The Best Our Favorite Local Albums of 2006

In Which The Flagpole Music Department Takes A Break From Applying Objective Words To Subjective Art And Just Tells You Which 10 Local Albums Got The Most Play 'Round The Office

originally published December 27, 2006

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Dark Meat

Universal Indians

What a difference a year makes! And what surprises one can yield! Let's rewind to this time in 2005: Dark Meat was a new band and more a rumor than any kind of functioning force in the music scene. You could count the number of shows it had played on one hand and still have a finger or two left over to point at bands who showed more promise for 2006.

Dark Meat borrows from garage rock, punk, R&B and free jazz, but the band is its own mescaline-and-tequila-fueled beast. It doesn't sound precisely like any of the forms that precede it; it sounds like them all. (And it sounds like right now; who knows if a family with almost 20 hard-partying, creative and individualistic members can keep things together for another album. Who knows if they even need to?)

Universal Indians is cathartic, swaggering, optimistic, completely mad and uninhibited. And yet, it is cohesive and of one voice in a way that the band's live shows sometimes aren't. Universal Indians knows when to rein in the chaos and focus on the core strength of Dark Meat: boil it all down, strain out the sinew and gristle and hair, and it's solid, classic rock and roll. But build it all back up again - add the horns, tambourines, double drumming, harmonized vocals, soulful shout-outs and psychedelicized dream-fever lyrics - and you have something colossal and matchless.

Oh, and make sure to add the unhinged way McHugh lets the word "cigarette!" erupt from somewhere dark, deep and desperate… It just about captures everything that's vital, visceral and exciting about rock and roll.
Ice Cream Socialists

Belles & Missiles

For any jaded consumer of indie rock, Ice Cream Socialists gives off an orange-alert kinda glow. The members are cutesy and precocious and use strings and piano in rock arrangements. But then, they're also fantastic. The debut album Belles & Missiles (see what I mean?) is a dancing dragon constantly shedding its skin and occasionally unfurling its wings and flying around for a bit. There are 10 songs and only one cracks three minutes, but you wouldn't know it unless you checked the track listing. And despite their juvenile mien, they can't hold themselves back from rocking out, or from throwing in harmonies that hit you like a stiff wind. There's some amazing talent at work here, and some great songs, so shield your eyes from the glow and give them a shot. They've unexpectedly created one of the most charming and rewarding records of the year.
Tin Cup Prophette

Liar and the Thief

One of the things the Flagpole music staff values highly is originality. There are a number of bands in town playing, for instance, bluesy bar-rock stuff, or indie-rock stuff, or mainstream rock stuff, and they're completely capable but not particularly original. That's why Athens artists like Tin Cup Prophette's Amanda Kapousouz (and others like Geoff Reacher or Russian Spy Camera who almost made this list) are prized so highly. In its many fertile years, the local scene hadn't heard much like Kapousouz's swoony, looping violin tracks, structured percussion and hazy vocals. This debut disc is beautiful and definitely a keeper, and hopefully it's the first in a long line of successes.
Casper & the Cookies

The Optimist's Club

Album titles are nice as framing devices, but even better as points of comparison. Casper & the Cookies went from the immediate, declamatory Oh! in 2004 to this year's The Optimist's Club: still looking on the bright side of life, but more a world-view and less a moment in time. And so the album took a while to fully reveal itself, sneaking up on you until it seized your full attention and revealed its charms. Here you'll find songs that really tell stories, both lyrically and musically - songs that are bittersweet and compelling and utterly unlike anything else in 2006.
Elf Power

Back to the Web

The instrumentation of Elf Power's newest songs, drawing on English folk, Middle Eastern and gypsy traditions, remains enchanting while retaining Andrew Rieger's signature ringing guitar choruses. Back to the Web achieves a fine synthesis of the driving pop-rock of the band's last two albums and the more ruminative folk that's always been an Elf Power undercurrent. More than anything, though, it's nice that a band so comfortably within the indie-rock community feels able to nod towards a variety of past sounds that other bands might avoid. Back to the Web works unequivocally as both the band's major-label debut and as another step in its consistently intriguing evolution.
Cinemechanica

The Martial Arts

Heavy, intricate music can be for more than just guitar nerds, and Cinemechanica ably proves how: the band works as a whole unit, rather than making the mistake of many young bands who eagerly write separate parts to highlight individual members (and their egos). Cinemechanica tempers its mathematical precision with the understanding of an ultimate need to rock; nods towards more palatable acts like Les Savy Fav let Cinemechanica peddle the intricate punk of The Martial Arts to audiences who would otherwise dismiss a genre so easily lost to dudish wankery.
Music Hates You

Send More Paramedics

Aggressive without being a caricature, Music Hates You converted many to its brand of dirt-meta… wait, what's that? Shit, it's coming right at us! Quick! Quick! Move to the le… auuggh! Sonofa… WHAM! Nononono, get out of the…SMACK! gasp gasp gasp Oh-god-no-wait-don't-hit-me-with-that… oof! Send More Paramedics is the sound of your ass getting kicked by music.
Liz Durrett

The Mezzanine

Liz Durrett's debut album Husk hinted last year at a lot of potential. The Mezzanine delivered on that promise with gauzy voice and minimal guitar intact but more confident and pointed, and the album suggested several divergent possibility's for the singer's future. We hope she explores them all, particularly the compellingly uptempo sound of "Cup on the Counter." Gorgeous.
Venice is Sinking

Sorry About the Flowers

For much of the talent in this overcrowded town, the biggest obstacle out there is simply being heard. It's hard enough to pry audiences away from their friends' bands' shows, and harder still to get them to drop some cash for an album. So Venice is Sinking made the novel and surprisingly unrepeated move of offering its debut full-length free to any who came to their CD release show at the 40 Watt. Is it any surprise that the band is now able to bridge audiences and captivate any number with its viola-fueled, flowing folk-pop?
Titans of Filth

Best Behavior EP

There comes a point in the process of growing up when you can not only appreciate the comedy of awkwardness (when you’re no longer so raw from experiencing it firsthand as an adolescent) but also its gut-twisting gorgeousness. That is, Lolita would not be Lolita if she were fully poised, adult and formed. The five-song Best Behavior EP Titans of Filth put out this year had that quality of trembling, freckled oddness that doesn’t yet know it’s much prettier than the lipsticked blonde currently attracting all the attention in the room. Will these guys blossom completely? And do we even want them to, when shy glances through a fringe of unevenly trimmed bangs are so much more appealing than an expensive haircut and an ability to make eye contact.