Get ready for the gush fest. I am seriously in love with all of the music represented on this list and I’m thankful to have heard it all. I apologize for dumping all 25 releases in your lap at once, but I didn’t want to drag it out unnecessarily. 2011 was a spectacular year for music and I’m looking forward to what next year holds. I’d also like to thank everyone that has supported me and my blog this year. It means a lot and I’m grateful for all that it has afforded me.

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I’ve been a long time fan of The Chariot (or Josh Scogin rather) since my hardcore high school days. No other band on my list even comes close to the raw, brutal energy of seeing the band live. It’s pure passion in the form of boundless energy barely harnessed by these scruffy-looking dudes. With Love Live the band retains their noise and mathcore leanings while also incorporating some surprising elements that had me smiling at every turn.

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I was a moderate fan of Smith Westerns’ debut album, but in my opinion it was mostly just noise from a promising young band groping to nail down their sound. On their second album Dye It Blonde however, they matured at a breakneck pace shedding several layers seemingly all at once. The result is one of the most easily accessible and enjoyably straightforward rock albums of the year.

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I don’t know of any other band on my list that is as wonderfully weird as Tonstartssbandht. In order to understand the full gravity of that statement though I think it’s important to go back and listen to some of their earlier releases (An When is a favorite of mine). With their most recent album Now I Am Become we find the boys distilling all of the quirk and the fuzz down into a consolidated 8 tracks of pop strangeness.

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Man, I’m so sad that Ponytail called it quits this year. There really is no other act out there that is comparable to the genius that these creative minds brought us. Anchored by Dustin Wong’s magical fingers and and shot to the stars via Molly Siegel’s bizarre warblings Do Whatever You Want All the Time was a fitting exit for an exciting and truly innovative band.

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Other than a few of his tracks a while back I was relatively unfamiliar with Speculator. So my love for this album is largely due to Underwater Peoples (one of my favorite labels) for releasing it. The sound that Speculator is going for here definitely fits into the ambiguous 1980’s/1990’s revival of late, but he douses the album in a hearty wash of acid and lets it air dry.

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Some artists are able to completely create, sustain, and inhabit an entire world within an album. This is precisely what Circle of Ouruborus has done with Eleven Fingers. It’s a world that I frequently revisit and am constantly finding new things to admire. The flat affected vocals punctuated by black metal screaming and the muted guitars that create an amorphous blob of fuzzy noise give the album a distant quality. Like it’s coming from the bottom of a well somewhere.

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The only complaint I could lobby against Shimmering Stars debut album is not really a complaint at all now that I think about it. Essentially the album is pretty singularly-minded in execution and it’s true that many of the tracks follow a similar pattern. However, if the listener is completely and utterly in love with that pattern then it makes for an engaging listen that I know I’ll be singing along to for years to come.

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The Beets have always had a campfire-worthy/sing-songy quality to their simple 1960’s guitar pop. And similar to my #19 pick, this album is relatively singular in vision. But what the band lacks in creative edge they make up for in insane melodic pop hooks and morbid humor (just glance at any of their artwork). Fortunately for the listener the dudes bumped up the production quality on this one which only makes them all the more inviting.

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If there is one album on this list that I had the most to lose on it is most definitely Pleasure. I was fanatical about everything that Pure X (Pure Ecstasy at that point) had released up to then and I had built their debut album up so high in my mind that there was almost no way it could live up. Fortunately for my psyche it did. While it’s not as infinitely replayable as I dreamed it’d be, it’s still a banger of an album that I’m glad to own.

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If I was forced to use one word to describe Mark McGuire’s music it would be “warmth.” The things that Mark is able to do with his guitar and the feelings that he is able to dredge up are truly unbelievable. On last year’s Living With Yourself there were times when I would get genuinely emotional listening to it (and all this from an instrumental album!). And even though Get Lost doesn’t quite live up to that album, it still recreates a lot of the vibrancy and happiness found therein.

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I know that The Beach Boys’ well of influence has been pretty much drained dry in recent years. But there is still a part of me that smiles so big when those Wilson-esque harmonies are pulled off lovingly and convincingly. And that is the glove in which Japan’s Friends’ hand comfortably fits. There is an honestly to Shota Kaneko’s music that really shines through and that is something that cannot be faked.

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Say what you will about Liturgy (or more specifically Hunter Hunt-Hendrix) but there is no denying the power of this album. I’ll agree that the exposition on their self-proclaimed “transcendental black metal” is inherently ridiculous, but I’m willing to separate the art from the artist in cases as brilliant as this. With Aesthetica, Liturgy has harnessed the power of the sun and holds the magnifying glass over your senses until you can scarcely take anymore.

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The music of Liz Harris is dangerous. It is so enchanting that it’s possible to become completely lost in it. And with the release of her double album A I A, those pitfalls are doubled. But the thing that keeps me coming back to Grouper’s music is that it is simple and shallow enough to wade in, but also deep enough to dive into and swim around. There was more than one occasion this year when I would find myself completely entrenched in these songs. I stop dead in my tracks and just stand and listen.

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I’ve been eagerly following the trajectory of Run DMT since the release of the bizarre mixtape Bong Voyage. So I was thrilled when I finally got my greasy paws on this cassette tape. Created as a linear experience, these songs are meant to be heard front to back on a tape player (which is why he was hesitant to share a digital download). Taking the odd universe of noises evidenced on Bong Voyage and melding it with some more conventional psyh-pop jams, Dreams instantly became a favorite of mine this year.

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Ah, the blogger darlings known as COOLRUNNINGS. There is a reason that so many people had gravitated towards their quirky pop music. What these guys manage to do with their proper debut Dracula Is Only the Beginning is throw an insane party. There is a ton of musical energy, colorful balloons, some strobe lighting, and probably a healthy dose of drinking going on. The kicker though is that these guys are throwing the party first and foremost for themselves. If you wanna join in that’s fine, but it’s gonna happen with or without you.

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The award for the most crushingly beautiful album of the year goes to Wolves In the Throne Room. Their own brand of black metal has been honed and polished over subsequent releases so that one day we might get Celestial Lineage. If the woodland elves from The Lord of the Rings decided to express themselves through scorching black metal, then it might sound a bit like this. Was that a dorky analogy? Yes, probably. But was it also spot-on? I’d like to think so.

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Tennis holds a very special place in my heart. Not only does their music hearken back to the kind of music that I was raised on, but they’ve become a destination for the further bonding of my best friend and I. You see we both adore this band in equal measure and we both like talking about how much we adore this band. Acting as a sailing journal of sorts for the husband-wife duo that created it Cape Dory gets the award for highest number of listens by me this year. And holy crap, that was a lot of listens.

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With Exmilitary I can honestly say that I’m still a little scared of Death Grips. It opens up with a clip of Charles Manson, obviously unhinged, spewing words about the underworld that he oversees. It’s this uneasy feeling that permeates the most daring rap album of the year. We are treated to the ravings of a madman who, for all we know, is one misfiring neuron away from mass murder. That being said the album is an exhilarating listen that if anything reminds me that the punk rock ethos is not dead.

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I was a bit worried when I heard that two-thirds of Sleep ∞ Over had unceremoniously vacated the band. I was verging on being obsessed with these ladies and the thought of a split before the arrival their debut album had me almost in tears (almost). Thankfully, Stefanie Franciotti kept the torch burning and secluded herself in her bedroom to record Forever. Stefanie’s knack for culling together noises of all sorts and compressing those conglomerates into a collection of sparkling diamonds is an arresting thing to behold.

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The idea of “cool” is such an elusive concept these days. It can’t be forged and it can’t be self-ascribed. So the fact that Alex Zhang Hungtai exudes “cool” with such ease is aggravating to say the least. If it’s possible to be born in the wrong era then Alex’s project Dirty Beaches perfectly sums this up. He does this not only with his looks but more importantly with his music. As a loving ode to the music he imagines his father would have liked, Badlands is a collection of forgotten memories that have been picked up, dusted off, and put on display for all to admire.

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Oh, come on. We all knew this would be on here. I’ve gushed time and time again over Born Gold like a giddy school girl talking to her friends about the cute new guy at school. There is something about Cecil Frena’s music that triggers a chemical response in my brain. The ten tracks on this stellar album are like a musical form of heroine and I am helplessly and happily addicted. If you haven’t downloaded this thing yet, then you are dead to me.

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I latched onto The Neighborhood’s debut EP like a starfish on an unsuspecting oyster. You’ll notice that it’s the only EP to make my year-end list and this move was intentional. The power that these six tracks holds over me is almost hypnotic. I’ve played and replayed and replayed this thing for months and never got even close to tiring of it. I’ve wrung it of its contents but the more I squeeze the more they come pouring out. I am holding my breath in anticipation of Ryan’s next inevitable move.

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For the longest time this album was firmly locked in as my favorite of the year. So I was genuinely surprised when it got knocked down not only one notch, but two! That’s not to say that it has lost any of its power or imagination. The Sandwitches mystify me with their ability to delight and disturb in equal measure, and the falsetto vox are as alluring as the call of a siren. They are definitely an acquired taste, but the more you put into them the more they will reward your faithfulness.

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Of all the albums on my list I was most surprised by Balam Acab’s debut. I had enjoyed his See Birds EP in passing, but it wasn’t something that I came back to more than a couple times. With Wander / Wonder though, I found myself completely enraptured. Alec Koone has created an insular experience here and I mean that in the best way possible. This album is like a bubble issued up from the cold waters of the earth’s core. Completely intact and sustained on its own clearly-defined abilities.

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There have been a lot of cutesy ways of describing Youth Lagoon’s debut album The Year of Hibernation. There’s talk of emo or warm blankets or hugs, but to me these descriptions are trite and ultimately fall flat. I don’t want to cheapen Trevor Powers’ music at all by calling it emotional, but that’s exactly what it is. This is a personal experience that Trevor tailored in the comfort of his own bedroom and through circumstances outside of his control the world was given a peek into that universe. So don’t try to ascribe words or feelings to it, just sink it let it happen to you.