The Best Songs of 2007 - #5 - #1

And finally, here are the top five songs of 2007 as selected by Paul:

5. "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" by Of Montreal - What initially sounds like a fun romp of a song, turns out to be a cry for some sort of chemical relief to mental anguish. Emotional instability never sounded so entertaining thanks to Kevin Barnes' frantic and infectious delivery and a super-catchy, blaring keyboard lead. Hopefully, this will be one Of Montreal song that isn't reworked to sell steak.

4. "Golden Skans" by Klaxons - This song is a perfect mixture of rock power and dance music that matches kick ass guitars and a driving bass line with falsetto disco harmonies. It's hard to resist when it has some much going for it. The intro "oooie-oooie-oh!" hook fiercely drilled its way into my skull and would fester there for days.

3. "Up Against the Wall" by Peter Bjorn & John - This song is built around great drum track, lazy bass line, and an extremely simple guitar riff. I mean, it's only two notes, but it works. In a way, it comes off as a present day take on New Order's "Leave Me Alone". Also, Peter Moren's voice is really great on this track. It may be a little long, but it's very hypnotic. This song's uses in a Levi's ad kept it bubbling in my brain even more. (Here PB&J going off on this song at Headliner's in Louisville, KY back in October. I think that's my head popping into frame around 1:10 and 2:01.)

2. "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" by Radiohead - I probably said all that needs to be said about this song in my initial review of In Rainbows: "This song is a masterpiece of spinning guitars, tight instrumentation, lush singing, that crescendos in intensity in such a subtle way that you don't realize that you are in the middle of the tornado until after the house is off the ground. The band sneaks in layer after layer of guitars and keyboards as Phil Selway's drumming and Colin Greenwood's bass slyly pushes and accents the tempo. Also, this song features Ed O'Brien's distinct background wail which is always a wonderful counterpoint to Yorke's own beautiful singing. To continue the whirlwind analogy, half way through the song the instruments all pull back and we are left suspended in the air to float for a brief period, until the outro does a sonic reverse of the music that lifted us up at the beginning, and pulls us back to the ground."

1. "For Agent 13" by The Besnard Lakes - I already wrote about how much this song blew me away, earlier this year. This song is just mindblowingly awesome. It starts out very slow and deliberate with a boy/girl harmony switch up where she sings the low part and he delivers with a superb falsetto. And what a falsetto it is: eerily beautiful and really pushes Jace Lasek to a his limits without straining. This all culminates into a bombastic ending that is emotionally flooring. Who knew a song about spies could be so intense and emotional?

There it is! I hope the few of you that check out this blog on a semi-regular basis found some new music that grabs you.