This year was undoubtedly the best of my life, so far. Here are just a few of the material things that made it great:
Music:
Schematic - "Color (n.) Inside the Lines": Dave Elkins is the former frontman for one of my favorite bands, Mae. Since they're more or less done, he released this solo record and it's a fitting continuation of the 3 EPs that Mae departed with. It's an incredibly lush, dense, and complex record that really surprised me, honestly. While I'm not a huge fan of a couple tracks, tracks like "What It Means" really reaffirm how great of a songwriter Elkins is.
Stand-Out Tracks: Outside, I Am The Car, Where's the Soul?, and What It Means.
Coheed and Cambria - The Afterman Ascension: Part 2 of the Afterman concept album. Coheed's a band I really should've been much more into, but for some reason never gave them a chance. While I like the whole CD, "Dark Side of Me" is no-contest the best. "I gave my everything/for all the wrong things. In this cold reality, this selfish war machine. Oh, this has become hell, how can I share this life with someone else? I promise you: there is no weight that can bury us beneath the ghost of all my guilt."
Five Iron Frenzy - Engine of a Million Plots: If there is one band that has shaped me into the person I am today, it's FIF. For a nerdy, awkward 6th grader that didn't really know his place in the world, their music sincerely connected with me. Their ability to have some songs with an absurd degree of silliness and some with such conviction and sincerity amazes me to this day. They broke up in 2003, a month after I got into them. In 2011, they launched a Kickstarter that went on to break records and make over $200,000. I donated immediately, and 2 years later, here we are. EOMP shows how the band has matured in the last 10 years, with extremely brunt and sincere lyrics, and it did my soul good to be blown away by them once more. While I no longer identify as a Christian, some of the songs reflect some members' struggles with faith as well. The song "Blizzards and Bygones" really captures the feeling of wanting to cling to what you once believed, but not being able to. "There's a flicker of desire and a memory of youth. A fainting, glowing fire for some truth....Can we stand the weather if winter lasts forever?". I was lucky enough to see them in Nashville this November, talk with some of the members, and it really just blew me away that I could ever get to meet these people that made such an impact on my life.
Stand-Out Tracks: It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Someone Else's Problems, Blizzards and Bygones, To Start a Fire
Streetlight Manifesto/Toh Kay - The Hands That Thieve: Here we go. Streetlight carried the torch of FIF when I got older, with the absolute best songwriting and music I've ever heard. After a lot of troubles with their record label, they finally released their last album, and man, oh man, it's incredible. All the angst and defiance reaches a peak in the words of these songs. I can't really describe this album, as it draws from a variety of influences, from ska to Eastern European to punk. I can say, though, that this is the album I earnestly believe defines my year. Best lyric: "Who'd have thought, we'd fought so long, we started to see our enemies turned into friends, our friends to enemies and we sat somewhere in the between. But I heard someone say they knew that someday that everything would fall into its place and everything would be fine. And I really, truly, honestly, without a doubt want to believe that everything will be alright."
Stand-Out Tracks: The Littlest Things, With Any Sort of Certainty, Toe to Toe, and Your Day Will Come.
Books:
American Gods
Fight Club
Movies:
5. Captain Phillips
4. Iron Man 3
3. The World's End
2. Don Jon
1. Her
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