Top 50 Albums of 2007

40. Menomena – Friend and Foe

Through a blustery February, the dark-piano chords of “The Pelican” and shakers mixed with a rather foreboding bass line in “Ghostship” chilled my already shivering bones. When spring began to poke from the detritus of the previous year, the ebullient keyboard chorus of “Wet And Rusting” and the smile-inducing whistles that could only be “Boyscout’n” thawed me from my deep freeze. In summer, “Evil Bee” energized me with it’s rising crescendos like the high heat of the sun’s rays. All year long, Friend And Foe offered my seasonally-inflicted psyche something radically different to ease its yearning. With so much varied instrumentation, too much to list really, it’s a wonder the songs don’t seem cluttered, but Menomena possess that rare compositional ability to let everything breathe. It’s experimental pop to be sure, but it’s the emphasis on pop that makes the experimental aspects so engaging in the first place and demands repeat listens in any season. – Mars Simpson

39. El-P – I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

Led Zeppelin reunited. Public Enemy released a new album. Baroness, Neurosis, Pig Destroyer and High On Fire proved that metal is as relevant and advanced as ever, and still, the heaviest album of the year was El-P’s I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead. Jamie Meline took his sweet time in following up his stellar debut Fantastic Damage, five years to be exact, but to say the wait was worth enduring is an understatement. Dead kicks El Producto’s old-school meets Asteroids beat crushing onto a vicious and darkly humorous prison planet where mundane conversations turn the subway into a “Tasmanian Pain Coaster,” plane crashes become desperate pleas to the Almighty, and the special of the day is razor chicken. He’s El-P; he raps and he produces too, and it’s the latter that few can touch. This is my kind of religion. – Jeff Terich

38. Interpol – Our Love to Admire

With each new release, Interpol moves further and further away from their once heavily Joy Division inspired sound. Our Love To Admire is a complex synthesis between their first two LPs, bringing the dynamic energy of Antics along with the darker mood of Turn On The Bright Lights. In a way, this is the “coming out” party for Interpol, having developed their own musical voice and sound. “Pace is the Trick,” the sixth track, exemplifies the fuller sound, keeping it at a quicker beat than what’s expected while maintaining that heavier and dark atmosphere so prevalent through Interpol’s records. Like many records of 2007, Our Love To Admire acknowledges the previous work done but, more importantly, looks to the future. – Dean Steckel

37. Bright Eyes – Cassadaga

“Cassadaga might just be the premonition of where you’re going to visit.” Our mystery caller also tells us that at least psychically, things are unfolding. Now while Conor Oberst might not be broadcasting across telepathic waves, something heavy is unfolding over the course of Cassadaga. Through the stripped down tracks, similar in tone to 2005’s I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, the album reflects a renewed sense of artistry and personal development. That sorrow-tinged voice of previous years isn’t quite as persistent this time around. Rather, Conor’s singing embodies that theme of personal development, frankly, he sounds happier than ever. While that’s quite the concept to wrap around, Cassadaga takes it’s time to slowly introduce you through the new soundscape this creates. Lyrically, this is one of his strongest outings yet, especially referencing Yeats “The Second Coming” in the chorus of “Four Winds.” Cassadaga is best summed up in the idea that this isn’t our final destination, but just a prelude to the real adventure coming up. – Dean Steckel

36. Beirut – The Flying Club Cup

In barely two years, Beirut have come a very long way. They started off with the Balkan-influenced wonder of Gulag Orkestar in 2006, did their very first media interview right here at Treble, released several stunning EPs, toured the world several times over, and then went ahead and released The Flying Club Cup, the second full-length album penned by Zach Condon by the mere age of 21. Beirut travels to France for Cup, the trip itinerary bringing us tunes like “Nantes,” “A Sunday Smile,” “In the Mausoleum,” and “Cliquot,” all jaunts into the streets of Paris and beyond via lush and vivid arrangements paired with Condon’s signature vibrato. Additionally, Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett lends a hand to Cup‘s already-vibrant instrumentation, his deft talents with strings adding a light facet to Condon’s oft-heavy arrangements. Overall, the drive and creativity that exudes from young Condon and his crew marks them as an incredibly exciting and awe-inspiring act, one that ought to be celebrated in any pocket of the world. – Anna Gazdowicz

35. Matthew Dear – Asa Breed

Everywhere from wikipedia to Allmusic classifies Detroit producer Matthew Dear as ‘microhouse,’ but the best thing he’s done to date is a pulsating and throbbing pop album. Asa Breed found Matthew Dear reaching out beyond the minimal constraints he erected as Audion and False, handing in an electro-pop album that stands up against The Knife and Junior Boys’ 2006 efforts as one of the best albums this decade to pit buoyant hooks against techno and house beats. On standout single “Deserter,” Dear’s voice becomes one of inspiration for lonesome types, while “Neighborhoods” proves that a song can be simultaneously bouncy and sexy. Then there’s current Hummer ad jingle “Don and Sherri,” a lament of unrequited, or rather ignored, love underscored by vibrant synth patterns. In each wonderful and booty-shaking song on Breed there’s one thing that Dear accomplishes without fail—he reminds us that behind each break and each beat, there’s a human being twisting knobs and pulling strings. – Jeff Terich

34. Caribou – Andorra

A step aside, for the most part, from the electronic fireworks of Up in Flames and The Milk of Human Kindness, Andorra is a sublime set of vintage-sounding psychedelic rock and roll. From the wide-eyed wonder of album opener, “Melody Day,” to the drawn out tension of “Niobe,” Dan Snaith is at his finest, embellishing simple and affecting melodies with layers of gorgeous instrumentation and spastic electronic glitches. Like the shimmering beauty of “She’s the One”—subtly situated around the protagonist’s inability to sever himself from a decayed and dying relationship—Andorra couches its greatest pleasures in the already abundant charms its various surfaces. – Tyler Parks

33. Deerhoof – Friend Opportunity

Midway through Deerhoof’s eighth LP Friend Opportunity, lead vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki coos over a stripped piano ballad, “It’s a trap/ It’s a vicious trap!” – a bare, disquieting moment that lyrically sums up, yet melodically belies the labyrinthine structure of the album. From the breakneck romp of opener “The Perfect Me” to the ever-shifting moods of “Cast Off Crown,” this concise and complex follow-up to 2005’s The Runners Four achieves the same sprawling experimentation of its predecessor in almost half the time. Containing some of their most accessible songs to date such as the stand-out single “Matchbook Seeks Maniac,” only to be followed by the album’s closer “Look Away” – a 12-minute wall of noise, at times reminiscent of a more rehearsed Jandek – Friend Opportunity has Deerhoof pushing their aesthetic further than ever, tightening its corners for their most palatable, yet elusive record to date. In that sense, the San Francisco trio has taken a significant step forward and pulled off a stunning recreation. – Dustin Allen

32. Kanye West – Graduation

What we think about when we think about `ye: smoothness, his momma, his humility. Wait, what!? Mr. West, Mr. West, Mr. Fresh, in his infinite wisdom, simultaneously felled Fiddy and filled Graduation with Prince & Appolonia, Klondikes and blonde dykes (that’s just one song, actually), making it for better, not worse, the pop-culture mixology record of the season. It’s a leaner, looser performance than his others, with (slightly) less of a straight face and (slightly) less banality: “Barry Bonds” is disarmingly clever, “Good Life” basically out-Kanyes Kanye, and “Flashing Lights,” besides being hella bouncy, uses `Rome’ (you mean like the country?) as a verb, as in “you can’t Rome/ without Caesar” while slotting a sidelong glimpse at the future domesticated Kanye. Who knows what’ll happen now that school’s out. – Anthony Strain

31. Blonde Redhead – 23

The echoing piano strikes that open 23, followed by the amorphous bend of guitar and Kazu Makino’s fluttery vocals is enough to snare the attention of even the most snarky, indie-fied hipsters. It’s this aesthetic that propels the album into dream-pop canonization; Makino’s chilly, high-register intonation, the strict shoegazer discipleship where all guitars are concerned, and the addition of keys and synthesizer textures that sweep a vast, wavering, swath of sonic depth across the sky’s aural limits. There is such an inordinate attention to detail—the swirling synthesizer blends all background noise into its subtle yet undeniably warm blanketing effect—one is easily lost in washes of synthetic beauty. The mid-tempo maraca-stutter of “Silently” layers Makino’s vocals into choral majesty that strangely enough, induces a bit of hip shaking. “The Dress” and “Dr. Strangeluv” trace swooning trajectories of woozy atmospherics, with madly intricate percussion in the case of the latter. A far cry from the band’s noisier past, with 23, you’d be hard pressed to tell Blonde Redhead that their roots are showing. – Mars Simpson