It was a hectic year, and trying to come up with a top-10 list to close things out seemed like an almost overwhelming task. Where there really 10 albums that stood out to me? Well, when I finally sat down to build and rank a list, I realized there were, and then some. There were obvious picks, happy surprises, and a couple that came out of left field and completely blew me away. At the end of the day, this represented, to me, the best 2009 had to offer.

So, without further ado…

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Mudvayne – Mudvayne
Epic (12/21/09)
Metal

With Mudvayne’s latest opus, the self-titled, fifth studio excursion for the band, people seem a little too wrapped up in the presentation (the packaging was printed in black-light-reactant ink and the band is not doing promotion behind the effort) and are overlooking the most important part: the music.

Mudvayne is a return to form (of sorts) for the group, which had experimented with a more rock-tinged approach on 2008’s The New Game. While not as complex as their debut full-length (L.D. 50) and not as epic as their best offering to date (Lost and Found) the album still has a lot going for it. Besides the bass-heavy, technical dissection of in-your-face beats (tock-tock-tock) that have become a Mudvayne staple, the band seems to have ratcheted up the extremes at each end of the musical spectrum.

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Going through one’s music collection, it’s sometimes easy to ponder the potential fates of various bands, past and present.

Sometimes it’s easy to reflect on the great “what if” when a void is left in a band after death takes a member far too soon. Look at the recent success of the reunited Alice in Chains. Back in 2002, frontman Layne Staley died in seclusion, his death but a footnote in a downward spiral of drugs, depression and addiction. Though it was clear Staley’s lifestyle had taken its toll on his ability to perform (AIC’s live collection plays out as chronological depiction of this), it was equally clear from the new tracks on the band’s Music Bank box set (“Get Born Again” and “Died”) that, when united, they could still put together phenomenal music.

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Norah Jones – The Fall
Blue Note Records (11/17/09)
Jazz / Soul / Pop

Is it much ado about nothing?

So much was made of Miss Jones’ foray into a more mellow-rock-based approach prior to the release of The Fall that, when finally giving the album a spin or two, listeners will feel a little let down. Of course, that’s not to say the album is bad—not by any stretch of the imagination.

Rather, the better selling point would have been that Jones is continuing to work more layers into her sound, aptly crafting a subtle mix of soul, jazz, pop and hints of the aforementioned rock into her sound. Much on The Fall could be considered worlds away from her 2002 breakthrough debut, Come Away With Me, while, somehow, at the same time, a much-wanted re-tread. The best description would be to simply call the album a logical progression.

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I like CDs.

Scratch that.

I like buying music. I like to go to a store, look around, and pick up something tangible. I want to hold something in my hand. I like looking at the cover art, reading the liner notes and seeing the band pictures.

There are a lot of bands out there that like to take advantage of this fact, and go all out with special packaging. Just take a look at Tool’s 10,000 Days. The album art is all 3-D work, and the set even has built-in stereoscopic glasses for viewing, having earned the band a Grammy for best recording package.

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Slayer – World Painted Blood
American / Sony Music (11/3/09)
Metal

Ten studio albums and counting into its catalogue, and it’s clear that Slayer, a living legend in the metal scene, will have few curveballs to throw at listeners. That’s not to say World Painted Blood is a boring album by any stretch—just that Slayer is one of those bands where what you get is what you get.

What World Painted Blood does manage to do, is far outshine the band’s more recent releases (2001’s God Hates Us All and the oft-overlooked 2006 release Christ Illusion), and it does so by pulling from a deep bag of tricks, strung together to craft their best offering of the new millennium.

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It’s not very often I get excited over new music.

Let me clarify that: I can hear something new from a band, or from a project featuring musicians I’m a fan of, and get excited. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the surge I used to get, back before YouTube and the Internet and downloading and 24-hour music television. Remember, when you just happened across a band because a friend mentioned it, or you caught a couple of seconds on an obscure radio station, or something caught your eye in a music store or a magazine?

The list is short of bands that came out of nowhere and really blew me away. Trivium (happened upon the band’s demos before the release of Ascendancy), Obituary (cover art for Cause of Death caught my eye), Slipknot (given a demo of the band at a Biohazard show before the self-titled release came out), Sunny Day Real Estate (mid-’90s 3 a.m. MTV blocks), Jawbreaker (ditto). That’s just off the top of my head.

Add one more to that list.

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I’m not going to lie and say I was right there in ‘89 when Obituary released its debut, Slowly We Rot. The album, a raw mass of angst, thrash and chaos, would ultimately become a death metal touchstone of sorts.

I was, however, there a couple of years later; as grunge dominated the airwaves (well, at least the radio I was listening to), I remember sitting in a car in the middle of the night, dumbstruck by the trio of “Body Bag”, “Chopped in Half” and the Celtic Frost cover, “Circle of the Tyrants” (off Cause of Death), and amazed at this new (to me) sonic experience. It was around the time Hit Parader and various other music magazines I pored over were hyping the release of the band’s third album, The End Complete, as the expansive, landscape artwork picked for the cover captured my imagination just like the band’s sound.

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One of the most influential, yet, for some reason, overlooked bands of the ’90s is Alice in Chains. The band’s debut, Facelift, got heavy airplay in the metal community, and was released just on the edge of the grunge explosion, before anyone had even started using the term. Straddling a mix of rock, blues and angst, the band crafted a blistering amalgam that ultimately transcended the label.

Then came the Singles soundtrack, the initially under-the-radar Sap EP, and then the best (hands down) album of the decade in Dirt. That album still sounds solid, more than 15 years later (god does that make me feel old); ...read full article...

Hull – Sole Lord
The End Records (5/26/09)
Metal

Following in the footsteps of Crowbar, Mastodon and Down, with Sole Lord, Hull has crafted a heavy, foreboding slab of down-tuned metallic bliss. The entire album is sludgy, crushing and punishing.

From end to end, the band just grinds along at such a deliberate pace, drifting from the heavy-as-hell grind of metal to an almost ethereal nonchalance in a couple of spots. It could almost give you an anxiety attack waiting to hear what gear they’ll shift into next.

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