oh ye of little faith. you expected this list to stall out at seven and here i am to prove you all wrong. blame, work, sickness, holidays and family for the brief interlude.

ELECTRELANE, AXES

oddly enough, every dude that raved about the magik markers apocalyptic noise hated this record. while not as free-form chaotic as the other band, “axes” is a sprawling wreck of an album, each of the band members going off in their own directions and being captured to tape in its most metallic form possible. god, how i wish more women bothered to make music like this. actually, i just wish i could make music like this.

ESPERS, THE WEED TREE

sometimes more interesting than original material is the way existing work is interpreted by others. espers, sometimes by their own fault, wind up pigeonholed as purveyors of music so fragile; all the press they’ve received leads you to believe they wander fishtown with gossamer fairy wings attached to their backs. what makes weed tree so fascinating is that a lot of those preconceived ideas about who they are as a band wind up being smashed to bits here. let the record show that 2005 marks the year espers threw me for a motherfucking loop. sure, there’s the obvious cover choices such as michael hurley but then they cover — what?! — durutti column and blue fucking oyster cult. the band doesnt turn faux-metal on us on the latter, but rather twists the song away from a mere melodic, pretty tribute to a sinister, sprawling psychedelic freakout. if this is what we get on a mere covers album, who knows what damage they’ll cause on their forthcoming release for drag city next year.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 26th, 2005 at 12:52 pm and is filed under end of year.