1-5

5) Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s
I owe my discovery of this local Indianapolis band completely to RJ. As far as band names go, let’s be honest, their’s sucks—it’s trying to be too indie. For that reason alone I didn’t want to give them a chance, despite the desperate urging of RJ. It wasn’t until he visited and forced me to listen that I realized RJ’s enthusiasm was completely founded. Every track on this album sounds vaguely familiar, I know I’ve heard a particular melody or arrangement before, but I don’t mind. They seem to take the familiar and make it their own, pairing well constructed songs with thoughtful lyrics about life in the Midwest. Maybe I like them because they are from the middle of the country and I get homesick every once in awhile, but this is truly a great album and I would recommend it to anyone.

4) Thursday – A City by the Light Divided
Confession #2: I’ve always liked Thursday, since their first album. Their music is mostly indefinable, not exactly emo, not straight up rock, not new age. I think the reviewer for Pitchfork put it aptly when he described their music as shit. Call me scatological. However, as much as one may enjoy the smell of his own shit he still lights a match to clear out the room—I haven’t shared my adoration of Thursday with most people. But I never thought they could release album like this one. They haven’t changed their sound, they’ve simply perfected it. Relentless drums, flawless guitar blending, pulsing bass and copious amounts of screaming. Their tale-tell melodic singing to bloodcurdling screaming dynamic is taken to new levels on this album as they sing about religion, car crashes and the death of family members. I can’t help myself, I know they’re over dramatic; I shouldn’t like lines like This is all we’ve ever known of God/Fine with me let me touch you now—but I do. If you’ve never listened to them I wouldn’t recommend this album. You wont’ like it and then you will hate me.

3) Beirut – Gulag Orkestar
When I picked up this album I didn’t really know anything about it. I’d just skimmed through the “recommended” section of a couple of sites when I was desperate for new music. I didn’t know he was a 19-year-old American when I started listening I just knew the music was fantastic. I’ve always been intrigued by near- and middle-eastern music (can you call this music that?) and this fit my tastes perfectly. I love the horns, the accordion and I love, love his voice. Over the summer I went to a free concert in a dried out pool in Brooklyn to watch these guys play. That was the first time I realized I’d just been listening to a kid. But his voice was impeccable, as were the arrangements. I watched his tiny frame belt out that all-too-mature voice and reveled in it.

2) Mylo – Destroy Rock and Roll
Listen. Repeat. Listen. Repeat. That’s what this album was like when I first picked it up. I can seriously say I was addicted, in a bad/good/glorious way. If I went a couple days without listening to it my ears started to itch, I started sweating and an overall sense of depression swept over me. Eventually I weened myself off, but I still go back constantly like the smoker who’s convinced himself he’s quit and so allows himself the occasional cigarette. Slowly pulling the smoke into his lungs and exhaling it through his nose, watching tender curls play in the light, he decides it would be okay if he has one more. Listen. Repeat.

1) Sunset Rubdown – Shut up I Am Dreaming
I’ve been thinking for a solid two weeks how to explain why this album is at the top. It always was, from the moment Nick sent out the email ordering us to compose top 25 lists. Number one: Sunset Rubdown, everything else involved much more debate. I don’t think I can adequately explain why, but I’ll try anyways.
This album is a novel. I don’t know what famous author would write a companion novel to this music; perhaps Borges (though he never wrote a novel) or Angela Carter. The novel would take place in a windowless, basement bar in some lost coastal town. In this sepia-toned setting various carnival-esque figures would gather every night to drink themselves closer to Hell. Each page would draw the reader deeper and deeper into this mystical setting of desperation where the small whore of the bar would proclaim If I ever hurt you it will be in self-defense. The climax would come at the most desperate point in the album when some character, his life falling down around him, would shout out amidst the low whisperings of the bar Fuck me and someone else would say okay. But then something glorious would happen, hinted at by the song “Q-chord.” That brief glimpse of hope would disappear with the line oceans never listen to us anyway until the 5:11 mark of the last song. Then, in an instant, the reader, the listener and every other character would be in a place where lovers have wings and men have faithful hands and would make good boyfriends.