Best of 2011: The Second Half (but not the whole year)

In years past we have posted mid-year and year-end best of lists. As we started thinking about the year end list this year, we realized that there were a handful of albums that came out in the second half of the year that won’t make our final list of the year but certainly would have made the mid-year list if they had come out earlier in the year (or we had bothered to listen to them earlier).

In other words, just like some of the records from the mid-year list don’t make it through to the year end favorites they are still worth noting. We figured that we shouldn’t be short-changing a record just because it came out in the second half of the year, right? There’s an outside chance that some of that made sense, but even if it didn’t here’s my list of the best albums of the second half of 2011 (but not the final list for the year).

Atlas Sound – Parallax. Bradford Cox gets better with each release.

The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient. I was surprised how much I liked this record until I realized how much the single reminded me of a twenty-five year old U2 song.

Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Like Mr. Cox, these boys from San Francisco keep upping the ante.

Blitzen Trapper – American Goldwing. Another step forward.

Wilco – The Whole Love. Wilco is back with a vengeance.