***What's that coming over the hill? It's the 2006 ILX ALBUMS POLL RESULTS***

Mastodon have developed a reputation amongst the hipster community as being some sort of Second Coming of Metallica, the band that rose from the ashes of hair- and nu-metal to bring heaviness and intelligence back to an all-but-dead genre. That, of course, pisses off metalheads to no small extent. Heavy and intelligent metal, much less metal in general, never went away. What Mastodon bring to the table, especially on this, their most epic effort, is a very rare thing: a unique sound. They serve up an almost-indescribable jumble of crushing prog, thrash, death, hardcore, and whatever else their demented (and drug-fueled) minds could shove into the mix. It's also really freaking heavy. Yes, the concept is nonsensical (something about fighting through weird monsters to obtain a crystal skull to eliminate the reptile part of the human brain). Musically, though, Blood Mountain hides a treasure trove of treats for your ears, offering up new discoveries on each listen. Definitely not for everyone, but those adventurous enough to explore its twisting paths won't come away disappointed.
-Jeff Treppel

With its perfectly-placed swells and emotional string orchestration, I'm pretty sure "He Poos Clouds" was prepackaged as a film score. I can already imagine "Arctic Circle" playing while the camera pans over a schoolboy riding his bike to save the girl...or the chant-choir juxtaposition part of "This Lamb Sells Condos" being used to create suspense during an important montage scene. Everything about the album is so cinematic, so clean, so beautiful. And if it ever makes it to the silver screen, I want to see the results (as long as the film isn't called "He Poos Clouds").
-Tape Store

The production is slick but I don't think that should be a criticism. It's really beautifully produced. The sound is far richer than their earlier works and I think they've finally transcended the B and S comparisons (unless one wants to make the argument that they are presently more B and S than B and S).
-Jacobo Rock

I've managed to scrape the surface so far of each disc. This is definitely a "new" album rather than a compilation. Despite the fact he's split it into three sides, it's still very much a contemporary Waits record that reflects on his Americana schtick he's been touting since Bone Machine and more and more since Mule Variations. So if you're looking for Rain Dogs/Black Rider/Alice type material you might be a little dissapointed as it's definitely 3rd-generation material.

So is this Waits's Druqks? In a way, yes - there is nothing here that is going to surprise die-hard fans but it is still an excellent intro to his many sides. There's nothing as beautiful as "Innocent When You Dream" or affecting as "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" or even as weird as the "Lucky Day Overture", however it's still all there.

I'm a big fan of the poems on "Bastards", even though some are simple recitations of pieces by Bukowski etc. Elsewhere the "Road To Peace" is marvellous lyrically and musically.
-wogan lenin

It sounds like unicorns meets arcade fire meets cocorosie and then some.
-ihope

good reviews via pitchfork/allmusic made me get this album.
it's pretty good.
the Elephant 6 meets clap yr hands and say arcade fire is well done, and they surely know how to write good melodies.
so why not?
-i have things

Fucking Tremendous about covers it. I'm still on the first spin, but the second will come immediately after. That hardly ever happens.
-100% CHAMPS with a Yes! Attitude

Maybe my first impression of Amy was wrong. Maybe she's not the spoiled, rehab-obsessed, bitchy English girl I first thought. That would explain why a song like "Rehab" isn't just the brat-fest you'd expect. It could just be that the world gifted a sleaze with a beautiful voice, but at the edges of the songs are a taste of what Winehouse could develop into - someone with something meaningful to say. She just needs to stop bitching about her drug addictions.
-Mordechai Shinefield

hang on, hang on. this album is awesome. it's taken two months and several listens for that fact to hit me, but ... what a truly great piece of work. the eighties album they would (could?) never have made in the eighties. absolutely love it.
-grimly fiendish

OK. This is the most stylish, consistent PSB album since Very. They're reacquired their lusciousness, thanks to the likes of "Indefinite Leave to Remain,," "I'm with Stupid," and "Minimal" (the sexiest track they've created since "Young Offender," only cold and, er, minimalist). If Dianne Warren's name wasn't on the credits I wouldn't know that she'd written "Numb."
-Alfred, Lord Sotosyn

It's what I always imagined grime/dubstep should sound like - empty, vast and deeply emotional.

I doubt any record will sum up the grey steel of 2006 London more fully than this one. It seems to be a compilation of tracks recorded between 2001 and now. But on early listening this is astonishing; the blackened mirror image of SAW II, Horsepower Productions in negative, Post-Millennium Tension.
-Marcello Carlin

Finally breaking free of their orbit around Planet Radiohead, album number four is where Muse blast off on a dizzying rocket ride into a galaxy of their own and turn into the modern-day Moody Blues they were always meant to become. They deftly juggle Britpop, electronica, pomp rock, and even metal, with Matthew Bellamy's emotive vocals tying it all together. "Knights of Cydonia" alone would be enough to cement this record's classic-to-be status, but then you have the soaring "Starlight" and the System of a Down-meets-Knight Rider "Assassin," which illustrate just how much range these Brits really have. Weird and wonderful, bombastic but still touching, Black Holes and Revelations provides an excellent showcase for a very talented band.
-Jeff Treppel

Radiohead were never able to do sexy. The songs here are already their own JLC remixes in of themselves.
-danzig

I never got the "Crazy in Love" adulation, so I'm surprised that the 2006 album I keep revisiting is B'Day. It's obvious why – there wasn't a record that was more fun out last year. For the better part of it, Beyoncé is barking mad on it, hollering, yelping, straining her vocals to implore you to take her credit card, sit on mama's lap, get her bodied, get yourself an Audemars Piguet watch and a diamond cream facial, and in a flagwaving anthem of emasculation, she orders you to pull out your freakum dress. The album is an exhibition of Beyoncé in all sorts of over the top frenzies – jealous rage, sweaty lust, emancipation from poverty backed by a frenzy of horns, handclaps and sirens. And just when you can't take it anymore, she slips in the gorgeous ballads. To the left, to the left.
-Danzig

"B'Day" isn't revolutionary. It's not amazing. It doesn't have any truly mindblowing tracks. But it has one thing that separates it from most of the year's pop albums; like "FutureSex/LoveSounds," it's complete. There's really no filler, and the b-sides alone would make wonderful singles. Everything flows, and as a whole, it's rather addicting.
-Tape Store

This is pure coffee table for the most part but it's probably the apex of that (because it's not so forlorn ala 'Dummy' or whatever), in that it does sound great, predictably so, but better than I expected considering the attitudes that pervade them and my own low expectations/pessimism. I suppose this means it sounds impressive when playing in the background without you thinking too much about it. But engaging with it fully provides just as much reward as with any overtly upbeat and energetic pop album that attempts to stride both sides of the leftfield/mainsteam rift in this way.

There is interesting detail spread throughout, as I said above I think Gregory is totally on it production-wise. Eschewing this notion of (laptop) 'edginess' which I don't see as really relevant here, the sound here is glossy and rich but still sharp and deftly switches from warmth to coldness accordingly, to good effect. AG's voice still feels under-used at times and at times feels a bit obscured in the haze generated by 'Let It Take You' and 'Slide In' - maybe it's just that neutral key she drops into so regularly now, akin to Stevens during the verses of 'Some Girls', only naturally sounding much more adept here. She sounds more like herself on U Never Know more than anything else here perhaps, and this is maybe the only track that matches 'Deep Honey' for drama, or 'Crystalline Green' for that 'blown away' effect. Hard to escape that sense of 'Black Cherry afterthoughts' about the whole thing.

I say it's generally an 'up' sort of album but not in the same way the much more obvious and jaunty Robyn album is. It's still too strait-laced and cautious in this respect, but this 'strained joy' thing has worked for other artists (PSBs, Eurythmics) in the past albeit it in somewhat different ways so is not a massive flaw by any means.
-Sociah T Azzahole

When Supernature came out I was eagerly anticipating that it was likely to be a GA/CAGI (pre-CAGI, admittedly)-tastic stack of standalone succulent pop songs rather than expecting it to be the kind of record that was preoccupied with 'flow' or whatever (although obviously the two aren't mutually exclusive, and perhaps Chemistry has since illustrated this best); I would have been totally happy with something more disjointed and less cohesive or whatever than the previous two Goldfrapp albums, which I'd felt were both hampered a bit by the occasional, um, uneventful noodle. In the event I think Supernature is probably as 'flowy' as both predecessors, hence something like "Ride A White Horse" (my initial favourite on the album, still sounds entirely mighty now) stumbling a bit when singléd out in a half-arsed stylee and limping onto the radio and into the charts and off again very quickly for no particular reason.

I probably love this record infinitely more now than I did at first because I'm no longer listening for future singles (and I always do this with new albums by People Who Get In The Charts and it's self-defeating really) so I can bask in the heavy sparkly luxury of the whole thing and now it does sound like the best Goldfrapp album by a mile, and the album I wanted them to make (tighter, more dynamic, 'etc') and it doesn't matter that lots of it sounds the same as lots of the rest of it because the joy is in the aforementioned minor tweaks.

(also it feels less drama-school-hats than Black Cherry really, which is a good thing)
- Alex in Doncaster

Has a short Israeli girl ever sounded this sexy? Her voice is its own bombastic instrument; exploding at the edges and consuming the audience. She pouts, winks, drinks glasses of red wine, and then does something with her mouth that marries dozens of voice styles together at once.
-Mordechai Shinefield

It's all in the lyrics. Quick turns or phrase, biting wit and insightful observations. Not bad for a debut album and a songwriter who was only 18 when he wrote most of the songs.
-lawrencerock

You're missing the point if you look for the reasons for their success in the music, which is as has been said meat and potatoes indie. What struck me when I heard them on the radio was the words, lots of words, in an unusual (for pop music) and appealing accent and telling stories, not yr usual Coldplay platitudes. They're kind of an Eminem or Streets with guitars. They're not my cup of tea but that's where their appeal lies I think.
-Bidfurd

In terms of pure sound, nothing in 2006 rivalled techno goddess Ellen Allien's collaboration with ex-boyfriend Apparat: these immaculately crafted tracks with their gorgeous textures and restless, propulsive rhythms made for some dizzyingly dreamy head music. This was the default Sunday morning record of 2006, the perfect accompaniment to sitting back, sipping tea and watching the sun rise as we came gently down; it was also the default DJing tool, with 'Way Out' an inevitable anthem at most parties. Its constant presence throughout 2006 - more than any other, this was an album I lived - was immensely satisfying.
-lex pretend

Nelly Furtado conquered the world in 2006, simultaneously releasing 3 singles to burn up the clubs in different corners of the globe – the kids in America got to grips with the quadrasyllabic word "Promiscuous," Latin America got the tongue-waggingly unrelenting reggaeton of "No Hay Igual," and the rest, the straight up chunky sing along pop of "Maneater." And then she turned around and released 3 beautifully understated ballads to those respective markets. 6 amazing singles already and there are supposedly more coming. And there are plenty more to mine: "Showtime" is lovely, "Do It" is pure '80s Madonna. Criticism that Furtado's "I'm Like A Bird" personality has gone out the window in favour of an anonymous muse to Timbo's beats is silly and prudish – I've watched plenty of interviews with Nelly Furtado and let me tell you we should be glad that her personality got left behind: it's really annoying. And it definitely comes through albeit briefly through the painful interludes that are thankfully only seconds long. And for those who lament that Nelly's been cynically sexed up, listen to the ballads on Loose. They are glorious. Loose was eventually overshadowed when FutureSex/LoveSounds came out, but Justin blew his load prematurely and his cockiness got old quickly: Who still listens to "Sexy Back?" But the songs here are uniformly strong and memorable, except for the one about God.
-Danzig

After 30-odd listens, it's held up suprisingly well. Among the best of the year. The music is steeped in both the sounds of the '70's and the Texas hill country. It's refreshingly sincere and straightforward, and the songcraft is impeccable throughout. The album's *slightly* frontloaded, but considering a couple of these songs (Roscoe, Young Bride) are among the best that ANYONE has released this year, I'm not gonna complain.
-cosmo vitelli

2006 was a banner year for Boris. Adding majestic shoegaze to the doom and deceivingly intricate riff-rock the band had mastered years ago, Pink was one of the most consistently-cited examples of 06's upward trend for so-called hipster metal. Yet it was as outside of this movement as part of it--too unironic and too essentially foreign, Pink is simply a joyous homage to the many forms that rocking the fuck out has taken over the years. Free of agenda and refusing to acknowledge conventional wisdom's line between smart and stupid, Pink was certainly one of 2006's most immediate releases, and may well be its most timeless.
-Call All Destroyer

A lot of people get hung up on the " abstraction" of the post- nite flites work, don't you think?. But sadly forget the emotional simplicity of what he does, as he always states he's "pairing" the text down to a feeling.. Just as they do in the French chanson or German leider tradition, were words and enunciation articulate unsaid expeiences. Walker sings through the feelings of others as if they were inside him, exorcising all the horrors he's watched and read. He conveys the souls of the unspoken victims through his compositions ... people who are victims of poltical/state control. Take for example the ironically titled Patriot 91...

He conflates the narratives of the Nazis third Reich and the fourth reich of the good old USA. The " highway of Death" with incinerated bodies ... "shock and awe"... christ you can hear him close to tears when hes sings "Aryanuary"... Scott Walker knows the score of what is politically going on right now on in front of our very eyes. How our planet is being turned into a global corporate fascist state, and how this very state is trying to destroy the human spirit.

Walker is fighting against that horror with this music, and reflects the mirror of our cruelty back to our faces whether in Treblinka or in Iraq. He is touch with the violence and the 'sublime' just as Goya or Picasso were, or in cinematic terms as Passolini, who was exploring the same idea of corporations/fascism in Salo.

He is one of the most vital as well as humble artists working today and should not be ignored.

Christ, I went on rant there. But it would nice if people focussed on the work, rather than lazily quip it's "Inacessible".
-PaulBaran

i think it's her strongest set of original songs, even though there are a few in the later stretch that run into her problem of melodic and lyrical vagueness. the first 8 or so tracks are all pretty strong, and i love the last one ("the needle has landed"). i like that it's less self-consciously twangy, more noir-pop. i don't think you can really call it a country or alt-country album at all. the gospel song is great. she and kelly hogan really need to do a gospel album.
-gypsy mothra

Yes, this album makes the statement "Yay! drums and feedback exist" and that is a big part of its appeal. I think they switch it up a little.. they play on the notion of "inspiration" (in fact, that's what the whole album's about if you listen!) and kind of twist it around into an ambivalent mess, but it's such a thoughtful mess that it seems more like a conversation.
-snnhy

"What a dream of an album Yellow House is. Summery, shimmering, light as air, yet grounded enough in solid song-craft that it never floats off into the ether. Which is the problem with most alt/lo-fi/fractured Americana/folk/psych groups and artists who worship at the altar of Wilson/Parks or whatever forgotten author of teenage symphonies to God knows what is being touted and resurrected this week. They sound pretty and create aching wisps of reverential fluff, but they go in one ear and out the other. Grizzly Bear's melodies stick with you. Now a four-piece ? Grizzly Bear?s 2004 debut Horn Of Plenty being recorded by the duo of Christopher Bear and Edward Droste ? the band makes drifting sand-pop (the album was mostly recorded in, yes, a yellow house off of Cape Cod) where sound and instruments waft in and out of the room like ghosts. There is guitar, a brush on a drum, banjo, strings, horns, and pianos that reverberate or tinkle or act as percussion. There are gorgeous side-two-of-Abbey Road vocal harmonies and there are lone voices lost in the weeds. There is a lot to take in ? the ambient live noise and various fx adding to the mix ? and yet Yellow House never feels crowded or messy. It?s hypnotic and intimate but never cloying in its intimacy. You never feel the hot breath of desperation. Only the cool breeze of delight in invention. The album makes you wish that more indie acts would take the time to learn how to make their songs breathe -to live with and inhabit their songs until they are sturdy and can stand on their own without crumbling- instead of just trying to turn their record collections into gold."
-scott seward

Look at the 17 minute "Only Skin" (which is I think is the climax of the album): I cannot think of one other artist who has treaded the ambitious grounds of this song, the twisting and turning of the lyrical cycle, the slow evolutions from crescendo to naked statement, and made it fit so perfectly in one piece without disintegrating...as far as extreme rock music goes, this goes far behind something like Gogol Bordello, Black Dice or even the No New York scene, becuase its able to hold to together enough to make it timeless (those bands are admired because of their similar ambition, but its ambition that self-destructs on purpose)..YS such an honest projection of her longing and worries that is scares people, like Joni Mitchell's Blue probably scared people at first with its nakedness....the closest I can think from the female perspective is Kate Bush (going back to Joni Mitchell) but this is much less flawed...I think if you sit with it long enough even the certain lines that might of made you cringe are now endearing...it wasn't like this on the first album, some stories just didn't work, some melodies were annoying over time...but the machine is running flawless this time
-Space Is the Place

The lyrics on this album are often really painfully generic (to be fair, they're not singing or writing words in their native tongue), but there are so many incredibly rich melodies on this album. Still, it's quintessential indie, which means it's not going to be terribly ILM-friendly. Not as bad as the average Belle & Sebastian mimic; not as good as something similarly Nordic like Herman Dune, which is a bit more adventurous.

But "The Chills," "Paris 2004," "Amsterdam," "Up Against the Wall," "Young Folks," and "Let's Call it Off" are jam packed with hooks - the verses are as catchy as the choruses, which is one of the things I love about the New Pornographers. From a purely pop perspective, they are incredibly talented. Hearing the Concretes-singer verses on "Young Folks," you wonder how they would do writing songs for other people, too.
-Tiki Theater Xymposium

The future of music - rip it up and steal all the good parts. People complain that downloaders gut albums for singles. Girl Talk guts singles for the 3-5 seconds that make pop music worthwhile.
-Mordechai Shinefield

When I first heard the album, it sounded refreshingly linear to me -- the songs seemed to be refusing to come back around in identifiable patterns. On further listen, I think that impression maybe wasn't accurate... it's more elliptical, I guess. In any case, it was nice to be surprised, to listen to this album without having any idea where it was going, fully convinced that the band knew where it was going. Now that I know the album much better, it continues to be very gratifying -- I'm still hearing things that I missed before. Also nice to have lyrics that don't actively prevent me from enjoying an album -- that's been a real deal breaker for me lately.
-belle haleine

This should be higher on the list but it's physically impossible for me to run longer than thirty minutes.
-The Macallan 18 Year

Christ almighty is this ever good. I really didn't like Coming On Strong, but this one's just so breathtakingly easy to listen to that it's almost alarming. Maybe they beefed up the low end? I remember Coming On Strong sounding kinda artlessly chintzy, like they were sufficiently satisfied with making a blindingly ahead-of-the-curve R&B album that they didn't bother to make a GOOD blindingly ahead-of-the-etc., but this is just relentlessly dance-y. And WOW does "Over & Over" trump anything on the first album.
-James.Cobo

Ok, my reaction to "Justified":
Man, this is pretty great, the Neptunes rule, I want to hug JT

My reaction to "FutureSex/LoveSounds":
God, this is really amazing, Timbaland is today's best producer, I want to make out with JT, take him up to the bedroom, etc.

What makes "FS/LS" so great is its consistency. Rather than setting out to make a few great singles, Justin really tried to create a great pop-forward album. With the help of Timbaland, he succeeded. From the steamy title track to "My Love," FS/LS is, to lift a phrase from Paris Hilton, really fucking hot.
-Tape Store

After several weeks of finding this pleasant but slightly underwhelming, it all slotted into place perfectly at the weekend. Now I think it's better the first album, certainly more consistent (and Like A Child and FM are easily the equal of Teach Me How To Fight and Last Exit).

A couple of things really strike me about it. The first is that it initially seems so similar to Last Exit in mood and tone, but on closer listening they're constructed in totally different ways. I like the greater emphasis on loops this time round (and arpeggios, wow!), the way you can follow a thread through a song while barely listening to the vocals or the main melody. I can envisage some remixes of So This Is Goodbye, Double Shadow or The Equaliser that would sound amazing in the middle of a really hypnotic minimal set.

The second is that the removal of the Johnny Dark rhythmic tricksiness has left other elements of the sound to blossom. This is every bit as complex and detailed a record as Last Exit, possibly more so. It's not really the rhythms as such (and it's not exactly rhythmnically simple). It's the meticulous attention to detail that's been given to the tone and timbre of every sound. No note that's held for more than a fraction of a beat sounds the same from start to finish - especially on When No One Cares, which consists of little other than these big open chords, but virtually every single one of them sounds different. There's so much depth and subtlety of texture there that only really hit me when I listened to it very loud on headphones.

Also, the swell two third of the way through Like A Child sends a shiver down my spine like no other moment in music this year.
-Matt DC

good album for a sluggish late summer - hot, humid, drunk
-Lukas

I think I'm spending more time with it paused so I can do happy dances around my house without missing anything than actual listening.
-The Reverend

They are definetely talented shane has a great voice and well mark is incredible in every song just breathtaking. some good song choises some not that much
the rose is without a douth the best song of the album perfect choise for the firts single
easy is another great effort ,total eclipse of the heart is very good but compared with the original lacks passion
all or nothing is very well done and if you like westlife you surely will enjoy it
also You Light Up My Life songs great one of my fabourites
All Out of Love (feat. Delta Goodrem) nicee song but something dosn't work there i love delta's voice but it just dosn't work well with the westlife guys
so finally if you are a westlife or a true romantic this one is a no brainer this album if for you
-Paul Edward Wagemann

An album that simultaneously familiar and strange, analog and digital, etcetra etcetra. And the singles, with remixes by Trentmoller, Bookashade, Rex the Dog, Radioslave, are just killer.
-The Macallan 18 Year

can't believe nelly doesn't have her own thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pBo-GL9SRg

more interesting to me than this list is the evolution of ilx and ilxors

there's a really strange and almost frightening blend of raw and paranoid opinion, sometimes with one or the other expressed in the extreme by someone, sometimes both expressed by the same person in the same post.

also nelly furtado

xp NO I HATE GIRL TALK THEY MASH LOVELY AALIYAH UP WITH HORRID INDIE
― lex pretend

<3

not sure if that was at me Karl, but I probably shouldn't post when I'm wasted.

i lurked here 15+ years before making my first post a year or so ago

oh no, it wasn't ross! actually i'm not sure hat that was about (i have the same posting problem)
when you bumped the thread, the first thing i did i was go back to the beginning and re-read it. for some reason i decided it would be funny to call out nelly furtado, just because i haven't heard anyone mention her in several years. i don't really know her tbh. man my jokes are great! but yeah i didn't even see your post til i had already crapped my post out.

oof. weekday nights are brutal

there's a really strange and almost frightening blend of raw and paranoid opinion

makes me think of this bit from [i]the rest is noise/i] about schoenberg and mahler:

The Mahlers regularly invited [Schoenberg] to their apartment near the Schwarzenbergplatz, where, according to Alma, he would incite heated arguments by offering up 'paradox of the most violent description'.

haha cool Karl, best regards :)