Barking Dog Wandering Aimlessly into the Next Year.

here's the toe-tapping, gravy train raping hotlist for the year of our lord (bill gates) 2005:

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Everyone's favourite anti-drug addicted, Danielson Famile raping, god-stomping hotcake takes everyone's least favourite American state and turns it into a playground of disturbingly epic proportions. Stevens treats the albums included in his seemingly impossible 50 States Project like absurdly dense research papers, leaving us with a sense that America can still be a worthy cultural menace (in the most polite manner possible). You laugh, you cry, you cringe (one has to admit that some of the lyrics are a bit lazy and a bit contrived) but you'll never be able to separate yourself from the onslaught of this mini-composer's boundless ambition. Keep in mind, this is the second of fifty states Stevens intends to create albums on, he's got a lot of work ahead.

I remember buying this album in the summer, listening to it four times through before getting home, and i think i peed myself a little. When I showed Ali the record for the first time, he sat and listened to it straight-through, jaw-dropped (that never happens...ali hates me). It defines a year filled with confusion, arrogance and society's unrelenting interest in the fucking 1980s (don't you get it yet...the killers fucking suck), half-assed, trendy-cock rock (franz ferdinand are so boring) and bloc party ("awww honey look...a black man singing lame dance punk"). Stevens plays upwards of 30 instruments on the album, and has managed to develop one of the most intoxicatingly original blends of seminal folk, jazz, orchestral art rock and dirty rotten punk (see "The Man of Metropolis Steals our Hearts"). Who can listen to "James Wayne Gacy Jr." without quivering as the last line proves to be Stevens' admission that even he sometimes wants to brutally murder and decapitate (lovingly) 27 people, "look beneath the floorbloards for the secrets i have hid", that's some sick shit.

This album could truly prove to be one of the most important ever recorded, but my bet is that Mr. Stevens is going to further blow our minds on the next 47 states (i think he'll peak upon recording Texas).

Deerhoof - The Runners Four

One of the dirtiest, weirdest and loudest avant-dropout/disco/noisepop/punk/funk/jam bands of all time makes a further leap to the top of the crunk pile, and possibly the charts as well. On The Runners Four, da 'hoof get poppy, write some love songs and continue fading away into avant-treachery; their noisescapes have never sounded so appropriate. This is math rock for people who love the beach boys, and pop rock for people who like sonic youth. It's a fascinating display of what happens when an off-the-boat asian chick squeals about god-knows-what over the art rock of a few horny american motherfuckers.....it's brilliant, it's refreshing, and "O'Malley, Former Underdog" might be the best song of all-time ever.................might.

Observatory - S/T

Mathew Workman takes 9 years to do everything. Finally he spent 9 years on something interesting and worthwhile....FINALLY. It's noisy...it may make your eyes and ears bleed, and you'll surely only listen to it after killing a kitten........but goddam is it good.

Akron/Family - S/T

Former Devendra Banhart labelmates take their master's concept of playful and sloppy folk rock to its most epic conclusion. If Radiohead fucked Mutations era Beck in the asshole with the left hand of Sonic Youth, while eating a Modest Mouse and listening to The Weakerthans, this is probably what they'd create....the bastard son of everything you're supposed to hate about folk/rock......but for some reason......can't.

Eels - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations

Dr. Mark Oliver Everett tries desperately to make further sense of his traumatic adult life. On Electro-Shock Blues E. dealt directly with suicides, cancer and other ailments which destroyed his family. On Blinking Lights, E. offers us 33 near perfect songs, all of which prove the point that there's still a fucking life to be lived (so get off the pot hippie!).

This dense, hauntingly beautiful album lingers in the heart, fucks with the head and chews on the soul. Don't tell me you didn't nearly choke on your cola the first time you heard the lead single "Trouble with Dreams" (which was made into one of the most original and confusing music videos ever). Much like Illinois, Blinking Lights is chockful of instrumentation and arrangements which take a few listens to wrap one's head around, but the moment it clicks is one of the most important moments of your young, pathetic life...mine included.

Devendra Banhart - Cripple Crow

Another phenomenally long record to hit up this violent list. It's Dylan goes electric for a new generation, and was instantly more accepted. You don't feel like Banhart has alienated fans from the past, or did this in a sick bid to push more units. It's a natural progression, it's a refreshing progression. The album features 20 or 30 of Devendra's closest and most freak-folk friendliest chums, each of them contributing to the albums familial vibe (of course, instead of eating a dry turkey dinner and complaining about the abscence of drunk uncle earl, this family takes acid and aligns the stars). "Santa Maria de Feira" makes your beg for the sun, "Heard Somebody Say" makes you beg for more and "Ancor" makes you wish it would never end.

Stephen Malkmus - Face The Truth

It's true, the Malkman has yet to release a mediocre album...everything Pavement touched was pure fucking gold, and both prior solo releases were incessantly strong (did i want to use the word 'incessantly'?). Face The Truth is Stephen coming to grips with adulthood by acting as a child. It's deceptively simple title immediately rears you in...but surprises await. In making the album (which he did almost completely by himself in his basement) Stephen had a sign posted on his wall which read "KEEP IT STRANGE"....a notion he cleverly intermingled with some of his dreamiest/sunniest pop songs yet (see: "Post-Paint Boy...Pavement to the max!). Other songs, like "Kindling for The Master" and the album's opener "Pencil Rot" showcase the Malkster's (I get a nickel everytime i give him a new nickname...thanks matador) newfound knack for programming synthesizers and effectiphizing (i know...not a word) his slutty voice. It rocks, it talks, it EXPLODES! "Freeze the Saints" is the ballad of summer '05...it's the song that inspires you open up those old wounds...but instead of taking care of them...you fuck the crap out of them and leave them dead in a gutter (don't worry, i have no idea what that means either). And let's not forgot the grad school, self-obsessed genius of Stephen's lyrics...they haven't been dumbed down, you're just getting smarter.

Sample Lyric - "I'm here to sing a song/a song about privelege/the spikes you put on your feet when you were crawling and dancing/to the top of the human shit pile/shit pile!/ so now you've managed to elucidate something that was on all of their minds.

fucking buttah!

Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins

There is a song on this album called "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games"...enough said.

The Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers

From the moment the opening track "Punks in the Beerlight" kicks in one gets the sense that David Barman is finally ready to rock...biblical baby! ("ain't ya heard the news/adam and eve were jews/and i always loved ya to the max!"...what?). The Jews have always been the band that I credit for teaching Stephen Malkmus how to feel for the song, how to take it to the fucking head. Featuring a revolving door of distinct collaborators, including three members of Pavement (Malky, Steve West and Bob Nostanovich), Tanglewood sounds like Barman waking up from a winter hibernation, looking to fill an empty stomach (he of course filled it with sonic dynamite).

Iron and Wine - Woman King

Sam Beam knows he's probably going to become the biggest, most-pathetic waste of mainstream airwaves given a few years. This proclamation has been foreshadowed by the vile vomit he produced with Calexico subsequent to the release of Woman King. But here we find his potential reaching an artistic peak. This is delta blues baby, with a side of cornbread and sap. The percussion is sparse yet functions to suck you into the depths of hell...it's tribal, and it's genius. "Freedom Hangs Like Heaven" was exactly what a sad-sack country boy such as myself needed this summer, and is exactly what everyone needs. It's dense, it's fast and it's over before your Kraft Dinner...and tastes exponentially better, douche fuck.

Notables:

The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

Disappointments:

Broken Social Scene

Weezer's Make Believe....boy did i get over this one fast...except the song 'Freak Me Out' is still gold.