For The Record(s): Best Band Albums of 2011

By Alif Omar Mahfix  •  in Music
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F*CKED UP
DAVID COMES TO LIFE
Another deceptively simple rock album, David Comes to Life sounds like the album of a band that aspires to be vital to the scene. This would have come off contrived by any other band, yet F*cked Up manages to reach rock potency with this album. We dare say it’s their magnum opus. Tracks like ‘Ship of Fools’ and ‘Life in Paper’ are perfect example of what’d happen when the band is given complete freedom to do whatever the f*ck they want.

GANG GANG DANCE
EYE CONTACT
Gang Gang Dance’s Eye Contact is the band wising up to needless superfluous sounds. Another critic might say this is their attempt at appealing to a wider audience, yet even if such allegation were true, Gang Gang Dance’s idea of pop accessibility is still an emotionally affecting acid trip.

FLEET FOXES
HELPLESSNESS BLUES
Hipster music for the Republican college kids or not, Fleet Foxes represents Americana like the best of roadtrips along the US Route 66 would. The follow-up to their debut is more 60s Brit psychedelic folk than the folk rock of the States’ mountain range, which makes it all the more interesting. Helplessness Blues is Fleet Foxes fulfilling the promise of their self-titled predecessor, few more albums down the line we wager they’d eventually be introduced to America’s folk canon.

TINARIWEN
TASSILI
Not at all a familiar name to most people, Tinariwen is world music that is genuinely interesting without having the attention purely generated from the exotic nature of their music. Admittedly the fetishizing of the alien does play a part, they are after all desert troubadours playing blues rock. New album Tassili divests the band of distorted guitars in place of more acoustic recordings, amplifying the blues in their brand of blues rock. Single ‘Tenere Taqqim Tossam’ featuring TV on the Radio is a highlight, a contemplative desert paean that is part tribal, part modern.

REAL ESTATE
DAYS
Days is a satisfying collection of impossibly hard to ignore surf-garage riffs coupled with bittersweet lyrics, presented without any pretension (there’s no angst on this record) and delusion of rock grandeur (no attempt at escaping genre-trappings either). Consisting of just 10 tracks, Real Estate is wise to not outstay the album’s welcome.

YUCK
SELF-TITLED
Sounding like something from the 90s, Yuck’s self-titled debut is the kind of indie rock album that would remind you of a multitude of earlier bands. It’d be the wrong way to look at the record though as Yuck wears their influences firmly on their sleeves, it’s what they do with their influences that matters. Irresistibly arresting, the 45-minute 12-track album straddles the fine line between 90s’ alt-rock era and the twee generation.