Even so, I manage to find out about good bands eventually, and this year I was lucky enough to discover some really extraordinary music.  The list of bands I found out about is far too lengthy to expound upon, but the few albums that I became obsessed with that were actually released in 2008 are deserving of far more praise than I can heap upon them.  So here they are, more or less in order of their ability to change your life, rock your face, or soothe your soul.  In fact, they can probably do all that shit.

Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

If there was an album more amazing than Vampire Weekend released in 2008, I didn’t hear it.  Instantly refreshing, endlessly catchy, and almost criminally upbeat, this album exudes originality and is everything an indie band could aspire to.  Plus, it was released on my birthday last January — how cool is that?

There’s a little bit of everything in here.  “Campus” is a love song for college days gone by (something that feels wonderfully current for this student), but even weightier songs like “Walcott” manage to retain a cheerful sensibility while dropping lines like “Fuck the women from Wellfleet.”
 

Vampire Weekend have established themselves as the most promising new band on the scene.  If they somehow manage to top their self-titled debut with a sophomore release, it’ll be history in the making.

The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely

It’s like Jack White took the rock and blues bottled up in his soul, accumulated gradually over the years from his work in The White Stripes, and poured it out in Consolers of the Lonely.  The album absolutely blows away the group’s first effort, Broken Boy Soldiers, which was a decent enough rock album in its own right.  Consolers of the Lonely is a full-blown, unconstrained rock album with some wonderfully bluesy undertones.  It feels a bit chaotic at times, but the chaos is always wonderfully utilized, and with the exception of a few moments of overboard screaming guitars, it’s a powerhouse on all fronts–lyrically, instrumentally, and vocally.

It’s hard to pick a standout when every song is so good.  “Salute Your Solution,” “Consolers of the Lonely,” and “You Don’t Understand” me are all wonderful, but when the album rocks out on “Hold Up” or takes it back a notch on “Rich Kid Blues,” it’s just as effective.  Through all the wonderful tracks, though, the bizarre but absolutely amazing “Carolina Drama” always kept me coming back for more.  I can’t really tell you why.  Just ask the milkman.

Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line

I listened to Ra Ra Riot’s self-titled EP earlier this year, about the same time I discovered Vampire Weekend.  Ra Ra Riot is definitely another fantastic up-and-coming indie band, but I didn’t realize until just a few weeks ago that they had released their first full-length album, The Rhumb Line, this August.  Needless to say, it’s fantastic.

While my favorite song is likely still “Each Year,” Ra Ra Riot did a great job of filling out their six song EP into a full release.  A few things draw me to the band more than anything else — lyrically and vocally, they’re an absolute powerhouse, thanks to singer Wes Miles, and the inclusion of strings in rock music gets me every time.  Throw a violin and a cello into a rock setup and put the instruments into the hands of talented people, and wonders will come out.

I had the opportunity to see Ra Ra Riot live at the 40 Watt in Athens just a few weeks ago, and it was an incredible show — probably one of the highlights of my year.  And the thought of my copy of The Rhumb Line on vinyl still makes me a little giddy.

The K-Macks – Welcome, Everybody

It’s time to give some serious props to a local group, whose presence in the Athens, Ga. music scene excites me for a couple reasons.  The first is that, well, they’re really good.  The second is that these guys went to high scool with me, and it’s exciting to see them create something so full of heart and soul.

Kevin and Max have been playing music for years, but Welcome, Everybody is the first time I’ve really heard their work in a concentrated, refined form.  At first, I liked it, but thought it could be better.  But it kept sucking me back in, and after every listen it got better and better.  The fact that they’re my most listened to artist of the last few months is a testament to the staying power of Welcome, Everybody, and to how deceptively great it is.  Far too often I find myself wrapped up in the poignant (or slightly depressing) lyrics, hardly paying any attention to the instrumentation beneath it all.  Kevin’s scratchy voice leads most of the songs, but when the pair trade out or combine their powers to form Captain Planet, it’s quality stuff.  Above all, the album just feels unusually real, and that sincerity is what truly raises it above the pack.

If you pick up a copy (and I heartily recommend it), make sure to stay tuned through the end for a hidden track.  You won’t want to miss it.

A lot of times, when I hear people talk about how much a band has matured, I mentally roll my eyes and nod in vague agreement.  I hear this in conversation about bands pretty frequently, and most of the time I’m not so sure what it, y’know, means.  There are plenty of bands that radically change their musical style over the years, or become more politically or socially aware.  Or maybe they just improve as musicians.  Mostly, though, it’s a way to say a band is good–or better than they used to be–while coming off as someone in the know.

But now I either have to throw out that cynical view, or lump myself in with the guys and gals who want to look intelligent and hip.  And it’s Brand New’s fault.

In my senior year of high school, I was forced to endure the punk and “emo” music played by a friend of mine on a near-daily basis (sup Steven).  At the time, I disliked nearly all of it (my tastes have since broadened, but we’ll get to that in a bit).  Every so often, though, there was a song that stuck out as tolerable.  Or, dare I say it, good.  One of these, though I didn’t know the name at the time, was “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows” by Brand New, off their sophomore album Deja Entendu (2003).

Fast forward a few years–about eight months ago, I started listening to Brand New, a band I would have once passed off as emo, a word in my mind synonymous with a lot of unsavory terms.  “Shit” would be a good example.  So I listened to Your Favorite Weapon, their first album, released in 2001.  In general, I wasn’t really impressed.  I was starting to warm to the vocal styles and typical lyrical material found across the emo genre, but not much about Your Favorite Weapon stood out to me.

Then there was Deja Entendu.  I recently heard the album described as the perfection of emo, and I couldn’t agree more.  The angst is there in spades, but it’s never annoying.  Love, sex, fear, anger–all the emotions you could possibly have coursing through you as a teenager are represented here in songs that are both catchy and evocative.  It’s heavy stuff, but the instrumentation is so powerful that it’s easy just to be absorbed by the sound without being too bogged down in the gravity of the lyrics.  Jesse Lacey took the emo genre, poured himself into it, and then took it out of the oven–consider it done.

Then there’s The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me.

I don’t even know what this album is.  It’s not emo–or at the very least, it’s not your older brother’s emo.  It’s phoenix-from-the-ashes emo, and the “alternative” tag probably fits it better than anything.  More than any album I’ve ever heard, The Devil and God shows an incredible maturation from its predecessor.

We’ll start with the lyrics.  Emotionally, this album is even more powerful than Deja Entendu.  But it’s different.  The teen angst is gone, replaced by something more nebulous.  The longing and the pain are still present, and the development is easier to feel than it is to describe.  Lacey’s voice has also improved, and manages to maintain the angsty emo edge while sounding far more mature and haunting.  He may still be searching for answers, but he’s not the same man he was when Deja Entendu was released.  Lacey says more about himself in “Sowing Season” than I really could: “I am not your friend. I am just a man who knows how to feel.”

The entire album is incredible, but the first four songs are especially powerful.  If you haven’t heard “Sowing Season,” “Millstone,” “Jesus,” or “Degausser,” consider yourself deprived.  Putting aside the fantastic lyrics, The Devil and God fucking explodes instrumentally.  The guitar sound is hard-driving and especially unique.  “Sowing Season” establishes a common technique used throughout the album, as songs often build from a soft, vulnerable starting point to a blaring, wailing finish.  “Jesus,” which stays pretty mellow, nevertheless features an incredibly memorable and recognizable guitar riff.  You’ll know it when you hear it.

Guitarist Vincent Accardi doesn’t deserve all the credit, of course.  The percussion is absolutely fantastic, and The Devil and God will be a slice of heaven for bass-lovers out there; the album’s lower-end is rich and really drives quite a few of the songs.  A couple songs on the album are nealy entirely instrumental, but maintain–or exceed–the intensity of the rest of the album.  The use of a choir, as well as ambient noises and sound bites in some tracks add to the sense of dischord and internal emotional struggle that shapes the entire album.  It’s not as abstract as Pink Floyd, but the instrumentation and background noise do a lot to add to the complexity and abiguity of the album’s sound.

Their second album perfected a genre; their third defied it, creating something incredibly distinct and complex in the process.  The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me shattered the mold.  Whatever Brand New does next, I can’t wait to hear it.  I have a feeling it will, once again, defy my expectations.

The Rock Opera is an unusual and rare musical form that I can’t say I’m especially familiar with.  The Who’s Tommy is actually the only example I could name off the top of my head; and even then, the term is a little fuzzy.  According to Wikipedia, a rock opera differs from the more common concept album (a la the wonderful Sgt. Pepper’s) by being, well, operatic.  The album has to have some sort of storyline, as expressed by a singer or singers who personify certain characters in the narrative or recount their adventures.

Anyway, to the point of all of this.  Thanks to a timely Penny Arcade update, I learned of the band The Protomen.  They have recently released a demo from their new album, which I proceeded to listen to.  That was all I needed.  I was entranced, but Breaking Out couldn’t prepare me for the brain fucking The Protomen were about to give me.

The Protomen’s self-titled album is a rock opera through and through.  The story is based on Mega Man, and the immortal conflict between Dr. Light’s creation and the evil robot-ruling Dr. Wiley.  But The Protomen tells a tale far removed from the innocent 8-bit storytelling of the original Mega Man games.  It’s a dark, depressing future in which Dr. Wiley controls humanity with an army of robots.  Worse, humanity is unwilling to fight for its own freedom.  The album practically exudes George Orwell.  Hope lies with the proles, but they won’t stand for themselves…

The album kicks off with, quite possibly, my favorite track: “Hope Rides Alone.”  The beginning sets up the story with a quiet narration that could easily evoke images of Kyle Reese in The Terminator, explaining the destruction of humanity with unusual calmness.

“No one was left who could remember how it had happened, how the world had fallen under darkness. At least no one who would do anything. No one who would oppose the robots. No one who would challenge their power, or so Dr. Wily believed..”

I love Hope Rides Alone enough to quote the entire song, but we won’t go there.  The song is actually about Protoman, Dr. Light’s first creation, who he sends to oppose Dr. Wiley and his robots.  And when the moment of truth comes, when Protoman is struggling at the verge of death, the people gather to watch him fall.

“The crowd had gathered there to watch him fall, to watch their hopes destroyed. They watched them beat him, they watched them break him, they watched his last defense deployed. There was not a man among them who would let himself be heard. But from the crowd, from the collective fear, arose these broken words: We are the dead…”

Humanity, you pussies!  Protoman dies, and the flicker of hope is extinguished.  Movement II A: Funeral for a Son is a horn- and organ-driven instrumental piece that really carries the somber, remorseful tone from the end of the first act to its natural conclusion, as Dr. Light grieves for Protoman.  But the tale isn’t over, and it’s in the second part of Act II that we hit our rock opera stride.

II B: Unrest in the House of Light takes a pretty bizarre thematic shift into…western territory?  If you’ve ever seen any of Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti western films, you can probably recognize the influence.  It’s that horse-ridin’ rhythmic beat that carries Dr. Light’s narration, as he recounts the death of Protoman.  But who is he speaking to?  This is where the album gets a bit harder to follow, which is natural given the character-based narration.  Maybe he’s never referenced specifically to avoid copyright issues–I’m not sure–but Dr. Light is speaking to his second son, Mega Man.  He pleads with Mega Man not to leave, to travel the same doomed path that Protoman took before him.

III: The Will of One.  Mega Man speaks with Light about his destiny, and decides that he cannot remain safe inside while the people without suffer.  The instrumentation returns to a harder, electric guitar-driven form, with a background synthesizer that definitely brings 80s video game music to mind.  Despite the simplicity of the platforms, composers 20 years ago managed to create some incredibly catchy and memorable tunes.  As the song ends and Mega Man faces down Wiley’s robots, they give us another taste of dystopian oppression:

“We have control. We keep you safe. We are your hope. We are in control.”

IV: Vengeance.  The music takes on an even harder edge as Mega Man screams at Wiley’s forces.  He’s determined to destroy everything Wiley sends against him, but something is not right…

V: The Stand (Man or Machine).  All of a sudden we’re back to somber, reflective…piano begins the song, but why?  Because Protoman is not really dead.  Forsaken by humanity, he has turned his back on his own people.  Can Mega Man kill the brother he set out to avenge for the sake of a people who will not stand for themselves?

VI: Sons of Fate.  The final battle.  Musically, Sons of Fate is probably the most difficult track to follow.  It’s fast, and the opening is a back-and-forth conversation between Mega Man and Protoman that can take several listens to understand.  As the crowd demands the death of Protoman, Mega Man finally realizes that his brother is right: there are no heroes left in man.  We are the dead.

Epilogue: Due Vendetta.  The final track is actually disconnected from the rest of the album, but it’s pretty awesome nonetheless.  It actually samples Mega Man, and it’s basically a rockin’-out closing to round out the album.

The Protomen is an incredible album for so many reasons.  The concept is practically unheard of, and they actually pull it off.  If you just want to sit back and listen to some kickass music, it’ll suit you just as well.  There’s plenty of electric guitar and bass to satisfy just about anyone, but those looking for more can really get into the story.  Or the vocalists, who give each track a unique feel.

I have already decided to make it a personal mission to see them live as soon as possible.  I have a feeling it will be a hell of an experience.  In the meantime, listen to them on Last.fm.  Then listen to them again.  When it sinks in how amazing what you’ve just heard really is, buy it.