zBoneman's Top 50 Albums of 2007

Kyle goes Biblical on our ass.

I never thought that Arcade Fire would ever top their 2004 debut Funeral for me personally, but this year's Neon Bible blew me away even more so. Much darker and much more bleak than its predecessor, Neon Bible is full of post-apocalyptic tracks that echo an entire generation's feelings on what it's like to live in a post 9/11 world of fear and intimidation not just from terrorists and those that wish to do us harm but also from a presidential administration that doesn't always have the people's best interests. While there were 49 other albums I liked very much as well this year(and as always if we didn't review a particular album on this list, there will be a short synopsis about it after the album title) nothing really shook me to the core like Arcade Fire's epic Neon Bible did.

1. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

2. Iron & Wine – The Shepherd's Dog

3. Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond

4. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

5. Feist – The Reminder

6. The Shins – Wincing the Night Away

7. Grinderman – Grinderman

8. Caribou – Andorra (When Dan Snaith went by the moniker Manitoba, he made blissed out Electronica for people who like soundtracks for watching paint dry. As Caribou, Snaith's Andorra is the greatest slice of 60's Pop-Psychedelica since The Zombies' Odyssey and Oracle).

9. The New Pornographers – Challengers

10. The National – Boxer (While I found 2005's Alligator to be more than a tad overrated, this year's Boxer from The National surpassed all expectations. Vocalist Matt Berninger still sounds like an American Stuart A. Staples and their tales of woe on Boxer would certainly make Mark Eitzel proud).

11. The White Stripes – Icky Thump

12. Baroness – The Red Album (Bar none the best Post-Metal record of the year, Baroness blend aspects of Isis, Quicksand and Explosions In the Sky perfectly).

13. Menomena – Friend and Foe

14. Thurston Moore – Trees Outside the Academy (Sonic Youth's frontman releases an acoustic heavy solo-record that stands up next to the greatness of the last three Sonic Youth albums).

15. Holy Fuck – Holy Fuck (Holy Fuck indeed. These Canadians blend a mixture of influences ranging from Trans Am, Mogwai and LCD Soundsystem making it my favorite Electronic record of the year).

16. Okkervil River – The Stage Names

17. Bishop Allen – Bishop Allen & The Broken String (The first time I heard Bishop Allen's "Click, Click, Click, Click" I knew it was going to eventually end up in some camera commercial. Those that have seen Kodak's new round of ads have now heard my favorite Bishop Allen song on a record full of favorites).

18. Eddie Vedder – Into the Wild Soundtrack (Vedder's soundtrack to the Sean Penn film is the best work of Pearl Jam or otherwise since Vitology).

19. Norah Jones – Not Too Late (I've already caught flak for having this so high on my list, but too bad. This is by far her best record to date and she did all of her own writing so don't dare call her the second coming of Diana Krall).

20. Richard Hawley – Lady's Bridge (The former Pulp guitarist just keeps on growing his own personal legend by releasing his fourth masterpiece of Lee Hazelwood style mastery in a row).

21. The Clientele – God Save The Clientele

22. Low – Drums and Guns

23. The Broken West – I Can't Go On, I'll Go On (This new Los Angeles group are the best new band to be influenced by Big Star since The Posies).

24. Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam (I've been on record stating that I find Animal Collective to be one of the most pretentious and overrated bands working today, but I have to give them their due. Strawberry Jam is a great record with just the right touches of sweet melodies and abrasive noise).

25. Queens of the Stone Age – Era Vulgaris

26. Stars – In Our Bedroom After the War (Feist may have been the Broken Social Scene member with the best side album of the year but Stars' fourth release was a close second. In Our Bedroom After the War is Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan's most rewarding album to date).

27. Joe Henry – Civilians

28. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings – 100 Days, 100 Nights (Finally a new-ish Soul artist worth giving a shit about, Sharon Jones along with The Dap Kings who brought excellence to last year's Amy Winehouse album do justice to past Mowtown and Stax greats).

29. Vic Chesnutt – North Star Deserter (Athens, Georgia staple Vic Chesnutt recruited A Silver Mt. Zion to be his band for his 11th album North Star Deserter and the results ended up being the best thing he's done in over a decade).

30. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver

31. Josh Ritter – The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter (critical darling Folkie Josh Ritter plugs in and makes not only a great Rock record, but his best album to date).

32. Von Sudenfed – Tromatic Reflexxions (It's a shame this album barely made a blip on the radar of 2007 because it's the best thing either Mark E. Smith from The Fall or Mouse on Mars have done in a long time. How did a supergroup such as this fall through the cracks so easily?)

33. Explosions in the Sky – All of A Sudden I Miss Everyone

34. Sixtoo – Jackals and Vipers in Envy of Man (Robert Squire's first new album in three years shows that he's still one of the best in business when it comes to Instrumental Hip-Hop).

35. Wilco – Sky Blue Sky

36. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

37. Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha

38. Arctic Monkeys – Favourite Worst Nightmare

39. Stars of the Lid – And Their Refinement of the Decline (one of the staples of the Ambient-Drone scene, Stars of the Lid's first new album in six years is a double album of pure spaced out heaven.)

40. Crowded House – Time on Earth

41. Marissa Nadler – Bird on the Water (If you're a fan of British Folk in the vein of Vashti Bunyan or a Mazzy Star fan wishing Hope Sandoval would finally resurface with something new, you should try Nadler's Bird on the Water on for size).

42. Les Savy Fav – Let's Stay Friends (Fugazi-esque spaz-rockers Les Savy Fav's first album in six years is a welcome return).

43. Handsome Furs – Plague Park

44. Wu-Tang Clan – 8 Diagrams

45. The Twilight Sad – Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters (Scottish mopers The Twilight Sad's debut is wonderfully beautiful and depressing Indie-Rock for fans of Idlewild and Morrissey).

46. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Is Is EP (more raw than last year's Show Your Bones, these five songs that encompass Is Is are as essential as anything else Karen O and Yeah Yeah Yeahs have done up to this point).

47. 1990's – Cookies (compatriots to Franz Ferdinand and The Futureheads, 1990's are more fancy-free than their fellow countrymen and their only real goal is to compile as much sex, drugs and Rock N' Roll as they can get their hands on; God bless ‘em).

48. Kings of Leon – Because of the Times

49. Beirut – Lon Gisland EP/The Flying Club Cup

50. Radiohead – In Rainbows