Top 50 Albums of 2007

20. Liars – Liars (Mute)

Given that the Liars had spent a few years sinking deeper into drones and chants, it’s easy to forget that the New York band actually started out playing abrasive, yet fun dancepunk. They’ll likely never do that again, but it’s also just as unlikely that they’ll record another Drum’s Not Dead. This year, they streamlined and simplified, choosing even to go eponymous on their fourth album, playing accessible and raucous, yet still skewed rock `n’ roll. The description `biker metal’ has been thrown around a lot in reference to Liars’ fourth album, which is fitting given burly smashers like “Plaster Casts of Everything” and personal favorite “Clear Island.” Still, the album goes in completely different directions, such as the trip hop groove of “Houseclouds” and the tender and touching “Protection.” It’s tempting to say they’ve lived up to their name, given how much they divert from any direction they’ve ever taken, but I’m tempted to say they’re more like the indie rock version of the Coen Brothers, offering their own twisted and wonderful take on a different genre with each new project. – Jeff Terich

19. Deerhunter – Cryptograms (Kranky)

In all likelihood, Cryptograms isn’t the album Deerhunter set out to make. But then masterpieces are rarely conscientious efforts. Recorded in two separate sessions, the album represents a duality of musical aesthetics and a band in constant evolution. Ambient tracks shimmer alongside fuzzy shoegazer melodies. Bradford Cox’s digital delay and loops transform his voice into a ghostly presence that pervades the many-layered atmospheres. The relentless percussion of Moses Archuleta rattles through the rampant disorientation of the title track and cements the ethereal, winding “Octet” in the ever-expanding present moment with skittery high-hat flourishes. Field recordings of rushing water and shrill bird cries close the strange oscillations of ” Providence ,” while elsewhere “Red Ink” incorporates the cool resonance of chiming bells to preface the album’s more pop-oriented second half. It’s a witches’ brew alright, equal parts narcotic and psychedelic, to be consumed with addictive regularity. Like the swirling pattern adorning its cover suggests, Cryptograms is a hypnotic enigma that reveals its cryptic puzzle with each new listen and promises new aural discoveries as constant as they are wonderfully confounding. – Mars Simpson

18. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)

Of Montreal set the bar high earlier this year, dropping an outrageous album of black-blossomed pop songs that largely chronicle Kevin Barnes’s mental state while separated from his wife. By rendering his attempts at suppression and forgetfulness, as well as reckless plunges into labyrinthine memories (the supreme example of the latter tact being the epic emotional purge that is “The Past is a Grotesque Animal”) he develops a pathos that remains familiar even at its most disturbing. The whole thing is wrapped in an irresistible mélange of wit and bombast, characteristic quirk and unassailably infectious melodies. It can only be assumed that Kevin Barnes likes his music like he likes his women—endowed with a heavy dose of soul power. – Tyler Parks

17. Broken Social Scene presents Kevin Drew – Spirit If…

Billed as ‘Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew,’ Spirit If… defies what we’ve come to expect for a solo record. Though as one of the main songwriters for Broken Social Scene, how different could Drew’s solo effort be? He is an artist that clearly thrives on collaboration and with a group of 23 artists (many of them BSS members, but J. Mascis and Pavement’s Spiral Stairs also make an appearance), Spirit If… has a real sense of community as well as a sense of Kevin Drew as an artist. Drew is like a hippie in the wrong era as he sings earnestly about feeling something, most importantly of love, but it never even borders on schmaltzy and it comes across as so sincere you can’t help but share in his enthusiasm. And any album that gives us a song as beautiful as “Gang Bang Suicide” is a winner in my book. – Jackie Im

16. The Twilight Sad – Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters

Two of the many great things about Glasgow in 2007: The Glasgow City Council added Scrooge McDuck to its list of famous Glaswegians; and The Twilight Sad released their full-length debut, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters. Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters builds on the promise of The Twilight Sad’s self-titled 2006 EP, delivering cathartic and often bittersweet shoegazer anthems with memorable lyrics. Listening to “That Summer, At Home I Became the Invisible Boy,” it’s hard not to repeat the line “The kids are on fire in the bedroom,” affecting an accent to mimic lead singer James Graham’s own thick Scottish burr. “Cold Days from the Birdhouse” and “Talking with Fireworks / Here it Never Snowed” both play with contrasts of quiet and noise, the latter like a drizzle between cannon blasts. It’s one of those albums I’ve looped over and over again without realizing it, all the while caught up in the whirl of sound. If The Twilight Sad keep up this type of quality on subsequent releases, they might be added to that illustrious list of famous Glaswegians, swimming in that money bin with the likes of Scrooge McDuck, Groundskeeper Willie, Belle and Sebastian and Camera Obscura. – Hubert Vigilla

15. Akron/Family – Love Is Simple

Each record from this ensemble finds them charting new territory, and Love is Simple is a bubbling and bursting culmination of their musical travels thus far. Where their first three Young God releases found them reaching some eclectic and heady heights, their latest offering ups the ante even further, touching on everything from genuinely heartfelt, mantra-like songs, bluegrass-inspired raga-tinged epics with a cappella breakdowns, pastoral acoustic guitar interludes, weird, slightly proggy folk-rock, multilayered spacescapes, and complexly polyrhythmic percussion jams with primitive sounding chanting to darkly harmonic choral arrangements, raucous guitar feedback, bluesy stomps, swampy grooves, gentle folky ballads, hazy, ethereal sound collages, and monstrous classic rock riffs. When it’s all over, in just under an hour, Akron/Family packs in more variety than many bands can hope to achieve over their whole careers. The fact that they manage to mix such an array of genres and musical ideas so seamlessly and also do it with such soul (a quality sadly lacking from a lot of modern music) is doubly impressive. Their wildly epic live shows are even further proof that they make some of the finest truly progressive, earthy, highly original, and distinctly American music out there today. – Michael Henning

14. Justice — †

Call it Eurowhatever, spank rock, disco-metal showered in revisionist glop—oh and on MySpace it’s Christian—but all the euphemistic criss-Crossery shouldn’t occlude the bloodshot popism that hurls the locomotive shuffle of “Phantom” across the bloody chop of “Waters Of Nazareth.” And don’t get me started on “D.A.N.C.E.,” a get-your-yuks-out, eyes-in-the-back-of-its head silly set-to that’s half a playground beatdown and half the unseen Paul McCartney Punk’d episode. Better than any brace of DJ’s around, Justice rocks the magic of the short attention span with songs that rubberband themselves in and around the zeitgeist before boinging off a Jell-O wall. – Anthony Strain

13. Okkervil River –The Stage Names

For the most part, I tried to pick albums to write about in our end of the year survey that I hadn’t reviewed in the first place, but with Okkervil River, I just couldn’t help myself. The Stage Names proved that there was more to Will Sheff than a set of thematic tunes having to do with ripping flesh, though Black Sheep Boy was, itself, a brilliant piece of music. What it did show us was that Sheff could add a little color to the palette, still maintaining his intelligent sense of wordplay and poetry, but this time with more of a nod toward rock and roll than the annals of folk music. Whether he’s singing about his daughter, the trappings of fame, being in a `go nowhere’ band, or musing on the poetry of John Berryman, Will Sheff entertains his ass off. The Stage Names is one of those albums that impresses you upon first listen, and then wins you over again and again with each successive play. – Terrance Terich

12. Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog

Moving away from lo-fi basement recordings and stepping into a more adventurous sound, Sam Beam and his newly christened band have risen to new heights on Iron and Wine’s third album, The Shepherd’s Dog. Though fans of Beam’s prior two albums may have initially had cause for alarm, it was all for naught, as his solemn vocals and intricate guitar playing still dominate this album. With quiet imagery and stunning compositions, Iron and Wine harmonizes their way right into your CD player and stays there. This is the most honest and self-revealing album we’ve seen in a long time. Yet there are two particular things I love most about Iron & Wine. Amid societal frustration and hectic lifestyles, Sam Beam’s voice can instantly calm even the hardened of souls. Secondly, as much as the lyrics touch me to the core, it wouldn’t matter if he were singing about getting mugged in Central Park. Even the curses fly by without any regret or resentment because of how smoothly it glides past the ears. The Shepherd’s Dog is at its barest level a testament to Beam’s simple approach and complicated mind. There is a reason we love it so much – it is just plain good music. – Nikki Marra

11. Jens Lekman – Night Falls Over Kortedala

One of the true high points of my year involved hearing Jens Lekman cover Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” and singing along to “Pocket Full of Money” with the Los Angeles crowd before having Jens tell us that it was the most beautiful he had heard on the whole tour. I know that’s what he tells all his audiences, but that doesn’t make the experience any less special, nor does my thirtieth or so listen to the album since September (Last.fm says 7 but that doesn’t account for mobile iPod use or driving, so that’s my estimation anyway). After taking a year off to work at a drive-in bingo, or so the story goes, Lekman returned in 2007 with his strongest set of songs yet, a true classic woven with humorous and soulful songs of love and small town ennui, sung by a voice that’s impossible not to like, and just as difficult not to trust. After hearing “Your Arms Around Me,” even I couldn’t help but want to give the guy a hug. He’s a showman, and he may just be charming us, but following songs like “The Opposite of Hallelujah” and “A Postcard to Nina,” I’ll eat up his flattery every time. – Jeff Terich