In any other year, and I do mean anything other year, this would be lucky to crack the top 10. But 2007 was easily the worst year in rock-related music. It was, because no other adjective is accurate, pure crap. Sure, there were some good songs and some decent albums, but there is no justifiable way this should be the best album of the year. Yes it was good, but that's comparatively.

How comeback albums go, this is fairly solid. Dinosaur Jr. sound like it did when it broke up, and give the band ten years and it will write some good songs. But it is nothing like the band's first three albums. It lacks punch, vitality, meaning. If this came out in 1997, I would have been happy. But not in 2007. You would have thought the band would have learned.

Tullycraft was twee-pop's best band for the second half of the nineties. While they've become more pop than twee-pop since then, few bands have Tullycraft's knack for an obnoxiously catchy melody. For anyone who wants that, this album will not disappoint.

The first good grindcore album in three years. I'm not sure if the album cover or the songs are more frightening, but both are superb. While 2007 was a shitty year overall, the grindcore scene did flourish. This was the high point.

Obscure in the states for its entire twenty-five plus year history, New Model Army just keeps on releasing lost gems. No, this is not its best album, but by golly is it good. The band sounds just like it did twenty years ago, making punkish rock unlike any other fifty-year-olds, save Mission of Burma.