The best things in life are free: Fare You Well, Livaventura, Okkultokrati, Penny Century, We Are the Storm
There's no need to bemoan shrinking music sales when so much of the year's best music was never for sale in the first place. These are not just my top five free downloads for 2009, they are also some of my favorite new releases for the year.
Fare You Well - Overload EP
This is what I expect modern, heart-on-your-sleeve pop/rock to sound like except it almost never does. The lyrical content might be a little overly sentimental for this grumpy old man, but I love those all those huge vocal harmonies, anthemic choruses and little unexpected melodic twists -- it's the sound of a band that knows exactly what they're doing and does it well. If careers were still built on radio, I bet this band would be huge.
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Livaventura - Those who walk the last mile
I'm not sure what exactly happened behind the scenes with these guys, but their album "...And they slept with their eyes open" made my 2009 best-of contender list as soon as I first heard it in late 2008. And then its release date was pushed back. And then it got delayed again. Then they parted ways with vocalist Henriette Nielsen and decided to continue on as a trio. Somewhere along the line, they recorded a new album and posted for free on their website. It's at a less-than-optimal bitrate, but if you dig noisy, hard-driving indierock you need to check these guys out.
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Okkultokrati - Knarkskog EP
This one's actually available as a physical object, but a 7" limited to a mere 200 copies is a souvenir for the die-hard, not a model of conspicious consumption. 2009 was a good year for ugly, negative hardcore and a good source for it was Norway. Okkultokrati are at the top of the pack.
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Penny Century - Valencia EP
Far and away my favorite indiepop release of 2009, I mean it. Not too cloying, never too twee; just quality Norrland pop rock'n'roll. If you like Park Hotell (you should), you've love this too. Doesn't hurt that Mattias Alkberg of The Bear Quartet lends his vocals to two of the five songs, but they would still be a fantastic band even without his help.
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We Are the Storm - s/t EP
Göteborg used to have a monopoly on melodramatic indierock, but these guys from Uppsala are taking over. They take the epic heartache of Broder Daniel and channel it through midwestern emo/pop/rock styles of yesteryear to create something exciting, something worth paying attention to. We Are the Storm are a band bursting with potential.
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