DIY's Top 50 Albums of 2011

In the wake of 2007’s spectral *White Chalk*, Polly Jean Harvey turned her songwriting focus outward. Dismayed by the direction of politics in her British homeland and around the world, she set to writing lyrics—fever-dreamish poems that used brutal imagery and borrowed lines from older music—that worked through her sadness and anger. Using three autoharps, each tuned to different, dissonant chord configurations, she transformed the verses into striking, sad songs. *Let England Shake* is an elegiac 21st-century reimagining of the protest album, an urgent call to end global cycles of war that hits harder because of its ghostly sonics. Harvey’s voice is the focal point of *Let England Shake*, although its timbre sharply contrasts with the shredded wailing that made her harsher ‘90s records so celebrated. On songs like the rain-spattered “The Glorious Land” and the swirling “Hanging on the Wire,” she’s in the upper reaches of her range, adding a pleading edge to her cutting observations; she hovers over the echoing chords of “On Battleship Hill” in an unnervingly beautiful way, heightening the horrors once committed on that site. “The Words That Maketh Murder,” meanwhile, accentuates its grimy images with bleating brass and a snippet of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” that simutaneously calls back to the post-World War II era’s seemingly endless promise and mourns the present. *Let England Shake* evokes the fog of war while puncturing it with potent reminders of its bloody reality.

The plump furnishings of their first two albums gone, *Smother is a heartbroken ruin where Wild Beasts add grave, staticky synths to their graceful guitar pop. It turns out they do heartbreak just as well as they do lust, and survey their own failings with the acuity they brought to British mating rituals on Two Dancers. They wring loss from a plate of abandoned breakfast on “Deeper” and Hayden Thorpe gasps at his own cruel nature on “Plaything”.*

With 2009’s *Hospice*, Peter Silberman recruited drummer Michael Lerner and multi-instrumentalist Darby Cicci to help flesh-out what was supposed to be another solo album, but an uncanny chemistry resulted. The music birthed on 2011’s *Burst Apart* is the sound of this chemistry solidifying with stunning beauty and confidence. A confessional “I Don’t Want Love” opens flirting with *OK Computer*-era Radiohead as glimmering electro flourishes and lilting guitar lines compliment Silberman’s woeful falsettos before “French Exit” takes an uncomplicated approach to melodic chamber-pop by building on primary parts to create elemental dynamics with a less-is-more ethos. “Parentheses” is an amazing standout that digs a bit deeper into electronic influences (namely, Boards Of Canada and early recordings by Air) with sequenced beats, pulsing bass loops and Silberman’s high inflections singing soulfully over his band’s organic mechanics. “Rolled Together” gets into Sigur Rós-inspired atmospheres with an infectious lyrical mantra. Bonus track “Tongue Tied” is a robotic dirge with Silberman channeling the future ghost of Thom Yorke.

After two previous releases, St. Vincent (a.k.a. Annie Clark) finds a way to channel her avant-garde instincts in more accessible directions, displaying a firm grasp on pop songwriting forms even as she subverts them. In tandem with producer John Congleton, she plays nervous industrial beats and quivering keyboards against billowing ‘60s-ish melodies. Her cooing vocals on “Cruel” and “Surgeon” insinuate dark scenarios of betrayal and abandonment, transcending mere irony into something palpably sinister. More direct in their intentions are “Cheerleader” (an anthem of personal liberation) and “Champagne Year” (a jaundiced look at success). If Clark’s lyrics tease and dazzle, her music hits hard sonically, clattering to a galloping groove on “Hysterical Strength” and erupting into guitar-fueled cacophony on “Northern Lights.” The otherworldly grandeur of Kate Bush or Björk is recalled on tracks like “Chloe In the Afternoon.” But St. Vincent is in a class all her own as she exorcises sexual demons, grapples with psychic breakdown, and achieves an uncanny catharsis.

It’s fitting that *Eye Contact* — the fifth studio album from Gang Gang Dance — found a home on the esteemed 4AD label; after all, some of the imprint’s earliest signings were purveyors of the sort of mystical/global amalgam favored by Gang Gang Dance. After the Brooklyn quartet injected their own unique brand of experimental music with a tougher street vibe — highlighting the electronic over the organic on 2009’s *Saint Dymphna* — here the band polishes the edges to a softer finish, each track flowing easily to the next in a mix of down-tempo beats, Bollywood melodies and Middle Eastern-inflected rhythms. The epic opener “Glass Jar” is a fantastic intro to the journey ahead, morphing from a fluttering, primordial space-trip to a climactic landing, a splash-down against an intense palette of sunset color and galactic promise. One of the most muscular tracks, the breathless “MindKilla,” has been given the remix treatment by his royal highness, Lee Scratch Perry, and is well worth seeking out.

When The Weeknd’s debut mixtape, *House of Balloons*, dropped in 2011, it was clear, even then, that something had shifted. This was a divergent kind of R&B that hinged on atmospherics over vocal prowess—an almost soulless quality in a genre built around soul. At the time, The Weeknd was largely anonymous, hiding in the shadows of his own music, the aloofness only adding to the allure. He was no one and yet everyone, as his raw, bruised candor resonated with fans suffering the effects of overexposure and contradicting desires to both feel and be numb simultaneously. He was a decent enough singer (his falsetto often drew comparisons to Michael Jackson), but it was the one-two punch of the nocturnal sound and indulgent lyrics—the darkness, the dysfunction, the hazy synth-bath of it all—that gave it staying power. When he says, “Trust me, girl, you wanna be high for this,” as he declares on the opening track, it\'s hard to tell whether it\'s an invitation or a warning, but it landed on ears that were all too happy to oblige. *House of Balloons*, here now in its original form with all samples restored, introduces the sentiment that has underscored nearly all of The Weeknd\'s music that\'s followed: a blurring of the lines between love and addiction, between having a good time and being consumed by it. In multi-part songs such as “House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls” and “The Party & The After Party,” a night\'s zenith and nadir are never too far apart; his audience, like his women, are held captive by the mercurial nature of his moods. A line like “Bring your love, baby, I could bring my shame/Bring the drugs, baby, I could bring my pain,” from lead single “Wicked Games,” serves as a kind of mission statement for the mixtape\'s (and, perhaps, the singer himself\'s) central tension. In the exchange of affection and substances, there exists an emotional transference wherein power is gained by feeling the least. The Weeknd taps into our id-driven urges for pleasure and domination and rewards them again and again. Cruelty somehow becomes sexy in this world where detachment—from everything—is the only goal; the music that he’s created as a soundtrack continues to leave its audience equally insatiable. As the years go by, *House of Balloons* has become increasingly timeless. It remains as much an exercise in mythmaking (and star-making) for The Weeknd as a testament to our own pathological impulses, sending us barreling towards destruction and ecstasy all at once.

When the British soul belter Adele began working on the follow-up to her 2008 debut *19*, she had a difficult time finding songwriting inspiration. Then, her relationship imploded—and within a day of her breakup, she and producer Paul Epworth had written the stormy, tearful \"Rolling in the Deep,\" which would go on to not only open her second album, *21*, but eventually become one of 2011\'s defining singles and set the tone for a vibrant portrait of young heartbreak that showcases Adele\'s fierce alto. On *19*, Adele established herself as a key part of the 2000s class of British R&B-inspired singers that included Amy Winehouse and Duffy. For *21*, however, she added new dimensions to her sound, bringing in ideas borrowed from country, rock, gospel, and modern pop—as well as a gently psychedelic take on the downcast \"Lovesong,\" originally by fellow Brit miserablists The Cure. Adele\'s powerful voice and unguarded feelings were *21*\'s main draw, but her savvy about using them—and only going all in when a song\'s emotional force required her to do so—made it one of the 21st century\'s biggest albums. While a few top-tier producers, including Rick Rubin, Ryan Tedder, and Dan Wilson, worked on *21*, its coherence comes from the woman at its center, whose voice channels the anguish of the stirring ballad \"One and Only,\" the weepy \"Don\'t You Remember,\" and the vengeful \"Rumour Has It.\" The stripped-down \"Someone Like You,\" meanwhile, is the natural bookend to \"Rolling,\" its bittersweet lyrics and quietly anguished vocal sounding like the aftermath of the argument that track began. “*21* isn\'t even my record—it belongs to the people,” Adele told Apple Music in 2015. That\'s true in a sense; *21* was one of the 2010s\' true pop successes, reaching listeners from all over the world. But Adele is its key ingredient, a modern soul singer whose range is only matched by her ability to conjure up deeply felt emotions.

On their sophomore album, Bon Iver add just a touch of color to their stark indie folk, while retaining every bit of its intimacy. The haunting chill of solitude continues to cling to Justin Vernon\'s every word, even when his lilting falsetto radiates warmth over a rich bed of acoustic guitar, synths, and horns. The drama exudes from every little sound—the soft, pattering snare guiding \"Perth,\" the delicate whirrs of sax on \"Holocene,\" and the big, gleaming synths on \'80s-esque noir jam \"Beth / Rest.\"

Bon Iver, Bon Iver is Justin Vernon returning to former haunts with a new spirit. The reprises are there – solitude, quietude, hope and desperation compressed – but always a rhythm arises, a pulse vivified by gratitude and grace notes. The winter, the legend, has faded to just that, and this is the new momentary present. The icicles have dropped, rising up again as grass.

After rolling around in the desert rock sludge of *Humbug*, the British rockers button up their suits for a slightly more refined guitar pop sound on their fourth album. The beats have (mostly) softened and slowed to midtempo grooves, enriched by chiming guitar and polished with a vintage, mid-century sheen on pop gems \"She\'s Thunderstorms\" and \"The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala.\" But the band\'s wild side slips out on \"Brick By Brick,\" which moves frantically over chunky bass and stormy riffs—nearly fast enough to keep up with Alex Turner\'s wordy witticisms.

Producer Jamie xx reimagines Gil Scott-Heron\'s final album, *I\'m New Here*, as a beguiling electronic experiment; the Englishman’s sleek, shimmery production turns the jazz-funk poet’s raw urban tales into supple grooves. \"I\'m New Here\" sets Scott-Heron’s husky baritone against a bass-heavy backdrop with high-pitched Gloria Gaynor samples, and \"Running\" rides on choppy breakbeats and steel drums. The fusion\'s at its finest with the hypnotic dubstep jam \"NY Is Killing Me\" and the xx-like house cut \"I\'ll Take Care of U.\"

Any honey flowing through Lykke Li\'s coy pop fully hardened on this dark and doomy follow-up to her 2008 debut album. The Swedish singer/songwriter traps the loss of youth and love in a warped wall of sound that echoes vintage girl-group pop on big, gushing torch songs like \"Unrequited Love\" and \"Sadness Is a Blessing.\" But she comes into her own when harnessing her womanly power, with big, booming percussion on the tribal-esque thriller \"Get Some.\"

While they’re clearly inspired by classic late ‘80s and early ‘90s shoegaze and indie rock—Ride, Dinosaur Jr., Pavement—this young London quintet proved on their self-titled debut that they could spin their influences into a memorable, blissful, fuzzed-out sound all their own. Whether heavy in the red on the ebullient “Holing Out” or swooning on the sweet, reverb-laden ballad “Stutter,” Yuck’s sunny songwriting has that sense of infinite possibility that, at its best, underground rock music is all about.

After a well-received and ambitious debut in 2009 with *Why There Are Mountains*, New York City’s Cymbals Eat Guitars return with the greatly varied follow-up *Lenses Alien*. It’s impossible to quantify exactly what these folks are up to. Each track suggests a wide range of influences and impulses. But at the music’s heart are an engaging sense of melody and a dramatic interpretation of instrumentation. Frontman Joseph D’Agostino works conversational terrain and unashamed pop with “Definite Darkness,” that features the kind of joy one associates with the Shins and Death Cab For Cutie alongside a wall of sound not uncommon to the Cure. “The Current” broods with an elevated sense of danger. “Wavelengths” is a surprisingly straightforward pop tune, with a keen determination to still explore an assortment of textures. The Cure’s Robert Smith is further evoked during the overwhelming sonic waves in the midst of the sublime “Secret Family.” These are intricate songs, with challenging lyrics to match, but never too complicated to simply enjoy.

Vancouver’s Dan Bejar has always been a sly kind of agitator, tearing apart the conventions of indie rock from the inside out. *Kaputt* turns the sloppy proclamations of his earlier albums on their head, opting for streamlined yacht-club funk in the vein of Steely Dan and \'80s Roxy Music. Though the music is soft and leisurely, Bejar’s lyrics remain serrated: “Hey, mystic prince of the purlieu at night/I heard your record, it’s alright,” he sings on “Savage Night at the Opera,” half-whispering with witty contempt.

The British electronic pop artist James Blake was showered with attention and nominations in his native land in 2010 and 2011. That’s striking because Blake’s music is truly strange. Drawing on the weirder side of R&B as well as leftfield English dance music, the singer/songwriter crafts spare and spooky gems. On “Unluck,” simple electric piano (evocative of ‘70s Sly & The Family Stone), itchy rhythmic tics, and sound blurts serve as a backdrop as Blake sings, at times through a vocoder. The track sounds like something you would hear while a producer was tinkering with a mix, but here it’s the intriguing end result. One of the album’s singles, “The Wilhelm Scream,” is as lovely as it is eldritch. The catchy melody is surrounded by music that is both minimal and ambient. Blake is capable of all sorts of odd moves: on “I Never Learnt to Share,” a beat doesn’t kick in until the cut is more than half over. One of the album’s highlights is a cover of the Canadian songwriter Feist’s “Limit to Your Love,” which consists of his naked voice, piano, and a haunted atmosphere.

Helplessness Blues is the new full-length from Fleet Foxes. Helplessness Blues was recorded over the course of a year at Avast Recording, Bear Creek Studios, Dreamland Studios, and Reciprocal Recording. The album was recorded and mixed by Phil Ek and co-produced by Fleet Foxes and Ek. The piece that appears on the album cover was illustrated by Seattle artist Toby Liebowitz and painted by Chris Alderson. Fleet Foxes is Robin Pecknold, Skyler Skjelset, Christian Wargo, Casey Wescott, Josh Tillman and Morgan Henderson.

“Tame the Sun” opens up the second album by Britain’s Male Bonding, sounding surprisingly — like various ‘90s indie bands run through a pop filter. But as *Endless Now* progresses, John Webb’s brighter guitar sound and the reverb sheen on his (and bass player Kevin Hendrick’s) vocals morph from a sweet froth on tracks like “Tame the Sun” and “Carrying” to a grittier foam topping off tunes like “Bones” and “What’s That Scene.” Fans of their debut can rest easy: any concerns of the trio going soft will be allayed as the listener makes their way through *Endless Now*. Male Bonding hasn’t softened so much as clarified: there is a purity of sound that allows their tunes resonate with more permanence. They cleanly layer ringing, melodic guitars with breakneck speeds and halcyon harmonies, and while there is not a surfeit of fuzz to be found, songs like “Mysteries Complete” have an astounding amount of stickiness while maintaining an aggressive, densely packed energy. *Endless Now* feels far from endless. On some plays, it’s just too short.

Philadelphia’s The War On Drugs hold the perfect balance of classic rock and spaced-out indie rock. Members Kurt Vile, Charlie Hall and Kyle Lloyd departed the band at the end of 2008, leaving founding singer and guitarist Adam Granduciel to recruit drummer Mike Zanghi and bassist/guitar player Dave Hartley. Yet somehow, 2011’s *Slave Ambient* sounds a lot like 2008’s *Wagonwheel Blues*. “Best Night” sets the tone like *Nebraska*-era Springsteen as accompanied by the musicians who played on Spiritualized’s *Songs in A & E*. Throughout *Slave Ambient* there’s also a prevalent lean on Krautrock-inspired repetitions, immediately noticeable during the first song’s end jam and in the hypnotic “It’s Your Destiny.” The consecutive pulsing speeds up on “Your Love Is Calling My Name” where Granduciel’s nasal-toned croons recall a young Tom Petty under driving indie-rock oscillations braided together with some dream-pop ambience. Fans of the band’s previous penchant for anthemic epics will feel right at home with the uplifting “Come to the City.”

Philadelphia’s The War on Drugs, the vehicle of Adam Granduciel — frontman, rambler, shaman, pied piper guitarist and apparent arranger-extraordinaire, returns with 'Slave Ambient'. On their debut, the life-affirming 'Wagonwheel Blues', and the follow-up EP, 'Future Weather', The War on Drugs seemed obsessed with disparate ideas, with building uncompromised rock monuments from pieces that may have seemed like odd pairs. Folk-rock marathons come damaged by drum machines. Electronic and instrumental reprises precede songs they’ve yet to play, and Dr. Seuss becomes lyrical motivation for bold futuristic visions. Now, Granduciel has done it again, better than before: 'Slave Ambient', their proper second album, is a brilliant 47-minute sprawl of rock ’n’ roll, conceptualized with a sense of adventure and captured with seasons of bravado.

Following the popularity of the “Yonkers” video, Tyler, the Creator could have catered to the tastes of the masses and cashed in. Instead, he made an album that\'s unwieldy, irate, insolent, schizophrenic, odious, and deeply personal. It\'s exactly the album the artist wanted for himself. It\'s also completely uninterested in any sort of standardized rap music, but who really needs traditional rap, especially from a kid as creatively fearless as Tyler? His willful ignorance of hip-hop\'s rules makes *Goblin* exciting. His productions reach outside hip-hop\'s realm to touch the belching industrial designs of Throbbing Gristle and the darkly seductive jazz of Roy Ayers. The lyrics are stream-of-consciousness yet highly crafted. The imperative is to share without regard for the flammability of the thought. The teenage mind is a dark and complicated machine, but Tyler\'s more interested in self-exploration than self-destruction. The scenery here is ugly, beautiful, and sometimes terrifying—sometimes all at once—but we should be thankful for that complexity. There are few albums that allow as much access to a young artist’s emotional and artistic landscape.

The serene Dan Graham cover photo is no misdirection: this is some relaxing music. The Garden State’s pre-eminent chillout band gets deeply mellow on their second album, but they never drown in a bottomless sea of reverb. Instead, Real Estate’s swirling guitars and wispy vocals strike just the right balance of sharpness and haziness, as on the gorgeous “Out of Tune” and the sparkling “Wonder Years.” *Days* perfectly conjures those sun-soaked July afternoons when you’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to do.

An extended ode to the natural world, *Biophilia* buzzes with bright, pure tones: “Moon” sets Björk’s slowly swelling harmonies against tranquil harp, and “Crystalline” applies the same stripped-down aesthetic to chimes and crisp, staccato drums. “Dark Matter” quivers with rich, resonant pipe organ, while “Mutual Core” explodes a church-like hush into bold, distorted percussion, and “Nattura” features shuddering, heavy-metal drumming by Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale. Great, cosmic forces hold sway: Rarely has Björk gotten so close to the essence of things in her music.

Biophilia is the seventh studio album by Icelandic singer-songwriter and musician Björk, featuring Cosmogony, Moon, Moon, Crystalline. Biophilia is an interdisciplinary exploration of the universe and its physical forces - particularly those where music, nature, and technology meet. The album is inspired by these relationships between musical structures and natural phenomena, from the atomic to the cosmic. The Independent on Sunday called it "brilliantly original and ambitious."

From *Belong*’s anthemic title track onwards, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart deliver a confident sophomore album filled with arresting melodies and awash in glorious noise. Part of the credit goes to co-producers Flood (of Smashing Pumpkins renown) and Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine and Ride, among others), who give the New York quartet the sort of arena-shaking sound they deserve. Happily, the band is ready for this sort of widescreen treatment, offering a batch of taut, relentless rockers and dreamy ballads made to be played with enraptured fury. Kip Berman’s wistful vocals hover over massed guitar feedback and thick, panting bass, bringing out the longing buried within “Even In Dreams,” “Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now” and “Heart In Your Heartbreak.” Peggy Wong-East’s surging synthesizers coat “My Terrible Friend” with a bright neon glaze; the echo-bathed “Anne With an E” achieves a Spectorian melancholy grandeur. Somehow, the Pains manage to do it all with disarming humility, as if they were still unknowns thrashing away in garageland obscurity.

The first full-length release by producer and multi-instrumentalist Ernest Greene helped define the sound of the chillwave movement. *Within and Without* is a heady mix of throbbing bass and cleverly layered synth sounds underpinning Greene\'s tender, faded vocals. The single \"You and I,\" featuring Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, is a particular high point. But from the sumptuous melodies of \"Eyes Be Closed\" and the uplifting \"Amor Fati\" to the blissed-out haze of \"Soft\" and the title track, Greene\'s relaxed, sensual vibe creates a sustained mood of pleasurable nostalgia.

Washed Out is the operational alias for Atlanta, GA’s Ernest Greene, and on July 12th, we at Sub Pop Records will be releasing the first Washed Out full-length, Within and Without. We are excited about this, to an almost unseemly degree. Greene recorded Within and Without with Ben Allen, who, among a great many other things, co-produced Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavillion, Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere and Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest. In 2009 Washed Out released two critically-acclaimed EPs; Life of Leisure (Mexican Summer) and High Times (Mirror Universe Tapes). Most recently, the Washed Out song “Feel It All Around,” from Life of Leisure, was chosen as the theme song for the new and very funny IFC series Portlandia, which features Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney/Sub Pop alum and current Wild Flag member Carrie Brownstein. Early confirmed press for Within and Without includes a “Breaking Out” feature in the June issue of SPIN, as well as NPR “Song of the Day” coverage for the album’s lead track “Eyes Be Closed.”

The noise-lovin’ What’s Your Rupture? label brings us the guitar ... er, eruptions of Denmark’s youthful (teenaged) Iceage, with a U.S. debut entitled *New Brigade*. Fans of tough, abrasive punk — with a tolerance for undercurrents of noise, no wave and thrash — will want to put headphones on and clear the room of breakable items; songs like “New Brigade,” “Total Drench,” and “You’re Blessed” are fueled by semi-automatic drum parts and sparking guitars that throw enough heat to melt a Danish winter. Other tunes, like “White Rune” and “Collapse” hint at the earliest jolts of England’s great post-punk band Wire, tapping into the tangled roots of noise and art-damaged punk. Singer Elias Rønnenfelt intones the lyrics in English, barking in a flat, brooding expression of dissatisfaction, and there is a vortex of visceral, emotional energy at the music’s core. “Broken Bone” and “Eyes” pulse with raw energy, landing like a Fugazi punch wrapped in shoegazing softness; did original punk ever feel this good when it landed square in your gut? We think not. These kids are something to watch.