Album of the Year: High Violet

Instead of a top 10 or 5 or 20 albums of the year, I thought I'd simplify and write about what is far and away, for me, the best album of the year: The National's High Violet.

It's an easy, stand away pick. I loved Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, but have not enjoyed listening to it as much as High Violet. No other record has spent nearly as much time on my iPod queue. I have returned to it again and again.

I wrote about the record when it first came out in May this year. Since that time, my enjoyment  of the record has not waned but I find I have a much broader view.

High Violet is more than a melancholy record of symphonic indie rock. Oh yeah, it has its melanholy moments, but it is also funny, smart and insightful. Like great records it's a snapshot of the times, a contemporary barometer of mood and culture. The album has my favorite lyrical moments on any record this year. Consider the connection to our times:

Shredding majestically with Superchunk (again)

Superchunk today.

Several things are striking about the new Superchunk album, Majesty Shredding, the seminal indie band's first in nine years, their 9th in 20 years together (no, they never broke up the band).

First, this record will remind those of us in our 30s (and 40s, too), who came-of age to this sound, just how good that sound is. In the early '90s, guitar-driven bands could fill every cubic inch  of aural space with walls of glorious fuzz tones, crashing drums and anthemic choruses. 

From pioneering indie/alt rock bands like Sonic Youth and the Pixies to later acts from Pavement to the Afghan Whigs, rock bands were loud and more. They were a jangled and chaotic yet lovely loud. The loud mess was elevated to an art form. Superchunk blasts right into Majesty Shredding like its 1992 all over again. It's a sound we've lost in the last 10 years of bands that have slimmed and simplified in many ways.