This probably surprises no one who has been reading this blog throughout the year, so instead of telling you why you should listen to this album, I will just tell you to go listen to it. Take in the lyrics, the harmonies and the folksy sound and enjoy the best album of the year, and the best new band in a long, long time.

If the previous album was beautiful, this one is haunting. The vocals and lyrics of Jonathan Meiburg mixed with the instrumentation throughout culminate in something that is striking when first heard.  Rooks, the near title track, is one of the more disturbing songs I have heard in awhile telling the tale of a coming plague. Other standout tracks include Century Eyes and The Snow Leopard.  It seems like every track uses some sort of strong metaphor which sounds like it could get old, but instead just leads to a powerful album.

I rarely call an album beautiful, but there is no other word to describe this album. If a black & white still photo could be made into an album, I am pretty sure this is what it would sound like. Tracks like Flume, Skinny Love & Creature Fear are great examples of this, but you owe it to yourself to listen to the whole album at a time.  It is 40 minutes well spent.

The longest and angriest album on the list, is probably the most dense with music as well.  Every track on this album is layered upon layer of sound, most of the time leading to greatness.  The album starts off by bombarding you with this sound on Halfway Home and continues through tracks like Family Tree and Shout Me Out.  One of the more intense and hard hitting tracks is DLZ which sounds like a less than polite oath to the current president. But as angry as the album can be, the final track, Lovers Day, shows some optimism, and that is what helps move this album up the list.

My revision of 2007 might have given away how I felt about The Stand Ins, considering how this is basically The Stage Names 2.  It is a little more up tempo throughout when compared to Stage Names, but it is just as good in overall quality. You get the familiar introspective lyrics, some more depressing than others, such as On Tour with Zykos. But there are the really fantastic songs as well, such as Pop Lie and Lost Coastlines.  If you liked last year's album, you will like this one too.