Let's Start This Blog Off With a Bang - The Best Albums of 2009: #15-#11

Hello boys and girls. With my last post in October, promising that I would begin using this blog soon, I feel downright silly. Life has simply gotten in the way. I've gone through extreme heartache, stress, and joy in the past months, and I suppose I haven't felt driven to write anything worth reading. But now, I find myself sitting in my room, unable to sleep at 1:51 AM and I've come to the realization that I need to get rolling before my opinion on the best albums and music of 2009 is even more irrelevant than it already is. So, without further adieu, I present to you, the first portion of my list of the 15 best albums of the great musical year 2009.

#15. New Found Glory - Not Without a Fight
Say what you will about these pop-punking vets, but these boys really aren't going down without a fight. After releasing two of the most influential pop-punk records of the last decade (2000's New Found Glory and 2002's Sticks and Stones) the band released Catalyst and Coming Home, which to me were relatively disappointing. Catalyst was a fine record, but it wasn't quite the same NFG feel that I had loved since I was in about the fifth grade. Coming Home was by no means a bad record, but again, it wasn't New Found Glory and no other album this band ever releases will be. That said, Not Without a Fight is as close as the band is going to get to being back to their old sound. Ditching the over all happy vibe of their last effort, the band gets back to what I love about them - whining about girls and broken hearts. Through gang vocals and slamming power chords, Jordan Pundik whales that "I should have listened to my friends when they told you had bad intentions." This is the kind of music this band needs to keep making. Nevermind that they will never again release anything as good as their self-titled or Sticks and Stones (two of my favorite albums of all time), this album is solid and much much better than a lot of the other pop-punk BS that came out this year. The band also has an exciting 2010 planned - they are reissuing their self-titled album for it's 10 year anniversary and going out on tour with emo vets Saves the Day (one of my favorite bands of all time) and hellogoodbye. In spite of what you might think, these 20 somethings still have a lot left in them.


#14. Dashboard Confessional - Alter the Ending
Oh good old Chris Carrabba. After severely disappointing your truly with his last two releases, the man who is essentially Dashboard Confessional has made a record I can truly say I like. I'm not sure what it is - maybe it's my inability to get over the incredible, gut wrenching lyrics and emotion put into The Swiss Army Romance and The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most (another of my favorite albums of all time) or the fact that Chris has dropped his acoustic guitar in favor of an electric and a full band - but I just did not find myself able to enjoy Dusk and Summer's sound or the pretty forced feeling behind The Shade of Poison Trees. With this album, Carrabba and Co. have combined the best of both of Dashboard's worlds - they recorded an acoustic version and a full band version of this album. Not only that, but this record seems more genuine that Chris' last efforts. Maybe it's his crooning about Jesus in the opening track "Get Me Right" but something about the album just seems to be more real. This is all extremely subjective opinion, I know, but this is my blog dammit. In any case, the boys turned out a record that's not astonishing by any means, but still, it's pretty good. Good enough to make my list and good enough for me to be able to listen to all the way through more than once. Good job. Something about this album just got me right. (PUN! HA!)

#13. Two Tongues - Two Tongues
When I first heard that Chris Conley and Dave Soloway of Saves the Day (as mentioned earlier, one of my favorite bands of all time) were teaming up with Max Bemis and Coby Linder of Say Anything (again, another one of my favorite bands of all time) I pretty much creamed my jeans. I can almost think of no better super group for this scene (maybe if Jesse Lacey and Dustin Kensrue did an album together). Bemis and Conley, both talented guitarists and lyricists (Bemis is hands down the best lyricist of our generation) share vocal duties on this promising record. I say promising because I don't feel like this project fully lived up to its potential. The songs, while wonderfully crafted musically speaking (Max and Chris sort of duel with their guitars - it's truly something to behold) the lyrics almost seem lazy to me. That's not to say the lyrics are bad, it's just that I'd expect better from these two. That said, the album is truly a great listen and the interlude sung by Bemis' wife, Sherri DuPree of Eisley, is one of the most awesome and haunting things I've listened to in a while. It's beautiful and I can't wait to see what these guys put out next or to see them do a tour, which according to Max, is going to happen.


#12. Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
There is literally no better title for this album. Humbug completely embodies the spirit of this album. This album is simply darker than any of the Monkeys previous ventures. It's gloomier, it's beautiful. This isn't to say that the Arctic Monkeys were ever a poppy band, but there always seemed to be a bit of fun, dancey side to them that is not seen on this record. This record seems more like good old Brit rock, if you know what I mean. It's just more mature in every sense - musically, lyrically, thematically. It's far and away my favorite record from this band simply because it sounds so classic. It reminds me somewhat of Pink Floyd and it seems as though that may have been what the band was going for. The lyrics have gotten weirder and the music has gotten more involved. This was one of the surprises of the year for me. I've always been a fan of the band, but I've never loved any of there stuff as much as I love this record. I was truly shocked by how different this felt to me.


#11. mewithoutYou - It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright
Where would great music be these days without mewithoutYou? With a sound completely their own, mewithoutYou have put out yet another amazing, if not different, record. For this album, the band seems to have opted out of vocalist Aaron Weiss' usual free-form-spoken-word-poetry form of singing and shouting in favor of a more melodic feel. The sound is not as intense, but that was the intent. The band's intensity has sort of decreased with every album, and this album has turned all the intensity into catchy, clever lyrics and melodies. Many of the songs are not only quirky, but incredibly fun. "The Fox, The Crow, and the Cookie" serves as a kind of fable and is weird in the best way. MWY's typical religious theme stays strong in the lyrics of this effort, as evidenced in the song "The Angel of Death Came to David's Room" and "Allah, Allah, Allah." This album has taken mewithoutYou and the listener on yet another unique journey through religious views and life lessons. Though many fans seem to be disappointed by the change in style, I feel like it fits the record perfectly. The album is a great one and I'm disappointed that I haven't seen it on more End of the Year lists.

Well kids, that wraps it up for this post. Forgive me if it's a bit of a dull read - I am very tired. I'll try to make everything sound all lovely and intellectual next time. Check back in a day or so for the next installment. Next time I'll be doing Albums #10-#6, followed by my top 5 albums of the year, which was a very hard part of the list to finalize. Also, in the last post of my best of series, I'll being some other fun best of '09 stuff like best lyricists, best live shows, and biggest disappointments, so look forward to that.

XOXO
~Noah