Polvo are one of my all time favorite bands, as they sort of exemplified noisy, mathy 90s indie rock that borrowed whatever kind of guitar playing the members felt like in order to sound interesting. Polvo_InPrism_PackageAccused of not tuning their guitars, they could pull off weird time-signature post-punk splices, punk riffs, and Zeppelinesque solos over the space of one song – and that was that. It kicked a lot of ass.
So imagine my happiness at hearing not only they were back together, but they were putting out an album – and imagine my further delight at hearing the album and discovering that it might be their best.

2009 has been one of the best years for new music in recent memory for me, simply because my favorite genres of music have delivered a lot of good stuff. This isn’t to say that the past few years haven’t been great, but most of my favorite new music from, say, 2008, was in genres I didn’t really follow or know much about. So since 2009 has been a great time for heavy, fucked up guitar music, I felt compelled to share which albums have been tops for me. Here are the first two – expect more recommendations coming soon.