Drowned in Sound's albums of the year countdown continues...

20: Destroyer Kaputt

"Daniel Bejar has been indie rock’s best kept secret for over a decade, but that should change with his latest release, Kaputt. From his humble beginning as a troubadour in the mid-Nineties, recording solo on a 4-track, the Canadian singer-songwriter hasn’t strayed too far off that path, despite his propensity to mix and match elements of surprisingly disparate genres. Since his fourth album, 2000’s Thief, he has meshed folk with glam, blue-eyed soul with new wave, and more recently, ambient electronic with disco. Indeed, the only sound he’s steadfastly avoided is U2 stadium rock. No matter the variety of styles, the multiple layers of instrumentation and the revolving cast of musicians, Destroyer remains at its core a shabby, tousled-haired poet with an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder. On his tenth album under the Destroyer banner, he approaches near perfection by combining complex song structures with simple pop melodies... Soft rock is an unexpected choice for the album’s distinguishing characteristic, but he carries it off thanks to inventive flourishes that are nothing short of thrilling... As it turns out, he doesn’t have to rely on surreal lyrics for a beautiful song. Sure, he’s still got that nasally croon, but his mellow, monochromatic delivery works well with the laid-back vibe of these songs. Although Kaputt may well be the first Destroyer album on which Bejar’s poetry is not its foremost attribute, it’s his ability to spit out brilliant couplets, combining common expressions with uncommon ones, that has attracted a rabid cult following, and this album contains some of his best wordplay to date." - Bruce Porter

19: The Field Looping State Of Mind

"Back in 2007, The Field’s debut album was a welcome escape. An emissary from the strange, chilly world of minimal techno, it broke comfortably into the mainstream, sitting pretty near the top of year-end lists, wreathed in blushing praise. An evocatively sparse record, it wrapped a warm, soothing blanket around even the most beat-averse listener... Axel Willner has returned with his third record, Looping State of Mind. And it is wonderful... That lulling, glacial quality remains, but it feels more refined, more mature. The tracks here are more lush and crowded than those that came before, sometimes to the extent that ‘minimal’ techno seems like a misnomer, and it feels fair to add a second genre in brackets - house.... For simple aural pleasure, there has not been much to match this in 2011... This is, of course, an album that needs to be absorbed in a single session, preferably with the aid of a weighty pair of headphones and a darkened room (or failing that, a lengthy train journey)... There are some variations in style here, hints as to where The Field could go next. Penultimate track and single ‘Then It’s White’ is surely Willner’s most nakedly emotional piece to date, an ice-washed, ghostly work that recalls Eluvium, among others... He knits the tried and tested (a flawless base of fantastically simple beats and loops) with flashes of experimentation (the title track carries an undercurrent of hazy Balearic disco) with the assurance of an artist who is supremely confident in his own ability... effortlessly gorgeous, technically fantastic, genuinely awe-inspiring music." - Elliot McVeigh

18: Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells Everything’s Getting Older

"By pure chance I come across a copy of D.H Lawrence’s Apocalypse soon after I begin listening to ‘Everything’s Getting Older’. It catches my attention because the front cover of this particular edition also has a decaying portrait of its author, in this case, a bust of Lawrence on his deathbed by Jo Davidson. Acting as a protest against the limitations of Christianity and rampant individuality, in this final work, Lawrence argued that man should seek to realign himself with the natural world and lead a more spiritual existence. He writes: ‘whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living incarnate cosmos’. Wells and Moffat have created a stunning album that assures us of the death and decay that is to come, but equally, they tell us, as long as we are still around, there is life to be lived, and music like this to be heard." - Michael Wheeler

17: Wild Beasts Smother

"The vocals on Smother are something to treasure. There’s a wonderful balance between Thorpe’s forays into falsetto and Fleming’s booming bass. Wild Beasts are now a true two-frontman band, one singer’s vocal often being used to counter the other and shed a different light on the same event... There’s a lovely bridge in ‘End Come Too Soon’ with no words, no spectacular flourishes, just all the respective instruments working perfectly together and Thorpe singing “la la la la la”, as simple as a lullaby. On paper it should only be a lull in the proper song, yet lands itself directly on your heartstrings; this album is jam-packed to burst with those moments. That’s before acknowledging the many perfect lyrics that somehow manage to encapsulate the vast complexities and vagaries of relationships in a few simple words... It’d be reductive to try and describe a timeless album like Smother as a step up from its two predecessors... It’s an album for anyone who’s ever engaged in a relationship best defined as ‘it’s complicated’. Four words sum up the viewpoint of this album’s protagonist: ‘Loop the Loop’s ”I’ve made enough enemies”, sung with the resigned hangdog tone of someone who knows more enemies are yet to be made. Fortunately making enemies is really not something Wild Beasts need to worry about." - Krystina Nellis

16: A Winged Victory For The Sullen A Winged Victory For The Sullen

"This new Erased Tapes release is a collaboration between Dustin O’Halloran (who’s garnered reputation for being an adroit piano man of the ‘contemporary classical’ genre), and Adam Wiltzie of Stars Of The Lid. After being introduced to one another in Italy whilst Wiltzie was on what would, tragically, turn out to be the final Sparklehorse tour, the album was recorded in a number of different spaces, including the Grunewald Church and the DDR radio studios, with a rotating supporting cast that included Erased Tapes’ multi-instrumentalist sentinel Peter Broderick, and Icelandic cellist and consummate collaborator Hildur Guðnadóttir.... Standout ‘Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears’ is notable for the fluid, putty-like strings that populate it... A Winged Victory For The Sullen’s self-titled debut is a nocturnal meditation for solitary contemplation, a celestial incantation to silence all commotion. While Wiltzie and O’Halloran both have their obvious contemporaries to draw parallels between (Hammock; Eno/Frahm; Arnalds), this emotive disc balances a hushed intimacy and vast expanse that places it in a unique sonic terrain." - Sam Cleeve

15: EMA Past Life Martyred Saints

"...EMA is riding a wave of such collective goodwill you can almost envisage the end-of-year accolades already. Which is both odd and enormously exciting, really: how the former member of a combustible (eventually combusted) noise-folk act (Gowns) – who hails from South Dakota, possesses an unremarkable, if expressive voice and predilection for Danzig, Tool and Guns N’ Roses – has whipped the modern music media into a state of frenzy the likes of which we haven’t seen since… well. At least not this year... It’s more a fresh start than a bitter end, Anderson finding her voice and indulging her love of low and high fidelity against a backdrop of searing noise and the kind of incendiary electric guitar that made her 16-minute cover of Robert Johnson’s ‘Kind Hearted Woman’ so irresistible. If 'harrowing' seems to be the word most bandied about regarding Red State, then 'defiant' ought to be the adjective of choice for Anderson’s solo debut, which dives headlong into some pretty murky waters and comes out swinging.... The record has drawn comparisons with the work of artists from Cat Power to Lift to Experience, Siouxsie to Sonic Youth, all of whom were no doubt influential to a degree... PLMS certainly isn’t an unanimously easy listen (that much should be clear from its title alone), but themes like those of ‘Butterfly Knife’ are leavened by that ever-present defiance. Not easy, but often fascinating, wholly rewarding and genuinely cathartic." - James Skinner

14: Low C’mon

"It’s testament to Low’s consistent excellence that, nearly 20 years into their career, they remain untroubled by accusations of staleness or irrelevance. In fact, the excitement surrounding the release of C’mon, their ninth studio album, is positively tangible. And that excitement is certainly justified, for C’mon is an intriguing, essential addition to their discography, one which might even propel the Minnesotans towards much wider renown... Alan Sparhawk has described the album as a direct appeal to one’s fellow man: “I’m looking in your eyes right now, and we need to figure out how to get through the next moment, together, as human beings”. Low, of course, were formed for the express purpose of antagonising the grunge crowd of the early Nineties, and their precious beauty has always been spiked with a certain belligerence – and so it’s significant that this album, its title, its songs, its feel, is just so inviting... for a Low album to be awash with impossible beauty and spellbinding drama is par for the course, but the difference with C’mon is its formidable sense of assurance, rendering it the sound of an exceptional band finally ready to step out of the shadows." - Dan Cooper-Gavin

13: Tom Waits Bad as Me

"...Waits once said that, ‘half of me, I feel like a jackhammer. I love to holler and stomp my feet and throw rocks. But there’s another side of me that’s like an old man in the corner that’s had too much wine. I’m probably too sentimental for my own good’. Bad As Me is appropriately schizophrenic, with Waits clearly believing that grace and fury need to be side-by-side to bring the best out in each other... Bad As Me sees the performer reaching back into his bag of tricks to pull out a few favourites in a characteristically exhilarating, terrifying, heartbreaking, tear jerking, bone-rattling style. Customary in any piece on Waits seems to be an effusive description of the adjective and metaphor friendly shape-shifting voice that is again the star of the 13 tracks here." - Michael Wheeler

12: Bon Iver Bon Iver

"Justin Vernon and his crew have changed things up here for sure, but the results are every bit as beautiful as you might expect.... Of course, replicating For Emma, Forever Ago wouldn’t have worked, would have felt cheap, that record being so deeply rooted in one place and time. Instead, the band has swollen considerably and built on certain aspects of what made it so striking. Vernon’s voice – an expressive, enchanting thing – is instantly recognisable, and he’s still capable of wrenching every ounce of emotion possible from his songs. It’s a more polished affair than the occasionally rough-hewn debut, synthesisers and saxophones (and space, so much space) guiding and colouring its frosty soundscapes. Lyrically oblique, its power stems from Vernon’s odd turn-of-phrase and heartrending delivery – it’s best just to let that voice wash over you, letting the images manifest in their own time.... there’s nothing here anywhere near as direct as ‘Skinny Love’ or ‘For Emma’, songs like ‘Calgary’ and ‘Towers’ are more in keeping with a traditional sound than the majority of the LP, both blossoming into lovely full-band efforts as they wear on... an often surprising and unusual album, one which confidently sketches out a blueprint for the band far beyond anything Vernon could have dreamt when he first decamped to his father’s cabin in Wisconsin." - James Skinner

11: St. Vincent Strange Mercy

"...Strange Mercy is an ornate and soul-bothering listen. Annie's voice seems as graceful as a swan, atop vintage amps which warp and distort 'til they sound like a fairground ride loop-de-looping through Tom Waits’ cochlea... it’s almost as though pixelated sunflowers and castle turrets have grown from the foundations of the albums which came before. It’s as if someone poured a rainbow of electric Kool Aid over Actor’s monochrome veneer... It’s this mixture of dissonance and elegance, which she experimented with on Actor but that runs throughout Strange Mercy; the continual lightSHADE effect is the sound of utter-utter-utter mastery... this is an album that rockets toward you, ricochets through your emotions and finally decides to lay you down on the floor, headphones on, leaving you tumbling around like a blissed-out cat in the sun. Don’t be fooled; at some point it will pounce." - Sean Adams

10: Metronomy The English Rivera

"...there is a lineage of eccentric, slightly avant-garde leaning Great British Pop into which Metronomy can comfortably be slotted. It would have to begin with the Beatles, I suppose, before moving through the likes of Barrett, Bowie, Sparks, Wire, XTC, Associates, Scritti, Pet Shop Boys, maybe Pulp or St. Etienne or SFA or Ooberman if we’re feeling generous, all the way to Metronomy contemporaries such as Guillemots, Klaxons and Everything Everything... the Japan-styled ‘She Wants’ (much has been made of its gorgeous fretless bass but there’s more than a dash of Richard Barbieri in the keyboard textures, too) or the even more minimal ’The Look’, Phoenix eviscerated, wherein Prior appears to have decided that she is allowed to hit the kick drum, but only when absolutely necessary. And using the teeth of a comb as percussion is very Lindsay Buckingham circa Tusk, although that’s as far as I go with the mid-Seventies Mac comparisons The English Riviera has inexplicably drawn. Or I could mention how ‘Corinne’ comes across like The Cars spawning a hybrid of ‘Alec Eiffel’, ‘Computer Love’ and ‘You Wanted A Hit’, or the echoes of fellow English anomalies Orbital that rear their heads on ‘Loving Arm’ and ‘Love Underlined’... Possibly a little early to be wheeling out 'album of the year'-type assertions, but with The English Riviera Mount has set the bar nice and high." - Chris Trout

9: Beirut The Rip Tide

"...there's an element of Condon exploring his inner pop singer-songwriter on songs such as 'Santa Fe' and 'Vagabond'. Only a small element, though; this is Beirut after all. Paired with the album's running time of only 33 minutes, it's a sign of the album's relentless focus on distilling the songs into their purest form, rather than Condon suddenly making a play to be the next major X Factor songwriter... The Rip Tide is neither a sandblasted version of Beirut, nor the band at their most idiosyncratic. The experiences of a man who's travelled the world are in full effect; this is definitely not the 'sod it let's go mainstream' efforts of a band who need to sell or they'll be dropped, like many quirky bands before them. The irony is that, on Condon's own terms, this is easily Beirut's most accessible-sounding effort yet. So maybe the full-on limelight is finally ready to embrace Beirut. Or maybe Condon's finally ready to embrace the limelight. Well if he's not yet, he certainly should be." - Krystina Nellis

8: Bright Eyes The People’s Key

"...Bright Eyes' seventh album is heavily inspired by science fiction writers (Kurt Vonnegut and Margaret Atwood have been cited as influential alongside Arthur C. Clarke and H.G. Wells), it sees off the loping Americana and organic instrumentation found on Cassadaga, the Monsters of Folk record and both Mystic Valley Band LPs in favour of an ornate, electric meditation on the way in which technology affects human connection. But if that sounds a bit heavy, it takes all of one listen to dispel such notions. Though 2005’s Digital Ash in a Digital Urn is its closest forebear in Oberst’s catalogue, that record never pulsed with such life and urgency as the trio and their cast of collaborators do here... If Cassadaga sometimes lacked that intangible, special quality that marked Bright Eyes’ earlier work, then The People’s Key possesses it in spades. The band has pulled off the difficult trick of sculpting a record concerned with weighty, complex themes and made it sound like the breeziest, most effortless thing in the world: a collection of fleet, shimmering pop songs; a master-class in sonic splendour; a bold, beautiful and brilliant reinvention that should surprise as many as it will enthrall." - James Skinner

7: Nils Frahm Felt

"Felt is a body of music so intimate and hushed you can practically hear the microphones breathing. Put together in late night sessions at his home studio, this third release from German modern classical impresario Nils Frahm has floor boards creaking and errant noises rustling in the gaps between his delicately poised chords, Frahm’s breathing faintly audible as his ghostly piano tinkering plays out. If autumn has so far been generous to neo-classical junkies with albums from the likes of droned string symphony experimenters A Winged Victory For The Sullen, then Felt is perhaps the season’s most enticing gift yet: a cryptic weave of indelible sounds and silences; an emotional juggernaut... Frahm’s hyper-intimate recording technique for the album makes Felt a captivating listen. Nothing is quite what it seems or sounds. The dampened keys in ‘Snippet’ resonate like harps, microphones buried deep enough in the bowels of the piano to capture every plucking of every string, the almost mechanical innards of the instrument on show and jarring curiously with the stirring melodies being issued... Part of the Erased Tapes stable, Felt illustrates perfectly why the label is thought of as setting a new benchmark in modern classical music, of rendering it exciting. Felt could easily be background fodder. Instead it makes quiet demands of your ears, full of aural quirks and subtle tenderness. Nils Frahm is clearly a prestigious talent and this is a remarkable tumble through the sounds and shapes of his imagination." - Al Horner

6: When Saints Go Machine Konkylie

"Electronic pop has undergone something of a renaissance in recent years. In Sweden, The Knife injected a chilly, economical sound with a buried, aching humanity and theatrical costumes and staging; Karin Andersson's Fever Ray solo project elaborated on the theme, mixing the magical and the mundane. The music for the ambitious electro-opera, Tomorrow, in a Year, helped introduce collaborator and cult star Planningtorock to a wider audience - from Berlin via her hometown of Bolton, PTR (aka Janine Rostron) combines high art, gender politics and pop into something that rings true on both conceptual and personal levels. From Canada, Austra keep it simple with Eighties-inflected earworms, feminist politics and starkly gothic garb; in NYC, nascent art diva Zola Jesus graduated from art school to the big stage, picking up XX support slots and global blog attention for her booming torch songs. Hercules and Love Affair injected some glamour and sexuality into dancefloor pop with a series of inspired partnerships, notably with gender-torn chanteuse Anthony Hegarty. Behind all of this, the influence of still-active icons like Kate Bush and Björk are writ large. Triangulated somewhere amongst all these artists are fresh-faced Danes, When Saints Go Machine.... 'Kelly' is a highlight amongst highlights. The most overt pop song on the album, it's reminiscent of Erasure with it's bouncing synth baseline... Konkylie is an impressive, accomplished collection of songs from a band coming into their own. They've succeeded in accomplishing what all so many artists strive for: cleanly synthesising their feelings and thoughts into sound. It's no mean feat - people are already noticing that there's something special happening here..." - John Brainlove

Drowned in Sound's Albums of 2011: 20-6

20: Destroyer Kaputt | Review
19: The Field Looping State Of Mind | Review
18: Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells Everything’s Getting Older | Review
17: Wild Beasts Smother | Review
16: A Winged Victory For The Sullen A Winged Victory For The Sullen | Review
15: EMA Past Life Martyred Saints | Review
14: Low C’mon | Review
13: Tom Waits Bad as Me | Review
12: Bon Iver Bon Iver | Review
11: St. Vincent Strange Mercy | Review
10: Metronomy The English Rivera | Review
9: Beirut The Rip Tide | Review
8: Bright Eyes The People’s Key | Review
7: Nils Frahm Felt | Review
6: When Saints Go Machine Konkylie | Review

Playlist

As per previous years, we've made a little Spotify sampler with a track from each of the above to help you explore any titles you're not familiar with. Click here to listen and/or subscribe to this playlist.

More

• DiS albums of the year 2001-2011
• Vote in our 2011 reader poll
• A list of all our staff members' number one albums of 2011
• DiS editor's songs of the year, playlist

DiScuss: Who will be in the top 5?