As 2010 makes ready to jump into the double-digit months, it occurred to me the other day to go back and take a look at my Top 10 of 2009. I remembered a few of the albums that rated off the top of my head, if not the order they were put in, but I thought it might be fun to look through the list and see where I stand on the albums 10 months later. Let’s check it out:

1. YOB, The Great Cessation (Profound Lore)
Yup, this is still the best album that came out last year. Check.

2. Los Natas, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (Small Stone)
Also still rules. Like YOB, I keep this one on me almost all the time.

3. Masters of Reality, Pine/Cross Dover (Brownhouse)
I think I was just really happy Chris Goss put a new album out, although I’ve started to listen to it again now that it’s getting a domestic US release and there are a couple really quality tracks.

4. Truckfighters, Mania (Fuzzorama)
Every time I listen to this album, I’m reminded of how much I dig it. It’s in the same CD wallet as YOB and Los Natas, but I don’t reach for it as much.

5. Shrinebuilder, Shrinebuilder (Neurot)
I hardly ever listen to this anymore, but killer album, killer performances, killer personnel. Can’t wait to get swept up in the hype for the next one, then do the same thing.

6. Crippled Black Phoenix, The Resurrectionists/Night Raider (Invada)
I like the art so much for this album, I don’t even touch it because I’m afraid of screwing it up or leaving fingerprints. It’s gathering dust on my shelf. Pretty dust though, so that’s alright.

7. Wino, Punctuated Equilibrium (Southern Lord)
Am I the only one who thinks maybe Wino meant “punctured” instead of “punctuated?” I just happen to be wearing my t-shirt of the album cover today, so I guess it still curries favor. “Smiling Road” rules.

8. Yawning Sons, Ceremony to the Sunset (Lexicon Devil)
This one still gets listened to regularly, is in that CD wallet. If I was making this list today, it might be number three.

9. Om, God is Good (Drag City)
Cool album, but I never put it on anymore. Maybe I will now.

10. Them Crooked Vultures, Them Crooked Vultures (Interscope)
Josh Homme could take a dump on my brand new cupcake and I’d still have a man-crush on him, so this one was bound to show up. Needless to say, I went back to the first couple Queens of the Stone Age albums shortly thereafter.

If I had the list to do over, I’d put Blood by Snail on it, and maybe Church of Misery‘s Houses of the Unholy, which has kept its appeal pretty well. Other than that, I stand by most of the picks above. Let me know if there’s something I missed out on or anything you can think of that you never returned to once January hit.

Maybe the reason I keep saying it is because I was so damned surprised to find it out, but Om is better without Chris Hakius. As a replacement in the duo alongside bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros, Emil Amos of Grails shines in the drummer role. I was beyond skeptical as they were getting ready to take the stage at Roadburn this year, but they blew my mind. Likewise, when I finally picked up a copy of their first release for Drag City, the provocatively/dogmatically titled God is Good, the astonishment carried over in such a way as to make me even more excited than I already had been for the future of the band.

With only four tracks, God is Good makes the most of the Steve Albini recording job to come off with a natural and live sound that’s centered around the Cisneros‘ warm bass, but branches out in multiple directions as well. On 19-minute opener “Thebes,” Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (a.k.a. Lichens) guests on tambura, and Lorraine Rath joins Amos and Cisneros on flute for “Meditation is the Practice of Death.” Ending couplet, “Cremation Ghat I” and “Cremation Ghat II” find Om again indulging their eastern influence with Lowe on additional vocals and tambura (respectively), but as much as God is Good satisfies by expanding the sound of the band, the stylistic trademarks that have come to reveal themselves over the past three albums are reinforced as well, making this still very much an Om record.

Ideally, God is Good will mark the beginning of a new era for Om. As someone who was unimpressed with their lone offering for Southern Lord, 2007′s Pilgrimage, but was glad to fill my lungs and drown in the two albums prior, I’m glad to hear their progression so evident on this latest offering, and definitely consider it to be one of the year’s best.

The necessity of getting Shrinebuilder bassist Al Cisneros on the phone made itself known before his band’s show Sunday night in Manhattan was even over. In particular, a discussion with him seemed warranted because, of all the players on the stage at Le Poisson Rouge with him, Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Scott “Wino” Weinrich and Melvins‘ Dale Crover, Cisneros was in the middle, and when he took the mic at the end of the set for his part in “Pyramid of the Moon,” the night was transformed into something epic and a wave of energy coursed through the crowd. It was kinetic.

Our conversation was short, but informative. Cisneros, fresh back in California from a few days spent in Austin, TX, following the last of the five shows on Shrinebuilder‘s run, confirmed that writing has already begun for a fifth Om record and a second Shrinebuilder, that Shrinebuilder will play the 2010 Scion Rock Fest and that the legendary trio Sleep, in which he was vocalist and bassist with Matt Pike (High on Fire) on guitar and Chris Hakius on drums, will indeed be playing in the US September of next year.

And even though I just told you all of that, it’s still worth reading, after the jump, as always. Enjoy.

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I’ve decided not to give it a full review, because it’s been out for a while already and because I paid for it (with my blood, sweat and pseudo-intellectualism), but God is Good, Om‘s first record for Drag City is worth some comment anyway. The digipak came to me in my latest All that is Heavy order, and I’ve been grooving on its moody sensibilities and stoned spirituality ever since. Turns out I was right to look forward to hearing it.

Of course, the big story here is that it’s the first Om record without Chris Hakius on drums. When bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros announced Hakius was out of the band, I scoffed, said there was no way they’d be any good. Mostly because I’m a cynical dick and that’s usually the way things work. As I’ve said several times on this site and elsewhere, Om are better with Grails‘ Emil Amos behind the kit. I don’t know if it’s his experimental tendencies or just that Hakius had gotten bored with Om‘s breadth, but God is Good surpasses 2007′s Pilgrimage in every way possible.

More than that, it shows Om expanding its horizons. Not necessarily lyrically — Cisneros is sticking to his guns there — but with a tamboura from Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe on 19-minute opener “Thebes,” and later on the much shorter “Cremation Ghat I” (3:11) and “Cremation Ghat II” (4:58), Om‘s sound is undergoing a subtle progression that is well suited to what fans have come to expect from them. God is Good presented Cisneros with a great chance to change things up since so much was already going to be different with 50 percent of the band brand new.

“Meditation is the Practice of Death” (6:51) boasts a flute and solid musical conversation between Cisneros and Amos. More even than the expansive “Thebes,” it’s here the chemistry between the two players can be heard. Doubtless Steve Albini‘s production had something to do with bringing that out, but even he wouldn’t be able to fake that if it wasn’t there in the first place.

The point, since it’s about time to get there, is if you’ve been sitting on your hands and waiting to hear God is Good, it’s worth checking out. I’ve come across complaints that the “Cremation Ghat” tracks are too short, but every Om record since their 2005 debut, Variations on a Theme, has been under 35 minutes, and this is right in there. If people are longing for more, take that as a sign of the general success of the work and don’t deny yourself the chance to hear it.

A short while after his set was over, I found Six Organs of Admittance?s Ben Chasny at the bar sitting next to the figure announced to the crowd as Andrew when he had taken the stage. ?This is my friend Andrew,? Chasny had said. Fair enough.

I had spent the better part of the Six Organs set cursing out, both inwardly and outwardly, the crowd surrounding, whose rude, self-important chatter had ruined the whole thing. Fucking hipsters. When I ran into Chasny at the bar — I?d gone looking for another beer — I told him how fucking ridiculous the asshole factor had been and how I?d seen his Roadburn set and basically that Brooklyn could suck my balls. Already well liquored up, I?ve no delusions that it was received as eloquent.

Prior, about five minutes into the show, I had sent a text message to The Patient Mrs., who was having a sandwich and watching the playoffs at another bar down the street, that said I might have no recourse but to get plastered, such was the level of recession-proof pose out beardo hipster douchery surrounding. I?d arrived at Europa about 30 seconds into the recently interviewed Naam?s first song, and the crowd only got worse as the night wore on. Nothing to do but get drunk.

?Please don?t. We?re broke.? was the message I got back. Sorry baby.

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It’s a miserable morning/afternoon to wake up to here in the valley, rainy and cold, and one gets the sense that any second now every single leaf on every single tree out my window is going to die and fall off and by 3PM it’s going to be winter. As I have tickets to the Yankees game later, I certainly hope that doesn’t happen.

If there’s something to save this wretched looking day, it’s new music from OM and Shrinebuilder, posted at Stereogum and on their MySpace page, respectively. It’s like a big Cisneros party. Because it doesn’t seem like it’ll crash the entire site, here’s “Cremation Ghat II” by OM:

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Sorry, but I don’t have the technology to directly play a MySpace mp3, so if you want to hear “Pyramid of the Moon” by Shrinebuilder, you’re going to have to take the link above. If there’s anything worth leaving this site for (you can always come right back), that might be it.