Echo the picks for Low, LCD and Sennen (Laid Out is a cracking song). My number one pick would be The Woods by Sleater-Kinney. Not been munched moved by their previous stuff but this blew me away. It’s just sound huge. An absolute blast.
Hi Darren! I've not heard Hood but I'll definitely check them out. For me, the album of this year was Haughty Melodic by Mike Doughty. Fantastic songs like I Hear the Bells and Busting Up a Starbucks are up there with the best of his work with Soul Coughing, even if the arrangements don't have Soul Coughing's quirkiness. The news earlier this year that Soul Coughing had reformed and were going to tour the US (I really hope they make it to Britain!) meant much more to me than this morning's announcement that a couple of Mancunians have decided to stop arguing long enough to count the money.
You always make these albums sound so fascinating. There are definitely some that I have been really glad that I checked out, so thank you for turning me on to new music (thanks also for the recommendation on the Futureheads, by the way, I enjoyed that album thoroughly). I don't know if I have a favorite for 2005. There were definitely some albums that I listened to a lot that year, but nothing that really stuck around in my regular rotation. I know that I gave Elevator by Hot Hot Heat a lot of spins that year, and it still holds up, so maybe I'll go with that? I'd like to say Twin Cinema by New Ponographers, but I am pretty sure I didn't discover that until 2006, and I always skip the Dan Bejar songs, so that means I'm not even experiencing the full album. But I will give this a listen, for sure! See you next week!
Cheers Chris! One comparison I didn't make with this album (although maybe should have, despite it being a bit of a "default" for this type of thing) is Radiohead. What was the "genre" they tried to spin this off as back in the day? Indietronica? That always sounded a bit perfunctory to me. Either way, if you liked turn-of-the-millennium Radiohead, there's a good chance you'll be very into this. Melancholic, a little introspective, a seamless melding of dark indie folk and electronic experimentation... I've never stopped playing this one. A real personal favorite. D
2005 for me is absolutely Low "The Great Destroyer" that you mentioned. "When I Go Deaf" may be my favorite Low song of all time, the explosive guitar at the end gets me every time and I have often said might be my favorite distorted guitar sound I have ever heard on a recording!
I remember a few of the "double-takes" in the music press at the time regarding their "new" sound. It was all hot air, of course. The songs are great, and it felt like the start of a concerted effort to keep trying new things, sounds, production styles. That held them in very good stead over the next decade or so. Closest I've got to that WIGD guitar sound is via the Durham Crazy Horse fuzz...it does that blown-out starved voltage thing that Neil Young's old Tweed Deluxes are legendary for. A pretty straightforward circuit/build, too, if you're into DIY FX! Cheers, D
@@discellany I have dabbled in DIY pedal builds but it seems I always have above a 50% failure rate on it actually working! I have thought about getting one of those Durham fuzzes many times. Alan Sparhawk was big on Zvex pedals because they were made in his home state of Minnesota. In that era he was big on the Zvex Octane pedal which I of course own because of it! I definitely think that is the pedal used on "When I go deaf"... I can get very close with it except I am a crap guitarist and can't play like Alan!
Always enjoyed the odd bit of Hood but never delved - will definitely now starting with this. 2005 was the mid-point of my 20s and a pretty good year for youthful upbeat chaotic fayre - Animal Collective's 'Feels' and Deerhoof's 'The Runners Four' in particular, along with my favourite of the year: 'Kore Ga Mayaku Da' by Afrirampo' - the best live band I've ever seen - the album captures some of the magic of the interplay and seamless flow between grind, psychedelia, pop punk and playful improvisation. Also enjoyed the intensity of M83's 'Before the Dawn Heals Us' before they went hipstery poseur for a couple of decades. Malcom Middleton's 'Into the Woods' is one of my favourite straighforward confessional records and MIA's 'Arular' was tremendously exciting when it first came out.
LCD is so good but this year belongs to Against Me’s! ‘searching for a former clarity’. I can’t remember too much about this year. I’d seen the Bronx the summer before at the leeds festival and sworn to lead a band like that. I think this year was that idea writ large. I wrote dozens of songs and we got off the ground. mansions of glory was up and running and I think we were ok.
The year my daughter was born 🌟 My 2005 favorites include: Smog - A river aint,,,, Black Taj - Black Taj Truly - Feeling you up Shipping News - Flies the fields Jonathan Wilson - Frankie Ray Spoon - Gimme Fiction And my top favorite would be Sufjan Stevens’s ‘Illinois’ Cheers Darren and thanks once again🌟🎶
Nice pick :) I'm admittedly not quite as cozily familiar with it as you but will give it another spin soon, thanks to your warm description! I'm a bit of a sucker for Sleater-Kinney phase 2, so for me the Woods may be this year's pick, also a swan song album but they DID come back. I think I'll leave it at that. Congrats also on your son's exultant exam experience!
Cheers. Sleater-Kinney were always one of those "off-to-one-side" bands for me that friends listened to, but I never gave as much time to as I (probably) should have. Ironically enough, I've probably listened to more Quasi than I have S-K. Yeah, very proud of him. He totally blew the lid off his predicted grades (which were impressive enough in themselves) and bagged his first-choice 6th form college spot with room to spare. D
Looking forward to listening to the Hood album. I think I created my longest shortlist this week with 11 albums. But Bloc Party, The National and Editors miss out because I didn't buy/listen to any of them in 2005*. Cutting to the chase, just for the vibe, particularly on "I see you, You see me" with its understated instrumental outro, my choice is the debut by The Magic Numbers. * You guessed it, Alligator would have won, standout track All the Wine
I'm gonna stick my neck out here and bet that a lot of people who hear "Outside Closer" for the first time are gonna love it. There. I've probably gone and jinxed it now...but it's definitely one of those "sleeper" records of the time that's fallen off most people's radar. Great reviews back in the day...they'd been plugging away for 15 years, increasingly tired of playing live, and just felt they'd missed their moment. A real shame. Brief aside...I saw pre-Alligator National supporting a friend's band (I actually "guested" on a track of hers...one of my very few discogs mentions!) way back in 2002. No idea they'd up their game in quite the way they did! Cheers, D
Certainly one of the most underrated. Such a quietly perfect evolution over that 15 years they were active. There's a quote in the interview linked in the description that says (paraphrasing) their entire body of work makes a lot more sense looking back now, than it did at the time of release. A perfect description, I think. They're absolutely ripe for rediscovery. Cheers, D
Have you covered the Norwich scene? Would love to find out more. I remember enjoying KaitO live (and on record) and I was disappointed when they disbanded.
The Norwich scene? Honestly, it always felt quite fragmented to me. Always lots of bands from different parts of Norfolk, rather than just "city" bands...Waddle (Sheringham), Magoo (King's Lynn), Catherine Wheel (Great Yarmouth), etc. That did change over time...The Bardots, Fiel Garvie, KaitO, Bearsuit, Navigator, Sennen...but it never felt like there was ever more than one band "breaking out" in a meaningful way at any one time. Cheers, D
Wow, barren year. Low aside, looking through a list of albums from 2005 only really yielded the first Editors record (inspired by a lonely night's Jules Holland. Still have a guilty soft spot for those initial 2 CDs) and Anthony and the Johnsons. Sadly the year's list did nothing but remind me of things I should've probably mentioned in the past 😢
The '00s is very "peaky". I have a few years coming up with only a couple of records on my shortlist (I'll revisit those and see if I haven't missed anything obvious), and one that's positively brimming with options. Cheers, D
Ok, you got me. I'll have to listen to that Hood record, then. On you go. But really, it's the Great Destroyer for me by so far that measuring it would be foolish. When I go deaf does that huge, noisy textured ending, but Low make it about something entirely different than a noise-out gesture or a pose. How can a song called Pissing break me in the feelings? The whole record, really, in short. It's one of my favourites of theirs even though I think the cool kids look down on me for that. Speaking of not being cool, there's one other 2005 record I adore, but you're not going to like it, and even I wasn't sure why I loved it at first given that, whisper it, it's a bit prog in places. It's Black Mountain's first record, featuring the bloody wonderful Druganaut, as well as some far less accessible noodling. I love Stephen McBean, I love his Pink Mountaintops stuff (Outside Love is a stunningly delicate thing) as well as the far more unashamed rock of Black Mountain and their sublime first two records. And the thing is, for all that it does a bit of the old Big Riffs, they also have all the hooks and melancholy of people who have lived a life in music and are as at home in hardcore as the 70s. It's a slab of joy, but no, I don't see this on at yours.To answer the immortal question, then: Riffs? Yes, Mr The Poppies, I can and sometimes do dig them thank you very much for asking. And this is the musical point in the noughties when things start looking up again for me, but gladly I don't think you have to be a fan of peculiar Canadian guitar stylings to agree. More Canada to come as well this decade, too
In a spirit of fair and open exchange, I am, as I write this, playing Black Mountain's debut. I like me some riffs, have dabbled in a little of the new wave of "stoner" (enjoy me some Dead Meadow), and am hearing much to like here. I will proceed and report back. This Hood album is rather special in a kind of lovelorn post-rock vein. The moods aren't left as abstract pseudo-cinematic constructs for you to fill in the blanks...they're about people, relationships, feelings, and not couched in structure and stylistic shorthand. When you consider the gap between Slint's "Washer" and, say, the GYBE stuff, then you wonder what made people think they could leave themselves out of the equation and still connect long term. Much to debate there, I'm sure, but this is one is firmly of the "feelie" variety, less prone to that drifting emotional dissonance that comes with age/distance. I'll stop there before things go a bit "Fulcrum" and I'm forced to don an unsuitably chafening polo neck. "The Great Destroyer" is fine and dandy with me. Maybe not my favorite, but some humdingers therein. Forgot to mention "Broadway" in the video. Silly me. But then...you knew that, didn't you? Dx
Echo the picks for Low, LCD and Sennen (Laid Out is a cracking song).
My number one pick would be The Woods by Sleater-Kinney. Not been munched moved by their previous stuff but this blew me away. It’s just sound huge. An absolute blast.
The year I started listening to music properly again. Pleasing to see some of that years discoveries come up.
Hi Darren! I've not heard Hood but I'll definitely check them out. For me, the album of this year was Haughty Melodic by Mike Doughty. Fantastic songs like I Hear the Bells and Busting Up a Starbucks are up there with the best of his work with Soul Coughing, even if the arrangements don't have Soul Coughing's quirkiness. The news earlier this year that Soul Coughing had reformed and were going to tour the US (I really hope they make it to Britain!) meant much more to me than this morning's announcement that a couple of Mancunians have decided to stop arguing long enough to count the money.
Absolute love Hood, followed em since I've Forgotten How To Live. Good to see em here. On point as always
You always make these albums sound so fascinating. There are definitely some that I have been really glad that I checked out, so thank you for turning me on to new music (thanks also for the recommendation on the Futureheads, by the way, I enjoyed that album thoroughly).
I don't know if I have a favorite for 2005. There were definitely some albums that I listened to a lot that year, but nothing that really stuck around in my regular rotation. I know that I gave Elevator by Hot Hot Heat a lot of spins that year, and it still holds up, so maybe I'll go with that?
I'd like to say Twin Cinema by New Ponographers, but I am pretty sure I didn't discover that until 2006, and I always skip the Dan Bejar songs, so that means I'm not even experiencing the full album. But I will give this a listen, for sure!
See you next week!
Cheers Chris! One comparison I didn't make with this album (although maybe should have, despite it being a bit of a "default" for this type of thing) is Radiohead. What was the "genre" they tried to spin this off as back in the day? Indietronica? That always sounded a bit perfunctory to me. Either way, if you liked turn-of-the-millennium Radiohead, there's a good chance you'll be very into this. Melancholic, a little introspective, a seamless melding of dark indie folk and electronic experimentation... I've never stopped playing this one. A real personal favorite. D
2005 for me is absolutely Low "The Great Destroyer" that you mentioned. "When I Go Deaf" may be my favorite Low song of all time, the explosive guitar at the end gets me every time and I have often said might be my favorite distorted guitar sound I have ever heard on a recording!
I remember a few of the "double-takes" in the music press at the time regarding their "new" sound. It was all hot air, of course. The songs are great, and it felt like the start of a concerted effort to keep trying new things, sounds, production styles. That held them in very good stead over the next decade or so.
Closest I've got to that WIGD guitar sound is via the Durham Crazy Horse fuzz...it does that blown-out starved voltage thing that Neil Young's old Tweed Deluxes are legendary for. A pretty straightforward circuit/build, too, if you're into DIY FX! Cheers, D
@@discellany I have dabbled in DIY pedal builds but it seems I always have above a 50% failure rate on it actually working! I have thought about getting one of those Durham fuzzes many times. Alan Sparhawk was big on Zvex pedals because they were made in his home state of Minnesota. In that era he was big on the Zvex Octane pedal which I of course own because of it! I definitely think that is the pedal used on "When I go deaf"... I can get very close with it except I am a crap guitarist and can't play like Alan!
Always enjoyed the odd bit of Hood but never delved - will definitely now starting with this. 2005 was the mid-point of my 20s and a pretty good year for youthful upbeat chaotic fayre - Animal Collective's 'Feels' and Deerhoof's 'The Runners Four' in particular, along with my favourite of the year: 'Kore Ga Mayaku Da' by Afrirampo' - the best live band I've ever seen - the album captures some of the magic of the interplay and seamless flow between grind, psychedelia, pop punk and playful improvisation. Also enjoyed the intensity of M83's 'Before the Dawn Heals Us' before they went hipstery poseur for a couple of decades. Malcom Middleton's 'Into the Woods' is one of my favourite straighforward confessional records and MIA's 'Arular' was tremendously exciting when it first came out.
I’d have to pick LCD. Also really liked Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Also, Antony and the Johnsons I am Bird Now was fantastic.
LCD is so good but this year belongs to Against Me’s! ‘searching for a former clarity’.
I can’t remember too much about this year. I’d seen the Bronx the summer before at the leeds festival and sworn to lead a band like that. I think this year was that idea writ large. I wrote dozens of songs and we got off the ground. mansions of glory was up and running and I think we were ok.
The year my daughter was born 🌟 My 2005 favorites include:
Smog - A river aint,,,,
Black Taj - Black Taj
Truly - Feeling you up
Shipping News - Flies the fields
Jonathan Wilson - Frankie Ray
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
And my top favorite would be Sufjan Stevens’s ‘Illinois’
Cheers Darren and thanks once again🌟🎶
Thanks Erwin. They grow up so quick. Still a couple of years until my boy was born, but even that seems like a lifetime ago now! D
@@discellany 🌟
Nice pick :) I'm admittedly not quite as cozily familiar with it as you but will give it another spin soon, thanks to your warm description! I'm a bit of a sucker for Sleater-Kinney phase 2, so for me the Woods may be this year's pick, also a swan song album but they DID come back. I think I'll leave it at that.
Congrats also on your son's exultant exam experience!
Cheers. Sleater-Kinney were always one of those "off-to-one-side" bands for me that friends listened to, but I never gave as much time to as I (probably) should have. Ironically enough, I've probably listened to more Quasi than I have S-K.
Yeah, very proud of him. He totally blew the lid off his predicted grades (which were impressive enough in themselves) and bagged his first-choice 6th form college spot with room to spare. D
@@discellany Well, Janet Weiss is in the band! Interesting and fascinating all these crossovers/side projects and interconnected bands...
Looking forward to listening to the Hood album.
I think I created my longest shortlist this week with 11 albums. But Bloc Party, The National and Editors miss out because I didn't buy/listen to any of them in 2005*. Cutting to the chase, just for the vibe, particularly on "I see you, You see me" with its understated instrumental outro, my choice is the debut by The Magic Numbers.
* You guessed it, Alligator would have won, standout track All the Wine
I'm gonna stick my neck out here and bet that a lot of people who hear "Outside Closer" for the first time are gonna love it. There. I've probably gone and jinxed it now...but it's definitely one of those "sleeper" records of the time that's fallen off most people's radar. Great reviews back in the day...they'd been plugging away for 15 years, increasingly tired of playing live, and just felt they'd missed their moment. A real shame.
Brief aside...I saw pre-Alligator National supporting a friend's band (I actually "guested" on a track of hers...one of my very few discogs mentions!) way back in 2002. No idea they'd up their game in quite the way they did! Cheers, D
Animal Colletive- Feels it's my fovorite record feo 2005. Great as allways
Hood imho are the best English band of all time
Certainly one of the most underrated. Such a quietly perfect evolution over that 15 years they were active. There's a quote in the interview linked in the description that says (paraphrasing) their entire body of work makes a lot more sense looking back now, than it did at the time of release. A perfect description, I think.
They're absolutely ripe for rediscovery. Cheers, D
Have you covered the Norwich scene? Would love to find out more.
I remember enjoying KaitO live (and on record) and I was disappointed when they disbanded.
The Norwich scene? Honestly, it always felt quite fragmented to me. Always lots of bands from different parts of Norfolk, rather than just "city" bands...Waddle (Sheringham), Magoo (King's Lynn), Catherine Wheel (Great Yarmouth), etc. That did change over time...The Bardots, Fiel Garvie, KaitO, Bearsuit, Navigator, Sennen...but it never felt like there was ever more than one band "breaking out" in a meaningful way at any one time. Cheers, D
Wow, barren year. Low aside, looking through a list of albums from 2005 only really yielded the first Editors record (inspired by a lonely night's Jules Holland. Still have a guilty soft spot for those initial 2 CDs) and Anthony and the Johnsons. Sadly the year's list did nothing but remind me of things I should've probably mentioned in the past 😢
The '00s is very "peaky". I have a few years coming up with only a couple of records on my shortlist (I'll revisit those and see if I haven't missed anything obvious), and one that's positively brimming with options. Cheers, D
Ok, you got me. I'll have to listen to that Hood record, then. On you go.
But really, it's the Great Destroyer for me by so far that measuring it would be foolish. When I go deaf does that huge, noisy textured ending, but Low make it about something entirely different than a noise-out gesture or a pose. How can a song called Pissing break me in the feelings? The whole record, really, in short. It's one of my favourites of theirs even though I think the cool kids look down on me for that.
Speaking of not being cool, there's one other 2005 record I adore, but you're not going to like it, and even I wasn't sure why I loved it at first given that, whisper it, it's a bit prog in places. It's Black Mountain's first record, featuring the bloody wonderful Druganaut, as well as some far less accessible noodling. I love Stephen McBean, I love his Pink Mountaintops stuff (Outside Love is a stunningly delicate thing) as well as the far more unashamed rock of Black Mountain and their sublime first two records. And the thing is, for all that it does a bit of the old Big Riffs, they also have all the hooks and melancholy of people who have lived a life in music and are as at home in hardcore as the 70s. It's a slab of joy, but no, I don't see this on at yours.To answer the immortal question, then: Riffs? Yes, Mr The Poppies, I can and sometimes do dig them thank you very much for asking.
And this is the musical point in the noughties when things start looking up again for me, but gladly I don't think you have to be a fan of peculiar Canadian guitar stylings to agree. More Canada to come as well this decade, too
In a spirit of fair and open exchange, I am, as I write this, playing Black Mountain's debut. I like me some riffs, have dabbled in a little of the new wave of "stoner" (enjoy me some Dead Meadow), and am hearing much to like here. I will proceed and report back.
This Hood album is rather special in a kind of lovelorn post-rock vein. The moods aren't left as abstract pseudo-cinematic constructs for you to fill in the blanks...they're about people, relationships, feelings, and not couched in structure and stylistic shorthand. When you consider the gap between Slint's "Washer" and, say, the GYBE stuff, then you wonder what made people think they could leave themselves out of the equation and still connect long term. Much to debate there, I'm sure, but this is one is firmly of the "feelie" variety, less prone to that drifting emotional dissonance that comes with age/distance. I'll stop there before things go a bit "Fulcrum" and I'm forced to don an unsuitably chafening polo neck.
"The Great Destroyer" is fine and dandy with me. Maybe not my favorite, but some humdingers therein. Forgot to mention "Broadway" in the video. Silly me. But then...you knew that, didn't you? Dx