Friday 20 August 2010

"If music be the food of Love...

Then I'm a fat romantic slob." What more can I say...

My top 15 albums of 2009.

A bit late, I know, but last year was a fantastic year for new music - or music that was new to me. This list doesn't necessarily include just albums that were released in 2009, but albums I discovered. Some I'd been waiting for with bated breath for a long time, some I was introduced to through acquaintances, and some I'd forgotten about and were brought back into my life. I've also loosely used the term '2009'. I've been working on-and-off on this since April, so I'll say it's more based around the last 12 months or so from when I started.

I noticed when reading through how big a post I had in the making... To make it easier, I'll release one album at a time :)

Right, here goes:

No particular order (except maybe 5-1)

15. glassJAw - Worship and Tribute

Released in 2002, their second and final full-length (for now), it was a few years later when I first encountered glassJAw. I was only just discovering the hardcore genres, Brand New's Deja Entendu being some of the heavier stuff I was listening to at the time. This was the period where I was starting to find my own way in music taste, largely thanks to Last.fm and the introduction of internet which let me download a song in under an hour.
It was through listening to Head Automatica and looking into Daryl Palumbo's history that I stumbled on glassJAw. I couldn't get into them at all to begin with; there was no sense to be seen through the dropped-D distortion and screaming, a high speed pile-up of guitars, drums and sore throats - utter chaos compared to what I had ever listened to before. Luckily though, my well-trained musical ear was able to sieve out the different parts to the composition; to hear the melodies behind the driving drums and bass riffs - and it was awesome.
Seeing them perform in January of this year was a phenomenal experience. This is the main reason Worship and Tribute is on this list. Had I not gone to see them it would probably have been another of those albums that were just part of a phase I'd gone through once upon a time, but their energetic live set, and such cult following even years after their several-year hiatus, gave me so much more admiration for them as a band than I had ever given them before.
Also listen to: "You Think You're John Fucking Lennon"

No comments:

Post a Comment