The 10 Best Albums of 2008 and more year end list fun

Because it's that time of year, time to look back and time to reflect. Here are the albums released in 2008 that I hold in the highest esteem.

Top 10:
1) Rook - Shearwater
2) Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
3) Microcastle - Deerhunter
4) Ghosts I-IV - Nine Inch Nails
5) Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
6) Dear Science - TV On The Radio
7) In Ghost Colours - Cut//Copy
8) Feed The Animals - Girl Talk
9) Distortion - The Magnetic Fields
10) Volume One - She & Him

Honourable Mention:
At Mount Zoomer - Wolf Parade
Nouns - No Age
Skeletal Lamping - Of Montreal
The Stand-Ins - Okkervil River
Third - Portishead

Most Over-Rated Albums:
Only By The Night - Kings Of Leon
Oracular Spectacular - MGMT
Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends - Coldplay

And finally...
The Album I Made The Most Effort To Love To Absolutely No Avail:
Cardinology - Ryan Adams & The Cardinals

The Fiery Furnaces - Remember

The Fiery Furnaces are a band of absolutes. They are always quirky. They are always talented. The are always unique. And they are NEVER normal. Any sense of normality is completely thrown out the window on this "live" album.

One of the most striking things about this presentation is how "un-live" the album really is. The Fiery Furnaces are famous for reworking every minute detail of even their most staple songs in a live setting. And anyone familiar with even a portion of their back catalogue can attest that there is seldom need to rework, each new track brings a fresh and unique sound. This just doesn't seem enough for Matt and Eleanor Friedberger, who have enough new and strange ideas kicking around that reusing perfectly good album sounds just seems like a waste of new, uncharted ones.

And so it fits that using the typical sounds and experiences of a single show waste the sounds that can be created by a meshing and mixing of many shows. Some of the longer songs include sections from seperate locations, even seperate backing bands, and the recording volume and quality are all over the place. It seems that more work went into making this album sound anything but live than went into many of the reimaginings present on it.

The end result plays like a pick and choose of medleys and might-have-beens, each song flowing into the next daring you to take a breath and risk missing a beat. Pretty daring for an album that carries a disclaimer: "Do not attempt to listen to all at once." Sometimes things work better than others, of course, with the Bitter Tea medley being the absolute standout, in pacing and musical brilliance. But the album begs so many questions of the listener, such as: why on a live album bent on not sounding live, would the second track contain a very noticable vocal flub? Why, in all their editing, did they find it fitting to leave in a testament to the risks of performance?

I don't have the answers, but the questions make the music all the more interesting. The winning formula here is one that The Fiery Furnaces seem to have held forever: music that sounds like nothing else. For a collection of old songs, this album plays like a breath of fresh air, inhaling pure talent and exhaling imagination.

Album Hightlights: "Bitter Tea" right through "Bitter Tea (Reprise)"

Further Listening: Blueberry Boat, Bitter Tea

Here We Go: Okkervil River - Down The River Of Golden Dreams

Since this whole "blag" thing was a snap decision, I'm going to start with something I know and actually do some work and research next time. I suppose its relatively new to me, I mean, I've *had* the album for months now, but I have desperately been trying to track down a physical copy of it most of that time. I finally got hold of one yesterday and I'll admit it doesn't disappoint. There's still something to be said for handing over some hard-earned cash for a musical artifact, ripping open the vacuum wrap and wrangling with the sticker seal (the bane of my existence). The CD is not dead my friends. Call me sentimental.

So anyway, Okkervil River, an folk-indie band out of Austin, Texas. Wid-West sentiment sung with a Southern wail. Down The River Of Golden Dreams is their second major release on the Jagjaguwar label but it is their first of consequence. Down The River marks the shape and sound of a band arriving in their own right. It's not their greatest, but it is great.

The album's strength, unmistakingly, lies in the lyrics of wordsmith Will Sheff, the frontman and by all accounts the heart and soul of Okkervil River. Sheff is a poet, but not in the way Dylan was a poet. Okkervil's songs read as novellas, short stories inviting us into the lives of protagonists, and it is easy to find yourself completely immersed in the story. Metaphors are abundant, but rather than distracting, muddling or generalizing the heart of the narrative they add a depth necessary to flesh out a tale crammed into 3 minutes.

It would be remiss, however, to relegate all of the charm of this album to the lyrics and give Will Sheff a single gold star. It's the arrangements that make the stories worth hearing, deceptively simple melodies hidden amongst thick, boisterous layers of music. Jonathan Meiburg's piano playing is the first sound on the album, and never really leaves us until the end. His shining moment is on the album's dramatic peak, "The War Criminal Rises And Speaks." The remaining members cycle constantly through a wide array of instruments to turn simple melody into thick, luscious harmony.

If the Arcade Fire is a large indie band bred on Joy Division and Lou Reed, then Okkervil River is that same band bred on the Band and Tim Hardin. The end result is a beautiful, cohesive, accesible and startingly deep group of songs much deserving of a listen, made only more remarkable since it acts as a launching point for more interesting and profound music.


Album Highlights: "It Ends With A Fall," "The War Criminal Rises And Speaks," "Maine Island Lovers"

Further Listening: Black Sheep Boy, The Stage Names

www.okkervilriver.com