The Musical Advent Calendar - Door Number Ten

No need to worry - you won't find Gordon Brown behind our door number 10.

We're calling today a milestone day, a day of round numbers. It's day 10, which means we have the panel's No. 15 albums of the year.

Away we go.

Ali Mason

Slow Club - Yeah So (Moshi Moshi)

Track: When I Go


If Slow Club sound like they should be from Tennessee or Ohio rather than Sheffield, there's something arch about their country-tinged indie pop which marks them out as distinctly British. Opener When I Go ("If we're both not married by twenty-three will you make my year and ask me?") is one of the most heart-warming tracks of the year but, while many have labeled Yeah So as twee, there's as much heartbreak here as love and there's always a joke or a disarming image around the corner to prevent the sweetness turning sickly.

Rory Dollard

The Decembrists - Hazards of Love (Rough Trade)

Track: The Wanting Comes In Waves


An even more ambitious song cycle than their already elevated The Crane Wife album, here Colin Meloy presides over a baroque story of love gone – and going – wrong, featuring a recurring cast of characters, repeated musical refrains and a narrative structure that belongs in a theatre. While many of the songs, the tragic-comic villainry of the Rake Song being a perfect example, stand alone the LP works best when listened to in full, as themes and motifs unfold in their intended order.

Dom Farrell

Soulsavers - Broken (V2)

Track: Death Bells


It’s a very over used word in music reviews, but Broken, the third album from production duo Soulsavers is a truly epic piece of work. It features an all-star cast, headed by the wonderfully gruff vocal talents of Mark Lanegan. A decisive early blow is struck with Death Bells – a snaking, skuzzy slice of menacing rock’n’roll. From there on, a widescreen vision is aimed for and largely recognized. The cover of Gene Clark’s Some Misunderstanding is particularly jaw dropping. Sometimes the towering orchestration can overplay its hand, but when Australian female vocalist Rosa Agostino is introduced in the closing tracks, Broken reaches a glorious finale

Andy Welch

Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum (Sony)

Track: West Ryder Silver Bullet


I kind of liked Kasabian’s first album, detested the second but absolutely love West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. That title… It’s so amazingly contrived, inspired by the typically British-sounding, psychedelic album titles of The Kinks and The Small Faces. The songs too. Listen to Thick As Thieves and by the time Tom’s voice comes in you expect him to sing ‘The taxman’s taken all my…’ So why is it so good? Because they never, even for a second, take it too seriously or suspect the listener doesn’t know what’s happening. Kasabian honour their influences, they don’t pretend the ideas are their own. Despite the homage, West Ryder… still has ambition. Detractors like to paint the band as a bunch of knuckle-dragging Stella guzzlers, but with elements of Krautrock, Ennio Morricone film scores and ballsy hip hop beats, there’s so much more to these Leicester lads than that.

Guy Atkinson

Silversun Pickups - Swoon (Warner)

Track: Panic Switch


Yeah, this LA four piece may have had a soft spot for Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins but when they make modern rock music as thrilling and emotionally engaging as this who cares how explicit their influences are? Dreamy, fuzzy and occasionally aggressive guitar sounds drive these songs, but it's Brian Aubert's androgynous vocals that take them into another stratosphere. 'Panic Switch' captures the Silversun Pickups at the top of their game. It's a game I'd quite like to join in with.


Pranam Prabhakar

Beirut - March of the Zapotec (Pompeii Records)

Track: The Shrew


Beirut are great. They are an addiction. Bandleader Zach Condon can play the trumpet and the accordion, and he can speak fluent French. He has a voice as mellifluous as chocolat chaud. And he's barely old enough to buy a pack of gitanes. This would be hugely annoying, were his music not so great.



John Skilbeck

The Vivian Girls - Everything Goes Wrong (In The Red)

Track: Can't Get Over You


The Vivian Girls’ second album, so the rumour mill predicted, would see the Brooklyn three-piece exhibit a more grown-up side to their songwriting. Which was the last thing I wanted to hear. Screw maturity in music. Thankfully the pre-album speculation was wide of the mark. Eight of Everything Goes Wrong’s 13 tracks clocked in at under three minutes, and they mostly delivered what my repeat prescription requested – dose after dose of detached girl-group vocals laid on top of scuzzy guitar tracks and crashing cymbals. Neither of the two tracks which ran over the four-minute mark went close to outstaying their welcome, and instant classics such as Walking Alone At Night and Can’t Get Over You whetted the appetite for album number three.

Matt Collins

Port O'Brien - Threadbare (City Slang)

Track: Calm Me Down


You really wouldn't think that Port O'Brien are the sort of band whose music gets used in Dulux Paints adverts in Australia, but then Oz is a strange place. These guys sound more like the inhouse band of some old abandoned shipyard, all sea-faring lament, boy--girl vocals, and battered acoustic guitars. Unusually for a group whose business is the dark side of existence, you can walk away whistling these tunes while trying to connect with whatever emotional source they seem to tap.

SP

Brother Ali - Us (Rhymesayers)

Track: Breakin' Dawn


In a less-than-vintage year for hip hop, albino rapper Brother Ali pulled out one of the best sets by concentrating on simple, uncomplicated loops from start to finish. And like a number of left-wing hip hop talent in 2009, Ali looked East for inspiration with Arabic riffs peppering his fratboy beats on the likes of Breakin' Dawn. On a couple of other tracks, his delivery is perhaps over-earnest, but the defence of various minority groups and rhymes about swine flu make it one of the most satisfying and entertaining records of its kind.

Me

The Avett Brothers - I & Love & You (American)

Track: I & Love & You


After hinting at something special on each of their first three albums, the Avett Brothers have put it all together on their fourth. Of course, teaming up with legendary producer Rick Rubin always helps with these things. From the affecting beauty of the opening title track, to the more rowdy 'The Perfect Space' this offers a full spread of modern Americana with not a duff track among the selection.