10 Greatest Garage Rock Albums Of The 2000s

While Bob Dylan was partly responsible for the original garage rock boom, he doesn't actually make it himself. If he did, it would probably sound like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

As leaders of the pack on both the garage rock and post-punk revival scenes, BRMC shot to success in the early 2000s with a series of ultra-cool releases that put shades and leather jackets on a whole new generation. Following the relative failure of the group's third album Howl (2005) -- a folksy blues effort that has aged surprisingly well -- the San Francisco trio grabbed everything that worked best for them and legged it back to their niche with Baby 81 (2007).

While Take Them On, On Your Own (2003) may be the band's most typically garage album, the variety and scope of Baby 81 make it BRMC's most impressive record of the 2000s. Nick Jago favours no-frills drum patterns that keep songs driven and attuned to the band's signature style, allowing Peter Hayes (vocals and guitar) and Robert Levon Been (vocals and bass) the space to deliver the goods across 13 iconic tracks.

Songs such as "Berlin" and "Weapon of Choice" deliver wall-to-wall fuzz and earworm riffs, while elsewhere piano and harmonica are fused into the mix, and plenty of space is left for the kind of mood pieces and tempo changes you wouldn't normally expect to hear on a garage record, with "All You Do Is Talk" operating as the perfect mid-album breather.