Top Albums of 2010, numbers 5 through 2.....

#5 The Love Language- Libraries

Love Language main man Stuart McLamb blows indie-pop through Phil Spector’s wall of sound, and creates a mini-masterpiece in the process. The Raleigh, North Carolina band’s sound has an antique feel, as though it could have been heard coming through the wooden console radio after one of FDR’s fireside chats. The album, full of grand gestures and southern gothic atmosphere, would probably be best heard in an abandoned music hall. You know, if you’ve got one lying around.

  For Fans of: Camera Obscura, The Botticellis

 Listen to "Brittany's Back"

#4 Lower Dens- Twin Hand Movement

I knew I’d like this band just based on their name and was proven right when I tracked down a couple of their tunes on YouTube. My love for the record was cemented driving in the late morning hours with it blasting on the car’s stereo. Frontwoman Jana Hunter’s rumbling, low end vocals set a murky tone for the bluesy, reverb heavy tunes, which carry just enough twang to make you think the Baltimore band secretly emerged from somewhere deep in the (dark) heart of Texas.

 For Fans of: Come, The War on Drugs

Listen to "Tea Lights"

#3 Cotton Jones- Tall Hours in the Glowstream

I was already a fan of Michael Nau’s first band with wife Whitney McGraw, Page France, who’s folk pop was sparse, but upbeat and positive. Cotton Jones first album was similar to Page France, if a little more country fried and morose, but on Tall Hours, Nau’s adopted a ghostly plaint in his voice that sounds like a cross between Willy Nelson’s lonelier moments and a southern gospel singer crying from the bottom of a well. Sure, it might be an affectation, but boy is it a purdy one.

 For fans of: Old-timey southern gospel, Deer Tick

Listen to "Somehow Keep it Going"

#2 Beach House- Teen Dream

Not sure what’s in the water in Chesapeake Bay, but albums 4, 3, and 2 on this list are all from bands hailing from Baltimore. Beach House’s breakthrough is a hazy, low key take on pop slows the hooks down from 45 to 33 and volume from 11 to, I don’t know, 3, creating a dreamy, woozy , spectral atmosphere. Bears repeated listening.

 For Fans of: Galaxie 500, Wye Oak

Listen to "Lover of Mine"