The first song I heard when I touched down in NYC last year was You're A Wolf by Sea Wolf. It's one of my favorite songs from the album, and hearing it at random made sure I wouldn't forget to include this at the end of the year.
Once again, I found myself listening to Jesu more than any other band this year. Supple Hope is another one of Jesu's textured songs with a title that misleads; the lyrics themselves are depressing as hell.
I don't know that I can explain my love of Armor for Sleep, but I've two albums and the songs that I like on them, I really like, while the others are less memorable alt-rock. But as I said; when they do a good song, I really like it, and it's hard for me to beat a song that opens with "I've got soul working for me half the time". So Run Right Back In goes on.
Bats Over The Pacific Ocean is one of those nonsense titles that bands like Jaguar Love give to their songs. Given that the band is made up of former Blood Brothers members, this kind of silliness makes a lot more sense. Jaguar Love has songs that are a lot more danceable though, so hopefully that will open up some people to their stuff.
A very late addition to my music collection in '08 was Fucked Up, and their song Black Albino Bones caught me right away. Punk rock growls with a light chorus, and I was hooked.
Dead and Divine was a band I swayed on for much of the year. Do I keep this album, or do I just burn a couple tracks and let it go. But whenever I would listen to the album for purposes of burning, I liked a lot more songs than I thought I would. When I played it as background music, it didn't stick, except for Get Down With Your Bad Self, which has the line: I have a way with failure.
I wish that didn't speak to me, but it does.
Next up is Baroness's Isak. This is another album that was probably on last year's tape, but eh. Whatcha gonna do? It's dirty stoner rock, and I like that.
Nineteenhundred by Burst was another late addition to my ears. Burst's record, Lazarus Bird is a strong one, and it's too bad it's been consigned to the 'metal' bin. Don't get me wrong, it is metal, but the band wants to stretch what metal can do-and in this song, they use saxophones to do it. Really neat stuff.
My Apocalypse by Metallica. Yeah, I'm surprised too, but there you go; it took them twenty years to do another album on par with Master of Puppets, but they did it. Is it as good as their landmark albums (namely Ride the Lightning or Master of Puppets)? No. But it's pretty damn solid, and the guys are playing again like they have something to prove.
Finally, All Hope Is Gone by Slipknot. The title is beguiling again, reflecting a despair that the song doesn't exactly have, but since I've been feeling a little bit of both, I put that song on. Plus, it's just blistering.
I finished with Unearth's instrumental; Big Bear & the hour of Chaos. I wanted that song to be the bridge between My Apocalypse and All Hope Is Gone, but it didn't work out that way; there wasn't enough room on the tape. Still, I got it on; that's what matters.
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