Photo by Ian Witlen

This is what Sleigh Bells coming right at your face looks like.

​After joining the New Times Broward Palm Beach music section in late February, it has been a humbling year of catching up. There were bands that I probably should have first caught back before I was old enough to drink (Smashing Pumpkins and Naughty by Nature), a few concerts in faraway locales (Harlem and Pavement), and far too many acoustic cover bands delving into the Gin Blossoms' back catalog. Regardless, this was a varied year that made me glad that I always pack a pair of earplugs -- even if that meant regularly pulling them out to bask in the sheets of noise unfolding during A Place to Bury Strangers' Halloween show in West Palm Beach, for example. Counting the number of concerts I attended in 2010 is disturbingly difficult -- and it's entirely beside the point. Here are 10 that I loved for a variety of reasons.  

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Art by Monica Uszerowicz

Sumsun's remix of Young Jeezy was one of 2010's glittering moments.

​Over the course of a year, County Grind offers up a lot of music at the affordable price of free. Much of this tuneage is home-grown, and reflects the boundless interests of the local freelance corps contributing to the blog. Area hip-hop, goth, electronica, punk, folk, and ska all got their shine in 2010.

Here's a mixtape's worth of the impressive gems we foisted upon readers as we get ready to do it all again in 2011. Keep listening, South Florida!

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​County Grind is counting down the best local albums in South Florida. Read the rest of the top ten here.

The story behind Judson Rogers' first full-length is chock full of subcultural trivia, travel stories and leaked singles. "Samo" is a reference to both Jean-Michel Basquiat's former tag name and the location of the Greek Tunnel of Eupalinos, for example. Judson wrote some of the album in what he describes as the "beautiful" local climate and the rest of it while working on an apple orchard in North Carolina. All of it fed gems like "Ants" and the whirring, danceable glow of "Call It Home."More >>

​County Grind is counting down the best local albums in South Florida. Monitor our progress here.

Time to embrace Love Handles, one of the umpteen projects featuring the prolific team of lead singer/guitarist C.J. Jankow and organist/drummer Jordan Pettingill. In addition to the guys' gifts for sly, deadpan wordplay and spooky harmonies often exactly an octave apart, they've assembled some of the grandest underground bills in South Florida this past year at their Lake Worth warehouse practice space, Club Sandwich.
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​County Grind is counting down the best local albums in South Florida. Monitor our progress here.

It's been an interesting year for South Florida thunder-slinging pop metalheads Torche. The group got their gear stolen while on tour with Coheed and Cambria (stolen loot included passports so they couldn't follow C&C into Canada); they landed a spot on Fox News' Red Eye after the politically-insufferable-though-musically-tolerable host Greg Gutfeld, a self-identified heavy music lover and Torche fan, saw the band open for High on Fire and Kylesa; and lastly, while on Red Eye, they were endorsed as the "world's greatest band" by the show's "resident doom metal expert," the uber-social-conservative presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee -- never mind that lead singer Steve Brooks is openly gay, and, well, that Torche isn't really a doom metal band.

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​County Grind is counting down the best local albums in South Florida. Monitor our progress here.

Holding the Jameses' first release in your hand is to understand near-perfection. The killer cover art, the equally haunting tracks on both sides. It is, dare we say, poised. Of the trio's two murky, slow-moving melodies, "The Haunted Rider" and its accompanying organ is more creep and drone, more like its title. The lo-fi sound keeps veering into the pop realm, and its clever instrumentation doesn't hide the parts that make you want to tap your feet.

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​County Grind is counting down the best local albums in South Florida. Monitor our progress here.

Miami hip-hop powerhouse Mayday first tasted crossover success a few years back thanks to "Groundhog Day," a collabo track with Cee Lo Green and DJ Craze whose bouncy sing-song raps dovetailed nicely with the era of Gnarls Barkley. And though the group went quiet a little while after, by 2008 Mayday retooled and came back swinging.  More >>

​County Grind is counting down the best local albums in South Florida. Monitor our progress here.

The Band in Heaven and Weird Wives' thrilling, caustic jams embody the physical and psychological scorch that comes along with every South Florida summer. By mid-August, any thermometer looks like a middle finger, everyone's back is blistering from sunburn, the car radiator's fucked, and the least comforting thing in the world would be the added warmth of another human being. While you were just bitching some more, each of West Palm Beach artists released two songs on this vitriolic split cassette.

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​County Grind is counting down the best local albums in South Florida. Monitor our progress here.

The Dewars' six-song EP, Songs From the Neverglades, is one of the most off-center offerings we heard this year, but we would not change one bizarre-o minute of it. Ranging from the breezy freak-folk heard on "Strange Change," to the demented wobble-rap-versed funk of "Playground Mediasma," this collection of askew songs from the twin brother-fronted outfit proved to be a dark-humored, multitrack splendor.

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​County Grind is counting down the best local albums in South Florida. Monitor our progress here.

While the release of the band's full-length debut ThunderNoise won't drop until January, we'd be remiss to ignore the moody three-song EP by the heavy-rockin', dirty riffin' grrrls of Shroud Eater. (Sure, drummer Felipe Torres is a dude, but we'll deal.)

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