Top 45 Albums Of 2012: 5,4,3,2,1

As I mentioned before, 2012 was a year of old friends.  There were some new projects by new musicians that turned my head, but for the most part it was the familiar stuff that drew me in.  What was great about the familiar stuff, though, was hearing the maturation and growth in the new material.  And as I've personally matured and grown the music that has provided the soundtrack to my life continues to do so in parallel fashion.

Anyway, finally, here we are!  My favorite albums from a span of time that ended three months ago.  I never claimed to be relevant, just persistent.

5) Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas

Despite being 150-years-old, Cohen is sexier and saucier than ever, and somehow he pulls that off with an album that is more-or-less an end-of-life farewell.  Age, introspection, and retrospection are the themes here, all of it spiritually contextualized.  The poetry and wordplay is simple and perfect, as is the music behind it.  And as Cohen faces death, rather than fearing its inevitability, he shrugs with the knowledge that it was all part of the deal.  Old Ideas would be a dark and depressing album in anybody else's hands, but Cohen is too wry and to suave a lyricist and vocalist to let that happen.  Instead we have his deep, soft, weathered vocals gently talking us toward the end of the road.

4) El Perro Del Mar - Pale Fire

It's to talk about Sarah Assbring's new material without contrasting it with the older stuff.  She first fluttered into my radar with her sparse-sounding lo-fi acoustic albums.  Her sound has evolved over the years, and now with Pale Fire we have these sonically full and musically complex songs.  Assbring has retained some elements that permeate every El Perro Del Mar project.  She continues to expertly used lyrical repetition to her advantage, and her pixie voice has always been somewhat haunting.  But now instead of guitars she uses synthesizers and drum loops and other snazzy technological instruments to create this upbeat (well, upbeat for El Perro Del Mar) and funky (well, funky for El Perro Del Mar) album.

3) Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

Hey you guys, Converge is still awesome!  And I hate to use the word "still" as if there were a period of time where Converge sucked, but since they only release albums every three years or so it is easy to let them slip from the forefront of our consciousness.  The first track is... different.  Coherent vocals?  Accessibility?  Face-smashingly awesome, of course, but is this the direction Converge is going?  Nope.  All We Love quickly shifts back into quick-draw frenzy-metal territory, and Jacob Bannon gets on with the business of shredding his vocals into gut-chewing oblivion.  If you've grown up with Converge this album will put a big fat smile on your bloody face.  And if this is your first time... well, you never forget your first time.

2) Damien Jurado - Maraqopa

Though Maraqopa is Jurado's eleventh(!) studio album, this is only the second time he has teamed up with producer Richard Swift.  Swift helps steer this album into jazzy ambient directions, and if you've listened to any of those other Jurado albums you know this is something new.  Jurado's music, based in folk, has traditionally been very straight-forward, but he pulls this off magnificently. Everything is still quite laid back with sad-ish lyrical overtones, but Swift has given these tracks a sort of spacey, almost surf-rock vibe to them.  I don't know if this is a direction Jurado will continue to explore, but for now I'm content to let these songs envelop me.  Recommended for sunset driving in the American southwest.

1) mewithoutyou - Ten Stories

I was tremendously disappointed with their last album.  The music of mewithoutyou had, until that album, carried very powerful weight, and I felt they had forgone that when they opted to go into new musical directions.  But now I am pleased to see the band is back to form, challenging us and rocking us right out.  And you would think a concept album centering around a 19th century traveling circus would seem kind of silly, but mewithoutyou uses this backdrop to explore the nature of man, what it means to be a part of creation, and the nature of our relationship with God.  It's heavy stuff, and Aaron Weiss's lyrics (delivered via talky-singing and talky-shouting) poetically lay it out in metaphorical stories.  Musically mewithoutyou is capable of rocking it HARD, but they hold back most of the time, and that puts greater emphasis on the times they do rock it HARD.  It's all very carefully crafted and all enjoyably brilliant and all unexpectedly enriching.  My favorite album of 2012, easy.