My Albums of 2010, Part 1 (10-5 & Near Misses)

Seeing as it's New Year's Eve, I thought the time was right to do a rundown of the albums I have enjoyed most this year. Here's the first half, and I'll put up my 5 top albums of the year probably tomorrow.

	10 - Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love Of all the eagerly-anticipated albums this year, perhaps none had expectations so divided. Some people, fuelled by the couple of songs released on a B&S TV show a couple of months early, thought this had the potential to be a true return to their late-90s top form. Others, fuelled by the prospect of songs featuring Carey Mulligan and Norah Jones, thought it would be a further descent into the MOR, continuing along the lines of the second half of 2005's The Life Pursuit. In the end, they were probably both right. Some truly amazing indiepop is tempered by some dross, making for an album that is enjoyable but unmemorable. Hopefully they can get a couple more albums out over the next few years and re-find their stride.
	9 - Wild Nothing - Gemini In my review of Wild Nothing's neo-C86 debut, I said that it was a very good dreampop album with few ideas of its own. The couple of weeks since I wrote that review have slightly softened that position in my mind - it has improved even further with a few more listens, and I do now think that this is genuinely one of the best albums of the year. The accompanying Golden Haze EP is well worth picking up too. And, of course, I still love the cover art.
	8 - Shrag - Life! Death! Prizes! Previously much better live than on record, Shrag are one of those bands that seem to be able to churn out songs that feel like you've always known them. Post-punk (specifically post-X Ray Spex) in attitude but almost twee in melodies, they are the perfect band for a specific mood. This, their second record after they released a compilation of singles last year, is their first attempt at a proper long-player. It's just so fun - Tight in August is one of the year's angsty pop gems. Despite the lack of many potential singles, the like of which their previous record was stuffed with, I prefer this album, as it feels much more mature, without feeling like its anywhere near fulfilled the band's obviously massive potential. This makes me pretty excited for their follow-up, although I think it could be a while in coming as they cement their place in the London live music scene.
	7 - Beach House - Teen Dream Probably the biggest dream-pop album of the year, this record got pretty much universal acclaim form a variety of influential sources. I do think it is a genuinely stunning album. I can see how people might see it as slightly 'boring' and ineffectual, as it is not exactly imposing, but the melodies and harmonies gradually unfold and wrap themselves around you, in a similar way (although obviously not as powerfully) as 'Loveless'. Indeed, the more I listen to this album the more shoegazey I think it is, although with sweeter melodies and less abrasive noise than many albums of the genre - the most similar genuine oldschool shoegaze band would probably be Slowdive, but there are also a lot of other obvious influences among their contemporaries - I definitely think they've been listening to quite a lot of 'For Emma, Forever Ago'.
	6 - Allo Darlin' - Allo Darlin' I got fairly obsessed with this album back in the Spring. They, as with many bands this year, are incredibly open in their influences - in this case, 90s K and Sarah bands. 'Dreaming', the opening song, takes all the best elements of this scene - the boy-girl interplay vocals are straight out of 'C is the Heavenly Option' - and packages it with a ukulele. Some of the songs are weaker than others - I don't normally skip songs, but even I find 'Heartbeat Chilli' virtually unlistenable - but they seem to be able to put their mind to most things in the indiepop spectrum with a remarkable degree of success, and you can't help but be utterly charmed by the album as a whole. I think I definitely overplayed it, as I haven't listened to it much at all over the last couple of months, but there is no way I wouldn't put it up as my favourite British indiepop album of 2010, and there is some very strong competition.

Here are some other albums I heartily recommend from this year, but that didn't make the final top 10.

11 - Sufjan Stevens - The Age Of Adz
12 - Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
13 - Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo
14 - Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
15 - James Blackshaw - All Is Falling
16 - Freelance Whales - Weathervanes
17 - Math And Physics Club - I Shouldn't Look As Good As I Do
18 - The Arcade Fire - Suburbs
19 - Free Energy - Stuck On Nothing
20 - Delorean - Subiza
21 - Standard Fare - The Noyelle Beat
22 - Teenage Fanclub - Shadows
23 - Thee Silver Mt. Zion & Tra-La-La Band - Kollaps Tradixionales
24 - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Let It Sway
25 - Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

Album Review: Wild Nothing - Gemini

[Captured Tracks, 2010]

I've been pretty slow at getting into Wild Nothing, a band led by a man called Jack Tatum from Blacksburg, Virginia, who play luscious, dreamy lo-fi indiepop. Along with contemporaries such as Beach House and Avi Buffalo, they've been part of what has been quite an interesting year for American indie rock, but have a much more poppy slant than either of these two bands. Wild Nothing have much more in common with old-school British C86 bands like the Field Mice than with much of the rest of the modern American music scene, bar some of the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's more dreamy moments. They manage to blend this with a touch of what sounds to me like electro of the early New Order type, making a very enjoyable album from start to finish, albeit one with more than a hint of 'background music' about it. Some of this album, such as the second track, Summer Holiday, gets pretty close to the quality of the very best of its forebears. Nothing very original, but it is hard not to make an enjoyable album with influences like these, and Wild Nothing succeed surprisingly well. The fact it boasts my favourite artwork of the year is a bonus.

I can see this album making many end-of-year lists, not least my own, but find it hard to imagine that I'll still be listening to it regularly 5 years down the line. The onus is on Wild Nothing to push forward this potential and write a second album with which they can definitively state that they have something new to offer to the dreampop world.

Here's a video for my favourite song on the album, Summer Holiday.