Albums 20 –
11

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20.
Centro-Matic: Love You Just the Same (Misra)

Centro-Matic are one of those strange bands that really needed to impress me several times before I took them seriously.
The first time around was with their vastly underappreciated Redo the Stacks and though I always
loved what I’d heard from their post-RtS material (save parts of Distance and Clime), I rarely bothered to hear more. When I saw the band
had a new record out, I decided to pick it up in an optimistic gesture, hoping
they hadn’t somehow turned into a diluted Bright Eyes or the folk alternative
to Cursive. Thankfully, I happened to stumble upon Will Johnson hitting his
peak as a songwriter and lyricist, topping even previous career highs as “Can’t
Compete” and “My Supermodel Girlfriend Gone Awol” with “All
the Lightning Rods” and “Strahan Has Corralled the Freaks.” At times Love You Just the Same cam be long-winded and trying, but
nothing serious enough to keep it from being one of the best indie rock records
of 2003.

19.
B. Fleischmann: Welcome Tourist (Morr Music)
Before
anything else, I’ll once again state that I think “A Letter From Home” is absolutely one of the best songs released all year. With that out of the
way, let’s also get to why this record is also one of the more frustrating
of the year: Fleischmann crafts nine involving ambient/IDM tracks on the first
disc of Welcome Tourist before quickly changing gears and offering
up two incredibly grating bombs that single-handedly keep this from being
a top ten contender. The record’s second disc helps the situation (well, any
forty minute plus track that doesn’t make me want to kill things is impressive)
but with such trash stuck between the two halves of this record. . . it’s
like an amazing date that, half-way through, starts to read from her personal
book of “optimistic poetry.” Best to pretend it didn’t happen and
focus on other, less annoying, things.

18.
Crooked Fingers: Red Devil Dawn (Merge)
One
of the first records of the year that I really clung onto, Red Devil Dawn
is former Archers of Loaf leader Eric Bachmann’s strongest collection of songs
since White Trash Heroes, topping even the eponymous Crooked Fingers
album that had set the stage for Bachmann’s new bar-lounge/Springsteen sound,
only to be followed up by the tepid Bring on the Snakes a year later.
Bachmann took two years to put together RDD and the time obviously
helped, ridding his songwriting of the rushed and underdeveloped feel that
had tarnished Snakes. Even if it doesn’t include (for whatever reason)
the excellent title track, there are ten incredibly strong songs here, the
best of which (“You Can Never Leave,” “Bad Man Coming”
and “Carrion Doves”) rival anything the man has ever done.

17.
Pernice
Brothers: Yours, Mine & Ours
(Ashmont)
One
of the few records I bought blindly in 2003 without having heard a note from
it, and it really didn’t disappoint. Their radio-friendly FM/indie-pop sound,
having already been perfected with their revered The World Won’t End,
is once again rescued from cliché with interesting production and some
of the best pop hooks of the year; “Water Ban,” for instance, could
have the catchiest first thirty seconds of any song in 2003 and “Number
Two” makes for one of the most perfect closers I’ve heard in quite a
while. Yours, Mine & Ours isn’t the most original record you can
buy this year, but certainly one of the more enjoyable.

16. Explosions
in the Sky: The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place (Temporary Residence)
The
only group still labeled as “post-rock” still worth a damn. After
the release of the phenomenal Those Who Tell the Truth… in 2001,
the group made it clear that they might not be able to record again, so when
news of The Earth began to surface, my expectations were massive. The Earth finds the band with far more restraint and though it
doesn’t rock out as often or as hard as “Greet Death” or “The
Moon is Down,” the intense melodic build and clever restraint of the
record saves it from being a brooding and boring mess. This isn’t their finest
hour, but when the band is able to hit upon a great idea, they are truly in
a league of their own in their ability to build, contort and destroy it. If Those Who Tell the Truth was their onslaught, The Earth is their
victory march.

15.
Viktor
Vaughn: Vaudeville Villain (Sound-Ink)
MF
Doom never wastes a damn second letting his many personas kick you in the
face when you put the record on. His inconsistent but excellent other project
this year, King Geedorah’s Take Me to Your Leader, kicked off with
the one-two punch of the unbelievable “Fazers” and the ’80s-theme
feel of “Fastlane;” and, always willing to top himself with each
subsequent album, Vaudeville Villain bursts open with its King Honey-produced
title track, setting the stage for the best hip-hop disc of the year. Some
of its concepts wear a little thin, but there
is just far too much here to even suggest that it has any detrimental flaws
or that it isn’t, by far, his best work since ’99s Operation Doomsday.

14.
Jim Guthrie: Now More Than Ever (Three Gut)
Take
a little bit of Jim O’Rourke, a little from John Vanderslice, and, just for
kicks, a little Sufjan Stevens and you’re somewhere closer to knowing what
to expect from this record. The second of two releases this year by Guthrie
(the first of which, Morning Noon Night, is a truly twisted pop record
pieced together by Playstation’s MTV Music Generator that made its way to
#66 on my list), Now More Than Ever somehow finds Guthrie maturing
leaps and bounds in terms of songwriting and arrangement in just under a year,
his talents culminating in a record so tight and inventive that even though
I’ve only owned it a few weeks, there’s no way I could drop it any lower than
this on my list. Given a little time, I can only see this record getting better
and it’s too bad I have to wrap up this list now, because in a few months
this might be top ten, maybe even five, material. Great stuff.

13.
The Strokes: Room on Fire (RCA)
Room
on Fire is to me in 2003 what Spoon’s Kill the Moonlight was in
2002 and Is This It was in 2001: a short, to-the-point rock record
that doesn’t waste its time with “themes” or much “depth,” but manages to churn out a couple of great hooks in each song and flows through
its relatively short lifespan without any significant lulls or filler. Though
it’s not as willing to take risks as Kill the Moonlight or, by its
nature, as refreshing as Is This It, this is as good a follow-up we
could’ve asked from a three-chord rock band that has been plagued with hype-storms
and NME-size hyperbole to the point where it seems like their music is inconsequential
to their success. Fact is, the Strokes blew me away before they hit it big because of their songs,
and Room on Fire is as good, if not in some ways far better, than their
debut.

12.
Grandaddy:
Sumday (V2)
Sumday
is one of the years more debatable releases and Amir’s review is a fantastic argument from the “this is fucking boring” view.
Mine, on the other hand, goes like this: Sumday is a terrific follow-up
to The Sophtware Slump and succeeds in the same way the better parts
of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots did last year; the production is
often similar, the songs similarly almost all caught in the same mid-tempo
haze and both are just ridiculous enough to add a beneficial charm to the
lovely, superbly produced melodies. “El Caminos in the West” gives
the album a much needed shot in the arm half-way through and “The Warming Sun” throws
around the kind of emotional weight Sophtware, for the most part, lacked.
Amir argued that Grandaddy didn’t push themselves enough on Sumday.
To my ears, the band’s ambition has never extrapolated beyond exactly where
they were at the time. Sumday is the sound of 2003’s Grandaddy, and
they’ve rarely sounded as confident or infectious.

11.
The
Wrens: The Meadowlands (Absolutely Kosher)
I first heard this album in about
March of this year, well after falling in love with Secaucus and hearing
that The Meadowlands, in limbo for quite some time, was going to get
a limited pre-release run. The full version, including the incredible “Such
a Pretty Lie” was altered for the AK release later this year and though
“Pretty Lie” was carelessly cut along with “Nervous and Not
Me” (and yet they keep “This Is Not What You Had Planned,”
“Everyone Chooses Sides” and “Faster Gun?”), it’s still
an incredible record. At times it the vocals teeter on being a little grating
(not so much in their timbre as their faux-accents, since their harmonies, cleanly
sung, are mostly beautiful), like on the first half of “She Sends Kisses,”
though it –like the rest of the record –quickly recovers and throws out
an incredible hook or twist to pull you back in. I won’t say I love with the
album with the same fervor as Amir or Peter (though if it had been released
“officially” with the pre-release’s original fifteen tracks, this
would be top ten for me, as well), but it’s certainly an essential release
for fans of indie guitar rock.