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1. Avett Brothers/I and Love and You:
These shaggy bluegrass underdogs make some questionable choices, going for big production and an even bigger sound, and somehow come up with a kind of a masterpiece. Chock full of fantastic songs – epic piano ballads and twangy rockers – this album sounds like they’ve been planted, tended, watered, blossomed, and grown ten feet high. Stunning.

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2. Wilco/Wilco (The Album):
Every hipster critic’s favorite target, this lean, muscular pop-oriented set stands up to anything else released this year. The world’s greatest band delivers again.

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3. Trainwreck Riders/The Perch:
Like Still Feel Gone-era Tupelo crossed with the Meat Puppets, this slab of pulverizing country punk will have you pounding your steering wheel and singing out, loud.

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4. John Vanderslice/Romanian Names:
A magnificently understated album from this always-solid veteran, with elements of Roxy Music, TVOTR, and Spoon. Hyperintelligent, spare, and awesome.

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5. Dawes/North Hills: Like The Band meets Gram Parsons via Crazy Horse, this is the year’s biggest surprise. What at first sounds simply folky becomes a solid folk-rock classic. Truly an A+.

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6. Phoenix/Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix:
Despite their provenance – who doesn’t love to hate the French? – there’s no denying that this is a fantastic, infectious pop-rock album. Hear it.

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7. M. Ward/Hold Time:
M. Ward continues to blossom with this gentle acoustic rock album, song after shimmering song that you seem to know by heart after just one listen. America’s best songwriter.

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8. Deer Tick/Born on Flag Day:
This filthy little album will pump your gas, kick your ass, and then buy you a beer. Weird, nasally, retro-billy shit that’s scrappy and just plain rocks from start to finish.

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9. Say Hi/Oohs and Aahs:
Smart, sharp and syncopated, this one sounds like Lotion meets The Pixies with a pinch of Squeeze, setting a moody mope-rock tone that never lets up.

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10. The Thermals/Now We Can See:
A peppy little punk-pop album full of songs about love, death and the ocean. Like Stiff Little Fingers in desperate need of psychotherapy.

11. Built To Spill/There Is No Enemy:
Doug Martsch delivers a surprisingly tight, focused rock album that also manages to stretch out for a spell and, for fans, satisfies a unbearably long three-year jones.
12. Motel Motel/New Denver:
Weird as hell and even more annoying, this amalgam of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Glands, and Radiohead should suck, but it doesn’t. Unique, and spectacular.
13. Fruit Bats/The Ruminant Band:
If Ray Davies joined The Shins, you might get this bright, shiny, ragtimey pop album. These guys never sounded so…awake. Great.
14. Lucero/1372 Overton Park:
Slobberbone meets Springsteen, with horns. Sounds like smoky barrooms, gravel roads and warm whiskey; a smoother, fuller version of their traditionally raw sound.
15. The Dexateens/Singlewide:
Drive-By Truckers meet the Jayhawks, singin’ songs about the southland. Takes a while to warm up, but sticks to your ribs.
16. Dan Auerbach/Keep It Hid:
The Black Keys meet Al Green.
17. Kevin Devine/Brother’s Blood:
Elliott Smith meets Ben Gibbard
18. Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band/Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band:
Wolf Parade meets The White Stripes
19. Yo La Tengo/Popular Songs:
More relaxed and inviting than they’ve been in quite a while
20. The Mountain Goats/The Life of the World To Come:
Ambitious, patient, and whip-smart
21. The Dodos/Time to Die:
A sweet, ripe percussive pop album that’s a real evolution of their sound
22. Thao and The Get Down Stay Down/Know Better Learn Faster:
Odd-voiced rocker adds horns on this album focused on love and heartbreak. Like Juliana Hatfield covers PJ Harvey. Wild.
23. Tim Easton/Porcupine:
Tom Petty meets Van Morrison for a skiffle session
24. The Shaky Hands/Let It Die:
Imagine the Pixies covering Exile on Main Street
25. Neko Case/Middle Cyclone:
Never really gets off the ground, but her voice! Her voice.

Other Good Stuff
Andrew Bird/Noble Beast (insanely particular and verging on fey, but there’s genius here)
Blitzen Trapper/Black River Killer EP (continues the magic of last year’s Furr)
A.A. Bondy/When The Devil’s Loose (a bit too laid back, but a still-solid bleakish folk sound)
Dirty Projectors/Bitte Orca (grossly overrated, but there’s a very cool art-Zep thing going on here)
Golden Boots/Winter of Our Discotheque (Beck + Pavement)
Holopaw/Oh, Glory. Oh, Wilderness (weird psych-soul sound with a country fuzz)
Patterson Hood/Murdering Oscar (and Other Love Songs) (throwback front-porch Drive-By Truckers)
La Strada/La Strada (EP) (Beirut via Elephant 6)
The Low Anthem/Oh My God, Charllie Darwin (opium for your ears, like Band of Horses underwater)
Modest Mouse/No One’s First and You’re Next EP (sharp, smart, short, super)
The Mother Hips/Pacific Dust (my softest spot in all of music; Tim Bluhm is genuinely one of a kind)
A.C. Newman/Get Guilty! (New Pornographer’s default leader delivers another fine, dramatic rocker)
Other Lives/Other Lives (if Coldplay sounded a little more like Ben Folds, and didn’t totally suck balls)
Port O’Brien/Threadbare (darker and more depressing than last year’s masterpiece, but still great)
Ramona Falls/Intuit (the dude from Menomena digs Yes and Rush)
Dave Rawlings Machine/Friend of a Friend (bluegrass/folk veteran’s excellent debut, covers and originals)
Strand of Oaks/Leave Ruin (Palace Music + Sun Kil Moon + A.A. Bondy)
St. Vincent/Actor (complex, dramatic and wonderful, worth a little extra work to figure this one out)
These United States/Everything Touches Everything (Wilco + Sorta + Jackson Browne)
Various Artists/Dark Was The Night (so good it breaks the rule against compilations: a hipster’s paradise)

Overrated
Animal Collective/Merriwether Post Pavilion
Antony & The Johnsons/The Crying Light
Camera Obscura/My Maudlin Career
The Decemberists/Hazards of Love
Grizzly Bear/Veckatimest

Andrew Stewart
Rhinebeck, NY

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