No chit-chat! Just getting right into it..
Here you go:
Nostalgia For Tomorrow's Favorite Albums of 2011
Defeater - Empty Days & Sleepless Nights (2011)
While I was pretty much settled with Travels and Lost Ground and could have moved on without anymore Defeater releases in my life, I could not but help wonder what it would sound like if their were more acoustic tracks other than the second half of Prophet In Plan Clothes from Travels. Well, Empty Days & Sleepless Nights is the answer. The first part of the album (Empty Days) features Defeater's classic romantic hardcore tunes with Dear Father, Empty Glass, Cemetery Walls and Warm Blood Rush and then delivers just what I was asking for at the end with four acoustic tracks to go along with the Defeater story (Sleepless Nights). The combination of spot on Defeater storytellingcore and super melancholy and personal acoustic tracks made this album an instant favorite of the year for me right away.
My only issue with this album is White Oak Doors. It would be one of - if not my favorite song of the year - if it wasn't a little over 17 minutes long. Before you go all Godspeed You! Black Emperor on me, I would like to explain that this song should only be 6 minutes. Not because I think they shorten it but because there is an 11 minute fade out! I have to wait 11 minutes before I can listen to the acoustic tracks. Eleven minutes of nothing for 11 minutes! That is not hardcore!
Last.fm
Topshelf Records
Bridge Nine
Fucked Up - David Comes To Life (2011)
Fucked Up has figured out how to sound hardcore but still look indie rock and aren't called post-hardcore! Will you look at that!
David Comes To Life is from 2011. I didn't know this until I saw people mentioning their favorite albums of the year so far. I honestly thought I was listening to something from the early 2000's rather than 2011! But you know what? I'm okay with that because I can put this in my favorites list for the year it came out and say that I listened to it in that same year! Great success!
About the Album: It's solid and you should listen to it. because we are all dying on the inside.
Last.fm
Giraffes? Giraffes! - Pink Magick (2011)
I am having a lot of trouble trying to figure out if 2011 was a good year for music or if people's favorite bands just happened to drop new albums. I mean, it was a good year for that. There was a new Hella album and a new Giraffes? Giraffes! album out this year, so...
Giraffes? Giraffes!
Last.fm
Bandcamp
La Dispute - Wildlife (2011)
2011 saw the likes of all three of the top powerhouses of the hardcore/post-hardcore/punk scene today; that being Defetaer, Touché Amouré and La Dispute. The only reason That TA is not on this list is that I never got around to picking it up Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me and thus it can only get the NFT honorable mention.
La Dispute's 2011 full release, Wildlife though was obviously going to be good. I do not think a band with the credentials of La Dispute can stray away from the signature sound they have created. I mean look at anytime you have a band that tries to pull of the poet singing song styles that Jordan Dreyer brings to the game. Even if the band is just talk singing they will probably be compared to La Dispute and/or have been influenced by LA. That being said though, I do always worry that a band with such a good thing going for them can easily just put out a filler of an album with basic instrumentation and zero emotion, slap their name on it and call it a day (or AOTY).
At first listen I was worried that was what had happen with Wildlife. I waited months for this album to come out to hear nothing I could hold on to and say, "wow, that is something new and exciting!" I just put it on and waited for it to impress me. Unfortunately, at first listen it did not do that. So, I put the thought of Wildlife in the back of my head and moved on with my year as if it was never released. I mean, they had already put out a really solid split with Koji months before, so it wasn't like 2011 was a total bust for the masters of post-hardcore hardcore.
It was not until my friend tipped me off about the track, "King Park" that I realized that not only did La Dispute put out a new album, they put out one of thee most emotional and hard to listen to songs of the year in my opinion. It is no new thing that La Dispute can tell a story as emotional and powerful that you soon start listening to the music with your heart. But Wildlife is probably the best example of this. In their other releases it seemed that all their stories and messages were works of fiction and fairy tales but in Wildlife, every story that is told sounds like a real life depiction if not theirs then someone else. Just as I could relate to those tales told in their previous work, I soon started to really get into the true life accounts and all the letter business. Where La Dispute's earlier work showed you stories of the sea and heartache, themes that are up there in my favorite, this release sees La Dispute exploring life struggles, sufferings and death. I think the opening track says it best "I know I never used to feel like this. I used to never think of death or hear voices. I used to feel like everything was perfectly in order - a 'normal' life - but I guess then came a departure."
That's all I have to say I guess.
Along with King Park, other standout tracks of Wildlife include: A Departure, Harder Harmonies, St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church Blues, The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit, I See Everything and You And I In Unison.
Last.fm
No Sleep Records
Official site
Death Grips - Exmilitary (2011)
If you think the hippest thing this year was chillwave leftovers, trillwave, that big lipped girl, anything with ghost, young or clams in it, blue slides, mainstream dubstep, bands that still think it's cool to add/drop/lowercase/uppercase/invent random letters to their name or understanding these references then you did not hear Zach Hill's rap project!
All jokes aside, Death Grips really is a rap project. It also really has Zach Hill in it. Don't believe me... Watch this:
While it may seem that Zach Hill would steal the show and it would just sound like Chll Pll or Diamond Watch Wrists or any other beat/electronic dominated Hill project, it is actually the most laid back I have ever heard Hill as a lot of the recorded stuff is redone by either a drum machine or mixed to sound more like one, I really do not know. Since the beats and FX are just right and just out of control, the rap part fits right over the noise. Fits. Noise. Thus, the unknown rapper is very much a big part of the sound and project as Zach Hill. And he's not repping that trill shit...
Don't get me wrong about the laid back part, though. Zach Hill does not know how to lay back... it is just not in him. I don't think he could play a simple AC/DC drum beat if he tried. BUT, I still wouldn't consider Death Grips a Math rap band. This is really some dark and harsh hip-hop!
Last.fm
Third Worlds
And last but not least:
Metallica + Lou Reed - Lulu (2011)
That face says it all.
Hope
