'Tis the season for top 10 lists! See who made ours.
1. Various artists, "Local Customs: Downriver Revival" (Numero)
The story here seems remarkable enough: an electrician at Ford with no recording experience sets up a studio in his basement and captures three decades of amateur Detroit gospel music. Then you hear the actual recordings (collected here for the first time), and they’re so much better than you ever imagined. Available in surprisingly high fidelity, these almost-unknown treasures blow away everything else released this year.
2. PJ Harvey and John Parish, "A Woman A Man Walked By" (Island)
The second collaboration from these noted English alt-rockers, this disc contains some of Harvey’s finest work since “Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea,” and that’s saying plenty.
3. Bat for Lashes, "Two Suns" (Astralwerks/Parlophone)
It was a year for revisiting the ‘80s, to be sure, but instead of electro-dance-pop or New Wave, Natasha Khan (under the guise of Bat for Lashes) delved into the introspective, Kate Bush side of that much-mined and maligned decade. For her troubles, she got a very good record and a timeless single in “Daniel.”
4. Grizzly Bear, "Veckatimest" (Warp)
Try as you might to resist this album of neo-psych-folk, with all of its Urban Outfitters appeal and Brooklyn pedigree, eventually you’ll succumb.
5. Mos Def, "The Ecstatic" (Downtown)
Haters and doubters be damned, it was finally conscious rapper Mos Def’s year to get it right again.
6. Allen Toussaint, "The Bright Mississippi" (Nonesuch)
It might not have the shiny press package of his 2006 collaboration with Elvis Costello, but New Orleans native and R&B legend Toussaint’s take on a collection of great hometown jazz standards was unjustly overlooked.
7. Future of the Left, "Travels With Myself and Another" (4AD)
Future of the Left frontman Andy Falkous continues his reign as the wittiest man in post-hardcore with this punishing second LP from his post-Mclusky project. Sample song titles, courtesy of the droll Welshman: “The Hope That House Built” and “You Need Satan More Than He Needs You.”
8. Black Cobra, "Chronomega" (Southern Lord)
Heavy music had a rough year, but the Bay Area duo known as Black Cobra kept the doom/stoner altar candles burning brightly with this sludgy third full-length.
9. The Dead Weather, "Horehound" (Third Man)
Jack White’s run as a perennial year-end list entrant continues, but just barely. By no means his strongest project or individual effort—here he drums and sings, but mostly takes a backseat to the Kills’ Alison Mosshart—the Dead Weather prove that White’s off-years still beat most musicians’ best attempts.
10. St. Vincent, "Actor" (4AD)
Annie Clark’s sophomore set should establish her as an indie rock force to be reckoned with: guitar heroics mixed with melodic majesty. In some ways, we could probably regard her as this era’s Joni Mitchell. Pressure’s on for the follow-up.
