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Year's Best Albums: Local bands put spotlight back on songwriting

The local band, Nightmares of You, plays witty, melodic rock, and this year released 'Bang,' an EP that ranges from the unusual to the unexpected. Overall, a stopgap disk from a band that clearly wants to keep moving. (Newsday / Bruce Gilbert / October 7, 2005)

Rafer Guzmán | WITH THE BAND

January 3, 2008

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Songwriting came back in vogue among local bands this year, a welcome trend indeed. For several years, young bands mostly were content to create a lot of sound and fury, but in 2007, groups such as Camera-Head Shark, The Shake and The New Rivalsnames focused on verses, choruses, lyrics and hooks - the classic fundamentals of rock. (Fittingly, the best songwriting of the year came from a gray-bearded classic rocker, Tom Griffith.) Rounding out the top 10 local albums of 2007 (most of which were self-released) are one excellent rapper, a weird metal-rock band and a young emo act with ideas to spare. Here's the list:

1. Tom Griffith, "40 Years Later" - In these funny, poignant, sometimes angry songs, various boomer characters take stock of their lives 40 years after the Summer of Love. For many it's the winter of discontent: A pacifist father grapples with a gung-ho son on "He Wants to Join the Corps"; a bitter divorcee discovers the flip side of The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" in "No Love Is Free." Griffith's disc is like a little novel that gets better with each read.

2. Camera-Head Shark, "Oh You" - Bright and bubbly with a distinctively nutty flavor, this is the most refreshing disc from Long Island in years. File somewhere between Camper Van Beethoven and Cake.

3. Easy Anthems, "Easy Anthems" - Philip and Vanesa Jimenez have created a hard-to-define album - perhaps the best adjective is "beautiful." Tracks such as "BB Shooting" and "When R U Gunna Break?" make this a perfect rainy-day disc.

Rafer Guzmán Bio | E-mail | Recent columns

4. The Shake, "Kick It" - (Unicycle). This Queens-based foursome delivers a jolt of high-energy rock with buzzy guitars, cracking snares and Jon Merkin's snarling, Billy Idol-meets-Billie Joe Armstrong vocals. These guys have more fuel than Jet and more sting than The Hives.

5. Nightmare of You, "Bang" - (Bevonshire). The five tracks on this EP range from the usual (The Smiths-y "I Don't Want to Dance Anymore") to the unexpected (the go-go pop song "You're Very Dear to Me"). It's a stopgap disc from a band that clearly wants to keep moving.

6. Kaleber, "The Anomaly" - This Wyandanch rapper firmly believes two things: Hip-hop is dead, and he was born to resurrect it. On tracks such as "Dope (New York, New York)" and the cliched "Hoodstripes Pt. 2," Kaleber exposes bling and drug-slinging for the worn-out cliches they are - all without missing a beat.

7. Pete Sanchez, "Walk on the Sun" - They're a band, not a person, and they play atmospheric rock with arrestingly dark chords and a slightly sleazy edge - check out "Weekend," which seems to celebrate the total obliteration of Monday through Friday. At times, Pete Sanchez comes off as downright creepy - and that's a compliment.

8. The New Rivals, "The New Rivals" - (SoBe Entertainment). A throwback to the days when pop-punk meant Buzzcocks rather than blink-182, The New Rivals have songwriting chops and spiffy guitar licks to spare. Why hasn't "Sleepwalking" become the hit it deserves to be?

9. Bryan Eich, "Sleeping by a Wire" - In the right hands, soft rock still can rock. Eich has a gift for dramatic crescendos and catchy rhythms that give his ballads some teeth. Standout tracks include "Big Fish" and "Can't Wait for Long."

10. Envy on the Coast, "Lucy Gray" (Photo Finish) - On its debut disc, this emo-rock band stretches its wings, tackling lengthy songs with moving parts and shifting passages. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more ambitious album this year.