In our last post, you got to read about Caleb’s favorite albums from the past decade. Now it’s Adam’s turn…
Honorable Mentions:
• …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - X: The Godless Void and Other Stories
• The Afghan Whigs - Do to the Beast
• All Them Witches - Our Mother Electricity
• All Them Witches - Lightning at the Door
• Arctic Monkeys - A.M.
• The Black Keys - Brothers
• The Black Keys - El Camino
• Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart
• Cake - Showroom of Compassion
• Claypool Lennon Delirium - Monolith of Phobos
• Clutch - Psychic Warfare
• Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why Are There Mountains
• Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
• DeVotchKa - This Night Falls Forever
• Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
• Ghost - Meliora
• Grouplove - Never Trust a Happy Song
• If Trees Could Talk - The Bones of a Dying World
• Low - Double Negative
• Lucid Planet - Lucid Planet
• Metallica - Hardwired to Self-Destruct
• Modern Baseball - Sports
• Modest Mouse - Strangers to Ourselves
• Muse - Drones
• My Morning Jacket - The Waterfall
• The National - Sleep Well Beast
• Nine Inch Nails - Not the Actual Events
• Nine Inch Nails - Add Violence
• Nine Inch Nails - Bad Witch
• Pelican - Nighttime Stories
• A Perfect Circle - Eat the Elephant
• Pianos Become the Teeth - Keep You
• Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
• Royal Blood - Royal Blood
• Sigur Ros - Valtari
• Swans - The Seer
• Sun Kil Moon - Benji
• Tame Impala - Lonerism
• Thee Oh Sees - Mutilator Defeated at Last
• Thee Oh Sees - Orc
• The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream
• Wolf Parade - Thin Mind
• Young the Giant - Young the Giant
Top 20:
#20: The Afghan Whigs - In Spades
#19: Claypool Lennon Delirium - South of Reality
#18: Cage the Elephant - Melophobia
#17: Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
#16: Biffy Clyro - Ellipsis
#15: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend
#14: Grizzly Bear - Shields
#13: Animal Collective - Centipede Hz
#12: Primus - Green Naugahyde
#11: Swans - To Be Kind
#10: Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks
#9: Steven Wilson - Hand Cannot Erase
#8: Local H - Hey, Killer
#7: Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
#6: The National - High Violet
#5: Radiohead - King of Limbs
King of Limbs only has 8 songs, and the first couple leave a bit to be desired. But once it gets going, there are some gems here. Codex is one of the most beautiful songs that Radiohead has ever written; it sounds like water in the way that the piano, horns, and vocals wash over you. Give Up the Ghost comes next and feels just as haunted. It’s a quiet song, built around a couple looped vocals and guitar smacks, played just by Thom Yorke. Separator closes out the album with the whole band grooving to a classic Radiohead beat. This isn’t my favorite Radiohead album, but it’s hard to beat the three song stretch that closes it out. And the accompanying From the Basement video is pure gold.
#4: Clutch - Earth Rocker
This album is relentless. It’s chockful of aggressive riffs, pounding drums, and Neil Fallon’s inimitable and completely insane vocal style. Clutch may not be for everyone, but you can’t help but listen when they’re on. The first five songs and the last five songs of Earth Rocker beat you over the head with nonstop rock and roll. And those two halves are separated by Gone Cold, the one quiet respite that sounds straight out of the Nick Cave playbook.
#3: Queens of the Stone Age - …Like Clockwork
It was feeling like QOTSA had lost their way. The brilliance of Rated R and Songs for the Deaf was followed by a couple spottier efforts. After taking a break for a few years, they came back with a vengeance on …Like Clockwork. There’s something for everyone on this album. I Sat by the Ocean is catchy, If I Had a Tail is weird, My God is the Sun rocks, and so on. I’m glossing over those, because the crown jewel here is I Appear Missing. The raw emotion in the last minute or two is too much. Here, just watch it here.
#2: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - their entire discography
I’m going to cheat and pick all of the Gizz albums as my #2. It’s almost reasonable, given how this band works. Their entire (extensive) output has happened in the decade being considered here. Since 2011, they’ve released 15 studio albums, 3 live albums, and 2 EPs. They put out five albums in 2017 alone. If I took these guys one album at a time, they would make up half of this list.
But it’s not just quantity, these guys are all kinds of quality. In 2019, they released two albums. Fishing For Fishies, is a blues-y, boogie-woogie groover that I’ve heard described as “music for 3 year olds on mushrooms”. It’s an apt description. A few months later, Infest the Rats’ Nest came out, and it was a straight-up 80s thrash metal album. Start digging back into their catalog, and you’ll find prog, jazz, folk, punk, krautrock, and garage rock. Every album is radically different from the others.
And then there’s 2016’s Nonagon Infinity. This all-time great album has 9 songs that are written to seamlessly flow from one into the next, essentially making it one long song (thus the name). The last song is written to flow back into the first, creating a never-ending musical loop. Nonagon Infinity is also the chronological beginning of the “Gizzverse”, a loose story that ties KGATLW albums together with a plot that sporadically shows up. It’s a crazy story that starts with Nonagon Infinity opening the door to another dimension. The world gets consumed by demon-monsters who wipe out most of humanity. The few people who remain decide to turn themselves into cyborgs in a desperate attempt to survive. The last of these is Han-Tyumi, who yearns to regain his humanity. More than anything else, Han-Tyumi wants to vomit and die, as these are the two things that cyborgs cannot do. Vomit is an important, recurrent theme in King Gizzard albums. Their tenth album is called Murder of the Universe, which is the story of Han-Tyumi creating a “vomit machine”, but when the machine rejects his love, Han-Tyumi merges with the machine, which causes an infinite flow of vomit that destroys the entire universe. These guys are kinda weird.
#1: Tool - Fear Inoculum
I mean, how could it be anything else? One of the finest rock bands in history hadn’t released an album since 2006. The pressure from insufferable fans (myself included) made for completely unreasonable expectations, but Fear Inoculum exceeded them.
This album has more depth than any previous Tool offering. It’s heavy but not abrasive; they went hard on groove instead. It’s cohesive, but each song is distinct. It’s long, but never drags. It’s mature and contemplative, but there are still little hints of the old “funny Tool”. The artwork is among Alex Grey’s best. The live shows on this tour have been otherworldly good. And Danny Carey is an octopus-bot who has been programmed to destroy rock music as we know it. He makes all other drummers sound like cavemen clumsily bashing clubs on rocks. Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FssULNGSZIA
The tipping point for this album is Pneuma, which was easily my favorite song of 2019. The main riff is a mover, and the middle section is among the best few minutes of music that Tool has ever written. That section climaxes in an emotional and visceral way at the 9:59 mark when Maynard comes back in with vocals. At one of the shows on this tour, there was an older couple in front of me who were probably in their late-70s. At that moment of Pneuma, the gentleman turned to his wife… and they started passionately making out. It was such a perfect moment. A song about spiritual transcendence, being performed live for one of the first times, in front of a wildly diverse audience of people losing themselves in the moment. That’s what music is for.