Albums of 2010: 10-6

The Top 10 begins here...


10. These New Puritans - Hidden

When chief song-writer Jack Barnett revealed his agenda in early press interviews - bassoons, choirs of children, "dancehall-meets-Steve Reich"- few took him seriously. Fewer still could have believed  he would pull it off quite as well as this. Putting its best foot forward with the wildly ambitious lead single We Want War, Hidden signalled a collosal step up for These New Puritans. Its wilful post-punk experimentation recalled seminal bands like This Heat, but its skull-crushing beats (Fire-Power was a better M.I.A. song than M.I.A. herself managed in 2010) ensured Hidden was its own beast entirely, and one right in the here-and-now. Southend-on-Sea had never sounded so exotic.

9. Liars - Sisterworld

Whilst Sisterworld, like its eponymous predecessor, is one of the more accessible entries in the Liars canon, it was still a deeply unsettling listening experience that hearkened back to their experimental second and third records. Whilst their previous record was a disparate and uneven affair, Liars' return to their home city of LA provided Sisterworld with a more resounding theme, in sound at least, and made for perhaps their most satisfying record yet. A sense of death and dread lurks throughout, awaiting the moment that the gratuitous Scarecrows On A Killer Slant jumps from the shadows and shoots you point-blank in the face.

8. Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky

14 years on from their previous record, My Father... saw Michael Gira and members old and new in the rudest possible health. Huge slabs of rhythm fell like someone kicking tombstones to the ground, and Gira's 3-year old daughter duetting with Devendra Banhart (a man who has sung more than most about children) was creepy in every sense, but it was the none-more-black nature of My Father... that made it such a perversely enjoyable record in the day-glo indie climate; when Gira sings "we are reeling the liars in" you can hear the smirk on his face.

7. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

Speaking of day-glo, Pink's debut on 4AD saw considerably less arsing around, resulting in him making the album few thought he was capable of making: a practically flab-free collection of goofy but glorious songs spanning glam-rock (Little Wig), goth-metal (Butthouse Blondies) and cheesy synthpop (Can't Hear My Eyes), as well as delivering a rousing single in the form of Round And Round. Pink remained as much of an oddball as ever (Menopause Man was testament to that), but Before Today saw him seize the throne of a glo-fi scene he'd created almost single-handedly.

6. Sufjan Stevens - The Age Of Adz

Having teased us with the "slight" 50 minutes of closet-clearing EP All Delighted People just a month or so prior, Sufjan let loose with his most audacious record yet. From the album's sci-fi artwork and the skittery electronic beats and bleeps and ominous orchestration, you could be forgiven for thinking Sufjan had made the switch from christianity to scientology, but underneath all the pizazz and vocoders (yes, vocoders) was a human being, one wracked with insecurities and self-doubt. He countered this by putting his all behind every second of Age of Adz, and he wants us to know it, to the point where he's screaming at us "I'm not f*cking around" over and over. Now there's conviction for you.

 

20-16

15-11

The Ones That Got Away