This album has got a few years on its tires, but just this year did I get around to actually buying it. The grandiose Icelandic outfit's fifth full-length is somewhat of a halfway house for front man Jónsi en course to his debut solo album, Go, which was released last year. Some of the tunes, including catchy lead single and opening track 'Gobbledigook', along with bubbly and strongly life-affirming tunes such as 'Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur' and 'Við Spilum Endalaust', very much pave the way for Go, whereas most of the other tunes on this album are more in touch with Sigur Rós' former material. Highlights from that pedigree include the heart-clenching 'Goðan Daginn' and the epic 'Festival', while the back part of the album does make quite a dip, and isn't on par with masterpieces such as () and Takk...
One of quite a few albums from 2010 that I have dug up this year. You can't do everything at the same time and, Efterklang being an outfit I had previously never had much of a relationship with, other than live, they flew a bit under the radar initially with Magic Chairs, but what a vivid and blossoming record it really is! It's like a butterfly that you keep trying to catch with your hands, but it keeps eluding you, determined not to be caught and confined. The album cleverly kicks off with a few well-crafted pop tunes, 'Modern Drift' and 'Alike', before turning left at crucial track #4, the blazingly and intriguingly syncopated 'Raincoats'. After that, Efterklang move through baroqueness, navel-gazing melancholy and quirkiness, before ending with beauteous cuts 'Mirror Mirror' and 'Natural Tune', mastering each twist and turn with the same masterfully pictorial aesthetic.
I've been complaining a bit now and then, that I've had a hard time keeping up with Danish music recently. Well screw that! When all is said and done, a full fourth of the albums on this list are domestic, and proves that the Danish music scene is still very much alive! I was harsh on Agnes Obel this winter, snubbing her of a spot on my 2010 end-of-year list, which was obviously an injustice. Philharmonics is an incredibly secure, sincere and, most of all, quiveringly beautiful debut album from a gritty songstress. Back when I got the album, I was rough on the predictable harmonics, but they just hadn't crept underneath my skin yet. Obvious highlights are singles 'Riverside' and 'Just So', along with 'Avenue', but I actually think the best example of the albums beauty is two-minute interlude 'Louretta', which just dollies along graciously yet determinedly - just like its creator.
Curiously, the only Mercury Prize-nominated album in this list, Elbow's Build A Rocket Boys!, slots all the way down at #17, accentuating yet another hideous year for British music (there are a few more British albums coming up though...) - compare it to the fifth of the albums being Canadian, and you really get a picture of where indie music is happening at the point. Anyway, that isn't Elbow's fault, and their fine, blue-collar fifth full-length, Build A Rocket Boys!, has the sound of an album that couldn't have been crafted anywhere but Manchester. There are obvious dips, otherwise the album would've been further up the chart, but there are also major peaks running all through the album, from the epic opening couple of 'The Birds' and 'Lippy Kids' all the way to sincere and gut-wrenching tunes on the latter half of the album such as 'High Ideals', 'Open Arms' and 'Dear Friends'. There are a lot of grand gestures, all-embracing Guy Garvey-size hugs and delicate pathos on this album, but the absolute crown jewel is nevertheless the bare and exquisite 'Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl', perhaps one of the best tunes released this year.
Perhaps it has ended up being too busy a year for Sufjan Stevens. Too busy to get a hold of indie's chief chameleon and his latest work of intriguing art, The Age of Adz. I am absolutely in love with 'Futile Devices' and 'I Walked', which surround more ornate highlights 'Too Much' and 'Age of Adz' in the first part of the album. Elsewhere, there's beautiful 'Vesuvius', flaunting in the weird landscape that is the albums middle part, together with the intense 'All For Myself', one of the most personal tunes on a very personal album by the otherwise story-telling Stevens. And then there's of course the much talked about 25-minute closer, 'Impossible Soul', which is indeed impossible to get a hold of - but impressive nonetheless. That basically goes for all of The Age of Adz, which I must admit I have unjustly bailed on quite a bit the past few months. One can't however help but be amazed by Stevens' blue-eyed musical genius, and this album is a true roller coaster ride!
