Best Albums - 4th Quarter 2011

Justice - Audio Video Disco: Euro electro dance goes prog and sounds damn good doing it. If I ever was the type of person who jogged this is the album that might fuel me until I my path crossed a bar or a McDonalds.

Blouse - Self Titled: Charlie Hilton's vocals drive me to a darkness but I'm OK with that. Silky yet gloomy, Blouse's dark-wave pop is something that confuses my ears and heart and I wouldn't have it any other way.

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming: Double albums are usually bloated spectacles of overindulgence and filler. This is not the case with M83's Hurry Up We're Dreaming. It is a sonic trip through through your R.E.M. cycles that ends too soon every time you listen to it. Waking Life never felt so good.

M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming: Everything about this double album is perfect. The synth sound is huge and the songs are dark and dreamy. There aren’t many albums that can dictate my emotions so effortlessly. This is the best album of 2011.

Vanaprasta – Healthy Geometry: I miss pure rock music with great guitar solos and excellent vocals. Vanaprasta is able to fill this void in my modern-day music collection with Health Geometry.

Alabama Shakes - Alabama Shakes EP: Thanks to the fucking Zales commercial I can unintentionally hear You Aint Alone at least three times a day, but you know what? I’m still not sick of the song. So much soul pours out of lead singer Brittnay Howard that, by the end of the EP, you half expect her to collapse of exhaustion.

Real Estate - Days: Took me back to my teenage years, particularly the times I spent laying around, high on drugs. No album this quarter did more with less, and it made for a comfortable fit. A blissful, cozy experience that remains memorable even when I'm out of pot.

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming: I hate to invoke the term epic, but that's what this record was. Soaring, synthy, and magnificent from front to back to second front to second back. Beautiful album that's easy to connect with, and will be around for a while.

Feist - Metals: Leslie Feist decided to go a little badass on Metals, and I was right there with her. I felt myself being pushed to like new aspects of her music, and also being allowed to enjoy things I loved about her previous work. Metals flew under the radar a bit, (no iPod commercial) but was a great record, and an important one in Feist's progressing career.

M83 - Hurry Up We're Dreaming: I declined reviewing this with Tom because I wanted to hold out on liking it publicly to make him question his sexuality. I fucking adore this record. A perfect way to hold one's attention on anything but the present, M83 fucking murdered this. One complaint: should've been two albums.

Black Keys - El Camino: As my review states, I didn't want to like this since a lot of my music sharing friends hated on it for sounding so crisp. But if loving great fucking rock is wrong, I don't want to be Del.

Pyyramids - Human Beings: Lust is an understatement. Sometimes I find myself wanting to listen to this album just to prove I didn't actually hear all of it and I don't really love it as much as I do. Too bad every time I do that I end up loving it more.

Vanaprasta - Healthy Geometry: This album is fucking epic. Huge in all the right ways, goes deep without causing bleeding and Jesus Christ it is heavy. They play a game of just the tip with nice alt pop sounds and once you let them in they ravage you with hard, heavy and deep punishment.

FIDLAR - DIYDUI: Listening to FIDLAR is like being forced to drink 2 Steel Reserve 40s and slam dance with speed freaks while wearing your Sunday best up top and your crotchless panties down low. It is the type of party you can’t go to every week but every now and again is needed.

Dear Lions - Lying To My Eyes: This year they made a huge evolutionary leap with this fucker. Ricky Lewis can still melt your soul with his voice but now he also steals your TV and Fucks the pets on his way out. He is a bad fucking man.

Tom Waits - Bad as Me: I can’t remember where I heard or read that Tom Waits really thought it through: he started out singing like he was a chain-smoking octogenarian, so now that he’s close it sounds even better. His first studio record in a few years, and all it contains all the tenderness, wit, and gravely insight one would expect from this barstool bard. And with that this record is in effect, timeless.

Factor and the Chandeliers - Self Titled: People are running out of superlatives for this producers, well, productivity. He’s been deemed, “hard-working, “a super producer,” “wunderkind,” “prolific,” and “versatile”. This LP of sample-free instrumentals makes all of them, and probably a few more, perfectly applicable.

The Black Keys - El Camino: The ­­Fill in the Blanks were all the rage for a while there. We’re left with only a few The’s standing. Thankfully, these flippant fuckers thumb their noses at what’s supposed to be their path and just keep making fun, raucous, bluesy rock.