101 Favorite Albums of 2024: 24-1

Well, we did it. We made through another year. I’m proud of you, I’m proud of us. If you’ve been through these lists with a magnifying glass, then thank you. If you’ve just clicked on this one to see a top 10, I still appreciate the time. This has been an extraordinarily fruitful year for new music, and narrowing this list down to 101 was so difficult. Narrowing out a top 24 was brutal, I mean brat didn’t even make the cut.

Curiously, this year was unbelievable for new albums, but I personally felt that it was missing that album. There was not an obvious #1 for me, no dominant album, no Rat Saw God shoo-in. Even now as I’m writing, I’m not confident that my #1 pick is actually my #1. Maybe it’s on me for not spending enough time with most of these albums, but I don’t know that there’s any here I’ll be revisiting for years. However only time will tell for that. All 24 of these albums are near-perfect barnburners regardless.

Nearly all of these write-ups are copied directly from other previous posts on this blog. I’m editing them but please keep that in mind in case there’s a nonsensical reference or anything. Alright – final 24.

#24. Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future

The hot streak continues. You may know Lenker best as the singer of Big Thief, a band seemingly incapable of writing a song even slightly mediocre. Well, she’s racked up more than enough songs to make a runoff solo album. Donned with just an acoustic guitar, Lenker delivers another set of heart-wrenching ditties, as well as a solo version of Big Thief’s “Vampire Empire,” one of my favorite tunes from 2023. Simple and devastating, it’s what you expect from indie’s best songwriter. Also, she released a Bandcamp-only accompany EP with all proceeds going to Gazan relief efforts, which is a nice 180 from what I had heard about her previous politics (possibly hearsay!).

#23. ScHoolboy Q – Blue Lips

2024 has been a year for form-returning albums. St. Vincent and Vampire Weekend improved on their respective weakest releases, and the same goes for ScHoolboy. His previous album, 2019’s Crash Talk, was a change of pace, as the rapper opted for much shorter tracks. Rather than his normal 5+ minute journeys, the album was full of 2-minute bursts. It was also a change of pace in quality, as everything felt incomplete or off-hand. Blue Lips is a welcome return, technically “more of the same” for a rapper who always wears his heart on his sleeve, but the formula still pays dividends. Emotional, funny, raw and absolute banging: this is what you want from a ScHoolboy album. And there aren’t even any 5+ minute songs – there’s just a lot more energy and effort put in here.

#22. JPEGMAFIA – I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU

I’m sorry that I’m the flavor of caucasian who loves Peggy specifically but I am, and this is his finest set since Veteran. It’s also the most manic thing he’s ever released, closer to hyperpop than anything else. It’s absurdly beat-heavy, dense, and thrilling. Peggy even gets somewhat lost in the front half, in songs that focus heavily on the bass beats. He shines through on the more measured back half, with some songs that get much more earnest. His guests on this album are Vince Staples and Denzel Curry, two guys known just as much for their intense and mainstream-eschewing rap. So you know what you’re gonna get – paranoid and catchy music that’s too abrasive to play on the family speakers. One of my favorites of the year. I think Knocked Loose still has the best album with a cross on the cover, though.

#21. Jack White – No Name

I sometimes forget how much I love Jack White. Across his works with the Stripes, the Raconteurs, the Dead Weather and solo, there’s only four albums I would say I dislike. He’s always been an impatient songwriter, but his records have had measured levels of ambition. No Name might be his most down-to-earth set since the middle of the White Stripes run – just a good ol’ collection of no-frills blues rock. It’s the most White Stripes album since, to be honest, Get Behind Me Satan. There’s some of that garage-punk energy, a lot of bluesy riffs, and just compact songwriting everywhere. Some of the back half gets a little repetitive, there is a bit of an itch for some of Jack’s more ambitious stuff to be had. But overall, this is just a slambang rock record. “It’s Rough On Rats” into “Archbishop Harold Holmes” into the manic “Bombing Out” will go down as one of the best three-song runs of any 2024 album. And the closer “Terminal Archenemy Endling” – maybe the only patient song on the album – may be better than all of them. Another critical strike against the tedious and harmful “Rock is dead!!” crowd.

#20. Uniform – American Standard

These next three albums get pretty abrasive. Uniform’s first few albums were solid but I kept waiting for a breakout release. 2020’s Shame was that record, a mix of industrial guitars and guttural post-hardcore that seemed to come out of the same catacombs that were on the cover. The band’s newest album is impossibly even bleaker, complete with a smog-heavy cover of industrial, rural anywhere. The band also sounds even bleaker, and stretches themselves way out of a comfort zone. That comfort zone is reasonably-lengthed songs. Side A of this record is one, 21-minute song. Side B is only three songs. By stretching their songs out, the band can hammer home the innate misery of their music. This is angry, humorless stuff, just the absolute depths of unhappiness. Uniform is not an easy band to classify musically, even harder here because they stretch into doom-metal for the first time. But this isn’t really metal, and not really post-hardcore. It exists in it’s own dimension, a hell dimension of some sort. This is not something that’s appealing to most people, but I love this band and they crushed my highest expectations. I also finally saw them earlier this month alongside our #101 entry Pharmakon – one of the best live bands I’ve seen in a long while.

#19. Knocked Loose – You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To

Knocked Loose are one of those bands that I absolutely love but never know how to write about. The metal group doesn’t exist within the bounds of any specific subgenre, but they aren’t so radical as to define a new one, either. What they do is absolutely rip, and their third album rips even harder than their first two. They’re technically metalcore, a genre I usually don’t pay much attention to due to sheer repetition between bands. But Knocked Loose infuse metalcore with elements of hardcore punk and death metal, emitting short and brutal transmissions that always make sure to be on the fun side of things. The songs on this album (especially the first half) don’t so much start and end as they do operate as one puzzling suite. There’s an assist from Poppy that should go down as one of the best guest verses of the year, too. This is absolute fire start to finish. The band were already big prior to this album, but made a lot of waves recently as they appeared (with Poppy) on Slim Jim Kimmel’s late-night show and pissed off a lot of very vulnerable older folks.

#18. The Body – The Crying Out Of Things

The Body’s second album of 2024 is also their second to make this list. I love this band dearly, and this instantly became one of my favorite albums of theirs. These two guys always take their template sound, which is already intensely unique because of Chip King’s squawked vocals, and tweak it differently for each album. This time around, they’ve largely diluted their already flimsy song structures and added a lot of chopped elements into the vocals. It’s more directly synthy than most of their albums, while still unrelentingly heavy. It comes off a tad like Merzbow but with more restraint. It’s an album for metalheads even though it is not metal, it’s just noise music. But for anyone who likes dark, extreme or just heavy music, or a singer that sounds like a chicken, prioritize this one. One of the best from one of the best.

#17. Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood

After three unrelentingly heavy records, here’s an overcorrection. My expectations were set pretty high, given that “Right Back To It” was already my favorite song of the year before this was released. I’m also just a lifelong Waxahatchee fan, although she’s not someone who I listen to often. The rest of the record isn’t 100% consistent, but it often hits. While the lead single is her most straight-up country song yet, the rest of the album is familiar indie-folk, with occasional bursts of guitar. These tunes are very sweet, very casual and just extremely well-developed. Katie’s voice is as good as always, but this album is more about summer-y vibes anyways. These are songs for aimless car rides with the windows down, songs for drinking a beer on the front lawn. And yet, I can tell this is a record I’ll come back to during all seasons. As expected, one of the best of the year.

#16. Torres – What an enormous room

Okay so I actually spun this one twice back in January in preparation of (finally!) seeing her live, but I gave it a proper headphones whirl in April. The indie singer has been bubbling under the radar for a good decade now, and I’m hoping this propels her forward. It might be her best album yet, a culmination of all the ideas she’s put forward till now. It’s got threatening guitar jams, tender ballads and poppy synth tunes. She continues to blend sexual and religious references like a more deranged Sufjan Stevens. There’s more individual ideas here than on previous Torres records, but she makes them all coalesce. Something for everyone, at least in the indie world. The third spin of this will certainly not be my last.

#15. Denzel Curry – King of the Mischievous South Part 2

Hot damn. I accidentally slept on this one for a while despite loving basically everything Curry has done so far. Curry has made a name for himself making rap that’s intense without straying too far from genre conventions. This is more of a down-to-basics hip-hop mixtape that shows he can knock something a little more “normal” out of the park too. As a mixtape it is looser and more low-stakes than an album would be, but he puts in no less effort. Bombastic to the core. It’s a quick affair, maybe even a little too short. But Curry can practically do no wrong to this reviewer. Not a magnum opus or mission statement, just excellent, high-energy hip-hop.

Note: I listened to and reviewed the mixtape, not the subsequent album that featured mostly the same songs in a different order with a few more tracks. I don’t really understand what the deal was there?

#14. St. Vincent – All Born Screaming

St. Vincent’s now ten-year-old self-titled will always be my favorite release of hers; it’s a top ten favorite album of mine. For me, she’ll never top it – but this comes damn close. I was really not into her last album, Daddy’s Home, a set of mostly tepid ballads centered around a tone-deaf concept, and her trajectory into duller rock was a familiar one across the indie landscape. So shocking, then, when she dropped a record of heavy, industrial-inspired tunes instead. While the album fluctuates between crushing songs like “Flea” and softer ones like “Reckless,” the influence of heavier, offbeat alternative is clear throughout. Cate Le Bon steps in for a crucial assistance on the lengthy, flowing final track, and it’s a fitting welcome. I could write and probably will write something about how Jack Antonoff is ruining pop music – this record proves that artists can shake the stink of him off and still be alright.

#13. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Wild God

I’ve mentioned a few times that this flash review exercise has mostly become me showing my own ass, and here I must do it again: I am not very familiar with the Nick Cave catalog. I’ve listened to (and loved) his earliest and most recent records, but there’s 20 years in the middle I haven’t heard. In my limited experience though, I’ve realized the best Nick Cave songs are ones where there’s just minimal piano or static noise and Cave talking lyrics. He does that a lot here. There’s also songs that have full-band with choir backups, and they’re just as stunning. It’s unbelievable that Cave still stuns this much, but every track on this album works well. Most of them work tremendously well. Cave is one of music’s premier storytellers, and this is another legendary release. It’s one of the best albums of the year. No question. I’m in awe.

#12. Foxing – Foxing

I’m floored. This is a gamechanger. I wasn’t familiar with Foxing before their year-end-list-dominating record Nearer My God in 2018, so that album’s radical left turn in sound was lost on me (although I adored the record nonetheless). This is another shift, into something heavier and darker. This record is unclassifiable, a mix of indie, emo and hardcore that often deteriorates into walls of harsh noise. Yet it is still indie rock. It’s got the harsh vulnerability and self-loathing of the 90’s emo scene that spawned Foxing, with added dissonance, anger and confusion. It has lighter moments for sure, and touches of everyday life, and these separate the more intense moments into individual spirals. It’s still an exhausting affair, and maybe even a touch too long at 56 minutes. But for those of us with depression, we’ve got a new magnum opus.

#11. MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

Let’s not mince words – this was my most anticipated record of 2024. The first single off this album, “Rudolph” was one of my favorite songs of 2023. The second single, “She’s Leaving You,” is easily making my 2024 list. Lenderman’s primary band, Wednesday, handily won my Album of the Year mark in 2023. I set my sights ridiculously high for this one. Lenderman’s solo music bridges the gap between Neil Young and Kurt Vile; it’s off-the-cuff guitar playing and talk-sung vocals, with intricate and specific lyrics that detail American loneliness and wasted youths. Lenderman’s previous album focused on the grungier side of those artists, and this one is heavier on the Americana side. There’s enough Southern gothic here to make Flannery O’Connor happy but, predictably, there’s a lot of humor and just unpredictable references that make these stories entertaining. I don’t think Neil Young ever sang about Ferraris, Guitar Hero or the Cars film franchise. I always love specificity in lyrics even if it makes the songs less applicable – to me, it shows personality and care. Lenderman is always all about that. Only complaint here is that the energetic/somber balance is off in favor of the latter, but it’s a minor complaint. This guy is just on a different level from everyone else.

#10. Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us

Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut will always be one of my favorite albums, but the aura of “rich (mostly) white boys repurpose African music” aged like milk almost immediately. In the years since, the band has taken different approaches to incorporate maturity into their works. Their fourth album, Father Of The Bride, is easily their worst, a set of adult-alternative yawners only one step above CVS radio. For this album, they overcorrected, releasing what is actually their most manic and experimental set to date. Every song on this album has crafted, unpredictable elements, and many of them are absurdly high-energy. Fifteen years after their debut, this is the record that builds upon that album the most – even going so far as to sample “Mansard Roof.” The lyrics remain a mix of serious and tongue-in-cheek. Even though I really dug the singles I heard in advance, I didn’t expect something this remarkably engaged from them. One of the highlights of the year so far.

#9. Melt-Banana – 3+5

Japan’s Melt-Banana served as my intro to noise music. They were the first, and for a long time only, noise band I really heard and digested; I’ve been a huge fan for almost 20 years now. Although the duo has gotten older and quainter, their hyper-aggressive punk is no less gnarly. Their first album in 11 years is short, and the songs are neither the experimental seconds-long chunks of Cactuses Come In Flocks nor the longer, more developed tracks of Cell-Scape. They’re the closest thing to true punk songs the band has done, and they absolutely rip. Every song rocks, and nearly all have the expected 1000BPM. Easily one of my favorite albums of the year, the duo was going to have to work hard to not make that cut. Also, I finally got to see them this spring – best show I’ve seen all year.

#8. Kal Marks – Wasteland Baby

Kal Marks are one of my favorite Boston bands, and yet this album still obliterated my expectations. The Kal Marks wheelhouse is midtempo post-hardcore that’s very bass-y in both music and vocals. Generally, their songs are ones that are heavy and divisive, but not exactly inaccessible. Here, they branch out a bit, introducing some poppier elements and some more optimistic lyrics. There’s plenty of just heavy shit, too, though; it’s a well-rounded record. Quite frankly, it’s one of the best heavy albums I’ve heard all year, local bias or not. Nearly every song floored me in some way. If you’re into a variety of post-hardcore bands like METZ or Protomartyr, then add this one to your list. They’ve done it again. This record hangs with the A-listers. Favorite local release of the year. Finally, a good album with the name “Wasteland Baby.”

#7. Mount Eerie – Night Palace

The best film I’ve watched this year for the first time is Lawrence of Arabia. I knew going in that I was going to love it, but the 3+ hour runtime looked daunting even for someone who loves long movies. The eleventh Mount Eerie album is 26 songs and 81 minutes long, extremely daunting for an artist who deals in gloom. But like Lawrence, I had trouble even pausing this once I got into it. The album is an amalgam of everything Phil Elverum has done to date. There’s short, ripping rock songs, drone tracks, gothic folk and a touch of metal. It’s like a greatest hits for a guy who has always stayed on the fringe. And when you follow the trajectory of Elverum’s last decade, it all makes sense. He’s had a child, with a wife who passed shortly after, married and quickly divorced Michelle Williams, and has gotten into meditation. These tumultuous ups and downs are all over this record, which changes on a dime so many times you’d have enough cash to buy the double vinyl. It’s purely one of the best albums of the year.

#6. Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven

This album had a lot to live up to. Mannequin Pussy are one of the only bands where I generally love every song they’ve put out. Ferocious, unpredictable and catchy, they’re a punk band that doesn’t really seem to think they’re a punk band. And on their fourth album, they do branch out a lot more. I don’t think the 100% streak continues, however, the best songs here are the best they’ve ever done. It’s a ripper of a record, and one that has more ideas and, *ahem,* patience than previous releases. Missy Dabice gives her best-yet vocal performance on “Sometimes,” a song that stretches closer to indie than anything else. But there’s still punk bruisers everywhere, too. Tremendous stuff.

#5. The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy

It’s been a long time since an indie debut was this hotly anticipated, the fervor was nearly at 08 Vampire Weekend levels. What I’m saying is, if you’re interested in this type of thing, then you’ve probably heard it already. But! It so lives up to the hype. This is a set of well-balanced, bombastic indie tunes with a lot of spunk and even more intelligence. These ladies have a tinge of chamber pop in their songs, with a lot of raucous elements. It’s a unique blend that calls back to the early riotous live shows – but not recorded material – of Arcade Fire. In fashion, this band allegedly has wild and destructive shows themselves. Also a small tic, but I love when a band doesn’t just chuck the singles at the front of the album but places them in where they make sense sequentially. The second single and my favorite track, “Sinner,” comes near the end!

#4. Ty Segall – Three Bells

It’s probably no secret that I’m a Ty Segall fanboy across all his projects, but I do generally prefer his barebones garage punk stuff more – Slaughterhouse, Freedom’s Goblin, Pre Strike Sweep. Some of his more recent, more experimental releases have been a bit above my head (First Taste in particular). So I approached this one with apprehension – only to find that this album ties the knot between Freedom’s Goblin and Manipulator, a great whale sized album that is lighter and more varied in tone, but doesn’t stray too far from Ty’s garage roots, too. It’s maybe his most well-rounded album yet, lengthy but varied where every song feels important and unique. It’s experimental and exciting, but warmer than an average Segall release all the same.

#3. SPRINTS – Letter To Self

Live music can be transcendent. Legend has it that Stu MacKenzie was inspired to start a band (King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard) while at a Tame Impala show. Sprints was birthed by a couple people at a Savages gig – one of the best live bands, and most dearly missed bands of the last 15 years. They realized they could simply make the music they want to hear, and years later, we’ve got their debut. It sounds like Savages. That couldn’t be more of a compliment for me. Loud, noisy, melodic and just restrained enough to fall under indie. It should be clear from this post that I love music that’s boisterous and stressful, and this band nailed it from moment one. This was the very first album I listened to this year, and it withstood hundreds of challengers.

#2. Pissed Jeans – Half Divorced

In direct opposition to a lot of albums in this post, and the norm in general, Pissed Jeans have gotten louder and more immature. This is the leanest and meanest version of Pissed Jeans we’ve ever seen. The post-hardcore band has always treated its aggressive music as a pseudo-joke, as they satirize specific topics like middle managers and guys who have humiliation fetishes. There’s some of that here, specifically in screeds against used underwear sales and guys who disturb you when you’re on break. But there’s also a general, visceral anger here. These songs are way shorter than normal, most under two minutes, just ferocious punk blasts from a band that normally stretches things out. The best song is still tongue-in-cheek; “Everywhere is Bad,” a parody of songs where singers get easy clout by listing cities, instead decrying every city, planet, galaxy, and dimension. Sure, they rag on Boston, Portland and Austin, but they also rag on Proxima B and nonexistence. It’s goofy while being menacing. The chaos balance feels like 2024 in a nutshell. It’s one of their best albums, and one of the most riveting and overlooked releases of the year.

#1. Kim Gordon – The Collective

Haha what the hell. The beautiful thing about listening to the solo projects from Sonic Youth members was seeing what influences they individually brought to the table – Thurston Moore brought the noise guitars, Lee Ranaldo brought the classic rock vibes, and Kim supplied the most experimental elements. On her second solo record (mind you, she is SEVENTY-ONE years old), she creates something entirely new and diabolical. This is noise-trap. It’s a noise-rock record centered around hip-hop beats, but not in any kind of Death Grips way. It sounds like something that isn’t supposed to be heard. Some of these songs were intended for Playboi Carti, but somehow ended up in her lap. And that’s really the only way to describe them. I’ve never heard anything like this, even from Kim. She’s back and she’s still the coolest person around.

And that does it! Another year in the books. I hope you enjoyed this and found some new music through it, or at least gave me a pageclick out of support. I am not planning on keeping my flash reviews going into 2025 – it was a one-year project. It was fun, it was exhausting. I’ll think of new ways to use this blog in the future. See you next December!

Because I can never help myself, here’s five albums that just missed the cut: Never Broke Again – Compliments of Grave Digger Mountain (trap), Melvins – Tarantula (doom/alt-metal), MGMT – Loss Of Life (indie), Undeath – More Insane (death metal), Wishy – Triple Seven (alternative rock). To be honest, Wishy should’ve made the list. I regret this.

The Rundown: September 2024

Hello, and welcome back to another edition of me writing way too many words about albums you’ve already formed an opinion on! If you’ve stumbled on this, I’ve been doing flash reviews of (almost) every new album I listen to this year. Some of the previous posts have been, well, long, but this was a different month. I spent two weeks in September on a nice vacation, my ears far away from any streaming services. Still, I’ve got 27 flash reviews for you – and a lot of these are utterly fantastic albums. 2024 has spoiled us greatly. Below, we’ve got a ton of excellent new indie albums, a pair of post-hardcore releases that will be near the top of my AOTY list, some solid metal, and a predictably great country release. I hope you find some gems for yourself in here! Let’s get cracking.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Wild God

I’ve mentioned a few times that this exercise has mostly become me showing my own ass, and here I must do it again: I am not very familiar with the Nick Cave catalog. I’ve listened to (and loved) his earliest and most recent records, but there’s 20 years in the middle I haven’t heard. In my limited experience though, I’ve realized the best Nick Cave songs are ones where there’s just minimal piano or static noise and Cave talking lyrics. He does that a lot here. There’s also songs that have full-band with choir backups, and they’re just as stunning. It’s unbelievable that Cave still stuns this much, but every track on this album works well. Most of them work tremendously well. Cave is one of music’s premier storytellers, and this is another legendary release. It’s one of the best albums of the year. No question. I’m in awe.

Grade: 8.5/10 Initial release date: 8/30/24

Tycho – Infinite Health

This one is pretty tough to grade, because listening to this record served much more of a purpose than the sheer entertainment value of every other record. This album was hand-selected as background music for me to sleep to on a grueling, intercontinental flight. This sounds like an extreme backhanded compliment, and maybe it is, but it did the trick. Not to say that this boring, it’s an album that’s mentally stimulating but peaceful enough to nod off to. I’ve never been super into Tycho, because it’s not necessarily for me, but they’re a great band. It’s all instrumental post-rock that marries complex and layered rhythms with a fun and playful aura. When you’re listening to it while 75% asleep with your head on a hard plane window, it’s a fun stimulation; it’s tougher to tell when one idea ends and the next begins. Will I ever give this one a chance while I’m alert? Probably not – but if funky post-rock is your scene, you can’t go wrong here.

Grade: 7.5/10 Initial release date: 8/30/24

DIIV – Frog In Boiling Water

This one kinda hurts to write. I really like DIIV, or at least I really like the idea of them. There’s no other band out there like them, a shoegaze-inspired psychedelic band doing tons of cool guitar noodling while still somehow firmly indie. “Doused” is easily one of my favorite songs. But the band’s fourth album was, to me, very limp. I respect bands taking new approaches, and I seem to (thankfully!) be in a tiny minority here, as the record is getting rave reviews. The music is denser and slower, with the fun noodling replaced by droning chords. It’s alright in practice, but an album full of it gets tedious quickly. I think the parts are better than the whole, as the album needed some songs of other tempos either quicker or slower. It didn’t click with me. Then again, this isn’t the first time DIIV hasn’t clicked with me – so maybe someday it will. For now, it’s…fine.

Grade: 7/10 Initial release date: 5/24/24

Good Looks – Lived Here For A While

Alright I’m way behind and I don’t remember this album completely clearly so let’s be quick – this is a wickedly fun indie album, mostly standard indie but with some threatening shoegaze elements. I think I was just in the right mood for something like this, because it scratched an itch that I didn’t realize I had. There’s a handful of great songs here, and nearly all of them are inherently listenable. Very fun stuff!

Grade: 8/10 Initial release date: 6/7/24

Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown

I’m not overly familiar with Portishead, what I’ve heard I’ve liked, but it isn’t music I feel any nostalgia for personally. I’m even less familiar with solo endeavors from their singer, Beth Gibbons, who dropped her first proper solo album 33 years after the first Portishead record. It’s a gorgeous album, one that starts innocently before expanding into something grander. The cover implies a folksy affair, and at most times it is. It’s brooding chamber pop, sometimes soft but sometimes sinister, like slipping back into a nightmare. It’s also usually acoustic, but when the guitars kick in, they really kick in – some of these songs drone and shout loudly, unexpected explosions after multiple songs of slumber. It’s a gorgeous record, one of both extremes, yet often just restrained chamber pop. We expected nothing less.

Grade: 8/10 Initial release date: 5/17

Oceanator – Everything Is Love and Death

I love Oceanator for the same reason I love illuminati hotties – basic, effective indie-punk. And like IH, Oceanator is much more indie than punk, just with some occasional punk flares. There isn’t much to say here, it’s another very standard but very fun record. There’s something very comforting about Elise Okusami’s music: it’s warm and inviting even as she sings about interpersonal differences. This isn’t really any different than previous Oceanator records, but hey the system still works.

Grade: 7.5/10 Initial release date: 8/30/24

Aborted – Vault of Horrors

Now here’s something you don’t see every day – a death metal album with full collaborations. Every song features a different guest vocalist, so the full effect is one that’s far more unpredictable than a standard death metal release. It’s fun throughout, the songs rarely fall victim to normal death metal trappings. I will say, there isn’t really a standout song; they’re all good, but none are great. But considering how repetitive the genre can be, we’ll call it a win. Riffs, drums, screams, and massive ridiculousness, what more could you need?

Grade: 7.5/10 Initial release date: 3/15/24

Beeef – Somebody’s Favorite

Bear with me, because there’s a few blast reviews I didn’t get to before leaving for a two-week, offline vacation. This is one and it is just no longer fresh in my brain. But, Beeef is one of Boston’s most prized groups right now, and Favorite showcases why. The band plays patient indie, nostalgic tunes about regional memories. The songs are conventionally appealing, but don’t have a forced alignment to radio structures. Some songs barely hit two minutes, some stretch past six. There’s a maturity here well beyond their goofy band name. Beeef has been great for years, and this only elevates them further. Please, check them out. This Beeef has some mustard on it.

Grade: 8/10 Initial release date: 9/6/24

Kal Marks – Wasteland Baby

Kal Marks are one of my favorite Boston bands, even more so than Beeef, and yet this album still obliterated my expectations. The Kal Marks wheelhouse is midtempo post-hardcore that’s very bass-y in both music and vocals. Generally, their songs are ones that are heavy and divisive, but not exactly inaccessible. Here, they branch out a bit, introducing some poppier elements and some more optimistic lyrics. There’s plenty of just heavy shit, too, though; it’s a well-rounded record. Quite frankly, it’s one of the best heavy albums I’ve heard all year, local bias or not. Nearly every song floored me in some way. If you’re into a variety of post-hardcore bands like METZ or Protomartyr, then add this one to your list. They’ve done it again. This will absolutely be one of my year-end favorites. Finally, a good album with the name “Wasteland Baby.”

Grade: 8.5/10 Initial release date: 9/13/24

Uranium Club – Infants Under the Bulb

This one came via recommendation from someone who I believed referred to it as punk; the band name and song titles certainly indicated so. It took me a few songs to really vibe with the style, which is really more post-punk than anything, but not really in the same style as other bands I’ve covered this year like Cheekface or Guppy. This band has a lot of energy and spunk, they just present it in an odd way. The talk-sung lyrics didn’t really work for me at first, but I wasn’t expecting something like it. Once I got more into it, I found some stuff to appreciate. The band has boldness and humor in their lyrics. My two favorite tracks came back-to-back, “2-600-LULLABY” and “Abandoned By The Narrator.” Stick around for the comically named “Big Guitar Jackoff In The Sky,” which aptly has some of the finest guitar work of this year. Fun stuff, but some of it is just a head-scratcher.

Grade: 7/10 Initial release date: 3/1/24

Chromeo – Adult Contemporary

Another release that I jumped into blind, hell it wasn’t even really the genre I was expecting. I’ve definitely always lumped Chromeo and Chromatics together in my brain even though they’re not (particularly) similar. This was slight but ultimately fun funk music. The duo has been around a while and it’s clear this album is not meant for the youth – it’s a record about staying funky into middle age. There’s some tongue-in-cheek stuff (check the title!) but it’s also mostly played seriously. It’s very 2010’s, and it sticks to one gameplan. What starts as a fun record gets pretty played out by the midpoint, and less inspired. The duo is high-energy, but playing it very safe, which is fatal to the record’s back half. Still, throw on the first couple tracks for a quick lil dance party. We finally found the white boys bussin it down sexual style.

Grade: 7/10 Initial release date: 2/16/24

MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

Let’s not mince words – this was my most anticipated record of 2024. The first single off this album, “Rudolph” was one of my favorite songs of 2023. The second single, “She’s Leaving You,” is easily making my 2024 list. Lenderman’s primary band, Wednesday, handily won my Album of the Year mark in 2023. I really set my sights too high on this one, as it didn’t quite deliver, but that’s on me – it’s one of the best records of the year. Lenderman’s solo music bridges the gap between Neil Young and Kurt Vile; it’s off-the-cuff guitar playing and talk-sung vocals, with intricate and specific lyrics that detail American loneliness. Lenderman’s previous album focused on the grungier side of those artists, and this one is heavier on the Americana side. There’s enough Southern gothic here to make Flannery O’Connor happy but, predictably, there’s a lot of humor and just unpredictable references that make these stories entertaining. I don’t think Neil Young ever sang about Ferraris, Guitar Hero or the Cars film franchise. I always love specificity in lyrics even if it makes the songs less applicable – to me, it shows personality and care. Lenderman is always all about that. Only complaint here is that the energetic/somber balance is off in favor of the latter, but it’s a minor complaint. This guy is just on a different level from everyone else.

Grade: 8.5/10 Initial release date: 9/6/24

Tierra Whack – WORLD WIDE WHACK

Ever since releasing a 15-song, 15-minute album, Tierra Whack has established herself as one of the more ambitious and exciting acts in rap. WWW follows the artist’s signature short songs, with only one song over three minutes here. The livelier songs that kick off both halves of the album are easily the best – namely “MS BEHAVE” and “X,” high-energy ditties that don’t settle for any conventional rap sound. Most of the songs are more template – sometimes frustratingly so, but often they’re still quite enjoyable. It isn’t Whack’s finest work, but it’s fun top-to-bottom, and it’s over as soon as it starts.

Grade: 7.5/10 Initial release date: 3/15/24

Sheer Mag – Playing Favorites

Sometimes you just need some good ol’ rock & roll. I was raised on classic rock and I will always have a deep appreciation for it. I love all of it, but the bluesy hard-rock of ZZ Top, Thin Lizzy, Foghat, etc, is music I particularly like. That’s what Sheer Mag has always done at least somewhat, and they lean way into it here. Good old guitar rock. The song “Eat It And Beat It” – an obvious play on “Hit It And Quit It” – will certainly be the best straightforward rock song I hear this year. It’s fun as hell. The best songs on the album are. There’s a lot of complacency here too, to be fair – a handful of rock songs that don’t really bring the heat and just exist. They prevent this from being an excellent album, but it is still a very good and fun one. In fact, it helps them align even more with classic rock bands – it’s all about the singles.

Grade: 8/10 Initial release date: 3/1/24

Uniform – American Standard

Uniform’s first few albums were solid but I kept waiting for a breakout release. 2020’s Shame was that release, a mix of industrial guitars and guttural post-hardcore that seemed to come out of the same catacombs on that album’s cover. The band’s newest album is impossibly even bleaker, complete with a smog-heavy cover of smog-plagued rural anywhere. The band also sounds even bleaker, and stretches themselves way out of a comfort zone. That comfort zone is reasonably-lengthed songs. Side A of this record is one, 21-minute song. Side B is only three songs. By stretching their songs out, the band can hammer home the innate misery of their music. This is angry, humorless stuff, just the absolute depths of unhappiness. Uniform is not an easy band to classify musically, even harder here because they stretch into doom-metal for the first time. But this isn’t really metal, and not really post-hardcore. It exists in its own dimension, a hell dimension of some sort. This is not something that’s appealing to most people, but I love this band and they crushed my highest expectations.

Grade: 8.5/10 Initial release date: 8/23/24

Einstürzende Neubauten – Rampen (apm: alien pop music)

This project has mostly resulted in me showing my ass a lot, and here I must do it again: I’ve listened to very little Einstürzende Neubauten in my time. It’s not like there’s little to listen to, this is the band’s 13th album in a 40-odd year career, plus tons of other releases. Although the industrial pioneers initially started by making super abrasive music, they’ve cooled off over the years. This is the only later-career album I’ve heard, and I got what I expected – mostly very chill music with an industrial background. Some of these songs stretch a bit (or fully) into ambient territory, although the better ones are more melodic. It’s never really heavy, opting instead for balanced rhythms. The opening two songs are quirky and fun, the two best on the album. There’s way too much, at 15 songs and 74 minutes, and a lot of it can feel like bloat. But, it’s a great workday record, surprising for a band that used to be so aggressive!

Grade: 7/10 Initial release date: 4/5/24

Gatecreeper – Dark Superstition

I always have trouble writing about death metal, so much of it is so similar that it can be difficult to separate bands, even if the albums are differing in quality. So excuse me when I just say – this is good ass death metal. I’ve loved Gatecreeper for a few years now, and this just rips. It’s not the most interesting Gatecreeper album, I think some previous ones have been more ambitious or exploratory. But, there’s nothing wrong with playing the basics when you’re this good at them. Sometimes, you just need the ground-pounding albums like this.

Grade: 7.5/10 Initial release date: 5/17/24

Chick Corea & Béla Fleck – Remembrance

I am but one man who mostly loves garage rock, so I simply don’t keep up with modern jazz like I wish I could. Imagine my surprise at seeing two of my favorite jazz artists collaborating, hit immediately by the shock of remembering that the former artist has passed. This record is technically a compilation, a mix of studio songs, improvisations and live tracks, but it doesn’t feel like one. Everything is coherent and similar, and the smatterings of applause throughout signify a captive, sometimes nonexistent live audience. With Corea on piano and Fleck on banjo, you likely know what you’re going to get – and there’s a lot of it. It’s a beautiful set of collaborations, often just the two men alone, together. Very pretty and very fun music for any jazz fan.

Grade: 8/10 Initial release date: 5/10/24

Kim Petras – Slut Pop Miami

I contain multitudes. Listening to this a day after Corea/Fleck was a whirlwind. This mini-album is both a parody of and the logical end to the 00’s pop scene, a set of short songs that are as sexually explicit as humanly possible. Gone are the metaphors, gone is even something like “If You Seek Amy,” replaced by songs like “Butt Slutt” and “Can we fuck?” On the one hand, the songs are fun, even if repetitive and simplistic. On the other hand, you have to wonder what the point is. Petras has made a name for herself in the same simple, bubblegum pop, so if this is satirical, then it starts in the wrong gate. More importantly, does this require this level of analysis? Hell, “Anal Y Sis” could be a track on this very album. It’s fun!

Grade: 7/10 Initial release date: 2/14/24

Kate Nash – 9 Sad Symphonies

I’ve been saying for years how unfair and unfortunate it is that Kate Nash fell out of the zeitgeist. I maintain that her previous album, 2018’s Yesterday Was Forever, is deeply underrated. Unfortunately, her comeback album just doesn’t have the juice. The indie singer has always had a flair for punk, even recording with bands like FIDLAR, but this record dilutes that energy. These are standard, template indie songs that are inherently pleasing but little else. The string-based opener feels like a red herring, but it isn’t. These tracks just don’t have the fitful spunk that set Nash apart from her contemporaries. If it were a quiet year for indie, this might be one to check out. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Grade: 6/10 Initial release date: 6/21/24

Big|Brave – A Chaos of Flowers

Big|Brave are a fascinating trio. They belong to the same circle of extreme metal like The Body and Full of Hell, and they belong to the same circle of Gothic folk like Chelsea Wolfe and Marissa Nadler. They’ve carved out a niche with practically no contemporaries. Flowers is a beautiful album, the songs are as haunting and gorgeous as the band has ever recorded. Every now and then, they remind you that they can get heavy and deeply inaccessible, but often they keep it quiet. Sometimes these songs edge on pure minimalism – the band works to hit both sides of the spectrum, and they do so very successfully. This isn’t a metal album, but it’s an album best appreciated by metal fans. A fascinating record by a fascinating band.

Grade: 7.5/10 Initial release date: 4/19

Darkthrone – It Beckons Us All

Like any true metal band, Darkthrone has petered out into legacy status. Darkthrone were instrumental in the foundation of black metal, though they were just as quick to abandon it. In the years since, they’ve remained active as a duo, releasing albums meandering around concoctions of black, doom, and speed metal or even hardcore punk. This release is largely doom-metal based, although not exclusively. I’ll be honest, the first song is irritating. It’s boring doom with off-key vocals. But some of these songs rip, especially the ones that hide energy or have tempo changes. Darkthrone doesn’t really have anything to prove to anyone these days, but they’re still making solid metal records.

Grade: 7/10 Initial release date: 4/26/24

Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk

I was hesitant to even put this on my list because the list is so clogged and I wasn’t sure I’d get around to it. But rave reviews of both professional and personal manners convinced me – and it’s fun as hell. A loaded but never bloated indie-pop record, this one is not afraid to take chances. One song might be bouncy, standard indie-pop a la Charly Bliss, the next might be jazzy indie. The duo jump into 70’s ballads and drone guitar on a whim. A curated tracklist means the more ambitious tunes elevate the more standard tunes, so they all bounce off each other rather than seem like filler. It’s nearly an hour and yet there isn’t a skippable moment. I’m not sure if I ever heard their debut album, but this sophomore release feels like a true mission statement. Don’t sleep on this one.

Grade: 8.5/10 Initial release date: 8/23/24

Fontaines D.C. – Romance

The previous Fontaines D.C. records were inconsistent in how much they grabbed my attention, but they were consistent in that the songs all kinda sounded the same. The (very) Irish post-punk band has had a relatively standard sound prior to Romance. Well the book’s out the window. This record actually has a majority of songs that are ballads, but the band hits the highest energy of their career too. They rap, there’s punk, and there’s tender love tunes. The band has always sounded a little inauthentic in their emotions previously; not here. This is earnest and real from a band that has never sounded so ambitious or energized. Don’t go in expecting the high-octane energy of the singles, but do go in expecting what is easily the band’s best album to date. This will go down as a highlight in a stacked indie year. UPDATE: Shockingly, they picked up a few Grammy noms for this. Well deserved, lads.

Grade: 8/10 Initial release date: 8/23/24

Chastity Belt – Live Laugh Love

I was a fan of Chastity Belt’s early work before the band went a little too soft for my taste. I’ll admit that I haven’t really kept up with their output but the album title and cover combo grabbed me, as did a general desire to see where the indie-punkish ladies were at. The soft-indie turn has mostly continued, although the album does offer some surprises. Early track “Funny” has an ominous drone quality, effective and unexpected. Other early tracks are fun and bouncy, but the back half suffers. Side B is mostly very uninspired, just routine indie. It’s a shame because there’s some good stuff here, but it gets very tedious.

Grade: 6.5/10 Initial release date: 3/29/24

Bat For Lashes – The Dream of Delphi

What a year it’s been for mature, legacy indie artists. I haven’t really kept up with BFL, but as a human with ears and a heart, I love her early albums. Delphi is in the same realm; at its best, these are dreamy and warm indie songs, almost hallucinatory. The title track – presented as both the opener and the closer with an extended version – is one of the most engaging and haunting songs I’ve heard all year. Other points on this album hit a volume so low that I had trouble even hearing anything on the train – not the ideal listening situation. Indeed, there’s a little too little here, the true structured moments are too far in between. But the great songs are great, and worth the price of admission on their own.

Grade: 7.5/10 Initial release date: 5/31/24

Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well

There’s been a few examples this year of artists I love rebounding from weaker albums (Vampire Weekend, St. Vincent, ScHoolboy Q). Add Kacey to the mix. Coming off her breathtaking and Grammy-crushing country album Golden Hour, Kacey turned to a more pop-focus for Star-Crossed, and it was, bluntly, meh. For Deeper Well, she’s gone back to the atmospheric country that made her an arena star. It’s a welcome return, as the whole here is excellent. It’s a dreamy album, the same summer-y camping vibes as before. She’ll probably never make another record as good as Hour, but that’s an immense bar to clear. This one doesn’t really have standout songs like that record did, but the full product is wonderful. She’s also shifted her lyrics into a more serious zone. So many of her previous songs coupled breezy music with lyrics about wasting time and days spent milling around. Here, she’s quitting weed and strengthening her relationships. This serves as both a sequel and companion piece to Hour. Loved it.

Grade: 8/10 Initial release date: 3/15/24

And that’s another month down! I hope you perused this and found something that sounds interesting to you – or potentially something to avoid. Check back in next month, I’ll be going over some great death metal, a couple of my favorite rap records of the year, a ton more great indie, a wild African album and, unfortunately, what’s probably my most disappointing record of the year. All that and more!

75(ish) Albums I Loved in 2022

That time of year again! The time of year where the talking heads all list out their own “definitive” Best Of lists and drive up their ad revenue through rage clicks. Normally I love to participate, but this year I’ve decided not to do any sort of rankings and just list a bunch of albums I enjoyed. This is because 1) some of these bands I covered in other publications, and it feels weird to insert them into a ranked list, 2) how am I supposed to compare and contrast the house revival of Beyoncé with the industrial rap of Backxwash, the the disco pop of Charli XCX with the post-hardcore of Chat Pile, the low-key jazz of King Gizzard with the high-stakes prog of King Gizzard, and 3) I’m so tired, man. So these albums are ranked only alphabetically. However, I’ve thrown in some songs for some albums I do find particularly noteworthy. I finished the year having listened to 414 albums released between January 1st and mid-December. Yes, that’s a personal record. So without further adieu, here’s 75ish albums from this year I am simply excited to talk about!

Note: The original version of this list included the album Erebos by death metal group Venom Prison, but right before I edited it, the singer got outed with some transphobic nonsense. We don’t support that here. If you’re looking for good metal, stream their album on Spotify so they don’t get paid.

The 1975 – Being Funny In A Foreign Language

I’ve been pro-1975 for a while, but their biggest fault has always been bloat. Their albums – even at their best – have been overlong and suffering from inconsistent ambitions. This one is shorter, leaner and more scaled-down while still sounding distinctly 1975. It’s a nice surprise that’s well-needed after their previous, overlong ho-hum affair.

Actor|Observer – Songs For the Newly Reclusive

The first local entry on this list also gives me the opportunity to share the best piece of writing I did all year, when I premiered this album’s lead single. The whole album that follows is effortlessly brutal hardcore that shows both an urgency in its lyrics and a patience in the songwriting, a difficult balance to pull off. This is not hardcore for the sake of hardcore, this is a band that has a lot to say, and those messages are delivered successfully and angrily. Consistently one of the most underrated groups, Actor|Observer have done it again.

Alvvays – Blue Rev

The first two Alvvays albums were great little releases of radio-friendly powerpop, so it was a shock for their third to turn up the edge and turn down the song lengths into something that feels a little more punk-inspired. It helps to round out the band’s image and distance themselves from the overall bloat of bands they resemble. Even though it sounds smaller in scale, the album feels bigger than the ones they’ve done before.

Backxwash – His Happiness Shall Come First Even Though We Are Suffering

I’ve been a huge Backxwash fan since the moment I pressed play, so it’s no surprise that I loved her newest offering. The albums follows in the footsteps of her previous releases – finishing off a trilogy – with industrial rap/horrorcore that puts some absolute respect on the genre’s name. She’s backed up by some excellent features with Pupil Slicer and Ghais Guevara (more on him later), though as always her forceful rapping and controlled chaos beats are the focus. There’s simply no one else operating on her level.

Bad Bunny – Un Verano Sin Ti

Nothing to say that hasn’t been said already; Bad Bunny is just on another platform. The man has been releasing music like crazy, all of which manages to be breezy pop for the masses that has tons of depth and personality, and all in a language foreign to half of his American listeners (myself included). What a king.

Beach Bunny – Emotional Creature

Similar to Alvvays, Beach Bunny are one of the best in a bloated genre, and this album sees them breaking out. The album feels fuller and more mature, even though a youthful immaturity was their previous selling point. Beach Bunny are destined for megastardom, and this is another wonderful stepping stone. Pretty funny that we got two straight bunny entries, huh.

Beach House – Once Twice Melody

And right into two straight Beach entries. We gotta diversify these artist names. Anyways, Beach House had really fallen off the radar prior to 2022 – only one album in seven years, after a much more regular release schedule. That was undone with this sprawling 18-song, 84 minute sectioned album. There’s sections of classic shoegaze Beach House as well as parts that see the band dive into even more lush, dreamy territory. It’s certain to be one of their best albums, which is high praise, though anyone looking for bangers should seek elsewhere.

Beyoncé – Renaissance

The Queen was in a tough position after her album Lemonade, a decade-defining, genre-sprawling masterclass destined for the record books. No follow-up was going to feel as important or immediate, so she instead did a lower stakes house revival album. It was a necessary and perfect left turn; far from her best work, but it isn’t meant to be, and what it is still damn near perfect.

Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

Similar to Beach House, this is a behemoth, brass ring-grabbing mission statement of an album; it even came out the same week! Possibly the best indie release of the year, it sees the band take their normally reserved album ideas and stretch them into grander territory. Everything feels expanded and yet distinctly Big Thief – warm, earthy melodies accompanied by Adrienne Lenker’s tender voice and emotionally crippling lyrics. In an era where album bloat plagues every genre, Big Thief delivered an 80-minute album that still leaves the listener begging for more. They elevated themselves to Best Indie Band in 2019, a title that I believe they still hold.

billy woods – Aethiopes and Church

First double-entry! The Armand Hammer member has had a wildly prolific solo career, and both of his 2022 offerings are just great, low-stakes hip-hop albums. While the alphabetical and chronological antecedent was the better of the two albums, both showcase woods as a humble and intelligent master, unafraid to challenge rhythm and tropes.

Birds In Row – Gris Klein

Straight up one of my favorite groups, France’s Birds In Row have delivered another visceral, powerful and understated album of hardcore that establishes them as one of the genre’s most creative forces. Too many hardcore bands sound interchangeable, but Birds have always been sonically challenging, genre-defying and socially conscious, trends that have all kept up on Klein. One of the most criminally underrated groups in all of music, even if they set themselves up to have a limited audience.

Björk – Fossora

There’s a number of entries in this post that feel pointless to write – if you’re reading this on my blog, with the type of stuff I cover, then you’ve already heard Fossora. Björk rarely misses, and hasn’t missed in many years, but even for her this is a triumph. Few artists could think about the concept of mushrooms and produce an album that actually feels like the damp moss of a forest floor, but that’s what Fossora is. The mysteriousness of the forest – both innocent and unforgiving – litters this album in a way that’s pleasant and so entirely original. Quintessential Björk.

Black Dresses – Forget Your Own Face

Hyperpop is maybe the first thing to come around in music that makes me feel like I’m too old to understand, and truthfully I don’t really “get” all of this, but I do love it. This doesn’t so much move the goalposts of what “pop” can be but uproots and incinerates them. The chaotic outbursts of glitchy synth, the pessimistic lyrics and the demon-fueled screams from Ada Rook (one of the best screamers in the game today) all make this a brief album that’s equal parts fun and terrifying. Pretty good for a duo that’s technically broken up!

black midi – Hellfire

Coming into Hellfire I was hit and miss on black midi – literally, I thought their debut was a hit and the sophomore record was a miss. So I had a little trepidation, but this is easily my favorite of the three. This is extremely “me” music. Hellfire is a ton of absolutely chaotic, noisy indie songs that sound like a frustrated band taking it out in studio. I’m sure these songs are written precisely, but they often sound improvised. A little noisier and they could be mistaken for prime era Lightning Bolt. Really loved this one.

Bonny Light Horseman – Rolling Golden Holy

I’m not 100% positive this one would’ve made the list if I hadn’t just seen this band a couple weeks ago, but it’s totally deserving either way. The folk supergroup released their second album in November and it follows their debut exactly. Soft acoustic folk is met with gorgeous harmonized vocals in a collection of songs that you want to just disappear into forever. The group sounds like Fleet Foxes if they had less of an indie bend and didn’t subscribe to the concept of a frontman; the three musicians here all work equally and in tandem with one another. It’s quite possibly the prettiest album I heard all year.

Carly Rae Jepsen – The Loneliest Time

My my, there were a lot of B artists for some reason. Carly is here to dance us out of it with another album of pure pop bangers. Her previous album Dedicated was a moderately solid release, but a drop in the bucket to 2015’s game-changing E*MO*TION. This album feels closer to the latter, a self-contained collection of bangers and ballads that never tries to reinvent the wheel, just makes sure it runs as smoothly as it ever has. Anyone that doesn’t like Carly is either lying or just simply hates everything fun.

Chat Pile – God’s Country

My god, where did this one come from? The best debut album of the year is also maybe the best damn rock album of the year, too. An uncompromising, bold and enjoyable noise rock album that takes itself very seriously even if it closes with a song called “grimace_smoking_weed.jpg.” While most post-hardcore bands try to eschew any metal influences from their music, Chat Pile lean right into it with gnarly vocals, screams and – especially on “Pamela” – riffs. This is a major play by a fearsome young group.

The Chats – Get Fucked

The Australian drunk punk band is rising in popularity and facing the same issue that’s plagued many similar bands prior – soften the sound for a bigger audience, or lean into the niche. Well the album is titled Get Fucked so they sealed their own deal. This is just great, old school punk twisted through ridiculously delightful Aussie accents. Coming in at 13 songs and 28 minutes, with titles like “The Price of Smokes” and “I’ve Been Drunk in Every Pub in Brisbane,” this is a loud and raucous good time.

Danger Mouse & Black Thought – Cheat Codes

Danger Mouse, as both a producer and active musician, has always been one to ignore trends and musical climates. His full-album collaboration with arguably the most underrated rapper in the world is a very fun whirlwind that combines a lot of soul, prog and psychedelic influences that flies right by. It’s very much a throwback album to older hip-hop and something that sounds totally unique in 2022.

Demi Lovato – HOLY FVCK

Following up on the Chats is another album title that makes a statement. I’ve always had a soft spot for Lovato’s music, more so than most, and this turn back to a pop-punk/rock base is a very interesting one for her. There’s a distinct and intentional lack in subtlety, filling the album with confrontational statements that jump between honesty, heartbreak and horniness. It’s a great rebirth after a difficult period for the artist, and an album that I feel got buried too quickly.

Denzel Curry – Melt My Eyez See Your Future

Curry is one of the most interesting and energetic rappers in the world today, which makes it all the more interesting that this album opens with some slower, reflective tunes. As it moves on, we get some of Curry’s more forceful songs, but it’s a surprising left turn by an artist that specializes in messing with the formula. All of Curry’s albums are great, but this is his best since TA13OO.

Diane Coffee – With People

This absolute indie gem from the former Foxygen drummer might end up being the most overlooked album of the year. Seven of the album’s ten tracks haven’t cracked 10,000 plays on Spotify yet, people are really missing out. It’s airy and fun in the way that Foxygen is, without any of the bloated ambition. It feels similar to some of Will Butler’s solo stuff – messy, low-stakes indie music that’s a lot more playful than you might expect. There’s some really fun stuff going on here.

Ethel Cain – Preacher’s Daughter

The very last album I listened to this year that made the list – listened to on 12/30! – is something I didn’t even realize I was sleeping on. This name was not on my radar until Obama of all people put it on his year end list. Cain is like Lana Del Rey filtered through the horror puritanism of Flannery O’Connor. Daughter is a lengthy, bold debut full of Southern gothic dream-pop ballads and old school Baptist existentialism. Every song sounds similar on paper, but there’s elements of everything from gospel to sludge metal across the album, a truly unpredictable concoction. That all of this was devised by a 24 year old is wild; the future is hers.

Florence & The Machine – Dance Fever

When it comes to the unique indie/baroque pop of Flo & co, there’s really nothing wrong with “more of the same.” This excellent album sees the group treading some similar waters, although there is blendings of many different facets; it’s as synthy and danceable as it is chamber pop, which still leads to some unpredictability. We can belabor about rankings, but this might be the most fun album from them.

foxtails – fawn

I went into this totally blind, and given the album’s title and very plains-inspired cover painting, I was expecting some soft indie. So credit me surprised when the screams started; this band is legit. Mixing classic screamo with post-hardcore, indie and even some jazz elements, this is stuff that’s supremely heavy and completely unique. I immediately ran through their other albums; not a bad song among them.

Gang of Youths – Angel in Realtime

The band name might imply some tongue-in-cheek rascalness, but this is a truly serious record written as an ode to the frontman’s father. The alternative band made an early AOTY contender with an impenetrable and difficult record, one that presents a ton of sonic ideas washed over by emotional lyrics. It’s too long – much too long – but it is super rewarding, comprehensive and effortlessly intelligent music.

Ghais Guevara – There Will Be No Super-Slave

One of the best underground releases of 2022 comes from experimental rapper Ghais Guevara, who litters his album with astounding beats, experimental structures and explicitly leftist lyrics. Songs like “This Ski Mask Ain’t For COVID” and “I Personally Wouldn’t Have Released John McCain” don’t just come out of nowhere. It’s witty, earnest, extremely loud and extremely engaging. Also, check out the “Breakfast in America” sample.

Gladie – Don’t Know What You’re In Until You’re Out

My big criticism of the bands that straddle the pop-punk/indie line is that they often play it safe and don’t explore their own energy. Gladie isn’t one of those bands. The band’s sophomore album (I have yet to hear the debut!) sees them masterfully navigate both tender pop songs and raucous punk, like in the fierce opener “Born Yesterday.” It’s simply a stellar record that is comprehensive and – most importantly – simply fun.

Harry Styles – Harry’s House

I still like his debut solo album more, but his third offering is such a delightful statement release. This is fun, humble and low-key pop, an album that was sorely needed in a year where his personal life was thrust into the spotlight (due to a bad film). He’s just great at this stuff!

Interpol – The Other Side of Make Believe

After the initial hot streak Interpol went on to start their career, it became apparent that they did slower ballads better than bangers (all exceptions to “The Rover”). Their last album, Marauder, was all bangers and it’s their only album I dislike. Thankfully they slowed things down for this somber, post-punk affair. They’ll never reclaim their highs again, but I do think this is genuinely one of their best records.

Ithaca – They Fear Us

Although I felt this year wasn’t as strong as most recent years in general, it was a standout for post-hardcore groups. This album blends those influences through traditional metal/hardcore into one of the rawest releases of the year. This is not music for the faint of heart, but it is a thrilling and emotional listen. Got this one via recommendation, I will be checking out their other releases.

Jack White – Fear of the Dawn

When Jack White announced two albums – a blistering blues record and an acoustic folk one – I knew I was going to like the former more. This packs all the punches of standard wild White stuff, from blues melodies to dizzying guitar licks. There’s even a Q-Tip feature, randomly. Some people might be tired of his schtick, but I’ll always take these records.

JID – The Forever Story

Many of the rap records on this list are here because they’re innovative, nostalgic or just different from anything mainstream. But for JID, this is just a good ass rap album. His flow is impeccable across The Forever Story, which helps bolster his convincingly autobiographical lyrics. It’s a soulful album too, and one complete with some guest spots from festival big-prints like Lil Wayne and Yasiin Bey. Top notch stuff!

Jobber – Hell In A Cell

This is a band called Jobber with an EP called Hell In A Cell, of course I’m into this. It’s an extension on the Mountain Goats album Beat The Champ in that it’s centered entirely around pro wrestling (more on them later). But even if you don’t have an appreciation for the art or aren’t familiar with the brilliance of Mankind, you can still appreciate the tunes. These are four energetic indie tunes with deceptively great vocals in a wonderfully fun debut. I’m not sure if the wrestling gimmick can stay fresh over time, but I’m positive the band can.

Julia, Julia – Derealization

The debut album from the lead singer of long-running punk band The Coathangers is anything but. The album tosses away all of the politically-charged punk energy in favor of soft folk. Most of these tracks are nothing but acoustic guitar and dreamy vocals from Julia. Hell it’s often barely audible! These songs mimic a soft spring day, a pleasant morning as the sun rises. This is probably the softest record on this list.

Kal Marks – My Name Is Hell

This is one of a handful of local entries on my list, but this list would be incomplete without it. Hell is simply one of the best rock albums of the year, filled with post-hardcore tracks that are both patient and angry, heavy and melodic. The band really lays into the same space occupied by IDLES on this one, and for good reason, as they pull the sound off completely. It’s urgent and bitter, but without sacrificing some tongue-in-cheek funk as well. Absolutely hard-hitting stuff and this album should serve as a firm rebuttal to any inane person saying “rock is dead.”

Kim Petras – Slut Pop

No comment.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Omnium Gatherum and Changes

Another double entry, although in Gizz terms that’s a poor year – this is just two of the five albums they released this year (six if you count a remix album)! I enjoyed all five, though none were among the highs in their still-young, dummy prolific 23 album career so far. And the two albums selected could not be more different; Gatherum is their most expansive album yet, clocking in at 80 minutes and filled with heady concepts and challenging prog elements (sometimes). Changes meanwhile is a fun, lowkey album of breezy, jazzy pop that acts as a follow-up to their delightful Sketches of Brunswick East. Gizz celebrated their second five-album year, and while it wasn’t nearly as unmissable as 2017, there was still a lot to love.

L. S. Dunes – Past Lives

I am always a little weary of supergroups, especially emo supergroups – they often produce some ho-hum music that is a fun change of pace for the performers, but not necessarily enjoyable for the listener. But L. S. Dunes, comprised of members of My Chemical Romance, Thursday, Coheed and Cambria, and Saosin, gave us a mission statement debut album. It sounds like all of their respective bands distilled, combined, and refined, into something that is both familiar and progressive. The album hits a wide range from personal to raucous, and it’s a high recommendation if you like all – or any – of the bands that contributed members.

Leikeli47 – Shape Up

One of the best breakthroughs of the year was that of New York rapper Leikeli47, whose album Shape Up is filled top-to-bottom with short, loud bangers that all flow together in constant whiplash. You’ve probably heard the album’s first track “Chitty Bang” in a (car?) commercial, but it’s such a great track and indicative of the whole rest of the album. Though she performs behind a mask, she’s destined to breakthrough much further than she already has.

Little Simz – No Thank You

My favorite album from 2021 came from British rapper Little Simz, who pushed herself out of her comfort zone with an uncharacteristically bombastic, overstuffed mission statement album. But the spotlight wasn’t kind, and her follow-up is a much more cynical release aimed at the music industry and at the very fans that propped her up. It’s tough and fair, and an extremely deep record that does not sacrifice energy or melody for its goal. It was also released mid-December, probably to avoid all of the gun-jumping publications that publish their best of lists a month early. We wait til New Year’s Eve, here.

Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard – The Harvest

I wrote in my songs post about the title track from this album and how it advances doom metal beyond its shriveling template. Well, the album follows it, an absolute sonic pummeling of riffs, synths, and dreamy moments. It feels like a record that is not supposed to take place on Earth, something from a space wasteland. It is, simply, really cool music. Plus ten points for having my favorite band name.

The Mars Volta – The Mars Volta

I don’t think anyone saw a full Mars Volta reunion & album coming, especially after a full At the Drive-In reunion and album. And if anyone did, they surely did not predict that the band would entirely leave their prog-rock comfort roots in favor of shorter, blunter pop songs with Latin flare. Naturally, the group pulled it off, a totally enjoyable clean slate of a record. The lyrics are also less cryptic and often deal with singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s wife’s battle with the Church of Scientology – a heartbreaking and disgusting story, should you choose to look into it.

Meat Wave – Malign Hex

I’m a sucker for any kind of fuzzed-out garage punk, from The Trashmen to Ty Segall, and this album more than scratches that itch for me. This band does one thing and they do it remarkably well, just a full sonic blast of pedal-heavy guitar and drums. The lyrics range from tongue-in-cheek to political to honest, though the band’s punk energy is what the listener is more directed towards, anyways.

MJ Lenderman – Boat Songs

Lenderman’s name has been on my radar for a while but I had never listened until this album, as I was expecting more of a tepid, sad boy indie schtick a la FJM. To my surprise, it was an album of fun, humorous and fuzzed-out indie that sounded closer to the days of Pavement than anything else. It feels unserious and off-the-cuff, in all the best ways.

The Mountain Goats – Bleed Out

The Goats are never bad, but in their current prolific period, they’ve released some albums that don’t stand against their best. Bleed Out does. Like some other recent Goats albums, this is one is hyper-focused on a concept John Darnielle finds interesting; this time around we get songs about action films. This is also the loudest Goats album – the first to center around electric guitar and rock-driven songs, courtesy of production from Alicia Bognanno, from one of my favorite groups Bully. It’s one of my favorites of the year, and I think it’s a contender for top 5 Goats albums; impressive when you remember it’s their 21st (!!) studio album.

Nerina Pallot – I Don’t Know What I’m Doing

One of the most talented and underrated songwriters in all of music delivered again on her seventh studio album, a work filled with homely, lush and self-reflective ballads. She’s a talented musician, but her strength has always been her beautiful voice and her brutally honest lyrics. Her music has remained popular in the UK but she’s never been even a blip here in the States, I yearn for that to change.

Nikki Lane – Denim & Diamonds

One of the joys of maturity is realizing how stupid I used to sound when I would say something dismissive like “I don’t like country music.” While it’s true that the country-pop that dominated the charts when I was a teen still doesn’t appeal to me, I’ve come to appreciate outlaw country. This is the best country release I heard all year, a collection of low-stakes, unassuming country tunes that are simply fun as hell. These songs are personal, but they’re bops. The album is earworms galore. It’s an album that may not leave a huge impression on first listen, but one that draws you back multiple times. Really fun stuff and a nice antidote to many of the other entries on my list.

Oceanator – Nothing’s Ever Fine

This one was a nice surprise! I checked this one out as sole Oceanator member Elise Okusami was on tour with Jeff Rosenstock, an automatic win in my book. It’s a ripping, fun and earnest indie debut with a bit of edge on some tracks. There’s still room for some folksy elements too. It sounds well-worn and patient, all the more impressive for a debut!

Orville Peck – Bronco

I think it’s no secret that I’m a devoted Peck-head, his debut album Pony rapidly became one of my all-time favorites. I was a little concerned after his follow-up EP was frustratingly saccharine, but the proper sophomore album picks up exactly where Pony left off: alt-country bangers and ballads, all sung from behind a mask, from a gravelly voice with the gravitas of an old West gunslinger. But also, it’s queer. If I really had to choose – and the point of this list is that I don’t – this might be my favorite album of the year.

Otoboke Beaver – Super Champon

I knew in my heart that a band like Otoboke Beaver existed, such a delight to finally find them. The group mixes Japanese pop and noise influences into a blend of punk that’s both absolutely ripping and completely fun. It’s a balance of J-pop and Melt Banana, with bouncy, gang vocals and lyrics inspired by both feminism and comedy, all delivered in a micro package. With song titles like “Dirty Old Fart Is Waiting For My Reaction” and only two songs over two minutes, this is an absolute riotous, unique blast.

Perennial – In the Midnight Hour

I had the immense pleasure of interviewing 2/3rds of this band and hosting the album premiere, so I am a little biased here, but 11 months later and this remains in my top 5 releases for the year. The band, inspired heavily by noise-punk groups like Be Your Own Pet, mesh punk, post-hardcore and experimental elements into something that is as chaotic as it is fun. This album is an unabashed good time, an apocalypse party, full of spooky influences. My only complaint is that it’s over too soon; 10 of the 12 tracks don’t hit the two minute mark!

Perfume Genius – Ugly Genius

Perfume Genius is always an automatic shoo-in for any best of lists, and this year’s offering is no different. After his surprisingly guitar-driven album Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, he tones things way down for a sparse, dreamy production. It’s as brilliant and heartbreaking as anything he’s done before, and by this point I think he’s incapable of producing something that isn’t like this.

Petrol Girls – Baby

This album is a pure refusal of complacency. Loud, brash, dissonant and angry, this is what hardcore punk is really about. The British group funnels explicitly feminist lyrics and harsh vocals through pumping drums and power chords. Not every track kicks into the highest gear, but every one does crack with earnest fury and political anxiety that resonates across the pond. Punk can never, and will never die.

Porridge Radio – Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky

I never know quite what to make of Porridge Radio. On paper, you can call them an indie band, but they rope in many outside influences from post-punk to pop. It’s often loud, and it’s horribly depressing. Their unique sound is on full display here, through melancholic ballads and rhythmic ennui. It’s a top-heavy album, but the good is very good. Not for someone with a cheery disposition.

Pretty Sick – Makes Me Sick Makes Me Smile

It’s always refreshing to me, a total grunge head, to hear any band that hearkens back to the cursed early 90’s. Pretty Sick sounds like one step forward from bands like Hole, Lunachicks and L7, with a messy, angry and riot grrrl-adjacent sound. Pretty Sick doesn’t always push up the volume here, but when they do, their curated sloppiness could mark a dead ringer for a band thirty years their prior. What I’m saying is, this is extremely me music.

PUP – The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND

Another contender for my favorite album of the whole damn year comes from Canada’s pop-punk-kinda group PUP, who stuck a necessary landing. Each album of theirs has seen increased visibility and fans, as well as just being better than the one prior. So for their fourth album to be a meta concept album about whether they should sell out and go big or make a weird concept punk album, and how it tears the band apart, is bold, brilliant and damn near perfect. It’s fierce and rough, tongue-in-cheek while also being brutally critical of the music industry. It warrants repeated listens, especially to catch little narrative details.

Saba – Few Good Things

One of the most flawless rap albums of the year comes from Saba, who spends each track on his album wearing his heart on his sleeve and masking it at the same time. These lyrics are brutally honest and deep in a way rap lyrics often aren’t (and don’t have to be!). And yet, the music is soft and dense, mimicking the flowers on the album’s cover. There’s an affirming warmness to this record that separates it from the year’s other rap records, even the ones on this list. It’s a shame this one has yet to pull in a wider audience.

SAULT – Today & Tomorrow

I’ve been preaching the gospel of SAULT to anyone who will listen for a couple years now, so imagine my childish grin when the anonymous R&B group released not one but six albums this year. They range from their standard R&B, to borderline gospel and even an atmospheric ambient album. The best was this one, which sees them take their standard crisply produced R&B and up the ante with funk, disco and even some punk elements. This one was a party album, which perfectly soundtracked me wrapped Christmas presents. Long Live SAULT.

Slipknot – The End, So Far

Well, it finally happened – Slipknot made their critical darling record. Their sound, and more importantly their misanthropic angst, was never going to keep up through all the years. This aptly-titled album could serve as a turning point, as it does feature some loud, abrasive metal tracks but a softer side as well. It doesn’t always work – quiet opener “Adderall” is ironically interminable – but the signs point to a changing band, one ready to experiment and embrace the adulthood that washes away all that juvenile anger. It should’ve happened a few albums ago, but hey the formula still worked.

The Smile – A Light For Attracting Attention

Yeah, yeah, Radiohead is my desert island band so naturally I loved this offshoot project. It allows Thom & Jonny et al to let loose and have fun, while also making some songs that would be minimalistic even by Radiohead standards. It’s tough not to compare it to Radiohead albums – it doesn’t stand up to most – but that’s a high grading curve. It’s a great debut and a record that has deserved more of my time this year.

Soul Glo – Diaspora Problems

Credit to any band who can find a way to innovate within a scorned genre. Soul Glo are, by all descriptions, a rap-rock group, but one that play with full intensity and unpredictably. It’s part Death Grips, part 80’s experimentation, and no parts 00’s chuggy riffs and cringey lyrics. This is direct, honest and political stuff and it’s one of the most exciting records of 2022. It has no trouble getting abrasive and confrontational – it is supposed to be a shocking genre, after all.

Spoon – Lucifer on the Sofa

One of the very first albums I heard in 2022 was a welcoming breath of, well, stale air. Spoon’s tenth album sees the band reverting back to the fundamental indie music of their mid-00’s heyday. It’s a welcome joy, as the band proves they can still write some indie bangers, and it’s their best album in years. Focused, pleasant and timeless, this is a high notch in their catalog. Spoon is back, baby.

Sudan Archives – Natural Brown Prom Queen

The first Sudan Archives album was a patient and well-rounded R&B record that seemed to promise better things. Well, her sophomore album is the better thing. One of the best albums of the year sees the singer/violinist assume a first-person role in a concept album taking place in her Cincinnati hometown. It’s an overstuffed, comprehensive and funky release that never overstays its welcome and never teeters on self-indulgence when it could easily do both. It’s earnest and it’s refreshingly original. Truly remarkable piece of work.

Sylvan Esso – No Rules Sandy

This is easily the most ambitious album from the vibes-heavy indie band, a band who approach their albums with a “try anything” attitude. Although it rests at 16 tracks, it’s really made up of 5 or so sections with interludes, split into more bite-sized songs. It creates more of a nightclub DJ feel than their previous, minimalistic dance tracks. It’s still the same fun, warm and light-hearted music as always, though.

They Are Gutting A Body Of Water – s

This one was a wrench thrown into this list – I listened to it after 50+ of the entries in this post had already been written! I’d heard multiple people sing their praises but I jumped in totally blind. It’s shoegaze-based music, but with elements of trap, DNB and chiptune – really a hodgepodge of “off the beaten path” genres tossed into a blender. The result is something totally unique and nearly indescribable – all rules tossed out the window. I really dig this.

Titus Andronicus – The Will to Live

I wrote extensively about this album when I covered their live show, but what I’ll say here is that this is the first time Patty Stix et co. have successfully wrangled their ambitious side with their complying side; it’s really the first time they’ve even tried. This is a concept album, albeit a loose one, but not a hyper-inflated overlong grand affair like their other two concept albums (their best and worst releases, respectively). Instead, it’s a controlled record, one of a band recognizing their own heights but still reaching them. Seeing some of these tracks live helped me to contextualize how this is not a punk record but a rock and roll one, and even if this album was birthed from grief, they’re settling into adulthood surprisingly nicely.

Van Buren Records – DSM

Another local release that ranks among my very favorites from this year comes from Brockton MA’s rap collective. The album is bold and boisterous, with a cascade of different vocalists that allows each song and hell, each verse to sound fresh and fun. This album stays well within the realm of comfortability, and when the group is as good as they are, there’s no reason not to. It’s a blast, turn it up.

Vince Staples – Ramona Park Broke My Heart

Ramona Park acts as a follow-up to 2021’s weirdly disappointing self-titled release, and thankfully it reclaims the magic of older days. And yet, this doesn’t sound like Vince. Gone are the abrasive beats, experimental rhythms and worrying lyrics, replaced with beats and melodies that are crisp, fluid and conventional. Vince is still Vince though, and these tunes are grippingly reflective and earnest. This is as good as anything Staples has ever done. He barely misses.

Wet Leg – Wet Leg

I was absolutely delighted that the new duo Wet Leg was able to capitalize on their surprise debut hit “Chaise Longue” with a great first album. It did exactly what it needed to – prove the group wasn’t a one-trick pony, with a collection of songs that don’t exactly sound similar but feel similar. It’s infectious and hysterical, with tons of pop hooks and plenty of curveballs. The band sounds wise beyond their years, and yet songs like “Piece of Shit” and “Ur Mom” show off their playful immaturity. If by any chance you’re still reading this, then you’ve probably already heard this record, but what was I gonna do, not include it?

Weyes Blood – And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow

I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t like Titanic Rising as much as most, so I approached this one with caution. It floored me. This album is filled with stunningly beautiful chamber pop that feels warm despite the cold, cynical lyrics. It really is unpleasant stuff but presented in a more welcoming fashion. After some disappointments from the likes of Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen, we needed a late-year album of breathtaking ballads like this.

Wilco – Cruel Country

In a way, this is Wilco coming full circle. They toyed early on with country influences before mostly abandoning them for an indie sound. And now, twelve albums in, they’ve embraced it entirely. After a few albums of comfortable complacency, Wilco gifted us with a double album of moody country that welcomes the sound Wilco pushed off twenty years ago. It’s maybe too long and a bit unnecessary, but it stands as a fun and welcome outlier in the catalog – their best albums usually are.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Cool It Down

What a relief this album was. The band’s quest for a total reinvention with each album petered out after 2013’s unlistenable record Mosquito. After nearly a decade of radio silence, they’ve done another full 180. Cool It Down, another in a series of aptly-named records on this list, comes close to ambient territory, with its atmospheric rhythms and airborne feel. It’s clearly a new territory for all members, and if the album had run beyond it’s short runtime it could’ve easily fallen repetitive, but the band keeps it tight. Fans looking for bruisers like “Man” are going to be severely disappointed, but this is a fascinating rebirth.

Zeal & Ardor – Zeal & Ardor

My favorite type of metal is usually “whatever would make the purists mad” and I figure this counts. Black metal, as much as I love it, has a storied history intertwined with full-on Nazism, so it is refreshing to hear a black metal artist who is, well, black. The album combines traditional black metal sounds with African influences, jazz, even a damn stomp-clap. It is sonically and lyrically subversive, a meting pot of influences determined to keep you guessing, especially in a genre where repetition is usually the biggest fault. I recommend this to anyone who even remotely likes metal.

Zola Jesus – Arkhon

Zola’s music expertly walks a line between conventional pop/indie and synthy goth throwback to the 80’s post-punk scene. Arkhon is no exception, as songs bounce to and from these competing influences to create a landscape that is hypnotically catchy and yet grim and moody. It’s often very fun and unpredictable, as some songs search for that catchy rhythm and others eschew it completely. This one flew well under the radar, and I wish it hadn’t.

Just for fun and self-indulgence, here’s some other albums I nearly included in this list:

Charli XCX – Crash (pop/hyperpop), Fontaines D.C. – Skinty Fia (indie/post-punk/Ireland), Froglord – Army of Frogs (stoner metal band that sings about frogs), Lizzo – Special (pop/R&B/it’s Lizzo), Sasami – Squeeze (indie/noise rock), Thee Oh Sees – A Foul Form (80’s thrash metal/hardcore throwback)

By Andrew McNally

Post-Grad Music Reviews

Music Reviews from an overanalyzing junkie. Submissions for LPs and EPs are open! amcnal817@gmail.com

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