Librarians – Present Passed
Postfact Records (3/9/10)
Indie rock / Pop / Psychedelic

Like some benevolent pop overlord, Animal Collective dominated 2009 with a synth-drenched fist of genius, so it’s unsurprising that their sound has begun to seep into the diets and DNA of those who you might consider downwind of them in the musical food chain.

Merriweather Post Pavilion is Librarians’ biggest problem with their latest release, Present Passed. The considerable influence and sway that hangs over every moment clouds whatever the band are trying to create here and you’re just left thinking you’re listening to a collection of Animal Collective demos and cuts with the occasional brief foray into a mundane indie-rock vein.

The vocal and synth sounds feel like a running sprint to catch up to the flatbed psychedelic pop bandwagon of 2009 as it speeds by and, just when you think the band may have stumbled upon pastures new, they revert to their Merriweather aping in an attempt to forge a build-up, chorus or climax.

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Close Your Eyes – We Will Overcome
Victory Records (2/16/10)
Pop-punk / Hardcore

The debut album by Close Your Eyes has been tagged under the sound-alike banners of Rise Against, New Found Glory and A Day to Remember, and you can hear why from the offset.

Although touted as the big hardcore release of 2010 so far, stay away if you’re expecting something gritty, edgy and, well… hard. This is “hardcore” in the current trend of beat-down, stuffed, riff-infused, heavied-up pop-punk; polished to perfection and sprinkled with chart-friendly melodies and anthemic sing-a-longs.

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KiNDERGARTEN – Small
Self-released (2/10: available on iTunes)
Rock / Funk / Punk

So, apparently, KiNDERGARTEN are the “new” sound of New York, made up of equal parts Talking Heads, Television, Elvis Costello, David Bowie and Lou Reed, with a touch of Prince.

Besides Bowie and Prince, I’m not so sure. The idea that this is the “new” sound of New York when there are bands such as Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend around is just nonsense.

If I were to write this band an ingredient list it would go as follows: Tay Zonday and his “Chocolate Rain”, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, the standard distorted chug of a guitar swaggering through a pop song, the vocal yaps and yelps of Ziggy Stardust and the glammed-up, fabulously operatic tendencies of Queen.

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The Laughing Man – A Palace for Alice
Kotori Studios (2009)
Rock / Blues / Funk / Folk

I say, “fusion,” and your mind probably says, “No.”

That image of the middle-aged men in the awfully loud shirts, trying to cram as much in the way of cheesy latin pastiches and bad bebop into their sweating attempts to make a guitar weep in case it might make them look young or sexy. They do it because they can’t afford a sports car or the maintenance on a gold-digging early twenty-something. Imagine a similar looking man listening to that 27-disk super set of such music, spinning away at his air guitar because the sports car and money-related lady is out of reach and who can’t play anything past “Kum Ba Yah” on a six string. Fusion has a bad rep.

Fortunately, the world has The Laughing Man and their thirteen-track debut full of prefix- and suffix-bending fusion, but without the desperation or pretenses. Or the shirts.

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Creature with the Atom Brain – Transylvania
The End Records (2/2/10)
Rock / Alternative

Chances are you will have heard this album a million times before, under different titles and by different bands. It’s not a terrible release, per se, for this Belgian quartet, but it also never achieves anything above mediocrity.

The vocals and guitar effects are a constant disappointment, sounding uninspired and added in for the sake of it. The songwriting often feels hollow and underdeveloped, dragging down the obvious efforts to project a sense of attitude and brooding charisma, which fall flat at every turn.

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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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Arcangels – Living in a Dream [CD/DVD]
Self-released (10/27/09)
Blues-rock

Austin’s notable and outstanding supergroup, Arcangels, reunited recently and opened a U.K. tour for Eric Clapton beginning last May. Since the guys are on the road, it looks like the heavily anticipated, second studio album will be in the oven just a little longer. Luckily, the band recorded a couple live shows a few years back and were eager to finally get the music to their fans. And Living in a Dream is definitely a great CD/DVD package when it comes to capturing the live essence of the group, almost giving you the feeling of being there at the show.

Originally scheduled to be filmed at Stubbs in Austin, in February of 2005, the two shows were rained out and later recorded in March. But even with the new dates, the pesky rain would show up again as a light drizzle right, right before the band would hit the stage. It was no problem for the enthusiastic crowd to endure, but pieces of the lighting and other electrical equipment were not on the cooperating end. Because of this, the live show on the DVD has a jump-cut look and feel to it, due to the fact the video is spliced from a combination of shows (Stubbs, Antone’s, Galveston’s Mardi Gras and House of Blues in Dallas). Even with this kind of feel, you really don’t notice that vibe of different venues because the audio recorded from Stubbs is so good.

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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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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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