First off is the obvious one - it seems to be somewhere in most of the Top 20 / 50 / 100 lists I've seen - but that's probably just because it's so good.
High Violet by The National
Matt Beringer's baritone voice just sends me and the album is peppered with gorgeous tunes to show it off at its best.
Here's "Little Faith" - any song with the lyric "we'll play nuns versus priests until somebody cries" is OK by me:
Next up is the Roky Erickson and Okkervil River collaboration "True Love Cast Out All Evil" that I've already gone on about on here. It's remained one of my favourites of the year. Here's Goodbye Sweet Dreams:
Micah P Hinson and the Pioneer Sabateurs
Last time I went to see Micah he played a lot of stuff from this album - just him and an acoustic guitar - and it demonstrated how strong the songs are. That said, What makes this album really special for me is the arrangements - strings, occasional off-kilter percussion and growling feedback guitar or echo laden bottle-neck make a great backdrop for his pained voice. At the gig he said that the album cover had caused a bit of a fuss - in the US people wanted to know why the woman had no clothes on and in the UK they wanted to know why she had a gun ....
Here's "Watchers, Tell Us Of The Night"
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