Favorite Albums of the Year 2007 cont.
So as to not leave things unfinished here are some remaining albums that I thought were worth mentioning, but these will be more concise than the last few, I still haven’t been finding time to update this often…
Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass
At the start of the year I’d not heard of Aesop Rock, after getting into El-P’s I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead and hearing some buzz on the SFR forum for this release I decided to check it out. The title track got me hooked when Def Jux put it up for free dowload, a catchy hook to the beat and an introduction to Aesop’s cryptic lyrics and the album was on my to buy list. The album is made up of fairly plain and simple beats with Aesop delivering complex lyrics with a hypnotic flow. It’s very easy to get lost within the songs, the rapping comes the fore and it’s easy to get lost in the enjoyment of analysing and trying to understand what the meaning behind them is. Fumes is probably my favorite song, it does the tragic love story better than El-P’s sci-fi tinged offering Habeas Corpses and is probably the most straightforward song to understand on the album. I was surprised when this CD came out of nowhere (for me) and became my favorite of the year, definitely one to give a try.
Sage Francis – Human The Death Dance
Taking it’s title from a poem by Buddy Wakefield and featuring a collaboration with him this was the album I was most looking forward to last year. Sadly, while this is a good album it was ultimately disappointing. Firstly I didn’t really like the way that the Buddy Wakefield contributions were handled, the extracts from the poem were too short for me, the sudden cuts in the middle seemed like an odd choice. That is only a small complaint, overall the album has a lot of very different tracks in terms of both musical and lyrical style. As a result it’s likely that not all of it will go down as well with different people, there aren’t any bad tracks and most seem to pop up on someone’s favorite track list, but as an album it’s not quite up there with with Hope, Personal Journals or the Epitaph debut A Healthy Distrust. That said some of my favorite songs of the year and some of Sage’s best come on this effort, including the two orchestrally backed tracks (Waterline, Good Fashion) which come from working with Hollywood’s Mark Isham, the reflective Hell of Year, the moody and atmospheric Black Out on White Night, and the sublime, epic ending Going Back To Rehab. This final song is my favorite track of the year and is close to Sage’s best. Some of the other songs weren’t as to my taste, and so this album didn’t quite reach the heights of some of the songs to my mind, but it’s definitely worthy of attention from underground rap fans.
Bayside – The Walking Wounded
Catchy emo rock, following on nicely from their self titled release.
Brother Ali – The Undisputed Truth
More laid back and less aggressive than his brilliant debut, a good album that is starting to propel him to the big time, get Shadows On The Sun first though.
Jimmy Eat World – Chase This Light
A catchy and poppy album that I’ve really enjoyed, it’s not quite as good as the self titled album but it’s a match for Futures and Clarity. A great band who consistently put out albums that are refreshingly different from the last while not disappointing.
There we go, until next time….
