2011 best of list.

So my "best of the year" project turned out to be a little bit over ambitious. When you work full time and you've got a baby in the house time is quite limited. I decided to pu together a list of the ten best albums from last year. I won't rank them, but put them in alphabetical order.

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Tao Of The Dead

The Black Keys - El Camino

Bon Iver - Bon Iver

Danava - Hemisphere Of Shadows

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

The Haunted - Unseen

M83 - Hurry Up We're Dreaming 

Mastodon - The Hunter

Opeth - Heritage

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

Album of the year project 3rd post.

The third match-up sees ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Os Dead's record "Tao Of The Dead" against Wino's "Adrift".

 

The prog-rockers ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead is a new experience for me. For some reason I've always thought that they played some kind of lame indie pop. After I understood that they play brilliant prog rock I had to get the new album, and I can't say I'm disappointed! This is a great album, packed full of great riffs, lovely atmospheric parts and straight forward rock songs. You really don't expect a band like this to put out so many great songs on one album, normally the album is more in focus rather than the songs. I mean that you have to listen to an album from start to finish to really appreciate it but on "Tao Of The Dead" several of the songs really stand up on their own as well. Some good examples are "Weight Of The Sun", "The Wasteland" and "Ebb Away".

The record is sort of two parter where the band, on the c-side, has one song they call "Strange News From Another Planet", which is something more to be expected from a band like Trail Of Dead with spaced out parts and the song reaching over the ten minute mark (and probably more, there's no way to tell the length of a song on a record player;)). This last side ties the record together perfectly.

Scott Weinrich, what a voice that man's been gifted with! The frontman of such stoner/doom legends as Saint Vitus and Spirit Caravan. This is Wino's first acoustic album. There are some electric guitar solos as well but it's mainly based on his voice and his guitar. The progress he has made musically is comparable to the likes of Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till for example. Those two play in the band Neurosis which started out as hardcore punk but has progressed to more experimental metal. They have both released solo material which has been just their voices and a guitar. So to get back to Wino...

"Adrift" seems like a natural step leap from Spirit Caravan's stoner rock (he's played in several bands after they split up but I haven't listened to most of them). They have always used acoustic guitars in their songs, quite effectively as well. I have a feeling that some of the material on this record would have benefited to go through a Spirit Caravan filter. You can hear the potential of the songs and sometimes it works but I think that they could have been even better. There are some quality riffs on here, like on "Mala Suerte" and "D-Bear" for example. What would that song sounded like if Wino was backed up with a band?

So in conclusion Trail Of Dead advances to the next stage.

Next up is Indie/psych rockers Akron/Family against the first metal album so far the last one from Crowbar.

Tao Of The Dead

One of the best rock n roll albums of the year so far is ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's latest release "Tao Of The Dead". I have never really listened to this band and never paid it much attention as I, for some reason, was of the impression that this band played some boring and lame indie pop of some sort. It turns out that they really don't. They play progressive rock of the best kind so now I have to explore their earlier releases as well.

So if you're not going to watch the Eurovision song contest final tonight I recommend that you give this album a couple of listens! Here it is on Spotify.