written by Darren C. Demaree
list compiled through votes by AltOhio Music staff

Neko Case is a cyclone in her own right. The strength in this woman's voice is astounding. Add to it that these are her best written, most driving songs of her career, and you have an album worthy of every top whatever list.

Inspired Track: People Got a Lotta Nerve

With a sidestep this time towards a more jazzy folk, Andrew Bird delivers again another interesting, well written album of non-traditional tracks. What takes this album beyond the normal quality Bird delivery is that it's more focused, more centered on what his initial musical roots were.

Inspired Track: Fitz and Dizzyspells

For the first time in a long time, The Black Keys were supplanted in terms of Ohio rock bands. Now, it was just for one summer, but the Heartless Bastards took over my car and ipod from March to July. "The Mountain" made you remember how pure and rhythmically foot-stomping rock can be. With lyrics everybody knows at a live show, and the simplicity of it all, this album is incredible in the easiest to define of ways, it rocks.

Inspired Track: The Mountain

This album gets so much creepier with every listen. I like that. To deliver darkness framed with a beautifully lit gold can be both alluring and frightening in contrast. This album is very self aware. It's also cast against the foreign background of movies. It's really one of those A+B=Z scenarios, but it works so well.

Inspired Track: Marrow

This man, along with Leonard Cohen and Gram Parsons, are the musicians that I respect the most. The best parts of them reverberate in me the way no other music does. It's because I come from the poetry world, and nobody writes better than they do. It's because they know how to haunt you, even when the music stops. This live album, takes Kozelek and strips away everything but a guitar and his incredible words.

Inspired Track: Carry Me Ohio

The echo and delicate harmonies of this album leave us with a believable, cavern of feeling. This album whispers with authority. Another album that it took me two or three tries to really get into, but that was because it's not a car album. You need some awesome headphones and a dark room for this one.

Inspired Track: While You Wait for the Others

One of my best friends explained to me why this album was so damned important to him. He was right. Ben Nichols has always tapped into the booze and frenzy and quick-step turnover of young love. He also has never devalued it. On this album everything got more complex. Giving up your heart at 38 or 28 isn't the same as giving it up at 18, and these songs reflect the gravity of that understanding, while still bringing the same old Lucero fun.

Inspired Track: Darken My Door

Antony & The Johnsons are tough for some people to get into. However, nobody has found a better, weirder, or more important entry point into beautiful music than Antony. Some people burst through a wall, some people look for a knot hole to peer through at whatever is on the other side, Antony floats above it like the most flawed of angels.

Inspired Track: Kiss My Name

A home run on their major label debut. The Avett Brothers have always been a good band, but the addition of Rick Rubin's vantage point crystallized their music on this album. When I talked to Scott Avett earlier this year he said they had an option to do another album with Rubin, here's hoping that partnership continues.

Inspired Track: Slight Figure of Speech

Three years ago, and this is the only time she's ever done this, my wife said "Let's go to a show tonight." She picked A.A. Bondy at the Basement, and since then I've seen him perform there three more times. His first album "American Hearts" had some great moments on it. His second album "When the Devil's Loose" is about as close to perfect as an album can be. With better production, more help, and the same Bondy styling on guitar and vocals it just leaped past all the other albums this year. This album is simple, profound, and will resonate for a long time.