I liked these records. For this year I’m giving up on numerical designations, distinguishing between EPs and full lengths in year-end categories and hoping, hoping that hearing about why I liked each record is more useful to you. All of the discs are worth your purchase, but the higher up you go, the more closer to my conception of essential they get. There’s a couple serious other awards, as is my want. Go play videogames, read books, and stay politically active. Thank you for reading. This site has lead to some of the craziest and most wonderful moments in my life. I don’t know where 2009 is going to take us, but I expect the soundtrack will be awesome.

My favorite record this year is THE OUT_CIRCUIT’s Pierce the Empire With a Sound. It’s a Christian record that can do aggressive quite well, and calm even better. On one track, ex-FRODUS guitarist Nathan Burke is talking about his daughter, on another he doesn’t have to speak at all. I’ve never been one for “headphones” records, but this is an album that rewards the listener for repeat listens. Buy it from Lujo. Please, I want to see what he does next.

Close behind in the horse race of my heart are LESS THAN JAKE’s GNV FLA and LOOK MEXICO’s Gasp Asp EP. GNV FLA feels, to me, like LESS THAN JAKE put together a disc that feels like the culmination of their career. I never thought the group would strike deeper in my heart than Hello Rockview, but it’s not that I’ve gone home, or that LESS THAN JAKE has returned to anywhere, but that independently, I find myself at a similar crossroads as the band. LOOK MEXICO’s Gasp Asp makes me eat crow when I say they’re the new AMERICAN FOOTBALL. They might just be better. Listen, man, this record? They’re demos. This isn’t even the finished product. If that next record is as good as these songs, just remember: Corey and I (well, Corey) told you first.

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM’s The ’59 Sound and POLAR BEAR CLUB’s Sometimes Things Just Disappear arrive shortly thereafter. After (roughly) 70-80 listens, I can tell you that I’m getting kind of annoyed that all the lyrics I like seem to be taken from other artists, but, in the grand scheme of things, this just means the band has achieved greatness. Now that everyone can see they’re going to be huge, can we be a little nicer to this band than we were to GREEN DAY? POLAR BEAR CLUB, on the other hand, will not reach such heights. I just don’t see the band striking a chord with almost anyone in America who likes Springsteen-ish rock and roll, but for those who do draw from emo well will find as much to like, if not more. While it’s not quite as good as the always-on The Redder, The Better, there’s something in Disappear that suggests POLAR BEAR CLUB is going to soar even higher on their next record, which, if we can believe Alternative Press, will be released in 2009.

HOSTAGE CALM’s disc (Lens) initially impressed me because it managed to sound almost exactly like WITH HONOR, circa their split with THE DISTANCE, which is my sweet spot for the quasi-defunct CT group. It’s rough in spots, the recording quality is lacking in polish, but there’s enough heart there to power half the solar system.

Seizures in Barren Praise by TRAP THEM, on the other hand, has a fantastic recording quality and manages to absolutely nail the line between aggressive, edge of art music and something that should be able to clean out your ears like a Q-Tip. As I type this, my internet access is sketchy, so I don’t know who said it, but the first track, “Fucking Viva” sounds like TRAP THEM playing “We Will Rock You” and it doesn’t at all feel like musical hyperbole.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS’ record From the Bottom is a depressing Midwest punk record. No gimmicks. No “attitude”. No posturing. This is what life is like between the coasts for four young men, written in more morose terms than I can explain. Shit, the song about the author loves his family is about how they need to move to a safer neighborhood so their kids don’t get shot. The uplifting song at the end is about not being there for a person the author hated who committed suicide. A perfect antidote for THE JONAS BROTHERS, METRO STATION or ESCAPE THE FATE.

In what is almost certainly the most positive disc I’ve heard this year, NEW FOUND GLORY (with Tip of the Iceberg) comes in under everyone’s nose and writes the best pop-hardcore EP I can remember recently. To be entirely honest, they could have released just the LIFETIME cover and I would have called it the best thing this year, but if for some reason, you should want originals and SHELTER or GORILLA BISCUITS covers that sound authentic and sincere, they’ve also got you covered.

Temporary Residence’s THURSDAY/ENVY split deserves a special mention here. I’ve always been a casual fan of THURSDAY and slowly becoming a serious fan of ENVY, so when the split was announced, I was intrigued. After hearing it, it’s clear, the disc, I was shocked. THURSDAY still can write short intense songs? ENVY just did what ENVY does, and that’s more than good enough for me. What’s frightening is that this isn’t even ENVY’s best material in 2008…

DEAD TO ME’s Little Brother EP asks one simple question: Have you, at any point, liked fast punk rock? If your answer is yes, then Little Brother, like the rest of their discography, should be right up your alley.

THE BRONX’s Third Record makes me wonder: What’s changed that the band can play pretty much the same stuff and it takes a hold of me, the whole way through? I don’t know if I’ve changed or if THE BRONX have, but I don’t think they’ve had this much energy and this many good songs together. Other records also worthy of your hard earned cash, but didn’t grab me as forcefully or as often…

ANTI-FLAG – The Bright Lights of America and SLACKERS – Self Medication Both these discs have clunkers, but the high points on both discs more than make up for it. You won’t remember Bright Lights of America for “Go West,” you’ll remember it for “No Warning” and “If You Wanna Steal,” which I can see in my mind’s eye being absolutely huge live. Likewise, Self Medication has a couple tracks that are average, but the majority are straight up great. Ska is back, but did it ever leave?

SHAI HULUD – Misanthropy Pure I can’t wait to see how bands rip off this record in six years. Welcome back Fox, Fletcher and Co.!

SCREAM HELLO – Everything Is Still Always Happening Long, drawn out pop songs (most around 6 minutes) AND a rager, AND a couple pissed off punk songs? Yes, yes and hell yes.

THE AKAs – Everybody Make Some Noise! I liked White Doves and Smoking Guns, so why wouldn’t I like a disc that sounds almost exactly the same, just a little better written?

THE LOVED ONES – Build and Burn “Louisiana” is my favorite song I’ve heard all year, and the more I get into Build and Burn, the more I like the disc that surrounds the track. THE LOVED ONES like their “roots” rock, much like THE HOLD STEADY (a little further down) and where the disc shines, it’s in the big, big leagues.

THE ZYDEPUNKS – Finisterre I remember saying that a pop-culture touchstone for THE WORLD/INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY’s Red Eyed Soul was Han Solo. A slightly more obscure reference point can be used for New Orleans’ ZYDEPUNKS: Remy LeBeau, whom you might know better as Gambit. Mix one part punk band, another part Cajun, five parts of whatever they drink in New Orleans, and you’ve got Finisterre. It might initially go down like FLOGGING MOLLY, but rest assured, the band’s songs in Spanish and French reinforce a related, but spicier aftertaste. There’s no songs hinting that the singer might have joined the IRA, ala Dave King, of the MOLLYS, but the angst, joy and emotion is there in spades, which, in Remy’s (and THE ZYDEPUNKS) hands are always charged.

UNITED NATIONS – United Nations I don’t care what you call it, this record is precisely the kind of spastic freakout that THURSDAY or GLASSJAW should have produced a long, long time ago.

THE HOLD STEADY – Stay Positive Once you realize the disc carries a full story arc of Holly inside it, the parts slowly begin to coalesce and the little faults are eminently forgivable.

A Couple of Fantastic Band Collections:

HOT WATER MUSIC – ‘Till the Wheels Fall Off

LOOK MEXICO – The Crucial Collection

THE ERGS – Hindsight is 20/20, Vol. 1

Now This Is How You’re Supposed To Release A Disc Digitally:

NINE INCH NAILS – the Slip Who Said Yes To This Disc Award?

PUNK GOES CRUNK. If you are a reviewer for a ‘zine, and listened to the entire record, you deserve a Purple Heart.

I Kind Of Thought This Would Be More Aggressive/Faster, But It Still Isn’t Bad: ABLE BAKER FOX – Voices

I Like This One Too, But the Title Is A Filthy Lie And There’s a Huge Double Standard On This Record I Can’t Get Around: H2O – Nothing To Prove

Look! The Non-Punk-Related Records Released This Year That I Non-Ironically Enjoyed:

GIRL TALK – Feed the Animals

LIL ‘WAYNE – The Carter 3

Record From 2007 That I Didn’t Listen To Fully Until 2008: DEAR TONIGHT – We’re Not Men I need to spend more time with the following, but I doubt they’ll disappoint you:

TIM BARRY – Manchester

CURSED – III

THE CURE – 4:13 Dream

MURDER BY DEATH – Red Of Tooth and Claw

ENERGY – Invasions of the Mind

HAVE HEART – Songs To Scream At the Sun Conspicuously missing:

PAINT IT BLACK – New Lexicon. I want to like this record. I want to sit down with New Lexicon and have a “now I get it” moment, but it isn’t coming. I guess something had to follow the near-flawless Paradise. It’s not the production, it’s the songwriting.

RISE AGAINST – Appeal to Reason. The singles are great. The rest of the disc isn’t.

CEREMONY – Still Nothing Moves You. Proving, once again, that the quality of your recording actually matters.

KILLING THE DREAM – Fractures. I haven’t put this record on all winter, despite the fact that I paid a pretty penny for the deluxe pre-order. It’s not bad, it just doesn’t leave a mark.

Non-Music Media I Enjoyed:

What Happened – Scott McClellan

Reconciliation – Benzir Bhutto

Persona 3: FES (PS2)

Rock Band 2 (Drunk)

Battlestar Galactica

I Look Forward To the New Records From:

GRACER, CRIME IN STEREO, FAKE PROBLEMS, POLAR BEAR CLUB, NO TRIGGER, A WILHELM SCREAM, UNITED NATIONS, AFI, BANE, and STRIKE ANYWHERE