Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

In no particular order this year. Dawn Landes- Meet Me At The River (Yep Roc) Austin Lucas- Immortal Americans (Cornelius Chapel) Pig Destroyer-Head Cage (Relapse) Fucked Up-Dose Your Dreams (Merge) Sleep-The Sciences (Third Man) Ken Mode-Loved (Season of Mist) Grant Lee Phillips-Widdershins (Yep Roc) Damien Jurado-The Horizon Just Laughed (Secretly Canadian) Superchunk-What a Time To Be Alive (Merge) Nothing-Dance on the Blacktop (Relapse) War on Women-Capture the Flag (Bridge 9) Neko Case-Hell-On (ANTI-) Jeff Rosenstock-POST- (Polyvinyl) Lucero-Among the Ghosts (Liberator) Bettye Lavette-Things Have Changed (Verve)

10. Two Gallants - The Bloom and the Blight (ATO) Aptly titled, The Bloom and the Bligh t restores Two Gallants to the levels they had reached with their 2007 self-titled release. Faster than that album, and certainly less ponderous than the somber What the Toll Tells , the album rages. More rockers and less slow songs, it recalls their excellent first platter, The Throes , in mood, temperament, and tempo. Two Gallants bring a lot of sound for a two piece, much like the better known Black Keys, but they are more rooted in traditional folk. Here they strip it back. Adam Stephens' vocals are more cracked, but more capable. The guitar and drums appear little more than a call-to-arms. There is little room for tenderness, Two Gallants are here to rock. Their new take on folk traditions spells it out. Dylan isn't doing anything like this in 2012. If you don't like it, go somewhere else. 9. Off! - S/T (Vice) Punk rock super groups don't often work. Yet Of...