If I was going to put together a list of my favourite albums of this year, which I'm not, it should be pretty obvious to all of you that "Third", by Portishead, would be so far ahead of anything else that it might as well occupy a list of its own. And I suspect I won't be as far out of step with the blogniscenti as I was last year with "Sky Blue Sky" (curse you, Wilco hataz, for being unable to listen to that record without dragging yr own baggage along with you). At least I hope not. "Third" is not so much a record as an event. It draws you into its welcoming but claustrophobic soundworld so completely that you cannot escape from it (not that you would want to) until the last note has run its course. The Cocteau Twins used to be capable of the same thing. And then "Loveless" came along and wrote its own rule book.
But in throwing out the year-end list-bathwater, it would be a shame in the process to lose sight of "The Monstrous Surplus" (oh boy, what an ironic title that turned out to be), by Pluramon, which actually works in a similar way to "Third". It may not have been as jaw-dropping in immediate effect, but it is a record to live with over a long period of time. Listening to it again this afternoon, I was struck by another similarity: it, too, is a strongly guitar-centric record within (loosely) a genre that is not known for its embrace of big and/or dirty guitars. There are bits if the record that I still don't "get", but it should only be listened to in its entirety so I'm sure the getting will come, sooner or later.
I have mentioned before how "Turn In", the first song, evokes (for me, anyway) the classic Dunedin sound. Another thing that chose to strike me today is that the second song, "Border", could almost be the work of The Church, not, I suspect, an obvious comparison: a comparison so tenuous, in fact, that it probably exists only in my imagination. If you only overlook one record this year, don't make it this one.
