No numbers
No scheme
Here we go...
"Love Crimes"
Hayden Thorpe’s debut album, Diviner, is a gorgeous depression, a breakup album that paints its story in thick, oily glops like only the best pointillists and impressionists, cloudy up close and lush from afar. “Love Crimes” is not only the most beautiful of the album, but it also is the best representative of its themes, stating that “even the greatest of loves can be given up.” Nothing is permanent, nothing is real. Musically, an off-time, staccato piano chord progression gives the entire song an air of unease: does Thorpe really mean what he’s singing, or is this just the harsh, rash reaction of someone so thoroughly disgusted with the end of a relationship that his mind is poisoned? Only we can decide.
"Love Crimes"
"Comeback Kid"
Apart from being one of the best albums of the year, Sharon Van Etten’s Remind Me Tomorrow is a fascinating collection of songs about dealing with negative emotions and how to navigate a world full of hate. “Comeback Kid” is the answer to all those god-awful Springsteen / Mellencamp / Jackson Browne odes to the “good ole days” where high school is just the best and adults are held back by their old ideas and stifling your right to party. The titular “Comeback Kid” is the scary Ghost-of-Christmas-Future-version of the main character of those songs: his anti-establishmentism keeps him unemployed; he still thinks he’s cooler than everyone else, but is envious of how they’ve all moved on (and moved away) without him; the Gary King character from The World’s End. “Comeback Kid” is a warning: please don’t grow up to be this person.
"Comeback Kid"
"Perihelion"
Infest the Rats Nest may be King Gizzard’s bajillionth album, but it is their first foray into the world of old-school metal. Taking not-so-subtle inspiration from Judas Priest, Motorhead, and early Metallica, “Perihelion” is perhaps the smartest track off the already hyper-intelligent concept album about a dying Earth and future humans trying to escape it: a song about using the gravitational pull of the Sun to accelerate a spacecraft for faster travel to another planet. Of course, King Gizzard’s tale is not particularly light or fun: the crew misjudge the trajectory and get sucked into the Sun itself, vaporizing everyone. Such is the dismal future of Infest the Rats Nest. At least they were able to headbang their necks off all the way in.
"Perihelion"
"Jenni"
Big Thief have a very specific definition of folk that involves ultra-clear production and a jazz-like composition. It’s a definition that has served them extremely well, as Capacity, their second album, was one of the best of 2017, and even one of the best of the decade. “Jenni” then, comes as a massive surprise. The penultimate track on the otherwise almost plush-down soft U.F.O.F., “Jenni” is soaked in shoegaze reverb and written like a 90s grunge ballad, with heavy-handed guitar solos and a dreamy vocal delivery. What the song is about...I can’t really tell, but it so fantastically fills the space with sound that the search for meaning seems unnecessary.
"Jenni"
"Andromeda"
“Andromeda is a big, wide-open galaxy” is crooned by Natalie Mering (aka Weyes Blood) as the opening line to maybe the most beautiful song of the year. Mering’s voice conjures memories of 80s power-pop ballads like “Voices Carry” or “Constant Craving”, while the music brings to mind the great country ballads of the late 70s (before the genre went downhill hard) with it’s slide-steel guitar and island-inspired percussion. Thematically, it’s about as forlorn a love song as you can find: Mering pushes away perhaps the love of her life because of all the pain she’s experienced, but she just can’t bring herself to give up completely; “if you think you can save me, I dare you to try.”
"Andromeda"
"I THINK"
Tyler has been on an upward trend for several years now (despite being banned from Australia or something...I wasn’t really sure what was going on there). Flower Boy was beyond excellent and now 2019’s IGOR is a massive artistic success (as well as commercial success, so DJ Khaled can eat it), so much so that its offensively pink album art and hilarious promo music video for single “EARFQUAKE” became memes. But “I THINK” is where the aggressive production choices and overall musical aesthetic are best showcased. The sample, the beat, the synths, they all could be just as easily found in a 70s roller rink as they are on IGOR. It also has the most pleasant of the many stories found on the album, with guest vocalist Solange repeating the line “I think I’m falling in love, this time I think it’s for real;” a pleasant diversion from the otherwise heavy material found elsewhere. Bonus: if you hit repeat, the song sounds like it was designed to be on a loop, and that’s not a bad thing.
"I THINK"
"EARFQUAKE"
"Rolling"
Confession: I’m a huge sucker for a big bass line, and “Rolling” is packing one of the biggest bass lines of the year. It also has going for it: Michael Kiwanuka’s soulful voice, the full Philadelphia-sound throwback production, and an unintelligible Motown backing chorus sample seemingly at random (a Kiwanuka signature; see 2016’s “Place I Belong”). Increasingly, Kiwanuka’s themes have become less personal and more political, just as the best soul did in the 1970s, and coupled with album opener “You Ain’t the Problem,” “Rolling” may be Kiwanuka at his most pointed. “No tears for the young, a bullet if you run away” opens the song, and gives the entire chorus, “rolling with the times, don’t be late” a sharp sarcasm that borders on juvenalian satire. Top it off with a blown-out guitar and slowly-disintegrating-into-its-own-layers outro, and you got yourself a hit.
"Rolling"
"Place I Belong"
"Civil Servant"
Richard Dawson wowed everyone in 2017 with his collection of 10th century folk songs arranged for a demonic orchestra. Peasant was so mind-blowingly, earth-shatteringly unique and brilliant that it changed the way I think about music forever. Could his surprise follow-up continue the trend? Of course, and “Civil Servant,” the opening track, proves just how revolutionary Dawson’s writing is. 2020 is a commentary on modern living delivered with all the subtlety of being brained with a cue ball, but that extreme choice is one that has paid off for Dawson in the past (see “The Vile Stuff,” a 15+ minute track that is just the details of a school field trip Dawson took as a child, where he drank smuggled alcohol on the back of the bus). “I don’t want to go into work this morning; I don’t think I can deal with the wrath of the general public,” he sings in what might be the single most comedic line in modern music. The verses are punctuated with a jarring, repetitive, off-time, Swans-esque guitar and synth (a new instrument for Dawson), skewing the listener’s perspective of time and tempo just as being stuck in the titular civil servant’s office is mundane and disorienting. Any points lost by the obvious messaging are regained ten-fold by the mirroring instrumentation; why follow the “show, don’t tell” rule when you can follow the “show-and-tell” rule.
"Civil Servant"
"The Vile Stuff"
"This Dance"
Tool may have the record for longest wait between albums (they don’t actually, that goes to My Bloody Valentine), but Drenge’s four-year break between the unfathomably slick Undertow and this year’s equally smart follow-up, Strange Creatures, felt just as long. “This Dance” is the second track off the new record, and is a grunge romp that will have you shaking it as much as moshing. Eoin Loveless delivers his most fever-pitched vocal performance while singing about underground dance parties on aqueducts, in dingy basements, and under highway overpasses. His guitar work is as clear and haunting as a surf-rock horror movie, followed by Rob Graham’s bass line that is--by far--the most complex of Drenge’s catalog. His brother, Rory Loveless, pounds a drum set so fantastically you wouldn’t be blamed for confusing him with Matt Cameron or Dave Grohl. Turn this on and turn it up.
"This Dance"
"Lullaby for My Insomniac"
The very idea that James Blake is good at vocal loops has been discussed so ad nauseum it has made people actually nauseous. That said, the loops on "Lullaby for My Insomniac" are so beautiful it would require an entire acoustic forensics team to dissect the layers. The final minute of the Assume Form closer is just his voice, endlessly covering itself with more and more and more. This comes after a stunning, free verse poem about literal insomnia, with the awe-inspiring lines “sleep happens to you, it’s not a failure if you can’t; in any case, you will, at some point, fall,” and “I’d rather see everything as a blur tomorrow if you do.” The song is, otherwise, essentially music-less, save an occasional horn fade-in, putting even more pressure on the vocals to deliver. But this is territory Blake has traveled a thousand times, and like and old pro, he navigates the peril to bewitching effect.
"Lullaby for My Insomniac"
Happy holidays, everyone, and pleasant listening to 2019!
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