The Best Album of the Year By a Band That Broke Up After They Released It

I took on four albums this year that, barring any reunions down the road, were their respective bands last albums. These particular bands, for their own reasons, decided to call it day, and, believe it or not, I’m actually not that torn up about it. You see, I subscribe the the three-and-out theory, which simply means that I think most bands do their best work on their first three albums and should stop making music after that. Obviously some bands blow this theory apart, but most of them don’t, so it is with the utmost respect that I salute these bands for bowing out at the right time…and on a high note, which they all have done.

Of the four, The Kings of Frog Island left us with a dark and gloomy masterpiece, III, that almost makes me wish they weren’t leaving. The album always had an eerie air about it, but its somber reflections on death take on a whole new meaning now, and the mesmerizing psych-rock of many of the albums songs foreshadow the fall of a kingdom due to the death of its kings. And for that, III is the best album of the year by a band that broke up after they released it.

We also have to say goodbye to Dirty Sweet (I’m really gonna miss that beard), who made a huge fan out of me with their second and last album, American Spiritual, Dragontears, who dropped their third and final (or at least it’s supposed to be) album Turn On Tune In Fuck Off!! on us (looks like it’s back to Baby Woodrose for our friend Lorenzo), and Josiah (that’s two of Mat Bethancourt’s many lives), who signed off with Procession. All awesome albums.

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The Brought Low
Third Record
Small Stone

It’s a rare and celebratory day when a new Brought Low album drops, so stop whatever it is you’re doing, dust off the ol’ beard, summon the buzzards, and grab a pint of glory. The obviously named Third Record is just that, and only in the last ten years, too. Christ, it’s like these fuckers live looser than a goose the day after Thanksgiving, only stumbling out of their Dudeist rock haze once every four or five years to lay a big, bad-ass, bloozy rock record on us. You’ve got to have a whole heap of respect for a band who rocks on THEIR terms, the same way you envy a fat cat sleeping in the sun on a dusty Sunday afternoon. Fuck, you say, I wish I could live/rock like that.

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