Top Ten Albums of the Decade

10. Incubus - Morning View (2001)
So the first in the list, is also one of the earliest albums on the list... Though it doesn't feel like it. Many people I’ve spoken to, harbour the opinion that Morning View is the point in Incubus’ career where they began to lose it; I’d disagree, and argue that it was their peak. 97’s S.C.I.E.N.C.E and 98’s Make Yourself were good albums in their own right, but in terms of song-writing and composing a full album, as opposed to a bunch of songs on a disc, Morning View is a brilliant example of what Incubus used to do brilliantly.
Stand out tracks –
Just a Phase
Mexico
Under my Umbrella

9. Chuck Ragan - Feast or Famine (2007)
2007 seems to be pretty well represented in this list, maybe 2007 was a good year for music, or maybe it was just a good year for me, which it very much was. Chuck Ragan broke away from Hot Water Music in 2006 and released Feast or Famine in mid 2007. Ragan’s always had a love for this sort of story-telling folk rock and his gritty, whisky vocals suit it perfectly, but his earlier folk offerings, with side project Rumbleseat had always been lacking a certain something. He found it with Feast or Famine. Acoustic guitars, fiddles, lap slide guitars, harmonicas and a shit-tonne of passion make this my favourite folk album of the decade.
Stand out Tracks-
The Boat
Do you Pray
California Burritos

8. Rise Against - Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004)
Rise Against are the punk representatives of the list. I had to debate with myself whether their newest album, Appeal to Reason, was worthy of replacing Siren Song of the Counter Culture, on this list which it very nearly did, until I went back and looked through the tracklisting for the album and was transported back to 2004, and feeling that youthful rebelliousness that this album oozes out of its every pore. And so here it is, my favorite punk album of the decade.

Stand out Tracks –
Paper Wings
Dancing for Rain
Swing life Away

7. Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (2003)
I was aware of Coheed and Cambria from around about the time this album came out, but I never really bothered to give them the listen-time they deserved. Partly because I was in to a whole different kind of music back then, and partly because I, like many others, couldn’t get past the vocals. But seven years later, and Claudio Sanchez is one of my favourite vocalists, and Coheed, one of my favourite bands. What separates this, for me, from the other Coheed releases is its slightly more polished feel, I like how it feels just as epic every time I listen to it, as it did on my first listen.
Stand out Tracks-
In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
The Crowing
The Light & the Glass

6. Thom Yorke – The Eraser (2006)
I couldn’t leave this out, it was like getting a new Radiohead album... except not. I wasn’t sure whether to put this in the list, or a Radiohead album. In Rainbows has the same sort of electronic vibe going on, and a load of really good tracks, but this album is just screaming for acclaim, as a solo effort, it’s almost flawless.
Stand out Tracks
The Clock
Harrowdown Hill
Atoms for Peace

5. Opeth - Blackwater Park (2004)
Now we come to the top five, and this is where ordering started to become a problem. Particularly with the four and five spots, I decided to put this first because I haven’t really listened to it in a while, whereas back in the day, I probably would have punched myself in the face for not having this at a higher spot in the list. This is my favourite Opeth album, it’s genius. The first time I listened to The Drapery Falls, my mind was blown, and I was sold on progressive music.
Stand out Tracks-
Bleak
The Drapery Falls
Patterns in the Ivy

4.Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2002)
This was somewhat of an odd choice for me, because I wouldn’t say I’m a big Dream Theater fan, in fact, this is the only Dream Theater album that I like. Actually, I’d go as far as to say that I dislike most other Dream Theater albums, I think they’re self-indulgent and pretentious, and James LaBrie’s voice grates on me something awful. “But Mike.” I hear you say “Six Degrees is easily their most self-indulgent and pretentious album?” I know, but I love it, there’s something about the operatic composition that just blows me away. And if any other argument was needed, The Glass Prison, End of discussion.
Stand out Tracks –
THE GLASS PRISON

3. Between the Buried and Me - Colors (2007)
This album is fucking absurd. There’s no other word for it... Well, maybe genius, but absurd sums the whole thing up better. It’s an unrelenting machine gun barrage of sound, it takes the music theory textbook, learns it front to back and back to front, and then thinks “Fuck it.” And does whatever the fuck it wants. For single songs, The Silent Circus and Alaska probably have a better selection. But as a finely tuned album, Colours is by far BTBAM’s best offering to date, you can get lost in its intricacy’s and even now, after listening to the album what must have been at least a hundred times, I can still manage to find something new to love about it with every listen.
Stand out Tracks-
Sun of Nothing
Ants of the Sky
White Walls

2. Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything to Nothing (2009)
This album really crept up on me out of nowhere. I was really getting in to Andy Hull’s solo project Right Away, Great Captain, and only knew vaguely that he was in some sort of pretty big indie band called Manchester Orchestra. I didn’t really give them a proper listen until they were announced to play at Reading Festival 2009, and thank god they were, because I don’t think 2009 would have been anywhere near as good as it was were it not for this album. Every track is superb, and I’m pretty sure that these guys are destined for huge things, and if they’re not, then they deserve to be.
Stand out Tracks-
The River
Everything to Nothing
Shake it Out

1. Protest the Hero - Kezia (2005)
So the number one spot really wasn’t a big problem for me to fill. It was always going to be Protest the Hero, the only real decision was Kezia, or Fortress? I opted for the former, even though Fortress is a brilliant album, and easily deserves a place on this list (only one album per band is fair though, right?) it’s Kezia for me that stands out. It came out in 2005, where pretty much everything sounded the same, it was Protest the Hero’s first album release, which meant it was make-or-break time for them, so what they should have done was create something standard and current, that would become instantly popular and sell thousands of records. Or not, they chose to create a conceptual 10-song masterpiece, unlike anything else that was floating around at the time.
Stand out tracks-
No Stars over Bethlehem
Blindfolds Aside
The Divine Suicide of K

Reading Festival 2009

Months have passed now, but I figured if I was going to open this blog back up, I'd write about some stuff that's happened in the past few months, and quite a lot of stuff has happened...
So We'll start with Reading Festival, back in August.
It was my first time experiencing a full weekend at Reading Festival, and my main observation of the festival as a whole was that the atmosphere is nothing compared to that of Download Festival, because people who attend Download go for the music and the good times, and the majority of people at reading appeared to be there just to say they'd been there. A Fashion statement kinda thing maybe?
The best band of the weekend (for me,) Manchester Orchestra was almost ruined by hordes of poseurs stood in front of me absolutely dead still and silent. I, obviously belted out every song as loud as i could, jumped around a lot and did my best to give them a "get the fuck out of my way you poser cunts!" after every song, mixed with screams of "I love you Andy!" and just generally ruin their day. Childish? yes. Fun? yes.

So yeah, a little run-down on the bands I saw:

Friday-

Manchester Orchestra - Performance of the weekend, bursting with emotion and technically just brilliant.

Alexisonfire - Afternoon set on the mainstage was alright, had quite a lot of fun singing along etc, though puzzled by the lack of TV screens? Lock up set later on was a fucking riot, atmosphere was brilliant and everyone was in to it. Though by this point, I was shit-faced, so if you asked me to list the set-list, I could name 4 songs at best.

Kings of Leon - They really didn't want to be there, and I can't see why, as they got a fantastic reception. They sounded pretty tight still though, but anyway, I bailed for Billy Talent.

Billy Talent - Could only just about squeeze my way into the tent, and it was pretty nuts in there, wasn't their biggest fan beforehand, but I'll probably look in to them a bit more now.

Saturday-

Polar Bear Club - Second time seeing these, still not a huge fan, but they were loving it, and the crowd was loving it, so it was a good set and a good way to kick my hangover.

Chuck Ragan - Fantastic, sandwiched in between the bouncing punk of Polar bear Club and the hardcore noise of Wilhelm scream it was like a relaxing sing-a-long (for me and about 8 other people?) in the mid afternoon. And when Tim from Rise Against popped out to help sing California Burritos, was definitely the highlight of the day.

Metric - Like these on record, did not like them live. Trying too hard to be cool for their NME fans. Shame.

Prodigy - Quite fun, was quite far back and there was still a bit of dancing going on.

The Bronx - Only caught a little bit unfortunately, but what I saw was good.

Thursday - A decent set, ruined by yet more unnecessary hippie high-horse ramblings from Geoff Rickly.

Arctic Monkeys - If the band was lame, it's only because the crowd was lamer. Although I was pretty far back (midway between the sound stage and first barrier) so maybe the atmosphere up front was a bit better. Everybody went nuts when they played I bet you look good on the dance floor, but then stood still for the rest of the time I bothered to stick around.

Rise Against - So around about the point where Alex Turner says "We're gonna slow it down a bit now" in the middle of their already miserably slow set, I turned and shouted "Fuck you, we're going to see Rise Against!" Then me and about 5 drunk people I didn't know marched over to the Lock Up tent, somehow managed to squeeze down near the front and had an absolute riot, they were brilliant. And I'd say they were the best head liners of the weekend if Radiohead hadn't turned up on form.

Friday -

Kids in Glass Houses - Got up early, got drunk and danced around to them a bit, they played a good fun set and really worked the crowd up. Nice start to the day.

Frank Turner - Brilliant fun, the 'circle ho-down' during photosynthesis was brilliant fun, and I think EVERYONE got involved.

The View - Indie by numbers, not bad, but played too much of their new stuff, which is, frankly, rubbish.

Bloc Party - They weren't bad... but I'm not a fan, just hung around to secure a place for Radiohead. The singles that I knew were pretty good, and they seemed genuinely ecstatic at being there (for some reason? it's their 3rd year in a row...)

Radiohead - I think everyone's already mentioned how immense this was, so I won't bother going in to detail. Just fantastic.

Music Review: Minty Fresh Beats - Jaydiohead

So I've just acquired the Jay-Z and Radiohead mash-up, by Minty Fresh Beats, and against all of my nagging preconceptions, it's actually not bad at all.

I should start off by explaining that I'm not a fan of Jay-Z, nor Hip Hop in general. I've dabbled in the past, and become hooked on some great stuff from Kanye West and 2Pac, but aside from that, I tend to keep clear of the genre, not because of any vendetta, but basically because it's never appealed to me.

So when i heard that somebody had spliced together Jay-Z tracks with tracks from one of, undoubtedly the best bands of the last 20 years, Radiohead, my levels of skepticism were somewhere between outrageously high, and Brian Jones in a swimming pool full of meth-high. So to say i was completely won over by Jaydiohead is to say a lot.

Jaydiohead really works, and there are some gems on the album that not only provide something different to the originals, but also sometimes manage to better them. There are a few stand-out tracks, No Karma is a solid favourite, the use of Thoms vocals in addition to the fast rap licks from Jay-Z really blend together as if it had always meant to be. 99 Anthems will probably go down well with Jay-Z fans, although i'd argue that both original tracks are probably better on their own. Fall In Step works superbly, probably due to the overly electronic sound of 15 step from Radioheads most recent record In Rainbows. It's also nice to hear Ignorant Swan which blends Jay-Z's popular Ignorant Shit with a track from Thom Yorke's solo project, Black Swan.

I'd highly recommend this album to fans of Jay-Z and fans of Radiohead alike, it's always fun to hear a new take on classic songs, and Jaydiohead certinaly does not disappoint.
You can download the whole album, and clean or instrumental versions of the album, which are also very worth listening to, from Jaydiohead.com.

Novel Recommendation

A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole

One of the most fascinating, entertaining and comical literary journeys ever embarked upon. The story of Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans is almost as tragic as that of the books author, who was driven to suicide in 1969, before his masterpiece was published to massive critical acclaim.

The story centres around the troubled life of the lazy slob Ignatius, his power struggle with his overbearing, push-over mother, and interactions with dozens of other quirky and interesting characters, all of whom are fantastically conceived and spring to life from the page through what I believe to be the greatest example of comedic descriptiveness ever set to paper.

I always recommend this book to people who say that they want something different, and I've yet to find anybody come back disappointed. So now I'm recommending it to you, be sure to let me know what you thought.

Why I Don't Pay for a TV License

There are no two ways about it, Eastenders is the worst thing on television. There can be no argument, no debate, this is a cold, hard fact.

It's getting harder and harder to respect the BBC. On the one hand, they're producing some fine television programming, no other provider produces documentaries of the same quality, titles such as Planet Earth are unique and really shine amongst other trash that gets aired nowadays. The BBC even had a hand in 2008s magnificent Man on Wire, so there are plenty of reasons that point towards supporting the BBC by paying the license fee... But the fact that the BBC keeps churning out episode after episode of Eastenders makes it impossible for me to hand them any of my money. Eastenders is a hideously low-budget production, and I fear that if I bought a TV license, my £142.50 may be responsible for funding the next fifty episodes or so.

The BBC seems to feel the need to cater to idiots, and they are under the impression that to do this, they need to produce rubbish programming. I'd argue that this is not the case, instead of just giving the morons who watch Eastenders what their used to, the BBC should be using their position of power and influence to change things up a bit and actually attempt to inform, educate and entertain it's audience.

The Best 3 Television Shows of the Naughties

Being a particularly lazy student, with a lot of time on my hands, I tend to go through TV shows with the speed and attentiveness that your average Twilight fan may afford to a box of Mars Bars and AA batteries. .This then is my guide to the shows that have captured my attention and stood out to me as being the best Television shows of the Naughties.

#1. Deadwood
If you missed this, as I did, when it first aired in 2004, then I cannot recommend enough that you acquire all three seasons as soon as you possibly can and glue yourself to your television screen until all three, fantastic seasons have been burned irreplaceabley into your mind, and your vocabulary, fashion sense, respect for history and most of all, the way you view and judge television shows has been altered forever. Al Swearengen, with the exception of Dr Gregory House may be the finest character to ever grace a small screen, but it is not only the outstanding performance from Ian McShane that brings the character so vividly to life, it is the environment, the brilliant supporting cast and possibly the finest work of screenwriting ever to reach our television sets.

#2. The Wire
Watching The Wire can be a chore, it is not an easy show to follow, but once you are hooked, you are hooked for good. If you plan to take on this challenge, then it's heavily advise that you invest in the DVD box sets as opposed to trying to follow a television airing, as if you miss an episode you may find yourself lost and struggle to play catch up. The character development throughout all the series is unsurpassed in terms of it's competition. The shield was the height of gritty realistic cop dramas until The Wire came along, and although it (The Shield) still shines as a highly entertaining series, it appears about as realistic as a slapstick cartoon next to this mastodon of raw, unforgiving truth.


#3 House
This is definitely the more accessible of the three shows I've listed here, it does not require nearly as much concentration from it's audience, but that's not to say that it's not as enjoyable and rewarding to watch. Hugh Laurie has developed the protagonist in to what I view as probably the most in-depth and attentive character portrayal in the history of television. The supporting cast are excellent, and although towards the sixth series, some things begin to get a little obvious, the writers still manage to keep the formula very fresh and manage to insert wild plot twists and story lines that will keep you shocked, amazed and interested right up until the final moments of any episode.

Review: Alexisonfire - Old Crows/Young Cardinals

So I just received an early preview copy of Alexisonfire's fourth album Old Crows/Young Cardinals, due for release 22/06/2009 and I'm going to be kind enough as to review it for you lucky people. Don't read on if you want your first listen to be an unbiased one. And if you've heard the album, be sure to let me know if you agree with me or not.

Old Crows/Young Cardinals:

The long-awaited new outing from Canadian, post-hardcore metallers Alexisonfire, their first release since 2006's heavily lauded Crisis is a record I've been looking forward to with high anticipation and also very high expectations. This is what I thought:

Old Crows - 7/10

For the long-waiting Alexisonfire fan, the slow ambient intro which rolls into the first hard-hitting riff of the album may be enough to send shivers down your spine, and if that doesn’t do it for you, the fierce growling opening vocals will surely. Alexisonfire are back, and it sounds like they mean business. All in all, it’s a solid opener that sets the tone of the album well without giving too much away.

Young Cardinals - 8/10

Set to be the first single from the album, and it is crammed full of the pop sensibilities which made songs such as Boiled Frogs and This Could Be Anywhere in the World such big hits.

Sons of Privilege - 10/10

On my first listen through the album, this track stood out as a possible favourite, the aggressive verses joined with the anthemic chorus and a bridge which is sure to get a huge rise out of fans when it's played live. This song embodies everything that Alexisonfire do best.

Born and Raised - 6/10

One of the only tracks on the album that could be considered as 'filler.' Not to say that it's a bad song, because it's absolutely not, it just seemed overly formulaic to me, aggressive verses met with the 'singalong' chorus from Dallas. A good solid, post-hardcore Alexisonfire track, but as part of the album, it doesn't really add or detract anything.

No Rest - 6/10

Another track that didn't completely do it for me. I've heard rumour that this is set to be released as the second single from the album, and i can see why it would be a suitable choice, the chorus certinality stays in your head after listening, and for this reason may become a live favourite.

The Northen - 9/10

This track really stood out to me when first listening through, mainly because at the start it just didn't sound like Alexisonfire, a slow and ambient opening which doesn't really get into fifth gear until the last segment. It also features possibly my favourite vocal section from the whole album, the haunting, crystal clear 'Halleluja' followed by blisteringly heavy guitar and harsh screams of 'praise the lord.' Also a contender for my favourite song lyrically from this the new record.

Midnight Regulations - 5/10

Midnight Regulations didn't cut it for me, it's a solid track, but again seemed pretty formulaic and reminiscent of their earlier albums. Another filler track, but again, not a bad track by any means.

The Emerald - 6/10

One of the more lyrically interesting songs, as a point of focus it really shows how Alexisonfires style has progressed and how they've matured as song writers.

Heading for the Sun - 7/10

One of the faster-paced tunes, the first part of a gutsy, double-barrelled, punk-rock ending to the album.

Accept Crime - 8/10

A fun, rapid-fire track with a memorable, impacting chorus and a smattering of mini punk-rock solos that really help tie the song together.

Burial - 7/10

The slow finisher was somewhat of an anti-climax for me, I'd have personally preferred it if they'd finished with Accept Crimes and left the album on a heavy note, it's akin to being kissed after a hard fast slap to the face. Trying to avoid the term 'emo' here, the band seem to enjoy finishing each record with a 'slower' number. For me, this doesn't match up to Rough Hands or Happiness by the Kilowatt which were both fantastic songs in their own right.

Old Crows/Young Cardinals. Overall: 8/10

A growling announcement during the chorus of Old Crows, states ‘We are not the kids we used to be’ and that mentality certainly shines throughout the rest of the record. Alexisonfire have grown up, their style has progressed but not so much as to alienate their long-time fans, and definitely not enough so that it does not bare similarity to 2002's self titled debut, or 2004's Watch Out. It has more guts than the previous albums, and is sure to go down well with both new and old fans alike.