Fuck it. Round 2.
Wand's Perfume EP was on that really impressed me. I've never been a huge fan and just put it on as background music while I cleaned the house one day. I was a little bit stoned at the time and had to stop doing what I was doing when it got to the second part of the first track just to make sure it was actually as good as I thought I was hearing. The track smokes and still gives me a rush every time I play it. I could listen to the outro jam on a 30 minute loop and probably not get sick of it. The rest of the album is great too. Really great mix of sounds and moods for such a short album. Goes from beautiful to scary and all over the place. For whatever reason, I can't find any of the studio songs on youtube and this is the only live version of the song I mentioned above. It doesn't do it justice, but what the hell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Ww6v5jzpkI really dug Exit Groups "Adverse Habitat" album too. Kinda weird post-punky stuff. I love the guitar playing on this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5exbUVv0YIThe new Sauna Youth album is solid. I think I still prefer their first album to this year's, but it still gets plenty of plays from me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLochBLBNX4Almost the same story with the new Idles album. It's getting tons of attention on a lot of year end lists, but I liked their last one more. I feel like the new one was a lot more stripped down and the instrumentation took a pretty big hit. Joy just doesn't seems to go as hard as Brutalism. However, I really loved the effect the stripped down approach had on the lyrics. I don't pay much attention to lyrics, but these were so raw that it was impossible for them to go unnoticed. I put off a second listen for a really long time because Joe's song about losing his unborn daughter put me right on the edge of tears the first time I heard it. It's a very emotional album for a punk album. Anyway, I think this song rips and the second part is great. "I'm like Stone Cold Steve Austin. I put homophones in coffins" has got to be one of the best lyrics of the year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VODKZxsRa_ESextile's "3" ep was really great too. Dark 80's style synth wavy stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PR_9beuFDk