shorts in Chicago during winter: it just ain't goin' happen. And shouldn't because, even if piles of freezing snow aren't as fun as a nice summer day, it's still worth experiencing.
Alela Diane is gaining more notoriety which is wonderful, but I still think she deserves more attention. I personally liked her second effort, To Be Still much more than other over-hyped folk-ish albums of 2009. Her first LP, The Pirate's Gospel was charmingly lo-fi and DIY. That changes in To Be Still, which feels much smoother and more professional. That may not sound like such a great thing for all you lo-fi fans out there, but it does help bring out Diane's remarkable voice.
Speaking of remarkable voices, wow. Florence + the Machine came out of left field for me this year and floored me. People have told me they don't like this album because songs sound too much like Amy Winehouse and well I see that comparison, I also think Florence Welch's voice puts Winehouse's scratchy "talent" to shame. "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" and "Cosmic Love" are some of the most powerful and addicting songs of the year.
This was perhaps one of my most anticipated albums of the year. Alex Church's Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low and Leaves in the River captivate me with their atmosphere: woodland America, or small-town middle-of-nowhere. It's not the happiest music in the world, but it's of the sort that creates a vivid world you can almost see if you close your eyes. So I was giddy to finally get my hands on White Water, White Bloom and ecstatic to find the same overpowering sense of place -- Church's ability to create a landscape with his music, tinged with whatever emotion the song deals with. Keep your Grizzly Bears and Monsters of Folk, I've got Sea Wolf.
I love those albums that sound so happy and bouncy on the surface, but are actually depressing calls for help underneath. Manners is like that. It scores points for its ridiculously addictive dance rock while also adding a bit of downcast lyrical depth for those who want it. It's an album that's a bit too much at times, too bright, too falsetto, too out-of-control and has been the cause of many a headache for me. But I kept coming back because every single song is amazing. It's an album with no down time, no skippable songs. I put every track on Future Perfect Radio because I felt bad leaving any out.
I'll be honest, I hadn't heard of Mew before this. Yes, I know. I'm terrible. How I could come so far without knowing and loving Mew, I don't know, but that ends now. No More Stories Are Told Today… is a glittering gem. The soaring instrumentals, the odd rhythms, the chilling vocals -- it all mixes together to create something weird, something beautiful, something I couldn't get out of my head.
This was tough. As great a year 2009 was for music, there was nothing that stood out and said, "Yes, I am the best. No one tops me. No argument." At least for me. In the end, I picked as the #1 album the group that has me most excited not about 2009, but about the years ahead. And that's The Builders and the Butchers. 
You'll notice a few of these over-hyped albums are also on my "Best of" list. That's because none of these albums are bad, quite the contrary. Some are very good. But the amount of attention they received was disproportionate with the quality of the music. Phoenix was one case: yes, many songs are brilliant and extremely pop-friendly. But the album as a whole, while excellent (#20 out of the 25 best albums of the year, in my opinion) wasn't as striking as other releases.Same here. I really liked this album (#9 overall on the Best of list) and while I haven't tired of listening to The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's music, I have tired of hearing about the band. Frankly, I don't think what they're doing is all that new and it's all pretty formulaic. They deserve praise and attention, sure, but not on the level they did this year.
This one's almost too obvious to point out. Others have argued this point much better than I, but my reason is simple: I don't like Animal Collective. This album didn't help me like them. I don't see what everyone went so crazy over. That may make me lame, but there it is.
I hesitate to put Grizzly Bear on here for 2 reasons. 1) Like Animal Collective, this is obvious and almost cliche. Of course it was over-hyped. 2) I do like this album. It was enjoyable and I can see how it inspires love and devotion from fans. What I can't see is the "ground-breaking" or genre-changing aspects that others have pointed out. Again, maybe this makes me lame, but I think other artists outdid Veckatimest this year.
If anything, 2009 showed us that Good Artist + Good Artist doesn't necessarily = Good Music. Discovery is a great example, but so is Monsters of Folk. Man, what a boring album. After listening to it, I was surprised to see Monsters of Folk still popping up on magazine covers and such. Didn't anyone listen to the music? Again, other artists outdid Monsters of Folk this year and deserve the attention that was erroneously handed to this failed collaboration.
I liked this album. I wanted to love it though. I was expecting Silversun Pickups' to follow up Carnavas with another Best of contender of an album. But Swoon fell short of my expectations -- which were perhaps too high. In any case, I was disappointed. Wah wah.
The Flaming Lips are one of those groups that apparently everyone likes except me. I just can't get into them. Every time they come out with a new record, I say to myself, "Yes, this time I will fall in love. I will finally see the light and grasp what indefinable element causes everyone to give themselves up to Coyne and Company." And each time I'm disappointed. It's an okay album, sure, but an okay album shouldn't become "good" or "great" just because everyone knows who the band is.
Noble Beast, like Swoon, suffered from my perhaps-too-high expectations. I really love a few tracks from Bird's latest album, but overall it's just not an album I see myself listening to more than a few times. Maybe I'm missing something. 
Man I was excited for this one. I'm not a huge Vampire Weekend fan, but I do enjoy their music and I absolutely adore Ra Ra Riot. So a collaboration between members of both should be amazing, right? Wrong. Like Monsters of Folk, this was proof that good artists can often make very bad music. Discovery's album was pretentious, rambling and even ruined a Ra Ra Riot track. I applaud them for trying something new, but otherwise this was a huge letdown. 
What happened to Muse? Absolution is still one of my most treasured albums for its huge guitars and roller-coaster emotional backdrop. Blackholes and Revelations fell short, but still is pretty darn good. Then this came along, this "album." This dungheap of a release. When they're not ripping off Queen, they're just meandering aimlessly, like maybe they'll think up a good song halfway through or something. I'll still look forward to the next album hopefully, but this was a mighty letdown. 
Now halfway through the second day of Lollapalooza, we can look back on Friday and pick out some of the clear highlights for Future Perfect Radio:
2. The Decemberists play Hazards of Love in full
3. Interview with Ben Folds
4. The Builders and the Butchers for Best Show of the Day!
1. Passion Pit (Sunday 5:00pm, on the Citi stage)
2. The Builders & the Butchers (Friday 1:45pm, on the BMI stage)
3. The Decemberists (Friday 6pm on the Budweiser stage)
4. Bat for Lashes (Sunday 1:30pm, on the vitaminwater stage)
5. Blind Pilot (Saturday 4:15pm on the BMI stage)
Lollapalooza is coming and Future Perfect Radio will be there. We'll be backstage speaking to as many bands as we can, and on the top of our list is The Builders and the Butchers.
1. Deastro - "Biophelia" from Moondagger
2. Frontier Folk Nebraska - "Lay It on the Line" from Pearls
3. The Builders and the Butchers - "Raise up Your Weary Hands" from Salvation Is a Deep Dark Well
4. Loney, Dear - "Summers" from Dear John
5. Passion Pit - "Moth's Wings" from Manners
Where The Decemberists evoke fantastical sea voyages and epics on the scale of classic English literature, Portland city-mates The Builders and the Butchers are a whole different kind of indie folk. This is the soundtrack to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, the sad songs of the Great Depression or the Dust Bowl, where life is hard and death is even harder. It's Southern gothic, I suppose. It's not hard to get lost in the Portland quintet's somber music, each song weaves its own tale, with storylines branching between tracks and even between albums. Their sophomore album, Salvation Is a Deep Dark Well, lands on June 16. It's a triumph of chilling melodies, heart-wrenching stories and rousing anthems. Hear it now on Future Perfect Radio.
After a few weeks of listening to The Builders and the Butchers' Salvation Is a Deep Dark Well, I'm absolutely in love with the group's darkly-tinged folk rock. It's The Decemberists plus a strain of Great Depression sadness, or horror-flick fright, or Blood Meridian southwestern gore. Or maybe all of the above. There's something intrinsically uncomfortable about listening to the Portland group's unique melodies, but it's entrancing.
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