It’s been a little quiet around here because I’m OTP at the beach for the week, but I’ve got some holiday posts coming soon. As 2008 draws to a close, it is time to put together my end of year lists. From the beginning, Ohmpark was primarily a music research project for myself, and these lists are the final culmination of that research. I strongly urge all of my readers to tell me the albums from this year that you love that I might not have covered because I want my lists to be as comprehensive as possible. Feel free to hit the comments of this post with your suggestions.

Much like I did last year when I headed to the beach for Turkey Day, I listened to a bunch of new albums on my way down here, so I’m going to go through them and talk about my first impressions of each. Before I started listening to new albums, though, I jammed some Deerhunter to get rolling. While Microcastle is certainly getting plenty of good hype around the web, I think the bonus disk, Weird Era, is getting a bit overlooked, because I like it as much, if not more, than Microcastle. It is great that on top of making such a perfect pop album they still gave a little something weirder for us Cryptograms fans. Here is a couple tracks from it I heart:

Deerhunter : Operation

Deerhunter : Vox Celeste

Next up I popped in the new Anathallo album called Canopy Glow, and it was so good I listened to twice in a row. I’m not sure how I overlooked this band up into now, but luckily the guys from Sorry No Ferrari turned me on to them when I went to Fest earlier this month. I’ll gush about Canopy Glow more later, but right this second I’d rather respond to Pitchfork’s lame review of it they posted yesterday. First, it is quite amusing to me that The Mars Volta has become the Anti-Christ to Pitchfork, and anytime they talk about a band they don’t like that can play more than 3 chords they invoke a TMV comparison. I really don’t hear much of a parallel except that both of these bands are clearly great. Also, they whine over and over how the singer from Anathallo sounds too much like Sufjan Stevens. Yes, their voices are a bit similar, but the vocalists from Fleet Foxes and Band Of Horses sound way more like Jim James than the guy from Anathallo sounds like Sufjan, and they sure love those cheap ripoff bands to death, so either get consistent or shut up and stop being a hater. Enjoy the new hottness:

Anathallo : Noni’s Field

Anathallo : The River

Next up I listened to Final Fantasy‘s Plays To Please EP, which is a tribute to some Canadian musician I’ve never heard. It was a nice listen, but nothing that wowed me like Owen Pallett normally does.

Final Fantasy : Ultimatum

After that I listened to the latest album from The Notwist, The Devil, You + Me. It came out early this summer, but I never got around to it until now. This German band sounds really good and chill, and this album will be in my heavy rotation for a while:

The Notwist : Where In This World

The Notwist : Boneless

The next two albums I tried were the newest from Ruby Isle and The Streets respectively. I didn’t like either one. I’ve never loved The Streets, but Mike Skinner’s lyrics have been pretty interesting most of the time. Unfortunately Eveything Is Borrowed seemed so boring and cliche. Ruby Isle seemed like music for 15 year old pre-ravers, and totally annoyed me. It sucks because I truly love all of the cover songs I’ve heard them do, but I just can’t get into their originals.

Finally, I finished my journey listening to the new Wilderness album, (k)no(w)here. At first I didn’t think I liked it, but by the time I finished the album I was fairly intrigued and then listened to it a few more times since. The vocalist is certainly an acquired taste, but once you can get beyond that, this album is pretty stellar. If you’re like me and you enjoy a challenging listen, this album will provide a just reward.

Wilderness : (p)ablum

Ok, hit me up with your 2008 hottness!

© Davy Minor for Ohmpark, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anathallo, Deerhunter, Final Fantasy, Ruby Isle, The Notwist, The Streets, Wilderness