Rob's Best: #1: Have Heart - The Things We Carry

Released: August 8, 2006

Have Heart are my favorite band ever.  The Things We Carry is my favorite album ever.  Have Heart were the champions of hardcore for the four years after the release of this album until their final show on October 17, 2009.  The last song they played at the final show was "Watch Me Rise":

'Goddamn', he said, 'I promised myself I'd never feel this fucking way again.
This world has got me praying on my knees for one peaceful thought.
In my mind, my stride, my life,
My time is consumed with a thousand thoughts
Flying free like a flock of birds with no direction or intention of finding home.

It's so hard to think
It's so hard to change
When this world doesn't see you any other way.

In this world, they choose to see me, they choose to see me like a setting sun
So it's up to me, I have to see me like a rising one

In my days, somebody told me that the rain would always come,
always come to wash away the pain
But nothing changes and this world still wants me down
Wants me on my knees praying in that rain
Born this way, die this way'

I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

I'd rather die on my feet so you can watch me, watch me,
Watch me rise
With the things we carry:
The loss, the scars,
The weight of heavy hearts.

So, I say to the slaves of depression:
Carry on,
And sing the sweet, redeeming song,
About living this life, free and long,
It goes like this:

Watch me, watch me,
Watch me rise,
For miles and miles.

Rob's Best: #2: Circle Takes The Square - As The Roots Undo

 

Released: January 6, 2004.

This is an epic, swirling, layered monstrosity of an album that examines different paths to self-actualization with haunting and unique imagery and prose.  It would be impossible to even scratch the surface of all the myriad layers of device and meaning in this album; the most basic of these being cyclical repetition, images of various birds, weaving, and examinations of paintings like the French Revolution era The Death Of Marat by Jacques-Louis David and The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters by Francisco Goya.  Suffice to say that, in the end, the journey concludes essentially where it begins, albeit after having grown and learned of all the highs and lows of life.  The final conclusion being that the joy in life is taken from the journey, rather than the destination. 

Whispers invoke the artists of this tragically seamless, ill fated tapestry,
blistered fingers are tending their loom.

She collects the strands to braid into life.
Logging the weft of an ageless, woven infinity, countless raw fibers are clawing the frame.

A woman's work is never done, but the final stitch has got to come,
and so three witches contend to slice the very last thread.

(That you curse, curse constantly)

But nothing's immortal, and comfort is not guaranteed-
a yearling who bears our sincere passions is chosen, frozen and quivering,
like a thread in the wake of a blade.

So we compromise, so we sacrifice.

Rob's Best: #3: Every Time I Die - Hot Damn!

Released: July 1, 2003.

Dear friends, I give you my Top 3.  They are all undeniable monoliths of sound.  Every Time I Die are scholars of aggressive music; minstrels of wit and swagger; laureates of lyricism, ready with a nudge and a wink.  Hot Damn!  This album is the pinnacle of the genre; the bar against which all others are compared.  Exactly what genre is this, you ask?  Well, that's part of the fun, isn't it?  Part metal, part hardcore, part southern rock, part witty observation-based sitcom, part dance, part cut brake wires, part Clockwork Orange, part standing on the ledge of a bridge staring at the river below, part infectious disease party... But all a great time: Groove metal, perhaps?  Party metal?  No, Andrew W.K. already has the rights solidly for that one.  For lack of a better term... One must always fall back once again to Hot Damn!

It seems that all good things come in threes: This album is the number 3 album of the decade for both Trystan and I.  It was released in 2003.  And Every Time I Die stand tall at Number 3 on my Best Live Bands Ever list.  An Every Time I Die show is like witnessing seasoned rock and roll veterans dominate a stage with pure spectacle.  Pure, wondrous, entertaining spectacle.  

Trystan's Best #1: Arcade Fire - Funeral

Released: September 14th, 2004

I was going to pick Radiohead like everyone else... but then I remembered that they suck and I hate them... anyway, back to professionalism...

The best way to sum up Arcade Fire's seminal album, Funeral, is in a Jeopardy-like fashion. What is the album that made the Canadian alternative music scene a real player on the international stage? What is the album that created a style that was endlessly emulate for the remainder of the decade? What is the band that started the aging-stars-playing-with-the-hip-new-kids trend? (David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, etc.) Of course, all of this impact on the cultural world resonated from the music. Beautiful, powerful music by an orchestra of starry-eyed believers. Funeral is an emotional rebirth of a musical experience, uncontrived and shameless and without the slightest shred of indie pretense. Beauty. Art. Rock'n'roll. Perfection.

Trystan's Best #2: Against Me! - The Acoustic EP

Released: December 1st, 2001

Yep. A six song EP is my second favourite album of the entire decade. Here's why: The Acoustic EP is a collection of the most passionate, driving acoustic songs ever put to microphone. Tom Gabel covers more thematic ground here than some bands do in entire double-albums. Separation, betrayal, disillusionment, nostalgic longing, unyielding idealism, the list could go on and on. And beyond that, Gabel seems to touch on something here that so many punk troubadours fail to perceive: Punk Rock isn't about rebellion as much as it is about fear, fear of a world spinning helplessly out of your control. And the only way to show any kind of resolve in a world like that is pick up a guitar and sing, even if you can't.

Trystan's Best #3: Every Time I Die - Hot Damn!

Released: July 1st, 2003

Didn't think you could throw a metal album on at a party? Thought it would be a buzz-kill? Clearly you haven't heard Every Time I Die, asshole. ETID, as some people like to call them, make truly butt-shakin' rock'n'roll music and their best example of this is Hot Damn!, an album that finds them between their much bleaker, earlier stuff and their more tongue-in-cheek, recent albums. Singer Keith Buckley wields his words like a knife here, adding a level of intellectuality to a genre that isn't really known for poetry. Not that you'll notice this initially, since you'll be too busy handling the adrenaline rush that is this entire album. "Only the lonesome love us; only the careless can handle us". Fuck yeah.

Trystan's Best #4: Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Release Date: April 23rd, 2002

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot might be the most storied album of the decade. Initially dismissed for being too weird and then bought back by a subsidiary of the same conglomerate responsible for the dismissal, it quickly launched to the top of every hipster's name-dropping list. And with good reason, here Wilco conquered new frontiers for the alternative americana genre, using the kind of sonic architecture reserved for weirder, less accessible groups, or The Beatles during their LSD years. Jeff Tweedy is also at his most interesting and effective lyrically, tying a perfect bow on a truly great album.

Trystan's Best #5: Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary

Released: September 27th, 2005

With Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown both appearing on my list, was there any doubt that an album by Wolf Parade, which has the singers of both the aforementioned bands in it, was going to make my list? Apologies is a great album front to back, from the drum opening and Krug-yelping of "You Are A Runner, And I Am My Father's Son" to the punchy, passionate closer "This Heart's On Fire". What really makes this album such a gem isn't just the incredibly catchy songs but the dichotomy between Boechner and Krug's equally distinct voices and songwriting-styles. This is the album of a supergroup if supergroups were good.

Rob's Best: #4: Propagandhi - Potemkin City Limits

Released: October 18, 2005.

Propagandhi are one of the best bands on the planet, period.  They are a thrash-influenced punk band from Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Their lyrics are some of the most insightful and witty and challenging that that I've ever heard.  From the opener "A Speculative Fiction" which plays with the idea of open conflict breaking out between the United States and Canada, to "Cut Into The Earth" and it's examination of the hypocrisy of the descendants of immigrants, now living comfortably, as they decry the newly immigrated in their struggles to survive in North America, this album is full of cutting observation performed overtop technically impressive musicianship.  My favorite song, "Iteration", illustrates a courtroom scene in which all the varied visages of war profiteering are put on trail for crimes against humanity:

But how can one man ever repay a debt so appalling?
Can’t gouge 10,000 eyes
from a single head so I
think we should observe
a sentence that will serve
to satisfy both a sense of function and poetry:
so you will spend the rest
of your days drenched in sweat,
with your face drawn in a rictus of terror as you remove
another buried land mine fuse.

Meanwhile,
100 yards back
behind the sandbags,
a legless foreman
pulls the trigger on
a red megaphone.
Squelching feedback.
Drunken laughter.
Broken English.
His dead daughter’s picture.

Time and tide,
no one can anticipate the inevitable waves of change.

Rob's Best: #5: Against Me! - As The Eternal Cowboy

Released: November 3, 2003.

Against Me! are a punk band from Gainesville, Florida led by Tom Gabel.  As The Eternal Cowboy, and their Acoustic EP, are two of my principal inspirations for wanting to perform music.  This is my favorite album out of their illustrious catalog.  Each of Against Me's albums has had it's own distinct personality: Reinventing Axl Rose is brash, vigorous and loud; Searching For A Former Clarity is bleak and bitter; New Wave is just a straight up rock and roll record; and As The Eternal Cowboy is a fast, fun, punk rock romp.  It's party music, despite the albums opening line of "The party's over..."  And this album is wonderfully varied as well, from the first upbeat strums of opener "T.S.R. (This Shit Rules)" through the glorious punk rock of "Cliche Guevara" and "Rice And Bread" to the driving acoustic songs "Sink, Florida, Sink" and "Unsubstantiated Rumors Are Good Enough For Me (To Base My Life Upon)."  The final three songs are some of the best punk songs ever recorded: "You Look Like I Need A Drink" is the standout track on the album, "Turn Those Clapping Hands Into Angry Balled Fists" is a slow burning epic of a song that explodes like Mount Saint Helens, and there is not a single person who I've shown closer, failed love ballad "Cavalier Eternal" to that hasn't loved it.

Rob's Best: #6: Murder By Death - Who Will Survive, And What Will Be Left Of Them?

Released: October 14, 2003.

Murder By Death essentially embody the rebirth of Johnny Cash.  They play noir western rock music and they sing about whiskey and the devil.  Who Will Survive tells the story of a small Mexican village that's under attack by the devil after it's residents betrayed him.  The album opens with a brief, but perfect prologue with a simple old time piano tune before the curtain rises on the album proper.  Musically, this album pays homage to Johnny Cash and Ennio Morricone, with a standard rock set up of guitar, bass and drums, but supported by cello and piano as well, which allows for some very epic builds like on "The Devil In Mexico" or "Killbot2000."   The rest of the album plays out like a dark western epic with scenes of men hanging, revenge, whiskey and shotguns leading up to the finale of a town of barricaded doors bracing for the arrival of the devil himself who's charging in with all the fury of a speeding train.

Trystan's Best #6: Japandroids - Post-Nothing

Released: June 8th, 2009

With nothing more than a guitar split between two amps and a drum set, Japandroids manage to fill your headphones with fuzzy, epic punk rock and your mind with equally epic feelings of nostalgia and euphoria. "Young Hearts Spark Fire" is a battle cry for every young person feeling the cynism of the uncertain times we live in now, because we all certainly used to dream and now worry about dying. "Wet Hair" and "Heart Sweats" are both builders, the former being about beautiful girls and adventuring to France, and the latter being about being in love with an imperfect girl. This album is full of alt-fuzz gems. It is perfect driving music and perfect wind-down music all at once. Perfect get-drunk music and perfect reflect-and-recollect music. It's perfect music, through and through.