LIST

I am Eamonn, a participant in several past lists, unattentive in the past couple years. A photo-shooter and record-recorder in the DC area who recently spent far too much money on grad school in NYC.

10. The Besnard Lakes - Are The Dark Horse
Husband and wife team from Montreal mix Beach Boys-esque vocals with the droning fuzz and reverb soaked arrangements of mid-90s American indie/post-shoegazers like UltraVividScene and Galaxie 500.

9. Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars
Wainwright pushes melodramatic over-emoting ten times further than any other vocalist/songwriter could ever hope to get away with and still sounds believable. Where some performers may have been content to let their incredible vocal talents carry the full weight, Wainwright betters his peers by proving himself again a clever, eclectic, and ambitious songwriter.

8. Feist - The Reminder
Hopefully someone sent this one to Jeff Tweedy to show him you can make a pretty, low-key, singsongy album and still have it be interesting to listen to. The second half of "I Feel It All" is awesome - how often can you totally rock out to a quiet acoustic song? I'm sure she's endured/enduring a horrific wave of spiteful backlash slogging from the too-cool set, but dammit! It's a great collection of songs stripped of the usual female-singer/sonwriter fare and instead offering up great vocal melodies, live, loose sounding instrumentation, and is at once bittersweet and totally *fun*.

7. Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover
Paul's assessment of this record being both heavenly and hellish at once is spot on. Wolf Parade's slightly freakier, forgot-its-meds cousin. Too cool, yea?

6. Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
It's already been mentioned a few times and there's not much I could add to what's been said. I like it for the same reasons I liked Feist and Wainwright - a talented vocalist who puts as much attention into the orchestration of their songs as their vocals. Recorded largely in a basement home studio, which pays off. You know how at home people are always a little more comfortable with their weirdness and indulge it a little more? Bird's slightly eccentric lyrics are a great foil to the more traditional, yet superbly executed instrumentation.

5. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Yea, it's not Funeral. It rocks so much more! There's no moment of beauty like, well, the entire first track of Funeral, but come on... in a year where all the sudden Springsteen musical-nods were popping up left and right (and about time, yea?) was there any one better than that turn in the second verse of Intervention at around 2:06? Antichrist Television Blues? Holy Shit. That song blaring out busting down the turnpike headed back to Virginia in the middle of the night is borderline transcedental experience. Musically, lyrcically, performancewise, an absolutely majestic record.

4. Caribou - Andorra
The Doves and The Flaming Lips team up with guest vocal arranger Elliott Smith to do an homage to the soundtrack of a late '60s espionage adventure movie? Amazing balance of sounds - electronics and acoustics and massive arrangements, fantastic synthesis of classic psychedelia and modern production. So enjoyable in so many contexts.

3. Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends
It's so awesome. So, so awesome. LSF return and do something amazing. They got a little more normal, a little less chaotic and abrasive. It could have meant "BORING" in the hands of many bands, but LSF bring all the weird savage energy and wirey postpunk guitars that made past releases so exciting (and sometimes barely tolerable) to a new set of songs that proves the versatility and prowess of the band beyond, uh, pretty much all their peers. Tim's vocals retain their snap and snarl while also embracing a pretty keen melodic sense. I can't say enough good things. 2007's best rock record. Also the most insanely insane live band around. Wear protective gloves.

2. The National - Boxer
For what appears to be such a "normal" record, I can't think of anything else that really sounds like it. It's the sum of many fairly mundane parts turned into a record that stands above it's lineage. Little bits of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Springsteen, New Order, and Tindersticks float around a decidedly nocturnal soundstage. The drummer! Listen to him! Produced by Peter Katis (who also did the first two Interpol records) it's also probably my favorite *sounding* record of the year - huge, rich, gritty immersive tones. Apparently a remarkable live band, as well - I'll find out Feb 22. Ho ho ho!

1. Radiohead - In Rainbows
My download finished a little before 4am that morning, and I sat in front of my laptop with my headphones on until past 9 listening to it in sequence over, and over, and over. For me this is their best thing since OK. Though sounding totally different it feels to me like the How Am I Driving EP, chronolgically - fights so nicely between OK and Kid A. There isn't a single song on here that seems a mis-step to me. The Arpegii/All I Need back to back combo is my favorite since Exit Music/Let Down. I don't really read any music magazines or websites so I never had to pay any mind to the hype, and then the hype about the hype, and then the backlash to the hype about the hype, and really, who cares. It's a stellar record, and Radiohead truly feels like a BAND again.


let downs: Spoon and Wilco. Each comes on the tail of each band's respective best record to date, and each, while not bad, falls utterly short of what the bands can do. Though You Got Yr Cherry Bomb is essentially perfect, the rest of Gax5 just doesn't measure up. Wilco, pleasantly boring background music does not suit you. A couple strong songs but nothing nearly rivetting enough to save the record.

2006 mention. I didn't get a list together in time but for Mark Cichra, I will say this: Battle of Mice. BATTLE OF MICE! Crushing.

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