Another Form of Relief

Fuck. Not a good start.

As last year, there are no clear cut rules to this list. Some of the songs aren’t from 2007. Some may be older, but only reached my ears properly last year. So it’s really just a list of songs I’ve enjoyed over the past year. What will be number one? Last year it was the mighty You! Me! Dancing! by Los Campesinos!, so it has to be something pretty special to match up to that. Any bets? No? Great! On with the list:

May as well start with the most populist song on here. I can’t explain my liking of The Cribs, but I’ve actually liked the handful of songs that I’ve heard. They don’t seem to have the indie cool factor, and most of the elitists seem to enjoy pissing all over them. Who cares about that though? Don’t You Wanna Be Relevant? is certainly enjoyable enough, and if this is what passes as “mainstream indie” these days, I can live with that.

Amida are a band from Manchester who I first heard about via the awesome Skatterbrain. I’d never heard of them previously, so there’s something rather strange in the way that music travels. Amida don’t sound particularly British though, and on first listen I was pretty certain that they were American. None of which really matters though given how good this song is. A blistering attack on the mundanity of settling in the “dumb, happy and fat” life that seems to suit the majority.

The Welcome Committee is actually a two man vaguely folk project than a committee, but we can forgive that. The song itself is entirely non-sensical, somehow coming together as some epic globetrotting adventure with some very random interludes (”the liger led to certain death by stinging Charlie Sheen”). It’s all backed by a gently strummed guitar (sometimes at odds with the words), but it’s so catchy that none of this actually matters. And who can really argue with a song that features humming and actually gets away with it?

I’ve never really been able to get into Saturday Looks Good To Me. I liked The Girl’s Distracted and When The Party Ends from earlier album Every Night, but I never cared for the rest. With Make A Plan though, the band has finally settled into a sound that I like. Slightly electronic undertones are added into the mix, which seem to make all the difference. Tempo changes occur with alarmingly regularity, yet Fred Thomas’ melancoly vocal remains consistent, resulting in a sound that hovers somewhere around depressing beauty.

Jakobinarina is an Icelandic band that wants to rock pretty hard, and they do so, with most of the their songs being over and done with in two minutes. They are also very playful, which is what wins me over most. This Is An Advertisement cynically tackles the marketing culture in music, which is even more impressive when you take into account they look like they aren’t even old enough to have paper rounds.

Continuing their growth that started in 2006, RTP’s sound has only improved over the last twelve months. Each new song has sounded more assured than the last, the pinnacle of which is Undercurrent. A stunning assault on the eardrums that starts politely enough before building in both volume and aggression. With a bit of luck these guys will be able to break out and find the wider audience they deserve over the coming year.

Imagine if you can The Decemberists as a skiffle band. It’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? Well, that description is just halfway to covering what 586 sound like. Unusual instrumentation, theatrical vocal deliveries, frequent time changes, and lyrical shades of Fairytale of New York all form the three minutes of joy that is Rags & Tags.

Better than nearly everything off of the last album, even if it’s still kind of flat, and something that grows on you considerably. These mid-tempo, mildly rocking numbers seem to be their most common type of late, but they aren’t usually the most daring. It’s usually the more reflective songs that work best for me, or the ones that really want to rock. And Popular of course, but I can’t see them doing that again. That said, See These Bones sounds lovely, creating a richer sound than the band can usually achieve, and it’s certainly stronger than some of their past efforts lyrically.

If I can get away with placing Kate Nash at number four last year, you can let me have this one, yeah?

The next lot tomorrow. Hopefully.

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