The Best Post-Punk Albums of the 2000s

Peter Katis's Connecticut home studio, a Matador budget, and four years of unsigned New York gigging produced the revival's defining document. 'Obstacle 1' is the movement clicking into place: Carlos D's bass running point, guitars in cold parallel, Paul Banks committing to every overwrought line until it lands. August 2002; every band on this list suddenly had a bar to clear.

'Take Me Out' does the thing — one minute of wiry post-punk, then the gearshift down into that colossal strut — and the 2004 Mercury Prize followed it home. Domino released the Glasgow debut as a statement of intent: music for girls to dance to, in the band's own words. The revival's pop peak, and its most quotable record.

NME crowned Silent Alarm 2005's album of the year — over Funeral, a verdict people still argue about — with Paul Epworth's production keeping every edge serrated. 'Banquet' is the keeper: Matt Tong's drums doing two songs' worth of work while Kele Okereke swings between come-on and accusation. Wichita released it; UK indie discos spent three years obeying it.

By 2007 James Murphy's DFA project had outgrown the in-jokes entirely — dance-punk border case, flagged — and 'All My Friends' proved it: a piano loop aging in real time into the era's best song about getting older, ranked No. 2 of the whole decade by Pitchfork. DFA and Capitol released Sound of Silver; the revival's rhythm sections had been taking notes from Murphy all along.

The DFA — James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy — produced 'House of Jealous Lovers' as a 12-inch in 2002, and dance-punk had its constitution before the album even arrived. Echoes followed in 2003 (DFA/Universal in the States) and caught a scene mid-eruption; the cowbell-and-shriek peak still fills floors. The sound of Williamsburg discovering its hips.

David Bowie sang backing vocals on 'Province' because he had been championing the band for years — TV on the Radio operated on that tier by 2006. Art-rock border case, flagged: Sitek's production stacks fuzz like sediment, and 'Wolf Like Me' is that once-per-career moment when a band's most propulsive song is also its best. Interscope stateside, 4AD abroad.

'Munich' made Editors' case in one chorus — big, black-clad, unashamed of its Joy Division homework. Kitchenware released The Back Room in July 2005 and the Mercury shortlist followed in 2006. Staffordshire University classmates who relocated to Birmingham and out-brooded a very crowded field; the revival's second wave at maximum efficiency.

Angus Andrew, Aaron Hemphill, Pat Noecker and Ron Albertson cut it for Gern Blandsten in October 2001, and Blast First reissued it in Britain the year after. Mr Your On Fire Mr is two bass notes and a drum pattern that refuses to resolve, with Andrew yelping somewhere behind them. The closer runs eight minutes, then loops one two-bar phrase out to thirty before simulating a slow stop.

Geoff Barrow and Craig Silvey produced it alongside the band for XL, with Chris Cunningham taking two tracks, and the 2009 Mercury shortlist followed. Sea Within a Sea closes the record on eight minutes of one motorik pulse under a keyboard figure that keeps climbing and never arrives. Spotify dates it 21 April against a 4 May release. A goth band growing up in public.

Andy Gill of Gang of Four produced part of the debut — the revival literally hiring its ancestors — and the Sunderland quartet repaid him with harmonies nobody saw coming. Their four-part vocal assault on Kate Bush's 'Hounds of Love' became their biggest single: UK No. 8 and NME's single of 2005. 679 released it; barbershop post-punk remains a genre of one.

Warp Records signing a Newcastle guitar band was 2005's best plot twist — the electronic label's first great rock record, Mercury-shortlisted the same year. 'Apply Some Pressure' is Maxïmo Park's whole appeal in three minutes: verbose, jerky, and secretly enormous of chorus. Literate panic you can pogo to, delivered in a bowler hat.

Ian MacKaye and Don Zientara recorded Different Damage at Inner Ear — Dischord answering the revival with its own bloodline. Q and Not U made D.C. post-punk that danced: 'Soft Pyramids' opens the 2002 album on clipped guitar hiccups, handclap logic, and falsetto nerve. The straight line from Rites of Spring's label to the dance floor, drawn in two-minute bursts.

'The Rat' is the decade's great fury — Jonathan Fire*Eater's ashes reassembled as The Walkmen, Hamilton Leithauser shredding his voice over a drum part that never once relents. Record Collection released Bows + Arrows in 2004; Pitchfork and NME both ranked the single among the 2000s' finest. One song this good would excuse any album; this album needs no excusing.

Surgical masks, thrift-store organs, and a Levi's ad: Clinic's Internal Wrangler (Domino, 2000) predates the revival narrative and half-invents it anyway. 'The Second Line' is krautrock skiffle with a melodica sneer — strange enough that Radiohead took the Liverpool band out on the Kid A tour. The eccentrics who got there first and never bothered to mention it.

Saddle Creek was Bright Eyes and Cursive's house when The Faint dropped Danse Macabre on it in 2001 — dark synth-punk inside an indie-folk label, and Omaha's unlikeliest export. 'Agenda Suicide' loops a deadpan critique of work-and-die routine over buzzsaw synths and became the scene's dance-floor staple. Proof the revival could sweat as hard as it brooded.