eMusic’s Best of 2012 (So Far)

"It's a strange year, and it appears that I am stuck," sings Al Spx in "Elephant Head," the track that gives I Predict a Graceful Expulsion its violently hopeful title. That single line beautifully sums up her debut, an album about choosing to believe there are answers when none are apparent, and about defiantly clawing forward with broken arms and a battered spirit when it would be easier to simply collapse and... accept defeat. This is the Adele record for people who couldn't get into the Adele record; it's a collection of stark, wrenching ballads based in R&B and folk and gospel music and revolving around the gorgeous vulnerability of Spx's aching voice — which at times, sounds like a young, weary Tina Turner. Spx has mastered the art of writing lyrics oblique enough that they could mean anything, but singing them with enough force and conviction that you feel like you know exactly what she means. Expulsion is a record about loneliness and salvation and God and the absence of God. It is one of the year's most devastating, and one of its best.

The first song on Royal Thunder's CVI is about a curse plaguing the family of lead vocalist Miny Parsonz. She never says what it is, but there are plenty of hints, references to a "bloody surprise" and "dark streets" before Parsonz woefully howls "You know just where this is going." The rest of CVI operates in that dark area between panic and defiance. Barbed-wire blues-metal riffs are wrapped tight around Parsonz's ferocious... snarl, which alternately recalls a surlier Lita Ford or Joan Jett moonlighting with some deep South biker bar band. But that's selling it a bit short — there's a menace and mystery to the songs that keeps CVI feeling distinctly unholy. Whatever "Parsonz Curse" actually is, from the sound of CVI, she's fighting it with both magic and menace.

A round of applause, please, for the Australian label R.I.P. Society, who have been quietly amassing, over the course of the last year or so, one of the rowdiest and most rewarding rosters in rock music. Kudos, too, to New York's What's Your Rupture?, for cherry-picking the best of the bunch, Royal Headache, and delivering it to U.S. ears. Ever wondered what the Faces would sound like if they covered Singles Going... Steady from start to finish? Friends, this is the record for you. The star of the act is vocalist Shogun, whose ragged R&B-channeling vocal delivery turns each song into a New Soul Powerhouse — Otis Redding Live at CBGBs. But the band behind him is just as fearsome. They operate in a very specific milieu: blinding sheets of sound that come slicing down like a hundred million guillotines. Shogun is the panicked victim trying to stay half a step ahead.

New York's The Men went for an improbably touchy-feely title for their second full-length, but they just as easily could have called it A People's History of Rock 'n' Roll. All the major movements are represented: You've got pure red-blood punk rock ("Turn It Around"), a bit of blistered soul boogie ("Animal"), a roaring arena anthem (the title track) and even some twangy, "Dead Flowers"-biting country ("Candy"). The thing is, all of... them are presented in a strictly Mennified format — that means everything is rammed into the red, the vocals are hollered more often than sung and, more often than not, the whole enterprise doesn't end so much as careen off a cliff. But what vitality before it does! Open Your Heart is a white-knuckle top-speed cable car ride over a bottomless pit. All history lessons should be this much fun.

Though it seemed improbable on paper, the combination of El-P — he of the hyper-dystopic, quasi-industrial production pieces — and Killer Mike — he of the nimble-tongued, fiercely determined flow — has produced one of the year's most viscerally and intellectually rewarding hip-hop records. And it works precisely because of all the reasons it shouldn't: El's 600-ton, drill-compressor beats, rather than smothering Mike's verses, instead complement them. The wobbly synths and clattering... snares in "Southern Fried" provide miles of dark road for Mike's tale of hell-raising and night driving, and the martial drums and alien insect buzzing work to stoke Mike's political ire in the brutal — and brutally incisive — "Reagan." And then there's the icily cynical "Ghetto Gospel," where Mike laments, "I used to sell raps for enlightenment/ but I got lapped by them guys selling lies for them white men/ now I sell pies for them white men/…this must be how Huey felt when the revolution failed." The horror film strings swelling behind him ominously underscore his point.

As spooky and spare as Liars' past LPs have been — especially on their masterful Drums Not Dead album — the L.A. trio has never stripped their sound down to elements as bare and strangely beautiful as the cocoon-like cuts of WIXIW. It's techno-pop with enough surface tension to remind you all is not well in Liars' self-made world. Subtle, yes, but it's also infinitely rewarding.

Aside from a short-lived run of downtempo records as Express Rising, Dante Carfagna has spent most of his career as a curator, archivist and living, 45-hoarding encyclopedia for reissue labels like Numero Group and DJ Shadow's funk/soul imprint Cali-Tex. Personal Space has got to be one of his strangest projects, though, the dust-clearing overview of a decade (1974-84, to be exact) where classic soul, R&B and funk grooves were filtered through battery-powered... keyboards, robust drum machines and synthetic symphonies, bringing a four-track sensibility to the Motown/Stax set.

More than a few Laurel Halo fans have used the same line when describing her long-awaited debut album: "You know, I need to give it more time. It's definitely not what I expected." To which I say, you're right; Quarantine is one of the year's first records that requires patience and rewards your precious time with exponential returns. The trick is to make it past the singer/producer's vaporized vocals and queasy arrangements,... a combination that's supposed to be unsettling, as if you've been plunged into a black hole with nothing but a broken flashlight and a tortured ghost to guide the way. About as brave as experimental pop music gets these days.

While no Greek tragedies were harmed in the making of Julia Holter's second album — the singer/sound sculptor scaled that mountain last year with Tragedy — her flights of fantasy aren't exactly grazing the ground this time around either. If anything, Ekstasis seems to exist in its very own ether, a literal exploration of "ecstasy" and its many philosophical meanings. Not the Superman pills you took before seeing Skrillex the other day;... more like the nagging sense that our consciousness has been displaced, left to hang in the balance amongst glacial melodies, sinewy synth lines, steam-pressed drum machines and iridescent orchestra pit overtones that'll remind you of Holter's CalArts training. And the strangest part? It's actually quite poppy in a twilight zone sort of way.

Punk-rap troglodytes Death Grips lurched out of Sacramento in 2010 with a fully formed aesthetic: They were semi-deranged, future-shocked scavenger-warriors, screaming about the end of the world over music made from discarded electronics. It was the kind of project that felt laboratory designed to spook a devoted cult into permanent attention, which it did: after issuing their incendiary, unclassifiable Sony debut The Money Store, they scheduled a rash of live appearances and... just as promptly canceled them all, disappearing into a hidey-hole, presumably to fine-tune their next batch of instructions to the faithful. Me? I'm still trying to work out what lead vocalist Stefan Burnett meant by "deviated septum blowhole" or "abraxas hydroplane."

Ab-Soul is the resident word-nerd of Black Hippy, the rap crew that includes the Dr. Dre-anointed young rap prince Kendrick Lamar and the brooding, heavy-lidded, ex-Crip leader Schoolboy Q. He's easily the most cerebral of a fairly brainy crew, and on the ferociously excellent Control System, he produces an immersive, dark and wide-ranging piece of work that takes listeners to Saturn and Andromeda ("Pineal Gland"), sardonically salutes Obama as a "puppet" ("Terrorist... Threat"), breaks our heart with a devastating first-person tale of young love and loss ("The Book of Soul"), puffs out some post-Tribe Called Quest weed clouds ("Bohemian Grove") and oh, also finds room for a sex joke as goofy as "She got that magical vag/Let me hocus poke."

In which Hamilton Leithauser and co. ride off into the sunset forever, strapped with Baby Bjorns and wearing shit-eating grins. Heaven is The Walkmen's adulthood record, its thirteen songs ruminating on the passing of time, the relief of watching youth's drama recede into the rearview, and the terrifying responsibilities of parenthood. Which reads like the world's worst, most tedious rock record. But Heaven is sparkling: wry, charming, and winsome as anything they've... ever done. The stacked harmonies and affable marching tempo of "We Can't Be Beat," the sun-dappled calypso melody of "Love is Luck," and the soused, two-bottles-of-wine lullaby of "No One Ever Sleeps" are all among their best material, and they make contented adulthood sound positively beguiling.

Doom-metal is having a Moment. Or rather, I should say, "Doom-metal is having its moment, insofar as fly-by-night dilettante metal enthusiasts such as myself are able to discern." Cough, Pilgrim, Yob, Battilus, and now Pallbearer — the lead-footed, sleeping-giant drag of massively down-tuned doom metal has hit a drowsy peak. The best doom metal feels like a heavy blanket over your senses, equally comforting and oppressive, and Arkansas-based Pallbearer lay it on... thicker than most. The tempos are slowww — you could check your watch between the thud of the kick and the tick of the hi-hat on "Foreigner" — but the riffs carry the songs forward with majesty. It helps that lead vocalist Brett Campbell sings with the demented purity of early Ozzy instead of doom metal's usual decayed, tar-beast gurgle; his keening tenor gives these glacially moving masses a mournful beauty.

Skewed, delightful indie-pop, pumped full of neurosis, caffeine, and hormones. Emma Kupa, their lead singer, has a way of fixing her gaze on your and blurting something shrewd, heartfelt, and uncommonly blunt: "I hear you're into older women, do you like what they're doing when they're turning you on?/ They have you bending to their will just for some cheap thrills/ And they'll drop you when they're done," from "Older Women," is... just one example. The band jigs manically and bops nervously in place, while the melodies pile the spun sugar on top. I love this band; they are joyful, nimble, modestly ambitious, and nail their sound so squarely that I cannot help but smile as my arm is yanked.

Allo Darlin's 2010 self-titled debut was about the anticipation and excitement of new love: Frontwoman Elizabeth Morris sang about kissing on Ferris wheels, wondered where she'd end up after the bar closed, and insisted, "One fine day, I'm gonna be your girl." The U.K.-based indiepop group's latest, Europe, has the same emotional intimacy and nuance of its predecessor, but instead of sitting on the edge of her seat waiting for something to... happen, this time Morris is writing from a distance, reflecting on love that's come and gone. The record also tells the story of music's power in a relationship, and the maturity shown in this arc can be heard in their sound as well. Allo Darlin' sound bigger and fuller, and they've found a perfect balance where everyone's heard but no one overpowers. Morris's voice also has more muscle, and they've left a tiny bit of the twee-ness behind without losing an ounce of charm.

With each record, Brooklyn singer/songwriter Sharon Van Etten's voice has gotten bigger and more forceful — as has the band behind her — but she hasn't lost the soft, controlled intensity that drew me to her sparse 2009 debut Because I Was in Love. Van Etten's songs on Tramp are, as always, intimate and heartbreaking: poignant lyrics about insecurities, failing relationships, and giving too much without getting back. This time, though, she's... reflecting on her sadness instead of wallowing in it.

On Voyageur, Canadian singer/songwriter Kathleen Edwards finds herself in between a divorce (from former bandmate Colin Cripps) and a new love (Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, who coproduced the record), and it makes for some drastic — and beautiful — emotional ups and downs. "Pink Champagne" is a poignant breakup ballad, while "Sidecar" perfectly describes the beginning of a new romantic journey. It's Edwards's most polished work yet, with less twang and a... pop sheen not found on her earlier, alt-country-leaning releases.

I'll be honest: I was put off by the unconventional capitalization of THEESatisfaction (aka Seattle-based couple Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White) and their album awE naturalE. Thankfully, it only took one listen to "QueenS" for the editor in me to get off her high horse and forget about it. That song repeats the line, "Whatever you do/ Don't funk with my groove," and the whole album is funky, jazzy and sexy, topped... with empowering lyrics about self-worth and staying true to yourself.

"You can't always do it alone/ Sometimes you just need a little help/ on this long road home," sings Erica Wennerstrom in "Marathon," the slow-building first track on Heartless Bastards' fourth Arrow. The Austin group's brand of bluesy Americana-rock is a perfect soundtrack for mind-clearing drives across endless highways — not surprising considering that Wennerstrom wrote much of it on a solo road trip after touring for their emotionally draining breakup album,... 2009's The Mountain.