10. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (2009)
You could say this for every album ahead of Veckatimest on this list, but it feels especially true to say here: There's just nothing else that sounds quite like this album. It's so subtly jarring and exquisitely detailed and layered that it can almost feel overwhelming.
Led by two distinct lead singers - Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen, who split time at the front pretty evenly - the Ben Zobrist-ian multi-instrumentalism and production from Chris Taylor and genius, inventive drumming from Chris Bear, every track sounds like something new unto itself. "Two Weeks" you've heard before, but none of the other 11 tracks approached that level of radio friendliness. That's not to say the album is unapproachable, but it will almost definitely take two or three listens before some things settle in. Outside of "Two Weeks," Veckatimest moves deliberately, gently prodding the fringe between "sleepy" and "psychedelic." It often feels as if you're hearing the guitars and drums from around the corner in a dim, wood-paneled hallway. The snare drum is used so sparingly and the bass is so heavily padded, it can sometimes seem like Bear's drumming is more the heartbeat of these songs than just an ordinary rhythm section.
Every vocal harmony sounds so carefully thought out and placed that I think sometimes this album was laid out as a blueprint instead of on sheet music. But the precision here is organic, free of rote, machine-like exactness and instead full of quietly awe-inspiring composition with just enough roughness around the edges to still feel completely human. It's designed to be listened to on slower days, whether in the dog days of summer or huddled under blankets in February, and it rewards the patience of its listeners handsomely.
9. The National - High Violet (2010)
I remember one night early in 2010 where I heard that The National were going to be debuting new music on Jimmy Fallon's late-night TV slot. Having been enamored with another album of the group's for the better part of three years to that point (more on that other album later), I made Fallon's program destination viewing for myself for the first time.
As they began to play the opening track for the album that would become their vault into a new level of commercial and critical success, I remember the chills I had running down my shoulders and back. This was a time when music had begun to connect with me in a deeper way than it ever had before, the lyrics telling stories and resonating more than simply sounding like melodic accompaniment to whatever collection of instruments was being used at a given time. This was a foundation laid by Radiohead's OK Computer years earlier, but only now had begun to fully blossom.
And so as I laid there listening, I felt taken in by this performance, the anxiety about having to wait another two months from air date for the album to be released not sitting still in my mind. Imagine, then, the relief that built to exuberance when I heard High Violet not only match my hopes and expectations but exceed them. Now, connecting with lyrics like Matt Berninger's when you're in your early 20s is a really good way to prematurely age yourself, but there's something poetic about these world-weary words coming from such an oaky baritone that just can't be avoided.
"Bloodbuzz Ohio" remains an absolute triumph, the closest thing the band has released to "Mr. November" on 2005's Alligator since...well, "Mr. November." As is usually the case, Bryan Devendorf's propulsive drumming deftly ushers the track along, swelling to the point of bursting. And burst it does over the final 50 seconds, bringing the A side to a close in grand fashion. Side B then opens with "Lemonworld," arguably Berninger's most well-written song, and finishes with "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks," an aching elegiac amplified tenfold when the band would unplug during shows and play and sing it acoustically while touring the album, even in the Barclays Center.
8. Torres - Torres (2013)
To this day, one of the most surprisingly devastating collections of songs I've ever heard. This was a debut album, a collection of 10 songs that Mackenzie Scott wrote both autobiographically and impartially that thrust her immediately to my attention and fascination from out of nowhere.
"Honey," for its part, is one of the most simply beautiful songs I've ever heard; two layers of electric guitar and timpani drums are all that are really needed, anyway, because Scott's pained vocal transformations are what the song is all about. Torres as a whole is an album best suited to be listened to in the cold, its stern and brutal messages hitting their most square when you have a coat or blanket to get swallowed up in.
The ending trio of "Don't Run Away, Emilie," "Come to Terms" and "Waterfall" is as strong a closing sequence as I have in my library, one gently transitioning into the next so as to maintain momentum over those 17 minutes. "Waterfall," in particular, is a chillingly bare piece of music; a droning loop of a guitar that sounds more like a steel drum being played in Antarctica rides along the length of these six minutes, buffered only by bass so deep-throated it's barely discernible, gentle cymbal taps beside sharp snare baps and keyboards anachronistically bright amidst the shadows cast by everything else.
Torres rewards patient listeners the most, much like Veckatimest above. It's best enjoyed as a full album - though "Honey" remains a standout unto itself when played apart - as one song stretches into another and the track lengths (just one of 10 below four minutes) feel less strictly defined.
7. Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007)
The final track of 2003's Hail to the Thief, "A Wolf at the Door," finishes an album full of protest songs with a sneer, Thom Yorke's speak-sung verses feeling like the soundtrack to a woozy bar fight as he croaks out Three Little Pigs animal allegory lyrics. It sounded like the voice of a man who was exhausted by the 13 tracks that preceded, but had enough in the tank to toss one last snarl out.
Four years later, Yorke, Greenwood & Greenwood, Selway and O'Brien emerged refreshed with In Rainbows, an album just as world-weary as its forebear but crackling with new energy and life and drum machines. "15 Step" is the Kool-Aid Man busting through the front door, immediately launching itself downhill. "Bodysnatchers" is the fuzz-rock cousin to the demonic dance hall bebop of Kid A's "Idioteque." But after busting through the gates and asserting itself, "In Rainbows" settles into moments that could almost be called "pretty" or "beautiful." Yorke's falsetto always straddled the fence between that and "unnerving," but the lilts of "Nude" and "All I Need" and "House of Cards," plus the astonishing falsetto tour de force that is "Reckoner," give In Rainbows plenty of moments of indulgence.
Even apart from its brazen, self-released, pay-what-you-want birth in the fall of 2007, In Rainbows felt like more of a proper marriage between Radiohead's style in the era pre-Kid A and after, two contrasting worlds conjoined in the most fluid way possible. It may not have been the genre-shattering monolith that Kid A was and is, but it remains (to my mind) their most accessible and widely appealing album to date.
6. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell (2015)
Stevens's incredible meditation on life, death and the relationships we foster and let fray in between is, inarguably, difficult to listen to at times. None of the songs contain a hint of the jangly folk Stevens trademarked on 2005's Illinois, and certainly none of the oversized, live-wire electronics of 2010's The Age of Adz. None of the songs are cheerful. None of the songs really even give you much opportunity to breathe, if you happen to be listening in headphones.
Stevens's sense of grief in the wake of losing his estranged mother, who died in 2012 and whose complicated and distant relationship with Stevens inspired this album, is overpowering. That is, through and through, what this album conveys: Grief and the acceptance of it, and the probing of the question of how, exactly, we're all supposed to process it. Carrie & Lowell is 11 tracks long, each sounding similar to the one before it in that it's been stripped to the bolts. It's Stevens and an instrument or two on any given track and that's it, which directs all of the listener's focus on the stories Stevens is telling. The lyrics are crucial to this album, and they should be read as you listen for the first time.
Stevens turns to faith, to self-harm, to thoughts of suicide; his struggles almost play out in real-time, and Carrie & Lowell moves like a thought process, memories and recollections spattering across our ears like raindrops from an April rain shower on a windshield.
What ultimately makes Carrie & Lowell so difficult to fully internalize is that Stevens neither gives nor is provided any answers for any of this: Why was their relationship just so? Why did Carrie have to die? How do you cope? The closest we come to anything resembling resolution is the assertion at the end of "Fourth of July," one of the most harrowing and heart-rending songs I've ever heard: "We're all gonna die." And we will. That's the end of life as we live it, for you and I and Stevens and Carrie. There's no grand solution to that, and Carrie & Lowell doesn't look to end up with one at the end of all its soul-searching. It's a leaning post, a port in the storm, the knees to rest your palms on as you catch your breath; it's a respite for when you'll inevitably struggle with the same themes, knowing that this semi-fruitless search is one we all go through, and you're not alone in it.
Carrie & Lowell will challenge you emotionally. It will push you. Even if you can't find yourself connecting with Stevens on his level, the awesome spectacle of his heart on display is enough to make this album a wonder. But if you find yourself arm in arm with him as he travels this path, the album becomes a journey to a different world altogether.
