10. THE GREENHORNES
Dual Mono
GBV return to form.
GBV return to form.
Related Content
More About
(Telstar)
Talking recently to Steve Van Zandt about his syndicated garage rock radio show "Little Steven's Underground Garage," I was advised by Silvio, in an offer-you-can't-refuse kinda voice, "So rock is back, huh? Son, get down to a record store right now and buy that new Greenhornes' platter." Indeed, herein find enough fuzztone-induced psychotic reactions, swivel-hipped love-in moves and snot-nosed teenage ramalama to float a tanker's worth of Nuggets box sets. This Cincy band doesn't try to stroke you or give you the hives with hair styles, haberdashery, or hanging out with celebs; the Greenhornes just rock like motherfuckers.
1. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
The Rising
(Columbia)
Springsteen plumbs a nation's grief by telling individual stories on the ground. The detail—in lyrical phrasing, in instrumentation, in replicating, for instance, the complex emotional tenor involved in forcing yourself to move beyond the sadness—is extraordinary. In the end, The Rising offers as much hope for the country as Nebraska offered desolation.
2. SONIC YOUTH
Murray Street
(Geffen)
The Sonics have been warping fans' ears now for more than two decades and nearly two dozen albums. But instead of hanging up their guitars or Xeroxing a proven success, they added avant-garde and pop composer Jim O'Rourke to the lineup and created their third masterwork, after Daydream Nation and Washing Machine.
3. SLEATER-KINNEY
One Beat
(Kill Rock Stars)
Sleater-Kinney tackle the worst of the uncontrollable—falling skyscrapers, premature birth— with their most precisely controlled music. It took six albums for the band to work up a blues, and "Sympathy" is worth the wait.
4. WILCO
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
(Nonesuch)
The David and Goliath story of Wilco besting their short-sighted record label has earned as much ink as the disc itself. But 20 years from now, that'll be a footnote on pages written on a marvelously textured album about someone trying to wade through breakups and resiliency, his past and future.
5. THE GOSSIP
Arkansas Heat
(Kill Rock Stars)
This Olympia-by-way-of-Arkansas trio hit the scene a couple years back with dirt-basic R&R about luring your partner to duck with you behind the bushes. With this EP, they add class politics to the mix and make their sexiest music yet.
6. HELLA
Hold Your Horse Is
(5 Rue Christine)
Two guys that sound like a sextet of octopi. Drummer Zach Hill lets beats fly like a shotgun fired in a ricochet room. Guitarist Spencer Seim's as relentless as a hailstorm five miles wide. No vocals. But while Hella own all kinds of prog-rock chops, this disc is nothing but punk. Hella aren't fleeing for fantasyland—quite the contrary. They replicate real life: a whirlwind in which our humanity competes daily to rise above the chaos enveloping it.
7. PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES
Good Health
(Lookout!)
Pretty Girls match their supernova energy with tapestrylike intricacy, then ground it with a concrete bass foundation. What sets the hometown faves apart is Andrea Zollo's literate lyrics. Instead of the Rorschach inkblot words proffered by so many post-Fugazi outfits, Zollo writes clear, emotional stories of rapture, betrayal, and longing.
8. SUPER FURRY ANIMALS
Rings Around the World
(Beggars XL)
The SFAs have created a musically majestic look at this modern world. Top tunes include a Beatles-esque take on the gadgetry that threatens to bury us and a country-influenced indictment of Dubya's itchy trigger finger that evolves into a glorious techno triumph.
9. LIARS
They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top
(Mute)
The Liars throw down a big, fat noisy mess you can shake your ass to. That's enough.
10. HIVES
Veni Vidi Vicious
(Sire/Burning Heart/Epitaph)
People who compare the Hives to the Stooges are the same dunderheads who complained about Green Day ripping off the Clash. Similar sounds, sure, but different missions entirely. This country was just itching for some overcaffeinated sass like the Hives' to break big. Give the Swedes extra praise for the best song titles since the Minutemen (dig: "The Hives—Introduce the Metric System in Time").
EXTRA, EXTRA: Favorite box set: 20 Years of Dischord, a compilation of Washington, D.C. punk. Fave live set: Bob Dylan, Live 1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: The Rolling Thunder Revue. Fave single: Eminem, "Lose Yourself." Fave album track, Scary-but-hopeful-apocalyptic-vision-by-artist-who's-lived-long-enough-to-speak-with-authority Division: Johnny Cash, "The Man Comes Around."
MORE TOP 10 LISTS!
