2008 Albums: 1-5

5. Okkervil River - The Stand-Ins

It would be so easy for Okkervil River to drift into preciousness or precociousness. Will Sheff is enormously literary with his lyrics, perhaps self-consciously so, which normally bothers me. His voice has an indie-rock quality to it that's almost too much. The songs are rooted in folk but draped in just-barely-not-ironic horns and power-pop and honk and bar cover band vibe. If you described the music to me without my hearing it, I'm pretty sure I'd avoid it altogether.

But listening to Okkervil River, what it most undeniable is the quality of song writing and the sincerity of Will Sheff. I loved last year's The Stage Names, and according to an interview I heard with Sheff, the songs for this album were written together with the last ones, but as they went through the recording process they decided which to push to a later album.

The Stand-Ins is looser and more confident. Knowing that they've improved in the space of a singler year speaks well to their bright future. I was unmoved by Black Sheep Boy, convinced by Stage Names, and overwhelmed by The Stand-Ins. I am beyond excited for what Okkervil River does next.

4. The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Graves

I'll never forget a conversation I had with Nick back in college over a $1.99 Amber Bock at the Duck. We were discussing music, possibly because Pitchfork had put out their best of 2000-2005 list and I hadn't heard of more than half of the bands. At one point, Nick said something casually derisive about the entire singer-songwriter genre as a whole. Namely, that he hated them. That singer-songwriters were the height of mediocrity in music, clogging up all the space with their hackneyed Bob-Dylan-aping schtick, lacking a shred of originality.

Having grown up around church youth groups where the earnest-man-with-a-guitar is respected and adored, I remember being incredibly surprised, and I feebly defended the genre. But a short while later, I realized Nick was absolutely right. 99% of singer-songwriters are crap, emotionally adolescent, and uninventive musicians. It was a sad but true realization.

So my sincere love for The Tallest Man on Earth could be dismissed as nostalgia. Perhaps it's for early Bob Dylan, with whom the similarity is uncanny--not just the way the music sounds but his vocal style, aptitude for poetic lyrics, and overall energy. Or maybe it's because he's Swedish and I'm just a sucker for that country, as this list seems to attest. But I have not stopped listening to this album since I got my hands on it in May. The songs are rich, vivid, sad and deeply beautiful.

How can someone sound like early Dylan in 2008 and not be a derivative hack? I don't know. But the only answer I can offer is that maybe there's something transcendent possible when a man sings and plays a guitar.

3. Deerhunter - Microcastle

Cryptograms was totally lost on me -- I hadn't heard of it until end-of-year lists, and then I just didn't have the energy to unpack it. I'm sure it was briliant and all that. But I chalked it up for loss and moved on to other things. So when Microcastle came out, I was determined to listen to it along with everyone else, planning to put in a good effort and understand what it was about Deerhunter that was so amazing.

But once through was enough. Sometimes the only reason I want to listen to music is to be taken someplace I could never reach myself. More than reading a novel or looking at a painting, music can create an emotional experience within a minute or two that's bewildering in its intensity. Listening to Deerhunter, I feel myself retreating completely into a disturbing sensibility, a bleak landscape. I think the only thing that keeps me tethered is the moments of pop. I have no idea where the songs began, how they got to where they are now, and I don't much care. Deerhunter achieves for me what The Liars did a couple years ago with Drums Not Dead. I am transfixed and amazed and held sway.

2. The Walkmen - You & Me

Maybe more than any other album this year, I loved giving in to The Walkmen. It is a perfectly paced album, unfolding carefully and slowly. It helps, of course, that their music is moody and atmospheric, that they evoke the kind of beleagured middle-of-winter mood that's strangely comforting and easy to slip into. But from the moment I heard the first gentle cymbal crash of Donde Esta la Playa and the rumbling, muddled bass, I had little choice but to submit.

What's most surprising to me is that I never emerge from The Walkmen feeling depressed, even though I should. There's something about Hamilton Leithauser vocals that's human and courageous. To write this I'm going back over the tracks individually and what strikes me is how quiet they are, which I hadn't really realized before. There's nothing like the ferocity of The Rat. But the music lacks none of its intensity, commanding my attention just as pointedly as that song but with more careful instrumentation. With every listen the contours of this album shape and become clearer, new moments emerge, most unexpectedly uplifting. How The Walkmen bury this kind of beauty is lost on me. But this is a remarkable album.

1. No Age - Nouns

I came and left this album through a period of many months this year, obsessing then putting it away. I couldn't help but compare it to last year's Weirdo Rippers. I love Weirdo Rippers with a fierceness I can't explain. I may have listened to it more than any other 2007 album during 2008. Its power over me continues to grow. The songs, anchored in punk, stretch out into these giant, moody guitarscapes that evoke plane hangars and the warm, woozy desolation of Los Angeles. But at the same time I was trying to absorb Nouns, their proper full-album (Weirdo Rippers was a collection of EPs and other material). But Weirdo Rippers wasn't done with me; I hadn't escaped its thicket of messy sound.

Nouns isn't more cohesive--it's barely held together by an overhanging fuzz. But there are little moments of melodious brilliance (Things I Did When I was Dead) that I keep returning to. The power of melody is never more important than in noise rock--it's the beauty among obliteration that makes it all worth listening to.

It may be that I'm way in over my head with Nouns at the moment, and making irrational decisions about its placement on this list. But more than any other album it has captured my time, intellect, and imagination. The music is inventive and brilliant for a drummer and a guitarist -- bands twice their size are routinely less impressive, with a fraction of the ideas. Their mastery of noise is unmitigated.

It's been said that the sign of a good writer is when a whole book is thrown away on every page. The same applied to Nouns. The sheer number and quality of ideas in this album is staggering.