Staff Blog: Brooks' 2011 in Review

2011 was a great year for music, and looking back, and amazed at the amount of good releases that debuted this year, among numerous other big moments such as bands reuniting, breaking up, and everything in between. Kickstarter has become an amazing way for bands to create new art, and has even brought Five Iron Frenzy back from the dead, eight years after playing their final show in '03.

Below are my personal favorite albums for the year, along with some anticipated albums for 2012. Thanks for the great support of CRR this year, and I'm looking forward to another great year!
- Brooks Ginnan, Christian Rock Rocks founder and writer

Top Albums of 2011:

1. Thrice- Major/Minor
2. Emery - We Do What We Want
3. My Epic - Broken Voice
4. Switchfoot - Vice Verses
5. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
6. Abandon Kansas - Ad Astra Per Aspera
7. Great Awakening - Songs in Secret
8. The Ember Days - Emergency
9. Eisley - The Valley
10. Moving Mountains - Waves

Cool Hand Luke's final album, Of Man, Owl City's All Things Bright and Beautiful, and La Dispute's Wildlife were a few additional albums that narrowly missed my top 10.

Top Heavy Albums of 2011:

1. Hands - Give Me Rest
2. Life In Your Way - Kingdoms
3. A Plea For Purging - The Life and Death of A Plea For Purging
4. Phinehas - thegodmachine
5. Hundredth -  Let Go
6. Oh, Sleeper - Children of Fire
7. As Hell Retreats - Volition
8. August Burns Red - Leveler
9. A Hope for Home - In Abstraction
10. Sleeping Giant - Kingdom Days In An Evil Age

Onward to Olympas, Gideon, and Not One Is Upright also all released very solid albums that just missed the list as well.

Favorite EPs (No particular order):

• Jake Germany - Leftover
• Friends - Better Off Alone
• Sleep For Sleepers - Conditions
• Levi The Poet - Monologues
• Aaron Newberry - Homewrecker
• Ocean Is Theory - Future Fears

Favorite New Artists: 

• sosaveme
• Kye Kye
• Listener
• Sinai Vessel

Most Anticipated Albums of 2012:

• Showbread
• The Classic Crime
• Emery (potential new album, along with acoustic side project)
• Sons
• To Speak of Wolves
• From Indian Lakes
• Ocean Is Theory