_____Yup, 30 Seconds To Mars. I’d call ‘em a guilty pleasure of mine, only I don’t feel guilty in the slightest. I looooove them. Not the first album though, bit too black hair dye and white make-up for me. They didn’t actually lose any of that for A Beautiful Lie, but the music was much better. The drummer still really creeps me out though? But yeah, The Kill is still my favourite loud song. You can’t listen to 30 Seconds To Mars not loud by the way. It’s weird, it just doesn’t work otherwise. One of the mysteries of the universe.
_____Although I still wouldn’t introduce them to my mum, the new album comes from a slightly less emo-looking Jared Leto and company, and it’s most certainly their best yet. Introduction track Escape does its job in introducing us to This Is War in spectacular fashion, I know intros are usually annoying and pointless, and although it is still pointless, this one sounds cool. The rest of the album follows suit, in presenting a sharper, more passionate sound than the previous records, from opening belter Night of the Hunter right through to title track This Is War and the epic Vox Populi. The band also sidestepped a disaster of humongous proportions in the form of Kanye West, who collaborated with them on the original version of Hurricane, but the albums dignity was saved as that version thankfully didn’t make it onto the album.
_____The album looks set to be their most successful yet, judging by the positive reactions that debut single Kings & Queens has been receiving. This Is War brings a fresher, livelier, cooler 30 STM, I mean, Jared’s riding a fixie in the video, it MUST be cool. On the topic of the video, I purposely did not provide a download link below, because, as you can see, Jared Leto has not lost his addiction to blowing any profits the band makes on ridiculous, over-the-top, expensive videos, and so actually needs all the money he can get.
_____Chances are a fair few of you haven’t heard of Metric. But you’ve all heard of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. This doesn’t make any sense to me, because an awful lot of the two’s works are very similar. Only Metric are better. So why then, I hear you ask, have YYYs had so much more success? The answer is simple. Metric, by what only can be described as poor fortune, are from Canada. In fact, if there is a song of there’s you might have heard, it’s Monster Hospital, and it’s only because MSTRKRFT did a killer remix of it.
_____Offering a slightly darker, heavier sound than Karen O and her gang, Fantasies is definitely Metric’s best to date. Help I’m Alive was my initial favourite, but by now I’ve changed my mind more times than Tiger Woods has had sex with women outside of his marriage. I’ve currently settled on the hard-hitting Stadium, but the beautifully soft Collect Call is likely to overtake that anytime around now.
_____Emily Haines and the band provided the first set of the weekend for me at Leeds last summer, and boy it was a good one. A lot more memorable than Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ one that’s for sure, yet still, for some reason I cannot understand, that crow nosed singer and proportionally incorrect guitarist from New York seem to snatch the spoils of the “girl singer in an indie rock band” genre time and time again. Guess Metric will just have to do all they can do, release yet another superior album, and hope the people eventually see sense.
_____James Ford is a musical genius. He was the mastermind behind Arctics’ second and third albums, Klaxon’s Mercury winning Myths of the Near Future, Mystery Jets’ Making Dens, and most recently the beautiful Florence & The Machine’s Lungs to name but a few. And when he’s not producing platinum selling records, he’s also one half of Simian Mobile Disco, a DJ’ing duo who also release the occasional jaw-dropping record, such as Attack Decay Sustain Release in 2007, which contained proper fit hits such as I Got This Down, Tits & Acid, and the magnificent Hustler, which just so happens to also be possibly the best music video ever made.
_____So two years went by with not much from the Simian machine, with it only sputtering out the odd remix or single, including the god-awful Run for Nike. Then in 2009, in jumped back into life, churning out Temporary Pleasure, a record full to the brim with impressive guest vocalists including Beth Ditto, Chris Keating, and Alexis Taylor, and overflowing with electrifying tracks such as Off The Map and Synthesise. The really cool thing about this album is that on each guest vocalists’ track, you can actually hear their influence. Bad Blood could not be more Hot Chip. But the overall feel of the album isn’t diluted despite the small crowd’s worth of people that contributed to it, meaning this could be nothing but the fantastic return to form for Simian Mobile Disco. Oh yeah, and there’s that song of the year on there too.
_____“I got that grape kool-aid filled swimming pool…” Even the ignorant among you who don’t like SMD couldn’t not love that song. And for the educated people who liked ADST, you’re going to love Temporary Pleasure. It’s a more fun, more hip SMD than what we’ve heard before, and they were pretty goddamn hip before. And don’t worry, the tracks on there that are 100% Simian are a fabulous flashback to the Sleep Deprivation days. Who knows what James will do next. He could produce another chart-topping album, or decide to grace us with another SMD release. Either way, you know anything this guy touches will be gold.
_____The scruffy beard has been given the chop to leave a cleaner, yet still rugged face of Biffy Clyro. Lead Simon Neil’s facial reformation is actually a good metaphor for the latest instalment from the Scottish rockers. Following a hugely successful Puzzle in 2007, Biffy Clyro have tightened up their act. That’s not to say they’ve lost any of the hardcore raging passion which has seen them rise from an underground cult following to the chart-crashing (Mountains reached No.5 in the UK Singles Chart) rock sensation they are today. Oh no, that shit’s still there, and looking trendier than ever, may I say, in their flashy red jeans.
_____Only Revolutions is going to agree with a much wider audience than previous records, a process often incorrectly attached to the term “selling out”, but this could not be further from the truth. Kings Of Leon have lost touch with what they used to be, blinded by the success thrown at them following Gay Sex On Fire and Child Abuse Somebody, but Biffy Clyro are different in that they still hold the same influences and beliefs that inspired Blackened Sky dear to them to this day, their lyrics still mean something, and they still perform each and every song with the uttermost passion at each and every gig. For this reason, Biffy Clyro are an absolute must-see at next summer’s Reading and Leeds Festivals, and maybe Oxegen if you’re lucky. I promise you, you will jump and scream during the wonderfully loud Shock Shock, and you will hold up your lighters and cry during the truly emotional Many Of Horror.
_____It’s a majestic album, made with the intention to please the thousands upon thousands of festival go-ers they will surely attract this summer. No more perfect an example of this comes in the form of opening track The Captain, a song crying out to be blared from festival stages across Europe. Oh, and the guitar solo from Bubbles was written by Josh Homme by the way, in case you still needed convincing that you simply must get this album.. Only Revolutions is the final stage in the transformation of Biffy Clyro into the best hard rock band this side of the Atlantic, and while I imagine many of you will disagree with me on that point, I know you won’t when you see them this summer. Mon the Biffy!
_____This speaks for itself really. There’s not all that much I can say about this album. Because any of you with even slightly rock-orientated of music tastes have already heard this album. And for the chart monkeys, this album, unfortunately, isn’t going to do whack for you. It is what it is. A ridiculous supergroup comprising of Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones. Making music like this.
_____Them Crooked Vultures pose quite a conundrum for the music community in that technically speaking, they suck. Logically, they must do, because it’s a supergroup. Golden rule of supergroups is that they absolutely must suck. Unfortunately, Them Crooked Vultures is to rock fans what glue is to a four year old. They’re against the rules, you’re not supposed to want to like them, but, upon indulgence, they are fucking divine. The high isn’t quite as good though, but it’s close.
_____I’m now going to present the main article for the prosecution in the case of “Oxegen sucks and you should all be going to Leeds”. Last summer, these guys were there. Set opener Elephants set the pace for what would have been my favourite set of the weekend had I not OD’d on pure awesome music halfway through personal favourite Scumbag Blues.
_____Unfortunately, it looks like TCV are going to be scooped up by Glastonbury this summer, and will only make a few other appearances around Europe, but sure, you can always just plug in your iPod during Kasabian’s lacklustre headline set and pretend it’s the real deal. New album is on the way, and you can bet your hole it’ll be on this list next Christmas, assuming Santa brings me the TCV album for 2010 that I so desperately requested.
_____This is a sad band. Not, like, queer sad, but, like, definitely not happy sad. You just know these guys were losers at school. Not bullied though, no, people felt too bad for them. They have never been sighted in any colour other than black, and when asked what is favourite colour was apart from the slimmingly stylish black, lead Harry McVeigh solemnly responded “very very dark blue”. The guitarist is so sad, he can’t even talk. However, what emerged from this cloud of gloom and despair in early 2008, was a most-possibly-the-greatest-song-of-the-year shaped light. In often the only words that leave Harry’s lips in between songs during their live sets, “This, ladies and gentleman, is Death”.
_____White Lies’ most recognised single, the official video for which has embedding disabled because they're alternative like that, now has over 1 million hits on YouTube, a milestone that has, on occasion, given reason for a smile from Harry and the Glumberries. Every single one of those hits is thoroughly deserved though, unlike Jason Derulo’s Whatcha Say (how the fuck did over 20 million people click to bear aural witness to the butchering of such a beautiful song?), as these guys truly are something special.
_____Lyrically they are the most beautiful band I have ever encountered. The first song of theirs I heard was a pre-album version of Unfinished Business, immediately encapsulating me with its delicate organ and powerful opening line “Just give me a second, darling, to clear my head”. I actually went out and bought the album on the day of its release, something which highlights just how highly I appreciate the noise this band is making. Every single song on this album has a wonderfully authentic feel to it, you can tell the lyrics actually mean something. Forgive me if I’m sounding slightly homosexual but I mean, “You whispered “Where are you?”, I questioned your doubt, but soon realised you were talking to God now”, if that doesn’t do something for you then you must have no soul. Each track is essentially poetry put to music. Watch the video below, and tell me if you can think of any other band where you could similarly speak their lyrics over it’s music, and they would not lose an ounce of their meaning.
_____I’ve had the pleasure of seeing White Lies twice at this stage, and I plan on seeing them many more times in the future, because both times they have provided a more intimate gig experience than I have ever felt before. I wouldn’t even call their latest performance at The Academy a gig, because it was so much more than that. Last summer many of you were tricked into thinking you went to see a Coldplay concert in Phoenix park, when in reality, it was just a ploy to gather those of you who were satanic enough to pay fifty euro to see the horror show that has become Coldplay of recent years so that you may have your soul cleansed by Harry McVeigh’s majestic baritone.
_____There’s no other band like White Lies. That’s what makes them so special. Their authenticity, their meaning, their aura. When they come on stage, the crowd initially cheers, but most peculiarly it hushes down, almost so commanded by the band’s eerie presence. I haven’t heard music so touching as that of White Lies' debut album,To Lose My Life, since Radiohead’s Kid A. And yes, I did just compare them to Radiohead, because I’m going to go out on a limb and say in 10 years time this album will be their Pablo Honey, Death their Creep. You’ll laugh at me for saying that now, but nobody can deny that these are not like other bands. They’re so fucking special.
_____I’ll leave you with the album version of the song that has become for me the most powerful piece of modern music I’ve ever heard, and with news that you can look forward to The Bends sometime next year, as the band have already started penning their second album whilst on tour, as touring is boring to them. Yes, they’re definitely not like other bands.
_____When I first drafted this list, Invaders Must Die sat precariously at No. 10. The reason for this was the album only barely exceeded my expectations of it, and it didn’t blow my brains out when I first listened to it. Then, as I listened to it before writing what I expected to be a brief mediocre review of the English electronic trio’s fifth studio album, my brains hit the wall. Splatttttttt.
_____So as the last track, admittedly a relatively weak Stand Up drew to a close, and as I began to scrape my thoughts off the wall of the surrounding area, I asked myself what the fuck had just happened. I was stumped for a while, and too afraid to queue the album for a second time. Then I remembered. How could I have been so silly, so careless… I guess it had been a while since I listened to anything by The Prodigy, let alone this particular record… But regardless of the cause, the reason for this short-circuiting of my awesome receptors was, of course, the fact that I had forgotten to put on my mental safety helmet before clicking play on that insane opening and title track. Duhhhh.
_____ For, while not everyone may realize it, anyone who has any experience of The Prodigy has actually developed an automatic reflex of mentally preparing themselves before listening to these epic sounds. I prefer not to call it music, by the way, it’s shameful that anybody could term what these guys are making in the same fashion that one does the repetitive drivel of the In For The Self-Kill. That was why The Prodigy did not initially come to mind as the greatest album of 2009, because I had only ever listened to them with my automatic kickass-limiter in place ever since that unforgettable day years ago when the most insane, the most electric, the most drug-simulating sound first invaded my brain before self-destructing in the most explosive of fashions.
_____However, after a sinfully long absence from indulging in the produce of Liam Howlett’s Christ-like Trinity, inferior electronic drum ’n bass music had clogged up my system, causing the automatic limiter to jam. As the pressure continued to build on my awesome receptors as Omen kicked into gear, my receptors became increasingly strained, until, eventually, at some point during the grossly underrated Thunder, they gave way, releasing the energy in the form of a seismic sensation rating a disgusting 14 trillion on the Richter scale. This is ultimately why there are so many casualties at their live performance, as the consumption of hard drugs and copious amounts of alcohol loosed the natural limiter, which, if it were to snap during this, in my opinion, the best track on this record, could result in instant death, COD awesome overdose.
_____Much like my first mind-blowing, this incident had a pretty deep effect on me as a music-enthusiast and as a human being, and so I immediately bumped this record up to its rightful place above them all. Geography puns and medical metaphors aside though, this album really is deserving of the credit I’m giving it. Most of you will have the singles already, I pity those of you that don’t even have that much, but you simply can’t afford to miss this album. Missing the majority of their set for the relatively energetically nonsensical White Lies is the sole greatest regret of my life, and mark my words the only way you will see me anywhere near Oxegen next summer, is if Maxim sees us fitting for their awesome presence. I’d give my left, right, and hypothetical third nut to be front row for such divine noise.
