It's the final countdown (de-de derrr der...de-de der der derrr...)
5. Caribou - Swim
The greatest trick Dan Snaith ever pulled was convincing the indie-blogging world it liked club anthems. Sun and Bowls were essentially just that - woozy, euphoric and beat-driven - albeit constantly evolving, submerging and re-emerging as something quite different. But the pulsating 4-person live shows coupled with Snaith's frail tenor ensured that underneath it all
Swim, as with all of Caribou's otherwise very distinguished records, possessed a beating human heart. The clinching vocal performance however, fell into the hands of Born Ruffian Luke Lalonde for show-stopping closer Jamelia.
As
The Suburbs claimed the #1 spot in both the U.S and U.K, it sent Arcade Fire into the pantheon of artists such as Radiohead and previously REM of commercially successful bands that truly matter.
The Suburbs was absolutely the right album at the right time for the Montreal band, eschewing blockbusting singles for more unified songwriting (I've heard no less than 9 of its 16 songs played on radio or on TV appeatances) and big themes for smaller, more fully realised ones which, in their mundanity, were paradoxically much more interesting.
3. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
The Atlanta, Georgia band's musical journey over the last three years, from dissonant krautrock and ambient soundscapes to the blissful dreampop one might associate with their label 4AD, has been an enthralling one;
Halcyon Digest felt like the next and quite possibly definitive piece in the puzzle, the sound of a band reaching its final destination. Guitarist Lockett Pundt made key song-writing contributions - Desire Lines, like Nothing Ever Happened before it, showed how Deerhunter can be epic without being even remotely showy - but Bradford Cox leant extra emotional heft to his songs, peaking with the achingly pretty Helicopter and He Would've Laughed's touching tribute to the late Jay Reatard.
2. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
James Murphy's supposed bow-out of the LCD Soundsystem name was in essence Sound Of Silver Pt. 2, and what's wrong with that? Murphy, who's gotten better and better as a vocalist with each release was, as ever, equal-parts sardonic, earnest and hilarious, and always utterly self-aware. But while Drunk Girls may have served as the obligatory go-to single, the album's true agenda was there for all to hear on You Wanted A Hit ("that's not we do"), backed up by a sprawling 70 minute 9-song cycle which once more drew upon the usual Bowie/Iggie/Talking Heads touchstones, yet maintained Murphy as no mere revivalist, but a peerless visionary.
1. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
It's some feat for an album bristling with such raw punk energy from the off to sustain such levels over 65 minutes, but The Monitor, the year's most exhilirating record, did just that. Vocalist Patrick Stickles spends pretty much its duration as man kicked into the gutter, lowest of the low, but no matter how wretched the situation, Titus Andronicus pulled thim up each and every time with one more venomous mantra, one more guitar solo, one more bagpipe solo(!). Theming the album around the American Civil War (cue readings of Abe Lincoln, Walt Whitman et al) may not have prevented lyrical references to Springsteen, Dylan and even Billy Bragg, but it was utterly appropriate; The Monitor was the sound of a band playing as though their very lives depending on it.
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