2012 Favorite Albums: Numbers 50-41

This week I will be listing my favorite albums of 2012. Here are numbers 50-41:

50. Clams Casino - Instrumental Mixtape 2

Clams Casino's first mixtape came out of nowhere last year to be one of my favorite releases. His work was astonishingly full-formed, and instantly distinctive and recognizable. Creating beats for rappers Lil' B, A$AP Rocky, and Mac Miller among others, his spacey, shoegazey vibe was unique to the hip-hop world, and oddly enough translated even better when heard separate from the vocal tracks. With his second installment hi style has not really changed much over the course of the year; he still has a slowed down, ambient vibe, sludgy beats, and a penchant for an odd sample here and there. His tracks, for the most part, don't follow the regular hip-hop pattern of laying down a strong foundation and then letting it endlessly loop in the background. Clams Casino uses a lot of breaks, divergent paths, ambient interludes, and an almost endless supply of electronic textures to fill out the spaces and created one of the most beguiling albums of the year.

49. The Walkmen - Heaven

While The Walkmen have been more of a singles act for me (their previous albums never did much for me as a whole), but with Heaven they have stuck to a theme and are better for it. As The Talking Heads once sang about heaven, "it's a place where nothing ever happens," and for Hamilton Leithauser and Co., this is not necessarily a bad thing. The songs on Heaven deal with the joys of family, stability of relationships, and how perspectives and goals change over time. Not that this album is a sunny walk in the park; frequently these realizations are hard fought and won, and it is always a struggle to keep them. Heaven is album about that struggle and how sometimes you come to late to those realizations and are left with nothing.

48. Liars - WIXIW

With their latest album WIXIW (pronounced "wish you"), the focus is not on anything specifically thematic, instead choosing to rely primarily on electronics, immersing the songs in waves upon waves of synths and clattering drum machines and percussion. Although the music in a way is their most accessible, it is still first and foremost a Liars record, so there is a subtle undercurrent of dread and menace seeping in and out through its run time.

47. Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

One of the most divisive personalities and records of the year, Lana Del Rey was both lauded and pilloried for her almost too studied onstage persona. But when the music is this good, it can be overlooked. Her laconic, smoky delivery over strings and hip-hop beats was hard to resist. While it is too soon to say whether she is all hype and no substance, her debut record definitely indicates she is not going away anytime soon.

46. The 2 Bears - Be Strong

The 2 Bears, the side project of Hot Chip's Joe Goddard and Raf Rundell, is an homage to both gay subculture (Goddard and Rundell, who are both straight, fit the "bear" description) and to the classic house music that has influenced and inspired them. Be Strong is a strong collection of house and two-step anthems that holds its own among its peers owing to its creators' obvious affection for their influences. Through its 12 tracks, the album takes stops in Chicago, Detroit, and the Caribbean, and is a statement about the healing/loving/positive nature of dance music. But first and foremost it is a fun, frisky record. While still a side project, this is no off-the-cuff throwaway. You can feel the tenderness and affection put into each track.

45. Matthew Dear - Beams

Matthew Dear doesn't stay in one place very long. From his debut Leave Luck To Heaven which plundered the halls of micro-house, Asa Breed's excursions into more vocally led pop, to Black City's dark journey into sleazy funk, each release has progressed and adapted from what went before, morphing into something new yet unmistakably Matthew Dear. Beams doesn't necessarily veer too far from Black City's darker tone, but reveals a definite change in influence, leaning heavily on Talking Heads' Fear Of Music/Remain In Light period and Bowie's Thin White Duke era. There is a lot of stiff, robotic funk mixed in with loose free form jams that give the record a strange, off-kilter feel, but somehow manages to always stay on track. Beams is a dense record, featuring lots of percussive elements, thick bass lines, warm washes of analog synths, and the love-it-or-hate-it deep, monotone vocals of Dear. There is an anxious feeling that permeates the record, but unlike Black City's overt paranoia, the warmer nature of Beams keeps you further on edge as the record progresses.

44. Hospitality - Hospitality

I feel very paternal towards the debut album from Brooklyn three piece band Hospitality, which chronicles the day in day out goings on of twenty-somethings in New York, and all their yearnings, fumblings, and musings. You want to wrap these characters up in a blanket, serve them hot cocoa and tell them it will all be ok. The band itself, fronted by singer/guitarist Amber Papini, borrows liberally from a wide range of different bands, Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, and The Clientele for example, but what they lack for in originality they make up for it with superb song craft. Tight arrangements and interesting background flourishes mesh well with Papini's fragile voice and her insightful, wry lyrics.

43. Paul Banks - Banks

Banks shows that Paul Banks still has some magic left in him from the early Interpol days, and that it just had been getting clouded a bit. Saddled without the weight of expectations that usually comes with an Interpol release, Banks takes a deep breath and feels more relaxed than he has in ages. It is a record that takes no big chances or leaps, but sticks to what he does best, which is a good thing in this case.

42. A Place To Bury Strangers - Worship

A Place To Bury Strangers is similar to bands like The Ramones, AC/DC, or basically any punk band at all, not in terms of sound at all, but in terms of having an aesthetic and sticking to it. In contrast though, where some bands tend to repeat themselves ad nauseum, some, like APTBS, work more at subtly shifting their sound from record to record, providing their bread and butter tracks but surprising you with something new each time. APTBS' palate is always suitably dark; cavernous drums, ominous bass lines, and enough squalling, feedback heavy guitars to bring down city walls. And with song titles like "Alone," "Revenge," "Mind Control," and "Fear" you know it's not going to be a sunny walk in the park, but when you go to APTBS, you know what you are getting.

41. The Invisible - Rispah

With their second album, gone are the sprightly jams of the debut album supplanted for a more somber, melancholy tone. Instead of the usual references to Bloc Party, TV On The Radio, and LCD Soundsystem, Rispah seems deeply influenced by Radiohead at their most searching. There is a languid, dreamy quality to these somber tracks, like you are inside the head of the griever, all their emotions swirling in a mix of sadness paired with all the good and bad memories of their loved one. The album is bookended and infused with samples of the traditional spirituals that add a personal touch to this sad, melancholy tracks.