Table of Contents:
- Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
- Beach House – Teen Dream
- Deftones – Diamond Eyes
- Iron Maiden – The Final Frontier
- Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
- LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
- MGMT – Congratulations
- Stone Temple Pilots – Stone Temple Pilots
- Tame Impala – Innerspeaker
- Vampire Weekend – Contra
- Weezer – Hurley
- Weezer – Death to False Metal
Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
Win Butler reflects on growing up in the suburbs.
Described by Win Butler as Depeche Mode meets Neil Young, The Suburbs is not a love letter or indictment of the suburbs, but more of an observation.
The Suburbs’ title track sounds like nostalgia, but sees the past without the rose tinted glasses, fully aware of the pain that also hides inside the memories. Ready to Start is triumphant. The somewhat janky guitars of Modern Man make for a dreamy instrumental to Win Butler’s passionate vocals. Rococo builds up into a soaring and powerful climax. Empty Room sees a mixture of strings and post-punk. The guitars of City With No Children, glide like the northern lights in the sky. Half Light I and The Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) are both sung by Régine Chassagne, with the latter and Half Light II (No Celebration) seeing the band using synthesizers. Suburban War shows off some of Will Butler’s best guitar playing yet. The punk Month of May is one of their hardest rocking songs. Wasted Hours is a slow ballad that sounds like it could have been on Neon Bible. We Used to Wait feels urgent.
The Suburbs is a grand, sweeping concept album that had Arcade Fire at their most epic and ambitious yet — a total masterpiece.
10/10
Trivia: The Suburbs won Album of the Year at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.
Beach House – Teen Dream
Feels like I’m living a teen dream.
An improvement on the template set two years earlier on Devotion, Teen Dream sees Beach House at their best yet on their first album on the legendary Sub Pop label. Norway, Zebra and Used to Be are all heavenly dream pop tracks that made for superb singles. 10 Mile Stereo and Silver Soul are also highlights.
Teen Dream is an album covered in heavenly keys, angelic vocals and soothing guitars. It may not be the most diverse collection of songs, but Beach House is certainly perfecting their dream pop sound with each and every release.
8/10
Deftones – Diamond Eyes
Deftones rise from the ashes after the loss of original bassist Chi Cheng.
In 2008, Deftones’ original bassist Chi Cheng was in a near-fatal car accident, which left him in a comatose state. The band had been working on a new album called Eros, but everything from those sessions was scrapped after Cheng’s incident. The band’s fresh start on their new album ended up as Diamond Eyes, which is arguably their best album since White Pony.
The title track starts with a crushing heaviness before going into one of the band’s best choruses, showcasing vocalist Chino Moreno in top form. Steven Carpenter’s guitar playing on Rocket Skates makes for an absolute scorcher of a song that will kick your ass into the stone age. Sextape is perhaps the single most gorgeous, heart-wrenching track the band has ever written yet. Beauty School is another excellent song, with some great bass work from new bassist, Sergio Vega.
Few people would have expected Diamond Eyes to be as amazing as it is, considering the circumstances in which it was created, but the odds were defied with one of their most focused and immediate albums yet.
10/10
Iron Maiden – The Final Frontier
Space… the final frontier.
After Bruce Dickinson reunited with Iron Maiden for Brave New World, the band had been on a hot streak, having released a trio of albums in the 2000s that bested anything they did in the 1990s. The Final Frontier carries forward that momentum and energy, with another helping of the band’s trademark metal sound.
Satellite 15… The Final Frontier starts the album off with synths, possibly hinting at a direction similar to their synth-heavy, late 80s works like Somewhere in Time or Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, but then goes into the more typical heavy modern sound. El Dorado, the only single from the album, has a memorable hook from Bruce Dickinson. There’s five songs here over 8 minutes, including the 11 minute-long closer (and longest track on the album), When the Wild Wind Blows, which is one of the band’s most epic tracks yet.
The Final Frontier doesn’t change much from any of the band’s 2000s albums, but it’s another solid entry from the British metal icons, proving that they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, even 30 years into their recording career.
7.5/10
Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye West makes a comeback for the ages.
It’s hard to see it as such in hindsight, but in 2008, 808s & Heartbreak was considered a disappointment, especially after Kanye’s “College Trilogy”. It did go on to influence a plethora of emo rappers (which unfortunately includes Drake), but at the time, it’s reliance on Kanye West’s autotune singing, lack of profanities and downbeat vibes turned many fans and critics off.
Then in 2009, he interrupted Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, which pissed off a lot of people. Kanye West was more than known for being outspoken by the late naughts, but this seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back (it’s all quite pedestrian compared to his later controversies).
Between the polarizing reception of 808s and the VMA incident, along with being made fun of in an entire episode of South Park (Fishsticks) and losing his mother in late 2007, Kanye was at an all time low. Sure, his music was critically acclaimed, and he was wealthy and famous, but he had become something of a joke, much to the simultaneously insecure and cocky Kanye’s chagrin. So, Kanye retreated to Hawaii and made a masterpiece to shut up all the naysayers and detractors. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy wasn’t so much an apology, as it was him giving the people what he thought that they had wanted and then claiming his throne, knowing damn well how good this album was.
The cast of characters on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy alone makes it feel like a cinematic team up of some of the greatest voices in rap, R&B and pop. You have Pusha T, Kid Cudi, Jay-Z, Rick Ross, RZA, Rihanna, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Nicki Minaj, John Legend, Elton John and even Chris Rock. Some of these are artists I’d never listen to on their own, but like a good director, Kanye is able to bring the best out of his cast.
Dark Fantasy begins with a sample of a lesser known 80s Jon Anderson (Yes) and Mike Oldfield song, In High Places, before segueing into one of Kanye’s most regal beats. Gorgeous uses a guitar sample from an obscure 1969 song, which backs some of Kanye’s best bars ever (along with some Kid Cudi vocals). Power samples what sounds like an African or indigenous chant and King Crimson’s classic 21st Century Schizoid Man, as Kanye ponders what power can do to a man (such as himself).
All of the Lights is the big pop hit of the album and even features a string instrumental version as an intro. Monster is certainly a monster of a track. and has great features from everyone who’s on it, including a surprisingly brilliant Nicki Minaj verse. So Appalled is another banger with killer features. Devil in a New Dress transforms a Smokey Robinson song into one of Kanye’s greatest pieces. Runaway is a nine minute epic with a three minute instrumental outro, showing that Kanye is willing to be just as experimental as he is willing to be commercial. Hell of a Life sees a rather loose interpolation of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man, but makes it into something completely different.
For many, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy remains the high point of Kanye’s entire career and the moment where all the stars aligned for him. There’s a reason why it’s not only considered one of the greatest rap albums of all time, but one of the greatest of any genre.
10/10
Trivia: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy won Best Rap Album at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.
LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
LCD Soundsystem starts the decade off with a bang.
James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem continue their masterful dance rock on their third album, This Is Happening, which is also their best yet.
Dance Yrself Clean is a nine minute song that you’ll struggle to resist dancing to. Drunk Girls sounds like a rewrite of The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Light Heat, swapping out the amphetamines for intoxicated women. One Touch is a kinetic banger. All I Want sounds like “Heroes” era Bowie.
A great album, which is all the more surprising that the band broke up shortly after its release.
9/10
MGMT – Congratulations
MGMT decides to alienate fans of their debut by making the album they wanted to make, rather than the album that fans wanted them to make.
Oracular Spectacular was one of the most important albums of the 2000s — it predicted a lot of indie music and electro pop that would come out in the following decade, but the duo of Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser seemed to want to distance themselves from that project, having used it more as a trojan horse than a framework.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like Oracular Spectacular; it still features rich psychedelia, catchy songs and that magic Dave Fridmann touch, but it’s definitely more commercial and less experimental than Congratulations; their sophomore album sounds so far removed from their debut. Instead, you will find rawer production, hints of surf rock and even some progressive elements here.
It’s Working is like a more psychedelic take on early R.E.M. Song for Dan Treacy is an ode to the frontman of post-punk band, Television Personalities. Brian Eno is another love letter, this time to the legendary producer and is a fittingly weird song. Flash Delirium finds MGMT at its strangest and most mystical. Siberian Breaks is a 12 minute, neo-psychedelic surf rock epic and perhaps MGMT’s greatest piece they’ve ever written. The album ends with the title track, which is a calming, mostly stripped back acoustic song.
While it may not possess a hit single along the likes of Kids, Time to Pretend or Electric Feel, Congratulations is still a brilliant and bold follow-up that showed that MGMT was willing to make the music they wanted to make and not the music they were expected to make. Although several fans and critics made it out to be a failure, it’s far from one.
8.5/10
Stone Temple Pilots – Stone Temple Pilots
Stone Temple Pilots reunite for their self-titled album.
After five albums, a greatest hits and years of Scott Weiland’s self-destructive behaviour with drug abuse, Stone Temple Pilots decided they needed to take a break as a band. In this time, Scott Weiland went on to form the short-lived Velvet Revolver with Guns N’ Roses alumni Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum, releasing two albums.
The band is back and instead of returning to their grungier roots, it very much sounds like a continuation of where they left off with Shangri La-Dee Da. Between The Lines was the big lead single, though there is a part that comes a little too close to resembling Nirvana’s Stay Away. — still, it’s an enjoyable comeback single, if not a little uninspired. Songs like Take a Load Off, Huckleberry Crumble and Hickory Dichotomy have that Aerosmith twang. There are some nice ballads, like Cinnamon and Maver. One of the bonus tracks, Samba Nova, is a similar lounge song to their 1996 track And So I Know.
It’s no Core or Purple, and it plays it quite safe, but Stone Temple Pilots is an enjoyable enough comeback album, though nothing here will top any of the band’s best tracks. Still, it’s good to hear the original Stone Temple Pilots lineup together one last time.
7/10
Tame Impala – Innerspeaker
Kevin Parker helps bring psychedelic rock into the 2010s.
When I was introduced to Tame Impala, I thought I was listening to some long lost Beatles record that had been in a vault for decades; Kevin Parker sounded remarkably like John Lennon to me and the music had that same psychedelic, acid-soaked feeling that The Beatles and other psychedelic bands of that era (The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, etc.) had provided. This was everything I was looking for at that point of time, but was not expecting to have found it made in 2010.
Despite revisiting the past, Kevin Parker is anything but regressive, as Innerspeaker sounds both vintage and new, whereas previous rock-revivalist bands, like Jet or Airbourne sounded contrived, disingenuous and two-dimensional by comparison. Everything about Tame Impala felt authentic though, with Parker’s production abilities and colourful songwriting providing candy for the ears — he is definitely one of the most exciting producer/musicians around.
It Isn’t Meant to Be recounts a woman who leaves Kevin, because she doesn’t like his nonchalant lifestyle of making music, walking barefoot in the sand and smoking weed, but he’d rather be alone than to give up his way of life; Solitude Is Bliss is similarly about how Kevin is at his happiest when he’s alone, making loneliness sound like a hell of a good time. Desire Be Desire Go is an updated version of a song from Tame Impala’s self-titled 2008 EP, and is also one of the band’s heavier songs. Alter Ego feels like a trip, with walls of synths and its introspective lyrics. Lucidity is an upbeat rocker, dripping sunshine. The psychedelic soundscapes of Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind? keep the listener hypnotized. Expectation includes a faux outro, with the music fading back in soon after. Runways, Houses, City, Clouds is otherworldly and a fantastic penultimate song, before being followed by the carefree and floaty I Don’t Really Mind, which closes the album blissfully.
Innerspeaker is fuzzy, sunny, acid-soaked, neo-psychedelia mixed by the one and only psychedelic producer-extraordinaire Dave Fridmann (producer for The Flaming Lips and MGMT’s debut) and it will make you feel like you are simultaneously living in 1967 and 2010, on top of a cloud. Kevin Parker has painted an entire world within the music of Tame Impala. One of the greatest rock debuts of the millennium and a launchpad for one of today’s brightest musical visionaries.
10/10
Vampire Weekend – Contra
Vampire Weekend enters the 2010s with synthesizers.
Vampire Weekend’s first album was a preppy, upbeat, Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel love letter. If you disliked that album’s pretentious and optimistic sound, then you probably won’t like Contra much either, but if you did like Vampire Weekends’ debut, then you’ll find an exciting new spin on that sound, this time featuring prominent synthesizers and electronic drums.
Horchata may indicate that this is a group of rich, college kids who have most likely had a life of luxury, but that doesn’t make the song any less fun or enjoyable. White Sky sees the band comfortably approach the more digital sound of the album. Run has some of band member Rostam Batmanglij’s best production, as does Giving Up the Gun, which is one of the band’s finest tracks. There’s also Holiday and Cousins, which both sound like holdovers from their debut, for fans expecting something like an A-Punk here.
Though Contra is not quite as cherished as their debut, it shows a significant evolution in their sound and is one of the most adventurous sophomore albums of its era.
8.5/10
Trivia: The photo used on the cover resulted in a lawsuit from the model, who claims the 1983 polaroid shot of her was used without her permission (the band had found the image on Flickr). The lawsuit was eventually dropped.
Weezer – Hurley
Weezer starts the decade off with a whimper.
Even though it had only been a year since Weezer had released the critically-panned Raditude (an album where the fans were laughing at the band, not with them), comes Hurley, named after the fact that Jorge Garcia (the man on the cover) plays Hurley on the television show Lost… Why? I don’t know, but I wish Rivers Cuomo would start putting some effort into Weezer’s music again.
Nostalgic opener and lead single Memories is probably the best song here, with a hint of what Weezer is capable of, though it’s still tacky and is forever associated with being in Jackass 3D. Unspoken sounds almost like it could be vintage Weezer, but this isn’t too surprising, considering it’s one of two songs on Hurley (the other being Memories) that was written solely by Rivers Cuomo. Why does Cuomo feel the need to rely on outside songwriters when he is more than capable on his own? Why does he try so hard to make Weezer not sound like Weezer?
The incredibly cringey Where’s My Sex? is apparently based around mishearing “Where’s my socks?”, which itself is grammatically incorrect and makes for a stretch of a joke — it’s unfortunate, because the instrumental is actually not half-bad, but the goofy lyrics make it sound more like Weird Al parodying Weezer than anything. Smart Girls is another “quirky” song, this time about… smart girls; the lyrics sound as if they were written by a 11 year old boy just discovering that he likes girls. Rivers Cuomo once wrote like someone wise beyond his years, and 15 years later, he’s regressed to writing like someone more immature than even his younger self. Time Flies sounds like it was recorded inside of a toilet, and is shocking how it made the cut on the final album and even if it was a “stylistic” choice, it sounds horrid.
Hurley has two, maybe three decent songs, but it’s still mostly a whole lot of nothing — it’s still better than Raditude though.
5/10
Weezer – Death to False Metal
Weezer releases a collection of outtakes from an already dull era of the band.
Consisting of unreleased songs that were primarily recorded over the past decade, Death to False Metal is a collection of fairly half-baked songs from a fairly half-baked decade of Weezer.
The most notable thing about this album is that Turning Up the Radio was written as a youtube fan collaboration project and is credited to all involved, otherwise the song itself is pretty average.
There’s not much here of greater quality than that of Make Believe or Weezer (Red Album), but there’s also nothing as atrocious as anything from Raditude either.
5/10
FIN
Brett Nippard
