My recommendations 2006:The Obliterati by Mission of Burma

Mission of Burma: The Obliterati
Matador 5/23/2006

Available at Emusic

With The Obliterati, Mission of Burma seems to have beaten the reunion curse - not just once, but twice! ONoffON was a fantastic, if only slightly scattered, record, but The Obliterati is better. This time around, Mission of Burma has harnessed the focus that was missing on their first reunion album. It almost seems a little unfair to the pack of post-punk bands that have emerged in the past five years. Imagine if you had grown up listening to Vs. and Signals, Calls and Marches, which inspired you to form a fairly decent band of your own. Then your idols return from the grave after a hiatus of more than twenty years and drop a record like The Obliterati, which is ten times better than anything you could have come up with in a million years. I'd be kind of discouraged. It's a good thing I'm not in a band; I'd hate for my own inadequacy to interfere with my enjoyment of such a fine album.