MUSIC IN THE YEAR 2005

Guero

Everybody’s favourite rosy cheeked, musical scientologist Beck had put his demons to rest after plucking the heart strings on Sea Change, and was ready to return to his more familiar post as the ringleader to his wonderful audio scrapbook circus of boundless oddities. First opening up with lo-fi barnstormer ‘E-Pro’, Beck soon toys with Latin influences heard on ‘Que Onde Guero’ and bossanova rhythms on ‘Missing’. Many called this the new Odelay: fine praise for an equally fine album.

Lullabies to Paralyse

The sudden firing of Nick Oliveri signalled the end of a long music relationship for Josh Homme, and could have spelt out the undoing of Queens of the Stone Age. However, the band rarely faltered on their 4^th album, Lullabies to Paralyze: a haunting and cryptic album that sounds like the soundtrack to a twisted nursery fable.

Every track on this album is a winner. The eerie slide guitar on ‘Everybody Knows That You’re Insane’ is like a hypnotic tune from the Pied Piper, luring you into a chorus that greets you like a fist to the jaw. The playful bassline on ‘Burn The Witch’ dances perfectly along a rhythmic march, while ‘Someone’s in the Wolf’ is wonderfully discordant. Oliveri’s presence is rarely missed on this sprawling 14-track album.

If you go down to the woods today, Mr. Homme will scare the hell out of you!

Employment

To sum up the presence of Employment in 2005, it was the roguish schoolyard scamp with its shirt untucked, giving Chinese burns to all other British rock bands. Well stocked with infectious, foot hopping, chav mocking anthems such as ‘I Predict A Riot’, and Ricky Wilsons schoolboy swagger, Employment was hard not to love.

Each track play at a mile a minute, and the band soon found themselves whooping, chanting and hollering along with legions of adoring fans.

Takk…

Takk…is wonderful: Pure and simple. Sounds that swell and retreat like a rising tide; guitars that howl and buzz like restless ghosts; pianos that sting the senses. It is easy to become awash with emotions upon first hearing.

Take ‘Glosoli’ for example; such a soulful track, it starts out with a plodding swampy bass line that’s nipped at by delicate percussion, wailing strings and Jonsi’s inimitable ethereal vocals. It continues to build and, as if out of nowhere, erupts into a tidal wave of energy born of love and heartbreak.

If you were to visualise the sound of many songs on the album, think of it as an ocean voyage. The journey begins with the short title track, encounters harsh currents on Glosoli, ‘Saeglopur’ signals the near fatal drowning incident (a comparison suitably complimented by the accompanying music video) while Milano is the calm after the storm.

The lead song from the album, ‘Hoppipolla’, is as perfect a song can get, sounding so pure and natural it’s almost as if it was plucked straight from the garden of Eden, rather than written by for young men in a studio. Such a fragile and majestic song, it is hard to not be moved to tears by it.

Takk… is an album from the heart, for the heart.