Jordan's Best of 2006 (Picks by the Editor) Feature by Jordan A. Baker
Every year I go through phases of extreme excitement and palpable dread in working on this list. For every definite heap of glowing praise, there’s a bout of second guessing and a fear of leaving out something undeniably special. And then there’s those picks like naming BLEEDING THROUGH to my list in 2003 that seem like an impossibility in hindsight. I suppose that’s the thrill in all of this – figuring out what really played a part in the soundtrack to my year, and not worrying about how it’ll factor or appear in future time periods. So without further blabberings, here’s what mattered to me in 2006:
Best Releases of 2006
25. SHOOK ONES – Facetious Folly Feat (Revelation) After 2005’s Sixteen, SHOOK ONES were known for being an exciting, highly promising KID DYNAMITE/LIFETIME emulator. With Feat, both lyrically and musically, the band takes a giant step out of the shadow of its influences and finds a melodic hardcore territory to call its own. As unabashed road hogs, watching the coming of age spirit of punk and hardcore filter into Feat is its greatest achievement.
24. TAKING BACK SUNDAY – Louder Now (Warner Bros.) With TAKING BACK SUNDAY, a funny thing happened on the not-so-straight road to stardom. Bypassed by bands with more outrageous marketing plans (cough… MCR…. cough), TBS faded neatly into the texture of 2006 with a remarkably consistent effort in Louder Now. Three full-lengths into their career, TBS have successfully carved out their own instantly identifiable melodic post-hardcore sound, and the major label bucks have finally given it the kind of heft it deserves.
23. THIS IS HELL – Sundowning (Trustkill) Normally, a “best of” album will have an intangible sum that’s greater than its separable parts, but Sundowning earned its spot on this list mostly because of the song “Broken Teeth,” which contains my favorite breakdown of 2006. Travis Reilly and company are probably sick to death over all of the AMERICAN NIGHTMARE/GIVE UP THE GHOST comparisons that Sundowning has generated from the press, but sometimes a simple reference to a benchmark band says more than enough to convey the right impression.
22. SAOSIN – S/T (Capitol) After my wife said to me in the car “do you know how ridiculous you sound trying to sing along to this?” I knew SAOSIN were onto something with this long-awaited self-titled affair. I’m supposed to have an aversion to massive sounding major label releases that blink “hit factory” on the cover, but SAOSIN are too talented and too convincing to ignore. If I was giving an award out to the most surprising performance of the year, Cove Reber would have it, hands down.
21. ANOTHER BREATH – Mill City (Rivalry) Mill City was one of my most anticipated releases for this year, particularly because of the band’s stunning 2004 EP Not Now, Not Ever. With a bit of tinkering in the formula, and a healthy shot of MODERN LIFE IS WAR influence (brooding, edge of your seat waiting for an eruption of energy that may or may not actually come), Mill City stands out as having perfected the contemporary hardcore sound. Bands like this tend to make their impact in a short couple of years, break up, and vanish into obscurity, so catch them live while you can.
20. SPITALFIELD – Better Than Knowing Where You Are (Victory) Between the various bits of monkey poo that Victory shot out of a cannon in 2006, SPITALFIELD once again proved that they have nothing in common with any of the cartoony-core bands that their home gets associated with. Better Than Knowing is a pure emo/power-pop gem that channels the best of JIMMY EAT WORLD and HEY MERCEDES. Each of the band’s past two full-lengths has had its own distinctive character, and Better Than Knowing draws equally from their strengths. As a great a sleeper release as I've come across this year.
19. BURNS OUT BRIGHT – Save Yourself A Lifetime (Deep Elm) The struggle between making art and staying above water financially in order to make one’s art is a subject matter that has been worn into the ground over and over again. Still, it’s the kind of heartfelt, deeply passionate thing that when done right (see MARATHON’s S/T), rules the day. On their first full-length, punk/emo/post-hardcore/whothefuckknows artists, BURNS OUT BRIGHT vividly detail their fight in trying to survive in a shark-filled environment that’s booby trapped and slanted uphill at a 55 degree angle. The songs on here are long and aching, bloated, and bombastic, and most importantly, compelling in a way that begs for repeat listening and analysis.
18. VIVA VOCE –Get Yr Blood Sucked Out (Barsuk) While MATES OF STATE may have been the husband and wife duo on Barsuk to garner most of the indie rock critical acclaim this year, VIVA VOCE’s married pair do wonders on Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, an eerie trip of unsettling, haunting rock and pop. With a splash of epic sounding trumpets, and a constant booming sound from the drum kit, VIVA VOCE have added a new twist and dimension to my all-too-narrow-in-scope music collection.
17. NEW FOUND GLORY – Coming Home (Suretone) After getting over my hang-ups about Coming Home dropping a few BPMs from Catalyst and albums prior, I made peace with a full-length chock full of smoothly-delivered, tightly written pop-rock anthems. Between the gigantic sing-alongs in the title track, and on “Oxygen,” “Taken Back By You,” and “Connected,” Coming Home wins you over with an earnest smile and a wistful stare. File under: escapist maximalis.
16. MASTODON – Blood Mountain (Warner Bros.) Beyond the gotta-have-a-story chatter about MASTODON changing the face of metal, etc., etc., Blood Mountain is simply a juggernaut of an album. It’s the kind of release that disperses through your body and oozes into every open cavity. Mind-blowing percussion, and guitar mastery give Blood Mountain its base, but where the band really steps it up as compared to prior releases is in the progression of the multi-member vocals, where the howling, screaming, and singing sizzles in all methods of execution.
15. HEAD AUTOMATICA – Popaganda (Warner Bros.) Popaganda absolutely destroys HEAD AUTOMATICA’s 2004 debut, Decadence. Ditching the dance-beat driven focus of Dan the Automator was the best decision Daryl Palumbo made for Popaganda, which is a wonderful blitz of ELVIS COSTELLO inspired soulful pop-rock. Palumbo has had an arena-complex since he was an eclectic teen fronting GLASSJAW, and that infatuation with grandiose vocals and choruses really shines here. “Nowhere Fast,” “Cannibal Girl,” “Graduation Day,” and “Scandalous,” all contain melodies that you’ll be in humming in your sleep.
14. THE FIRST STEP – What We Know (Rivalry) This year didn’t exactly deliver a large harvest of youth crew inspired hardcore, but THE FIRST STEP shuffled an affirmative hurrah for the genre with What We Know, a tight-as-nails offering of music that gets the fingers a-pointing and begs for in-the-bedroom pile-ons. With an overflowing batch of positive lyrics, and a uniquely aged production style (courtesy of Walter Schreifels), What We Know blasts through the door and lightens up the room.
13. NO TRIGGER – Canyoneer (Nitro) In my review of Canyonner, I talked about the “guaranteed circle pit action,” generated by the song “Attack of Orion and the Left Arm Sunburn,” and that’s still the lasting impression I have of NO TRIGGER’s debut full-length. Speedy, hook-filled melodic punk/hardcore that makes you want to run around and sing your head off to socially conscious and personally engaged lyrics. Recording with Bill Stevenson allowed NO TRIGGER to move past their STRIKE ANYWHERE songwriting infatuation, and while the resulting full-length isn’t exactly the most cohesive release, its generous amount of jaw-dropping moments will make it a genre staple for years to come.
12. THE DRAFT – In A Million Pieces (Epitaph) Broken free from the shackles of the more than a decade-long running, super-influential unit named HOT WATER MUSIC, the three fourths of the former band that are in THE DRAFT concocted a brilliant, stripped down album that’s… still in the vein of HOT WATER MUSIC. So much for throwing away the baby with the bathwater (Or are you not supposed to do that? Ehh... whatever) . Minus one Chuck Ragan, and one intimidating discography, THE DRAFT, take the kind of creative, open-ended leap that HOT WATER MUSIC could not afford to do.
11. THE BOUNCING SOULS – The Gold Album (Epitaph) New Jersey’s charming ‘SOULS return with their most refined release to date, and the gulf between the scrawny, drunken, punk rock band that began with the same name more than 15 years ago and today’s version, grows ever larger. “Sarah Saturday” is a buoyant song that could bully all jukeboxes, while “Letter From Iraq,” captures the political climate of 2006 in a mere three and half minutes. Story after story, the ‘SOULS make you pine for a moment of downtime where you can sit by the fire and enjoy the energy in the air.
10. BETRAYED – Substance (Equal Vision) Every year this happens. An up-and-coming force in hardcore drops an amazing full-length and then calls it quits just as things for the band begin to heat up. Last year, it was MENTAL, on the heels of Planet Mental, and this year, it’s the supergroup BETRAYED. With Substance, BETRAYED harnessed the imminent rage and reaction that boiled in a band like MINOR THREAT, and matched it with the melody, thoughtfulness, and structural underpinnings of groups like DAG NASTY and CARRY ON (not surprising since the band featured guitarist Todd Jones). BETRAYED diplomatically asked the listener to look for something more out of life – to move past the shallow materialism, and to have trust and faith in yourself and the people you surround yourself with. While I’m saddened by the band’s quick disappearing act, Substance leaves little unsaid.
9. STRIKE ANYWHERE – Dead FM (Fat) As one of the most beloved punk/hardcore bands since their inception in 1999, Richmond’s STRIKE ANYWHERE are known for primarily for two things – supercharged political and socially relevant lyrics, and having some of the most badass shout-alongs known to mankind. Dead FM excels at both. This album picks up the pace from 2003’s Exit English, and glistens with brighter melodic overtones. The album’s fourteen songs zoom through the listener in a cloud of hyper-kinetic dust and one gets the feeling that the band is having a seriously good time playing these songs, even as they’ve been processed through the studio machinery. This kind of music just cannot be faked.
8. THE HOPE CONSPIRACY – Death Knows Your Name (Deathwish) In the category of “full-length no one saw coming,” THE HOPE CONSPIRACY arose from the land of “indefinite hiatus” to detonate one of 2006’s most vitriolic chemical reactions. Bearing only a little in common with the band’s two prior full-lengths, Death absorbs its power-riffs from the BARS side project, and allows the band’s metallic hardcore roots to mutate into something much more powerful and calculated. It’s contrived to use the word brutal, but that’s exactly the right word to describe Death Knows Your Name.
7. HAVE HEART – The Things We Carry (Bridge Nine) We haven’t heard any new music from BANE since last year’s The Note, but HAVE HEART has filled in nicely with their debut, the Jim Siegel produced full-length The Things We Carry. Call it VFW-core, call it what you will, but this is the kind of determined hardcore that emanates from halls, basements, and dark clubs all across the world. It will never crossover into pop (or maybe it well, see SET YOUR GOALS down a couple of entries!), and it will never truly escape the hardcore scene. There’s a photo of singer Pat Flynn under the CD tray that has him standing on stage, arms up in the air in a ‘V’ presiding over several hundred kids, packed like sardines before the stage, and everything that’s great about this disc is captured right there. HAVE HEART are for the believers.
6. THE LAWRENCE ARMS – Oh! Calcutta! (Fat) What we’re seeing with the ‘ARMS is largely mirroring the progression of the BOUNCING SOULS – from scrappy, underdog punk rockers into great songwriters that are revered for balancing their roots with their ambitions (stated or not). This is the first ‘ARMS full-length that truly aligns the two vastly different, but synergy-infused vocal stylings of Brendan Kelly and Chris McCaughan. One song after the other, Oh! Calcutta! gets better and better. In this age of download-and-delete, THE LAWRENCE ARMS continue to build their case as one of the best bands to emerge since the late 90s.
5. RISE AGAINST – Sufferer and The Witness (Geffen) RISE AGAINST are an easy meal for holier-than-thou skeptics. They’ve got a pseudo-aggressive band name. You can find their releases on the endcaps at Best Buy and Target. They even had an acoustic song as a single on the radio. But full-length after full-length, RISE AGAINST show why they’re commonly compared to BAD RELIGION. On both record and live, this band has presence. They completely own their space, while inviting you to enmesh yourself in the moment. Frontman Tim McIllrath knows how to keep a tune, but he can also devour you with a rapacious howl (as on opener “Chamber the Catridge” and "Drones"). At home once again with Bill Stevenson, RISE AGAINST are a band in sync from the first chord, and Sufferer is littered with instant classics such as “Ready to Fall” and “Survive.” A good band finally becomes a great band.
4. CRIME IN STEREO – The Troubled Stateside (Nitro) ”The Long Island sound” exploded this year with the established and growing popularity of past and present bands like CRIME IN STEREO, CAPITAL, AGENT, TAKE MY CHANCES, ANXOUS ARMS, SILENT MAJORITY, THE MOVIELIFE, HEADS VS. BREAKERS, and more. The Troubled Stateside is important both because of its musical grounding, and because of the band’s industrial strength lyrical core. With band members in their mid-20s, caught in between the looming responsibility of careers, and living out a band existence with virtually no safety net, The Troubled Stateside is a culmination of the perfect suburban storm, or perhaps more eloquently said by the band, “the new math of debt and dreams.”
3. SET YOUR GOALS – Mutiny (Eulogy) On the title track, SET YOUR GOALS screams actively “This Is A Full Blown Assault!” Not since NEW FOUND GLORY’s Nothing Gold Can Stay have I heard a full-length that so majestically bridges hardcore beats and breakdowns with melodic pop-punk bliss. SET YOUR GOALS win the triple crown for having an ultra fresh breath of manic earnestness, a poignant, serious side in an album with an unabashed pirate theme (“Echoes”), and enough crafty guitarwork to keep things moving forward on more than just energy alone. Mutiny’s style isn’t all that original as a whole, but its personality is without peer in 2006.
2. CAPITAL – Signal Corps (Iron Pier) I didn’t ask for much in 2006. Good health for myself, my wife, my family and friends. A successful year as an attorney. A continued enjoyment in running Pastepunk. And maybe a few more stuffed bears. While I got everything I asked for (and more), I didn’t expect something to fall out of the sky like CAPITAL’s Signal Corps. I’ve become a SILENT MAJORITY/Tommy Corrigan evangelist in these pages over the years, and the Corrigan led CAPITAL feels like a reward for my continued faith in SILENT MAJORITY and what the band stood for in the context of LIHC in the mid 90s. Signal Corps gets so much right, from the “goth-emo-mall-metal” skewering in “Goth N Roll,” to the fake-it-to-break-it slime talked about it in “Emergency Broadcast.” “Early Nineties,” truly says it best when Corrigan wails, “Never not I! Is what I cried when asked to lead the normal life. Nine to five was something that I simply could not justify. And I know that it’s the truth. I’m just holding on to youth!” It’s releases like these that still make me run to the mailbox when I’m tired and hungry after work, and just want to find a place to lay down my head.
1. IGNITE – Our Darkest Days (Abacus) With Our Darkest Days, IGNITE returned to the US with their first full-length in over six years. I also caught the band live for the first time in almost nine years. It could be argued quite convincingly that IGNITE was Pastepunk’s band of 2006. My attachment to this band runs pretty thick. In many ways, they were that “far away conviction carrying hardcore band from California” that made California hardcore seem so intriguing to someone who only knew the genre from a distinctly New York perspective. No one seriously compares to Zoli Teglas’ operatic vocals. Like Tim McIllrath, Teglas has presence, and Our Darkest Days is essentially the Zoli show. Paired with a hybrid sound that’s as much UNIFORM CHOICE and GORILLIA BISCUITS meets modern melodic punk rock, and with a verbal platform that invades a variety of brain parts, IGNITE stands out as universally relevant in a period of constant flux and fleeting trends.
Honorable Mentions
UNDEROATH – Define the Great Line (Solid State)
PALEHORSE – Amongst The Flock (Bridge Nine)
SAVES THE DAY - Sound The Alarm (Vagrant)
THE LOVED ONES - Keep Your Heart (Fat)
PLANES MISTAKEN FOR STARS – Mercy (Abacus)
ARMALITE - S/T (No Idea)
BIGWIG – Reclamation (Fearless)
KILLSWITCH ENGAGE - As Daylight Dies (Roadrunner)
BURST – Origo (Relapse)
DRAG THE RIVER - It's Crazy (Suburban Home)
EVER WE FALL - We Are But Human (Hopeless)
FROM FIRST TO LAST – Heroine (Epitaph)
MARITIME - We, The Vehicles (Flameshovel)
SICK OF IT ALL - Death to Tyrants (Abacus)
THE SWORD - Age of Winters (Kemado)
RAISED FIST - Sound of the Republic (Epitaph/Burning Heart)
AFI – Decemberundergound (Interscope)
MONEEN – The Red Tree (Vagrant)
TIM BARRY - Rivana Junction (Suburban Home)
THE WARRIORS - Beyond the Noise (Eulogy)
GOOD RIDDANCE - My Republic (Fat)
EVERY NEW DAY - Even In The Darkest Places (Hand of Hope/Eulogy)
DEAD TO ME - Cuban Ballerina (Fat)
PARK - Building A Better ________ (Lobster)
ANTI-FLAG - For Blood and Empire (RCA)
IN FLAMES - Come Clarity (Ferret)
TERROR - Always The Hard Way (Trustkill)
VAUX - Beyond Virtue, Beyond Vice (Outlook)
UNEARTH - III: In The Eyes of Fire (Metal Blade)
TRIVIUM - The Crusade (Roadrunner)
JEREMY ENIGK - World Waits (Reincarnate)
BRAND NEW - The God and The Devil Are Raging Inside of Me (Interscope)
TWELVE TRIBES - Midwest Pandemic (Ferret)
CONVERGE - No Heroes (Epitaph)
SINKING SHIPS – Disconnecting (Revelation)
SAMIAM - Whatever's Got You Down (Hopeless)
LATTERMAN - We Are Still Alive (Deep Elm)
ZAO – The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here (Ferret)
LEMONHEADS – S/T (Vagrant)
Best EPs
1. AMBITIONS – Question (Think Fast!)
2. POLAR BEAR CLUB - The Redder, The Better (Triple Attack)
3. AGENT - I Wouldn't Trade That For Anything (Iron Pier)
4. BETWEEN THE WARS - Less We Believe (Think Fast!)
Reissues/Collections
1. AVAIL Reissues: Dixie, 4AM Friday, Over The James (Jade Tree)
2. LIFETIME – Somewhere In The Swamps of Jersey (Jade Tree)
3. SHAI HULUD Reissues: Hearts Once Nourished With Hope and Compassion, A Profound Hatred of Man (Revelation)
4. WRECKING CREW – Balance of Terror (I Scream)
5. 108 - Complete Discography (Equal Vision)
Compilations
1. “State of The Scene” (Get Outta Town)
2. “Bridge Nine Singles Vol. 2” (Bridge Nine)
3. “Scream For Help” - (KOI Records)
4. “Hair: Chicago Punk Cuts” – (Thick Records)
5. “American Hardcore Movie Soundtrack” (Rhino)
I Can’t Believe It’s Been Ten Years Since I Purchased
GOOD RIDDANCE – A Comprehensive Guide to Moderne Rebellion (Fat)
Release That I Picked Up This Year That I Should Have Purchased Ten Years Ago
BUZZCOCKS’s – Operator’s Manual
Release That I Picked Up This Year That Surely Would Have Made My ‘Best Collections’ Category in 2005
LAWRENCE ARMS – Cocktails and Dreams
Most Misguided Promo Sent to Pastepunk in 2006
JOJO – The High Road
Best Music DVD
BAD RELIGION – Live At The Palladium
Most Baffling Press Moment of 2006
Getting an email asking if I was still at my University of Maryland address… from 2001!
Pros
1. eMusic.com
2. The New York Mets
3. Punk Planet surviving a tough year
4. “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson
5. The comic strip Pearls Before Swine
Cons
1. The collapse of Tower Records
2. CBGBs finally shutting its doors
3. The disturbing vapidity of MySpace as utilized by most bands
4. Lobster Records having only one release in 2006
5. FIGHT PARIS is still a band.
