I bet a lot of people would put The Islands' debut on their belated-hall-of-fame lists if they missed it in '06. If anything could stand as the defining "indie" album of this decade it would be 2003's Unicorns record and "Return to the Sea" isn't much worse, if any.

The only big change I would make to my list would be to give The Thermals more credit. I had The Body The Blood The Machine up at around #7, but I'd most definitely have to move it up to 3 or 4 now. It's got much longer legs then most of the albums I placed in front of it.