Highs and lows of the 2007 releases so far
 

In my opinion off course ;)

Highs:

My Brightest Diamond - Tear it down
Thurston Moore - Trees outside the academy
Radiohead - In rainbows
Suzanne Vega - Beauty and crime
PJ Harvey - White chalk
Shellac - Excellent Italian greyhound
Bert Jansch - The black swan
Interpol - Our love to admire
Klaxons - Myths of the near future
Nick Drake - Family tree
The Arcade Fire - Neon bible
Andrew Bird - Armchair apocrypha
Neil Young - Live at Massey Hall

Albums that are just OK:

Björk - Volta
Blonde Redhead - 23
Dinosaur JR - Beyond
Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
Bat for Lashes - Fur and gold (I prefer them live)

Lows:

Laura Veirs - Saltbreakers (really not on a par with her two previous records)
Siouxsie - Mantaray
The Stooges - The weirdness

I haven't listened to Grinderman and the new Neil Young yet.

You can off course post your own list.

FAVORITE ALBUMS SO FAR [with descriptions!]:
1. new sleeping people ["math rock" taken to the next level, fucking amazing and a hot chick plays those frippian guitar lines; one of those bands who'll be worshipped soon]

2. new neurosis [well, they never release a bad record, do they?]

3. new toddle [fucking perfect songwriting, absolutely amazing production, etc etc etc. "college rock" the way it's meant to be played]

4. new stars of the lid [beautiful, epic, expansive. for something so sparsely-arranged, you'll find yourself wanting to listen to it often -- for all its subtle nuances. truely music to live in.]

5. new polysics [well, they also haven't released a bad record. chalk this one up as their weirdest yet.]

OTHER ALBUMS I DUG:
new jesu (which one?!)
new residents
new panda bear
new growing
new venetian snares
new bloodthirsty butchers
new animal collective
new motocompo
new growing
new sloth love chunks
new boredoms (well, not "new", but.. super roots 9)
new experimental dental school (split)
new gein & the graverobbers
new tuks (not sure if it's 2007 actually)
new zazen boys (live album)
new six organs of admittance
new shellac
new om
new sir richard bishop
new oren ambarchi
new battles
new mammal
new boris
new dodheimsgard
new william basinski (well, not "new" but..)
new eluvium
new weedeater
new pre (basically, anything skin graft released, except aids wolf)
new melt banana
new pan sonic
new oxbow

ALBUMS THAT DIDN'T LIVE UP TO MY EXPECTATIONS:
new future of the left (liked it at first but eh..)
new low
new radiohead (very meh)
new deerhoof (this will grow on me..)

ALBUMS THAT JUST SUCKED:
new sightings
new the locust (no surprise)
new les savy fav (how can such a talented band write such an embarassingly bland record?! jesus!)
new throbbing gristle (no surprise there either)
new hella
new pelican
new queens of the stone age

That's all I can recall hearing this year that's considered new.

Luckily, the year's not over, and I'm expecting new Autechre and new Behold.. the Arctopus. Oh fuck, isn't a new Wire CD coming out too?!

battles mirrored?

I'll update this later but off the top of my head:

Mark Sultan- The Sultanic Versus
Dizzee Rascal- Maths and English
High on Fire- Death is this Communion
Skull Defekts- Skkull
Blues Control- Blues Control
v/a-HYPHY HITZ

not listening a lot new records:

GOOOD!
radiohead
pj harvey

mwa:
blonde redhead (bad production)
thurston moore
battles (can't listen the full record)

NIIII!
qotsa

albums that ruled...

battles- mirrored
thurston- trees....
magik markers- boss
lcd soundsystem- sound of silver
shellac- excellent italian greyhound
animal collective- strawberry jam
!!!- myth takes
future of the left- curses
melt banana- bambis dilemma
pj harvey- white chalk
numbers- now you are this
sightings- through thepanama
turbo fruits
six organs of admittance- shelter frm the ash
pre- epic fits
merzbow- merzbear
original silence- the first original silence
bark haze- total joke era
jesu- conquerer
jeffrey lewis- 12 crass songs
radiohead- /in rainbows
liars
julian cope- you gotta problem with me
amiina- kurr
the white stripes- icky thump
low- drums and guns
xiu xiu larsen - spicchiology
silver daggers- new high and ord
growing- vision swim
deerhoof- friend opportunity

those that left me reeling in shame.........
interpol- our love to admire
dinosaur jr- beyond (i liked it when i got ifirst but then it aged so quickly it was unreal)
hella- theres no 666 in outer space
les savy fav- lets stay friends

those im fairly fence sitting about...

the stooges- the weirdness
throbbing gristle- part 2 the endless not
panda bear- person pitch
arcade fire-neon bible (im just bored of them)
qotsa- era vulgaris (although it has some amazing tracks)
bjork- volta


im sure ive left some out
still havent heard the new pan sonic or sleeping people and there is more i know.....

definative list closer to the end of the year.......

HIGH:
- Six Organs Of Admittance - Shelter From The Ash
- Sir Richard Bishop - While My Guitar Violently Bleeds
- Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments
- Peter Brötzmann / Joe McPhee / Kent Kessler / Michael Zerang - Guts
- Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound
- Zu / Nobuzaku Takemura - Identification With The Enemy: A Key To The Underworld
- Original Silence - The First OS
- The Bark Haze - Total Joke Era
MEDIUM:
- Thurston Moore - Trees Outside The Academy
- Blonde Redhead - 23
LOW:
- The Stooges - The Weirdness
- Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
More on the way... as far as i remember them

Albums that rule:

Battles - Mirrored
Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
Liars - Liars
!!! - Myth Takes
Black Dice - Load Blown
Thurston Moore - Trees Outside The Academy
Celebration - The Modern Tribe
Gang Gang Dance - RAWWAR EP
Gomm - 4
Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
SHITDISCO - Kingdom Of Fear
Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release


Still have to listen to the Dragons of Zynth, Sleeping People, LCD Soundsystem... ones

I remembered: MV + EE With The Golden Road: Gettin' Gone and MV + EE: Mers Delta (CD-R) also ruled my ears

for me highs were:
Dinosaur Jr, Beyond
Deerhoof, Friend oppertunity
Shellac, Excellent Italian Greyhound
Thurston Moore, Trees Outside The Academy

I felt a lot of disapointment in general, mainly for:
Radiohead, In Rainbows
Interpol, Our Love to Admire
Smashing Pumpkins, Zeitgeist


and the only other albums ive wanted to get this year are grinderman and the Mv and EE one i think.

Top LP's so far

AIDS Wolf vs. Athletic Automaton "Clash of the Life-Force Warriors"
Brainbombs 2nd singles anthology CD
Home Blitz "self-titled"
Hue Blanc's Joyless Ones "Arriere Garde"
the Intelligence "Deuteronomy"
the Lamps "self-titled"
Little Claw "Spit and Squalor Swallow the Snow"
Los Llamarada "The Exploding Now"
Mudboy "Hungry Ghosts!: These Songs Are Doors"
Pink Reason "Cleaning the Mirror"
Plants "Double Infinity"
Psychedelic Horseshit "Magic Flowers Droned"
Pumice "Pebbles."
Sightings "Through the Panama"
Times New Viking "Present the Paisley Reich"
Volt "self-titled"
Wooden Shjips "self-titled"
Yellow Swans "At All Ends"
Michael Yonkers & the Blind Shake "Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons"
v/a "Pisspounder" 3xLP

Top CDR/cassette ephemera so far

Argumentix "Nightmarcher" cassette
Catatonic Youth "Piss Scene" CDR
Eat Skull "Tour Tape" (w/ The Wrecks demo on side B)
Eternal Tapestry "Vibrations/New Dawn" cassette
Leslie Keffer/Inca Ore split cassette
Leaders "Synthesizer Sketchez & 4 Trak demos" CDR
Penetration Camp "The Gooder Book" 3xCDR
Rainbow Jayne/Stab at God "Well, Actually It´s Not Good to Be Home, Well" split CDR
Soft Shoulder/Shearing Pinx split cassette
Superstitions "No One Gets Out Alive" cassette
Talbot Tagora "Sleepyheads" cassette
U.S. Girls "Introducing..." CDR
Yves/Son/Ace "No Taboos" CDR
v/a "The Fruit Will Rot" vol 3 9x3"CDR
v/a "World War Zero" 2xCDR comp

Best EP's

Blank Dogs "Yellow Mice Sleep" 7"
Blank Dogs "The Doorbell Fire" 7"
Eat Skull "Seeing Things" 7"
El Jesus de Magico "Funeral Home Sessions" 7"
Factums "See Inside" 7"
Hank IV "Dirty Poncho" 7"
Human Eye "Spiders & Their Kin" 7"
ICK "La Parade des Sans Illusions" 7"
Dan Melchior und das Menace "The Pink Scream" 12"
Mutators "Paper Words" 7"
Nothing People "In the City" 7"
QEK Junior "Wohnanhangar" 7"
Slicing Grandpa "Chaos Midnight" 10"
So Cow "Moon Geun Young" 7"
Tyvek "Summer Burns" 2x7"

Fuck, should've asked this two weeks ago, before my computer exploded... I'll get back to this...

Once again, some of the absolute best albums are rereleases and newly released live albums...
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation remastered and Live Daydream
Charles Mingus Sextet (featuring Eric Dolphy) - Cornell 1964
Pink Floyd - The Piper At the Gates of Dawn 40th anniversary set (limited edition bonus disc 3 has some real gems)
Neil Young - Live at Massey Hall 1971
R.E.M. - R.E.M. Live (from The Point Theatre, Dublin '05...personally, I think the 5/07/01 studio 105 la maison de la radio, Paris FM is a better performance with many of the same songs)
Sebadoh - Wade Through The Boggs (live, alt. tracks, and previously unreleased material compilation)

...and then there's the upper echelon of the new releases...
The Original Silence - The First Original Silence (the album of the year, actually from a Rome '05 live performance, so I suppose this also actually belongs in the category above)
Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II (features an unreleased 18-minute track "Ordinary People" from 1988's This Note's for You with the Bluenotes, so again, I suppose this also actually belongs in the category above; also, much of it sounds like Prairie Wind, but that's not a bad thing; "The Painter" from Prairie Wind was my 2005 song of the year)
Battles - Mirrored (remarkable debut lp and the best truly new album of the year)
Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam (they just keep getting better)
Bruce Springsteen - Magic (about half of this is amazingly great, an absolute return to fine form, and the other half is not bad)
Radiohead - In Rainbows (something new from these guys)
Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond (a reunion dealie, "Crumble" (Mascis vox) and "Lightning Bulb" (Barlow vox) are the standouts)
Meat Puppets - Rise To Your Knees (another reunion dealie; "Disappear" is wonderful in particular)

...next comes the uneven, but very enjoyable listens...
Thurston Moore - Trees Outside the Academy (still diggin' the frozen gtr lead-off track the most)
Patti Smith - Twelve (all covers of course, most are very good)
Melt-Banana - Bambi's Dilemma (probably the most relentlessly insane album of the year, and battles is included in that assessment)
Liars - Liars (completely over-the-top at times, and right-on the other part of the time)
Bjork - Volta ("Earth Intruders (Mark Stent extended mix)" is probably the single best track of the year, but yeah, the album is a bit uneven; and the cover has got to be the most ridiculous)
Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity (somewhat of a disappointment as a Deerhoof album, but very good nonetheless)
Suzanne Vega - Beauty & Crime (go Lee!)
Bad Brains - Build A Nation (yet another reunion)
The Stooges - The Weirdness (another reunion; "Passing Cloud" is one of the very best songs of the year)
Wolf Eyes - Black Wings Over Sand (dronier than ever, less noisy overall, and much less assaultive, this one is a magnificently heavy trip)
T.I. - T.I. vs. T.I.P. (yo, yo, yo this is an ambitious undertaking that's also a good record; as you may know, he's currently in very hot water over some guns)
Low - Drums & Guns (much more stripped-down, but the minimalist approach works for the most part)
Black Dice - Load Blown (slighty better than Broken Ear Record from a couple of years ago)
Brad Mehldau - Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz Radio Broadcast (fairly amazing jazz piano duets)

...cassette craziness...
Thurston Moore - Free/Love cassette
Thurston Moore - Black Weeds/White Death cassette
Bark Haze - McCannibis cassette

uneven, but better than I expected...
Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light
The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
Ween - La Cucaracha
Built To Spill - You In Reverse

...and the, I suppose, decent, but also somewhat disappointing...
Public Enemy - How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?
Mehldau/Metheny Quartet - s/t (I've never liked Pat Metheny much. I know Lee likes him though. Yes, I am a Mehldau devotee, but I've never been particularly wild about Larry Grenadier's bass and I like Jeff Ballard on drums, but Jorge Rossy was greatness. It's a pity Jorge has opted to form his own band.)
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. - Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars
The Bad Plus - Prog (as good or better than any Bad Plus, but that's not saying much; the piano in the bridge of the "Tom Sawyer" cover rocks socks eight ways from Sunday though)
Magik Markers - Boss (the best thing they've ever done, but that's not saying a whole lot)
The Dead C - Future Artists
Throbbing Gristle - Part Two: Endless Not (more reunions)
Skinny Puppy - Mythmaker (more reunions)
Cowboy Junkies - At the End of Paths Taken
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
Merle Haggard - The Bluegrass Sessions
John Fogerty - Revival (the Letterman replay I just saw explains it all: "Long Dark Night" blisters, and "I Can't Stand It No More" is almost throwaway junk)
Grinderman - Grinderman
Richard Thompson - Sweet Warrior
Tomahawk - Anonymous (points for ambition, but this is perhaps a little too ambitous)
Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound (yet another reunion)

and the mostly extremely disappointing...
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand (team-up action that mostly falls flat)
The Beastie Boys - The Mix Up (yet another reunion; an instrumental album from these guys is a head-scratcher...this shit is boring)
Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist (yet another reunion; pretty much all fluff except for the so-so wannabe epic "United States")
Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (I wonder how many more years these formulaic hacks are gonna keep doing the same damn types of songs)
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Bryan Ferry - Dylanesque
Frog Eyes - Tears of the Valedictorian
Merzbow - Coma Berenices

Why such dislike for Shellac's new work?

forgot to put grinerman into my good list and the beasties into my meh list, again it was good on first week of listening but its now boring! and also the sebadoh new album (kind of) is great too!

I can't think what has been released when. My top CD of the year, though, has been Julia Kent's "Delay", about which I have raved countless times already and which has been released on Important in the US.

Also of note, Gareth Hardwick's "Sunday Afternoon" CDR on Blackest Rainbow.

I'm a little disappointed by the Wooden Shjips CD, it doesn't live up to the promise of the early singles.

best so far:

nels cline singers - draw breath
nels cline / tom rainey / andrea parkins - downpour
wilco - sky blue sky
thurston moore - trees outside the academy
devin sarno - full dynamics frequency spectrum
g.e. stinson / devin sarno - heart cell memory
carlos giffoni / lasse marhaug - lesbian brunch
carlos giffoni / merzbow / jim o'rourke - electric dress
celer - bells
christian fennesz / ryuichi sakamoto - cendre
original silence - the first original silence
silence kit - the great red spot
wooden wand - james & the quiet
the national - boxer
magik markers - boss
meat puppets - rise to yr knees
big business - here come the waterworks
dinosaur jr. - beyond
marissa nadler - songs 3
book of knots - traineater
sunburned hand of the man - z
battles - mirrored

Bestest ones for me this year:

Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
Bloc Party - Weekend In The City
Dinosaur Jr - Beyond
Dizzee Rascal - Maths + English
Magik Markers - Boss
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound
The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
Thurston Moore - Trees Outside The Academy

and the DDN reissue, if it counts...

Highs:
Battles
Panda Bear
Animal Collective
A Place to Bury Strangers
Feist
Picastro

Mehs:
Radiohead
Deerhoof
Ween

Lows:
Les Savy Fav
Shitty bands

Trees Outside The Academy, In Rainbows, Strawberry Jam, Year Zero, Zeitgeist... In order, I think... :)