This list is a little different than a similar one I posted to Droneon, but the thrust is the same. Last year was a solid year for interesting music with guitars, even if nothing truly massive hit the stage. Half Film and Juno are both avatars of a sort of relaxed, moody form of emo, where much of the loud has been extracted from the soft / loud / soft progression. I don't think they're anything so special, but I sure did listen to them a lot last year. I was amazed by how much I enjoyed the Rushmore soundtrack, and in large part it was the thing I liked best about that movie. And Abigor and Solefald could be counted upon to represent the future sound of (what was formerly known as) black metal.
I am constitutionally incapable of not liking a release with Michael Gira associated with it, and I liked all the Leonard Cohen influences written all over _New Mother_. Enough said about that. _A Single History_ condenses everything I like about Unwound into one pleasant, portable package. Built To Spill have managed to condense the pretty parts of _Perfect From Now On_ with the tuneful pop songs of _There's Nothing Wrong With Love_ and the result is pretty much perfect.
And, on another level, the Roots do for refined modern hip hop what Prodigy did for dirty old-school beats and breaks. One's classicist and the other is relentlessly populist, yet I like both of them about the same. Life is full of irony.