The 2009 Year in Music: The Albums

Tick tock. The clock continues to wind down, signaling the end of 2009. We continue our look back on the year that was by examining the albums that rocked (or bluegrassed or metaled or reggaed or punked or Irished or danced) our worlds this year. As you might imagine, many of these albums contained our songs of the year, too; great songs rarely travel alone on record. Also, these are only chosen from among the pressed official albums released this year; web-only releases will get their own category. Let’s begin, shall we?

A Brief Treatise In Land Ownership Vol.1 by The Short Histories of Powerful Nations: Turn your speakers up to Kill and enjoy. SHOPN’s debut EP is a three-song (it did say brief treatise) assault on every power-hungry mother****er in your social studies book from Alexander the Great to Dubya the Mediocre. Harshly uncompromising in form and function, A Brief Treatise… practically dares you to hit the “stop” button… but you still can’t.

 

Big Outside by The Seed: Still the funkiest, most groove-infused record of 2009 by a mile. “She Chose” made our list of songs, but “Friday” and the instrumental “Money and Bass” showcase the band’s awesome rhythm section and just-relax modus operandi just as well. The band followed this release with the album Easy Does It… a few months later, rounding out a busy year for the band.

 

Black Lungs & Bitter Tongues by Iseah: The band ran into stormier waters later in the year–it lost a guitarist, leaving it a four-piece–but when this album dropped in the spring it was on a musical roll. The music is powerful, heady hardcore, punctuated by three successive songs: “Making Widows Out Of Wives,” “A Burial Fit For a Sailor” and “Caught In the Current,” which all carry a recurring theme of doomed soldiers in battle. 

 

Chorus of the Commoners by The Queen City Saints: This album is Springfield to the bone. It takes a city with a long, sometimes forgotten and, to many, undiscovered punk scene to produce such a hardscrabble, resilient and populist punk album with a rootsy touch. It’s so Springfield it has a painting of the Jefferson Avenue footbridge near Commercial Street as its cover art. “These Are Just a Means To an End” made our songs list, but the acoustic “Oh the Con of the Century” may be the real jaw-dropper.

Derelict by Honky Suckle: Ex-rockers turn to bluegrass with results that are unsettling at times, riveting at others and musically airtight from start to finish. Many of the songs become wandering journeys with movements and tempo changes, but Kyle Young‘s harmonica is a pretty good North Star to follow along the way.

 

 

 

Gold Tops by The Bootheel: Is it any surprise that an album named for the lids of Busch beer cans would be one hell of a drinking record? From the boot-stomping opener “Meg” to the howling closer “King of Hell,” Gold Tops delivers one rough and rocking song after another from the dry, dusty roads that take you away from day-to-day life and toward your favorite fishing hole. We were left with one question after listening: How does any drum kit survive the pounding Warren Sandwell gives it? The volume of the drums is almost impossible to ignore, and we have a feeling it wasn’t turned up in the mix during recording.
 

Howdy by The Cropdusters: There is a reason this album was everywhere this year. Jeb, B.A.,Toad (now Stevie), C.H. and Taylor put together a collection of songs distilling elements of country, Americana, folk, rock and more to create an album that is a product of, and homage to, its influences. “55 South” made our songs list, but the border-war bio “Quantrill” and touching touring tale “Big Great Lakes” could just as easily have gone instead.
 

Isn’t It Grand by Dirty Old Towne: It has been quite an up-and-down year for local music’s only (known) Celtic rock band, but the release of Isn’t It Grand was the apex, to be sure. After cultivating a devout following around the Branson area and getting audiences thoroughly drunk in Springfield, the band committed six of its songs to disc. A representative collection, too: The tongue-in-cheek “Truly Compelling,” converted Irish song “Brennan on the Moor” and ballad “Last Call” all reside here. Our favorite part, though, still is hearing the brake rotor used as percussion on “Smoke.”

Shelter For My Enemy by Assembly Line Gods: Each successive song on this modern-rock EP seems a little more relaxed and assured than the one before. It’s an interesting chronicle of a band that has enjoyed a similar progression onstage during the year: The Assembly Line Gods you see performing today is miles ahead of the one playing last January. We considered “Liberty Bell” one of the songs of the year, but the six-minute-plus “Coil” is also more than worth a listen.

 

Songs About Current Events Related to Love by Pilot Whale: Everyone remembers “Tax Dance,” but there are numerous hidden gems on J.R. Top‘s DIY release. “Miss CSI” is a you-stole-my-heart love song with a hilarious, yet relevant, twist, while “Lonely Man” is all goofy heartache with some booty shake thrown in for added measure. It certainly got us dancing. (No, there isn’t video of that.)