Drowned in Sound's Top 50 Albums of 2009

Drowned in Sound's Top 50 Albums of 2009

Original Source →

50.

August 17, 2009
Critic Score
84
28 reviews

They’re not magnificently written, with unspeakably beautiful melodies, and virtuoso instrumental performances, but they have an intangible spook. The XX know when to tense, when to relax.

49.

Sky Larkin - The Golden Spike
February 2, 2009
Critic Score
75
7 reviews

48.

October 20, 2009
Critic Score
70
23 reviews

45.

March 9, 2009
Critic Score
79
18 reviews
Thrillingly improbable pop made by a grade-A maverick. Three cheers to that.

44.

March 23, 2009
Critic Score
80
7 reviews

43.

October 6, 2009
Critic Score
78
19 reviews

42.

April 6, 2009
Critic Score
76
13 reviews

41.

October 13, 2009
Critic Score
78
23 reviews
This just isn't THE RECORD OF THE YEAR that the blogosphere promised me it would be; but it is more than the sum of its parts.

40.

November 17, 2009
Critic Score
73
26 reviews

39.

May 5, 2009
Critic Score
71
13 reviews
It’s vital for the maintenance of Gallows’ present profile that they curb their enthusiasm for experimentation and pushing the envelope of aggressiveness to some degree, and by doing this sensibly, they’ve produced an album that’s big on surprises but that also ticks the essential boxes of heaviness and melody.

38.

Emmy the Great - First Love
February 9, 2009
Critic Score
72
14 reviews
Emmy the Great's debut is a triumph, with a maturity beyond her years, and with a humour no less enjoyable for being subtler.

37.

Vitalic - Flashmob
November 3, 2009
Critic Score
78
12 reviews

Whether or not it is as defining a release as OK Cowboy even feels somewhat incidental in the end, as Flashmob is easily the most enjoyable, addictive, air-keyboard-inducing electronic record that the year is likely to produce.

36.

February 3, 2009
Critic Score
75
24 reviews

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have crafted an impeccable debut way beyond their years, and any misconceptions about them being mere revivalists of a scene only their elders could recall at first hand will surely be diminished instantaneously upon hearing this most accomplished of long players.

35.

April 28, 2009
Critic Score
70
10 reviews

34.

May 26, 2009
Critic Score
85
17 reviews

For anyone interested in music that works both as art and an intensely new exciting experience - this is easily the best album that has come out this year.

32.

May 4, 2009
Critic Score
74
13 reviews

31.

September 15, 2009
Critic Score
68
24 reviews
As it stands it’s an indulgent and, at times, gorgeous listen that merely helps restate your concrete opinions about Muse.

30.

September 22, 2009
Critic Score
80
25 reviews

As unconventional musical ensembles go, Girls must surely register at the top of the pile when it comes to spontaneous muddled creations that confound any kind of pre-conceived expectations. Much loved by both the New York art-rock fraternity and UK underground indie scenes alike, this San Francisco duo and their assorted helping hands have somehow managed to conjure up an Album that doesn't just hop between genres at random like an overexcited rabbit, but actually creates its own guessing game in the process, enticing the listener into a rabid frenzy of self-doubt. "What will come next?" indeed.

29.

October 20, 2009
Critic Score
78
26 reviews

Logos is a gorgeous, hallucinatory and somewhat sickly outing.

28.

November 18, 2009
Critic Score
73
16 reviews

27.

June 9, 2009
Critic Score
78
30 reviews

Outspoken and even prone to some fairly loony conspiracy theorising, The Ecstatic thankfully does not become such a platform, and is a refined selection of strong tracks, which skilfully tread the balance between tight beats and forthright exclamations.

26.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
77
23 reviews

25.

August 18, 2009
Critic Score
77
19 reviews
There’s the same pent up aggression and wall of sound production, but Pissed Jeans have taken that blueprint and given it grunt and bite, via Korvette’s insurance-salesman-by day-everymanism and Bradley Fry’s knack for turning guitar sludge into genuine riffs.

23.

June 23, 2009
Critic Score
78
22 reviews

The practical, prosaic, documentarian's way to open a review of the new Sunset Rubdown album would be to note that it’s largely recorded live, and eschews the multiple overdubs of its predecessors, Shut Up, I Am Dreaming and Random Spirit Lover, all the better to reflect the stamping-flailing, wuh-huh-hooing bacchanal of the live-shows (and damn is there a lot of wuh-huh-hooing, when it comes to Sunset Rubdown.)

22.

March 3, 2009
Critic Score
78
14 reviews
Here she’s hacked away the art school whimsy, tossed out the crystals and burned the floaty headscarfs, focussing her talents into ten razor sharp songs, some subtle, some vicious.

21.

June 22, 2009
Critic Score
81
22 reviews

Travels... is a 33 minute monster without a slither of excess fat, and the best thing Andy Falkous has ever put his name to.

20.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
86
21 reviews

It’s the often perfect synthesis between lyrical content and production on OB4CLII that makes the album simply sublime.

19.

January 26, 2009
Critic Score
78
12 reviews

It's a direct result of the frightening array of genres explored here, and one that renders Checkmate Savage – however frustrating it might be along the way – a journey emphatically worth taking.

18.

The Veils - Sun Gangs
April 7, 2009
Critic Score
70
8 reviews

16.

August 25, 2009
Critic Score
81
16 reviews

O how you vex me, Dayve Hawke. You vex me because I know you are just one person, yet two of your three alter egos have names in the plural. When talking about you I know I should be all "Memory Tapes is..." but see, that upsets my pedantic semantic circuits so much that if I didn't like you as much as I do I wouldn't like you very much at all.

15.

June 9, 2009
Critic Score
86
38 reviews

Bitte Orca isn't a record that'll reduce many to tears, except perhaps of awe. But when something's so astonishing in every other respect, we can allow for that.

14.

March 31, 2009
Critic Score
69
27 reviews

PJ Harvey can be exhilarating, thrilling, or offer up a disturbingly hysterical variant on black humour, but she ain't fun. A Woman A Man Walked By is kinda, sorta fun.

13.

May 5, 2009
Critic Score
79
28 reviews

The surprise appearance of The Horrors' new single, 'Sea Within a Sea', has come as quite a shock to the vast majority who dismissed the band during their initial hype-fuelled rise. Where screaming excess and over the top clobber once held sway, the single’s video reveals a group of sombre aesthetes brooding over their instruments as they coolly erect an epic, eight minute wall of sound that slaps a motorik pulse onto the early 4AD catalogue, before slowly immersing it into a bubbling pool of kosmiche noise.

12.

August 25, 2009
Critic Score
77
40 reviews

Humbug is a pretty good album that’s pleasingly incongruous amongst the pre-fab boredom of much modern Brit indie. It’s eminently not astounding but it is inventive, and likeably so.

11.

April 7, 2009
Critic Score
79
34 reviews
This record is one made with the artist’s full investment, every ounce of heart and soul poured into it visible for all to see.

10.

September 29, 2009
Critic Score
74
16 reviews

Lyrically, brand new eyes sees the band on starkly confessional form. This may seem unsurprising; after all, sleeve-hearted angst is the bread and butter that keeps the filling of pop-punk-emo together in Paramore's own particular brand of sarnie (although for them it's probably more of a sub.)

9.

January 12, 2009
Critic Score
82
26 reviews

Thematically, and for the quality of songwriting, Fever Ray fully deserves to be considered a follow-up to Silent Shout; nonetheless, it’s also a line-in-the-sand for The Knife-as-pop-entity.

8.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
81
29 reviews

Two Dancers ... doesn't so much follow up their debut as announce Wild Beasts as one of our genuinely special bands, one that can compete - in terms of both musical and lyrical ingenuity as well as sheer pop nous - with any US act you've seen talked up in the music press this year.

7.

January 6, 2009
Critic Score
92
37 reviews

Is Merriweather Post Pavilion the flawless album that it's been willed to be? Taken as a whole I'd say it's pretty damn close. 

6.

May 26, 2009
Critic Score
86
38 reviews

By cutting themselves off from a hurry-everywhere-and-everything society, Grizzly Bear have successfully realised their most rewarding record yet, and the first to truly feature the four in perfect harmony.

5.

October 20, 2009
Critic Score
81
27 reviews

Tarot Sport doesn’t pause to bang or whimper. Tarot Sport accelerates.

4.

May 19, 2009
Critic Score
80
26 reviews

Overall, Journal For Plague Lovers is a strident comeback that would have been a worthy direct successor to The Holy Bible had circumstances been different.

3.

March 31, 2009
Critic Score
80
35 reviews
It's Blitz reveals just how much the trio have grown and how well they know exactly the strange angular planet that their music inhabits.

2.

May 5, 2009
Critic Score
80
30 reviews

For all the darkness of Actor's concerns ... it remains an exceptionally pleasurable album to listen to.

1.

May 26, 2009
Critic Score
81
30 reviews

Whilst Wolfgang Amadeus... is clunker-free, with high points from start to finish, allow me to abandon my critical faculties and gush about 'Love Like a Sunset Part 1', as this instrumental is by far the most incredible moment of the album and also quite possibly the best thing they've ever done.

Original Source: http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4138638
Comments
Sign in to comment
No one has said anything yet.
Connect with AOTY
Like Us
Follow Us

February Playlist