My Top Five Records of 2007

Yes, yes, I know. End of year lists are cliched and annoyingly ubiquitous. You can’t get away from them right now, so why do you need another one from me? Well, for this reason, even though I’ve got about fifty favorite records from 2007, I’m going to limit myself to my absolute top five favorites, the ones that I’ve played nonstop for months and months. I’m not going to sequence them numerically because I love all five about as much as you can love a record—except for the Times New Viking jams. I love those more than anything I’ve heard in years.  Also, this is probably the only year end list for 2007 without inclusion of Radiohead’s In Rainbows that you’ll ever see.  Yes, I like Radiohead, but you don’t need to hear about Radiohead again.

Sonic Chicken 4 – Sonic Chicken 4 [In the Red]

They hail from Perpignan, France and bear one of the most ridiculous band names ever, but Sonic Chicken 4 sounds like they’re one of the best bands from 1968, except they’re not (from 1968). They’re brand of oldfangled garage stomp is tight, yet super catchy. These guys sound as if they easily could be openers for We Are Paintermen-era The Creation, or maybe as if The Creation should be opening for them. In the Red Records has done it again. They cull the best rock bands from everywhere, it seems.

Japanther – Skuffed up My Huffy [Menlo Park]

Prior to the “bike-punk” of Huffy, Japanther’s releases were often messes of meandering noise and pop hooks with lots of goofy cassette overdubs. They were good, but, this year Japanther took their sound to more accessible and louder punk territory. Skuffed up My Huffy is rife with huge, blasting hooks of distorted bass and anthemic choruses about River Phoenix and kids who watch too much TV. It’s hard to imagine art-punk without guitars, but Japanther is about as fast and as punk as you can get with mostly just bass and drums.

Pterodactyl – Pterodactyl [Jagjaguwar]

Like their namesake prehistoric dinosaur, Pterodactyl’s brand of noise-rock is fierce and relentless, but somewhat controlled, never reaching the point of annoying, reckless racket that so many noise-rock bands do. The repetitive, chiming guitars are reminiscent of their labelmates, Oneida, and, in fact, their sound as a whole, which seems to be somewhat of a melding of post-punk, psych-rock, and noise, is pretty indebted to Oneida, but their album is a hell of a lot better than the past few Oneida records, and I love me some Oneida. Oh, and the drumming is masterful.

Times New Viking – Present The Paisley Reich [Siltbreeze]

Times New Viking is probably the best band going right now, but, “because the recordings still sound as if Bob Pollard himself, circa 1993, rubbed his cigarette butts all over the tapes,” to quote myself from a previous post, it’s not likely that they’ll see more than marginal commercial success beyond the lo-fi fetishist fanbase. Times New Viking were obviously raised on a healthy diet of Guided By Voices’ Alien Lanes and lots of Strapping Fieldhands, and like those heroic bands from yesteryear, underneath all the fuzz, scuzz, and feedback, Times New Viking has some great pop hooks and clever lyrics. “Devo & Wine” and “Teenage Lust” are two of my favorite songs of all-time. Hell, the whole record is filled with my favorite songs of all-time.

Deerhunter – Cryptograms [Kranky]

Like Joey Ramone, Bradford Cox, the frontman of Deerhunter, has Marfan syndrome, which results in thin, abnormally long limbs and causes people to mistake him for a heroin addict. Sadly, Deerhunter’s music has largely been overshadowed by Cox’s physical appearance, his on-stage antics, and his deeply personal daily blogging which has revealed a great deal about his painful coming-of-age as a homosexual with Marfan syndrome. But, Cryptograms is beautiful.  The first side is a tad avant-garde and exploring ambience, but the second side is pure shoe-gazery pop bliss.  On the second side, Deerhunter sounds like the Velvet Underground would have if they’d had lots of delay pedals.  Cox is a big fan of Dennis Cooper’s novels, and that kind of realistic morbidity is evident in his lyrics: they are cryptic, but relevant and resonant when deciphered (at least I think so).  Like the best VU and Galaxie 500 records, Cryptograms rewards repeated listens–I hear different layers every time I come back to it.