The 50 Best Albums of the 2000s: Numbers 24

The 50 Best Albums of the 2000s: Numbers 24 – 23

December 17th, 2009 MUSIC Cory Maidens

The double oughts are about to be over. Featured author and music obsessive Cory Maidens takes a look back at the first decade of the 21st Century in music, and lists his picks for the 50 best records to be released during its ten years

24. Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)
Sam Beam’s voice is barely raised above a whisper, yet it communicates more effectively than most people’s shouts. His musical style might seem extremely mellow on the surface but Beam’s ability to imbue seething emotion into even the most minor utterance is frequently breathtaking. The sinister seduction of “Cinder & Smoke” is a stark contrast to the innocent teen sexuality of “Sunset Soon Forgotten.” Our Endless Numbered Days is a series of intimate portraits, short stories and poems that employ subtlety to explore the commonality of human emotion, walking the fine line between love and lust or sadness and joy. Tasteful arrangements rely heavily on basic folk instruments and are generally unadorned, allowing the vocal to remain the focal point despite its hushed volume. Sam Beam’s minimalist folk songs achieve a stunning beauty in their earthy simplicity on Our Endless Numbered Days.

23. Arsis – A Celebration of Guilt (2004)
The two-man melodic death metal powerhouse Arsis have released four of the best metal records of the last ten years. A Celebration of Guilt was the album that started it all as the band debuted with all the key pieces of their sound already in place. James Malone’s style of framing extreme death metal within melodic leads isn’t revolutionary but the music itself is so easily superior to the group’s genre contemporaries that Arsis seem all the more brilliant for tackling something that had been done nearly to death and creating something genuinely exciting. Malone’s single-handed execution of all the album’s guitar and bass tracks ensure that every note is played with the necessary precision and Michael Van Dyne’s relatively loose drum style showcases a wealth of musical personality sorely lacking as most similar acts turn to the lifeless accuracy of programmed percussion. A Celebration of Guilt is forty-five solid minutes of face-melting metal, an album that will undoubtedly hold a hallowed spot in the genre’s unholy canon.

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Cory Maidens

Cory Maidens is a proud son of the American Midwest, a man of letters and an incorrigible bastard. Since acquiring his BA in English Literature, he has proudly avoided non-comic books as an apathetic eye-roll at intellectual elitism. He thinks that arguing is highly underrated as sport and engages in it more often than might be advisable to compensate for that perceived deficiency. He believes in gay marriage, The Daily Show and Bruce Springsteen. He enjoys hearing Southern voices read Civil War-era correspondence aloud.

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User Responses

4 Responses and Counting...

Nick
December 17, 2009

How does the Iron & Wine CD sound in relation to ‘Such Great Heights’ (which is the only Iron Wine song I have heard)? Similar sound or completely different?
Tom Nix
December 17, 2009

I am not up on my post-modern indie rock, but isn’t “Such Great Heights” The Postal Service?
Nick
December 17, 2009

Not according to the soundtrack to Garden State
Cory Maidens
December 17, 2009

Iron & Wine covered the Postal Service tune on the song’s single release. The Shins also recorded a Postal Service song for it.

If you like the vocals on that, you’ll dig all of his records. If you don’t, odds are you won’t. Though the instrumentation varies quite a bit through his catalog, his whole whisper singing thing is the make or break part.