Zinn in Review

Below is an essay I wrote for my US History & Government class on Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States:

When a nation’s entire history is so often told only from the perspective of the leaders who are already given sole credit for shaping said nation, an entire other history is lost. Fortunately, historian Howard Zinn stepped in to bestow upon present and future generations A People’s History of the United States as an alternate narrative which counters the often fairytale-esque version of our chronicle supplied to the world’s youth today. With its detailed accounts of oppressed natives and minorities, disenfranchised laborers, and lesser known forward-thinking radicals, this version of U.S. history illuminates the stories of those upon whose fatigued backs this nation was quite literally built. Every coin has two sides, and thanks to the likes of Zinn, we now have the opportunity to see the side opposite the president’s face.

Many critics tend to discount A People’s History as an affront to American culture and traditions on account of Zinn’s liberal politics and Marxist leanings. Dissent tends to frighten many, especially when directed towards historical heavyweights like the Founding Fathers. But this very fear, from right-wing conservative and nationalistic citizens, of any form of challenge to the U.S.’s political and economic systems, is precisely what he spent his life’s work opposing. According to Zinn, celebrated figures like Christopher Columbus and Andrew Jackson were not the heroes that most history books portray them to have been - in fact, he would have said that they were more like villains. While these men may have accomplished impressive, triumphant feats that undoubtedly altered the course of history, their accomplishments were only possible through ruthlessness and mass murder. To only tell of the glory and to omit the cruelty and bloodshed is to tell only a half-truth. Howard Zinn’s conclusion that “...the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress...is still with us” informs his notion that the real heroes of the American narrative were men like Eugene Debs, who peacefully fought for unions and the labor movement, and Daniel Ellsberg, responsible for leaking the famous Pentagon Papers; women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Sojourner Truth, who organized and struggled for women’s rights in a time when they were legally granted next to none.

Historically speaking, the names and dates of important documents signed, battles won, and important figures remain largely intact between the traditional accounts and Zinn’s. However, it is an unflinching emphasis on the political underdog that really differentiates his form from the rest. In order to paint this portrait of an America that was built on the backs of the poor - a portrait no less accurate than traditional renditions - he certainly was inclined to omit some of our leaders’ more gratifying moments. His portrayal of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency is a prime example of this.

While it is widely known that Lincoln made great strides and attained freedom from bondage for the African American population through his passage of the 13th amendment to the Constitution, Zinn chose instead to focus on Abe’s duality in regards to the subject of slavery. He wrote that Lincoln “opposed slavery, but could not see blacks as equals” and “spoke differently depending on the views of his listeners (and also perhaps depending on how close it was to the election)”, presenting quotes from Lincoln which expressed ideals of racial equality when speaking in northern states and of white superiority while speaking in the South. Examples like this also highlight how Zinn’s politics can often cause a tendency to automatically disfavor those in power. While Lincoln’s words and actions may seem deceitful in a certain light, Zinn neglects to consider the righteous motives that were likely behind them, or that his tactics may have been necessary in order to achieve his greater goals of ending slavery and preserving the Union.

Howard Zinn plainly states his own motives for writing A People’s History within the text: “I wanted, in writing this book, to awaken a greater consciousness of class conflict, racial injustice, sexual inequality, and national arrogance.” As these conditions throughout American history are largely undeniable, especially after reading firsthand accounts of its victims’ struggles, Zinn has certainly succeeded in awakening this greater consciousness. This approach to the narrative tends to be far more compelling than the typical idolatry we ascribe to our heads of state. When the elected and the electorate are regarded simply as people, both fallible and subject to criticism, the real stories that complete the picture are brought forth. Through this mode of telling history, we can begin to actually feel a sense of connectedness not only the people who created or amended our doctrine but also to the people affected by it.

If History is an argument and a way to learn from the past to better shape the future, then in Howard Zinn’s words, “it should...emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when...people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win... that our future may be found in the past’s fugitive moments of compassion rather than its solid centuries of warfare.” If all we learn from history is a series of dates when distant events occurred, what have we really learned? If we are not permitted to question the morality (or lack thereof) which guided the formation and direction of our nation, how can we be expected to foster future progress? Much like the colonists needed revolutionary pamphlets like Paine’s Common Sense to raise and understand the questions of their time, A People’s History of the United States is a document that should be considered essential reading for our time. Even if one’s politics do not align with Zinn’s, it is hard to deny the value in hearing the voices of the previously unheard to round out one’s worldview.

Tops Off, Part I

I don't know that I would declare the following "the best", but they were "my favorite"...

10. The Night Marchers - Allez Allez
Arguably the best release from the Drive Like Jehu/Hot Snakes gentlemen since Hot Snakes' Audit in Progress (2004). John Reis, a self-proclaimed "downstroke warlord", and his Marchers are in excellent form on their second full-length together, settling into a somewhat relaxed yet familiarly aggressive, driving sound led by John's unmistakable rousing growl. For those initiated with Hot Snakes and Rocket From the Crypt, Allez Allez should come as no surprise, as we all know Reis's instincts rarely let us down. While the record is mostly a fairly straight-forward guitar-bass-drums game, the ears are occasionally tickled by some Rocket-esque horn section parts ('Big in Germany') and classic blues-rock harmonica wails ('I Wear the Horns').

9. Kronos Quartet with Bryce Dessner - Aheym
Like most others who recognize the Dessner name, I knew of Bryce only as one of the guitarists in The National - until now, that is. It turns out the dude is a fairly accomplished classical composer, and this is his first proper album release under his own name. Enlisting the help of the prolific Kronos Quartet to perform the dense pieces on Aheym, the album begins frantically with a palpably tense arrangement of jagged layered harmonies that eventually open up to provide some much-needed, spacious relief... until it sucks you back into the tension (which is what you wanted anyway, the masochist that you are). 'Little Blue Something' is mostly an easier, almost feather-light listen until its dark build at the end, which momentarily harkens back to the first track's theme. All in all, this is a great record for doing some deep thinking or working on that script you've had half-finished for the last three years.

8. Coliseum - Sister Faith
After dabbling in some slower, sludgier material on 2010's House With a Curse, Coliseum are back in true form with their dark brand of no-bullshit, riffy punk rock. The album's closer, 'Fuzzbang', exudes a more hopeful tone than anything else in the catalogue (is that a major key I hear?), but there's enough confrontation and occult imagery in singer-guitarist Ryan Patterson's growl throughout the record to soundtrack a fistfight at a seance. To add another kicker to this shebang, as if that was necessary, they included some enviable guest appearances on Sister Faith by J. Robbins (who also produced this beast), Wata of Boris, Jason Loewenstein of Sebadoh, and Jason Farrel of Bluetip/Retisonic.

*Further reading/shameless plug: an interview I did for ALARM with Ryan Patterson about the album and some other stuff

7. Yuppies - Yuppies
This is definitely not a typical record for me to become attached to, but when a co-worker suggested it to me (comparing it to the awesome Bostonian trio Pile), it really struck me. While they may certainly draw reasonable comparisons to apathy-rock bands like Parquet Courts and Pavement, there seems to be a totally different force driving Yuppies. I can't help but make some connection between the sonic attitude on this record with the junkie ramblings of William S. Burroughs. The anger sometimes feels tongue-in-cheek, juxtaposed with positively-charged chords and upbeat (but not necessarily aggressive) drumming ('Getting Out') - but it all feels very real, nonetheless. Then other times, the frustration and aggression is so overwhelmingly in the foreground ('Worms') that the uncomfortably dissonant nature of the music forms one of the most uniquely "heavy" songs in recent memory. The delivery may come off as simple on the surface, but this onion has some fragrant layers worth peeking under.

6. Cass McCombs - Big Wheel and Others
Big Wheel... is about as musically and lyrically expansive as the American western frontier that is its setting and subject matter, which is no simple task. While the vibe sits comfortably within a general folky style, McCombs paints the vast expanse with a pretty wide brush, employing some outright rock & roll, a jammy jazz instrumental, and a little avant-garde to breathe life into the gritty characters in these vignettes. It's lines like "A man with a man - how much more manly can you get?" ('Big Wheel') and "In a perfect world, we'd all have 40 acres and a mule / But this ain't a perfect world, it's a perfect storm" ('Everything Has to Be Just-So') that reveal McCombs's complex challenges to the seemingly obvious routine and "it is what it is" mentality that plagues our day-to-day. The album's title lends itself nicely to imagery of modern semi trucks, covered wagons, and even the childish plastic tricycles of our childhood, which allows McCombs to explore widely and wildly with his mellow, matter-of-fact storyteller's voice on this excellent (very-) full-length.

5. The National - Trouble Will Find Me
The National just keep finding new and subtle ways to make their unassuming songs interesting as hell to the attentive listener. Two songs in and both have had non-traditional time signatures, without striving to let you know they're being "mathy". If you like The National because of this and because of Matt Berninger's gentlemanly baritone and bizarre-ish lyrics and because their recordings are always full of sweet, sweet ear candy, then you probably already know why Trouble Will Find Me is on this list.

4. Comadre - S/T
Sadly, these guys broke up not too long after this excellent swan song of a release but, to the Comadre dudes: way to go out with a fucking bang! This record, equal parts youthful and thoughtful, is probably what I always wanted Kid Dynamite to be. It's hard to imagine that an album full of almost nothing but atonal yelling could be catchy, but surrounding the edgy, combative vocals are melodic guitars, tight, groovy bass lines wound neatly around solid, energetic drums, seasoned with modest piano and organ with a little trumpet to taste. ("No keyboards, synthesizers or artificial reverb used in the making of this recording.") The tunes have a way of lodging themselves into your head and begging you to come back as if they were a diabolically inviting ex-lover's bed. There's also something to be said when a band with fairly abrasive music acknowledges the listener's need for occasional relief - Comadre got that memo, strategically placing a few nearly soothing interludes that act as the twine to neatly tie the album together. Do yourself a favor and jam 'Cold Rain' as loud as your stereo goes, but be prepared to break some shit in the process.

3. Volcano Choir - Repave
*To read my full review of this album, go here

2. Savages - Silence Yourself
Post-punkish trend benders Savages came out of the gates fast and bearing razor-sharp teeth this year - and seemingly out of nowhere. Actually, they came from London, and while the post-punk label isn't inappropriate, it certainly feels like a lame attempt at pigeonholing a band that is much more than a Joy Division or Siouxsie & the Banshees worship act. The fierceness with which singer Jehnny Beth fuels her wide-eyed wailing is arresting, and her voice manages to be calculated and spontaneous simultaneously. The band plays with unrivaled purpose, matching its catchy, even danceable, moments with angular, artful dissonance which reminds you that, even if you're smiling, Savages are still angry. You ought to find that 'Shut Up' and 'She Will' are shining examples of a healthy marriage between the ghosts of punk's past and future.

1. Speedy Ortiz - Major Arcana
What may have begun humbly as singer/guitarist Sadie Dupuis's solo project has blossomed into something truly special. When she begins 'No Below' with "You didn't know me when you were a kid", it almost makes me wish I did - the songs on Major Arcana all give off this pungent sense of guiltless nostalgia as Dupuis's stories are spun into appropriately fuzzy, jangly pop songs that bounce back and forth between recklessly heavy and delicately sobering. Something about her quirky vocal melodies reminds me of the best parts of Craig Wedren's (Shudder to Think) playful and sometimes confusing vocal patterns, and they're perfectly complemented by the conversational guitar work between Sadie and fellow guitarist Matt Robidoux. Speedy Ortiz may not be re-inventing the wheel, but they've certainly managed to use it their own way. Of all the excellent records that have come out this year, this one has tested with the most addictive results for me, and who am I to resist such urges?


THE HONORABLY MENTIONABLE
Red Hare - NITES of MIDNIGHT
Bosnian Rainbows - Bosnian Rainbows
Owen - L'Ami du Peuple
The Bronx - The Bronx (IV)
Phosphorescent - Muchacho
INVSN - INVSN
Islands - Ski Mask
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away
Waxahatchee - Cerulean Salt
Native - Orthodox
Kurt Vile - Wakin on a Pretty Daze
Pissed Jeans - Honeys
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
Into It. Over It. - Intersections
Sombear - Love You in the Dark

XLII

The music-industrial complex is a complicated beast with many heads and is in a possibly permanent state of flux. We all know this. Lots of learned folks have lined up to shout from digital mountaintops that the "solution" is this or that, tit or tat - but music fans are still left wanting more for less money, musicians are still left longing for appropriate compensation in return for their offerings, and somewhere in between are all the various labels, execs, agents, etc. siphoning their cut of this insufficient dough.

A couple of relevant statistics I heard this week (thanks, Sound Opinions):
(1.) 40% less people are declaring "musician" as their profession now than in 1999.
(2.) Only 1% of digital tracks released are reaching the 1,000 sales mark (as of 2011).

Let out a sigh. We are the 99%.

So, this whole quandary has brought to the surface this question: what exactly is a song worth?

Do I have an answer for you? Douglas Adams's great supercomputer Deep Thought put it pretty well when confronted about its seven-and-a-half million years of calculating the answer to "life, the universe, and everything": Yes. But you're not going to like it.

Here it is. Ready your eager brain for imminent chair-slumping, head-shaking, vegetable-chucking disappointment.

The value of a song is completely and hopelessly unquantifiable.

This street performer in the Clark/Lake Blue Line subway stop was playing a particularly spirited rendition of 'All Along the Watchtower' the other night, when he peppered in Neil Young's famous line "it's better to burn out than to fade away" (from Crazy Horse's 'My My, Hey Hey - Out of the Blue'). It was evident that this guy was really having a moment with it, and my experience was a total contact high from that. After the song, I walked up and dropped all I had in my pockets - a couple dollar coins (yeah, I had some dollar coins, so what?) - into his case and said something tragically un-clever like, "You had me with that Neil Young line in there, man."

After playing through another tune that seemed a bit more in his wheelhouse, he then nodded to me and admirably attempted to get through all he was able to muster of Young's 'The Needle and the Damage Done'. I could see on his face that the gears had been turning after I'd made my meager donation. So he clearly only really knew a couple parts of a verse and the chorus, but he very smoothly improvised some melodies to fill out the song and give it a sense of completion. To give my evening a sense of completion. This may be a shameful understatement, but the attempt and this half-song certainly meant far more to me than my two dollar coins were worth. If I'd had a $10 bill in my pocket instead of those two coins, I surely would have spent it on this interaction before going to iTunes to shell it out on the re-mastered mp3s of Harvest.

This man was reaching out to a complete stranger in the only way he saw fit at that moment, as he recognized I had feebly attempted with him. To him, his song may have simply been a $2 gesture like mine, but it left me with a certain wealth, in the the form of a (partially-comprehended) life lesson: that the purpose of performing and expressing ourselves (I think) is chiefly in creating an actual and direct relationship with any individuals who will open themselves up for such a connection - and that those connections are so likely to occur outside of the conventional modes of musical patronage... but only when we open ourselves up to them.

We, strange individuals, connected. What we each gave and gained has nothing to do with what an mp3 or an LP or a guitar or a ticket to stand, iPhone in hand, at a concert might cost. It rests high above those quantifiable things, even if those things can often be a gateway drug to more "real" and spontaneous moments.

The Song exists completely outside of economics.

Lit Up Like Arseny

I like to imagine that Arseny Avraamov viewed the world through a lens that was cleaner than yours or mine; that the blemishes of stale tradition did not exist in the vision of a man who turned factory sirens and live artillery fire into an actual symphony. His bombastic 'Symphony of the Factory Sirens' actually feels less like a symphony and more like a living, breathing machine meant to represent a unified front of human beings. The conductor and the engineer, the musician and the factory worker, the performer and the pedestrian - these things all became his machine.

I like to imagine that Arseny Avraamov viewed life as a massive experiment - a tangled web of sentient and mechanical beings, together striving to find clarity and build a practical existence yielding nonstop creative output. A world where envelopes, instead of being pushed back and forth between anonymous desktops, are pushed from the insides out by myriad manmade curiosities. Science and art would be woven into a fabric under which our fiery dreams would be nurtured. In my head, his world was full of brooks babbling about stories they'd read from littering passersby and rivers raging like mad drunks about the weird characters met on their ambitious travels.

I like to imagine these things because Arseny Avraamov left little else by which to remember him. For now I'll close my eyes while the factory sirens wipe my lens a little bit cleaner.

*More on Arseny Avraamov at 99% Invisible

Black & White Portraits and Quotes About Music

"...a song is something you write because you can't sleep unless you write it." -Joe Strummer

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"One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner." -David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

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"Without music, life would be a mistake." -Friedrich Nietzsche

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"I immerse myself in sound. I see the world in sound. I want life to be a never-ending toga party of primitive noise. I have scoured this god-forsaken, greasy marble with a ravenous appetite, searching for the goods - the goods being violent sounds of the wildest variety." -John Reis

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"Music is...a higher revelation than all Wisdom and Philosophy." -Ludwig van Beethoven

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"The only truth is music." -Jack Kerouac

(Some of) the World's a Stage

Art, the social butterfly that it is, tends to interact with other art. Always has. Paintings and poems, songs and sculptures, dramas and dances, films and photographs, comedies and culinary creations, all tango together in a progressive step in our heads. Artists, the social butterflies that they are, also tend to interact with other artists - but not all the time.

While I'm sure I could go a number of ways with this, the topic I'd like to focus on is the relationship (or lack thereof) between the musician and the muse of theatre. Now, almost every theatre production I've seen has had some relationship with music, whether it employs actual live musical accompaniment or a simple soundtrack comprised of the director's favorite pre-recorded songs to help set the mood. The reverse, though, with the exception of the music video, is rarely ever true. One might argue that any live show by a musical outfit is a sort of performance piece, but I'd argue that Mastodon is a far cry from Mamet. This is not to suggest that every punk band should be armed with a theatre troupe to perform Shakespeare shorts between songs at every show - my suggestion, in short, is simply that in my experience the musician tends to distance him or herself from the theatre sphere. My intention is to examine the whys, and to (hopefully) ebb that fear and trepidation away.

As the Lincoln Loft pointed out in its poignant 'Theatre People' blog, perhaps the rest of the artistic community of "normals" is hesitant to dive into the theatre community because of an over-arching feeling of outsiderness. I personally come from a pretty strictly musical background, and it wasn't until I started dating and living with a true blue "theatre person" that my horizons were really expanded in this context. My venturing out into the world of theatre began as a timid boyfriend simply going to support his girlfriend in doing the thing that she loved. At the beginning of our relationship, though, the volume of extracurricular rock shows versus plays we attended together was pretty disproportionate, the scales weighing much heavier on the side of the rock show. I'll even admit that this discrepancy was likely largely due to my initial lack of enthusiasm for this somewhat foreign thing that didn't seem to resemble what little I really knew of the arts and entertainment arena.

The more I saw productions of hers and the more we ramped up our attendance of other plays, though, the more I started becoming genuinely enraptured by this foreign thing. Now, just like any other art form, there are good shows and bad shows. At some point or another you have no doubt been guilted into seeing a friend or co-worker's shitty band, kicking and tweeting the whole way through the shitty experience; frankly, the same shitty scenario is likely to happen with plays - when you inevitably start making a bunch of theatre friends after reading this. Don't let that get you down, though, because it just helps you to hone your tastes. Be a critic! But goddamnit, don't be a philistine.

Not only have I found that I simply just enjoy sitting down with a beer or a glass of wine (you'll find that most of these things are BYOB, if they don't have their own bar) and letting a story unfurl in front of mine own eyes, but it's inspired a lot of my own completely separate creative outlets. My aforementioned musical background mostly involves sweaty, stinking bars and basement punk shows. These two worlds may seem lightyears from one another, but I don't know... there was something in the way George (played by the phenomenal Tracy Letts), seething with decades of withheld bitterness, slowly unraveled his wife and his guests in Steppenwolf's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - it inspired me to say things I had previously found no way to say, in songs or otherwise. (I lovingly borrowed part of a diatribe of his, titling a Cut Teeth song "Blood Under the Bridge".) Anyway, it's pretty obvious that a healthy dose of culture just makes us better humans, too.

So you may be thinking, "Whatever, dude. That one Weezer album is totally based on some play, and Green Day made that one thing into a musical and stuff. You creative types got that whole theatre thing covered, man." And yeah, Pinkerton totally is (loosely) based on Madame Butterfly, Green Day did make that one thing into a very popular musical, and David Byrne is a known connoisseur of theatre around the world. That's great. But if I had a dollar for every time someone wrote a concept album loosely based on a novel or featured a song title borrowed from a movie line or an E.E. Cummings poem, I might have more than a few hundred dollars in my checking account. Conversely, I'd have about five bucks if the same dollar was granted for every rock & roll theatre reference I could come up with. Perhaps this just illuminates my own past shelteredness that I am only now beginning to shed, but I've found that there seem to be plenty of other folks out there like me, who have suffered from varying degrees of Dramaphobia.

For those worried that a newfound respect for this community might tarnish your punk cred, fret no more. I'm talking independent theatre - DIY spaces, suggested donations in place of oppressive ticket fees, basement shows in place of rock club routine, and none of those stale, uptight Nutcracker productions your fourth grade teacher dragged you and your miserably bored class to when you were eight. The Oracle, in Lakeview, puts on incredible shows that are completely free to the public. The Right Brain Project, with a suggested donation policy, produces a uniquely immersive experience tailored to each project by way of using its audience to envelop the players. The show that my lovely lady and the folks at Wayward Productions just wrapped up was an awesomely raucous version of Shakespeare's Richard III, which took place in a Sons of Anarchy-esque biker bar, complete with more sex, drugs and rock & roll than you could shake a stick at. So while most of us might think of CBGB's or the Fireside Bowl before some of our more well-known drama centers when the word 'punk' is whispered, just remember that Steppenwolf started out in a basement.

You never know what you might walk in to, but with an open mind and a penchant for the provocative, you just might find a night at the theatre to be a new spark to get those creative juices flowing. I know I have. So don't be afraid to lose that cocoon and take a dance with drama, you social butterfly, you.

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Below is a short list of some super rad independent theatres/companies worth supporting:

Oracle
Right Brain Project
Wayward Productions
The Inconvenience
Jackalope
Chicago Mammals
The Den
Redmoon

The Best of the Year the World Ended

25. Titus Andronicus - Local Business
The idea(s) behind this record alone makes it worth a spot on any best-of list. While the vast majority of the punk rock populace is busy shitting on everything and trying to feign coolness, these guys are throwing around positive ideas about how we can make living in the U.S. of A. great, and being wholly honest with themselves and their audience while doing it.

24. Retisonic - Robots Fucking
I actually didn't hear this one until just a couple of days ago when I saw it on someone else's best-of list, and I couldn't believe I hadn't already heard about it. If you're into bands like Bluetip, Kerosene 454, and Jawbox, this is a no-brainer.

23. Big Science - Difficulty
These guys are just a really good band. The tunes are perfectly catchy and danceable, with just the right amount of darkness - this record does an outstanding job of exploring the depths and peaks of the indie rock sonic pallet.

22. Spiritualized - Sweet Heart, Sweet Light

This is by far one of the densest records I have ever heard, arrangement-wise. At all times, you've got harmonies and unisons coming at you from every direction, and each song ebbs and flows within itself, expanding and contracting with an almost orchestral finesse. This one's cool enough to spin when you're hanging with your friends, but classy enough to take home to your parents.

21. Scoundrel - Freak Flag
If you like bratty, blown-out, poppy punk rock that is at its best in a crowded, sweaty basement, you're gonna want to hear this. These guys have played in a bunch of Chicago bands, and I for one hope this one's here to stay for a while.

20. Menomena - Moms
Some get heavy by de-tuning their guitars or sharpening up their double kick pedal skills or pinching their harmonics. In their 4-album career (so far), Menomena has continued to up their heaviness lyrically - and despite losing founding member Brent Knopf since their last album, they've also added weight in replacing him with 3 new live band members. In addition to the stellar, thought-provoking lyric department, the groove department also shines on this record.

19. The Sea & Cake - Runner
It's a mild early-September day and you're on a familiar beach with someone you really dig - that about sums up what this record feels like.

18. Suns - When We Were Us
I've seen this band go through a whole lot together (trailers catching on fire, tires blown, legal trouble, members lost/gained, etc.), and the end result is the product of harnessing all the wonderful and terrible shit that has happened to them, funneled into an ultimate labor of love. I've never heard these guys sound so hopeful and full of love for life as they do on these songs.

17. White Lung - Sorry
Three girls, a guy, and a fiercely aggressive, expertly executed punk rock record. It can be tough to find the balance between melody and cacophony when approaching such music, but vocalist Mish Way and guitarist Kenneth William walk that tightrope with a natural ease over a tightly woven net of thumping bass and drums.

16. Narrows - Painted
If you've heard Botch or These Arms Are Snakes, then you already know these guys know what the hell they're doing when it comes to sludgy, angular, riff-heavy hardcore. After a couple of clumsy early releases, it seems that the seasoned vets have found all their strengths and exploited them heavily on this brutal full-length.

15. Cursive - I Am Gemini
Tim Kasher, a man widely known for his ambitious songwriting undertakings, has quite possibly really outdone himself this time. The concept (something about identical twins, separated at birth, a "house that's not a home", some conjoined twin girls...) is a lofty one, and to complement the complexity of the narrative is probably the most technical mastery we've seen from Cursive to date.

14. Every Time I Die - Ex Lives
ETID's sixth full length certainly doesn't reinvent the wheel, but if there is a lack of fresh ideas the band certainly makes up for it in pure, unadulterated, aggressive enthusiasm. After tinkering around with a couple more melodic side projects (The Damned Things, Finale), singer Keith Buckley finds himself more inspired than anyone's heard since 2005's Gutter Phenomenon and arguably at his best to date, both vocally and lyrically. Plus they got Danzig's guitarist to rip a gnarly solo on the slow classic rock ripper 'Revival Mode'.

13. David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant
It took me quite a while for my taste to come around to David Byrne/Talking Heads, but this record came just in time for me to be really excited about it - Annie Clark's being on the record, along with my appreciation for Byrne's How Music Works book released earlier this year, certainly didn't hurt. With each listen, you get a great sense of the giddy natural highs that come with a fruitful collaboration between two distinct creative voices along with the dually trademarked introspection we've come to know from both Byrne and Clark.

12. P.O.S. - We Don't Even Live Here
Simply put, there really is just no one out there who compares to P.O.S. - as an artist, he continues to prove with every release that he's not running out of shit to say anytime soon, and you'd be hard pressed to find another rapper having half as much fun as he has doing it. Fans of Never Better and Audition will notice this time around that in the place of Fugazi samples and Big Lebowski references are heavy synths and beats that may be more at home in 'the club' than on your turntable, but the album certainly doesn't suffer for it. If anything it's just new territory that makes the album more exciting.

11. Meat Wave - Meat Wave
Few records over the last several years have proven to be as addictive as Meat Wave has been for me. The aural taste buds are targeted one by one, and massaged with a tender aggression that this Chicago-born trio have honed carefully and seemingly carelessly on this debut release. It's this charming vulgarity that burrows into one's head like a tick and leaves me walking away from it every time humming "you're not my brother / you're not my brother / you're just another motherfucker's brother".

10. Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind
Do I really need to write anything about this? Come on, it's Converge. Just listen to 'Sadness Comes Home' and then proceed sulk about how you'll never be as good as Kurt Ballou at playing guitar.

9. Tight Phantomz - Silk Prison
This indie rock 'n roll epic of a double album has been a long time in the making. After 3 years of laboring over these 36 songs and playing the waiting game for a physical release, Mike Lust & Co. finally get to formally raise middle fingers to the mp3 generation with a hell of a collection of songs for just about every occasion. You might say Silk Prison plays out like a well-balanced mixtape - you've got songs for the bar ('Sickening'), songs for the car ('No Island'), songs for the back porch ('Part of the Machine'), and plenty in-between.

8. Sharon Van Etten - Tramp
There's a certain undefinable quality about Sharon Van Etten's third studio effort that leaves the listener with a broad amalgamation of feeling, ranging from an innocent joy to a vague longing to lucid contentedness. It might be the ever-reverberating lead guitar lines creeping into all the empty spaces between sparsely strummed acoustic rhythm parts; or the almost always-present flawless vocal harmonies; or the highly personal yet translatable and nostalgic nature of the songs; or just the pure simplicity of the whole thing. Tramp, like a cozy apartment, makes you want to actually live in it.

7. Ceremony - Zoo
There was a kid named Andy who sat next to me on the school bus in junior high who used to take my bulky student trumpet case and repeatedly ram it into my side every single morning until the bus finally arrived at school. Quietly sitting at my desk with my headphones on, blaring this record, I can't help but be reminded of those days, of Andy and my trumpet case. From the first seconds of the album, the listener is assaulted with a barrage of chaotic cacophony that eventually eases into the four-on-the-floor, driving opener, 'Hysteria', and aside from a few more chilled-out moments, this pace is carried on throughout the album. Fans of early punk and hardcore, along with fellow revivalists like The Men, Iceage, and Off! would be remiss to ignore Zoo.

6. Metz - METZ
Without a safety net of repetitive melodies or outlandish production, Toronto's Metz have crafted a debut full-length out of an auditory sense of panic - a panic comprised of calculated noise, thrashing drums, and propulsive, driving bass lines. These guys just don't fuck around.

5. The Life & Times - No One Loves You Like I Do
When writing about The Life & Times, it's nearly impossible not to use guitarist/vocalist Allen Epley's previous band, Shiner, as a sort of reference point. As unfair as that may be to the band, just as it is to compare one's current partner to an ex, No One Loves You Like I Do would hold up next to Shiner's best material and gleam just as bright. (The reader should be made aware that the author holds Shiner up on a rather tall pedestal. This is a high compliment, coming from the author.) The album, consisting of obsessive vignettes exploring the darkest corners of love and lust, has a unique anonymity achieved with the help of its song-titling (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc.) and Epley's open-ended and almost omniscient lyrics, which manage to weave through all the common extremes a man feels in the throes of passion. Alongside the lucid songwriting you'll hear the stoner-friendly onslaught of larger-than-life drum and bass assailment and spaced out guitar explorations that the band has become known for over the better part of the last decade.

4. WHY? - Mumps, etc.
"When I got better from the mumps, yes, my swollen nut and neck shrunk" - the album's opening line, as strange as it may sound to the uninitiated, is the warmest welcome a WHY? fan could have asked for when first indulging in this much-anticipated record. Those familiar with emcee Yoni Wolf's darkly humorous, confessional-style songwriting surely won't be disappointed with his continued saga into the weird and into the profound highs and lows of the modern human condition. Mumps, etc. serves as a strong bridge between the low-fi, left field hip hop-heavy experimentations of earlier WHY? records and the more highly refined indie rock found on the band's last couple releases.

*If I'd made a list of the Best Songs of 2012, 'Sod in the Seed' would have been #1.

3. Torche - Harmonicraft
It's not easy to break any sort of new ground in the world of heavy rock music, and it certainly doesn't happen every day (or even every year or three) - but Torche found a loophole that somehow reconciles major-key rejoice and their gloomy brand of sludge rock we've come to celebrate. The shift into these more arena-ready, anthemic jams may or may not have been assisted by the addition of ex-Riddle of Steel frontman Andrew Elstner on guitar. Either way, this record just dumps cement all over the already distinct footprint Torche has left on the rock scene.

2. Father John Misty - Fear Fun
Josh Tillman has been known by some for a while now as a deeply somber, contentedly obscure singer-songwriter going by the name J. Tillman. As he points out in Fear Fun's closer, 'Everyman Needs a Companion', he simply "got tired of J. [Tillman]", and quickly felt the need to unite his songwriting persona with the quirky, quick-witted, satirical voice he identifies as the voice of his true self. Ironically, this meant taking up the new moniker, Father John Misty - after all, his given name had already been taken. Fear Fun is the journey of a man finding himself within his own novel, inspired by psychedelic mushrooms and a coastal road trip which led to the claiming of his new home in Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon. Naturally, the sunshine and freak show has breathed a new kind of life into Josh Tillman, and he wears the newly embraced aspects of this voice rather well.

1. Japandroids - Celebration Rock
It takes a lot to make a grown man revert to a younger self, to inspire him to raise a glass in one hand and a fist in the other and shout his lungs out, to truly celebrate life and youth and music. Actually, it only takes two guys from Vancouver, a guitar and a drum kit, and a few 'whoa-ohs' and sing-along choruses. The album's perfectly appropriate bookends, consisting of the sounds of a fireworks show, hold within a truly triumphant display of gratitude to one of life's greatest gifts: rock 'n roll. The brevity of Celebration Rock's 8-song burst of raw energy simply emphasizes the record's poignancy and proves that Japandroids are only out to lay it all on the line, to offer the rock gods their absolute best. The rock gods smile upon you this year, Japandroids.