Best of 2011: The Ben Morse Edition

Music makes me happy. 2011 made me very happy – SO MUCH good music. Here are ten, not necessarily in order, albums I loved this year. I’m still doing it in reverse order though, because it’s my list, and I want to.

10. American Nomad – Apache Relay
American Nomad sounds like a warm summer afternoon. It’s all happy jangly guitars, nice harmonies, and underpinned by a drive to get on the road and get lost. It’s constantly listenable and I love it. They sit somewhere near The Low Anthem and Eels, but with literally more bells and whistles. Listen to the title track, or “Power Hungry Animals” and you’ll get it.
Apache Relay – American Nomad

09. Bad As Me – Tom Waits
Full disclosure – I’m a massive TW nerd. With that said, Bad As Me is the audio equivalent of season 5 of The Wire. Sure, it’s not as solid as the rest of the body of work, but it’s still better than most stuff out there. Where it hits, it hits hard. “Hell Broke Luce” is the obvious stand out, but “Back In The Crowd” might be the sweetest song Waits has put out in years. And that grumpy old bastard still knows how to turn a phrase. Satisfied opens with “Roll my vertebrae out like dice, let my skull be home to the mice”. Take THAT, Noel and/or Liam Gallagher.
Tom Waits – Back In The Crowd

08. House On Fire – Brian Wright
Brian signed with Sugar Hill Records this year. It was the logical step for the ultimate southern gentleman. Anyone who can turn a song about lung cancer into a love story (“Mesothelioma”) has a rare gift. House On Fire runs through obsession, loss, murderous brothers, drug fueled doctors, and the sweetest love stories you could hope to hear. Brian’s been working away for years now, and has a great bunch of musicians all over this record. Highly recommended.
Brian Wright – Mesothelioma

07. Resolutions – Dave Hause
Listening to an awesome writer belt through songs about redemption, fucking up second chances, and finding corpses in the desert is a treat that anyone that came out to The Revival Tour this year can attest to. The video for single “C’Mon Kid” shows Hause getting the snot repeatedly beaten out of him, and keeping going. It’s the perfect visual metaphor for not just the song, but the whole album. In fact, now I think about it, most Dave Hause videos involve him getting hurt. Someone should do something about that.
Dave Hause – C’mon Kid

06. Outside There’s A Curse – Ben Marwood
Marwood‘s first proper label outing. Ben’s lyrics are incredible. It’s sincere, melodic, compact, personal and has universal themes. “JJ Abrams” is the best track on the album. “Singalong” is the most cynical – but in typical BM style, it’s still self deprecating. “They Will Float Your Body Out To Sea” is angry and gothic, and “It’s Harder Now To Break Your Stupid Heart” is also amazing.
Ben Marwood – JJ Abrams

05. England Keep My Bones – Frank Turner
BIAS ALERT. I don’t care. I love it. It’s Frank‘s most diverse, polished, and mature album. It’s a repeat listener, and there’s a ton of enormous songs on there, each squeezed into three and a half minutes or thereabouts. “I Am Disappeared” may be my favourite FT lyrics so far, but it’s in solid company: “Redemption”, “Balthazar, Impresario”, “One Foot Before The Other” and “If Ever I Stray” are all equally impressive for totally different reasons. Anyway, if you’re reading The Ruckus, I’m 98% certain you own this, so I’ll shut up now.
Frank Turner – I Am Disappeared

04. The King Is Dead – The Decemberists
Remember 1991? R.E.M’s Out Of Time? The Decemberists do. They loved it. I loved it. They went out and found Peter Buck and plonked him onto lots of songs of theirs, and made their own version of “Out Of Time” though, so they’re one up on me. Less of the pseudo intellectualising, more of the sing along harmonies and gorgeous arrangements. The King Is Dead is lush from start to finish.
The Decemberists – This Is Why We Fight

03. Camp – Childish Gambino
Middle class angst never sounded so good. Glover drops references to Human Centipede and Truffaut’s 400 Blows within ten minutes of each other. There’s references to everything in pop culture, and the over-riding message is if it’s fun, then it’s relevant, and stop over analysing it. Which is ironic, given the enormous pop-culture palate he’s painting from. It’s geek hip hop for the zeitgeist-literate, it’s also his College Dropout. Yeah, I said it.
Childish Gambino – Bonfire

02. Get Out The Lotion – Low Cut Connie
Low Cut Connie sound like how you want the 50′s to have been. It’s scuzzy, dirty, and honest rock and roll. It’s the best album you didn’t hear this year. It’s got endless replay value. It’s straightforward rhythm and blues like your dad used to listen to, but with a good helping of sleaze. And it’s fantastic. “Cat and the Cream” is 2 minutes 30 seconds of the early morning walk of shame, “Full of Joy” sounds like making it in the backseat of someone else’s car, and “Show Your Face”, or “Johnny Cool Man” sound like a party you really, REALLY want to go to. Urgently, throbbingly recommended.
Low Cut Connie – Show Your Face

01. Elsie – The Horrible Crowes
Afghan Whigs + Tom Waits / Bruce Springsteen = Elsie. I love all three, so this was pretty obvious pick. It’s gothic, dark, a little melodramatic, but it’s also got some belting songs. Brian Fallon writes stories, like Waits does. And these are great – killers, jilted lovers, memorials and chest wounds. The album is bookended by two funereally paced, sparse tracks that are simple and elegant. Elsie is the weird kid at your school that knew how to make a bomb, but just really wanted a girlfriend.
The Horrible Crowes – Last Rites

Ben Morse is a rock photography god who makes stunning photos and videos at home in Reading, England, and all over the world. Ben Morse is jolly good at Scrabble. Ben Morse once rescued a kitten who was stuck in a tree. Ben Morse enjoys burritos. Ben Morse is one of our favorite people in the world. We want to be Ben Morse when we grow up.