The Top 10 Albums of 2012

This was a pretty awesome year for music, and while Queens of the Stone Age still hasn't released their sixth record, I am inclined to say it was still great given what did come out.

If the Top 20 Songs are any hint, this list won't be all that surprising, but 2012 had a lot of pleasant surprises, great new discoveries, and some balls-out rock.

Anyway, here goes...

10. DIIV
Oshin

DIIV has produced one of the best debut albums I've heard in a while. Pulling from chill-wave influences like Neon Indian, and more electro-pop, like Mute Math, imagine if Sufjan Stevens used more electronic instruments. That is DIIV's Oshin, a loud-yet-pretty, bass-driven album full of catchy, repetitive hooks and choruses that will carry this band for quite a while.
"How Long Have You Known"

9. Matthew Dear
Beams

If there's one thing you can count on, it's for Matthew Dear to make some creepy, but totally wicked dance beats and lay the most extreme loops over top of them. Beams builds on the more experimental sound of 2010's Black City and utterly kills while doing so. This should be the soundtrack to every club. No one makes better ethereal dance music than Matthew Dear, and this album is no exception.
"Earthforms"

8. Purity Ring
Shrines

When I first heard of Purity Ring, I thought that a band with that name couldn't be very good. I was very wrong. Despite the flack dub-step gets these days (and much of it rightly so), Purity Ring has made an album of futuristic pop, not the bogged-down dub your used to, with flighty vocals and cleanly produced beats that transport you to a Blade-Runner-esque science-fiction.
"Fineshrine"

7. Cloud Nothings
Attack on Memory

Since Nirvana shot to fame in early 90s, music has changed drastically...or has it? As bands came and went trying to copy the Seattle Grunge sound and then it seemed to be left behind forever, as the "indie" sound moved on to smaller production, and more experimental sounds. Not Cloud Nothings. Attack on Memory is a shocking kick-in-the-pants to an otherwise humdrum indie scene. Powerful chords, big bass, massive drums, angsty lyrics--this is what all those post-Nirvana bands were supposed to sound like.
"Wasted Days"

NOTE: From this point on, not one of these albums has a single downside.

6. Deftones
Koi No Yokan

As terrible as it sounds, Deftones have been better since the loss of bassist Chi Cheng. Their music is more angry, less self-pitying. The sad, somber turntable is gone, metal is king. This is the heaviest that desert rock can sound without becoming sludge metal. This is the darkest nu-metal can get without being Tool. The songs are challenging, but delivered effortlessly, and create a cohesive, textural experience that crushes you with it's weight while lifting you with its messages. Deftones is a masterful band finally coming into their own, redefining the genre that made them, crafting a record that blends ass-kicking rock and melodic soul into a single sound.
"Goon Squad"

5. Crystal Castles
(III)

Not so long ago, there was a duo that made fun-sounding dance music out of old Nintendo cartridges and weirdly distorted vocals out of B-movie samples ("Don't worry, dear Pamela. I'll do my scientific best to command your fleet"). That duo was Crystal Castles, and judging from the sound of (III), that duo is dead. Instead of partying to the point of loneliness, (III) touches on subjects as lighthearted as bride burning, equal access to medication, the persecution of homosexuals, political oppression, and the regimented slaughter of hundreds of thousands whose only crime is desiring freedom. To say that this new Crystal Castles is dark is to say that Syria is stable. These are the depths of despair, the graphic bottom of the world's most horrific crimes laid out before us in all their 8-bit glory. There is no "good times keep rolling" on this album, only the plague.
"Kerosene"

4. A Place to Bury Strangers
Onwards to the Wall EP

I would tell you that this is the best music APTBS has written so far, but that is only half of the truth. What is showcased in Onwards to the Wall is the best music any shoegaze band has ever written. It is louder, it is heavier, the guitars crash more and create more static-filled noise. It is not enough to say that the cacophony of noise hits you like a ton of bricks; it's more like driving full-speed into, well, a wall. Never before has there been a more appropriately named album (except maybe APTBS' 2010 effort, Exploding Head). What is taking place within this band--new bassist, new drummer, both of whom are allowed to write songs now--is a complete overhaul, speeding up the pace and throwing the sound back at you more fiercely than ever. Onwards is more complete, better organized, and just more awesome than almost anything else out there...and it's only five songs.
"Drill It Up"
"I Lost You"

3. Chromatics
Kill for Love

Somewhere, in the depths of our collective conscience, ice has a sound, Christmas lights glinting off melting snow has a score, driving through a city at night in the dead of winter has a particular beat. This is what Chromatics have given us access to, that sound, that score, that beat. Too often we push away the dark and mysterious in exchange for fun and simple. Chromatics have shown here that complex and hazy can be just as engrossing, just as mind-numbing as any pop song, transporting you to a world built out of glass and candy. The woozy, drone-like loops are only enhanced by Ruth Radalet's absinthe-soaked vocals. Listening to Kill for Love makes you feel like you're in a movie.
"Lady"
"At Your Door"

2. Bat for Lashes
The Haunted Man

I think I've probably said enough about Bat for Lashes in the past couple months, and over the past few years, but even more is there to be discussed. While many critics derided Natasha Khan for eschewing her old ways--lush orchestral arrangements, mythical lyrics, complex drumming--this new version makes the music, and the themes behind it, more visceral and accessible than ever.  Khan's vocals are softer, more hurt, and resonate long after the closing of "Deep Sea Diver." The stripped-down beats and overall dearth of strings bring you closer, like story time, to the tales of loves lost. Her voice sails over massive drums on standouts "Horses of the Sun" and "Marilyn," which sound more like something off of Fur and Gold than off of her last effort, the luxurious Two Suns. And previously mentioned "Deep Sea Diver" is the best album-closer Khan has ever delivered; a fitting end to an uplifting tale of tragedy, discovery, and triumph.
"Marilyn"
"A Wall"
"Rest Your Head"

1. Beach House
Bloom

Knowing that Beach House is from Baltimore may make it seem like I'm biased towards them. You're not wrong, but that doesn't mean Bloom isn't the best album of the year. They should be considered, even by  those whose hometowns are not the same as the dream-pop duo, to have majestically woven a tapestry of music so detailed that no words can truly describe them. "Myth," the album opener, alone is better than anything you heard on the radio this year. The songs offered here are so immensely descriptive and beautifully crafted that they transport you to another plane, one where anything is possible. The entire record is a dream-scape that is both ethereal and corporeal, blending cryptic fragments into a smoky whole. The sound--no--the experience of Bloom is one where Beach House lays out questions like a breadcrumb trail, letting you discover the answers on your own. The precisely chosen delivery of every note and syllable gives you enough clues to enjoy the full range of music, without spoiling the ending.
"Myth"
"Wild"
"Lazuli"
"Irene"