This year, the greatest bands in the world ever were...

A cursory glance at the side bar to the right reveals that, at the time of writing, there have been 47 posts this year. As anyone who is as keen a fan of basic mathematics and the Gregorian calender as I am will be aware, this means that I've missed out five greatest bands in the world ever this year. I have been neglectful.

But I will make amends.

Question is, how to make up the difference?

An obvious solution would be to turn the concept on its head and propose five of the shittest bands in the world ever; but that would be mean. I could try and go for the mammoth post of five greatest bands in the world ever, but that would be quite a lot to take in and in truth I think I'm just too damn lazy for that.

So, in classic everyone-else-is-doing-it-so-why-don't-I fashion, I think I'll take the opportunity to do one of those tediously predictable end-of-year reviews, thus allowing me to substitute any substantial amount of new writing new crap with hyperlinks to all my old crap. Smashing. So here, in no particular order, are the greatest bands in the world ever this year. And... go.

Echobelly

In part their place here is reflective of the hold that all girl-fronted-indie-bands-of-the-90's had on me for pretty much the entire month of August; but also because they were the most pleasant surprise of the lot, and the band that most had me kicking myself for not checking them out properly when they were a going concern. Like all good records, theirs just get better with each spin.

http://asifanyonegivesafuckwhatithink.blogspot.com/2010/09/echobelly.html

Deftones

These guys nearly made the list twice this year. Every time they release a new record, it's the best thing ever; I play it to death for a week, put it down for a while and eventually get back to it after a year or so. Except that I still haven't quite put Diamond Eyes down yet...

http://asifanyonegivesafuckwhatithink.blogspot.com/2010/03/deftones.html

Enablers

As far as I know, there isn't another band in the world that sounds like them; and seeing them play live earlier this year was just an awesome experience. Definitively my all time favourite doom-poet outfit.

http://asifanyonegivesafuckwhatithink.blogspot.com/2010/05/enablers.html

And So I Watch You From Afar

I'll be the first to admit that I listen to a lot of shit, and that as much as I love it, that shit's not for everyone. So I don't mind if none my friends like Sunn o))), for example. Not everyone enjoys the sub-bass droning sound of souls being crushed. With hammers.

But ASIWYFA... they're just too damn good. And the only reason for not liking them is because you don't like good things, and you are a force of evil, and you must be stopped. With hammers.

http://asifanyonegivesafuckwhatithink.blogspot.com/2010/04/and-so-i-watch-you-from-afar.html

These Arms Are Snakes

It's been almost a year, and frankly I'm still reeling from their decision to split. I was fortunate enough to see them play once a few years ago; sadly the most enduring memory of that gig is frontman Steve Snere taking his hand out of the front of his pants and wiping a finger down my face.

I struggle to adequately explain just how great they are/were; so I won't bother. You'll just have to take my word for it.

http://asifanyonegivesafuckwhatithink.blogspot.com/2010/01/these-arms-are-snakes.html

Knut

Switzerland is renowned for many things; delicious confectionery, fancy timepieces, tricksy pocket knives, secret bank accounts, a heart full of neutrality. Not so well known for progressive mathcore.

Which is a shame, because that's exactly what Knut do. The mathcore bit, not any of the other stuff.

Earlier records were very mathcore - at times sounding like a hardcore band in a metallic drum clattering down some steps. Third album Terraformer saw them get a bit more groove on; all the insane timing changes, atomic drum fills and fretboard gymnastics were still present, but measured out with more thick slabs of dense riffing and atmospheric electronica, with vocals taking more of a back seat - almost a third of the record was completely instrumental. It was like Knut had become masters of their rage, controlling rather than being controlled by it.

Fuck cuckoo clocks. This is the best thing to ever come out of Switzerland.

Closely followed by Toblerones.

Website: http://www.hydrahead.com/knut/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/unknut

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_(band)

Rinoa

I saw these chaps play a few weeks ago. It was the final show of their UK tour and, as it turns out, their final show ever - apparently "certain factors meant the band couldn't continue as it was."

Damn.

Opening for them on their UK tour was While She Sleeps, a trend-licking bumsqueak of derivative hardcore wrapped around a predictable sequence of breakdowns. I guess they played well, but it wasn't really my thing; and all it really served to do was make Rinoa's sweeping post-metal seem all the more majestic in comparison. But then, maybe that's the point of support acts...

Post-metal. Like post-rock, but more, y'know, metal. The show started with all the band members hugging each other farewell, before everything was consumed by huge waves of guitar noise, pounding drums and desperate screams. And then less than an hour later, it was all done.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/rinoauk

Wikipedia: nope

Die! Chihuahua Die!

Just who the hell are these guys? Are they a force of good? Evil? A force of nature? Is their name German for "The Chihuahua The"? No-one who speaks German could be evil...

I like his sideburns.

D!CD! sound a bit like Every Time I Die; only instead of swaggering into a redneck bar with angry screaming hard-ons, they turn up drunk, throw up in the ashtray and start breaking furniture.

The only footage I can find on the Youtubes is crap. You need to find their record and listen to it. Now.

Website: http://diechihuahuadie.blogspot.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/diechihuahuadie

Wikipedia: nope

Earth

And so the doom and the droning continues.

Earth are pretty much the definitive drone band, although they are more or less doomed to be better known for the fact that frontman Dylan Carlson is the guy who bought Kurt Cobain that shotgun. Especially if pricks like me keep bringing it up.

Earth's output has gone through two distinct phases. Phase one, which might be otherwise known as The Old Stuff, was conceived during a period when Carlson was very much fuelled by pharmaceuticals. It is typified by dense walls of heavily distorted guitar and repetitive droning, and it is this sound that primarily inspired Sunn 0))) - who take their name from Earth's amplifiers of choice.

Phase two, or The New Stuff, is quite different. Carlson has cleaned his act up, and the claustrophobic aggression of phase one has given way to a more open, reflective and sombre sound. And it's a bit.. erm... country. Ahem.

But strangely, it's phase two that I like more; and not just because of my deviant slide-guitar lust. It's not heavy, more... weighty. Weary. Like it's seen too much. It won't tell you about any of it, but it doesn't need to; you can see it in the pitiless black of it's soul. And you don't fuck with it.

Website: http://www.thronesanddominions.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/earthofficial

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_(band)

Black Math Horseman

...and so just when I was thinking that nothing could possibly depose the mighty Old Man Gloom as the Best Band In The World Ever, my ipod went and jammed this lot in my ear.

I dimly recall ripping a track off of a Rock Sound cover CD and filing it away for further consideration. Naturally, I forgot all about it; so it came as quite a pleasant surprise when it got shuffled to the fore. I listened to it a second time, then a third; and then immediately ordered everything they had ever done ever. Which was all of one album.

It's kind of a doomy brand of post rock, I guess; the whole thing has a haunting quality to it. The guitars are all slide and reverb, and sound as though they were recorded in some sort of cathedral. And the vocals sound like they were recorded in some sort of cathedral thousands of years ago, and are being being channelled to the present through an ancient suit of armour, once witness to myriad bloody atrocities, now ominously still but for the echoes of the past.

Yes, yes, pretentious, I know.

Website: http://www.blackmathhorseman.com/default.html

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/blackmathhorseman

Wikipedia: nope

Old Man Gloom

A supergroup of sorts, except that almost no-one has heard of the other bands that these guys are from.

Not that it matters. Whilst you can hear the influences - the slow build and weighty growl of Isis, the thundering fuzzy bass of Cave In, the rusty chainsaw guitar explosion of Converge - the sum of these parts is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike any of them.

Old Man Gloom also refer to themselves as the O.M.G. Institute for the Advancement of Alien Simian Technology and Human De-Evolution Studies, and their output ranges from sub-minute blasts of sludgy hardcore, to half hour post-metal epics, to white noise and crackly tape recordings.

Drones carry their bodies.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/oldmangloom

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_man_gloom

Admiral Angry

Kind of a sad story behind these guys; their debut album almost never got released after guitarist Daniel ("The Admiral") lost his life to cystic fibrosis just after the band had finished recording. All the proceeds from sales of the album go towards cystic fibrosis charities, and it remains to be seen if they will continue to make music or not.

In any case, Admiral Angry leave behind them one album and one EP's worth of downtuned caustic riff-thick mechanical sludge. Some of the lyrics are a tad juvenile; but they're almost entirely incomprehensible, so this isn't really a problem. It's pretty base stuff, which is exactly what I need right now.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/admiralangry

Wikipedia: nope

PJ Harvey

I first heard of PJ Harvey some time in the mid-to-late nineties. Initially I was a bit cautious; we were still in the grip of that patronising "girl-power" thing, Alanis Morissette's angsty caterwauling was getting far too much airtime, and "girls in rock" seemed to be the latest cool thing for labels to try to ram down the throats of the great unwashed.

Of course, I needn't have worried. As it turns out, Morissette isn't even worthy of carrying Polly Jean's guitar case.

Other assurances as to PJ Harvey's undeniable brilliance include a back catalogue that never repeats itself once, various appearances alongside Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan, and songs that fucking rock.

Website: http://pjharvey.lucidwebs.co.uk/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/pjharvey

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJ_Harvey

Harkonen

I can't quite remember how I first heard these guys. It was either the very excellent split EP that they released with the very excellent and sorely missed These Arms Are Snakes, or it was another, earlier EP called Charge! which I found tucked away in a second hand shop somewhere.

It doesn't really matter though, does it? What matters is that for the short time they were together, Harkonen made an incredible racket. Hard drums, fuzzy bass, guttural howls and guitars that were post-rock, space rock and noise rock - all at the same time.

They also wrote a song for their final EP Dancing called "I'm Taking The Hydraplane To Bellingham". Quite apart from being a great song, the title itself has recently become my most favouritist phrase; and I intend to use it as frequently and inconsistently as possible. This is not important in the slightest.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/harkonen

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harkonen_(band)

We Are Knuckle Dragger

We Are Knuckle Dragger's debut EP, Doors To Rooms, is a quite recent addition to my collection. It combines daft song titles ("Massive When Flaccid", "I Was A Teenage Mr Bean") with jarring, angular, crunching rhythms seemingly devoid of stellar musicianship, and a raw production with all the squeaks and whistles of feedback left in. It is as brutal, simplistic and Neanderthal as their moniker implies.

For these reasons and many others, it has remained welded into my CD player all week.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/weareknuckledragger

Wikipedia: nope

TV On The Radio

I was first introduced to these guys by a friend of mine, the infamous Jeff "Cock Will Set You Free" McDeath - ultimate arbiter of all things indie. At the time Jeff was one of my loyal minions in the nerd emporium that I lorded over. During the day we had to put up with the insipid mix of emo and alt-pop that filled the company-sanctioned compilation CDs; but once the store was closed we could play what we wanted, which was typically ear-splitting violence anthems (me) or desperately trendy minimalist European shoegaze techno (him). Generally, we didn't see eye-to-eye - musically speaking, at least. But every so often a little gem would turn up.

Return To Cookie Mountain, TVotR's second full-length, was one of those gems - although I didn't immediately take to it. The vocal style was a bit weird, and stylistically the album never quite seemed to settle down. But working late one night to meet a fast approaching deadline, I was left with a choice between listening to that or the radio-friendly shop CDs; which was really no choice at all. Incidentally, this is also why listening to this album always reminds me of building Dwarf mountain fortresses.

After repeated listens, Cookie Mountain began to grow on me. It slowly dawned that the style wasn't randomly jumping about, but that each song featured whatever instrumentation was most appropriate; sometimes guitars, sometimes electronica, sometimes tribal drumming, sometimes whistling. And the vocals that had seemed so out of place at first were what gave it all a sense of cohesiveness, in all their quirky and soulful brilliance. It all sounded like nothing I had ever heard before, and it was bloody brilliant.

Bizarrely, it was TVotR's obvious flair for experimentation that put me off getting any of their other records; they were clearly capable of anything, and there was no way of knowing what the rest of their output might sound like. Of course, I shouldn't have worried - it's all the same mix of jazz, soul, electronica and indie as before - though for me they're at their best when it's all driving rhythms and great walls of rich and luscious electronica.

Website: http://www.tvontheradio.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/tvotr

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tv_on_the_radio

Taint

Sadly this is more of a tribute than a celebration, as South Wales' finest have decided that they can bear my rabid fanaticism no longer and are calling it a day.

I first heard them some years ago, when I picked up a split EP they did with noisy Welsh bastards Black Eye Riot; and although it was the Black Eye Riot half of the split that I was most interested in initially, it was the three songs that Taint contributed that I found myself listening to over and over again. I still struggle to define exactly how they sound; there's nothing really fancy about their brand of hard rock. They just write damn fine songs, all groove and hefty riffs.

And they play well, too. I've seen them live more times than any other band, and they have never been anything less than stellar; not just great musicians, but a great band.

Sigh...

Bye chaps.

Website: http://www.taint.co.uk/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/taintuk

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taint_(band)

Monotonix

I first saw Israel's most prominent musical export a few years ago at ATP '08. A quick afternoon nap that overran slightly resulted in a mad dash back to the reds stage where they would be playing. I thought I'd made it with time to spare when I arrived to a large crowd and an empty stage; but the stage was only empty because Monotonix had set up right in the middle of the large crowd. As a result, the first glimpse I got of any of the band was when the singer, resplendent in his giant moustache and bright orange hotpants, came sailing over the top of the crowd in a plastic bin. This was within the first minute. After ten minutes of sweaty bouncing around I felt a great thump on my shin, which turned out to be the drummer relocating to the other side of the crowd, still hitting the drums as he went... and after another ten minutes of euphoric anarchy, it was all over.

It was pretty bloody awesome, and I promised myself that if I ever got the chance to experience their scuzzy garage rock, crazy hair and tight sweaty pants again, I definitely would.

And I should have done just that last week when they played at the Croft; but unfortunately my gig buddy came down with a dose of lameness. Foolishly, I decided against being Billy-No-Mates for the evening, and so missed a gig that ended in the street with the singer and some other guy leaping into each other from the shoulders of the crowd.

Damn.

Website: http://www.monotonix.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/monotonix

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotonix

Meshuggah

It is by fairly indirect means that these guys became the greatest band in the world ever this week. It started with the most recent issue of Rocksound, my periodical of choice for when I need to be told what to think. The cover CD had a track on it by Canadian deathcore types Ion Dissonance, called "We Like To Call This One... Fuck Off." Here it is.

I quite liked it, but the review of the album in the magazine was more disparaging. "It's hard to see why this is necessary while Meshuggah are still a going concern" it said. Or at least, something like that.

A tad harsh, perhaps, but quite fair. Why bother with a band that sounds a bit like Meshuggah, when there's Meshuggah? Who, let's face it, sound exactly like Meshuggah (if not more so)?

Meshuggah are a progmathcyberjazzdeathmetal band from Sweden, whose earliest albums were a bit bonk.

They now sound as though a bunch of insane scientists decided to create the most brutal and technical metal band in the world; starting with The Dillinger Escape Plan and precisely one quarter of Converge, they first stripped them of all their catchy melodies and pop sensibilities before rebuilding them as flame-spitting atomic robots with deathvalves turned up to eleven and guitars tuned down to frequencies below the human range of hearing. But it still wasn't brutal and technical enough, so they just got the guys from Meshuggah instead.

Website: http://www.meshuggah.net/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/meshuggah

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meshuggah

Echobelly

Those with functioning memories might recall that last week, I described Echobelly as being "offensively inoffensive". On the face of it, describing them as the greatest band in the world ever a mere six days later may seem like a U-turn of neck snapping magnitude. So consider the following.

• I did also describe them as quite brilliant.
• Their second album On (which is what I've been mostly listening to this week) is something of a grower; and has some astonishingly good songs on it.
• I've been in curiously good spirits lately, so inoffensive will do me just fine thank you.
• The greatest band in the world ever changes each week for a reason; I'm nothing if not fickle.
• I don't have to explain myself to the likes of you. Fuck you, internets.

I'm glad we've got that cleared up. I can now get back to ordering the rest of Echobelly's no doubt stellar back catalogue, secure in the knowledge that my integrity remains untarnished.

Website: http://www.echobelly.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/echobellymusic

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echobelly

Elastica

As has already been well documented, I've been on a bit of mid-nineties girl fronted indie kick of late; and have now reached the following conclusions.

• Sleeper have a bit of sass, but lack swagger.
• Echobelly, whilst actually quite brilliant, are at the same time almost offensively inoffensive.
• Lush were the most disappointing of all, all too frequently descending into navel-gazing angst.
• Kenickie... well actually, I forgot about Kenickie.

All of which confirms something that I had hitherto only suspected; that Elastica were fucking great, and their self-titled debut is one of the very best records of the last twenty years.

Website: http://www.elasticated.org/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/stutterconnection

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastica

Amon Tobin

The earlier records from this Brazilian lunatic had titles like "Permutations" and "Supermodified", because the songs were composed of many bits of other songs - like a great audio collage. His most recent work, "Foley Room", is the first where he feels (in his own words) as though he has actually created the music, instead of chopping other bits together.

Thing is, the way he created this music was to go out with teams of people and a billion microphones, make field recordings of anything and everything - insects, radio telescopes, that sort of thing - and then chopping it all together with original compositions recorded in the studio.

As far as I can tell, there's not much of a difference in approach; it's still the same glorious mosaic of odd noises and found sounds, and you would still need to be some kind of insane genius to produce the oddly stuttering works of art that fall out the other end. Amon Tobin is that insane genius.

Website: http://www.amontobin.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/tobinamon

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_Tobin

The Breeders

So as I mentioned last week, I recently purchased a heap of second hand 90's alt-rock; and Last Splash by The Breeders seems to have floated to the top.

It seems odd that I shouldn't have picked this up the first time around; lead single and floppy-haired pogo shoegaze anthem Cannonball was a regular spin at my local rock club The Agincourt (which is, tragically, still open). I always thought it was a pretty cool song; though in retrospect I may have been slightly embarrassed about this, being the necksnappingly brutal metal kid that I was.

In any case, I am now making up for lost time by fully immersing myself in this early nineties alternative masterpiece. By which I mean I'm driving around with the windows down and playing it very loud. Cannonball is just as good as I remember, with its groovy verse, bouncy chorus and that bassline. But I'm also very taken with the rest of the album, full as it is with surf twangs and shoegaze droning; and of course a somewhat inevitable (but far from unwelcome) Pixies-ness.

Smashing.

Website: http://breedersdigest.net/2008/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thebreeders

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Breeders