Why do we do it? Why do we insist at the end of every year
on dragging all the old news out of the bag and assessing it fresh when our minds
are patently addled and our concentration spans could be measured with a small
peanut left over from last year's xmas festivities? We do it because you expect
it. And though our methods are hazy at best and our criteria as likely to shift
as frequently as tectonic plates in the Indian Ocean we've pulled out 20 albums
of 2006 that we think deserve heaps of additional, unconditional credit
and squeezed them into one neat and tidy column for your enjoyment. We do it because
we love you.... Top 5 Albums 2005 #1
Arcade Fire – Funeral (Rough Trade)
Canada
February 28, 2005
Produced by: Arcade Fire
More or less officially
authenticated as the most exciting thing to happen since landmass solidified out
of noxious gasses just after lunchtime on the first day of creation. At least.
Probably. Speak now or forever hold your peace. A faultless, densely rich realization
of so many US indie bands' ambitions over recent years. Dark content, light context.
And we’re talking bright lights here. Joy, indeed, to the world.
Defining
moment: Moments into ‘Rebellion (Lies)’ as the bass powers up like a warm
south-easterly wind around the foothills of heaven and anticipation teeters like
a unicyclist carrying fine china on the high-wire.
#2 Keren Ann - Nolita (EMI)
Netherlands/France
June 27, 2005
Producer Keren Ann Zeidel
Curious and eccentric European
bird crafts an equally curious and eccentric album of such louche sophistication
that one can hear the tinkling of wine glasses and the purr of a silk stocking
being stroked by a swarthy Latin gentleman behind the moist introspection of the
pianos and the gentle strokes of the brushes. Erotic melancholia for bohemians
in a smoky environment. Depressing, exhilarating, and frightfully creepy too.
Defining Moment: Title track ‘Nolita’. Eerie double-tracked
vocal - slightly out of sync - slurs the chilling message, ‘think I’m gonna bury
you’ against a backdrop of an obsessive guitar arpeggio and a sepulcher of strings.
And when the panting sets in it’s goose-pimples all over.
#3
Smog – A River Ain’ Too Much (Domino)
US
May 30, 2005
Produced by: Bill Callahan
Bill Callahan; underrated
pioneer of the lo-fi revolution, a man as partial to a private melancholy world
of fractured lives and strange pursuits as he is to parenthesis. The confessional
peculiarities of 'A River Ain't Too Much' reveal the mind of an addled and alienated
individual leafing poignantly through a scrapbook of recollections and profoundly
intimate sexual preferences and the pornography of the past. Driftwood songs exhibiting
the crazy misanthropic ramblings of an amusingly bitter man whose crazy rambling
story disturbs and absorbs you in equal measures.
Defining moment:
The simple pledge of a man preparing to descend into the darkness his soul: ‘I
love my Mother. I love my father. I love my sisters too’ as the foam of the water
and the thrashing percussion rises around him: the sound of a man drowning in
a pool of his own unconditional love.
#4 The National
– Alligator (Beggars Banquet)
US
April 12, 2005
Produced by: Peter Katis
Evoking the kind of melting,
melodic harmony that perhaps only a band equipped with two whole sets of brothers
could muster. But what makes this incredibly consistent collection of dusky sub-Springsteen
alt-blues so very exceptional is the peerlessly unconventional, free-flowing stream
of consciousness courtesy of Matt Berringer’s spiky lyrical tongue. Like Nick
Cave’s underling apprentice tripping over his shoelaces, poetically.
Defining
moment: So many lines stand out as vivid charcoal sketches of peculiar
and familiar occasions and conditions, but one sums it up: “A wingspan unbelievable,
I’m a festival, I’m a parade”
#5 Kaiser Chiefs – Employment
(B-Unique)
UK
March 7, 2005
Produced
by: Stephen Harris
The sound of a pop-thirsty Blur circa ‘Leisure’
with the benefit of having heard ‘Parklife’ already. Still climbing the charts
with the manic aplomb of a rat up a drainpipe, Ricky Wilson and his art-house
crew of belligerent intellectuals and pop-tarts revived the cryonic, frozen body
of Britpop and opened the gate for a relentless bumper-crop of smash-hit singles
– spanning a good three-quarters of stonkingly MASSIVE debut album, ‘Employment’.
Breathless and exhausting yet fiendishly smart and savvy, bookworms and student-types
everywhere got a shot of adrenaline right where they needed it most. The most
flawless first eight tracks of any debut – any time - anywhere. It’s often the
case that the copy is better than the original.
Defining moment: The
drawn out, reckless thrashing of the guitars and keys as Wilson extends the climactic
vocal whooping and wailing directly before the final chorus of ‘I Predict A Riot’.
The truest intent of pop is to thrill.
Remaining 15 records.......... My
Morning Jacket – Z (RCA)
US
October
17, 2005
Produced by: John Leckie & Jim James
Jim James continues to generate
lightly mystical and psychedelic, Flaming Lips-like vocal displays of fragile
intensity and dazzling, nature loving theosophy. Freakish, bold, excessive, over-wrought
and stunningly beautiful. A widescreen joy.
Elbow – Leaders Of The
Free World (V2)
UK
September
12, 2005
Produced by: Elbow
Garvey's army restate their very reasonable
claim to Manchester's hearts. As subtle as a brick, as soft as still snowfall.
Heartfelt, ground-level songwriting.
Sigur Ros – Takk (EMI)
Iceland
September 12, 2005
Produced
by: Sigur Ros/Ken Thomas
All the usual stuff about double-vanilla glaciers
and winged snow pixies liberating the lunar tundra. Only now with a signal booster
hooked up and much longer shadows cast.
Boy Least Likely To – Best
Party Ever (Too Young To Die)
UK
February 21, 2005
Produced by: Bobby Charm
Against a rainbow of primary-colours,
juvenile graphics and a preponderance of nursery school concerns, together with
a modicum of help from their chums on recorder and fiddle, the whimsical Buckinghamshire
duo daub a gentle crayola spectacle of sparkling and very English eccentricity.
Editors – The Back Room (Kitchenware)
UK
July 25, 2005
Produced by: Gavin Monaghan
A surprisingly resilient record,
doomy pop songwriting has never sounded quite so bendy. Expect to hear them referred
to as Brum's Interpol less and less.
Fischerspooner – Odyssey (EMI)
US
April 11, 2005
Produced by:
Tony Hoffer
Quite a revelation. Behind the artsy, proggy preposterousness
of a stylish yet superficial debut album beats the heart and the hooks of classic
eighties pop. Fischerspooner build on the promise, deliver on the hype and dispense
with the crap.
Absentee – Donkey Stock (Memphis Industries)
UK
July 11, 2005
Produced by: David
Bernard
Like Grandaddy running low on gasoline, this ambles through tumbleweed
strewn pastures, offset by a hazy sundown and off-kilter humour. Mini album. Big
heart.
Laura Veirs – Year Of Meteors (Nonesuch)
US
August 29, 2005
Produced by: Tucker Martine
For Veirs, the human condition
is best grasped through the loose open weave of fantastic nature; the world of
shimmering mermaids, mudflows, hot ash, vibrating bears, hovering homing pigeons,
white spider stars and meteor showers. Bookish yet dazzling.
Art Brut
– Bang Bang Rock N Roll (Fierce Panda)
UK
May 30, 2005
Produced by: John Fortiss
You are not as funny as this band.
You aren't as charming or persuasive. You do not wear retro Britpop chic nearly
so well. Rarely does inadequacy sound so exhilarating.
I Am Kloot
– Gods and Monsters (Echo)
UK
April 11, 2005
Produced by: Joe Robinson
I Am Kloot’s John Bramwell practically
shares a post code with fellow weariest, Damon Gough. Cynical northern bastards
intent on wreaking the glummest of havocs on the usual lyrical romance with venom
and excruciating tenderness. Unplugged but not without electricity, this is as
pure as it gets.
Kathryn Williams – Over Fly Over (Caw)
UK
May 9, 2005
Produced by:
As if she wasn't divine enough already, Britain's
understated modern-day answer to Janis Joplin added imperfections to her pure,
thoughtful sound to increase its beauty yet further.
Shout Out Louds
– Howl Howl Gaff Gaff (EMI)
Sweden
September 19, 2005
Produced by: Ronald Bood/Shout Out Louds
Quirky little
Swedish pop quintet fall into the goofy indie-camp with a solid dozen tracks of
joyful, absurd and willful tomfoolery. Bright, breezy and infectious with just
a smidgen of cunning.
M83 – Before The Dawn Heals Us (Labels)
France
January 24, 2005
Produced
by: Anthony Gonzalez/Antione Gaillet/Jean Philippe Talaga
Like Philip. K.
Dick and J.G Ballard, Gonzalez craft a surprisingly accessible exploration of
what it is to be human. Only with more breathy vocals, more overwrought orchestration,
more guitars and more theremins. Extravagant yet elegant.
Bloc Party
– Silent Alarm (Witchita/V2)
UK
February 14, 2005
Produced by: Paul Epworth
Taut to the point of fracturing.
Paranoia and the claustrophobia of modern living chisel dynamic shapes out of
the speakers. Listen closely and there's a genuine heart there too.
Complied
by James Berry and Alan Sargeant for Crud Magazine 2006©
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| 04/05 British Sea Power - Live - Scala, London
04/05 Eels - Live - Royal Festival Hall, London
04/05 Doves, Elbow, Longview - Carling 24 , Manchester
04/05 Joy Zipper, ICA London
04/05 The National - 100 Club, London
04/05 Redjetson / Liberez / Twentysixfeet - Marquee, London
04/05 The Warlocks - Bethnal Green Working Men's Club
12/04 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - ULU, London
12/04 Elbow - Live -Brixton Academy, London
12/04 Franz Ferdinand - Live - Alexandra Palace, London
12/04 Morning Runner - Kings College London
12/04 Carling Weekend Reading Festival 2005
12/04 Sigur Rós - Brixton Academy, London
12/04 Crud Top 20 Albums 2005 |  |
January 2001
July - August 2001
September - October 2001
November - December 2001
January - March 2002
April - July 2002
August - December 2002
January - March 2003
May - August 2003
November 2003
January - March 2004
April - September 2004
October - December 2004
January - March 2005
April - December 2005
January - August 2006
September - December 2006
January - September 2007
October - December 2007
January - May 2008
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