That's My Dad.

Wavves - Afraid of Heights

To an extent, your opinion of California’s Wavves will perpetually be stuck on their breakthrough album, King of the Beach. Was it a hyper-active party filled with ruckus you regretted the morning after or was it the landmark memory of an amazing summer? Either way, in the past three years, Wavves has been a rock band that has suffered too many retrospective discussions. They had the not-so-stellar follow-up EP, Life Sux, which inadvertently informed many listeners that the party was getting lame. Which meant, considering the specifically young and reckless audience they demand for, that their ship had started sinking. Much like Best Coast‘s lackluster change of heart on last year’s The Only Place, the guys in Wavves return with some lower-key, self-loathing indie rock tunes which further dampen long time fans’ expectations.

Read My Whole Review on Listen Before You Buy

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor - ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

As a tremendous comeback from the decade-long hiatus of Canadian post-rock masters Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “’Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend” strikes like watching beautiful thunder in slow motion. The trademark harrowing builds, soul-shattering crescendos, defined political anxiousness, Arabian rhythm influences and terrifying climaxes are all here as Godspeed You! return to tell a larger-than-life tale of modern turmoil and stressed philosophy in a span of two twenty-minute odysseys and accompanying drone interludes. It falls a notch or two short from past masterpieces, but you’re not going to find art of this magnitude anytime soon. (8/10)

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Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man

U.K. indie pop queen Natasha Khan returns as Bat for Lashes with an emotionally stunning 3rd LP, “The Haunted Man”: a breath-taking baroque pop record sculpted from some of the most mature, detailed and innovative musicianship and dramatic potency we’ve heard from Khan as well any other poet this year. (8/10) 

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Top 50 Songs of 2012: #17, Hop Along - No Good Al Joad

You’re my favorite enemy because you forgot. 

Poets love to break to your heart. Sometimes they carry an emotional burden too heavy, sometimes it’s just a matter-of-fact ordeal. They often serenade  swoon, reveal, whisper, weep and sigh. Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan will wrap her fingers around your hair, look you straight in the eyes and break down in hysteria. It’s just one of many wild, unpredictable emotional facets she owns. Quinlan’s vocal fury and lyrical intricacies are what build Hop Along as an unconventional marvel. On “No Good Al Joad”, you catch a mere sample of underground music’s best kept secret in all their lush madness.

(Source: Spotify)

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #18, Tame Impala - Mind Mischief

Feels like my life is ready to blow.

Within the first minute of listening to Tame Impala’s “Lonerism”, my jaw was on the floor and my pupils probably dilated. “Holy shit, t-t-this sounds exactly like The B-B-Beatles,” I muttered to myself throughout my entire first listen. Repeated listens came along and the joy was still there. Not in a gimmicky sense where Tame Impala’s talents were just their sonic semblances, but how fresh-sounding their compositions were. Imitating ideas and styles of a classic era may corner an artist into a tight, bland spot, but “Mind Mischief” is pure evidence there’re always new punches ready to be packed.

(Source: Spotify)

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #20, Young Magic - Sparkly

Take my name plate, it screams for you. 

The first time I listened to “Sparkly”, I felt like I just discovered my best friend was a belly dancer. I can hear my heart thumping as I hear dozens of dancers with bangles on their ankles crash against each other as they pound the floor. Soaring vocal samples and hypnotic lyrics, it’s like a blanket of sound wrapping around you to bring a faded coziness. Brooklyn’s Young Magic bring along a bundle of fresh sonic textures to often conventional psychedelic and electronic music, but there’s a slick payoff to be found here. An element of familiarity dipped in exotic marvel: your best friend, a belly dancer. 

(Source: Spotify)

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #21, The Tallest Man on Earth - There’s No Leaving Now

To see through a fearless eye and know that danger finally goes away. 

Through every emotional facet, Kristian Matsson of The Tallest Man on Earth will always have a knack to break your heart through his song-writing. On past records, Matsson was keen to raise spirits, enlighten souls and stand neck-and-neck with Dylan in terms of rhetoric. This year, his 3rd LP “There’s No Leaving Now” sounds like he’s ready to hide away in some forgotten house to spend the rest of his days silently weeping to himself. With a gorgeous piano arrangement and haunting vocals, The Tallest Man on Earth hits a mournful note on the album’s title track that adds another stunning entry in Matsson’s unforgettable performance list.

(Source: Spotify)

Cat Power - Sun 

Poetic goldmine and heart-breaker Chan Marshall, better known as Cat Power, returns after a six-year absence with her ninth studio album: “Sun”. And as one could imagine, a lot can happen to a powerful creative force in six years. “Sun” is not a return to form or a rehash of past hits like “You Are Free” or “The Greatest”, instead comes a newly constructed Cat Power: one of aged tales and experimental pop songs. Poorly experimental. Hopelessly experimental. “Sun” is more impressively inconsistent and haphazard than anything remotely interesting. It’s another failed indie-minded installment of clashing genres together, in this case folk and electronic, instead of blending them for more organic qualities. Had it not been for Marshall’s seeds of unwavering lyrical honesty and large emotional proportion, “Sun” can hardly be distinguished from any other amateur experimental effort. (6/10) 

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Top 50 Songs of 2012: #23, Bat for Lashes - Laura

You’re the train that crashed my heart.

Who writes the rules on sentimentality? Where is the line drawn between a teenage girl crying in her room or a film star slitting their wrists? How can I or anybody else quantify or qualify vulnerability? Often on Bat for Lashes’ “The Haunted Man”, Natasha Khan comes from an age of curiosity where the answer for these questions are urgently needed. Her single “Laura” is a manifesto to such troubles. Khan writes up a story of a legend in her lyrics and places them on a fragile pedestal: like a glass ballerina on a mantelpiece ready to fall. and break into a million little pieces. Vulnerability. “Laura” is a daring emotional piece, one far from Bat for Lashes’ repertoire. From the shakiness of her voice to the audacity of her words, there’s an almost stunning level of disparity in this character study. It’s a level of artistic nakedness that makes you wonder, painfully wonder, who Laura truly is. 

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #36, Beach House - Wild

Our father won’t come home, cause he is seeing double. 

Indie dream-pop darlings Beach House made a profound and delicately chiseled spot on their 4th album: “Bloom”. Without a doubt, “Bloom” landed on many listener’s ‘Album of the Year’ spot, the stand-out track was “Wild”: a timid and melodramatic narrative of fractured teenagers coping with broken relationships ubiquitous to them. Not only does it come decked with soothing breathy vocals and hypnotizing guitar tones, but uses its ingredients to produce a catchy and emotionally haunting summation of Beach House’s entire style. 

Band of Horses - Mirage Rock

After three blissful records and a solidified place in the hearts of indie-rock worshiping couples swooning in the nighttime or sensitive, existentially concerned lumberjacks, Band of Horses returns with their fourth LP, “Mirage Rock”: a truly tone-deaf combo breaker in the group’s formulaic alt-folk rock style, this time, going all sorts of haywire with cringe-worthy vocal harmonies, throwaway compositions and deeply disappointing lyrical quality. Like Weezer’s “Raditude” or Guns N’ Roses “Chinese Democracy”, add “Mirage Rock” to that pile of shit. (4/10)

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Jessie Ware - Devotion

Sexy, dreamily mature and pure in sophistication, latest rise-to-fame contemporary R&B singer-songwriter Jessie Ware hits the underground UK pop scene with a satisfying slow-burner debut record, “Devotion”: an alluring work of love more enticing than Janet Jackson, smarter than Lana Del Ray and as emotionally effective as James Blake. (8/10)

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The xx - Coexist

Heart-stealing duo Jamie xx and Romy Madley-Croft, turn trio, return on their sophomore LP, “Coexist”: an equally intimate, brooding, confessional listening experience as their 2009 Mercury Prize winning debut, “xx”. Albeit, “Coexist” stutters from mild consistency issues (tracks like “Chained”), the gorgeously minimalist effort offers itself as a lush extension of style and idea of “xx”; behaving as a shy love letter of a relationship profoundly built yet gradually falling apart. (8/10)

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Liars - WIXIW

In a sense, Liars latest album, “WIXIW”, should be completely forgotten about and scrapped in the dust for being bleak, unrewarding, anti-climatic and the most throughly low-key piece of experimental rock in quite some time. However, that is exactly what these highly-reputed musicians wanted to make: a challenging and dissonant listening experience. So there’s no real meaning in criticizing a technical sonic experimental succeeding to articulate and prove its point, even if it doesn’t remotely amount to pleasurable listening or repeated visits. (7/10)

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First Aid Kit - The Lion’s Roar

Swedish sister duo First Aid Kit return with more soulful intensity and finesse than any folk record of this year with their sophomore LP: “The Lion’s Roar”. Often staggering, First Aid Kit come to pierce through your heart with gorgeously stripped down vocals worth shelving next to Joni Mitchell or Patti Smith; not to mention, a set of heavily impacting, ambrosial Americana lyrics near perfect enough to put the likes of Mumford & Sons out of business. Call it the “Helplessness Blues” or “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” of this year; for a country album, let alone indie folk, “The Lion’s Roar” is just as heartbreaking as is addictive, summing up to pure emotional magic. (9/10)

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