Toad Top Twenty 2009 – 11-15
11. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – vs. Children
Owen Ashworth has a sort of shambolic charisma to him which translates pretty neatly to his music. Â It’s unhurried, thoughtful and has the air of a good friend, right from the first moment you hear it. Â This may be a fuller sound than his older fans are used to, but I think the extra instrumentation is used very carefully, and never smothers his songwriting.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Man ‘o War
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12. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
This record suffers from a bit of earnestness and the distinct whiff of adjectives like ‘soaring’, but nevertheless there are so many great songs, so much much energy and such euphorically infectious tunes that you just can’t help but love this album. Â It is folky, but if anything there’s more of a gospel-style, rousing feel to this record than anything I would call folk.
Mumford & Sons – Dustbowl Dance
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13. Kurt Vile – Childish Prodigy
Childish Prodigy is a rough, loose album which I pretty much liked right from the start. Â It swings from rough garage rock to plucked acoustic music, always full of grumble and distortion though. Â For an album with little extra instrumentation, this is still really varied both of pace and mood, and manages to keep shifting all the way through the record.
Kurt Vile – Dead Alive
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14. Broken Records – Until the Earth Begins to Part
This album received some of the most scathing 3/5 reviews I’ve ever read, but I still think it’s fucking great. Â The old songs like A Good Reason and Eilert Loevborg are raucous as fuck and some of the newer material gives us hints of new directions for the next album. Â Maybe the production wasn’t all that sympathetic and maybe the album could have done with some quiter moments to offset the louder ones, but that doesn’t matter because Jamie has a great voice, and this record just thunders along at pace from start to finish and that’s how I enjoy it best.
Broken Records – Ghosts
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15. The Van Allen Belt – Meal Ticket to Purgatory
Erm, well, this is just a bit weird. Â It stops and starts, leaps all over the place and is generally just a weird and wonderful box of treats. Â It’s been a really good year for Indiecater Records, but this is probably my favourite of the lot.
The Van Allen Belt – Dr Layman’s Terms/The Hills are Alive
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Toad, this blog just gets better and better, let me tell you.
when the broken records album came out i was a little dissapointed. i think it was because i was so used to the ep recording etc. after a long break from listening to anything br i went back to the album and i am enjoying it so much. i would suggest to anyone who wrote it off when it came of to give it another go. its top of my playlist at the moment. great work.
It is fantastic, apart from that horrible fuzzy bit at the start of Good Reason. Eurgh. The violin at the start of Nearly Home gets better every time.
Matthew, I am now actually starting to like Wild Beasts after their inclusion on your festive fifty. The whole lot is incredible music for my thesis addled brain, but Two Dancers (I) really stands out – maybe because it’s a step away from the more guitar led stuff that dominates it. I think the only thing I dislike from the whole 50 is Micah P Hinson, which is a pretty impressive showing really. Thanks!
I guess I have a few albums to buy now…
Cheers, Pete, thanks.
Michael, I think some of the new songs on the BR album went in a slightly different direction to what some people seemed to expect, which probably didn’t really help either.
Becky, I really like that Micah P. Hinson version, partly because it’s as close a recording as I can think of to what he’s like on stage when he really piles the venom onto a song.
I just know the top 10 is going to include Lady Gaga, Little Boots the Temper Trap and the XX. It’s time the truth came out!
And that self-indulgent, tune-free Decemberists shit-fest, you forgot that.