Honorable Mentions of 2004

!!! ~ Louden Up Now
Air ~ Talkie Walkie
Ambulance LTD ~ LP
Autolux ~ Future Perfect
Bjork ~ Medulla
Dizzee Rascal ~ Showtime
Dillinger Escape Plan ~ Miss Machine
Elbow ~ Cast of Thousands
Eagles of Death metal ~ Peace, Love, and Death Metal
Fantomas ~ Delirium Cordia
French Kicks ~ Trial of The Century
Hot Snakes ~ Audit in Progress
Iron & Wine ~ Our Endless Numbered Days
Mission of Burma ~ OnoffOn
Madvillain ~ Madvillainy
Mark Lanegan Band ~ Bubblegum
Mouse on Mars ~ Radical Connector
Nina Nastasia ~ Dogs (yes, i know it's a reissue of her 1999 work)
Phantom Planet ~ Phantom Planet
Sam Phillips ~ A Boot and a Shoe
Sparta ~ Porcelain
Sahara Hotnights ~ Kiss & Tell
Sufjan Stevens ~ Seven Swans
The Streets ~ A Grand Don't Come For Free
Savath + Savalas ~ Apropa't
Sally ~ Sally
Tweaker ~ 2 a.m. wake up call
These Arms Are Snakes ~ Oxeneers or The Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home
Von Bondies ~ Pawn Shoppe Heart
Tom Waits ~ Real Gone

Most Disappointing Albums of 2004

Auf Der Maur ~ Auf Der Maur
Crystal Method ~ Legion of Boom
Franz Ferdinand ~ Franz Ferdinand
Helmet ~ Size Matters
Jem ~ Finally Woken
Gary Jules ~ Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets
Mos Def ~ The New Danger
Ozomatli ~ Street Signs
RJD2 ~ Since We Last Spoke
The Roots ~ The Tipping Point (seriously guys, what the fuck!?)
Rogue Wave ~ Out of The Shadow
Snow Patrol ~ Final Straw
Nitin Sawhney ~ Human
Zero 7 ~ When It Falls

10 Worst Albums of 2004

10. Tomoyasu Hotei ~ Electric Samurai
09. CoCo Rosie ~ La Maison de Mon Reve
08. Phoenix ~ Alphabetical
07. Jimmy Eat World ~ Futures
06. Teargas and Plateglass ~ Teargas and Plateglass
05. The Music ~ Welcome to The North
04. Starsailor ~ Silence is Easy
03. Juno Reactor ~ Labyrinth
02. The Prodigy ~ Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned
01. A Perfect Circle ~ eMOTIVe

10 Best Albums of 2004

10. Sixtoo ~ Chewing On Glass and Other Miracle Cures

Blending the celerity of Prefuse 73 with the scientific fingers of Amon Tobin, Sixtoo (Canadian musician Robert Squire) presents to us a fine exposition on Turntablism. Each track manages to surprise as well as delight.

09. The Walkmen ~ Bows + Arrows

The Walkmen's sophomore effort far outshines expectations, radiating more control and centricity, to say nothing of revealing brutal truths both lyrically and sonically. The group is certainly at the top of the Garage genre, if not peerless altogether.

08. The Secret Machines ~ Now Here is Nowhere

The Secret Machines blend influences as diverse as Can, Pink Floyd, Brian Eno, Led Zeppelin, and My Bloody Valentine into an amazingly fluid amalgam. The album is equally effulgent and sophisticated and speaks to the care the band took in crafting the work.

07. The Black Keys ~ Rubber Factory

Akron, Ohio, according to the Black Keys, is the very marrow of everything brutal and hoarse. The album exhibits the duo's heightened artistic senses while presenting a side of the Blues' soul lost to caricature and approximation.

06. The Arcade Fire ~ Funeral

'Progressive' music isn't just long or long-winded; it's not pretentious or perfunctory. Truly progressive music dissolves a genre and becomes a genuine piece of art, wrought with work and focus. This album isn't just 'progressive,' it's a fantastic progression in music as a whole.

05. Death From Above 1979 ~ You're a Woman, I'm a Machine

Death From Above 1979 gives until your ribs break and your eyes rapturously roll back into your skull. The instruments are cudgels really, beating your ass until you bleed. Of course you won't notice the few pints gushing forth because you're too distracted on just how fucking good it sounds.

04. Pinback ~ Summer in Abaddon

Summer in Abaddon's brilliance comes from its ambivalence. The album is replete with hushed wails and phantasmic echoes, offering an image of degradation but without a necessarily macabre fascination. It's the movement of a slow death through your speakers.

03. A.C. Newman ~ The Slow Wonder

New Pornographers' lead singer A.C. Newman quite simply embarrasses every Indie Pop musician. Everything radiates with such ease, as though the sun unfettered itself from the horizon and swam through the entire sky. The album is light, pure and simple.

02. TV On The Radio ~ Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

TV On The Radio is an unbelievably apt name for such a visual, palpable effort by Tunde Adebimpe, Dave Sitek and others. The musical influences meld harmoniously and shows that the band members have mastered whole genres.

01. Interpol ~ Antics

Simply glorious. This album details a band falling in love, the instruments and vocals colliding in frenzy and ecstasy. All, of course, safely protected under the guidance of some of the most meticulous musicians to come from New York in some time, always impeccably dressed and calm.