Final mehcommendations: 2008's best releases

Updated 12/11

In lieu of publishing reviews for the remainder of 2008, here is a list of 179 albums and EPs I believe are worthy of recommendation. I will update the list frequently, as I still have 48 albums on my iPod I haven't listened to yet. I also download an average of two or three new albums a day, which are then appended to my playlist. This list will get longer.

I also hope to publish some reflections on this year's new music over the next few weeks. I have a pretty hectic schedule ahead of my relocation, so I can't make any promises in this regard.

UPDATE: I am starting to add links to either my review or to another that more or less echoes my sentiments. If I have written a review of the release, I will link to my own review. If not, I will link to a positive review from a source I consider reputable.

Note: Some of these were released earlier than 2008 in limited tour editions, digital-only or outside the U.S. I have included them because they received their first physical release in the U.S. this year. Others were released for the first time in some form, but a domestic release is forthcoming. Expect to see these albums listed again next year.

Bold text indicates release was recently added to the list.

A Weather: Cove
Alias: Resurgam
Theresa Andersson: Hummingbird, Go!
Autechre: Quaristice
The B-52's: Funplex (AV Club review)
Nat Baldwin: Most Valuable Player (Pitchfork review)
Barr: Skogsbo Is the Place
Be Your Own Pet: Get Awkward
Beach House: Devotion
Andrew Bird: Soldier On (Pitchfork review)
The Black Dog: Radio Scarecrow (Tiny Mix Tapes review)

Black Kids: Partie Traumatic

Black Mountain: In the Future (AV Club review)
Blood on the Wall: Liferz
Bonnie "Prince" Billy: Lie Down in the Light
Brazilian Girls: New York City (Boston Globe review)
Breathe Owl Breathe: Ghost Glacier
British Sea Power: Do You Like Rock Music?
The Bug: London Zoo (Dusted review)
David Byrne & Brian Eno: Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (Tiny Mix Tapes review)
Brendan Canning: Something for All of Us... (Delusions of Adequacy review)
Pelle Carlberg: The Lilac Time (PopWreckoning review)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
The Chap: Mega Breakfast
Vic Chesnutt: Dark Developments (Prefix review)
Cheveu: Cheveu (cokemachineglow review)
Clinic: Do It!
Cloud Cult: Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) (The Sneeze review)
The Cool Kids: The Bake Sale
Julian Cope: Black Sheep (Playlouder review)
Crystal Antlers: EP
Crystal Castles: Crystal Castles
The Cure: 4:13 Dream (Sputnikmusic review)
Cut Copy: In Ghost Colours
Dead Confederate: Wrecking Ball (AV Club review)
Death in June: The Rule of Thirds
Deerhoof: Offend Maggie (AV Club review)
Deerhunter: Microcastle/Weird Era Cont. (Tiny Mix Tapes review)
Dengue Fever: Venus on Earth (Dusted review)
Department of Eagles: In Ear Park (Delusions of Adequacy review)
Destroyer: Trouble in Dreams
Detektivbyrån: Wermland (It's A Trap review)
DeVotchKa: A Mad & Faithful Telling
diskJokke: Staying In
The Dø: A Mouthful (Drowned In Sound review)
Dodos: Visiter
Dungen: 4 (Paste review)
Bob Dylan: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006
Earth: The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull
Eat Skull: Sick to Death
Edie Sedgwick: Things Are Getting Sinister and Sinisterer
El Guincho: Alegranza!
Elf Power: In a Cave
Evangelicals: The Evening Descends
Evangelista: Hello, Voyager
The Faint: Fasciination
Firewater: The Golden Hour
Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
Flying Lotus: Los Angeles
Josephine Foster: This Coming Gladness
Dan Friel: Ghost Town
Tobias Fröberg: Turn Heads
Fuck Buttons: Street Horrrsing
Fucked Up: The Chemistry of Common Life
The Futureheads: This Is Not the World
Gang Gang Dance: Saint Dymphna
The Gaslight Anthem: The '59 Sound
Girl Talk: Feed the Animals
Glasvegas: Glasvegas
Growing: All the Way
Growing: Lateral
The Gutter Twins: Saturnalia
Hauschka: Ferndorf
Head of Femur: Great Plains
HEALTH: DISCO
Hello Saferide: More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide
Herman Düne: I Wish That I Could See You Soon
High Places: High Places
The Hold Steady: Stay Positive
David Holmes: The Holy Pictures
Horse Feathers: House With No Name
Frida Hyvönen: Silence Is Wild
I Scream Ice Cream: Me Too
Ryoji Ikeda: Test Pattern
Iran: Buddy
Japancakes: Loveless
Japanese Motors: Japanese Motors
Jarboe & Justin K. Broadrick: J2
Jeremy Jay: A Place Where We Could Go
Jóhann Jóhannsson: Fordlândia
Kelley Polar: I Need You to Hold On While the Sky Is Falling
Kleerup: Kleerup
Koushik: Out My Window
Kutiman: Kutiman
Lambchop: OH (Ohio)
Land of Talk: Some Are Lakes
Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip: Angles
Leila: Blood Looms and Blooms
Dominique Leone: Dominique Leone
Jenny Lewis: Acid Tongue
Lil Wayne: Tha Carter III
Lindstrøm: Where You Go I Go Too
The LK: The LK vs. the Snow
Los Campesinos!: Hold On Now, Youngster...
Los Campesinos!: We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
Low Motion Disco: Keep It Slow
Luomo: Convivial
Lykke Li: Youth Novels
M83: Saturdays = Youth
The Magnetic Fields: Distortion
Man Man: Rabbit Habits
Max Tundra: Parallax Error Beheads You
Mirah: The Old Days Feeling
Monkey: Journey to the West
Mount Eerie: Lost Wisdom
The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride
My Morning Jacket: Evil Urges
My Teenage Stride: Lesser Demons
Nadja: Desire in Uneasiness
Neon Neon: Stainless Style
Nomo: Ghost Rock
Conor Oberst: Conor Oberst
Of Montreal: Skeletal Lamping
Okkervil River: The Stand Ins
Oneida: Preteen Weaponry
Parenthetical Girls: Entanglements
Parts & Labor: Receivers
PAS/CAL: I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura
Pete & The Pirates: Little Death
Peter Bjorn & John: Seaside Rock
Plants and Animals: Parc Avenue
Poni Hoax: Images of Sigrid
Portishead: Third
Q-Tip: The Rennaissance
Quiet Village: Silent Movie
Radiohead: In Rainbows
Radiohead/AmpLive: Rainydayz Remixes
Rafter: Sweaty Magic
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson: Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
Robyn: Robyn
The Rosebuds: Life Like
The Ruby Suns: Sea Lion
RZA as Bobby Digital: Digi Snacks
Samamidon: All Is Well
Schlammpeiziger: Schwingstelle Für Rauschabzug
School of Seven Bells: Alpinisms
Shearwater: Rook
The Sight Below: Glider
Sigur Rós: Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
Smart Growth: Surrey
Patti Smith & Kevin Shields: The Coral Sea
SoiSong: qXn948s
Solange: Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams
Spiritualized: Songs in A&E
Stereolab: Chemical Chords
The Streets: Everything Is Borrowed
Suishou No Fune: Prayer for Chibi
Susu: Win
Syclops: I've Got My Eye on You
Thee Oh Sees: The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In
Titus Andronicus: The Airing of Grievances
Tobacco: Fucked Up Friends
TV on the Radio: Dear Science
The Twilight Sad: Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did
Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
Venetian Snares: Detrimentalist
Violent Femmes: Crazy (single)
Quinn Walker: Laughter's an Asshole/Lion Land
The Walkmen: You & Me
The War on Drugs: Wagonwheel Blues
Wax Fang: La La Land
The Week That Was: The Week That Was
The Weepies: Hideaway
Kanye West: 808s & Heartbreak
Why?: Alopecia
Wilderness: (k)no(w)here
Wolf Parade: At Mount Zoomer
Women: Women
Xiu Xiu: Women as Lovers

Hiatus

I am immediately suspending new mehcommendations until early 2009. I am going to relocate to San Francisco much more quickly than expected, so I have to devote my free time to moving preparations. When I resume, reviews will be longer and, hopefully, more useful to readers.

In the meantime, I will publish a list of the best releases so far this year and update it regularly. This will include releases I've already recommended and a number that I haven't yet.

PAS/CAL: I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura

As much as I love a simple, beautiful pop song, I'm a sucker for byzantine, schizophrenic compositions. I'm still scratching my head trying to comprehend just how PAS/CAL manage to accomplish both simultaneously. Their songs, regardless of length, change direction unexpectedly and frequently but seamlessly, never losing that sense of cohesion that tells you you're still listening to the same song. Imagine a sunnier Destroyer, using ELO as a touchstone instead of Bowie. It helps that PAS/CAL are interminably upbeat; their confections aren't weighed down by artiness or a sense that they're doing anything but having fun. This is an enjoyable, nuanced record with lots of twists that still surprise after many listens.

Eat Skull: Sick to Death

The first immediately noticeable feature of Eat Skull's debut is the overwhelming, unrelenting noise. Blistering feedback and static dominate throughout, but tracks like "Ghost List" and "Fade to Smoke" hint that there is a secret coherence lying hidden under the squall. A second pass through the album makes the picture clearer. For all their devotion to no-fi production values, Eat Skull are astonishingly melodic. Traces of surf rock and VU-style balladry belie their apparent abrasiveness. Sick to Death is one of those rare albums that sounds like a different record each time, and each of those records has a cryptic charm.

Technical issue

Today's post was delayed due to not having internet access last night at home. It will appear tonight, and tomorrow's post will appear at midnight as scheduled.

Firewater: The Golden Hour

Global influences are ubiquitous in indie music these days, and Firewater has helped make it that way. The Golden Hour is a travelogue of sorts, mining the popular musical forms of various regions for backgrounds against which stories of escape and refuge are told. Tod A. wields these cultural devices deftly, meticulously arranging them into gorgeous, gritty songs. The album vividly portrays the sensations of a weary expatriate. The Golden Hour shows that cerebral music needn't be dull or pretentious.

The Chap: Mega Breakfast

I can honestly say that Mega Breakfast is the oddest album of the year so far. The Chap start on a foundation of post-punk and krautrock, two forms which have come back into vogue in a big way, and then depart from that plane at a ninety-degree angle. The strange rhythms, non-musical sounds and often whimsical lyrics on Mega Breakfast stand in stark contrast to the utter humorlessness of other revivalist bands. It would be easy to believe that Sparks have had a large influence on The Chap's songwriting. Novelty alone doesn't make an album great, though, but their ability to craft both danceable and hummable songs do. There isn't a dud on the album. Mega Breakfast is both fun and challenging, making The Chap one of the most promising bands to emerge this year.

Alias: Resurgam

Resurgam finds Alias, the producer behind many of the best records released by the anticon. label, showing off his compositional skills in a wide array of electronic styles. His songs hover between the indie hip-hop for which anticon. is best known, glitch-hop, ambient and IDM. Artists always risk making a scattershot, incoherent record when trying to move in so many directions at once, but Alias deftly avoids this pitfall. Instead, his compositions emphasizes the elements the forms have in common, so the album never loses focus. Resurgam is one of the best records from anticon. in years, possibly in its entire history.