What? No Jamie T? My top 100 songs of 2007: Part Four

025 Deerhunter * Lake Somerset
"In the park, we hide behind rocks"
Contrary to what I often say about songs I adore, but in reality, I think less songs should sound like this. Simply because it's so easy to get it wrong, like Deerhunter manage to do throughout the majority of the rest of the album, really. On this one though, which is another one that reminds me of the epic journey to work from Angus Street to Borders Llantrisant in February, and milling around at the bus station, it all comes together, with one of the best bass lines I've ever heard, and pretty much indecipherable nonsense everywhere else.

024
Loney, Dear * Sinister in a State of Hope
"Someway, I let it happen, in a flash"
Swedish. My favourite use of a clarinet all year. This appears as the opening track on the album 'Loney, Noir', which is far as sequencing goes, is an inspired choice, and was one of the most common choices for a mixtape opener this year. Like most Loney, Dear songs, this is lyrically sparse, but melodically rich, and reminds me hurtling through the valleys on the 122 in early summer

023
Minus the Bear * Knights
"Is it really a sin if we both come out even?"
The aspect of 'Planet of Ice' that I take a particular fancy to, is the way the opening parts of some tracks intentionally sound like the CD is skipping, particularly on this song, where the sound skipping sound like it takes an integral part in the main riff of the song. This is the track which made me add Minus the Bear to the roster of 'blue collar indie' status bands, albeit descended from the set of Bladerunner as much as the Springsteen family tree. There are also parts of this album which sound like Mansun, which is also obviously a nice surprise.

022
Malcolm Middleton * Superhero Songwriters
"I can feel a blue moon coming my way"
Distinct Scottish accent #2, and probably the best thing that either member of Arab Strap have put their name to since 1996. This perennial mix tape fixture (including the one I made for Lisa in August and listened to every day on the way to the Holland House Hotel during the rocky training week. This epic, mierable showtune, has one of my all time musical devices; the mid section piano build up, beloved in previous years.

021
The Magnolia Electric Co. * In the Human World
"This time I've leaving nothing, nothing behind"
The Magnolia Electric Co. box set 'Sojourner', is phenomenal. Not only do you get a DVD documentary so you can have a good stare at how much Jason Molina looks like Chris De Burgh standing in a hall of mirrors, and you get a metal pendant, it comes in a wooden box with no less than 4 new albums, including 'The Black Ram', at long last a completely perfect Magnolia Electric Co. album worthy of the name. It really is completely brilliant, and so perfectly melancholic, it arrived at the perfect time, a late September Sunday. This is the opening track.

020
Loney, Dear * I Am John
"got a heart full of plans but nowhere to run."
Swedish. As above. And I AM John.

019
Anathallo * I Thought In My Heart "Come Now, I Will Test You With Pleasure to Find Out What Is Good" But That Also Proved to be Meaningless
"Grim faces mope about: 'how shall I live today?' "
The first thing that attracted me to Anathallo was the song title. Some of their others are annoying as well, including "To Gary and Marcus: The Sovereignty of God is Omnipresent" amongst others. But what appeared as hate at first sight soon blossomed into a bloody love affair, in which Anathallo's let-the-shit-fly cross between Thursday and Sufjan Stevens explode into a mismatch of hardcore, trumpets, twinkling player piano, and more or less everything else. There is too much going on in every second of this song to go into detail without it becoming a thesis. But it works. It works.

018
Glasvegas * Daddy's Gone
"All I wanted was a kickabout in the park"
The Christmas song. There's always one, that arrives late in the year and causes me to have to rearrange my shortlists to accommodate it. I only heard this for the first time the week before Christmas day, thanks to another of their songs featuring on a free CD with Musicweek. It went on to soundtrack my entire Christmas, including the walk home on Christmas Eve, to shopping for digital camera memory cards, to the train back to Cardiff. Everything. The song is simple enough; a paen to doting, absent fathers, from the childs point of view, sung like Malcolm Middleton fronting the Ronettes, by a band who look not unlike Rocket From the Crypt, circa 1996.

017
Parts and Labor * Knives and Pencils
"Someday the maps that you and I have made will all fade"
The previously mentioned 'Mapmaker' album which stands head and shoulders above all others I've heard this year is bookended by it's two best tracks. This is the closing number, which does all manner of vocal effects fading in and out at the end, and towers, at over six minutes long, as a lession in orchestrated noise. Every single equipment seems to buzz in all directions on this song. It sounds like twenty gongs being smashed. I don't have any memories attached to it, apart from reaching into my pocket to press 'play album' the second this finishes every time.

016
Sun Kil Moon * Glenn Tipton.
"I buried my first victim when I was 19'
Guaranteeing a Mark Kozelek-penned track in the top 20 for the third successive year, and the first Sun Kil Moon song, rather than Red House Paintes. This is inexplicably named after a member of Judas Priest, and describing Kozelek songs is often futile because they rarely distinguish themselves from each other, upon description. They're best left to their own devices, and listening to this at night, is one of mine.

015
Hakan Hellstrom * Jag Har Varit I Aller Stader
In Swedish.
Swedish. Of course. This harks back to bygone days of Big Country, The Alarm, New Model Army, Good Things Tapes, house party mornings and Jo's garage. Interesting how one bassline can generate a lifetimes nostalgia, especially one from a song I only heard for the first time aged 24, that I don't even know (or want to know) the words to. I'd love to call this a beautiful song, but I can't. "

014
Lucero * On the Way Back Home
"To get outta here, two options one chance - you joined the army, I started a band"
A swaggering power ballad that most Americana bands shy away from. Although this is a power ballad in the lights-out-at-the-bar, spewing on the sawdust floor, before hitchiking to the next town kind of power ballad. The one you'd get your lighter out to sway too but resist through fear your breath might set fire to your beard. The one where the guitarist riffs over your dads favourite power chords, and it still sounds nothing like Bon Jovi and everything like The Replacements produced by Jim Steinman. This is magnificent, not least for the fact they get away with it,

013
Motion City Soundtrack * Let's Get Fucked Up and Die
"Is it legal to do this? I surely don't know"
Quite why all of the ridiculously good Motion City Soundtrack songs I've come across this year (and there are more than the ones mentioned on this list, believe me) weren't soundtracking my life several years ago when they were originally released, is beyond me. They're quite obviously one of the top 5 pop punk bands of all time, with hilariously terrible lyrics to go with it. This song at one point even lifts two entire lines from a Promise Ring song (adding the 'is it legal...' line afterwards) as well as 'The BMX bike of my life is about to explode', and 'god damn the liquor stores closed!'. This song sometimes gets shortened to L.G FUAD, which is shit. In fact, if that was the actual title, I'd knock this about 20 places lower. Luckily it's not, so it's stupid duh-brained fun.

012
The Sundays * Can't Be Sure
"Desire, desire's a terrbile thing"
You know that feeling when you get back from your holiday? When you feel like you're jetlagged even though you've only travelled within a one hour time zone, if at all. The feeling that you're reached the other side of something, and it's a complete pisser to be back home and you've had no time to properly adjust back into the post-holiday and into your current activities. This happened to me. Stupidly, I'd agreed to work on the day I was due back from Sweden

011
mewithoutYou * Torches Together
"Tell all the stones, we're gonna make a building"
The coveted #11 spot previously owned by luminaries such as Interpol, The Magnetic Fields, The Dresden Dolls and R Kelly in recent years, this year goes to everyone's favourite Aspergers-inflicted Christians. This song is so good, I named a crappy short-lived 'blog' after it before realising it's also the name of a church group, thus making me look stupid, and I had to put an unnecessary hyphen inbetween the words as well. This could realistically be about anything at all, but it smells a bit religious to me. Terrific in every conceivable way.

010
Billy Bragg * Brickbat
"the sun came out the trees began to sing the light shone down on everything I love you"
For the first time since I started writing these annual lists of anecdotes, I've been single. Ignoring the argument which means this should result in the list being written quicker, it's worth pointing out that this is probably the first time since way before December 2001 when I did write the first of these, that being part of a relationship hasn't mattered. This doesn't mean to say that I've become an emotionless void, just the first time I've turned the volume down. As a tonic for the relationship that wasn't meant to be, this particular Billy Bragg song is fairly poetic. It's a rare back-to-basics latter day Billy Bragg song, with lyrics partly about fuck-knows-what, partly about everything. And a perfect way to start the top 10.

009
Cajun Dance Party * Amylase
"you're the catalyst that makes things faster"
I'm well aware that Cajun Dance Party are an absolutely atrocious band. I've heard more of their songs, and yes yes, you can tell by the nod of my head that they are really, really bad. But hey, Hitler was a vegetarian, so let's take a look at 'Amylase' for what it is. Rather than just being this years token 'good song' amongst the onslaught of MTV2 britpop dross (of which, I've noticed, there was decidedly less of this year), this stands alone as the best sing along of the summer. Essentially; this is what the Voxtrot album should have sounded like, only better, because suddenly halfway through, a pinballling guitar solo spirals down into the same two lines, repeated for over a minute, and the song soars upwards. I remember listening to this in Bournemouth on the Thursday night, having to pay 50p to go on the pier. For people who know Bournemouth, they have a giant hot air balloon moored in the park, to give people rides up to see the town. The entire time we were there, the weather was deeped too dangerous. On the balmy Thursday, strolling through the park with my headphones, they sent it up. It's a good balloon.

008
Woven Hand * Winter Shaker
"I clap my dirty hands"
Woven Hand are terrifying. The new band (that I didn't even know existed before this year) featuring David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower, and seemingly exist in the vaccum for people who didn't think Sixteen Horsepower didn't quite scare the living crap out of enough people. Dark, brooding, sinister folk music built around a droning groove, which sounds like very little else. They can even throw a cover of 'Ain't No Sunshine' by Bill Withers onto their albums, blowing tumbleweed across it and turning it into a 12 minute epic. This, at a more condensed 3.46 leaves nothing out, with devellish allegories Nick Cave would cower from, and, if you really felt like it, you could do an imitation Michael Madsen dance to this. This featured on the halloween party playlist, as well as just about every other mix I made this year, for myself or otherwise.

007
Murder By Death * Those Who Left
Instrumental
A perfect partner for the song at #8, this is the sound of the kids taking on The Black Heart Procession at their own game, and winning. A sinister, repeatedly building piano track, which eventually crescendos around the seven minute mark, and with high pitched wailing, three tiers of feedback and a cello thrown into the mix, this was one of the first stand-out songs of the year way back in February. I remember listening to it on the way to Weston Super Mare and it being only the second Murder By Death song I'd heard, being very very excited. I was disappointed they didn't play it when I went to see them at the Barfly, but at least they weren't disappointing in the end, and they sold good t shirts, and Will, Grace and Pav liked them as well.

006
LCD Soundsystem * All Your Friends
"you think over and over 'hey, I'm finally dead' "
This has featured on just about every critical round up of the year, either applauding it's parent album 'Sound of Silver', and in dozens of cases, singling out this song as the stand out track of the year. They're not wrong, and it's hard to find someone who hasn' been won over by this. Even John Cale from the Velvet Underground covered it on the B-side. And Franz Ferdinand, but their cover doesn't work. But you can't beat the original, which countless people could attempt to imitate using it's very basic, very Tubular Bells structure of adding another track every thirty seconds or so. But that doesn't detract from the song, which is just about the first LCD Soundsystem track to not be about nothing in particular, instead being about the follies of growing up, and missing out on what really matters, what's really important.

005
The Twilight Sad * Cold Days From the Birdhouse
"your red sky at night won't follow me now"
Unlikely fantastic song sung in bellowing Scottish accent, part three. This is precisely the sort of song that I would have fallen head over heels in love with about six years ago, either just leaving secondary school when I listened to Mogwai, The Evening Session, The Delgados, Arab Strap and everything else Chemikal Underground. Even now, at the tail end of the year, I'm listening to 'Cold Days From the Birdhouse' and going back to listen to them. This is about as close to top notch post rock as the UK produces these days, and it's a long, long way from post rock as it is. 'Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters' was, without question, the finest album released from within these shores this year.

004
Enter Shikari * Adieu / Adieu (Routron 500 remix)
"home could be anywhere when I am holding you"
Hold it right there. Myself and others have been wrongly derided for about twelve months for dabbling in Enter Shikari. This reminds me of the sun, and of watching Entourage, of nipping 'round to Tesco to buy cigarettes before a party. It reminds me of waiting at the bus station in Talbot Green, it reminds me of being driven at night home from Leeds. It reminds me to DJ-ing for 60 minutes at Twisted By Design, it reminds me of crossing the bridge to get to Rhymney Street just after I moved. It reminds me of pink mp3 players, white mp3 players and black mp3 players. It's basically a very ordinary song, before launching into a build up straight from vintage Six By Seven. The drums kick in, the hilarious trance synths are faded up, and the coda (above) rings loud and clear, and forever. I've included the 'Routron 500' remix of the song for two reasons. Firstly, having a songs utterly outrageous remix in the same top 10 as the actual song (that's how much I like it) is a waste of a top 10 position, and secondly, I like to imagine when they play live, they segue the two songs together to make one massive prog-trance-emo-hardcore mess. The remix itself is actual trance. No just a rock track with a drum machine, but actual, proper, Paul Van Dyk trance with arpeggiators and all that. It sounds like Alice Deejay remixing Feeder. Next please!
003
Motion City Soundtrack * Last Night
"she whispers something in my ear, the message is unclear, she motions outside"
Almost all Motion City Soundtrack songs are about losing your girlfriend and being addicted to prescription antidepressants, but nowhere else do they reel off the cliches better than here. I listened to this song more or less every single day for about two months, simply because of it being one of the songs that if it comes on random when you're listening a CD on shuffle, you can always find three minutes spare to listen to it all. The story is simple; a guy gets dumped and has to deal with it. The interest is in what the fans refer to as "it's Memento narrative", which basically means it tells the story in reverse, which is a neat trick. The final verse is the killer though, because all emotions are put aside, as it does nothing but relate the details of the deed in factual terms; what she did, where they went, what was said. The closing line 'This is goodbye, this is the end', closes the song, but of course as we've heard the rest of the song, we know where he goes afterwards. It's more like Irreversible, really. With less rape.

002
Parts & Labor * Fractured Skies
"there are choices other than just fight or flight, wrong or right"
This song lasts the exact length from my front door to the entrance to Senghennydd Court on Salisbury Road. What I like, which I've related countless times, about this song, is that it starts with incomprehensiblty fast drummer which sounds like the tracks being played at the wrong speed, then the riff comes in, which sounds like a modem logging onto the internet, and then you get loose remnants of 'lyrics' being fed in through a melody filter, before holding one note for an obscene amount of time, and exploding into a fit of trumpets covering what sounds like the Superman theme. The build up of tension on that note before the release is musics finest moment this year, from this years finest album.

001
Robyn feat. Kleerup * With Every Heartbeat.
"I keep trying but things will never change"
I've criticised myself a lot in this list for not having sufficient anecdotes to make the songs interesting. But this is an exception, and this song ties up a lot of loose ends which I've come across this year. This time, I won't go into detail, but there was a moment this year amidst all the bus journeys, books, and boredom, that I felt that twinkle in my eye I haven't felt for years when I felt things falling into place, and saw a way out, a way forward from the person I'd been for about four or five years. Listening to this song serves as a reminder of not just how quickly you can throw that away, but how difficult it is to start again. Every last thing I've done this year I can inherently tie in to this, it's been everywhere. So it only remains me to say one thing; I hope 2008 is better. Swedish.