threevue

With June fast approaching, I thought I would do a short list of my favorite albums of 2008, six months into the year:

5. The Foxboro Hot Tubs - Stop Drop And Roll
There are a few reasons why I like this album. It’s a Green Day side-project, and although I haven’t cared about these guys since Dookie, this one makes sense. At first it sounds like another 60’s/70’s garage band that I never gave a chance (read: The Hives, The Vines, Jet), but then I got to thinking about the fact that these guys are old enough to actually have grown up listening to this stuff. So, credibility established. Next, without the Green Day name these guys are free to do what they please - which means this album is free of big production and orchestration or censorship. The album is also mixed well, and Billie Joe’s vocals don’t overpower the songs. And most importantly, they’re not taking themselves seriously, and it just plain works, just like Dookie worked.

4. The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
Heretic Price may not be as excellent as the very excellent The Sunset Tree, but it’s still damn good. It covers a lot of the ground already seen in previous Mountain Goats albums, but that’s not a bad thing. Strummity-strummity acoustic guitar, bleating vocals and the occasional orchestration all come together to make another great singer/songwriter-centered album.

3. Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
Man, this shit is country. I’m a big fan of one of the band’s two singers, Patterson Hood, but this is the first DBT album where I don’t skip to only his songs. But like I said a second ago, this album is so country that it almost drops the “alt-” out of their previous “alt-country” moniker, and my wife hates it.

2. Fleet Foxes - Sun Giant EP
Fleet Foxes consists of members of Crystal Skulls, one of my favorite Seattle bands of the past few years. Fleet Foxes sound a lot like My Morning Jacket, with haunting, reverb-drenched vocals and mostly-acoustic instrumentation. But what sets them apart are the vocal melodies and harmonies; they are some of the most original melodies I’ve heard in years. They have a full length coming out this summer, but the songs are actually older (and not quite as good) than the ones on this EP.

1. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
To no one’s surprise, this is my favorite album of 2008 so far. This is an album that after my first few days with it, I had to turn it off and move on to something else. Not because I wanted to, but I was afraid that I was going to listen to it too much and start to hate it. I feel like I don’t even need to talk about this album, and you should just go and get it. It is short, simple and the freshest thing you’ll hear all (half-)year.