Joel's Top 5 Albums of 2006 on 97xonline.com

5. The Sword Age of Winters
	Since Black Sabbath practically invented heavy metal in the early 1970s, many bands have come along in the doom/stoner rock subgenre not only in reverence to Black Sabbath but exceeding them in almost every way. From Pentagram and St. Vitus, up through Candlemass and Cathedral, and more recently bands like High On Fire and Goatsnake. Now we have The Sword, a crushing four-piece out of Austin, Texas. As with anything retro, it's not like The Sword is treading a new path. Age of Winters follows the traditional heavy metal blueprint drawn up by Sabbath - groove-laden riffs, soaring vocals you can sing along with (dude even kinda sounds a little like Ozzy!), deceptively literate themes (songs inspired by W.B. Yeats), and kickass artwork from friends in high places (designed by ...Trail of Dead frontman Conrad Keely) - but the results are just plain kickass. There's a reason traditional heavy metal still exists despite almost four decades on the fringes of rock's mainstream - and bands like The Sword are why.
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4. She Wants Revenge She Wants Revenge
	This album has 'guilty pleasure' written all over it. Hell, if I caught myself listening to something like this in my college days (METAL! METAL! METAL!) I'd have kicked my own ass! Maybe it's that many of these songs are just plain naughty. You've got a girl in a club bathroom performing unspeakable acts on herself with a popsicle ("These Things"), light S&M ("Monologue"), and post-adolescent romantic angst ("Tear You Apart"), with other incredibly addictive songs-you-feel-you-shouldn't-like-but-do-anyway ("I Don't Want To Fall In Love," "Out of Control") mixed in. She Wants Revenge is written off as another Joy Division by-way-of Interpol rip-off, but I don't think that does them justice. They're ripping off Psychedelic Furs and Prince, too! Of course if She Wants Revenge weren't doing this so well, no one would care who they ripped off.
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3. The Decemberists The Crane Wife
	The Decemberists are one of those bands that you've read about everywhere but never heard. That was my case until I stumbled upon The Crane Wife lying around the office a few months ago. This was the only album I listened to for about a week, and that's a long time for me. I didn't just jump on the bandwagon - I was pulled on. Drawing just as heavily from folk music as indie rock The Crane Wife is deceptive in its simplicity. While there's a lot going on conceptually and musically - two of the songs even crack the ten-minute mark - it all comes down to gentle, catchy melodies and movingly addictive sing-a-long lyrics. If you're going to give one album by a band you've never heard of a chance, pick this.
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2. Snow Patrol Eyes Open
	Eyes Open proved to me that Snow Patrol albums are growers. At first I resented the bolder, more professional production compared to Final Straw, but I was repeatedly drawn back to this album as I found myself singing parts of it at random moments of the day. On Final Straw (which took almost a year for me to fully appreciate), Snow Patrol crafted gentle indie-rock songs so delicate they could fall apart at any moment. Eyes Open shows them a little beefier and more dynamic, without sacrificing any of their songwriting abilities. "You're All I Have" and "Hands Open" start the album off rather heavy by Snow Patrol standards before the band segues into the great ballad "Chasing Cars." Eyes Open rocks more often than it doesn't, which is a definite change for Snow Patrol. However, the chilling "Set the Fire To the Third Bar" acts as the album's centerpiece. It stands out because the band wrote the song separately from the rest of the album with the specific hope that they could get folk songstress Martha Wainright to duet with frontman Gary Lightbody, and it gives me goosebumps every single time I listen.
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1. Muse Blackholes and Revelations
	I didn't know what to make of this album at first. As is often the case, when one of your favorite bands releases an album that is even the least bit different from its predecessor it's easier to first pick out what you don't like. Lyrically, Muse treads well down familiar paths (corruption, paranoia, the impending apocalypse), but musically the band is caught in transition. Muse took their dark, epic rock sound as far is it could go on their first three albums. Plus, frontman Matt Bellamy's affection for the recent dance-rock movement led Muse in a slightly more pop direction as audible in "Starlight" and the discoteque stomp of "Supermassive Black Hole." But songs like "Assassins," "Knights of Cydonia" and the amazing "Exo-Politics" showcase their trademark anthemic power. And then there's "Map of the Problematique," which acts as a crossroads as it none-too-subtlely borrows from the Depeche Mode classic "Enjoy the Silence" while also reminiscent of "Stockholm Syndrome" off of Absolution. It might not be their most original moment, but it might be the best single song this English trio has ever recorded.
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Honorable Mentions
The Mars Volta Amputechture
	All the ingredients that made Frances the Mute and De-Loused in the Comatorium so great are still present on Amputechture, but that sense of The Mars Volta reinventing the wheel is lacking. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez left his guitar in the capable hands of Chili Pepper John Frusciante opting to sit behind the board instead. I don't really know if that's the difference between this disc and the others. It's still a good album, and the band is just as dynamic as they ever were; but it's just not as exciting as it used to be.
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The Raconteurs Broken Boy Soldiers
	I'm giving this album credit because of how awesome The Raconteurs are live. The album starts to sound a little same-y after the first half. But it's hard to deny the songwriting ability of Jack White and Brendan Benson separately, much less when collaborating. Plus, Benson's sweet vocal harmonies help to distract from White's trademark nasally vocals - and that's coming from a huge White Stripes fan!
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Misery Index Discordia
	In "Outsourcing Jehova" Misery Index asks, "Would Jesus shop at Wal-Mart/ if the crosses were on sale?" That's the sort of anticapitalist cynicism and social commentary Misery Index has posed since its founding members split from the predictably less-intelligent Dying Fetus in 2000. And taking into account the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, and the ever-growing disparity between the rich and the poor, Misery Index has more ammo for their brand of brutal, politically aware death metal with a strong hardcore lean than they know what to do with.
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Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
	Raucous, manic British dance-rock. Does it live up to the ridiculous hype generated by hipsters on both sides of the pond? Not a chance. But is this album fun as hell to listen to? Hells yes.
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The Strokes First Impressions of Earth
	You might have forgotten this because it came out on the very first Tuesday of 2006, but it should be remembered as the album on which The Strokes grew up. They finally ditched the obnoxious, purposely-bad production that made them poster-boys for the garage rock revival of the early '00s and focused on their songwriting. It's without a doubt their best album.
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