The '07 Music Hierarchy

Ranked by Preference:

10

EL-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead [If "Fantastic Damage" was the brash introductory album, with El-P showing us all he stands for and believes in, this darker followup is the introspection album where the rapper/producer/label head wonders whether his beliefs and efforts are enough. Shot through as it is with self-doubt and distrust in both individuals and systems (the album title is an expression not of defiance but of paranoia), one would think this would be a major mega-downer. Not so -- though it has its uglier tracks (particularly the wrenching, terrifying 'Habeas Corpses (Draconian Love)'), this is mostly a banging, bumping hip-hop monster in motion. It's a nervous breakdown with a beat you can swing your ass off to, and I can't stop listening to it. 'Drive' represents maybe the first time I've ever heard a guy rap about his car and didn't want to puke.]

9

SHELLAC - Excellent Italian Greyhound
AESOP ROCK - None Shall Pass
AKIMBO - Navigating the Bronze

8

GRINDERMAN - Grinderman [Nick Cave and company plug in, get ferocious and dirty, and generally have a good time on this wickedly sleazy one-off. Maybe the grittiest, grungiest thing he's done since the expiration of The Birthday Party but tempered with the old man's irony of which Cave has become so fond in recent years; 'No Pussy Blues' is an early contender for Song of the Year.]
CAR BOMB - Centralia
DAVID KARSTEN DANIELS - Sharp Teeth
PISSED JEANS - Hope for Men
THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN - Ire Works
THE SUBJECTS - with the ease grace precision and cleverness of human beings [You're right, Matt. This is pretty damn awesome.]
THE ARCADE FIRE - Neon Bible [A disappointment only in the sense that it follows up the monumental "Funeral," which is about as unfollowupable as any debut album ever released. Taken by any reasonable standards, this is still some pretty potent stuff; there's a bit of water-treading here and there, but mostly the band is still awesome. And 'My Body Is a Cage' is almost as transcendant a closer as 'In the Backseat.']
BUSDRIVER - RoadKillOvercoat
RILO KILEY - Under the Blacklight
HELLA - There's No 666 in Outer Space
PELICAN - City of Echoes
TIM FITE - Over the Counter Culture
JESU - Conqueror
BLEUBIRD - Rip U$A (The Birdfleu) [Recalls the angsty-white-guy vibe of Sage Francis, the clattering punk-fueled chaos of P.O.S. and the druggy malaise of cLOUDDEAD, but this guy manages to clear out space of his own on the ever-more-crowded backpacker hip-hop shelf by pushing his beats into cut-up territory. Seems almost obsessively anti-catchy at times, with the tape experiments on 'Weasel + Bird + Tiger' and 'United Nonsense' courting obnoxiousness, but Bleubird's passionate anger and clever wordplay keep this compelling. Plus, he quotes Zappa's "Joe's Garage" on the track 'I Make Weird,' so how could I not like this, etc.]

7

NINE INCH NAILS - Year Zero
LILY ALLEN - Alright, Still... [The first four tracks are splendid -- so much so that the rest of the album pales a bit in comparison. (It doesn't help that tracks like 'Alfie' and 'Nan You're a Window Shopper,' though catchy, have lyrics that suggest a fourteen-year-old brat cattily writing in her diary.) Still solid, bouncy pop with a saucy edge; 'LDN' should be the year's big summer-jam single, which means it'll go nowhere. (The hipster/pop lover confluence of 'Crazy' only happens once every few years.)]
PORTER WAGONER - Wagonmaster
MODEST MOUSE - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
STRAYLIGHT RUN - The Needles the Space
PIG DESTROYER - Phantom Limb
MINUS THE BEAR - Planet of Ice
TOMAHAWK - Anonymous
SAGE FRANCIS - Human the Death Dance
BAD RELIGION - New Maps of Hell
PJ HARVEY - White Chalk
EARTHLESS - Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky
DAWN OF MAN - In the Bronze Age
7000 DYING RATS - Season in Hell [Maniacal grind with a genre-hopping sense of humor; includes a song entitled 'Jesus Farted,' a song about Eddie Money that last five seconds and the coolest/goofiest cover of Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' you'll ever hear. Obviously they're playing to a limited audience, but those among us with a taste for this sort of thing should be as happy as I.]
THE BOOK OF KNOTS - Traineater
THE BIRD AND THE BEE - the bird and the bee [Cool, mellow pop in the vein of Black Box Recorder. I like Black Box Recorder.]
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - People EP [Solid introduction to the band's ethos, marrying dreamy texture and oddball experimentation. A bit short, but I'd rather be left wanting more than wishing there was less.]
THE NATIONAL - Boxer
ONLY CRIME - Virulence
BREAK THE SKY - With Plans to Carry You to the Cliff Edge [Vicious technical hardcore with a vocalist who can swing from a death-metal growl to a full-on shriek just like breathing. The band's not breaking any new ground or doing anything I haven't heard before, so it's good that I rather like this sort of thing.]

6

Aa - gAame [Interesting but uneven experimental/noise music, heavy on percussion; will probably improve with repeat listens, as this sort of inaccessible stuff usually does.]
BJÖRK - Volta
WITCHES WITH DICKS - Manual
HOLY MOLAR - Cavity Search EP [I always think I should like this noise supergroup more than I do. That said, this is pretty solid ear-shredding stuff, even if it wraps up just as it feels like it's getting started. Great song titles, at any rate.]
OKKERVIL RIVER - The Stage Names
DÄLEK - Abandoned Language [The title's the thing: Not that lyrical comprehension was ever high on this hip-hop group's list of concerns, but now they seem to be entertaining the notion of completely de-emphasizing the words in favor of pure atmosphere. That's not a bad thing, but ominousness will only get you so far before I start to wonder what it all means.]
SMOKE OR FIRE - This Sinking Ship
YOUTH GROUP - Twilight Casino Dogs
THE HATEPINKS - Tete Malade / Sick in the Head [Goofy, fun, forgettable.]
THE LOCUST - New Erections
ED PETTERSEN - The New Punk Blues of Ed Pettersen [Spiky folk blues is best in its early stages, as later tracks are overwhelmed by Mr. Petterson's questionable lyrical ability.]
THE AFFAIR - Yes Yes to You
THE END - Elementary
THE BROKEN WEST - I Can't Go On, I'll Go On

5

HOT CROSS - Risk Revival [Strong, sharp screamo from a group of talented fellas; unfortunately, like most screamo groups, Hot Cross has essentially one mode, and their all-aggression-all-the-time attack grows monotonous over the course of an album.]
SLOW SUICIDE STIMULUS - Slow Suicide Stimulus
HI, LONELY OAK - All These Mountains Look the Same [Lived-in neo-folk in the vein of Okkervil River or Bright Eyes has its moments but needs some quality control, even at only six tracks. In particular, ending the EP with two versions of the same bad song -- one a quiet folk tune, the other a smudgy electronic-tinged pop number -- was a crap idea. Hell, even Conor Oberst had the good sense to confine his electronic experimentation to a separate album.]
OF MONTREAL - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? [The moment when I lost any interest in both this album and this band was 'Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider,' when frontman/songwriter Kevin Barnes croons the lines "Eva, I'm sorry, but you will never have me / You're just some faggy girl / And I need a lover with soul power / And you ain't got no soul power." Much like Devendra Banhart's psychotic 'Chinese Children,' this song represents an acclaimed indie artist demonstrating that he truly has no idea how to delineate the line between clever faux-inanity and pure, uncut genuine inanity. It's doubly infuriating as 'Bunny' follows the offbeat but thrilling slow-burn epic 'The Past Is a Grotesque Animal.' There's a whole lot of that schizo swings in quality during the course of "Fauna." Barnes is talented, yes, but until he can exhibit even the tiniest example of quality control, I'm going to ignore the seventeen other albums he'll release in the next five years.]
EGO PLUM AND THE EBOLA MUSIC ORCHESTRA - The Rat King [At its worst, it's insufferable, a bunch of drunken orchestra musicians screwing around when they think nobody's around. At its best, it's still only about as good as the instrumental bumper tracks off Firewater's amazing "The Ponzi Scheme." Not entirely awful, in other words, but unnecessary.]
LAVOTCHKIN - The Oldest Suicide Cult [Chug, scream, repeat: I've been here before.]
LOVE ME DESTROYER - The Things Around Us Burn [Note to self: If a band has an emocore name and an emocore album title, they're probably an emocore band. Which wouldn't be a problem, except that mediocrity is the watchword in most emocore.]
A NEW DAWN FADES - I See the Nightbirds [Rhapsody files this under 'noise rock,' but I counter with 'snooze rock.' There's one good song here (the title track); everything else is aimless dicking around.]

4

MAD CADDIES - Keep it Going [This ska-pop-punk group's work is accomplished enough, I guess, but it doesn't do a damn thing for me. Sorry.]
NERVOUS BREAKDOWN - Join the Army EP [Throwback to old-school hardcore might kick live but on wax, it just sounds anemic and tired. It doesn't help that the musicians sound like they're struggling to keep up with their own songs.]
FIFTY CALIBUR KISS - Armor Class Invincible [Dudes, we already have one Atreyu. I think that's enough, thanks anyway.]
LOVE OF DIAGRAMS - Love of Diagrams EP [Passionless nouveau-New Wave bollocks. Like Erase Errata on Sominex.]

3

COMPLICATED SHIRT - Compromising Compositions [My main complaint about these guys's Victory-biting debut "Strigine" was that it suffered from tinny, ear-shredding production. They've cleaned up their act here enough for me to wish they hadn't -- their lead singer has the kind of strangled emo-punk caterwaul that needs (nay, DESERVES) to be buried under miles of static. Musically, they're pretty good, but I can't listen to this without wincing through every song.]
DANNY COHEN - Shades of Dorian Gray [Mr. Cohen is a talented songwriter in that he can pen a memorable and/or interesting tune; his lyrical skills, however, leave something to be desired. His vocal abilities are even less appealing, and sixteen tracks of his flat, tuneless croak is just way too goddamn much for me.]

1

FLAT ATOM - Flux [Unlistenably weak industrial-dance junk. Get this guy away from a synthesizer, pronto.]