(Instagram Poll) The Best Albums of 2008
By Nick Caceres
Published 08/29/2025
Alice Glass from Crystal Castles performing at a Warehouse Party in Los Angeles, California
Photo Courtesy of NickyDigital
The following list was composed due to this particular year winning in an Instagram poll. Expect to see the other vintage year winners, 2005 and 1996, in the near future.
*Some Demos made the cut.
*Just my opinion
30. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
Released: 05/09/2008
Label: Warp Records, Beat Records
Genre: Wonky, Glitch Hop, Instrumental Hip Hop, IDM, Illbient
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Ever since Flying Lotus arrived on the doorstep of the LA Best scene, nothing has been the same. His sophomore full-length is named as a gift to the scene at the time, pushing forward a more surrealist tone and tripped-out rhythms that will result in an addiction to the style that Flying Lotus introduces. So many futuristic ideas are thrown into this single album and yet somehow fall perfectly in place, some even becoming staples in Adult Swim.
29. Leviathan - Massive Conspiracy Against All Life
Released: 03/25/2008
Label: Moribund, Debemur Morti
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal, Dissonant Black Metal, Dark Ambient
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
The pinnacle of the Jef Whitehead discography alongside Lurker of Chalice, something that is surprisingly linked to this release. This is because what would become “Massive Conspiracy Against All Life” was meant to be a follow-up to the 2005 self-titled debut from the Lurker of Chalice alias planned for a release in the summer of 2007. Suddenly Whitehead would have other plans for this collection of some of his most punctuated material which soon would surface into the American Black Metal scene in the spring of 2008, signifying a renewal of the dark, desolate and disturbing elements that climax on the album. One of the tracks would also be dedicated to Whitehead’s deceased partner, who took her own life on June 11, 2006, honored by the title, “ VI-XI-VI.”
28. Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak
Released: 11/24/2008
Label: Roc-A-Fella Records, Def Jam Recordings
Genre: Electropop, Synthpop, Contemporary R&B, Alternative R&B, Pop Rap
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Being the first and only time Kanye West put out a truly “pop” album, his fourth studio album, “808s & Heartbreak” was a stark contrast from his relatively young career that had provided him an unimaginable yield of success. But in the midst of his stardom, he would lose his mother and split with his, at the time, long-term fiance, leaving him with an abundance of loneliness at the top of the music industry. During a three-week period in the Fall of 2008 between Avex Honolulu Studios in Hawaii and Glenwood Studios in Burbank, California, West would team up with fellow producers Mr Hudson, No I.D., Plain Pat, and Jeff Bhasker to create an album that quite literally delivers on its name, “808s and Heartbreaks.” The album sees West going all in on sleek, minimalistic production with minor keys and a Rolan TR-808 drum machine strung together with West singing in perfectly processed autotune about his personal struggles with heartache in the midst of pop stardom and the emptiness that comes with it coalescing with loss which goes hand-in-hand with the production. Although the album was one of West’s first albums to be heavily criticized for its stylistic shift yet with time, it has become recognized as a uniquely vulnerable album in Kanye West’s discography.
27. DJ Sprinkles - Midtown 120 Blues
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Hailed as a high ranking contemporary in Deep House, “Midtown 120 Blues” sounds like a picturesque beat poetry club in the skies. With an extensive background in activism focused on identity politics throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Terre Thaemlitz has expertise in practically every art medium, including a knack for electroacoustic rhythmic music. Combining these two fields, on top of some of the most well produced instrumentals in the genre, Thaemlitz, as DJ Sprinkles, speaks directly to the listener, formally dissecting the systematic erasure of Deep House’s true origins from the mainstream, with its true origins lying in queer factions, “all at 120 beats per minute.”
26. Perfume - GAME
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
After going through half a decade of dropping a small handful of singles and even experiencing a lineup change, the Hiroshima girl group, Perfume, would move to Tokyo and sign with Tokuma Japan Communications in 2005. They began working on new material with Yasutaka Nakata in 2007, who at the time was renowned for his work as one-half of the duo Capsule, in his Contemode Studio and would oversee practically every aspect of the project from songwriting all the way down the line to mastering. Looking to re-introduce the concept of “Techno-Pop” to a Japanese audience and further Experiment with his signature Post-Shibuya-kei sound, Nakata would weave the album throughout various Pop influences with a glossy cold blast of crystalline futurism. This was the perfect concoction for a concept Pop album and still remains a cultural footprint in 2000s Japanese culture pioneering Techno-Pop with several tracks off of “GAME” even being used for advertisements across Japan.
25. Dead Congregation - Graves of the Archangels
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
A brutal ingestion of incantation, the at the time Greek newcomers to Death Metal, Dead Congregation, would hit it off masterfully with their debut full-length, “Graves of the Archangels.” Everything from the drums, riffs and vocals keep it fast and heavy, expanding upon the styles established by Morbid Angel and Immolation to something truly savage.
24. Bull of Heaven - 028: Even to the Edge of Doom
Released: 03/08/2008
Label: Self-Released
Genre: Ambient, Drone, Minimalism
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
2008 is officially known as the birth year of one of the biggest rule-breakers and trolls in composition, Neel Keener and the late Clayton Counts would form the duo, Bull of Heaven, in January of the year. They would hit the ground running, spitfiring album after album. Fans and haters alike took note of each release being a perfect abstraction of either Noise, Ambient, or Post-Rock, each numbered being the only remnant of ease for the listener. What made them rule-breakers and aggressively brick-walled was pushing the boundaries of what’s even considered an album or single by stretching repetitive Ambient pieces for days, years, or even millennia in later installments. Their 28th album is one of these bolder installments. “Even to the Edge of Doom” features the duo looping the same gothic Ambient melody for 24 hours. This piece tows the line between a feeling of solitude while still making the skin crawl.
23. Candy Claws - Two Airships / Exploder Falls
Released: 08/25/2008
Label: Peppermill
Genre: Noise Pop, Neo-Psychedelia, Shoegaze, Indietronica, Glitch Pop
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Sonically driven and imposing in both sound and texture, the, at the time, Colorado duo, Candy Claws would meticulously craft what would eventually become their 2008 debut as early as 2004, narrowing everything down to just two long-winded tracks. Both “Two Airships” and “Exploder Falls” aim to reinvent Noise Pop and Shoegaze by cranking the distortion just enough to let an avalanche of Glitched out guitar effects and other digital artifacts flood the listener’s brain.
22. Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
Released: 06/10/2008
Label: Type
Genre: Psychedelic Folk, Indie Folk, Ethereal Wave, Dream Pop, Ambient Pop, Drone
Image Courtesy of Discogs
There is truly no other Ambient composer quite like Liz Harris. The way she manages to weave Drone, Dream Pop, Folk and Ethereal Wave into a faint apparition on her fifth studio album, “Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill,” is no surprise considering her background, inspired from listening to Eastern European Folk and American Avant-pop while growing up in a Fourth Way commune in Oregon. This album in particular showcased growth in vocal range which fans have cited as somberly calm yet deeply raw with emotion, pulling from those genres in a way that recontextualized them into a new frontier.
21. Lamp - Lamp Gensuo
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
A warm, calming energy that only they can deliver, Shibuya band, Lamp, had returned with their fourth full-length release, “Lamp Gensuo,” commonly referred to by English speakers as “Lamp Phantasma." The name corresponds with the vibe that they were going for this time around, not dissimilar to their previous work, with “Gensuo” translating to “fantasy” or “Illusion.” Developed from a group of friends bonding over a shared interest in Bossa Nova, French Pop, City Pop and 1960s Pop, “Lamp Gensuo,” is a great offering of the signature endearing sound that Lamp pushed in the 2000s, with their loungy ethos heightening spirits and slowing down the hustle and bustle of Japanese Pop.
20. Nadja - The Bungled & The Botched
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
An emotionally gripping mediation of ponderous riffs into the darkened landscape, “The Bungled & The Botched” is widely considered to be the magnum opus of Canadian duo, Nadja. The album is split between two half-hour chunks, the opener being the title track, opening with Ambient acoustic and quickly erupting into a Drone Doom epic that rivals some of the greats in the genre. Then there’s the second track, “Absorb in You,” picking up where the last left off into an extraterrestrial abduction of encompassing Shoegaze-infused Drone Metal, diving into a pool of Metallic abstractions and rising once again to the heavens in a tear jerking crescendo.
19. E&E - E&E
Released: ?/?/2008
Label: Self-Released
Genre: Hypnagogic Pop, Art Pop, Electronic, Indietronica, Epic Collage, Witch House
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Before becoming a pioneer in ethereal internet music, Elysia Crampton had their humble beginnings in the early 2000s, although this period of time went unnoticed with no known releases. That would change in the wake of 2008, when Crampton would officially introduce themselves to the pop landscape with a self-titled release under “E&E” (“And&And” in english), with the help of their friends and fellow musicians and singers, Erik Ansaya, Taylor Holden, Angelica Olsen and Total Freedom. Although reception of this CD was unnoticed at the time with a miniscule following early-on, if there was any, at a time when LGBTQ icons like Lady Gaga were advancing mainstream Pop to new heights of expression, Crampton, a trans artist, was full-on transcending it in a way that incorporated acapella, unconventional lo-fi recording methods and a hypnagogic flavor that is uniquely Latin, something that Crampton would build upon in later projects. This album deserves more recognition for how it took the playful approach to recording music and created something stubbornly original, whether it’s the acapella over an Abstract hammering piano on “Total Angelica” or the magically ethereal usage of Synths and likely a simple Yamaha keyboard played over longing on “Drop.” It’s wild to notice the pioneering in this single album, when considering what came soon after in underground Electronic and Pop aesthetics.
18. Vothana - "Trong tay thần chết" -Demo X-
Released: 05/?/2008
Label: Self-Released
Genre: Black Metal, Atmospheric Black Metal, Dissonant Black Metal
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Despite being the textbook definition of a Black Metal elitist, persistently ensuring that his projects remains only physical during the age of the internet, despite his controversial ramblings in the shadows of the 2000s web, one thing should be made painfully clear, the early projects of Kenny Vu with his undisclosed band, Vothana, were, for better or for worst, some of the rawest expressions in the American Black Metal Scene. If the previous releasing going back to 2003 were meant to depict one marching into combat, "Trong tay thần chết’ -Demo X-,” is the long awaited battle to change the course of this story Vu is trying to convey, with Vothana pulling more emotionally gratifying riffs and a more dynamic sound with Vu giving his all on the vocals, comprised of morally demented lyrics in his Vietnamese tongue. It is astonishing how dynamic Kenny Vu and his cronies are on something that is still hilariously labeled as a “demo.”
17. Mount Eerie - Dawn: Winter Journal
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Emotionally harmed by both the Bush administration and a recent breakup, Phil Elverum would live a solitary life in a cabin in Norway during the winter between 2002 to 2003. However, the only thing not put on pause was being a musician and throughout his Scandinavian residence, Elverum would write down his thoughts into a plethora of songs along with photography and self-portraits of himself from a window reflection. By late 2007, Elverum would officially record this material and release them along with the supplemental material into a specially crafted CD box set with a hardcover book documenting his journal entries alongside sketches, photographs and self-portraits. “Dawn: Winter Journal” is Elverum at his most intimate and transitory with lyrics detailing his frustrations, false aspirations, how they might affect his still young career and a surprise Bjork cover to top everything off.
16. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War
Released: 02/26/2008
Label: Control Freaq, Universal Motown
Genre: Neo-Soul, Progressive Soul, Psychedelic Soul, Funk
Image Courtesy of Discogs
In the midst of her writer’s block throughout most of the 2000s, Erykah Badu would strike gold in the form of Afrofuturism. From this point, a concept album would begin to take root through Badu collaborating with producers such as Madlib, Questlove, 9th Wonder and Thundercat over the internet while she took time away from the spotlight to look after her children. Then, being mostly completed at the historic Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the first installment of “New Amerykah” would release in a collection of Psychedelic Neo-Soul lacking any standardized pop structure, covering the political bases in the identity, plight, and violence in the African-American consciousness.
15. Isengrind / TwinSisterMoon / Natural Snow Buildings - The Snowbringer Cult
Released: 04/?/2008
Label: Students Of Decay
Genre: Psychedelic Folk, Avant-Folk, Free Folk, Drone, Ritual Ambient
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
“Gularte’s Isengrind centers on hypnotic soundscapes, floating woodwinds and chanted dirges. The airy sounds intermix and collide, sometimes building ominously, sometimes crashing together. It sounds gloriously like an imagined soundtrack to a banned ’70s Italian horror film. Ameziane’s TwinSisterMoon showcases the folk end of his sound. Often graced with his soft countertenor voice, the songs are like a sweet respite amidst the menace of minor keys. Delicate acoustic guitar passages break for shifting drones before leading to ornate instrumentals. The Natural Snow Buildings material on the second disc brings about an alternately luminous and perilous finish to the journey. Here, The Snowbringer Cult reaches climactic points of intensity, following all the tension from disc one with grand payoffs. In all, this expansive work presents the most varied and nuanced sense of what fills the Natural Snow Buildings cosmos, and is one of the greatest projects by an experimental band in recent years.”
14. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Released: 03/18/2008
Label: Last Gang, Lies Records, Canyon International, PIAS Recordings, Shock Records
Genre: Synthpop, Synth Punk, Britpop, Glitch Pop, Electroclash, Chiptune
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
An unpredictable tapestry of compressed beauty, Chiptune would never be that same after the self-titled debut of Toronto electronic duo, Crystal Castles. The duo had shifted their attention away from Noise Music aspirations to something uniquely electronic, using circuit-bent Atari 5200 instead of traditional guitars when creating the album. Listeners will find themselves enthralled in lush Electronic instrumentals, Synth Punk with Alice Glass’s unrestrained vocals and some of the best dance music of the decade. The album is also not an album in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s a compilation of demos and EPs dating back to the band's inception in 2003, yet it’s still a forward thinking piece of Experimental Pop music that found ridiculous success upon its release.
13. Mass of the Fermenting Dregs - Mass of the Fermenting Dregs
Image Courtesy of Discogs
Welcome to the high life of Japanese Rock. No band out of this country had quite the debut like the Kobe trio, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs. Their debut is a 30 minute collection of effortlessly arranged tracks of tightly packed Post-Hardcore and Shimotika-kei and Post-Hardcore with a slight aroma of Shoegaze. When they’re not going all out in emotionally gratifying and Punk ready instrumentals, listeners will be delighted with melodic pop vocals from Chiemi Ishimito and Natsuko Miyamoto. If this album doesn’t lift your spirit and get you going, you’re a lost cause.
12. Natural Snow Buildings - Laurie Bird
Released: 02/15/2008
Label: Students Of Decay
Genre: Drone, Free Folk, Ritual Ambient, Tribal Ambient
Image Courtesy of Discogs
If you were wondering if the French duo toured in wonderland with Alice, this album was made for you. “Laurie Bird” is seemingly a tribute to American actress and photographer, Laurie Bird, who tragically took her own life at 25 in 1979, though it’s difficult to discern in what fashion. Regardless, this is one of Natural Snow Building’s shorter projects, clocking in at under 90 minutes with “Song for Laurie Bird” taking up most of the runtime and is a beautiful complex array of sprouting melodies that will put you in a tearfully dreamlike trance, perfect for a healing meditation in a spring field that quickly ends in a crescendo of darker undertones similar to how the story, “Alice In Wonderland,” divulges into.
11. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Released: 06/03/2008
Label: Sub Pop, Bella Union
Genre: Chamber Folk, Indie Folk, Folk Pop, Baroque Pop, Vocal Group
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
A pastoral oasis into “uninformed nostalgia,” this widely considered to be one of the greatest debut albums ever conceived from the git go. Fleet Foxes would find their start in 2006 in Seattle when musicians Robin Pecknold and Skyler Skjelset linked up in high school, bonding over their Norwegian ancestry (not like that!). They began writing songs together in-between working minimum wage jobs around the Kirkland area, oftentimes re-taking and rewriting the entire album multiple times during sessions at Pecknold’s parent’s basement and bandmate, Casey Westcott’s home. Each track would grasp experiences in Pecknold’s still young life whether it’s staying in his grandfather’s log cabin in “Blue Ridge Mountains” or dealing with abandonment in “White Winter Hymnal,” not in the usual songwriting style seen in many Indie Folk projects at the time but in a way that inspired from Gospel which gave it it’s iconic pastoral sound.
10. The Caretaker - Persistent Repetition of Phrases
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
“Persistent Repetition Of Phrases' success comes from the attention it pays to the function of 'the loop', not only as a narrative ordering system in modern music, but as a means by which the brain itself recalls and interprets information; it's as old as recorded sound itself, but in this context the repetition of small shards of auditory information becomes an elegy to fading memory and the worn-out synapses of old age. The track titles offer signposts through Kirby's labyrinth of faulty remembrances, pointing their way towards the peculiarities dictating the manner by which the mind stores and attempts to recover information.”
9. Horna - Sanojesi äärelle
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A push and pull between a satanic void and a luciferian clearing, Horna finds himself in a situation of pure alchemy and filth in this particular modern Black Metal titan. The Finnish outfit would arrive onto the Scandinavian Black metal scene around the same time as legendary acts like Burzum during the early 90s, yet they stayed as a truly underground unit throughout their extensive discography. Their seventh full-length, “Sanojesi äärelle,” stands apart from the rest in its cohesive ability to remain just accessible enough to draw most metalheads, yet stripped back and vicious enough to make it clear that Horna is the real deal.
8. Sister’s Barbershop - Most Ordinary Existence
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Widely considered to be one of the greatest Korean Rock albums ever made, even rivaling later albums from Parannoul and Mid-Air Thief, this was the fifth studio album from Seoul band, Sister’s Barbershop. With its production origins dating back to 2005, the band would postpone and rework the album five times until it collectively hit the right spot. Their goal would finally be met and delivered in the summer of 2008 with production that seems impossibly perfect laid with relaxing Indie Rock riffs that can be easily followed throughout some of the most gentle, poignant and characteristic lyrical content in Korean history.
7. Portishead - Third
Released: 04/28/2008
Label: Island Records, Barclay, Tempstar
Genre: Experimental Rock, Krautrock, Electronic, Trip Hop, Post-Industrial
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
“Third” arrived at a very pivotal point in the Portishead timeline. After their self-titled release in 1997, the band would suffer a divorce and long-winded hiatus. The pieces wouldn’t be picked up until 2005 when mere sketches would be fleshed out into what would become the third full-length. Fans were shocked to find that “Third” was a stark departure from their orchestral Trip Hop style during the 90s. “Third” would instead see the band take inspiration from Doo Wop, Krautrock and Surf Rock and John Carpenter with a seismic blend of Drone and Industrial. “Third” represents the finality of the Protishead trilogy, and an intriguing one at that.
6. Dystopia - Dystopia
Released: 02/11/2008
Label: Life Is Abuse, Prank, Throne Records
Genre: Crust Punk, Sludge Metal, Sound Collage
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
One of the hardest send offs in Hardcore history, legendary Oakland band, Dystopia would write and record what would become their final batch of politically charged material between 2004 to 2005, officially releasing all of it before their disbandment in February 2008. On-par with their material throughout the 1990s, their self-titled explores the tortured reality of living in the underbelly of modern society, laced with audio of ordinary people divulging their history of drug abuse and mental deficiencies, all of this paired with Dystopia’s signature style of creative Sludge-Crust riffs.
5. Charles Hamilton - The Pink Lavalamp
Released: 12/08/2008
Label: Self-Released
Genre: Pop Rap, Conscious Hip Hop, Chipmunk Soul
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
There is a lot to dissect with Charles Hamilton, whether it’s his controversial conceptual choices in music or his deeply worrying actions even outside of his albums and mixtapes. To keep it brief, in August of 2008, Hamilton would announce through the press that he was officially signed onto Interscope Records and would proceed to self-drop a series of mixtapes called the “Hamiltonization Process,” around the same time he was getting ready to release his debut album that had been in production for a few years at this point. Issues arose when Interscope wanted to include Hamilton’s hit single “Brooklyn Girls” to which he would undermine them and release it independently much like his mixtapes which would result in getting kicked from the label. The debut in questions, although it can classifies as Pop Rap made for radio success, was “The Pink Lavalamp,” an unexpectedly dark lyrical tale that leads up to an attempted suicide in Hamilton’s life, recorded over a period of time when he was homeless in Harlem, with every track coming from his limited time at the Frederick Douglas Recording Academy. Despite the odds stacked against him, Hamilton went at making this project so much so that he even produced all of the beats by himself, pulling from a mix of Chipmunk Soul and East Coast Conscious beats which turned out to be some of the best in the subgenre during the 2000s. If Kanye West’s “808s & Heartbreak” described struggles in pop stardom, “The Pink Lavalamp” was the struggles of one’s own purpose in life.
4. James Ferraro - Last American Hero / Adrenaline's End
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
There is something truly special when listening to early James Ferraro, the way he pulls you into these dreamlike worlds within some of the muggiest production choices, inspired from new age philosophy or in this case, tangible concepts understood by all red blooded Americans. It was confirmed in an interview with Redbull that Ferraro, who was still in his early 20s at the time, was staying with his grandparents in an undisclosed retirement community in Florida when he came up with the concept for the double album, “Last American Hero / Adrenaline’s End.” To him, this retirement community was far from a domestic comfort for senior citizens. The area was a sterilized experiment in consumerism, equipped with comically large Ikea couches, the latest flat-screen TVs, and PT Cruisers parked up the wazoo. In fact the whole area felt eternally linked to consumerist utopias like Target and Walmart. Therefore, Ferraro would incorporate an emerging style of drugged out glammy “Hypnagogic” pop he started experimenting with as Lamborghini Crystal and lower the tempo to encapsulate a sense of loneliness with its delayed loops of guitar pluckings and droning analog synthesizers. The project lives in the liminal pathways dominated by brands across the United States yet manages to end on a hopeful tone by the second half in “Adrenaline’s End.” To this day, Ferraro has never replicated this record as he has with so many other styles, leaving “Last American Hero / Adrenaline’s End” as a standout classic, not just in his discography, but also the rare genre of Ambient Americana. Additionally, the album’s themes inadvertently sowed the seeds for future artforms and communities like Vaporwave and the backrooms.
3. Natural Snow Buildings - Night Coercion Into the Company of Witches
Released: 08/?/2008
Label: Self-Released
Genre: Drone, Noise, Free Folk, Tribal Ambient, Ritual Ambient, Post-Rock
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Just when you think they couldn’t get any more colossal in 2008, the French duo would release another album in August. “Night Coercion Into the Company of Witches” captures an entire world within a multi-phase three hour Drone epic. This is a near perfect textured execution of sublime psychedelic instrumentation with ritualistic ambiance and reserves of cataclysmic dissonance never left untapped, that adds up to a larger than life rebirth. This album goes to show that the 2000s were a golden age in the realm of Drone and Post-Rock music, Natural Snow Buildings being a huge factor in sustaining that opinion.
2. Midori - Aratamemashite, Hajimemashite, Midori Desu.
Released: 05/14/2008
Label: Sony Music Associated, Cicada Peaks
Genre: Jazz Punk, Art Punk, Hardcore Punk, Noise Rock, Sass, Japanese Hardcore, Post-Hardcore
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Quite possibly one of the most revered Japanese Hardcore releases of all time, Osaka-based Jazz-influenced quartet, Midori had a style of a push and pull between piano Jazz and Hardcore Punk. The vocalist, Mariko Gotō, who has a background in acting, composing and lyricism, spontaneously shifts with ease from melodic into harsh outbursts, lacking any reliance on an exact structure on “Aratamemashite, Hajimemashite, Midori Desu.” For this reason, the uninformed listener might accuse the record of being messy…That’s the point and it’s an unforgettable blast. In a way, It’s an inquisition of the Jazz Punk title.
Honorable Mentions
Bar Kokhba - Lucifer: Book of Angels Volume 10
Boy Problems - Summer Tour Songs
Gucci Mane & Zaytoven - EA Sportscenter
Natural Snow Buildings - Between the Real and the Shadow
The Skaters - Physicalities of the Sensibilites of Ingrediential Strairways
Big Blood & The Bleedin' Hearts - Big Blood & The Bleedin' Hearts
The Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath
Algernon Cadwallader - Some Kind of Cadwallader
Deathspell Omega / S.V.E.S.T. - Veritas Diaboli manet in aeternum
1. Have a Nice Life - Deathconsciousness
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Released: 01/24/2008
Label: Enemies List Home Recordings
Genre: Post-Punk, Post-Rock, Shoegaze, Gothic Rock, Drone, Post-Industrial
This should come at no surprise whatsoever. In hindsight, the debut full-length from the sad boy duo of Connecticut, Have A Nice Life, is not only the best album of 2008 (if not the entire 2000s) but perhaps the most exemplary piece of art in the entire year. Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga would meet in the local Connecticut Punk Scene in the late 90s, forming the duo in 2000. After dropping their debut EP in 2002, they would begin working on a more fleshed out collection of songs, recording and tweaking material every weekend outside of their regular jobs primarily in K12 education. This rinse and repeat development would last for five years, with Barrett nearly losing the entire album on a hard drive which ended up contributing to its lo-fi sound. The final product would be a collection of dense philosophical parallels, adding up to a singular theme of indescribable existentialism and a hopeless longing for an escape from this omnipresent prison. Additionally, during this five year span, the band would transition from humorously somber Emo Folk into something nearly unrecognizable, morphing the signature HANL style into a beautiful abomination of Post-Rock from the likes of Swans, Shoegaze from the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Drone from Sunn O))), and Black Metal production from the likes of Lurker of Chalice and Xasthur. To this day “Deathconsciousness stands apart from the rest as a 21st Century Rock masterpiece, that bends genres for an incredibly crippling concept, becoming a gateway for many younger social media users to enter the void.