Kevin Bronson on December 15th, 2011

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Here’s the final installment of Buzz Bands LA’s favorite local albums of the year. Later today, I’ll post them in order, from No. 1 to 20, with some special mentions.

5. Cold War Kids, “Mine Is Yours” (Downtown)

Owing to their work with hit-making producer Jacquire King, the SoCal quartet’s third album is a far cry from their rattling, blues-punk roots. But considering what songwriter Nathan Willett chose to tackle – the capricious and often treacherous nature of relationships – “Mine Is Yours” works as a meditation on vanishing youth, changing responsibilities and emotional candor. The rough edges of the Kids’ minimalist sound might have been smoothed, but as songs such as “Skip the Charades,” “Louder Than Ever” and “Bulldozer” testify, the foursome hasn’t last its passion.

||| Previously: Interview. Coachella review. “Skip the Charades” video. “Louder Than Ever (Active Child remix).” Live FYF Fest review. “Louder Than Ever.” Video.

4. Big Black Delta, “BBDLP1” (self-released)

Leave it to a guy from a guitar band to dirty up the synthpop of the 1980s. The solo venture of Mellowdrone singer-bassist Jonathan Bates, Big Black Delta piles up furious beats, careening synth lines and outer-space effects to form a mountain of sound that ranges from raging house to gloomy drone. You get the feeling BBD’s whole album could have been littered with  singles like “Huggin & Kissin” and “Capsize,” but Bates, who has collaborated with M83 and contributed a remix to Daft Punk’s “Tron Legacy” soundtrack, reveals a great deal of his sonic explorations here, and in the context of the album they only add to the head trip.

||| Previously: “Huggin & a Kissin.” “Capsize.” “Betamax” video.

3. Foster the People, “Torches” (Columbia)

Mark Foster’s gold-selling debut harks back to the days albums were laden with radio singles – there are probably no fewer than six airwaves-ripe tunes on “Torches,” a collection so impossibly catchy that “Pumped Up Kicks” might be an oldie by the time Foster moves on to the second album. While it’s easy to be seduced by melodies, hooks and Foster’s buoyant boyishness, “Torches” is not prefab pop. Subtle textures added by Foster and producer Greg Kurstin make “Torches” as much of a headphones record as it is the highlight of your kid sister’s year.

||| Previously: Coachella review. “Pumped Up Kicks” video. “Pumped Up Kicks (MNDR remix).” “Helena Beat” video. “Call It What You Want” video. “Don’t Stop (Color on the Walls)” video. Way back when.

2. Dum Dum Girls, “Only in Dreams” (Sub Pop)

Only in dreams did I think a band that so flaccidly recycled girl-group pop in its infancy could make an album like this. The sophomore record from the SoCal quartet fronted by Kristin Gundred (here doing business as Dee Dee) comes with emotional heft and buzzing guitars to match. Gundred confronts matters of the heart, and matters of life and death, with a confident quaver, and the production from the legendary Richard Gottehrer and the Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner coats Dum Dum Girls’ songs in just the right amount of fuzz. In all, a dream come true.

||| Previously: “Bedroom Eyes.” “Coming Down.” “Bedroom Eyes” video.

1. Eastern Conference Champions, “Speak-Ahh” (self-released)

The L.A. trio’s first full-length album in four years possesses the heart of a poet, the knuckles of a boxer and the stubble of a man working the graveyard shift. ECC’s unique hybrid of atmospheric rock and blues-folk (Dylan doing Radiohead doing the Jesus and Mary Chain?) sets the tone for frontman Joshua Ostrander’s rich narratives and metaphysical wrangling, mostly delivered in a side-of-the-mouth drawl that ranges from biting to melancholy (and can be an acquired taste). Rockers “Attica” and “Atlas” showcase Greg Lyons’ convulsive drumming as well as the bristling guitar assault of Ostrander and Melissa Dougherty. “Bull in the Wild” is a beat-driven romp that’s lyrically dizzying and halfway to hip-hop. And “Hell or High Water” offers a lament with the stop-you-in-your-tracks line: “The mark I left upon this world / was cigarette butts thrown across the floor.” The album’s DIY production takes some of the bite out of ECC’s bark (live, it’s another story), but not so much that “Speak-Ahh” isn’t conversant on a lot of different levels.

||| Previously: Interview. “Middle of the Night.” “Hurricane.” “Bull in the Wild” video. [SXSW diary, 1-6.]