We are slowly beginning to see a revival of the shoegaze genre, though to this point it was only members of the original movement that were bringing back the swirling guitars and lush soundscapes. Legendary pioneers My Bloody Valentine began the charge with their release of m b v, the long-awaited follow-up to the classic Loveless, followed by the triumphant return of Slowdive, and continuing this year with a brand new album from Swervedriver and a newly-reunited Ride. There have been several acts that have incorporated elements of shoegaze into their own sound since the genre’s heyday, but few bands fully embraced the style. We had to look halfway around the world, but it is safe to say we finally found such a group with Israel’s Vaadat Charigim.
Unlike Nothing, which incorporated elements of metal into their version of shoegaze, Vaadat Charigim’s sound is a more direct descendant of the genre’s original practitioners. Vaadat Charigim’s closest counterpart is Slowdive, as they emphasize melody and ethereal guitars on Sinking as a Stone, though propulsive drums reminiscent of Ride poke through the mix at key moments, like on the single “Ein Li Makom”. Like other shoegaze albums, it is nearly impossible to listen to Sinking as a Stone at too high a volume, allowing for a more pleasurable experience as one searches through the haze and picks various details from the wall of sound; Sinking also benefits from modern recording techniques and mastering, so it is not as much of a chore to sift through the music as it was back in the 90’s.
Vaadat Charigim sings exclusively in their native language of Hebrew, so lyrical content will not be a primary concern for most American listeners. Instead, most will be focused on the lush music marked by dreamy textures, with the vocals fitting in perfectly as an additional instrument to the mix. The fact that the group can create such intricate and dense soundscapes with only three people is astounding. For the most part, the band keeps the ambiance relatively light, allowing the listener to get lost in the music, but closer “Hashiamum Shokea” shows what the band can do when it adds in a bit of distortion.
It may be a difficult task to actually get your hands on this album (we had to wait several weeks for Amazon to ship it, and they had a limited supply to begin with), but it is easily worth the effort. There will be few experiences as pleasurable as spending around forty-five minutes getting lost in Vaddat Charigim’s elaborately cultivated soundscapes.
Today is April 15, and while the rest of the nation celebrates Tax Day, we here at Rust Is Just Right choose this occasion to release our Best Albums of the Year list. To be technical, this is our first such list since the site was launched only a few months ago, but this is a practice that I’ve personally done for a few years now. There are a few of reasons for this: 1) It allows some of the albums that are released at the end of the calendar year to get some recognition, since they usually get swallowed up in the attention of the flurry of year-end lists; 2) I get the chance to analyze other lists to pick up on albums that somehow escaped my attention during the course of the year; and 3) It provides a handy consumer guide for people to focus where to spend their tax refund.
The process that is used to determine this list is highly rigorous and hardly scientific. That said, it is in the process of being patented and trademarked, so I can say that it’s not simply a look at my iTunes playcount for the year. Actually, that is what it is exactly, but I’ll choose to believe in your good faith that you won’t steal The Process. On to the list!
Note: Though the list is a Top 10, there are more albums than slots, because I don’t like breaking ties for the same play count. If you’re really intent on focusing on only 10, I guess take the 10 highest performing albums from the list, but you really shouldn’t limit yourself like that if you can help it.
We already have a surprise courtesy of The Process, as I didn’t think that Mosquito would perform so well. The first single “Sacrilege” had me really excited for the album, but there was no other song that really matched its heights. It was a bit of a letdown after the great It’s Blitz!, so my response to it may be harsher than it should be. The Terror on the other hand was a new high point for The Flaming Lips; with the band involved in so many projects and gimmicks, there were legitimate fears that the creative well may have been running a bit dry, but the Lips responded with an album that showed that even after 30 years the band still has new directions to explore. Long known for their happy outlook on life, the band channeled inner turmoil (Steve Drozd’s relapse, Wayne Coyne’s separation from his partner) and created a dark, disturbing album that often plays like an hour-long version of the horrifying “Frankie Teardrop”, incorporating new elements like krautrock influences and drum machines. The only reason it’s not higher on the list is you really need to prepare yourself to handle the despair that is prevalent throughout the album (though there are moments of pure beauty). With Th!!!er, !!! may have won Album Name of the Year, but they also back it up with some of the best songs of their career. I’m a sucker for their dance-punk style, and I highly recommend seeing these guys live. It’s fun to see a bunch of people who normally don’t dance groove to songs like “One Girl/One Boy”.
9). (7 plays) Foals – Holy Fire; The Joy Formidable – Wolf’s Law; Low – The Invisible Way; Nine Inch Nails – Hesitation Marks; Parquet Courts – Light Up Gold; Pearl Jam – Lightning Bolt; Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels.
Normally, I would say that Pearl Jam exists outside the scope of “lists”, but one cannot argue with The Process. I haven’t delved deep into my love of the band since starting this site, so for those of you unfamiliar with my passion for the band, I’ll try to sum it up like this: I’ve been to hundreds of shows over the years, and when people ask me for my all-time greatest concerts, I tell them there’s a Pearl Jam list and a non-Pearl Jam list.
As for the others, I’ll offer a few quick thoughts. Foals have been underrated for a while now, and by my calculations “My Number” should have been as big a summer hit as “Get Lucky”. The Joy Formidable put on one of the best shows I saw last year, and I’m a big fan of how the sweetness of the vocals contrast with the heaviness of the music, but all done in a very melodic way. There wasn’t a big hit like “Whirring” on this album, but “This Ladder Is Ours” should have been. Nine Inch Nails returned with a very good comeback album–I loved the incorporation of more minimalist ideas, which made it an exceedingly interesting dance record. And it’s amazing that Low once again produced an amazing album, and I hardly saw any mention of it on the year-end lists. Invisible Way saw the band returning to the more delicate sounds pre-Drums and Guns, but it was definitely not a simple rehash.
Light Up Gold is a perfect example of reason number two up above, as I heard nothing about this album before I saw it on a few year-end lists. This catchy and too-smart-for-probably-its-own-good soon became a go-to in my car stereo. You have to love a band that makes the point that “Socrates died in the fucking gutter.”
As for Run The Jewels, I’ll say this: it’s hard to believe that one of the best albums of the year was given away for free earlier this year. And it received a small fraction of the attention of Magna Carta Holy Grail.
8). (8 plays) Franz Ferdinand – Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action; Kanye West – Yeezus; The Thermals – Desperate Ground.
I was glad to see Franz Ferdinand return from hiatus alive and kicking. After some experimentation with Tonight, the band decided to go back to their old sound and play to their own strengths–a lot of good, hook-filled rock songs (for the record, I was a fan of Tonight, but hey, I understand the calculus). The Thermals made a similar return to their roots: after the reflective Personal Life, the band decided to keep the songs short and the tempos fast, with the furious Desperate Ground.
I’m sure Yeezus was the most analyzed album of the year, so my opinion shouldn’t add much to the conversation. I think Lou Reed did an excellent job in explaining its genius, so you should probably take his word for it. I will say that one of the things I enjoy most about Kanye records is that it always seems like we’re listening in on a therapy session, because he seems free to let his thoughts roam unfiltered. I also love a person that embraces the dichotomy of the sacred and the profane; who else would follow a great line “close your eyes and let the word paint a thousand pictures” with “one good girl is worth a thousand bitches”? The man knows exactly what he’s doing: “After all these long-ass verses, I’m tired, you’re tired. Jesus wept.“
7). (9 plays) The Men – New Moon; Sigur Rós – Kveikur; Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City; Volcano Choir – Repave; Yuck – Glow & Behold.
We had an extensive piece already on Yuck, so we won’t rehash it here. Volcano Choir is proof that Justin Vernon knows what he’s doing and that he doesn’t need the “Bon Iver” name to make great music. The Men will continue to put great, solid rock albums from now until eternity it seems like; throwing in some classic rock and Americana touches like they did on New Moon just helps expand their sound.
Vampire Weekend got a lot of credit for their show of maturity on their third album, and a lot of it is deserved–Modern Vampires is an excellent rumination on love and faith. That said, it wasn’t as great a leap as some critics made it out to be; I thought that Contra showed that the band was creative enough to find a way to connect their niche sound with other genres and still remain true to their identity. So while this is a very good album, it’s not quite the “Album of the Year”.
I’m much more surprised about the latest album from Sigur Rós. I found Valtari to be a real low point, an album that often struggled to find any semblance of creativity or inspiration, and it just seemed like an ambient mess. So when the band released Kveikur so quickly after Valtari, I was pretty skeptical. But holy shit, this sounds like a band reborn. It’s a much more aggressive album, an adjective that is rarely associated with the band, and bears some (dare I say?) metal influences.
5). (11 plays) Arctic Monkeys – AM; The Besnard Lakes – Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO.
The instant I heard “Do I Wanna Know?”, I knew I would love this album; I just didn’t know that it would turn out to revive their career here in the States. It’s a huge improvement over the good-but-unmemorable Suck It And See and the completely forgettable Humbug, and it wins my coveted award of “Night Driver of the Year”.
I’ve been a longtime fan of The Besnard Lakes, a band far more deserving of some of the plaudits that another Canadian band whose absence you may notice from this list. If there were actual justice in this world, they’d be headlining arenas, but I’m glad I get to see them perform spellbinding sets in tiny venues like the Doug Fir. I initially was not impressed with the new album, mainly because I had been hoping that they could use some of the huge hooks from Roaring Night and hopefully catapult into the mainstream; but once I accepted the album for what it was, I was able to appreciate the subtle melodies and beautiful atmosphere.
4). (12 plays) Deafheaven – Sunbather; My Bloody Valentine – m b v.
My Bloody Valentine shocked the world when they announced that they were immediately releasing their long-awaited follow-up to Loveless. Servers were in a constant state of crashing as music buffs around the world rushed to download the album, but eventually we all got our copy. Was it worth the over two-decade wait? If you based it on trash like “Nothing Is”, then you would say no, but then you hear the gorgeous “Only Tomorrow” with its monumental guitar solo, and all is forgiven, because you are reminded that while there are thousands of bands that were inspired by them, there is truly only one My Bloody Valentine.
Sunbather might be the most surprising album on my list, because while there is a lot of heavy metal that I do enjoy, it’s usually not of the black metal variety. However, Deafheaven uses the banshee wail-type vocals to their advantage, as they blend in with the walls of guitar. If I had my preference, it wouldn’t be the style I choose, if only because it becomes hard to distinguish what are actually some pretty decent lyrics (an exchange like “‘I’m dying.’ ‘Is it blissful?’ ‘It’s like a dream.’ ‘I want to dream.'” read great on the page, but impossible to pick out when sung). That said, the actual music is pretty goddamn brilliant. I’m going to explore them in a future Feats of Strength, but I’ll say that the last half of “The Pecan Tree” was probably the best music I heard all year, but to understand its full brilliance you need to hear the 55 minutes of brutality that came before it.
3. (16 plays) Wavves – Afraid of Heights.
Wavves received the best press and sales of their career with King of the Beach, and to follow it up they release an album filled with cynicism and paranoia and plain old depression. But they made it fun as hell. I have to give a lot of respect who released a single that got actual radio airplay whose chorus is “Holding a gun to my head, so send me an angel; or bury me deeply instead, with demons to lean on”. And they played it on Letterman.
2. (17 plays) Queens of the Stone Age – ...LikeClockwork.
This one of the best albums of QOTSA’s career, and that’s saying something since they’ve released several classic albums already. It’s a brilliant mix of their desert rock with gothic horror. It’s hard for me to think of much more to say than that, because I’m still bitter thinking how not one person on the AV Club staff gave this album a single vote.
1. (20 plays) The National – Trouble Will Find Me.
In the end, the list was topped off by what I would have predicted at the beginning of the year, but when I first listened to Trouble Will Find Me this was not a foregone conclusion. But like other albums from The National before it, what initially sounded like a shapeless bore gradually revealed its subtle strength and beauty. Melodies become more apparent, and dynamics become more evident; often it’s not drastic loud-soft contrast, but a gradual intensity that builds throughout in a song. Each listen brings about a new favorite; first it was “Sea of Love”, then it was “Pink Rabbits” followed by “Don’t Swallow the Cap”. Lately, it’s been “Graceless”, a powerful look at attempts to shake the melancholy stemming from a past relationship, filled with great lines like “God loves everybody–don’t remind me” and “all of my thoughts of you: bullets through rotten fruit.” After a few listens, you notice things like the shift halfway between “graceless” and “grace” that occurs in the lyrics, and the gradual buildup of intensity in Matt Berninger’s voice as he powers through the song. It’s perfect that an album that rewards multiple listens takes the top spot.
The biggest news from Monday was the surprise announcement of the reunion of seminal shoegaze band Slowdive. While the news didn’t break the internet like the shocking release of My Bloody Valentine’s long-awaited followup to Loveless, it still brought a cheer to those who remember those lonely nights while Souvlaki played softly on the stereo of an empty apartment (though actual personal experiences may vary, it is has been my experience that these are in fact the optimal conditions for listening to the album).
For those who are interested in the particulars of the news announcement, the band announced that they will be playing the Primavera Sound festival, which takes place in Barcelona at the end of May. Just take a look at all the other headliners–it’s hard to imagine a more loaded lineup. In addition, the band announced a London show, and more dates will be added. And have no fear American fans (like myself), the band is hopeful that they can record a new album together, so there’s reason to think it won’t be a one-off kind of thing like the Pavement reunion was (the new go-to example now that the Pixies have decided to release new music once again). And while there were some publications that expressed reservations about the motives of the band (see Stereogum, AV Club), in an interview with The Quietus the band assured fans that this was done with more noble intentions in mind.
So, why should you care about this particular reunion?
In my mind, there were two titans of shoegaze, a peculiar genre that was popular in Britain in the late-80’s/early 90’s: My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. I’ve always appreciated the term “shoegaze”, because of all the various microgenres that the casual music fan might encounter, it gives the best idea of what the music actually sounds like (contrast it with say, “krautrock”). It conjures up both ideas of melancholy (staring at the “shoes”) and dreaminess/haziness (the “gaze” component), both of which appear in sizable quantities in the genre. I always felt that MBV focused more on the former, while Slowdive’s great asset was its emphasis on the latter. (For the record, if you are completely unfamiliar with My Bloody Valentine, I suggest you visit this link and then repeat the video ten times, because that will allow you to fully process what a mindfuck Loveless is to the uninitiated. )
The best introduction to Slowdive is probably their second album, Souvlaki. Few albums perfectly capture the concept of “dreampop” like this one–there is an ethereal quality to the swirling guitars, but they don’t overpower the delicate hooks and melodies. This is apparent from the very first track, “Alison”.
It captures the attention of the listener immediately, and gives a roadmap of what to expect from the rest of the album–layers and layers of echoed guitars with reverb to spare, a gentle melody, and those beautiful backing female vocals, all in a mid-tempo three-and-a-half minute pop song. Another highlight is the haunting ballad “Dagger”.
The band strips down most of the effects and leaves a gently strummed down-tuned acoustic guitar, with suspended chords adding to the tension of the lyrics. It is the quintessential melancholic 3 am song.
“Machine Gun” is another highlight, a ballad that features a great contrast between the vocals of Rachel Goswell for the verses and Neil Halstead for the chorus. I find that the song itself presents an interesting juxtaposition with its title, not only in style but in its lyrics as well, which focus on water-related imagery.
If you love what you’ve heard so far, then great news, there’s a strong chance you’ll love everything else in the Slowdive discography. Their debut Just For A Day is stylistically similar to Souvlaki, though it doesn’t quite gel in the same way that the later album does, and suffers a bit from weaker production. Pygmalion was a bit more of a stylistic shift, with some experimentation and an icier atmosphere, but is not a radical departure from the gorgeous Slowdive sound. All of this should bode well in case we’re lucky enough to see a new album.
Rust Is Just Right 