Uncut's 50 Best Albums of 2009

50.

October 6, 2009
Critic Score
72
12 reviews
Unexpectedly, it's all pretty exciting. negotiate the scree, and the songs demand repeating.

49.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
68
28 reviews

48.

Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It
September 16, 2008
Critic Score
76
16 reviews

It's Saadiq's fine songs--notably the showstopping slow-jam 'Oh Girl'--that makes The Way I See It less a homage, more a timelessly enjoyable 42 minutes.

47.

May 5, 2009
Critic Score
77
16 reviews
With Spoils, Alasdair Roberts has delivered his finest work to date.

46.

October 27, 2009
Critic Score
77
9 reviews
Hubble bubble! From weird sources and high ideals comes a spooky, sensual piece of pop sorcery. And it's bewitching.

45.

Richmond Fontaine - We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River
September 29, 2009
Critic Score
78
8 reviews

There is an unassuming brilliance to much that they do and, as ever, We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River is a-bristle with finely-tooled detai.

44.

Reigning Sound - Love and Curses
August 11, 2009
Critic Score
78
11 reviews
The results are impressive: the requisite 1960s garage cover sits happily alongside the band's traditional urgency, and their newfound classicism.

43.

January 27, 2009
Critic Score
72
29 reviews
His 16th full-length recording is by some distance, Springsteen's weirdest, and most constantly startling to date.

42.

September 22, 2009
Critic Score
76
21 reviews

Throughout, his mellowness of tone is the album's defining feature ... Miraculously, thanks to the minutiae of the arrangements, it's a sound that never becomes one dimensional.

41.

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl
February 9, 2009
Critic Score
75
14 reviews
He pulls it off in style.

40.

The Felice Brothers - Yonder Is The Clock
April 7, 2009
Critic Score
80
11 reviews
As a State of the Union address, this bold and often brilliant record is less inclined towards optimism than, say, Springsteen’s admirable "Working On A Dream."

39.

Cornershop - Judy Sucks a Lemon For Breakfast
July 27, 2009
Critic Score
70
12 reviews

Cornershop’s 2009 incarnation may not have the kinetic energy of the 2002 model, or the accidental pop brilliance of “…Asha”, but it isn’t short on inventiveness.

38.

August 25, 2009
Critic Score
77
40 reviews

Arctic Monkeys were never comfortable as the ‘voice of a generation’. Humbug subtly shrugs off that unwanted mantle, and in the same deft movement, promises a much more interesting future.

37.

June 23, 2009
Critic Score
75
31 reviews
The solos are majestic and Barlow even contributes a couple of thumpers. Nobody does this better.

36.

October 20, 2009
Critic Score
81
27 reviews

Andrew Weatherall has been employed to help build Tarot Sport a beaty backbone and the results are brutally mesmerizing.

35.

June 29, 2009
Critic Score
80
12 reviews
Everything sounds deliciously grubby and unpolished.

34.

Trembling Bells - Carbeth
April 14, 2009
Critic Score
72
5 reviews
There's a frayed but genuinely exploratory vibe here, that's not afraid to get tough.

33.

The Duke & The King - Nothing Gold Can Stay
August 4, 2009
Critic Score
70
9 reviews

It’s as far removed from the combustible racket of his siblings as is possible to imagine, Felice instead heading for the sweet spot between ’70s FM radio and the boom years of Topanga Canyon.

32.

June 2, 2009
Critic Score
59
27 reviews

At 36 minutes, Preliminaires is slight and covers-heavy, but points to a promising new career phase for Iggy as Detroit’s answer to Serge.

31.

July 14, 2009
Critic Score
71
32 reviews
The Dead Weather is another slightly unsatisfying fling alongside The Raconteurs.

30.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
81
10 reviews

29.

March 31, 2009
Critic Score
69
27 reviews

Together, Parish and Harvey sound confidently experimental, like two soldiers daring each other to ever more stupendous feats of bravery.

28.

September 29, 2009
Critic Score
76
14 reviews

The Liberty Of Norton Folgate--a title which makes sense in context but is otherwise unlikely to be jamming up the ringtone sites--is Madness in both their pomp and their prime.

27.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
80
28 reviews
Yo La Tengo's 12th album finds them operating well within their comfort zone but it's no less delightful for the absence of envelopes being pushed.

26.

The Unthanks - Here's The Tender Coming
September 14, 2009
Critic Score
78
8 reviews
Rarely has the deep past sounded so stirring, or so modern.

25.

May 26, 2009
Critic Score
85
17 reviews
Their seventh LP is a(nother) case of "none more black," but 'Big Church'--in which a Viennese women's choir provides the counter to crushing, sustained chords are striking departures from Sunn)))'s awesome canon.

24.

March 9, 2009
Critic Score
79
18 reviews
Levi's eclectic debut strikes a winning balance between electro-glitch cacophony and shouty grrrl-pop.

23.

May 19, 2009
Critic Score
80
26 reviews
This is also a brave, compelling record that stands shoulder to shoulder with the Manics’ best.

22.

February 17, 2009
Critic Score
77
19 reviews

To Be Still is a quantum leap from its predecessor, and one which establishes Alela Diane as a significant figure in contemporary Americana.

21.

June 9, 2009
Critic Score
78
17 reviews

The album closes with a reprise of “To Ohio” – possibly superfluous given the perfection of the earlier version, but the only marginal misjudgement on an otherwise largely faultless album.

20.

May 5, 2009
Critic Score
79
28 reviews
The quintet's transformation from schlocky garage urchins to ambassadors of thrilling new-wave can largely be attributed to Portishead's Geoff Barrow, who, alongside Chris Cunningham, produced "Primary Colours," uncovering a formidable band beneath the haircuts.

19.

June 9, 2009
Critic Score
75
34 reviews
Good, but the exciting notion of a genuine career left turn feels increasingly unlikely.

18.

Graham Coxon - The Spinning Top
May 11, 2009
Critic Score
72
17 reviews

The Spinning Top, a really very enjoyable record, displays some of the finest aspects of the guitarist’s talents, but chief among them, those that pertain to Coxon the folkie, and acoustic guitar stylist.

17.

April 7, 2009
Critic Score
76
29 reviews
By expanding their repertoire, taking a few risks, and nailing those harmonies, they’ve made what feels like the first great British album of 2009.

16.

July 6, 2009
Critic Score
79
33 reviews
Too often a limited voice and over-egged arrangements strain to little effect.

14.

October 13, 2009
Critic Score
76
33 reviews

Embryonic is certainly as exciting as anything produced by the psych rock underground this year.

13.

June 22, 2009
Critic Score
78
19 reviews
It’s a rare pleasure to hear a band so at ease with themselves, playing with no obvious aim or agenda beyond having a good time and hoping you do, too. The best thing about Fits is imagining how incredible these songs will be when played live.

12.

January 12, 2009
Critic Score
82
26 reviews
This is an exercise in extravagant claustrophobia, not nostagia.

11.

April 14, 2009
Critic Score
80
25 reviews

Eagle is as good as anything he's ever done.

10.

May 26, 2009
Critic Score
81
30 reviews
These Varsailles dwellers make records that initially seem like delicately generic powerpop, but gradually emerge as vivid, bittersweet epiphanies.

9.

March 31, 2009
Critic Score
80
35 reviews
Despite its obvious debt to the ’80s and its (appreciated) nods to the trio’s own past, it’s their most modern, innovative record yet.

8.

May 26, 2009
Critic Score
86
38 reviews

While I’m not sure Veckatimest is the huge improvement on Yellow House that some blogs claim it to be, it’s unquestionably a lovely record and it deserves to be heard on land, sea, indoors and out.

7.

June 30, 2009
Critic Score
75
33 reviews

Wilco (the album) picks up more or less where 2007’s mellow and soulful Sky Blue Sky left off, but subtly expands that record’s parameters.

6.

August 17, 2009
Critic Score
84
28 reviews
The finished result occupies land between Young Marble Giants' "Colossal Youth" and Tricky's "Maxinquaye": not the equal of either of those landmark albums, maybe, but certainly cut from the same cloth.

5.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
81
29 reviews

Wild Beasts summon up the ghosts of that decade’s brainier, more flamboyant indie bands.

4.

April 28, 2009
Critic Score
75
30 reviews
The album’s a gas, a riot, a hoot.

3.

June 9, 2009
Critic Score
86
38 reviews

As a whole, Bitte Orca feels nothing less than a modern equivalent to Talking Heads' Fear Of Music or Scritti's Cupid & Psyche 85 –art-rock with intellectual rigour, borderless curiosity, and no fear of the mainstream. Pop, by any other name.

2.

March 16, 2009
Critic Score
80
24 reviews
The charm here is in hearing a veteran band who still really enjoy the process of getting in a studio and playing music together. And it’s great, still.

1.

January 6, 2009
Critic Score
92
37 reviews

It’s a rare contemporary album that sounds like it couldn't have been made at any other time or by any other band.

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