The world needs Japandroids right now.

These two young men from Vancouver take all of the fear and joy of twenty-something life, everything we stare down as we move from youth to real adulthood, take it and grapple with it, think about it, right about it, and express it through the one language we all speak, rock ‘n’ roll. Loud but also sweet, melodic but above all cathartic, Japandroids bring us together in the church of rock, screaming our sweaty hearts out in a crowd, beautiful and ecstatic and secretly terrified.

My Top 10 Canadian Albums of 2010

1. Japandroids, No Singles
2. Wolf Parade, Expo 86
3. Baby Eagle, Dog Weather
4. Frog Eyes, Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph
5. Diamond Rings, Special Affections
6. Plants And Animals, La La Land
7. Besnard Lakes, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night
8. PS I Love You, Meet Me At The Muster Station
9. Forestry, s/t
10. Shad, TSOL

A note: Many of you will be surprised not to see Dan Mangan’s Nice, Nice, Very Nice among the ranks. In evaluating albums’ eligibility for this list, I used their Canadian release dates; Nice was released in Canada in 2009.