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From '50 Words for Snow' to 'We Were Never Here': Our top 17 albums of 2011
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The year 2011 was a good year for music lovers. From Kate Bush's glacial "50 Words for Snow" to TOI's poignant "We Were Never Here," writers Karl De Mesa and Ren Aguila share their music picks for 2011.
Ren’s picks: What local artists have been up to 
HUMANFOLK / Humanfolk The promise of hearing so many talented musicians in one go is what this fusion album delivers. It is a feast for the ears, though some of the tracks, looking back, are not of consistent quality. 
TECHYROMANTICS / Escape The latest on the list. A pretty well-crafted piece of electronica-pop, which deals with a broader set of themes than their first album. 
HANNAH+GABI / Haha Yes Mikey Amistoso's solo project, launched early in the year, includes the fan favorite "Lost Together." Amistoso draws from the 90s alternative pop sound, weaving a catchy EP that is as distilled as its short time allows. 
TOI / We Were Never Here I include this less because of the material but more because TOI has been a remarkable project in the four years it was around (it ended in late September). To hear Pauline Diaz sing is to hear the voice of someone who's wise beyond her years. 
FUSEBOXX / Animated 2011 was the year I discovered this amazing band, which has been around for ten years. This album gives us a clear picture of the band's technical capabilities but introduces some of the best pop songwriting I've heard this year. –CGL/KG, GMA News
TECHYROMANTICS / Escape The latest on the list. A pretty well-crafted piece of electronica-pop, which deals with a broader set of themes than their first album. HANNAH+GABI / Haha Yes Mikey Amistoso's solo project, launched early in the year, includes the fan favorite "Lost Together." Amistoso draws from the 90s alternative pop sound, weaving a catchy EP that is as distilled as its short time allows. TOI / We Were Never Here I include this less because of the material but more because TOI has been a remarkable project in the four years it was around (it ended in late September). To hear Pauline Diaz sing is to hear the voice of someone who's wise beyond her years. FUSEBOXX / Animated 2011 was the year I discovered this amazing band, which has been around for ten years. This album gives us a clear picture of the band's technical capabilities but introduces some of the best pop songwriting I've heard this year. –CGL/KG, GMA News Karl’s picks: Metal, folk, roots rock, soul, reggae
BLUT AUS NORD / 777--Sect(s)
These French multi-instrumentalists don’t rule by heaviness alone, but with precision classical finesse and virtuosity encased in a deadly black metal glove stained with the entrails of thrash, doom, goth, pop and even shoegaze. So avant it shatters your garde!
KURT VILE / Smoke Rings for My Halo
Touching, sexy, filled with the palimpsest of folk, roots rock, soul, reggae, and good ole troubadour balladry. Play “In My Baby’s Arms” to your girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband and I guarantee you there will be much snuggling tonight.
MASTODON / The Hunter
A punk charged change of pace for the masters of dizzying, mountain yawping, hoary-headed heavy music adepts. May not be to everyone’s liking (just see the mixed reviews) but I like the new slant on minimalism and focus just fine.
INDIAN / Guiltless
Ever heard of the angry Black Man? Well this one’s the angry Red Man on a rampage with a hatchet, a hankering for scalps and a will to avenge all the centuries of wrong. If the level of fuzz and doom don’t do you in, the amazing screams will. Don’t stand in its way for Christ’s sake.
BJORK / Biophilia
I’d say it’s a fairly ordinary day for Bjork blowing minds with an excellent, intensely emotional album with experimental attacks. The thing that gave me spasms was when I saw the interactive iPad version where Bjork puts her voice and fist into the multi-media soup and gave it a mighty stir.
CHEMICAL BROTHERS / Hanna OST
A perfectly understated and perfectly engrossing soundtrack to an action movie with overtones of fable and myth. Just as good standing alone as Come With Us, or Surrender or any of the earlier Tom and Ed records.
WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM / Celestial Lineage
Still remains the tip of the spear blending post-rock and black metal. The best thing about this one is how they take us up with them into the Empyrean with themes of prophesy and angelic wars.
RADIOHEAD / King of Limbs
The guys from Oxfordshire never fail to confuse and amaze me. It’s creepy too. Trust me, this will grow on you, just don’t expect another Kid A.
THE ATLAS MOTH / An Ache for the Distance
My favorite among this year’s heavy music releases. Just like Giant Squid when I first heard them, I saw Lovecraftian visions ooze out the walls and crawl across the floor. And they were in 3D! Check out “Horse Thieves” if you don’t believe me.
KATE BUSH / 50 Words for Snow
As glacial as Aerials was all energy and flight. Not many will understand the complexities hidden in the frozen fathoms of this molasses-paced LP, but for those with the patience and stamina this record, I tell you, hides the taste of God’s tears.
DEAFHEAVEN / Roads to Judah
It’s like I saw the youngest child of God is an Astronaut and Explosions in the Sky get it on with the grotesque progeny of Cradle of Filth and Behemoth as Red Sparowes watched in glee. And oh, was it beautiful. Sniff.
40 WATT SUN / The Inside Room
Proof that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to make doom, stoner metal and sludge as tasty as a Bourdain feast served at the end of the world. I swear my hair grew long with all the puff puff, riff riff.
TRENT REZNOR and ATTICUS ROSS / The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo OST If Trent never made an industrial album again and just stuck with soundtracks I’d be okay, as long as they’re this sharp, affecting and absolute in atmosphere. If you haven’t checked out the deluxe format of this OST the Null Corp is selling, you might want to save up. Also, don’t miss the Swedish original version of the movie.
PJ HARVEY / Let England Shake
At the crossroads of folk music on psychedelics, political commentary, and a patriot’s dreams stands Polly Jean. I played this in the cold night of a Cordillera mountain and it warmed me more than the bonfire.
DISMA / Towards the Megalith
I imagine this is what it would sound like if a heavily armed Cookie Monster went on a Hyborean adventure to rescue some damsel against unimaginable monstrosities. Craig Pillard’s voice could cause stillbirths. I still can’t listen to this one from start to finish.
LINTECH / World Error
Like hearing your machine eloquently rail against the idiocracy of humans. Aldelm Ferriols is a genius whether he’s playing black metal, industrial or aggro-tech music.
SUBROSA / No Help for the Mighty Ones<
Riot Grrrrls playing doom and sludge that decimates most man-made metal? Am all for it! Check out “House Carpenter” to see their feminine, poetic side. Don’t expect it to appear too often though.
Plus one more, picked by Ren: PETER GABRIEL / New Blood One of the very rare Gabriel albums where Tony Levin does not play, it features Gabriel singing with a full orchestra. It is a rearrangement of select songs that fit together to tell a story of discovery, redemption, and despair. –CGL/KG, GMA News
