If I judged this list on sheer heartbreaking beauty, the self-titled debut record from A Winged Victory For The Sullen would have walked it by a country mile. But it's about more than that, so Adam Wiltzie and Dustin O'Halloran's new project has just missed out on the top spot glory. However, each of the final three on this list are deserving of top spot, but a joint number one would have been a cop-out.
Okay, so it's very much a mood piece and you wouldn't stick AWVFTS on as a party record, but it's without question the most moving record of the year and one I've returned to time and again to uncover previously unnoticed layers of glacial genius.
An orchestral record calling on ambient, classical and post-rock, and recorded as a kind of posthumous tribute to Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, there'a a great well of sadness and emotion to much of the record, yet it also proves to be an uplifting experience. Consisting of piano and strings (some courtesy of Peter Broderick), these instrumental movements go from barely-there teardrop keys to grand swells of string quartets, and there's also choral backing, looped gentle guitars and washes of ambient synths. O'Halloran's piano work is the star of the show, just shading it from the gorgeous strings and Wiltzie's brilliant hand in making sure everything sounds perfect.
I can't fault this record at all; staggeringly beautiful and deeply emotional, ambitious but never grandstanding for the sake of it, A Winged Victory For The Sullen is an astonishing achievement.
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