Welcome to CraveOnline's Top Ten Albums of 2009 - It was a fantastic year for music, and narrowing the list down to ten was about as easy as getting a root canal with a red-hot fish hook. But we toughed it out and cut it down to the ten that rocked us the hardest this year.
Click each cover image for our full album review!
10. Alice In Chains - Black Gives Way to Blue
For Black Gives Way To Blue, Alice In Chains' first full-length album in 14 years, careful steps were taken to make sure the record was worthy of the band name, and not to box new singer William DuVall (of Comes With The Fall, who also played in Cantrell's solo band) into a Layne Staley impression. It worked; for a group nearly caught in the mire of their own tragic history, AIC have returned with respect and justice served. A fairly predictable step under the looming cloud of what was, but a well-executed one nonetheless. Now that honor has fully been paid and the brush has been cleared, further greatness may still lie ahead for these rock survivors.
9. The Bronx - Mariachi el Bronx
The shitkickers behind the best hard-rock album of 2008 pulled a bait-and-switch with Mariachi El Bronx, an album of spicy, seductive English-vocal Mariachi songs. It’s a flamboyant step outside the box of what anyone might expect from one of the hardest-hitting hardcore punk bands to ever come out of Los Angeles. The taste of Mexican culture is strong, and the octane undercurrent that’s closer to the band’s original sound threatens to shake loose at any given moment – yet it never does. It’s a dangerously enticing flirtation with the punk aesthetic, and pogoes a remarkably thin line between tribute and all-out immersion. For a slightly different flavor, check this one out.
8. The Company Band - Self-Titled
Clutch may be one of the most badass rock n’ roll acts working today, and we don’t mean to disrespect their Strange Cousins From The West by giving the big nod to this sibling (featuring Neil Fallon backed by members of Fireball Ministry, CKY, and Fu Manchu), but awesome is awesome is awesome. Strange Cousins is highly recommended if you don’t have it already. With that said, The Company Band is a flawless album in its own right, a cocky display of swagger and gnashing teeth. Stomping hard rock with clever lyricism and surprisingly versatile melody makes for a can't-miss record from a band you've likely never heard of.
7. The Mars Volta - Octahedron
Rather than risk ripping a hole in the space-time continuum by finding a way to somehow turn the heat even higher, the band took a sharp turn for their fifth studio album, Octahedron. It’s a celebration of mutations with familiar flare, and in understatement, the Mars Volta have somehow found new strengths and fire without arriving as repetitious. Octahedron is a beautiful, understated album by one of the most complex and fiercely talented bands modern music has ever seen.
6. The Black Crowes - Before The Frost
Before an intimate audience of die-hard fans at Levon Helm's barn in Woodstock, New York in early 2009, The Black Crowes recorded new material for what would become Before The Frost... and its free-download partner, Until The Freeze. The former, an 11-song set of swaggering Southern Blues rockers, is easily the finest and most confidently triumphant Crowes release since Amorica. The latter... well that's just country-infused icing on the cake. After two decades of aspiring to be considered and respected on the same frequency of bayou-blues gurus Lynyrd Skynyrd and their ilk, leaning heavily into the mid-eighties honky soul attitude of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Black Crowes have at long last reached the peak of their mountain as veteran road hounds, and this album has all the sweet spots to prove it.
5. Eminem - Relapse
This album is a game-changer for everyone associated or in competition with the bleach-topped (former?) Dre disciple, and will certainly be remembered as Eminem’s finest moment thus far. Hell, album closer Underground slaps the entire rap playbook to the ground in brutal, gravel-voiced, thunderstorm-ridden fashion, all by itself.
Eminem drops lyrics subversively witty - and distinctly Mathers - as ever, such as on "3 AM": Sitting nude in my living room / it’s almost noon / I wonder what’s on the tube / maybe they’ll show some boobs / surfing every channel until I find Hannah Montana / then I reach for the Aloe & Lanolin / Bust all over the wall panel …and so on. The style Eminem experimented with on Encore has been polished, pimped and thrown into 5th gear, and the result? Well, you can check that Asher Roth bullshit at the door. The real Slim Shady has returned, and there’s no coming back from this Relapse.
4. Dead Weather - Horehound
With The Kills’ Allison Mossheart's stoned, dreamy vocals riding like a musky breeze over Jack White's surprisingly adept Keith Moon impression on the kit, QOTSA guitarist Dean Fertita and Raconteurs' bass man Jack Lawrence round out The Dead Weather - a high-octane passion collection of well-known influence and inflections that culminate in a mean, desert-buzz bastard blues strut. In three weeks' time, the band went from a one-off occurrence to a wildfire of creativity - and productivity. The result is Horehound, a sweet-talking gut-punch of a debut album that would serve well as the soundtrack to a Tarantino Western.
Can the hitmaking public can handle Jack kinda-sotra rapping over a reggae beat in between screeching vinyl scratching impressions on guitar (as in "I Cut Like A Buffalo")? Not likely, but then again, that may very well be the point. They may be the hot-topic darlings on music blogs at the moment (or so we hear), but The Dead Weather strike the ear as much more a spontaneous passion project than a carefully plotted money harvest. Looking forward to a new album in 2010.
3. Brother Ali - Us
For the first time on record, prophetic MC Brother Ali fully shifts his focus from the autobiographical to a social narrative, entirely abandoning the self-prosthelytizing helium swagger that most emcees ride through their entire careers. Doing so is a literal unshackling of bonds for Ali, who sets upon this remarkable collection of stories like a seasoned street preacher. This time around, the hooks aren't just head-nodders - they're wrecking balls. Ant of Atmosphere returns to the knobs, but concerns of repetition are quickly laid to rest as the album overflows with anything but samples. These are real strings, a full horn section and the lush, soulful sound of an actual church choir in St. Paul, Minnesota. The album's a dense sociopolitical masterpiece, reeking of truth and authenticity.
2. The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
An epic concept album that's arguably the most committed - and best - since Pink Floyd's The Wall, The Hazards of Love offers a narrative featuring formidable guest vocalists playing parts including a jealous forest queen, a malicious shape-shifter, a child-killing rogue, and two ill-fated lovers. Nothing short of perfection, Hazards is evidence that the Decemberists are somehow capable of outdoing their incredible Crane Wife album which preceded it. It’s a grand, inspired vision, a concept album with a devoted storyline and rich, full-throated characters. If you're hungry for something new, something to believe in among the "hits" and shits on the FM dial, The Hazards of Love is not to be missed.
1. Them Crooked Vultures - Self-Titled
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Throughout the years, poets and believers describing the presence of God have been known to refer to a "terrible glory," a power of unfathomable, devastating depth and beauty that transcends reference and commands reverence. As it just so happens, John Paul Jones, Josh Homme and Dave Grohl - collectively known as Them Crooked Vultures - make precisely that kind of music. For once, finally, a band has come along that makes the term 'supergroup' its whimpering bitch, in all its terrible glory.
It's not safe, it's not slight, and the riff and tempo changes demand constant engagement. Trap doors are a vital component to the songs, with the sweet spots setting in unannounced as the polyrhythms shift, the clouds part and a motherfucker of a riff suddenly lifts off, taking you in entirely unexpected and adrenaline-surging directions. This one is special, a very rare melding of classic, psychedelic blues-rock authenticity and passionate groove-junkie sorcery. Feed with the Vultures - it's good for you.
