After blowing us away with a magnificent performance at Primavera Sound '09, Sonic Youth return with one of their best albums in this decade that seems to have a lot in common with their early '90s work. Opening tracks "Sacred trickster" and "Anti-orgasm" seem to hail straight from the "Goo" or "Dirty" recording sessions and set the tone for their first album on an independent label (Matador) in twenty years. The mellower, melodic side of the group's more recent work soon makes an appearance with tracks like "Antenna" or "Walkin blue", but the album's momentum never stops building thanks to the never ending guitar maelstrom that rages at the heart of each song. It's difficult to single out tracks from such a uniformly strong work, but "What we know", "Poison arrow" and the aforementioned "Sacred trickster" seem to be the jewels of this crown.Other excellent albums released in the last couple of months include the adventurous, romantic rock opera "The hazards of love" by The Decemberists, the Sub Pop compilation of The Vaselines entire '80s, brilliant, indie-pop output, the psychedelic garage-krautrock meltdown of the second Wooden Shjips LP, the latest folk rock epic by the ever-prolific Conor Oberst and his new band and the second collaboration between P.J. Harvey and John Parish that has produced one of the singles of the year, the amazing "Black hearted love". Also notable is the sophomore work of The Horrors who have reinvented their sound with the help of Portishead's Geoff Barrow who handled the production duties and the return of Magik Markers with a weird but very intriguing noise-rock construction.
Top 15 Albums
1. The Eternal - SONIC YOUTH
2. The Hazards Of Love - THE DECEMBERISTS
3. Enter The Vaselines - THE VASELINES
4. Dos - WOODEN SHJIPS
5. Outer South - CONOR OBERST AND THE MYSTIC VALLEY BAND
6. A Woman A Man Walked By - P.J. HARVEY & JOHN PARISH
7. Balf Quarry - MAGIK MARKERS
8. Primary Colours - THE HORRORS
9. Now We Can See - THE THERMALS
10. I Feel Cream - PEACHES
11. Kingdom Of Rust - DOVES
12. My Maudlin Career - CAMERA OBSCURA
13. Art Brut vs. Satan - ART BRUT
14. Tentacles - CRYSTAL ANTLERS
15. The Golden Hour - FIREWATER
Top 15 Tracks
1. Black hearted love - P.J. HARVEY & JOHN PARISH
2. Pearl’s dream - BAT FOR LASHES
3. You think you’re a man - THE VASELINES
4. What we know - SONIC YOUTH
5. Don't talk in your sleep - MAGIK MARKERS
6. The rake's song - THE DECEMBERISTS
7. French navy - CAMERA OBSCURA
8. Roosevelt room - CONOR OBERST AND THE MYSTIC VALLEY BAND
9. Aquarian time - WOODEN SHJIPS
10. Sea with a sea - THE HORRORS
11. Rainwater cassette exchange - DEERHUNTER
12. Compulsion - DOVES
13. More - PEACHES
14. Mysterious bruises - ART BRUT
15. Now we can see - THE THERMALS
1. The Eternal - SONIC YOUTH
2. The Hazards Of Love - THE DECEMBERISTS
3. Enter The Vaselines - THE VASELINES
4. Dos - WOODEN SHJIPS
5. Outer South - CONOR OBERST AND THE MYSTIC VALLEY BAND
6. A Woman A Man Walked By - P.J. HARVEY & JOHN PARISH
7. Balf Quarry - MAGIK MARKERS
8. Primary Colours - THE HORRORS
9. Now We Can See - THE THERMALS
10. I Feel Cream - PEACHES
11. Kingdom Of Rust - DOVES
12. My Maudlin Career - CAMERA OBSCURA
13. Art Brut vs. Satan - ART BRUT
14. Tentacles - CRYSTAL ANTLERS
15. The Golden Hour - FIREWATER
Top 15 Tracks
1. Black hearted love - P.J. HARVEY & JOHN PARISH
2. Pearl’s dream - BAT FOR LASHES
3. You think you’re a man - THE VASELINES
4. What we know - SONIC YOUTH
5. Don't talk in your sleep - MAGIK MARKERS
6. The rake's song - THE DECEMBERISTS
7. French navy - CAMERA OBSCURA
8. Roosevelt room - CONOR OBERST AND THE MYSTIC VALLEY BAND
9. Aquarian time - WOODEN SHJIPS
10. Sea with a sea - THE HORRORS
11. Rainwater cassette exchange - DEERHUNTER
12. Compulsion - DOVES
13. More - PEACHES
14. Mysterious bruises - ART BRUT
15. Now we can see - THE THERMALS
Black hearted love - P.J. HARVEY & JOHN PARISH
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