20. Pure X - Pleasure
(Acephale)
Like a lot of people now afraid to admit it, I was entranced by My Morning Jacket's brand of reverb-drenched hillbilly rock back in the early 2000s. Back then, I had a lot of free time on my hands and liked to drive around aimlessly frequently, and I spent a lot of time digesting the sprawling jams on the first couple of MMJ records. I barely have time to digest my own lunch anymore, and luckily Austin trio Pure X has taken the basic template of Jim James and crew, cut out all the pointless jamming and Neil Young worship, and laid it all out into a concise, hypnotic trance of an album called Pleasure. In a year where reverb became the most overused studio effect since auto-tune, Pure X use it as enhancement instead of a mask. Minimal, pounding drums crawl along, clean, surfy guitar lines butt up against shoegaze noise, and the vocals fight their way to the top like a town crier stuck in a well. Fans of Galaxie 500, Low, and other slow-core heroes might have just found their favorite new band. Judging by the garish red and gold color scheme of the cover and s&m artwork, you might think Pleasure is a lousy Euro disco record, but it's really a thirty-eight minute daydream for any lazy Sunday afternoon.
19. Thee Oh Sees - Carrion Crawler/The Dream
Up until this year, I didn't much care for Thee Oh Sees and leader John Dwyer's musical output. I think the Coachwhips sucked, and I much preferred the lysergic campfire folk tunes of Dog Poison to the heavier sounds of LPs like Help and Warm Slime. Those records reeked of half-baked, drug addled experimentation at its worst, and the layers of lo-fi psychedelic crud was totally a crutch to prop up songs that didn't have shit going on to begin with. Dwyer kicked off 2011 by dropping a sunny, sprawling sequel to Dog Poison called Castlemania that had a few classic jams, and then outdid himself with Carrion Crawler/The Dream, which sounds like it had enough time and money invested in it to show off what Thee Oh Sees are REALLY all about. Gone are the studied attempts to get "weird," and all that floundering is replaced by huge psychedelic groove MONSTERS! Maybe adding a second drummer did the trick, since these songs throb and grind like prime Krautrock, making Carrion Crawler/The Dream the best road trip soundtrack of 2011. Crank it up and watch those highway lines melt and disappear.
18. The Babies
(Shrimper)
Holy shit, did this album give me happy feet in the first few months of the year. HAPPY FEET! Every single bit of this record sounds bouncy and goofy and coy and downright FUN. Side A kicks off with a bit of playful guitar noodling, and develops into "Run Me Over," a song that defines the entire record with Kevin Morby of Woods' whiny yelp and Vivian Girl Cassie Ramone's flat bray winding in and out of tunefulness and occasionally meeting in harmonies that seem way better than most because of their brief and hard-fought joy. Side B starts off with "Breakin' The Law," which is the best approximation of June and Johnny's romantic outlaw push and pull since "Jackson" or maybe Natural Born Killers to make with a more current reference. I don't know shit about my favorite bands' personal lives and I like it that way, but it's impossible to listen to this record without imagining that Ramone and Morby had some kind of romantic entanglement with this much passion and giddy fun dripping from its grooves. The Babies is a voyeuristic gas.
17. Shannon & The Clams - Sleep Talk
Shannon Shaw is a national treasure, no lie. After adding crucial vocals and songwriting assistance on Too Young To Be In Love by Hunx & His Punx (which just missed this list), Shaw dropped the second LP from her own band, Shannon & The Clams, who mine an always-pleasing, John Waters-inspired trash rock aesthetic. That kinda shit can get a little too cutesy at times, but Shannon's voice is a big, boomy, scratchy weapon that reminds me of Wanda Jackson or Brenda Lee on her British rock n' roll singles, and guitarist foil Cody "King Lollipop" Blanchard provides the right amount of silly sweetness with his Buddy Holly/Tiny Tim hybrid backups. On Sleep Talk, the Clams front-load things with big, swoony doo-wop inspired ballads, but the real gem is lurking somewhere in the middle of side two. "Toxic Revenge" is a straight-up blast of early 80s California punk rock with a skronky saxophone solo, and it suggests that Shannon & The Clams have somewhere to go after perfecting this collection of banged-up malt shop jukebox 45s.
16. Peaking Lights - 936
It's 2011, and if you start your album with a few seconds of clanging beats and trippy dub echo and a bassline that sounds suspiciously like "Push It" by Salt N' Pepa, then you'll get my attention. Even the most forward-looking and original record on this list rips off the past mightily, and 936 proves that there's still a lot to be said for taking a whole bunch of influences that don't sound good on paper and trying to cram those awkward parts into an entertaining whole. This duo of Wisconsin weirdos smear fragments of commercial pop onto the genre-smashing experimentation of Public Image Limited and the psychedelic trip-hop of Black Moth Super Rainbow and come up with a unique set of six extended tracks that loop the good parts with determined gusto and leave hyped headliners like Animal Collective in the dust. Peaking Lights have happened upon a sound that is both fearless and familiar, perfect for nodding in dazed approval or dancing in a dimly lit room. 936 is cut and paste internet generation pop at it's finest.
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