Top 10 Albums 2011

Speed demons or sweet feelings. The great gamut of music boiled down to that binary definition for most of 2011.

Music had only two roles: to put fire in my belly or smooth my furrowed brow.

I’m not cut out for new fatherhood, even second time around. My synapses need more help than ever to fire and my cranium is forever creaking, aching.

This list – my top 10 albums of 2011 – reflects this.

No black metal, no doom. Neither hip-hop, post-metal nor bass fuckery. Just various blends of death metal, crust and hardcore, preferably with that heartstarting Sunlight tone, or the polar opposite: the pastoral, the dreamy.

Bon Iver, Manchester Orchestra, The Antlers – Quiet Times

I may look like a hipster twat but 'tis not so

It’s not all metal, metal, metal here at Monkey Defies Gravity.

Well, it almost is but occasionally, when the blood is trickling from the eardrums, I indulge in a little quiet time.

In hipster circles, the  Bon Iver backlash has started.

Well fuck you, you rolled-up-trouser ankle-baring cunt-knuckles, Bon Iver circa 2011 is better than ever.

Sure, Bon Iver Bon Iver has put flesh on those oh-so-bare bones that entranced us on To Emma, Forever Ago. Yet Justin Vernon nails lush with no slush.