My Favorite Albums of 2011

Favorite Studio Albums of 2011:

1.     Yes:  Fly From Here

2.     Wobbler:  Rites at Dawn

3.     Steven Wilson:  Grace for Drowning

4.     Fovea Hex:  Here Is Where We Used to Sing

5.     Lamb:  5

6.     Peter Gabriel:  New Blood

7.     Elbow:  Build a Rocket Boys!

8.     Opeth:  Heritage

9.     Arbouretum:  The Gathering

10.  Paatos:  Breathing

11.  Kate Bush:  Director's Cut

12.  Phaedra:  The Sea

13.  Anathema:  Falling Deeper

14.  Tides from Nebula:  Earthshine

15.  Riverside:  Memories In My Head

16.  Moonwagon:  Night Dust

17.  Kate Bush:  50 Words for Snow

18.  Jon Anderson:  Survival and Other Stories

19.  Ulver:  Wars of the Roses

20.  Kontakte:  We Move Through Negative Spaces

21.  Russian Circles:  Empros

22.  Lanterns on the Lake:  Gracious Tide, Take Me Home

23.  Jakszyk, Fripp and Collins:  A Scarcity of Miracles

24.  Lunatic Soul:  Impressions

25.  Steve Hackett:  Beyond the Shrouded Horizon

Favorite Live Albums of 2011:

1.     Sigur Rós:  Inni

2.     Peter Gabriel:  Live Blood

3.     Emerson, Lake & Palmer:  Live at Nassau Coliseum '78

4.     Yes:  In the Present:  Live from Lyon

5.     Keith Emerson Band Featuring Marc Bonilla:  Moscow

6.     Steve Hackett:  Live Rails

7.     Rush:  Time Machine 2011:  Live in Cleveland

8.     Peter Gabriel:  Live in Buenos Aires 1988

9.     Marillion:  This Strange Engine (Live 2007)

10.  Marillion:  Live in Montreal:  Friday

Favorite Reissues of 2011:

1.     Pink Floyd:  Wish You Were Here (Immersion Edition boxed set)

2.     Pink Floyd:  The Dark Side of the Moon (Immersion Edition boxed set)

3.     The Who:  Quadrophenia:  The Director’s Cut (Super-Deluxe Edition boxed set)

4.     Jethro Tull:  Aqualung (40^th Anniversary Super-Deluxe Edition boxed set)

5.     King Crimson:  Discipline (40^th Anniversary Series)

6.     King Crimson:  Starless and Bible Black (40^th Anniversary Series)

7.     Mike Oldfield:  Incantations (Deluxe Edition)

8.     ABBA:  Super Trouper (Deluxe Edition)

9.     R.E.M.:  Lifes Rich Pageant (25^th Anniversary Edition)

10.  Rush:  Sector 1 / Sector 2 / Sector 3 (boxed sets)

11.  Riverside:  Reality Dream Trilogy (boxed set)

12.  Sandy Denny:  The Northstar Grassman and the Ravens (Deluxe Edition)

Wobbler: Rites at Dawn

Year:  2011

Label:  Termo
Catalog Number:  TERMOCD008
Format:  CD
Website:  http://www.myspace.com/wobblermusic

It could be argued that a band whose sound so closely mirrors that of classic ‘70s prog legends isn’t really as much progressive as it is regressive.  But hell, the third album by Norway’s Wobbler is so damn good, who cares?  Sounding like it was freshly unearthed from a time capsule buried in 1972, Rites at Dawn could well be in the running for best album of that year—had it not been released almost 40 years too late. 

It’s a masterful tribute to the Golden Age of Symphonic Prog, with subtle references to Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, and Genesis, as well as nods to more obscure acts such as Gryphon and fellow Scandinavians Anekdoten.  The most obvious comparison here, though, is to Yes:  With its effortlessly-shifting time signatures, melodic Rickenbacker bass lines, and multi-part vocal harmonies, Rites at Dawn often comes across as the long-lost missing album between Fragile and Close to the Edge.  Witness 12-minute cosmic odyssey “In Orbit,” where vocalist Andreas Stromman Prestmo channels his inner Jon Anderson in lines like “Soaring threads of life / Bright chariot descending on cities of stone.” 

Lyrically, songs such as “La Bealtaine,” "A Faerie's Play" and “The River” evoke pagan celebrations of the natural world, full of references to woodlands, witches, and faerie folk—perhaps not surprising for a band that formed deep in the Norwegian countryside.  Keyboardist Lars Frederik Frøislie's massive collection of vintage instruments, including various Moogs, Arps, Hammonds, and Mellotrons, as well as more obscure relics like the Chamberlin,  are used to great effect throughout, and further add to the album’s analog authenticity.  In fact, the band are such musical purists that they refuse to use any gear newer than 1975.  Here, as in the album’s immaculate production, Wobbler’s attention to detail is flawless.

It would be easy for an album like this to come off as a sad, second-rate pastiche of classic ‘70s prog, and other bands have gone down that road before with disastrous results.  What’s amazing is that Wobbler have managed to capture not just the style, but the spirit of that era, while creating some incredibly intricate, original songs that could even give some of the Old Masters a run for their money.

Anathema: We're Here Because We're Here

Year:  2010

Label:  The End

Catalog Number:  TE 205-2

Format:  CD (2011 special edition in gatefold 7" packaging, with bonus tracks, bonus DVD-A, and 7" vinyl single)

Website:  http://www.anathema.ws

Who could have ever predicted that over the course of their 20-year career, Liverpool’s Anathema would morph from bludgeoning doom-metal growlers into sensitive purveyors of atmospheric prog-rock?  And until now, “uplifting” isn’t a description that most would apply to their music, but surprisingly, that’s exactly the spirit that emanates from many of these tracks.  Their trademark Floydian melancholy is still present in songs such as “Angels Walk Among Us” and the gorgeous “Dreaming Light” (video below) but the dark clouds are soon cleared away as the latter builds to an uplifting crescendo worthy of Sigur Rós. 

Other songs such as “Presence” and “Everything” maintain this rapturous atmosphere, and by the chiming guitar-loop fadeout of the album’s closer, “Hindsight,” the cover image of a figure engulfed in blinding sunshine seems entirely appropriate. 

Well worthy of Classic Rock’s “Progressive Rock Album of the Year” award, and probably my favorite of 2010 as well.

Anathema - Dreaming Light (from We're Here Because We're Here) from Kscope on Vimeo.

Katatonia: Night Is the New Day

Year:  2009

Label:  Peaceville

Catalog Number:  CDVILEF271X
Format:  CD (limited edition digibook with bonus track)
Website:  http://katatonia.com

I’ve never been much of a metalhead—not because I don’t enjoy a good skull-crushing power chord now and again, but because so many of the trappings of that genre just seems so, well, juvenile:  Over-the-top lyrics, bombastic guitar wankery, ridiculously cartoonish album covers, tight leather trousers, and that annoying falsetto screaming (or those bizarre cookie-monster death growls).  Ugh. 

But somewhere along the line, I must have missed the moment when heavy metal grew up.  Because lately I’ve found myself listening to a number of bands that, despite being categorized as such, either refuse to trot out the above clichés, or who have long since abandoned that adolescent phase to mature into an adulthood of intelligent, complex, melodic music.  Recently, quite a number of metal (or formerly-filed-under-metal) bands including Anathema, Opeth, and Ulver have all put out stellar albums of thoughtful, modern progressive rock.  With Night Is the New Day, Sweden’s Katatonia have accomplished this as well. 

Inspired by goth gods Joy Division, Fields of the Nephilim, and The Cure, as well as early doom-metal merchants such as My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost, Katatonia’s songs, as their latest album title suggests, deal in the dark side of human existence, with doom-heavy lyrics of death, decay, loss, and hopelessness.  ”The great end is sweeping in / The dark will rise / Abandon your freedom,” vocalist Jonas Renske despairingly sings on the jackhammering opening track “Forsaker,” the heaviest (yet catchiest) song on the album.  Resignation to subjugation, oppression, and/or death seems to be a central theme of Night Is the New Day, appearing again in “Departer,” "Nephilim," "Day and Then the Shade," and the beautifully orchestral “Inheritance,” where Renske sings of letting go of free will (“our inconvenient burden”) with such a mellow nonchalance that it seems like he’s already given up to “[t]he unforgiving void / The forge in which our values burn.” 

Renske’s languid, dreamlike vocals are the antithesis of the heavy metal scream, and are one of Katatonia’s strongest points:  They seem to float hazily far above a wall of razor-sharp guitars and a muscular rhythm section anchored with machinelike precision by drummer Daniel Liljekvist.  This contrast is used to best effect in the chorus of “Onward Into Battle,” where the juxtaposition of a simple vocal melody over a complex instrumental time signature makes it seem as if the band are playing two completely different songs at once.  Throughout the album, the music is further enhanced by subtle electronic touches—clanking drum machines, bubbling synthesizer sequences—and understated orchestral flourishes that add a lushness to the album’s quieter moments.

Arbouretum: The Gathering

Year:  2011

Label:  Thrill Jockey

Catalog Number:  THRILL 257

Format:  CD (digipak)

Website:  http://arbouretum.blogspot.com

I’m not exactly sure what to make of Arbouretum.  Maybe that’s what makes them one of my favorite artists at the moment.  Their sound, perhaps best described as psychedelic prog-folk stoner rock, has been likened to Crazy Horse, Bob Mould, and Richard Thompson-era Fairport Convention, though none of those comparisons seems exactly on the mark.  To me, singer Dave Heumann’s distinctive voice falls somewhere between that of Eddie Vedder and Gordon Lightfoot, fronting a band that brings to mind Pink Floyd circa Obscured by Clouds. 

The Baltimore group’s fourth album The Gathering sees them getting heavier, both by turning up the fuzzbox on their folk, and by tackling the weighty subject matter of psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s Red Book, exploring realms of the psyche such as the collective unconscious, archetypes, and spirit guides.  Mythic imagery abounds in the album’s lyrics, notably in excellent opening track “The White Bird,” the title referring to Jung’s “daemon of spirituality [that] decendeth into our soul.”  Adding to the heady lyrics, a hypnotic fuzz-guitar riff further propels the song deep into inner space.  (And extra points to Heumann for including the words “gloaming,” “tessellating,” and “mycelia” in the same song.) 

Sometimes cover versions can break up an album’s continuity, but here the inclusion of Jimmy Webb’s classic ballad “The Highwayman” has the opposite effect:  The oft-covered tale of a wandering spirit reincarnated through the ages as frontier outlaw, sailor, dam builder, and starship captain fits perfectly with Arbouretum’s unique brand of cosmic Americana. 

The Eastern-tinged heavy groove of “Waxing Crescents” makes that track another highlight of The Gathering, its lyrics continuing the theme of spiritual vision quest (“What lens is offering to give blurred things clarity?”) as Heumann’s wails are made even more otherworldly by processing them through the filter of an ancient VCS3 synthesizer.  One can almost picture Arbouretum belting out the apocalyptic hymn “When Delivery Comes” on a towering cliff, the howling wind blowing majestically through their beards.  The album closes with the epic jam “Song of the Nile,” a psychedelic beast inspired by Gnostic mythology that chugs along relentlessly for 10-plus minutes before finally spiraling into the cosmos.

Heavy, man.

Ulver: Wars of the Roses

Year:  2011

Label:  Kscope

Catalog Number:  KSCOPE169
Format:  CD (digibook)
Website:  http://www.jester-records.com/ulver

Ulver are a band that defy simple categorization.  Over the years they’ve charted a crooked course, lurching from black metal steeped in Norwegian folklore to atmospheric film soundtracks and an ambitious musical interpretation of William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, followed by forays into chamber music, glitch electronica, and minimalist ambience.

With their most recent album Wars of the Roses, Ulver have combined many of these influences into a dark reflection on civilization in decline.  “We are our own enemy,” vocalist Kristoffer Rygg laments in “February MMX,” a slice of atmospheric indie rock that despite its doomy lyrics is arguably the most accessible track on the album.  It’s followed by “Norwegian Gothic,” an often-cynical summation of the history and traditions of their homeland (“Sins of our fathers, their land and nature / Amusement and abuse in the old farm house”) with appropriately unsettling music. 

From there things don’t get any brighter:  “September IV” is a somber eulogy to a young family friend lost to violence, while “England” uses the metaphor of a fox hunt to allude to the dark history of that country:  “And hidden in the hollow / A blood-red coat, white to the bone / Fit for queen and the cloven foot.”  The band have said that a fascination with England inspired the album, and the 2009 addition of British multi-instrumentalist and composer Daniel O’Sullivan to their lineup may have sharpened this focus.

The album’s centerpiece is the 15-minute “Stone Angels,” an interpretation of a 1997 work by American poet Keith Waldrop that features O’Sullivan reciting the poem over a bed of shifting atmospheric musical interludes.  It’s a fascinating and beautiful track that stands in contrast to the other more traditionally structured songs on the album.  In fact, that’s my one minor criticism of Wars of the Roses:  Devoting a full one-third of the album to a spoken-word piece makes the album seem a bit disjointed.  But Ulver have always specialized in contrasts, so perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise. 

Wars of the Roses was mixed by famed 4AD producer John Fryer, and the production of the album is impeccable, with atmospheric and often ominous layers of acoustic, electric, and electronic instruments, treatments and sound effects sharing the stage without ever upstaging one another. 

Until recently Ulver were strictly a studio band, but in 2009 they turned their attention to live performance, playing to great reviews and becoming the first rock band invited to perform at the prestigious Norwegian National Opera House.  A live DVD and Blu-Ray of that concert is due any day now—it will be interesting to see how they approach songs like these in a live setting.


Ulver - Norwegian Gothic (taken from Wars of the Roses) from Kscope on Vimeo.

Big Big Train: The Underfall Yard

Year:  2009

Label:  English Electric

Catalog Number:  EECD005

Format:  CD (digipak)

Website:  http://www.bigbigtrain.com/

As a huge fan of mid-seventies Genesis, I’ve long hoped against hope that the four-piece lineup of Banks, Collins, Hackett and Rutherford would someday reunite and produce a worthy successor to genre-defining albums A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering.  After hearing The Underfall Yard, I’m forced to admit that the product of said reunion would probably never match the spot-on brilliance of this modern progressive masterpiece.  Truly, The Underfall Yard ranks up there with the aforementioned albums, without sounding like a stale copy of either.  And despite a sound that recalls that era, replete with shifting time signatures, Mellotrons, and dual 12-string guitars, Big Big Train are no mere tribute band.

The Genesis comparison isn’t surprising, though, given their lineup:  This time founding members Greg Spawton and Andy Poole are joined by new vocalist David Longdon, who actually rehearsed for several months with Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford after Phil Collins’ 1996 departure from Genesis.  (Two singers were auditioned as possible replacements for Collins—the band eventually chose Ray Wilson for the Calling All Stations album.)  At times Longdon does sound like a dead ringer for Collins, right down to his vocal ad-libs and harmonies.  What’s more, Big Big Train drummer (and Spock’s Beard frontman) Nick D’Virgilio actually did record with Genesis on Calling All Stations.

But while the sound may be similar, the melodies and music are all their own, and each song is masterfully crafted.  Lyrically, a theme of wistful nostalgia runs through the album, and many of the songs reflect on the end of Britain’s Industrial Age and the works of its great engineers and architects.

The stunning 23-minute title track was inspired by Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who helped design the London boatyard known as The Underfall Yard.  Similarly, “Master James of St. George” celebrates the many castles in England and Wales built by that Medieval architect.  And “Winchester Diver” tells the story of William Walker, a deep-sea diver who in 1906 saved Winchester Cathedral from collapse by shoring up its foundation, working alone for five years in pitch-black water far beneath the cathedral.  In the song, eerie sound effects of a diver’s air pump combine with ominous music and lyrics that contrast the hellish conditions Walker endured with the serene churchgoers worshipping above:  “Two worlds apart / The people say their Sunday prayers / Music fills the vaulted space / The organ covers up the hammer falls.”

The historical subject matter is intriguing and original, and the musicianship is amazing throughout.  As an added bonus, ex-XTC guitarist Dave Gregory is now listed as a full-time member of Big Big Train—a perfect fit, as his former band exuded an overtly English sensibility as well.  Gregory’s electric 12-string fretwork adds great texture to the tracks, and additional instruments such as cello, cornet—and, in “Victorian Brickwork,” even a post-rock brass section—take the music on The Underfall Yard to places even Genesis wouldn’t have dared.