#5 Album for 2009: Wild Beasts - Two Dancers (Domino)

the odds of a very british art-rock band taking this spot were incredibly low, but here we are.  way overlooked in the u.s., this record won me over with its clear vision, sophistication, maturity, and intellect.  the band mostly works by contrasting two expressive, almost indulgent vocalists with a very cool and controlled post-punk sound.  there are lots of guitars but none of them take the spotlight, and there’s the blessing of a really good drummer who pushes the rhythmic complexity of these songs while never overtaking them.  one more notable contrast—most of the lyrics on two dancers are about aggression, chaos, violence, and all kinds of other words that could never possibly describe the singing or music.  i love how they characterize runaway misogyny on “all the king’s men” (which you can listen to above), in which the narrator and his crew terrorize the girls from roedean and whitby, hounslow and shipley.