High Bias Baker's Dozen
Michael Toland, Editor-in-Chief, High Bias
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Soundtrack, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Hybrid)
The songs from the year's best film strike a near-perfect balance between Broadway catchiness and rock energy. Composer Stephen Trask gets the rock musical right for the first time in, well, ever, and director/screenwriter/star John Cameron Mitchell brings the tunes soulfully to life. -
The Chamber Strings, Month of Sundays (Bobsled)
Lush, timeless pop music that continues the legacy of Jimmy Webb and Burt Bacharach without becoming cloying. Leader Kevin Junior doesn't fool around, going straight for the melodic jugular with his compositions, but he never buries the emotional thrust of the material under the gloss. -
The Streetwalkin' Cheetahs, Waiting For the Death of My Generation (Triple X)
Long one of rock's most exciting live acts, L.A.'s Streetwalkin' Cheetahs have never fully captured their live energy in a studio situation until now. That they did so at the same time as their songwriting matured makes the powerhouse impact of this album all the sweeter. -
Hamell on Trial, Ed's Not Dead—Hamell Comes Alive (Such-a-Punch)
Hamell on Trial captured in his natural habitat—live on stage, with an audience eating out of his hands. -
Clutch, Pure Rock Fury (Atlantic)
Much like the late, great Soundgarden, Virginia's Clutch uses heavy metal as the base material for a distinctive sound all its own. With bonecrushing riffs, lithe rhythms that use hip-hop dynamics in a far more intelligent manner than any nü-metal band and the wittiest, most versatile vocalist in heavy rock, Clutch rewrites the rules for headbangers. -
Varnaline, Songs in a Northern Key (E Squared/Artemis)
Anders Parker is a songwriter's songwriter, though he'd be too modest to admit it. But every song on this low-key but winning LP grows in stature with every listen, burrowing into your soul and warming it with a light that burns with empathy. -
Adam Schmitt, Demolition (Parasol)
After nearly a decade spent producing and engineering others, power pop legend Schmitt returns with a set of demos that sounds better than most major label products. But even if the sound had been crummy, the hooks and sincerity would shine through. -
Otis Taylor, White African (NorthernBlues Music)
Taylor is a marvel—a powerful singer, a unique guitarist and just enough of an eccentric to firmly carve out his own distinctive niche in the country blues firmament. -
Femi Kuti, Fight to Win (MCA)
Politics and pleasure come together in tandem, thanks to the perfect Afrobeat groove of Femi Kuti. The earnestness of his message is never lost in the hipshaking rhythms, but his sense of political outrage never overpowers his sheer musicality either. -
Sigh, Imaginary Sonicscape (Century Media)
Though aligned with the black metal scene, Sigh revels in all manner of sounds and styles, preferably all within the same song. The most imaginative psychedelic/prog/thrash/funk/pop/death metal trio in the world. -
Sparklehorse, It's a Wonderful Life (Capitol)
Unusually ballad-heavy, Sparklehorse's third full-length may actually be the most accessible in the band's career, though it's sacrificed not a jot of its distinctive personality. Eccentric studio-processed roots pop of the highest order. -
Blue Mountain, Roots (Blue Mountain Music)
Before it split, personally and professionally, the great Blue Mountain paid tribute to the rich traditional music of the South with an album of rockin' folk covers that looks forward by paying respects to the past. -
Built to Spill, Ancient Melodies of the Future (Warner Bros.)
Doug Martsch's long-running project has been quietly rewriting the rules of the rock anthem for nearly ten years now, and the multi-talented bandleader—great guitarist, interesting songwriter and, for the first time, expressive singer—has never been better than he is here.
2001: The Year I Banged My Head:
I listened a hell of a lot of albums this year. I was impressed by a great deal of them, far more than even a list of 13 can convey. I found an inordinate amount of gems in one of my favorite genres, psychedelic power pop—the Red Telephone, the Flyte Reaction, the Grip Weeds, Autoliner, Anton Barbeau, the Asteroid #4, the Green Pajamas, Belle de Gama, the Orange Alabaster Mushroom, the Fletcher Pratt, Beulah and the Witch Hazel Sound all released excellent albums this year. Singer/songwriters made a big comeback, with excellent records from both newcomers like Chris Lee, Hawksley Workman, Paula Kelley and Chris McFarland and veterans like Chris Whitley, Joe Henry, Alejandro Escovedo and Mark Eitzel. While I grew more and more weary of the whole alt.country/No Depression/Americana thing, that didn't stop me from being impressed all to hell by the latest from Chris Knight, the Handsome Family, Danny Barnes, Gillian Welch and newcomer Star City. Veteran punk rock troupe the Damned knocked me out both on record and in concert. Buddy Guy and Harry Manx kept the blues alive, Jason Moran and Dave Holland took jazz to new places, Idlewild and Oscura flew the flag of modern rock, Dallas Wayne refreshed honkytonk C&W, the Drive-By Truckers paid tribute to southern rock and Nick Cave did whatever the hell it is he does so well. Cousteau, Paranoise and the Medea Connection made albums that were damn near indescribable.
But the genre that absolutely blew my head off this year was one I've always dismissed as ear candy for sexually frustrated teenagers: heavy metal. I came of age in the 80s, when metal was at its worst, as personified by the hair metal of Poison, Cinderella, et al, and I'd never acquired a taste for "classic" bands like Led Zeppelin and Kiss or modern bands like Metallica (and still haven't). Over the years there was the occasional metal-associated act I'd develop an interest in—Tool, the Galactic Cowboys, King's X—but outside of the Seattle grunge scene, which was considered "alternative rock" rather than metal, there was little in the headbanging sphere that drew my attention.
But this year, having grown bored with just about everything else to which I normally listened, I decided to sail into the hitherto uncharted (for me) waters of the heavy metal sea. I developed an appreciation, at long last, for Black Sabbath. (Masters of Reality rules.) On book and record store shelves, I discovered some fine metal publications, from the high-class Terrorizer to the glossy fanzine The Pit. (Revolver blows, however.) As a journalist, I attempted to insinuate myself into the good graces of metal labels. (Thanks, Century Media.) I voluntarily listened to Judas Priest. ("Breaking the Law," "Living After Midnight" and "Freewheel Burning" kick ass, the rest sucks it.) I began the long road to familiarizing myself with subgenres like doom, death, black, Goth, progressive and power metal, and terms like stoner rock (metal derived from Black Sabbath, the Stooges and psychedelia) and "beauty and the beast" (bands that alternate between a growling male vocalist and an operatic female soprano). In short, I actually learned to bang my head at least a little.
My hands-down favorite this year was Clutch, a groove-laden four-piece from Virginia that seems hell-bent on cramming every form of metal down its throat and vomiting it all back up better for the experience. Their album Pure Rock Fury was a revelation and spent many, many hours in my car's CD player. A close runner-up was the irresistibly strange Imaginary Sonicscapes by the Japanese trio Sigh, a band that never met a musical genre it couldn't somehow incorporate into thrashing black metal. I was also extremely impressed by Blackwater Park, the latest from Sweden's Opeth, a band labeled death metal but adept at absorbing the influences of the old psychedelic and progressive rock LPs it consumes on a daily basis. Portugal's Moonspell introduced me to the pleasures of Gothic metal, while Finland's Amorphis and Sweden's Katatonia showed me how organically death metal can evolve. Another Scandinavian combo, In Thy Dreams, released Highest Beauty, perhaps the purest expression of inchoate anger I've ever heard (though I found myself unable to endure it in its entirety). The goofy so-called "troll metal" of Nordic troupe Finntroll proved to me that death/black metal can have a sense of humor (no easy thing), while NYC's Candiria demonstrated the best way to combine thrash, jazz, hip-hop and hardcore punk. Northeast collective maudlin of the Well followed the lead of Sigh with a bizarre, poetic melange of every style of music it loves grafted onto a death metal base. While I ultimately found them to be too silly, po-faced power metal bands Kamelot, Rhapsody, Angra and Gamma Ray sported a dedication to craft and melody I hadn't thought to be a requirement for the genre.
Then there were the stoner rock bands, to use a designation every band slapped with it hates. Nebula, a group that distances itself from any easy categorization, released Charged, its best album yet. I discovered Scott "Wino" Weinrich, the man who carried the torch for Sabbath-styled metal in the 80s, braintrust for the Obsessed (whose out-of-print records I tracked down—find The Church Within if you can), current leader of the amazing Spirit Caravan, whose 2001 release Elusive Truth blazed its own hard-rocking trail. Monster Magnet finally realized its potential by bringing its psychedelic hard rock into the modern era with God Says No. Five Horse Johnson reminded with The No. 6 Dance me that the blues are as much the roots of metal as anything else. Mammoth Volume mixed elements of Yes with Sabbath grunge, the Rollins Band and Solarized rocked like motherfuckers and Roachpowder, the Spiritual Beggars, Lid, Supershine and Sea of Green kept the faith in heaviosity. As Scorched Earth, members of U.K. psych/rock/pop combos the Bevis Frond and the Alchemysts paid glorious tribute to the whole sprawling thing with the amazing Fed to Your Head.
There was so much I couldn't get to. Bands on the list for future investigation: Dimmu Borgir, Emperor, Cradle of Filth, Celtic Frost, Pentagram, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Anathema, Sixty Watt Shaman, Novadriver, Electric Wizard, Cathedral, Tiamat, Lacuna Coil, Bottom. Bands which escaped my grasping fingers despite my best efforts at locating them: Fireball Ministry, Acid King, Angel Rot, High on Fire, Sleep and especially stoner pioneers Trouble (anybody know where I can find a copy of Manic Frustration?).
There's always more to explore, and I'm always up for it, even if my wallet isn't. Of course, next year at this time I'll probably be obsessing over another genre I've not yet dipped my toes into, though I'll continue my metal odyssey to a differing degree. My neck will be sore by that time anyway.
