9. Juliana Hatfield, In Exile Deo (Zoe)
There's nothing structurally radical about Juliana Hatfield's latest batch of rock songs about lust, addiction, loneliness and betrayal. It's just that each one is so precisely realized: from melody to aphoristic lyrics, from her clear but wary voice to arrangements that support and claw just where they should.
10. Animal Collective, Sung Tongs (Fat Cat)
Avey Tare and Panda Bear, the songwriters behind Animal Collective, have come up with an album as psychedelic as anything from the 1960s. There are moments of nutty overdubbed playfulness and stretches of sublime delicacy that simply revel in the ways guitars can reverberate, not to mention Brazilian beats, Beach Boys harmonies and selected random clatter. They make silliness profound, and vice versa.
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