Music: The Top 50 Albums of 2011 #30 - #26

Alright, alright, I'm sorry I missed a day. This shit takes longer than it looks, alright? And, shockingly, I had loose and ultimately ill-advised plans. I know you're all relying on my 12 Days of Christmas framework so you'll know exactly when to destroy your tree, so I'll make up for it by doubling up as soon as I get another hour or so to myself. 2012 guys, 2012..

Incidentally, this is the point at which I consider pretty much every album to be essential listening. Let me know how strongly you disagree!


#30. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong

Their self-titled debut album was an almost impossibly loveable time capsule, a blur of heart-on-sleeve hooks and witty literate come-on's that in ten years time will almost certainly be mistaken for a late 80's album. For the follow up, they've added bold swathes of colour, bigger choruses and cranked up the guitars,  giving Belong a more defined stamp of identity.

#29. James Blake - James Blake

As far as Blakey goes, I'm an oddball. I'll always hold up last years Klavierwerke EP as his best work. Though James Blake doesn't quite nail the otherworldly, dreamlike atmosphere and incredible use of space of its predecessor, but what it does do very well - and who saw this coming? - is the kind of haunted, fragile singer/songwriter stuff that you might find on For Emma, Forever Ago. Kind of ironic that the only good song on his latest EP was the Bon Iver collaboration then..

#28. Little Scream – The Golden Record

This one came out of nowhere, assisted by seemingly every helpful musician in Montreal, and has kind of missed the boat by about three years. A shame, because if it had come out around the same time as Feist, Emmy the Great, Marling et al were releasing their debuts, it'd have made Twilight money. As it stands, it'll just have to settle for being better than all the albums they released this year.

#27. The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient


Channeling the spirit of Springsteen, Dylan and Petty through a widescrean, beat heavy filter and dressing it up with swathes of guitars, the second War on Drugs LP manages to sound like both an album of 'big' tunes and one complete suite. I guess that makes it this year's '59 Sound then..
  

#26. Real Estate - Days

It may sound remarkably similar to the self-titled debut, but Days is an entirely different beast; it's just really sly about it. The laid back, lazy vibe is now more insistent and tied to conventional structures. The riffs which were little more than loose guitar jangle are still loose and jangly but are now much more clearly defined and memorable. Where hooks were previously hazy and buried in the mix, here they're bold and direct. Basically, Days really has its shit together.