Favourite Albums Of 2008

Here’s my favoruite albums from 2008.

1		Portishead - Third Not as good as Dummy, but I was very glad to see a new release from one of my favourite bands. I was slightly disappointed on the first listen, but after several plays it really grew on me. Definitely worth some perseverance.
2		The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely This is better than their first album, and much better than Jack White’s other bands last couple of albums. It’s a good combination of pop and rock.
3		Porcupine Tree - We Lost The Skyline (Also came with a Lightbulb Sun bonus CD, as I pre-ordered the album). This is a short acoustic set featuring just Steven Wilson (and a bit of John Wesley) – just guitar and vocals. It shows off the softer tone to Porcupine Tree; very different to the full heavy rock style on their last album.
4		Rewiring Genesis - A Tribute To The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway Some great interpretations of one of my favourite albums of all time. Rewiring Genesis is a project by multi-instrumentalist Nick D'Virgilio (Spock's Beard, Genesis-‘97) that started out with a plan to record the tune The Colony of Slippermen in a bluegrass-inspired style. And when D'Virgilio arrived at Hornsby's place in Nashville, USA, the project started growing, eventually ending up as a complete re-recording of Genesis artistic masterpiece "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". This is not just a copy by a tribute band - many of the songs have been rearranged, some in a minor way and others in a major one. The most striking feature is the use of violins, horns and other acoustic instruments, partially taking over the function keyboards and mellotron had in the original production. At times this adds more symphonic elements to the compositions, especially the violin, viola and cello, which are central in this aspect of the recording, naturally enough. Many of the shorter pieces come across as intriguing variations of the original versions due to that aspect, and as such merits to be tagged successful interpretations.
5		The Black Keys - Attack & Release The Black Keys are often compared with The White Stripes. I didn’t enjoy this album as much as previous offerings, such as Magic Potion, but it’s still very enjoyable.
6		Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I – IV This is a 4-volume, 36 track instrumental collection. The first volume, consisting of 9 tracks was made available as a free download, following in the footsteps of Radiohead’s In Rainbow release. It’s dark ambient music, and reminds me of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. I never particularly liked Nine Inch Nails, especially the vocals, but as this was free and made a lot of press, and was compared to Fripp & Eno, I gave it a try. It’s worth the free download!
7		Pineapple Thief - Tightly Unwound A lesser-known progressive rock band. Laid-back mellow progress rock sound. Sounds a bit like Snow Patrol at times.
8		Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul They’re back. Some good tunes.
9		A Silver Mt. Zion - 13 Blues For 13 Moons I’ve been getting into Post-rock bands recently. Post-rock is rock music, but also using instruments not normally associated with rock (but still contain guitars, etc). A Silver Mount Zion were formed partially from Godspeed You Black Emperor! Who?!!! I hear you say… Well, they produced the bit of music that plays in the 28 Days Later film when the lead character is walking through an empty London. That piece of music has subsequently been used in many film/TV programs. A Silver Mt. Zion a quite different to Godspeed, in that there are lots of vocals, which are an aquired taste. Efrim Menuck sings in the sardonic howl of a punk singer. Most songs on this album hinge around the sludgy, grungy roar of Efrim's guitar, which often drowns out Sophie Trudeau's weeping violin. When the violin does get to shine though, she adds a lot of texture and colour to the music, giving it an almost folky feel.
10		Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree I love the opening (rather laid back) track called Clowns.
11		Muse - Haarp
12		Coldplay - Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends (+ Prospekt’s March)
13		Paul Weller - 22 Dreams
14		Mike Oldfield - Music of the Spheres
15		Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns
16		The Mars Volta - The Bedlam Goliath
17		The Blessing - All Is Yes
18		Alanis Morissette - Flavors Of Entanglement
19		Various Artists - Big Blue Ball
20		REM - Accelerate
21		Steven Wilson - Insurgentes
22		Morcheba - Dive Deep
23		Future Sound Of London - Environments 2
24		Sheryl Crow - Detours
25		Graveyard – Graveyard Like Black Sabbath. Grungy deep bass tracks.
26		B52’s - Funplex
27		Baby Animals - Il Grande Silenzio Acoustic versions of songs from their hard-rock early 90’s albums to mark their imminent return to music. I’m looking forward to a new album with new songs.
28		Lenny Kravitz - It Is Time For A Love Revolution
29		Liam Finn - I’ll Be Lightning
30		Amie Miriello - I Came Around
31		Hush Arbors - Hush Arbors Indie folk music. Apparently, this band are comparable to Bon Iver, but I haven’t heard their album yet.
32		Black Mountain - In The Future
33		Martina Topley-Bird - The Blue God

Reissues:

1		Genesis - Box Set 1970 - 1975 Beautifully presented Box Set, consisting of new 2008 Remasters, Stereo Mix and 5.1 Surround Sound versions of all albums from the Peter Gabriel period of Genesis. This includes: Trespass, Nursery Crymes, Foxtrot, Selling England By The Pound, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, and Extras, all of these come with CD/SACD disks and DVD Audio disks in DTS format. There are plenty of extras on the DVD’s – live concerts, etc. Still ploughing through it all.
2		Fripp & Eno - No Pussyfooting A fine remaster of this classic Electronic/Ambient album, featuring The Heavenly Music Corporation and Swastika Girls. This release also includes the album played in reverse, just as it was when it was originally played by John Peel on Radio 1 (Brian Eno phoned in to tell them they were playing it reversed, but no-one believed it was him!).
3		Tangerine Dream - The Anthology Decades - The Space Years Volume 1
4		The Cardigans - Greatest Hits