The prospect of whittling down my list of 2011 favorites to a standard top 10 or even 20 just didn't seem quite so appropriate this year so I've opted instead to break up my selections into a few compartmentalized and highly subjective niches. When I reflect back on the year just passed, this is the method that makes the most sense to me, and besides, music is not a contest and many of these records simply cannot withstand side-by-side scrutiny. Hopefully you'll agree, but if not, there's always the comments section.

BEST ROCK/POP

For lack of a better signifier, here are a few of my favorite releases that don't fit neatly into a clever subgenre.

Peter Bjorn and John - Gimme some
I feel bad for everyone who can't move beyond "Young folks". PB&J has always been and continues to be a fantastic powerpop band and their latest album might just be their best.

Penny Century - Friends and family
A grower, not a shower. I found myself returning to this record time and time again, discovering new things to appreciate almost every time. A deeply nuanced work masquerading as sweet indiepop.

Cut City - Where's the harm in dreams disarmed?
A fitting swan song that their final release should be a perfect encapsulation of modern goth/pop/postpunk.

Kaka - The two
Brilliant, addictive and secretly subversive once you start digging into the lyrics.

BEST SCENE: Black Hole Crew/Nekromantik Norway

Excellence in consistency, consisently excellent. While no one release blew me away quite like Okkultokrati's "No light for mass" or Haust's debut LP "Ride the relapse", the Oslo horde has been regularly churning out some of the finest punk/metal/hardcore in the world today.

Key selections:
Dark Times - s/t CS
Årabrot - Solar anus
Årabrot/Okkultokrati - split 12"
Okkultokrati - Ingen veit alt 7"
Okkultokrati/Haust - Black Hole X-mas 7"
Problems - 2011 CS

ALSO SEE: Hubro & HOOB Records

Allow me to step outside my confort zone a moment to also recommend to you the not-exactly jazz labels Hubro and HOOB Records, based in Norway and Sweden respectively. Both are delivering an amazing array of excellent genre-breaking music and, while I may not be intimately familiar with the circles they travel in, I can confidently say that almost every single release they've put out is well worth investigating.

Key selections:
The Splendour - Delphian palace
Thus:Owls - Harbours
Splashgirl - Pressure
Huntsville - For flowers, cars and merry wars
1982 - Pintura

BEST INSTRUMENTAL/SOUNDTRACK

Matti Bye & Mattias Olsson - Elephant and castle
Wheezing vintage organs and the clatter of clever percussion combine to create one of the most satisfying and creepy albums of the year.

BEST METAL

Execration - Odes of the occult
Much in the same way that Obliteration's "Nekropsalms" stood head and shoulders above the rest back in 2009, Execration's "Odes of the occult" expands on the same template established by their countrymates and adds a hefty does of epic doom to their filthy death metal, thus easily enabling them to (ahem) obliterate the competition.

ALSO SEE:
Dödsvarg - Livet är en dödsorsak
Mr. Death - Descending through ashes
Rising - To solemn ash

BEST EPs

2011 was an amazing year for EPs and many of these titles I have listed make up my absolute favorite releases of the year.

Grande Roses - Hide
Hands down, the best rock record of the year. Vital and passionate in an era when so many feign indifference or hide behind irony, no one else comes close.

Kite - IV
Even if you think that they'll never write another song as good as "Ways to dance", or even if you think they already did, Kite has never had a 100% fully satisfying release until this. Five songs, all synthpop anthems.

The Psyke Project - Ebola
As said before, forget the other half of this split -- it doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned. The Psyke Project is brutality personified; every time you think they couldn't get any heavier, they do.

In These Woods - s/t
Technically a late 2010 release, but who is really paying attention to anything new in late December? Classic Swedish indie guitar-rock is saved from extinction yet again.

Alouatta - DIY
Melodic mid-tempo punk played by dudes who are old enough to know better, but also old enough to do it just right.

FOREIGN JUNK

Not appropriate to waste words on these here, in this forum, but these records are all excellent and well worth checking out:
Austra - Feel it break
Charles Bradley - No time for dreaming
The Devil's Blood - The thousandfold epicentre
Royal Headache - s/t

Top 10 releases of 2011:

Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
The Men - Leave Home
Dark Times - 7"
*AR - Wolf Notes
Next Life - Artificial Divinity
Grouper - AIA: Dream Loss/Alien Observer
Iceage - New Brigade
Retox - Ugly Animals
GDP - Useless Eaters
Total Control - Henge Beat

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Lars plays in the bands Okkultokrati, Problems and White Juice and also runs the label Ormeyngel. His actual #1 favorite album of the year is pictured above.
http://okkultokrati.blogspot.com/
http://ormeyngel.bandcamp.com/

2) Black Hole Crew for helping us out and Ormeyngel for releasing our demo tape.

3) Ceremony live in Berlin / Dark Times trip to Berlin.

4) The Oslo scene getting more interesting with bands like Strike a Match, The Uptights and Problems.

5) Our drunken show in Bergen, where the crowd was really great.

6) The Men - Leave Home.

7) Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo.

8) Seeing Bad Brains, OFF!, Trash Talk, Total Abuse and lots of other bands in Austin (just AK and Rikke, Sebastian was at home doing nothing)

9) Wait, Sebastian walked from Oslo to Jotunheimen (350 km), which is insane.

10) Nihilism versus idealism in the worlds smallest scene.

Our major goal in 2012 is to record and release our first full-length. We're gonna play the by:Larm festival in Oslo. We also hope to play lots of shows outside of Oslo, maybe even outside of Norway. Apart from that: write songs, hang out with friends and have a good time.

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http://darktimes.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/darktimesoslo
http://darktimesoslo.tumblr.com

Problems have a new cassette out on Ormeyngel Records, the label of Norway's Black Hole Crew: http://okkultokrati.blogspot.com/2011/10/problems-2011-tape-out-now.html
And speaking of said crew, look for a new record from Okkultokrati to be released via Fysisk Format in late November.

New raging hardcore outta Oslo. Look for Problems' new tape to be released this summer.

Black Hole Crew: The "Nekromantik Norway" shows with Haust, Årabrot and Okkultokrati around Norway, the latest Haust and Årabrot LPs, releasing two Okkultokrati records this year, Dark Times, Sumar, Drugged SS pissing off Oslo hipsters, the new band some of us just started, Ormeyngel Records.

Getting the news on the Pulp reunion shows happening next year.

Seeing Unbroken + Ceremony in London with my friends.

Everything Tottenham Hotspur: Champions League, 4th place in PL 2009/2010 season, Gareth Bale, van der Vaart.

Notodden in the summer.

The current state of OCHC (Oslo City Hardcore).

Integrity - The Blackest Curse being the best Integrity album ever.

Breaking edge.

Hot Mamba @ "Best i smaken"

Family and friends doing OK.

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Lars says: "2010 kinda manifested Okkultokrati's existence, so 2011 will see us touring Europe a bit and probably releasing some new shit. I've also got a new band that will put out some seven inches, and finally we'll record and release the Problems debut LP. Apart from music, I'll hang out with my best friends all the time and drop out of life as much as possible."
http://okkultokrati.blogspot.com/
http://myspace.com/wehaveproblems
http://ormeyngel.bigcartel.com/