Music, it’s fantastic.
This has been a pretty nuts 10 years for me and musically it’s been quite a change as well.
I started the decade in South America and will finish it living in London. I started the decade listening to a lot of post rock but moved to a lot more dance music when I moved to England, it just seemed to soundtrack the city better. As indie fell apart in the mid 10s I found myself losing touch, even the places I went to for my music news were just talking about bands that I had no interest in. Lost for music, I found myself wondering back to my first love, metal and since that there’s been no turning back, it’s incredible just how alive that genre is at the moment. (Relax, there are only 5 metal songs on this list)
Dance Playlist.
I didn’t include any dance music for some reason so I went off and made a different list.
Here’s a playlist of my favourite dance music from the last decade. I won’t be writing up individual pieces for each track but do advise turning this up loud.
Now, without further ado, 20 songs that have made my life a whole lot richer over the last 10 years.
Dj Shadow ft Run the Jewels
Nobody Speak
It’s not often that a collaboration that seems kinda off the cuff becomes something both acts add to their live set. Coming off DJ Shadow’s “The mountain will fall” this is by far the best thing on it, a ridiculous piece of braggadocio in which EL-P and Killer Mike spit some brilliant, if fucked up diss work. I wasn’t going to quote it but what the hell. This is Killer Mike and this is, well..
“I’m the shit, I will fall off in your crib, take a shit
Pinch your momma on the booty, kick your dog, fuck your bitch
Fat boy dressed up like he’s Santa and took pictures with your kids.”
The video, for once, only makes the song better.
Of Monsters and Men
We Sink
I can’t remember an album ever switching from something I rolled my eyes at when my wife put it on, to one of my all time favourites, but OMAM’s second album, hit me like a ton of bricks when I did finally get it. And while this may not be the most obvious track on the album there’s just something about it that makes me want to play it on repeat. The chorus is just perfect, melancholy yet defiant. To finish, the song has a fake out ending, a build in tension that feels like there is going to be a huge crescendo, but just quietly leads fades out, finishing with a sigh, not a whimper.
Eths
Nihil Sine Causa
I have honestly never heard a song like this before, it takes a lot to make me sit up on first listen and start playing that song from the top when it finishes, but this did it.
Eths are a French band who apparently played Nu Metal before this album but they changed singer and made this… Madness.
In 4:53s they have clean and growled male and female vocals, singing in Arabic, an electronic breakdown and passages that sound like Dead Can Dance. And it never seems forced, it flows perfectly, alternatively dragging and enticing the listener to the end of the song.
It’s a work of brilliance.
Dvne
Scion
What happens if you take Tool and Neurosis and stick them in a sci-fi, Prog Metal blender.
Magic, is what you get. This huge slab of metal is proper face melting metal, alternating between flashy prog licks, post metal / sludge mixed with Tool’s bass playing.
It’s soooo heavy, the first section sounds like the drums are trying to drag themselves from underneath the riffs which are trying to crush them. The second section is lighter, where the song becomes more airy, while the bass drives and the singing switches to clean. It gives an amazing uplifting feel to the clostrophia that came before it. A world class song and a stunning closer to an amazing album.
Amenra
A Solitary Reign
Imagine a small dark room where the light is so weak that the world has turned monochrome.
It’s cold and damp and you are lying on the floor. You’re unsure if you can’t get up or you won’t get up. So you just lie there. Curled into a half ball, unwilling maybe unable to move.
You are clutching yourself, you want to scream but you’re pretty sure that if you do scream you won’t be able to stop, so you continue to lie there, all your fear and anger burning you up internally. All that emotion, writhing inside is not providing light or heat, just more darkness, a blackness that is choking you.
That’s what A Solitary Reign sounds like, in the best possible way. One of the greatest ever post metal songs. The screamed vocals won’t be for everyone but they’re a perfect counterpoint to the clean singing, the song wouldn’t have half the weight it carries without it.
La Dispute
King Park
I don’t know anyone who writes songs like La Dispute, no choruses, no verses. Each song builds more like a poem than and song, further emphasised by the singers almost spoken word delivery style. It’s going to be flat out marmite to people, but this is my list and I don’t care.
Even the pretension of this song should be off putting, it’s a narration of a drive by shooting where the singer wonders how it happened, how the wrong person got killed and then, as a disembodied presence goes back and observes the story unfold.
It shouldn’t work but the music underscores the lyrics perfectly, projecting a huge drama that never overpowers the narrative.
The last, hugely cartarthic part of the song still gives me chills every time I hear it.
Listen to this and make sure you stick with it till the end.
Arcane Roots
Half a World Away
This is a ridiculous, melodramatic song to the point where it _almost_ goes too far. But as an album and gig closer it’s hard to beat.
AR were an odd band that used a lot of electronics, sounded indie but still had their metal roots to back them up when needed.
This song isn’t one of the heavy ones though, it’s a slick indie number swathe in lush synths.
It’s just a huge uplifting song, a reminder that it will get better, with a fantastic singalong end. While the lyrics may not make that much sense if you listen too closely they give me goosebumps every time. Pure hands in the air music.
King’s Daughters and Sons
The Anniversary
A murder ballad in the best Nick Cave tradition. This is another song just telling its story, no verse chorus structure. Just the story of a man murdered by his wife and his best friend on his wedding day, of betrayal and grief. It’s a complex story that is told with the style and panache of any thriller. The song is driven by the piano but as the tale builds, the rest of the band join, adding tension, pushing the story to grief soaked end.
The last lines are
“In the kitchen, whiskey drunk, I pray to someone else’s god, that you’ll be quiet, just be still.”
Then the band go full Henry’s Dream era Bad Seeds.
Jaw dropping stuff.
Run The Jewels
Close your Eyes and Count Fuck
This is where RTJ finally got me. The first album left me cold but this just grabbed me by the throat and shook me. It might be the filthy bass riff, maybe it was Zack Dela Rocha but this is a beast of a track or it might just be where EL-P and Mike finally got the magic working.
I have no idea how to write about Hip Hop, but this is whip smart with political fury, swagger and a knowing smirk and that’s enough for me.
If you were a RATM fan, check this out.
65daysofstatic
Tiger Girl
It’s really difficult to talk about tracks like this, how do you put into words just how propulsive this is, how the beat will just grab you and drag you along if you want to or not. The way it builds and builds relentlessly pushing to a massive peak at breakneck intensity and then just at the point when you think they can’t go any further, it breaks, crashing out, dissolving into drones. It was stunning live and is still an amazing way to finish an album.
Idles
Television
This bumped Dance yrself clean by LCD Soundsystem, so that should give you an idea how much I like this one. Coming off an album called “Joy as an act of defiance” this track sums that idea perfectly. It’s got one of the strongest opening verses I’ve even heard
“If someone talked to you
The way you do to you
I’d put their teeth through
Love yourself”
The entire song sounds like running in sunshine, one of the most life affirming songs that you pogo along to. This is punk rock as affirmation and is something the world needs more of.
Wrekmeister Harmonies
Some Were Saved Some Drowned
I do love a good doomy bit of atmosphere in my music. Not the genre but a good sense of dread in a song and with a title like that you know to expect some dark sounds here.
The track opens with some ominous, droning violins which instantly build the mood, the guitar coming in low to the mix helps but it’s when the drums start this track soars.
The drums are the star in this for me, sounding like it was recorded live in the room, and gives the song a rawness that burns, that pushes the bass and the broken, cracked vocals to a place where the cars are on fire and there’s no one at the wheel.*
Intense and apocalyptic, this song is what I always wished Godspeed You Black Emperor were.
*This is a very clever reference. Trust me 😀
Daughter
New Ways
I used this song as the beginning of my wedding ceremony so as you can imagine it has some pretty huge emotional connections. Hearing the guitar at 02:00 as I was walking towards the altar gave me goosebumps and I still get them every time I hear it. It’s a fantastic indie, almost shoegazing track that I just have no objective thoughts about, it’s a beautiful song and should be played very loudly.
“But there’s something in you
I can’t be without
I just need it here”
❤
Lanterns on the Lake
Of Dust and Matter
It’s such a gentle opening for the album, amp buzz and a piano chord leading into a beautiful song dedicated to loss, loneliness and dead towns, with a dash of criticism against late stage capitalism. But by the time the drums roll in LotL will sell you the romance of music and drinking until you pass out on your kitchen floor. Everything will all be alright as long as we have a song in our hearts and while the music is still playing you’ll believe the lie they’re trying to sell to themselves as well.
Mogwai
San Pedro
When I first heard this track I was pretty bewildered, here were my favourite band playing what to my shocked ears, some pretty dodgy 90’s alt rock. I mean, you could get some Eddie Vedder wantabe to sing over the first half and it would fit right in. For those of you who know how my taste runs, you’ll know that this isn’t something I’m very fond of.
No, I’m definitely here for the second half of the track. The second part is where we go from Alt Rock into full Mogwai, every time the song loops around on itself it keeps getting heavier and heavier by the end (especially live) leaving you wondering if your head is about to implode from the sheer weight of the massive riffing. And what’s not to love about that?
Junius
Black Sarcophagus
Given that the band name comes from the pseudonym of an 18th century political writer and that the album is called Eternal Rituals for the Accretion of Light you can pick up pretty quickly that Junius aren’t your average metal band.
This song is the end track on the aforementioned album and is a perfect closer. A slow building story of what seems to be a magical ritual involving self immolation to achieve transcendence from flesh to godhood. So yea…
The song builds through the steps of the ritual, giving a weary explanation to a lifetime’s ambition. This isn’t any sort of suicide note, this is a triumph of knowlage, of waiting for time to die and when the music finaly lets the build break it’s into a fantastic post metal crescendo as exilarating as it is cathartic.
Caspian
Echos and Abyss
So I used to listen to a lot of post rock, and I mean an unhealthy amount (probably) of the stuff, but eventually it all just started to sound the same to me.
Caspian were always one of the also rand bands post rock bands for me, but with Dust and Disquiet they leveled up in the most amazing way. This album took all the tropes of the genre and perfected them, with this track being the best example.
It’s pretty by the numbers, clean guitars leading into the track, some qauility riffing and a vocal line low enough in the mix, so it’s not easy to make out what he’s singing, all leading to a huge crechendo of rocking the fuck out.
It’s not going to win any originality contests but it is one of the best songs of it’s genre.
Teeth of the Sea
Responder
The elevator pitch I give people about TotS is: 65daysofstatic meet Ennio Morricone to score a John Carpenter film.
How good does that sound? Because this track lives up to that incredible pitch.
I saw the band do a live score to the Apollo missions and they used Repeater for the Apollo 11 section which was a jaw dropping use of music to one of the most impressive feats that mankind has accomplished and it soundtracked the footage.
The throbbing bass may drive the song and the filthy guitar may roar but it’s the hypnotic trumpet and vocoder vocals that give the song life, a true hands in the air song that will put a massive smile on your face.
Eyre Llew
Vorfreude
So this is Ambient Rock.
Bollox my friends, this is another post rock song. The closest comparison would be Sigur Ros but without all the whale song nonsense.
It’s a simple enough song, just guitar, bass and drums but the multi tracked vocal lifts it into something that feels like sunlight breaking through the gloom. It feels like it should be used to soundtrack footage of snowy mountains with bluebird skies.
There’s not really much I can add to be honest, I just really like it.
Numenorean
Adore
Can you have a song that was released in 2019 in your songs of the decade?
Yes, if I want to, I can. So there.
This blew me away from the first time I heard it. As far as Blackgaze goes this has the perfect mix of Black metal fury and the more melodic shoegaze side of things for me. I’ve also seen people compare this band to the Fields of the Nephilim, so I guess I had no chance.
This is one of the more melodic songs on the album, while there are D beats and harsh vocals the song is pretty accessible, even the heaviest section of the song never gets too dissonant, in fact I’ve seen this album described as pop black metal. And while that’s a bit silly it makes this a brilliant song to dip your toe into the murky pit of Blackgaze. Numenorean are far more about emotion that the frankly stupid corpse paint and Sataisim cliche that still haunts Black metal.
Here’s the whole thing in Spotify playlist form.
The ways of exile 