Feature / Music
2006: A Year In Review

Quick links: Top 5 DVDs | Most Anticipated Albums of 2007 | Reasons The Fresh Prince was awesome | Top 5 Singles | Big Comebacks of 2006 | Top 5 Shows | Top 5 Things That Sucked | Top 5 Things That Ruled | Noteworthy Songs | Top Reissues | Reasons the BBC Is Killing UK Music | Top 5 Vinyl-Only Releases | Worst Cover Art | Band Tour Stories

1. Fucked Up - "Teenage Problems"

Hidden World was the best album of 2006 by several light years, sigils and all, but the most remarkable Fucked Up song these past 365 days was this unassuming B-side. You know the story by now: tuneful Canadian hardcore band gets arcane and starts making concept albums about alchemy while at the same time producing stunning â??80s hardcore-by-way-of-the-Undertones punk gems. I can't count how many times I listened to "Teenage Problems" this year; the song cannot be oversold. Sunbeam guitar lines, tuneful growls from Pink Eyes, and André Gide-referencing lyrics about pedophilia. If you haven't yet dipped your toe into the Manichean, anarcho-fascist world of Fucked Up, this is a great indoctrination. Behold, ye multitude. (See "Triumph of Life" B-side "Neat Parts" for volume two.)

2. Harvey Milk - "Old Glory"

The comeback album Special Wishes is like Americana from an alternate universe, where the guitar as lead instrumental voice becomes the bell that tolls for thee. This song is a true epic, coming across like a whole D.W. Griffith film packed into five minutes. It's an evolutionary leap where Scott Walker-isms, deuterium heaviness, and defiant guitar patriotism coalesce into a song good enough to save the raw heavy from patronizing hipsters. Oh say, can you see?

3. Samiam - "When We're Together"

2006 was a banner year for first songs. For Science peeled paint with the Fifth Element-inspired "Leeloo", The Adored blew their rock candy wad with "Tell Me Tell Me", and Jesu offered up the cyborg heartbreaker "Silver", but it's Samiam who take the gold. In three modest minutes, "When We're Together" announces how a comeback is supposed to sound: a surging, ass-kicking backbeat shot through with overcast guitar melodies and Jason Beebout's un-fucking-believable heartbroken roar. It's anthemic in a way most bands can't even conceptualize - this song is what U2 might sound like if they listened to Jawbreaker and weren't a bunch of lame, ex-social realist assholes.

4. Converge - "Grim Heart/Black Rose"

Converge have become more or less the standard-bearers for modern hardcoreâ??a band that almost everyone can agree on, from Shaolin shoe collectors to the Amebix international brigades. So, of course, few things rule more than seeing them throw the blueprints out the window. Just when you start to think you can't take another skronky, atonal riff, they drop this neutron bomb on you: almost ten minutes of crawling, Neurosis-doing-torch-songs dirge featuring soul-singing guest vocals by Jonah Jenkins. Massachusetts' finest continue to earn their keep as leaders of the pack.

5. Set Your Goals - "Mutiny!"

The four minutes of "Mutiny!" indicate both all that is great about Set Your Goals and everything that made their debut LP such a weird, lopsided affair. On the bright side, the melodies soar like Harrier jets strafing a terrorist training camp; here is a band unashamed in their pursuit of the anthemic. At the same time, on Mutiny! Set Your Goals seemed hell-bent on proving that they could write about "serious" subjects, and the result was a record that felt like a defensive lecture half the time. Still, the title track is a winner.

6. Men's Recovery Project - "Stubble on the Chin of a Vicious Brute"/"Bleeding Gash"

Making my top 25 was tough because I desperately wanted to include The Very Best of Men's Recovery Project, which was more or less a reissue - a cornucopia of material formerly splattered all over a series of mostly lost and forgotten records (Oxbow's wicked Love That's Last also falls into this category). But it also featured songs from the mythical, unreleased Night Pirate LP, and these two gems (I cheated) suggest a masterpiece akin to The Beach Boys' Smile: techno-punk dystopia meets Dadaist sound collage, like Raoul Hausmann hanging out with The Screamers. And McPheeters' monologue RE: feeding toothpaste to a little baby? Pure existential angst in the face of an imposing modernity.

7. End of a Year - "Above Ground Pools"

Thank goodness someone finally had the brains/guts to do a Lungfish tribute. End of a Year deserves a lot more credit than the already tired nouveau-Revolution Summer tag they've been saddled with, but I have to admit that their taste in influences is impeccable. Persistent fucking vision.

(Jon)