We’re down to the final two Top 10 Albums from 2000-2009 lists! Today, contributor Audrey Leon rocks our faces off with her list for the Top 10 Albums from 2000 – 2009.

10. Idlewild – 100 Broken Windows
If there is one thing the Scottish band Idlewild knows how to do, it is start things off with a bang. Idlewild roared into the new decade with its sophomore effort 100 Broken Windows. They continued this legacy with its follow-up The Remote Part. What made 100 Broken Windows so special was a weird blend of seemingly innocuous, yet silently ferocious rock mixed with the vocals of a Scottish Michael Stipe impersonator. Take album opener “Little Discourage.” It begins plainly enough, slowly running up and down the neck of the guitar but then it launches into pure rock distortion while frontman Roddy Woomble proclaims “All I need is a little discourage.”

9. Sloan – Parallel Play
Canadian pop rockers Sloan returned in 2008 with their ninth studio album, Parallel Play. The album is full of sugary, toe-tapping rock standards such as “Cheap Champagne,” “Burn For It” and “I’m not a Kid Anymore.” Parallel Play is sure to have fans and new converts alike singing along in unison. Parallel Play fits in beautifully with an already incredible arsenal of pop rock hits such as “Underwhelmed” from 1992’s Smeared, “Coax Me” from 1994’s Twice Removed and “Money City Maniacs” from 1998’s Navy Blues.

8. Sleater-Kinney – The Woods
The Woods is Sleater-Kinney’s last album before sailing off into the abyss of the “indefinite hiatus” vortex in 2005. The Woods offers up a more mature-sounding Sleater-Kinney. The songs are infused with the spirit of the classic rock ancestors that came before them with plenty of reverb and distortion to match. While S-K appears older and wiser on The Woods, make no mistake they are just as angry. No where is that more obvious than on its first single, the hard-rocker “Entertain” and the album’s magnum opus is the 11-minute “Let’s Call It Love.”

7. Les Savy Fav – Let’s Stay Friends
All good things come to those who wait. While it took six years for Les Savy Fav to release a follow-up to 2001’s Go Forth, LSF fans were rewarded with the band’s best album to date. Let’s Stay Friends features plenty of guests from the indie rock world including appearances by Saturday Night Live funnyman and former Trenchmouth drummer Fred Armisen, Enon vocalist Toko Yasuda, Fiery Furnaces vocalist Eleanor Friedberger and Metric frontwoman Emily Haines. LSF’s powerhouse frontman Tim Harrington’s wildman bravado translates to record and moves the listener to his persuasive rhythms. I dare you not to jump out of your chair and shimmy as “Patty Lee” and/or “The Lowest Bitter” pumps out of your stereo.

6. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It in People
Broken Social Scene is massive. Literally. To date, nineteen Toronto-based musicians claim membership in BSS’s traveling circus in addition to their own projects. You may know them as members of Metric, the Apostle of Hustle, Do Make Say Think, Stars and – who could forget – Feist. Under the direction of master of ceremonies Kevin Drew and lion tamer Brendan Canning, You Forgot It In People delights and impresses the audience with masterful feats of musicianship by seamlessly blending lush orchestrations, atmospheric noise, powerpop, jazz, punk, you name it. There’s really only one word to describe the song “KC Accidental,” epic. Of course, if You Forgot It in People only contained one track, namely the Dinosaur Jr.-esque “Cause=Time,” it would still be on this list. Drew says all I need to know on this song: “This is the blood I love to share.”

5. Elliott Smith – From a Basement on the Hill
Released after Elliott Smith’s death in 2003, From a Basement on the Hill reflects Smith’s struggles with his demanding inner demons. The bittersweet, no-frills record was compiled by producer Rob Schnapf and ex-girlfriend and Quasi/Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks bassist Joanna Bolme. One can’t listen to From a Basement on the Hill without being saddened by the loss of a gifted composer and without feeling the same secret pain contained within when Smith created these songs. Each track on From a Basement on the Hill is tragic and beautiful. Album opener “Coast to Coast” provides Smith’s mission statement for From A Basement on the Hill (“I’ve got no new act to amuse you / I’ve got no desire to use you”) and possibly foreshadows the event to come. Smith’s vocals on “Little One” are especially haunting as they preside over an otherwise calm, Beatles-esque tune.

4. Spoon – Gimme Fiction
As tempting as it is to pull an Andy Kondrat and place the entire Spoon canon within the confines of this top ten list, I won’t; it’s been done. You could pick any album Kill the Moonlight and Girls Can Tell, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and find any number of songs to groove to at a dance party (“All the Pretty Girls Go to the City,” “Everything Hits at Once,” “Don’t You Evah”) – which I may some day hold – but I chose Gimme Fiction because every time I hear “I Turn My Camera On” I see Spoon frontman Britt Daniel wearing Prince’s assless yellow pants humping the floor with each pulsing beat. The fact that Daniel doesn’t do this live is purely ridiculous, but I digress.

3. Local H – 12 Angry Months
Local H frontman Scott Lucas is the last angry man. On 2004‘s Whatever Happened to PJ Soles Lucas proclaimed “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” but if history has taught us anything, that is when Lucas shines best. 2008’s 12 Angry Months follows Lucas as he vows to write a song each month of the year. The album succeeds in providing fans with plenty of reasons to bang their heads with riff-heavy tracks “The One With ‘Kid’” and “Blur.” The album also serves as a precursor to Lucas’ own side project the Married Men with the mellower offerings “Simple Pleas” and “Hand to Mouth.” More than just a break-up record, 12 Angry Months sees Local H experimenting with a fuller sound by adding more guitars and even keyboard (“Machine Shed Wresting”). From beginning to end 12 Angry Months doesn’t disappoint.

2. Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf
Before the release of Songs for the Deaf in 2002, Queens of the Stone Age were virtually unknown by mainstream rock fans even after releasing two albums of exceptional hard rock material. With former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl manning the drum kit, Queens of the Stone Age blew the door right the mainstream with hip-shaking, dirty rock tracks like “Go With the Flow” and “Song for the Dead” and hit pay dirt with lead single “No One Knows” plastered all over MTV and Fuse. What made Songs for the Deaf so successful beside Grohl’s name-recognition, was guitarist Josh Homme’s sultry vocals and unbelievable guitar prowess; the bluesy solo Homme executes during the break in the Mark Lanegan-helmed “God is in the Radio” is the ultimate perfection. Last but not least, where would we be as a society without bassist Nick Oliveri’s powerful bass lines and head-rattling screams?

1. At The Drive-In – Relationship of Command
At The Drive-In’s existence was short but sweet, much like like a shooting star or meteor shower and just as raw and energetic. Since its inception in the mid-1990s, ATD-I released three studio albums and a handful of EPs full of rich, screamy, kitchen-sink punk rock songs that heavily influenced countless Emo and Hardcore bands. The El Paso, Texas band’s final album, 2000’s Relationship of Command, opens with the menacing, tribal drum rhythms of “Arcasrenal” (“Have you ever tasted skin? Sink your teeth in!”) and ends with the nonsensical funeral dirge of “Non-Zero Possibility.” Over the course of Relationship of Command’s ten tracks, the album grabs you by the lapel, headbutts you straight into submission, drags your limp body along the dance floor, and never once loosens its grip. I may owe my musical life to Relationship of Command.