10 Underrated Classics Of is a recurring series where BrooklynVegan staff writers look back on 10 albums they love from a particular genre/era/etc that they feel deserve more credit in the present-day. For this edition, Andrew picks 10 of his favorite gems from the 2000s indie era.
2000s indie was the very thing that BrooklynVegan (which turns 20 this year) was originally built on, so of course it holds a huge place in all of our hearts. It’s also a style of music that hasn’t really gone away–icons from that era now produce Taylor Swift albums, and a lot of current music in both the underground and the mainstream take obvious cues from the version of indie that took over the world in the days of The Strokes, Garden State, and The O.C. So many beloved artists from that era are bigger than ever, we’ve probably heard all about the albums whose 10th, 15th, and 20th anniversaries have or will soon be widely celebrated, so I wanted to dig up some treasures that we might not be hearing as much about when they reach their next milestone. As a millennial, this is an era I lived and devoured in real time, and there are hundreds of albums from those days that we could talk ad nauseam about, so the 10 I chose for this list are just 10 records I like a lot that I wanted to write about and hopefully turn some people onto. Of course there are lots of other albums I could’ve chosen instead, and who knows, maybe we’ll do a part two or something some day.
For now, read about the 10 I did choose, presented in chronological order from 2004-2009…
S – Puking and Crying (2004)
Suicide Squeeze
The most famous band to rise out of the ashes of the beloved Carissa’s Wierd was Band of Horses, but there were a handful of others and one of the most criminally overlooked is co-founder and co-vocalist Jenn Champion’s solo career. She continues to deliver heartwrenching indie rock (last year’s The Last Night of Sadness is excellent), and she’s been doing it for over two decades. Puking and Crying, Jenn’s second album as S and the first album she released after Carissa’s Wierd broke up, is a masterclass in sad, slow, rickety indie rock that’s as goosebump-inducing today as it was 20 years ago. With a backdrop fueled by clean or lightly distorted electric guitar, buzzing synths, glitchy beats, and the occasional bare-bones drum kit, Puking and Crying reads as a devastatingly plainspoken breakup album that lives up to its title. Impassioned, diary-ready one-liners like “I hate myself for making you hate me/I hope to god you remember everything” land like gut punches, and Jenn’s delivery makes these emotions feel like you’re experiencing them for the first time. When the songwriting is this raw and intimate, the music really never goes out of style.
The Robot Ate Me – Carousel Waltz (2005)
5 Rue Christine
The bedroom pop genre is bigger now than ever–thanks in part to technology making it much easier to home-record and self-release than it was 20 years ago–and one of the ahead-of-its-time bedroom pop albums of the mid 2000s that would sound really good in today’s landscape is The Robot Ate Me’s third album, Carousel Waltz. Following the shapeshifting, experimental pop of 2004’s On Vacation, band leader Ryland Bouchard stripped things back for Carousel Waltz, an album fueled by creaky organs, light acoustic guitars, minimal percussion, one particularly groovy bassline (“Tonight”), and no lack of addictively quirky melodies. Released on Kill Rock Stars offshoot label 5 Rue Christine, the album drew some comparisons at the time to The Microphones/Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum (who Robot Ate Me also shared bills with back in the day), but it’s even clearer in hindsight that Ryland’s music has always had a vibe of its own, and this album stands out from whatever it might’ve been compared to. With some of the artists on this list, I admittedly wonder if you “had to be there,” but not this one. This feels ready to be rediscovered and re-embraced by a new generation the way Duster or Dear Nora were in recent years. I don’t know what kind of fairy dust has to be sprinkled on an old record for that to happen, but here’s hoping this one gets its flowers.
Hail Social – Hail Social (2005)
Polyvinyl
Before Dayve Hawk became one of the buzzy names of the chillwave era with Memory Tapes, he led the too-often-forgotten Hail Social, whose first album was fueled by the kind of bass-heavy dance-punk that ruled indie in the Bloc Party/Franz Ferdinand era. This kind of music was pretty oversaturated at the time, so it was easy to get lost in the shuffle, but Hail Social always stood out to me as being more than just another dime-a-dozen post-punk revivalist. Especially once Dayve Hawk’s appealing voice and songwriting style finally did have its moment with Memory Tapes, it became even more fascinating to look back on the louder, harder, dancier vibes of this album, which are unlike anything else he did after. (Even the second Hail Social album, 2007’s Modern Love and Death, was a synthier record that leaned more towards what Memory Tapes eventually became.) He’s great at the more forceful singing style of this record, and these nine hooky songs all sound like they could’ve been breakthrough hits of the post-punk revival era if the band was dealt a luckier hand. There’s a not a dud here, the record’s got choruses for days, and the secret weapon is that arsenal of basslines. Killer tone, and they cut through the mix exactly like a great post-punk bassline should.
Parenthetical Girls – Safe As Houses (2006)
Slender Means Society
In a just world, Xiu Xiu affiliates and Perfume Genius tourmates Parenthetical Girls would have the legacy of the former and/or the fame of the latter. Formed in the early 2000s by Zac Pennington (whose label Slender Means Society also released music for The Blow, Owen Pallett’s Final Fantasy project, and the collaborative Xiu Xiu/Grouper record), Parenthetical Girls were an art rock group that put their queerness in the forefront and constantly toyed with gender at a time when the indie music world wasn’t as open-minded when it came to gender and sexuality as it is now. Their sophomore album Safe As Houses–made by Zac, Jherek Bischoff, and Sam Mickens–is a concept album sung from the perspective of a mother who resents the birth of her daughter, who ends up being run over by a train and killed at a young age. It’s tragic and complex from so many different angles, and Zac sings it with a soaring, androgynous wail that you can’t help but be entranced by. Glockenspiels, strings, synths, clattering percussion, and more make for a stirring backdrop, and the album’s artsy melancholy is matched by how undeniably catchy it is. At its core, Safe As Houses is ultimately great pop songwriting and if you’re a fan of poppy-yet-weird mid 2000s indie rock but haven’t heard this one, I think you’ll find it very easy to latch onto.
Swan Lake – Beast Moans (2006)
Jagjaguwar
It’s surprising that Swan Lake is in fact underrated, considering the band’s lineup is Dan Bejar (Destroyer, The New Pornographers), Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown), and Carey Mercer (Frog Eyes), but this supergroup of Canadian indie rock weirdos feels lost to time in a way that most of the members’ other projects do not. It’s unfortunate, because–if you ask me–Beast Moans is one of the best albums to come out of that whole scene. The three members alternate lead vocals throughout the album, and these three were just coming out with great songs left and right in this era. They also mesh very well together–all three have unconventional voices that sound even more delightfully strange in harmony together, and all three have a completely off-kilter approach to pop songwriting. They also each bring their own distinct flavor, and the result is an album that manages to feel disorienting and uplifting all at once.
The Most Serene Republic – Population (2007)
Arts & Crafts
The Most Serene Republic arrived on the scene as a many-membered, Canadian baroque indie rock band at a time when that combination of words was all the rage, and they were the first non-Broken Social Scene-related band signed to Arts & Crafts, but they never got nearly as big as BSS, Arcade Fire, or The New Pornographers. That’s a shame, because they scratch a similar itch to those bands, and they do it in a way that doesn’t sound like any of their peers. Their 2007 sophomore album Population is one of the epics of that era, an era in which “indie rock” regularly meant eccentric bands shooting for the Sgt. Pepper’s-sized stars in a way that was tuneful but not necessarily radio-friendly. The Most Serene Republic were among the proggiest and most experimental of the bunch, with group harmonies and string/horn arrangements that were every bit as uplifting as their neighbors but always with a wrench thrown in. Drummer Tony Nesbitt-Larking has a sense of controlled chaos that makes the songs sound like they’re walking a tightrope without ever losing balance. The album is just as likely to deliver breezy folk-pop (“The Men Who Live Upstairs”) as it is to break out into a jazz odyssey (“A Mix of Sun and Cloud”). Population isn’t exactly “psychedelic” in the traditional sense, but the warped, vivid imagery of its lyrics and the balance between comfort and unease is a serious head-trip. It was very of its time in many ways, but when you sound this off-kilter in the first place, you kinda never go out of style.
Voxtrot – Voxtrot (2007)
Playlouderecordings/Beggars Group
When Voxtrot signed to Beggars Group and followed their buzzed-about EPs with their debut full-length album in 2007, there was a feeling from multiple critics at the time that the album failed to follow through on the promise of the EPs. But 17 years and an exciting reunion later, I think those critics had it backwards. The EPs, as undeniable as they are, sound more dated and less unique in hindsight. It’s on the album where Voxtrot break away from wearing their influences on their sleeves and really find a sound that continues to stand out from their contemporaries. (It’s my humble opinion that their final single before breaking up, 2009’s “Berlin, Without Return…,” is actually their best song.) Singer Ramesh Srivastava finds the soaring, boyish voice that would remain his calling card well into his solo career on this album, his lyrics became more vivid and suspenseful, and the album’s string arrangements elevate the songs and turn the album into something much grander than the skeletal indie rock of the EPs. It’s unfortunate that Voxtrot were victims of the blog rock hype machine turning on bands as quickly as they championed them, but time has treated this album well and I’d say that sticking to their artistic ambitions was the right choice in the long run.
The Helio Sequence – Keep Your Eyes Ahead (2008)
Sub Pop
For my money, it’s one of the great and most confusing injustices of 2000s indie rock that The Helio Sequence never had their big moment, especially given their connection to Modest Mouse. (The Helio Sequence’s Benjamin Weikel was the drummer on Modest Mouse’s hit 2004 record Good News for People Who Love Bad News, and they also subconsciously borrowed a melody from that band’s “Gravity Rides Everything” on this album’s “The Captive Mind.” Both songs are great!) While touring in support of 2004’s Love and Distance, singer/guitarist Brandon Summers began losing his voice, and in order to save it, doctors ordered him to stop speaking for at least two months. He underwent some lifestyle changes to nurse himself back to health as well, and taught himself new vocal exercises and microphone techniques, and he emerged an even better singer than he was beforehand. His voice sounded prettier than ever on Keep Your Eyes Ahead, and the then-new direction of the songwriting matched. KYEA fit nicely next to The Helio Sequence’s vocal reverb-loving Sub Pop labelmates in Band of Horses and Fleet Foxes, but outside of the two somber acoustic songs (“Shed Your Love” and “Broken Afternoon”) and the eccentrically rustic closer “No Regrets,” Keep Your Eyes Ahead isn’t a folk album. It begins with the grand, soaring, climactic “Lately,” a song with so much detail about not thinking about a former partner, that the song’s narrator was surely unreliable. Elsewhere on the album, organic guitars meet bubbling synths on “The Captive Mind,” “You Can Come To Me,” and “Hallelujah,” the last of which can retroactively sound like a precursor to the indie-heartland-synth-rock trend of the mid 2010s. There’s twitchy art rock on “Can’t Say No,” and there’s the propulsive title track, which injects Brandon’s delicate vocals and effected electric guitars with a driving post-punk backbone. It’s a should-be hit that I’d still put next to any of the Just Like Heaven bands’ biggest hits.
Say Hi – The Wishes and the Glitch (2008)
Euphobia Records
Eric Elbogen’s fifth album saw him shortening his moniker from Say Hi to Your Mom to simply Say Hi, and the less juvenile band name was matched by a maturation in songwriting. The change is clear off the bat with opener “Northwestern Girls,” a should-be hit that’s simultaneously as anthemic as Arcade Fire and as subdued as Pedro the Lion (the latter’s David Bazan also contributes to this album). Eric abandoned previous lyrical themes like vampires and robots in favor of something more personal and melancholic, and he also upped the production quality while staying true to Say Hi’s reputation as a literal home-recorded bedroom pop act. The album also followed Eric’s move from Brooklyn to Seattle, and when he and Seattle-based guest vocalist Nouela Johnston belt “It must be in the air here!” on the “Northwestern Girls” chorus, it feels like a mantra for the entire album. It’s an album that’s very rooted in PacNW-style indie rock (it makes sense that Say Hi signed to Barsuk for this album’s followup), with cutesy, catchy, romantic songs that constantly teeter between electronic and organic instrumentation. It’s stylistically very 2000s, but the concept–modest, bare-bones music that’s infectiously poppy–is timeless.
Nurses – Apple’s Acre (2009)
Dead Oceans
The Merriweather Post Pavilion / Veckatimest era was filled with “next Animal Collective / Grizzly Bear” bands, and one band who never ascended to that level of popularity but did make one hell of a good record is Nurses. Since forming in Chicago in 2006, the duo of Aaron Chapman and John Bowers moved states a few times before landing in the psychedelia-friendly Portland, OR, and they brought in percussionist James Mitchell for their second and best album, 2009’s Apple’s Acre (their Dead Oceans debut). The album famously “may or may not involve a standard drum kit,” and they recorded it an Idaho attic using nothing but an internal MacBook microphone. It epitomizes the way “lo-fi” and “homemade” music in the late 2000s was made, with all the endearing charms that come along with that sort of process, but it’s also kind of wild how big the songcraft is, given the intimate limitations of the recording process. The members of Nurses don’t have the pristine voices of AnCo or Grizzly Bear or genre OGs The Beach Boys, but they pushed their limited ranges to the fullest and came out with wondrous, kaleidoscopic psych-pop. Apple’s Acre is less a modern answer to Pet Sounds and more a modern Smiley Smile, the ramshackle, home-recorded album that The Beach Boys made after abandoning Pet Sounds‘ ambitious followup Smile. There’s a lot to be said for that kind of album too, and nobody else during the late 2000s psych-pop craze was really toeing that line between rickety and majestic the way Nurses were. Psychedelic pop music gets called “hypnotic” for a reason, and I’ve been under Apple’s Acre‘s spell even longer than a lot of the similar albums with bigger legacies.
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Listen to a playlist of all 10 albums:
PREVIOUSLY:
* 10 Underrated Classics of Early 2000s Emo
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Top photo: Voxtrot at their 2022 Webster Hall reunion show. More by P Squared here.