Superchunk — Majesty Shredding (Merge)
Superchunk once held court in indie rock’s Mount Olympus. They and their Matador labelmates, Guided By Voices and Pavement, truly defined the genre. In 2010, the genre has given way to new forms, and most of their contemporaries have become legacy-touring acts. But in Superchunk’s latest effort, “Majesty Shredding,” the Chapel Hill slackers continue to rip like it’s 1991, featuring riff-laden, catchy material that sounds far too fresh for a group over three decades old. This album starts like a riot in “Digging For Something,” and refuses to slow down through 11 incendiary tracks, making a bold statement that the indie rock-punk movement will not fade away into the night.
Recommended if you like: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Screaming Females, Yo La Tengo
Recommended tracks: 1, 2, 7
– Brad Barbour
Crocodiles — Sleep Forever (Fat Possum)
Crocodiles’ second album is an even mix of synth pop and krautrock. The problem that casual listeners can have with krautrock is its lack of melodies, but Crocodiles’ best songs retain the genre’s repetitive, precise keyboard and drum patterns while building guitar and vocal hooks. The strongest cuts here are Springsteen-style anthems with a ton of distortion and a 10 second keyboard loop stretched out over the course of five minutes.
Recommended if you like: Spacemen 3, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Horrors
Recommended tracks: 1, 7, 5
– Carrie Walters
Aloe Blacc — Good Things (Stones Throw)
Many artists find soul music to be one of the hardest genres to create because it’s so hard be authentic. Soul music, in the vein of Stevie Wonder, Al Green, and Sharon Jones, is made of equal parts love and heartbreak. Yet it doesn’t seem a problem for rapper-turned-singer Aloe Blacc, who’s created one of the most honest albums of the year. After moving from style to style in the underground rap scene, Blacc finally found some sort of signature sound on “Good Things.” He combines a rapper’s knack for lyricism with a soul singer’s smooth demeanor to curate an album about heartbreak, women (including a tearful ode to his aging mother), money and politics. Less innovative and sporadic than his first album “Shine Through,” it seems that with “Good Things,” Blacc has finally found a genre where he feels comfortable enough to stay for a while.
Recommended if you like: Mayer Hawthorne, Raphael Saadiq, Stevie Wonder
Recommended tracks: 1, 3, 5, 11
– Kevin Kunitake
Zola Jesus — Stridulum EP (Sacred Bones)
Zola Jesus probably wins “Best Goth Artist 2010” by default. She’s writing slow, mournful songs backed by minimalist synthesizers and maybe a guitar once in a while. Honestly, if this had been released in 1986, it would have blended in with the mountain of other goth artists, but today, after the genre has been killed by emo and acoustic guitars, Zola Jesus sounds fresh. It never moves beyond the “Siouxsie singing for Berlin” sound, but EPs this unique can stick with one style and still resonate.
Recommended if you like: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Berlin, Xiu Xiu
Recommended tracks: 1, 3, 4
– Alex Rudolph
Deerhunter — Halcyon Digest (4AD)
Bradford Cox is a very busy man, having created three full length LPs with Deerhunter, two with side-project Atlas Sound, and more EPs than you can shake a stick at in just two years. That being said, it’s a small miracle that the well of inspiration has not been drained before the making of Halcyon Digest, and instead manages to sound like the product of a band infused with new life. The familiar shoegaze dreaminess of their previous efforts has been stripped down and made more accessible, culminating on transcendentally building “Desire Lines” and hazy “Earthquake.” And if the fact that Deerhunter sounds exactly like The Strokes on “Coronado” isn’t evidence of the band’s adventurism, I don’t know what is. Overall, Halcyon Digest is the kind of album that can make someone who previously disliked Deerhunter (yours truly) to consider this the best album of the year (i.e: pretty darn good).
Recommended if you like: The Radio Dept., Real Estate, My Bloody Valentine
Recommended tracks: 3, 6, 8
– Brad Barbour
