Top Ten Northwest Albums of the Year | The Source Weekly - Bend, Oregon

Top Ten Northwest Albums of the Year

The top 10 albums the Northwest has to offer.

1. Youth Lagoon, The Year Of Hibernation: Ambient lo-fi backdrops with flowing pop drum beats and honest storytelling fill out the debut album from this Boise band.

2. Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues: Still soul searching, this Portland/Seattle act offers up another folk opus with echoing vocals that beg for

self-discovery.

3. Shabazz Palaces, Black Up: Dark experimental hip-hop from Seattle, dipped in electro-beats and wicked flowing verse.

4. The Cave Singers, No Witch: Rousing simplicity and deep harmonies ride crisp violin and guitar strings with occasional blues tributes on this open road soundtrack.


5. Portugal, The Man, in the Mountain in the Cloud: Portland band's 1970s throwback album that uses glistening rock to wrestle with less-than-perfect human interactions.

6. The Decemberists, The King Is Dead: Perhaps the prettiest album yet from this modern
legendary Portland band, TKID carries with it hopeful emotions shrouded in classic Northwest folk rock.

7. Wild Flag, Wild Flag: Pacific Northwest post-punk all-star collaboration built on guitar greatness and metaphorical themes shine brilliantly throughout their long-awaited debut album.

8. Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Experimental basement rock from Portland that tumbles forward into sweet sounding skeins of shadowy guitar and jagged vocals.

9. Point Juncture, WA, Handsome Orders: Sophomore release harnesses softened punk that ebbs and flows through a variety of instrumentation all cemented together by this Portland band's female drummer/lead singer.

10. Blue Sky Black Death, Noir: A truly uplifting, far reaching, and perfectly arranged electronic album from this sometimes hip-hop producing Seattle duo.

*Ethan Maffey is editor of eightythreemusic.com.

Ethan Maffey

Both a writer and a fan of vinyl records since age 5, it wasn't until nearly three decades later that Oregon Native Ethan Maffey derived a plan to marry the two passions by writing about music. From blogging on MySpace in 2007 and then Blogspot, to launching his own website, 83Music, and eventually freelancing...
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