10. Band of Horses, Everything All The Time

Much has been made of Band of Horses big single, The Funeral, and it’s a good song and all, but I was surprised when I picked up the album how much I felt it paled compared to the material surrounding it. Everything All The Time is a bit short, at 36 minutes and only 10 tracks, but it’s a very sweet and sincere rock album. The album’s lack of length is really a lack of filler. It’s definitely grown on me, as I didn’t know what to put in this ten spot for a long time until I listened to “Monsters” one day and was belting out the final chorus and trying to hold back a tear - “If I am lost it’s only for a little while…”

9. Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid Of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

This title is definitely a misnomer if you’re new to Yo La Tengo. If your typical meek indie rock band was in Webster’s…blah blah blah you get the point. Word has it that they took the title from something Tim Thomas (he who made the tying 3 pointer in Game 6 of last year’s Suns/Lakers series) once said. The first track certainly has you believing them, before supposedly settling down to their rep on the next few tracks. But once you think you have this band figured out, they continue to surprise you on this great eclectic album.

8. The Roots, Game Theory

I don’t dabble in hip hop that much, I think I had a tape of Dr. Dre’s The Chronic back in the day but my parents made me return it because of the Parental Advisory sticker. Looking at my iTunes library (which isn’t entirely accurate I know) it looks like only 4% is classified as Hip Hop/Rap. Game Theory is my first experience with The Roots, and listening to it makes me want to go back and get everything they’ve done. It’s very tightly produced, with tracks flowing seamlessly into each other with perfect sequencing. “Here I Come” is the shit. “Atonement” is built from Radiohead’s “You and Whose Army?” But the core of the album comes from some of the opening lines in the title track,”…downtown philly where it’s realer than a heart attack, it wasn’t really that ill until the start of crack…” Replace Philadelphia with Baltimore and Game Theory is the perfect compliment to HBO’s “The Wire.” The Roots have a lot to say and their message combined with their presentation makes for a great album.

7. M.Ward, Post-War

“M. Ward imagines devotion in better times and calls it POST-WAR” is what the promotional sticker said on the cover of the cd. I’m not one to remember the stickers that are on the annoying plastic you have to rip off before you can open the cd, but I’m reminded by that comment everytime I listen to Post-War. What if the Iraq war was over and somehow things in the middle east and the world were better off? This album is about healing, even though right now such sentiments seem impossible. Songs like “To Go Home” “Chinese Translation” and “Neptune’s Net” make you think that maybe a better future could be in store, but the overall feeling of the album is that actual peace will always be just out of reach. Post-War both dreams and mourns that fact.

6. The Dears, Gang of Losers

Would you like some up-tempo sad-bastard music? Gang of Losers nakedly wears its heart on its sleeve, and it’s hard not to love it. The closing lines of “Fear Made the World Go ‘Round” state “…we’ll be okay, we’re all okay…” Then the opening lines of the next track start off with “…every single one of us is getting massacred…” It does get that comic a couple of times, but it’s so sincere it’s hard to really take fault with when the music is this good. “Whites Only Party” deftly illustrates how this album is really about acceptance.

5. Belle & Sebastian, The Life Pursuit

Belle & Sebastian’s best album is still probably If You’re Feeling Sinister, but The Life Pursuit is definitely their poppiest and grooviest album yet. I remember driving down the freeway when I bought it and calling Dustin to exclaim that it might be their best. And it might be, I dunno. Such debates are probably a good sign as to how much strength The Life Pursuit has. Few albums came as close this year to pure sing-along value.

4. Destroyer, Destroyer’s Rubies

Track 1, “Rubies”, is the best song I heard all year. It’s a nine and a half minute track that kicks off an album, and since I’ve already stated it’s the best song I heard this year it’s almost a disservice to the rest of the album to start so strong; it’s only downhill from here. But then Destroyer’s Rubies subtly shifts gears and everything is fine. Destroyer is Dan Bejar, he of The New Pornographers, which has been one of my favorite bands for a few years now, and I’m finally understanding why everybody had classified them as a ’supergroup’. To hear about three Bejar songs on a NP album is one thing, but I was surprised to hear how good he was when not under the pornographers’ banner. I was reminded of when I was getting into Beck’s Midnite Vultures and how I would wait in anticipation for the next set of lyrics. Lyrics that at first sound nonsensical but make their own crazy sense to you after repeat listens.

3. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House

This is a delightfully subtle and moody album. It sounds like a score, like music you might hear on an RPG videogame. Songs on the album have a way of being very deliberate and then switching and building to something else at first listen. But then when you listen again, you realize they were building to that point from the beginning. Most of the album is acoustic, but not that boring ‘acoustic’ that I think of when I hear the term, like I’m about to hear More than Words or something. Instruments used include the glockenspiel, xylophone, autoharp, banjo, clarinet, flute, strings, saxaphone…then you got your typical drums, guitars and keyboards, etc. Songs like “Knife” will own you. It all adds up to a deceptively addictive set of songs that I personally haven’t been able to get out of my head since I first heard them.

2. TV On The Radio, Return To Cookie Mountain

“Blues From Down Here” “Province” “Wolf Like Me” Just go buy this if you haven’t already. It falls under the OK Computer / Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots banner of awesomeness. So why is it only at #2?

1. Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

I seriously considered making Cookie Mountain my top pick for a couple of weeks when I was really starting to get into it…but Fox Confessor Brings The Flood by Neko Case took a firm hold early in the year and successfully repulsed all challengers. Take all the good things that each album in this top 10 did really well and you find them all in Fox Confessor. Each song has a remarkable ability to be poignant and self-aware while dabbling in the sad, the happy and the dangerous. (But mostly sad…) It’s the most human thing I’ve heard in a while. When Neko pleads, “Please, don’t let him die…” on “Star Witness” it kills me everytime I hear it. My pick for best album of 2006.