Click the album cover on each album to read the original review, as well as maybe and audio/video sampling of the goodness you’re about to behold.

1. Them Crooked Vultures
Them Crooked Vultures

Them Crooked Vultures’ debut album was one of the main sources of year/decade-end list time agony, as it’s only been out for five weeks and there’s still plenty of dust in the air from the hype explosion. With that said, it’s a rare occurrence when a band lives up to the ’supergroup’ predesignation so much that it deserves to be free of it. And this is one such band.

Josh Homme has said in a few interviews (not just ours) that the greatest thing in life is to be understood, and that musically, he and Dave Grohl have always had a special, rare understanding. That unique chemistry was a key ingredient of Queens Of The Stone Age’s 2002 album Songs For The Deaf. That album is a classic among its still-young generation, and yet Them Crooked Vultures was a one-upping follow-up from the moment it descended, with the extraordinary talents of John Paul Jones and Alain Johannes added into the mix.

Nothing short of a landmark album of explosive intergenerational talent, Them Crooked Vultures is a planet of popped-collar reptilian kings with wild eyes, razor teeth and twitching, rampant hard-ons, getting themselves off on the groove for the fun and the fuck of it, Rock doctrines be damned. For once, finally, a band has come along that makes the term ’supergroup’ its whimpering bitch, in all its terrible glory.

2. The Decemberists
The Hazards Of Love

The Decemberists have somehow outdone their phenomenal Crane Wife album, against all odds, with this grand, inspired vision of a narrative album that borders on a masterpiece. A seventeen-track supernatural love story of a jealous forest queen, a malicious shape-shifter, a child-killing rogue, and two ill-fated lovers, it’s a concept album with a devoted storyline and rich, full-throated characters. If you’re hungry for something new, something to believe in among the “hits” and shits on the FM dial, The Hazards of Love is not to be missed.

3. Brother Ali
Us

For the first time on record, Brother Ali fully shifts his focus from the autobiographical to a social narrative, entirely abandoning the self-prosthelytizing helium swagger that most emcees ride through their entire careers. Doing so is a literal unshackling of bonds for Ali, who sets upon this remarkable collection of stories like a seasoned street preacher. This time around, the hooks aren’t just head-nodders – they’re wrecking balls. Anthony “Ant” Davis of Atmosphere returns to the knobs, but concerns of repetition are quickly laid to rest as the album overflows with live beats and strings, as well as a real-live full horn section and the lush, soulful sound of an actual church choir in St. Paul, Minnesota. Reeking of truth and authenticity, Us is a dense sociopolitical masterpiece.

4. Dead Weather
Horehound

As much as we dig The White Stripes and the second Raconteurs album, as in awe as we often find ourselves of Jack White’s guitar playing, none of us were asking him for another band this year. It didn’t even seem like a third full-time obsession was even feasible, and so most of us assumed it would be merely a side dish, a half-assed garage jam one-off for kicks and nothing more. And maybe the original plan wasn’t any more ambitious than that, but what climbed out of our speakers in July was more formidable than we were prepared for. Horehound is a killer album, lean and mean, light on fluff and heavy on experienced songwriting from all members, including but in no way limited to (or by) Mr. White.

5. Mariachi El Bronx
Mariachi El Bronx

The shitkickers behind our pick for 2008’s album of the year pulled a bait-and-switch with Mariachi El Bronx, an album of English-vocal Mariachi songs. It’s a flamboyant step outside the box of what anyone might expect from one of the hardest-hitting hardcore punk bands to ever come out of Los Angeles. The taste of Mexican culture is strong, and the octane undercurrent that’s closer to the band’s original sound threatens to shake loose at any given moment – yet it never does. It’s a dangerously enticing flirtation with the punk aesthetic, and pogoes a remarkably thin line between tribute and all-out immersion.

6. The Company Band
The Company Band

It’s no secret that we consider Clutch one of the most badass rock n’ roll acts working today, and we don’t mean to disrespect their Strange Cousins From The West by giving the big nod to this sibling, featuring Neil Fallon backed by members of Fireball Ministry, CKY, and Fu Manchu. Strange Cousins is highly recommended if you don’t have it already. With that said, The Company Band is a flawless album in its own right, and a cocky display of swagger and gnashing teeth.

7. Portugal. The Man
The Satanic Satanist

When we first discovered Portugal. The Man in 2007, we were impressed. 2008’s Censored Colors convinced us that they had true staying power. And then this year’s Satanic Satanist blew us away. Recorded in less than two weeks in Boston, the album is a rich, layered, inspired work of true art (as is its packaging, though I wouldn’t want to suggest that anything other than the quality of the music earned the album its spot in our top 10 list). Portugal. The Man reportedly already have another album slated for Spring 2010, entitled American Ghetto. This band fully deserves all the recognition we have given them over the past year or two, and more.

8. Arctic Monkeys
Humbug

Producer Josh Homme (who’s responsible for the #1 spot on this list) explained early on that “this is the record where they get weird, grow up and trip out.” And he’s right. The songs on Humbug are rarely very straightforward, running through several changes in both tone and tempo in a stark departure from the band’s previous full length albums. With Homme’s style stamp and the boys’ own desire to rise to the occasion, these young Brits have proven that there’s a lot more to their story than looking good on the dancefloor. After being taken under the wing of their rock n’ roll big brother, the Monkeys have learned how to fly.

9. Dredg
The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion

When I reviewed Pariah in May, a few commenters took issue with my declaration that it’s a more mature and complete album than any of the band’s previous, and some made good cases for their points. El Cielo was called their “masterpiece,” and their comparatively poppier new direction seems to have disappointed some. In hindsight, El Cielo and Leitmotif may have deserved more credit at that time, but we stand by the claim that  the band has developed impressively since, and that The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion is a true accomplishment. The production is refreshingly even-handed, and throughout an 18-track, 60-minute journey, all the characters encountered along the way are beautifully rendered with lush colors, from the background rhythms to the crisp percussion.

10. William Elliott Whitmore
Animals In The Dark

As we said in our review, “Whitmore’s the type of cat who can win over a room of people who’ve never heard of him in thirty seconds flat, and be shitfaced on shots of whiskey bought by his newfound fans before the show’s over.” We’ve seen it with our own eyes. This year’s Animals In The Dark couldn’t possibly have been quite as surprising as his debut was to us- By now we’ve come to terms with the fact that this white guy, barely over 30, sings like he’s walking around with the reincarnated soul of Howlin’ Wolf. But the sheer force of the songs on the album make it one of the finest of his catalog, and of any this year.

The incomparable Mr. Neil Fallon of Clutch has joined forces with Fireball Ministry frontman James Rota, Fu Manchu bassman Brad Davis, CKY drummer Jess Margera and guitarist Dave Bone to form The Company Band, whose debut album steps far beyond the satirical ode to corporate imperialism that birthed their name and the center theme of their EP. With production from Andew Alekil, The Company Band sounds like the karate chop to the face that it is: melodically clean, brutally clever and knocking your ass to the ground every chance it gets. There are no dull moments on this album – having had two-plus years to trim the fat and fine-tune the machine, the end result is a five-cylinder engine roaring cleaner and meaner than most of the contributing members have ever offered in their day-job bands.

Opener Zombie Barricades takes a shot at the stagnancy of modern American society over a glorious gut-rock riff. Fallon longs for the days of healthy arms-race competition (“Bring back the U.S.S.R.! We need the motivation!”), while dropping one of the most hilariously invigorating F-bombs in recent history just after the first verse. The drumming is some of Margera’s finest, punchier and more dynamic than his CKY work, which calls for a bit less swagger and versatility.

The brutally honest Hot Topic Woman is addressed to such, a new breed of biker metal with pop savvy and nu-culture snark on high, while Lethe Waters, an ode to an ancient Greek river of forgetfulness, is the closest the band comes to embracing its preconceived stoner-rock associations. There’s not a lot of brooding to be found with The Company Band – there’s no profit margin in pandering to the bloodshot, no matter how epically promising the lineup may be.

Master of the clever couplets, metaphorical double-entendres and witty one-liners, Fallon never misses a beat when painting pictures of the absurd and bizarre with his bearded boom. Whether barking like a possessed evangelical in Who Else But Us? or the screaming beehive stomp of album highlight CD&W, he lays the awesome on thick and pungent.

In the former, there are enough lyrical gems to fill a lesser song-scribe’s entire career, summarizing vast social observations with biting satire in the span of an eight-count. Pharmaceutical agitation / makes it easier to persuade ‘em, Fallon gloats, before summarizing his feelings on the great spiritual unknown: Ancient prophecy / demonic possession / if it’s for real I just want protection. This, of course, is all before the chorus, where the phrase “chairman of the waterboard” is born, defining the Cheney-esque model of ruthless corporate domination to a finely-sharpened point.

All the same, Fallon knows his timing. On the downtempo slow-build of All’s Well In Milton Keynes, his vocals alternate with the melodic riff phrasings of Bone and Davis, lending to the melancholy of the one jam that doesn’t threaten to tear your head off on the record. Djinn And Pentatonic is another example; punctuated by a “BOOM, subatomic!,” Neil counters the riff rather than lay the melody over it, allowing a greater breathing space for Rota and Bone to build the high end melodies.

The inevitable Clutch comparisons will be made, due to Neil’s unique voice and delivery, but there’s a refreshing nature to the fact that the Company Band didn’t deconstruct their chemistry in an effort to not sound like Fallon’s other band. “We really didn’t think about anything like that,” Margera told us last week. “We just wanted to play, you know? We didn’t care. Whatever it ended up sounded like was how it sounded. There wasn’t any trying to steer away from anything. I imagine that it’s probably gonna sound like all the bands smashed together.” That it does, that it does. But when your singer has one of the most recognizably distinct voices in Rock, there’s no escaping the dismissive comparisons among the message-board mafia.

If a band’s greatest flaw is that it sounds like the Rock titans they’re affiliated with, it’s a mark they’ll likely wear with pride. Those interested enough to know will be quick to point out the differences in both melody, production, attitude and execution, but the Bone-driven riffs and natural chemistry between members – all fans of each others’ other bands – speaks enough for its own identity. The Company Band is a force to be reckoned with.

Listen to Company Man:

Guitarist Dave Bone, Fireball Ministry’s James Rota, CKY drummer Jess Margera and Fu Manchu’s Brad Davis join Clutch frontman Neil Fallon to make The Company Band, who released an awesome sarcastic-ode-to-corporate-imperialism EP entitled Sign Here, Here, And Here last year. They’ve played a painfully small amount of shows to help the ever-growing boulder of enthusiasm gain speed down the mountain, due to the fact that the members are involved in a myriad of other projects.

We took the party to Jess Margera to get some answers about one of the best bands you’ve never heard of. Yet.

Antiquiet: Can you run through how the band got started in the first place?

Jess Margera: I think it all started between 2005 and 2006. CKY and Fireball Ministry did two or three tours together, and the whole time we were saying man, we should do something, even if it’s just a couple songs, just for fun. And Jim (Rota, guitarist) would tell me about this project he was working on with his buddy Dave. They were just writing songs and shit, and once the tour was over he sent me some songs they’d been working on, and immediately we pretty much got right to work on it. That wound up being the EP that came out. Just for shits and giggles I asked Neil (Fallon, singer) to sing on one of the songs, because I thought it would be cool to get a guest appearance from Neil, you know?

Antiquiet: Of course. What song was it?

Jess Margera: I think I sent him a bunch and said hey, whatever you’re feelin’ would be cool with me. He wound up liking it a lot and saying hey, is it cool if I just sing on all of it? So I was like, cool, yeah, fuck yeah. I’m a huge Clutch fan for at least a decade now, so it was a pleasant surprise that he was so into it.

Antiquiet: Coming from the routine you’ve got now – three bands, three kids – how do you find time for yet another project?

Jess Margera: Man, I don’t even know. I’m amazed that we actually did this full-length, because I thought it would never happen.

Antiquiet: Neither did I! I talked to Neil about two years ago, and he was having a bear of a time finding some free space to lay down some vocals over what you guys had written. It didn’t sound promising at the time…

Jess Margera: Yeah man, I thought my touring schedule was bad, and then I saw Clutch’s schedule and was like good Lord. those guys don’t even go home.

Antiquiet: Speaking of other bands, how’s (new CKY album) Carver City been doing?

Jess Margera: It’s been doing good – especially considering that we took four years off.

Antiquiet: You’re in a unique position with all these bands, and your vantage point is something people can pull a little perspective from, I think. What are your thoughts about the tidal shift in the industry, with the evolution of formats and such?

Jess Margera: I’m just as bummed as anybody to see the actual physical product go away. At the same time though, I think it’s kind of exciting because instead of busting your ass for two years in a studio to make a full-length, now you can churn out EP’s and singles. I think the full-length album… so many bands have one or two good songs and coast on the filler that makes the rest of the album. People get sick of shelling out fifteen bucks for two good songs. And it sucks because there’s bands out there that take it seriously and are putting their hearts into making a great full-length, but they’re outnumbered ten to one by the cheap-asses who’re gunning for the quick bucks.

Antiquiet: Well that’s one of the foundation arguments for illegal downloading, is the opportunity to try something out before you buy it, to see if it’s something worth your money.

Jess Margera: Right. My record store that I’ve been going to since I was nine is about to shut down. It’s hard to watch that, man.

Antiquiet: It is. And that old stereotype of the asshole behind the counter at the record store like in High Fidelity is so much more saturated because they’re losing their livelihood, so they’ve got a chip on their shoulder, and on top of it they’ve got to charge you up the ass for an album just to make ends meet.

Jess Margera: (laughs) You’re right, man. We licensed the actual CD’s and vinyl to a company called Restricted Release, but we’re putting it out on iTunes and such on our own. It’s a pretty cool deal.

Antiquiet: None of the songs on the EP made the album.

Jess Margera: Yeah the EP’s its own thing. Most of the demoing was done through email, and once we got a good batch of songs going, we all got together and played ‘em live as a band to work out the kinks and see how everyone’s flowing.

Antiquiet: Was it a nervous experience, going into that first session with everyone?

Jess Margera: Well I’m totally nervous all the time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s so much fun, but I was a pretty nervous dude in there playing with a bunch of my heroes, you know? (laughs) Like Brad Davis from Fu Manchu is one of the best rock bass players I’ve ever seen.

Antiquiet: And Neil’s got such a specific presence and delivery… was it something you had to consciously remind yourself of, so you didn’t sound too much like Clutch?

Jess Margera: Well that’s the one thing, we really didn’t think about anything like that. We just wanted to play, you know? We didn’t care. Whatever it ended up sounded like was how it sounded. There wasn’t any trying to steer away from anything. I imagine that it’s probably gonna sound like all the bands smashed together.

Antiquiet: It does. There seems to be a lot more melody on the album than on the EP. First off, do you agree with that, and secondly, what was the cause?

Jess Margera: Yeah, I mean Dave Bone writes most of the riffs, so whatever he’s got brewing is kind of where it ends up or starts out with this band. I think there’s way more melody on the full length, but I think that’s just because we built up more of a desire to see where it goes. There were so many songs where we’re like nah, this isn’t really working out, and then we jammed ‘em in the studio and they caught fire. There were also a couple that just happened in the moment, where it’s like yeah, let’s do something right now. Djinn and Pentatonic was one of those that we just kind of came up with. Dave had that riff going and we all just dove in. It came together really quick while we were jamming out in L.A.

Antiquiet: Damn, that’s one of the better tracks on the album, too.

Jess Margera: Yeah, it’s one of the best songs on the record and it came together in like an hour.

Antiquiet: Share your thoughts on another song, Who Else But Us.

Jess Margera: That was one of the early ones that we were working on. It went through a lot of changes, but we stuck it out. And that line: “Roky Erickson said to me/You can trust acid before the CIA” – man, that was fucking awesome.

Antiquiet: That and “Chairman of the waterboard” are up there among the best lines on the album, for sure.

Jess Margera: (laughs) For sure, for sure. Those are gems. It’s just a goddamn blessing to have these people on this record. This one’s close to my heart.