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2017 FBG Album Poll - COUNTDOWN TODAY (Feb 22) (2 Viewers)

#40

Together PANGEA - Bulls and Roosters

28 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Jaysus, ericctspikes, El Floppo

Review:  After the raucous garage punk of 2012’s Living Dummy, and something grungier and less feral on follow-up Badillac, Together PANGEA’s fourth long-player spins yet another version of garage for their most simpatico release yet. With a title inspired by John Baldessari's text painting Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, Bulls and Roosters is the band’s Nettwerk label debut. The album takes its cues from the early British Invasion (think the Animals and the Rolling Stones) and, occasionally, post-punk more than from the previous generation's garage punk, and with cleaner production. The Los Angeles quartet still sports a loose and lively performance style and bratty demeanor, though, along the lines of contemporaries like Twin Peaks and, to a lesser degree, Thee Oh Sees. With only one song over four-minutes long and the majority under three, it’s a 13-song set of short, melodic, adrenalized tunes with hooky choruses that makes it hard to sift singles from the album. "Kenmore Ave." is one of a few tracks with synth or guitar tones that bring some early-'80s Britain into the mix, while singer William Keegandoes his best Jagger on the strutting "Money on It" ("I put my money on you"). Songs like "Southern Comfort" and "Better Find Out" kick up the tempo, and "The Cold" wallows in guitar twang, even after the group whistling and guitar solos kick in. It's hard to say if fans of prior albums will follow them through more tinkering with their sound, but the songwriting gets an upgrade here, and with some variety and no dull stretches, it's a charmer.   https://www.allmusic.com/album/bulls-and-roosters-mw0003072799

 
T-#34

Wild Pink - Wild Pink

30 points, 1 vote

Ranked Highest By: The Dreaded Marco

Review:  

The members of Wild Pink live in Brooklyn but really reside in their own minds. Whether it’s mundane NYC landmarks (the Taconic Parkway, a giant clock over the John Smolenski Funeral Home) or hallowed monuments, Wild Pink seek the familiar in their dynamic surroundings. “Riding out some psychotropics/In the shadow of the World Trade/Trying hard to understand the culture in my face,” John Ross sings in “Great Apes.” Wild Pink lives in this wearied New York state of mind: standing on the subway, walking through crowds lost in thought, letting the mental chatter drown out every voice around you.

After two EPs that found the Brooklyn trio exploring an array of mid-fi ’90s influences, they’ve honed a sound that suits Ross’ perspective—maybe not so much comfortably numb as “manageably anxious,” reminiscent of early Death Cab for Cutie or American Analog Set, bands who took on characteristics of slowcore without being stylistically bound to it. Parallel to his band’s evolution, Ross has ditched his searching yelp and distilled his entire emotional range into a single, unshakeable tone. It’s not monotonous, per se; what Ross does is a variation on “shower voice,” a sort of a tuneful mutter. The ways his timbre peaks through sundazed ambience (“Broke On”), glistening jangle-pop (“Great Apes”) or piercing fuzz (“Nothing to Show”) can be remarkable or infuriating—like hearing chatter in the library where you can *just *make out enough of the conversation that it doesn’t become white noise.

At times, Ross can unnerve the listener enough to lean in closer for his lyrics, which are like quotables from non-contextual conversations: “I’ve got a dad’s breath/From cheap beer and cigarettes,” “You are the beauty queen/You left piss on the seat,” or most memorably, “Then I said something dumb/Like ‘the Redskins hate the Cowboys because Kennedy died in Dallas.’” Ross says the latter to defuse the tension of visiting a roadside vigil on the opening “How Do You Know if God Takes You Back?,” and throughout *Wild Pink, *the jokes serve as his emotional armor. His picture of an isolated, yet contented youth is drawn with John Darnielle-esque detail (“My whole world was in my room/Playing both sides of a Magic game/Black vs. Green/And a bootleg Maxell tape of Queen”) and on the devastating closer, he recalls to a friend, “On 9/11 your mom took you to see Legally Blonde.” The names of these songs are, respectively, “Wanting Things Makes You ####tier” and “They Hate Our Freedom.”

 
T-#34

Son Volt - Notes of Blue

30 points, 1 vote

Ranked Highest By: shuke

Review:  

Jay Farrar’s voice is a unique instrument, one that winds its way around the syllables he writes for his alt-country band Son Volt in ways that are surprising and affecting. Songs about personal heartache and universal angst are right in his wheelhouse, because of the way that he takes simple observations about these topics and reveals new complexities in them by a sudden rise or precipitous tumble in his vocal. Such songs are all over Notes Of Blue, so it’s no surprise then about the consistently high quality of the work.

Farrar starts the album off with two songs about resilience in hard times, while the eight songs that follow put that resilience constantly to the test. “Promise The World” warns us right off the bat that “There will be danger, there will be hell to pay,” only to counter with “Light after darkness, that is the way.” The heartland rocker “Back Against The Wall” promises that “All will be revealed” in times of crisis, as in the true measure of a man or woman.

The music on Notes Of Blue ranges, somewhat suddenly at times, from atmospheric folk to crunching rock. “Static” and “Sinking Down” find the band churning away in gritty, ZZ Top mode. “The Storm” and “Promise The World” take the opposite approach, with pretty acoustics and melodies that vary with the unpredictable quaver in Farrar’s voice.

Farrar can be an opaque songwriter, but adherence to the bluesy tone keeps him focused and sharp throughout. The most memorable track here, “Cairo And Southern,” keeps the words to a minimum, featuring repeated lyrical lines that are given a new emotional spin every time Farrar tackles them. Son Volt doesn’t try anything fancy on Notes Of Blue, nor does it need to. It simply puts the spotlight on the frontman and lets him knock every one of these songs high into the stormy skies and right out of the park.  https://americansongwriter.com/2017/02/son-volt-notes-blue/

 
T-#34

Old 97's - Graveyard Whistling

30 points, 1 vote

Ranked Highest By: Bogart

Review:  

While the Old 97's have as recognizable a sound as anyone who came out of the '90s alt-country scene, you can't accuse them of repeating themselves. On 2014's Most Messed Up, their tenth studio album, the band sounded proudly rowdy and plenty scrappy, ready to make trouble and have a good time doing it. Three years later, 2017's Graveyard Whistling finds them delivering a more polished product, coupled with a firm sense of consequence about the bad results of the pursuit of good times. Vance Powell's production boasts more clarity, depth, and drama than Most Messed Up, though he hasn't sapped the group's fiery attack, and while most of the tracks here feature more cautious tempos, the trademark twang and crunch of Ken Bethea's guitar are as powerful as ever, and the hard-edged shuffle of bassist Murry Hammond and drummer Philip Peeples has only grown more powerful with time. There's a dark, spooky undertow to numbers like "I Don't Wanna Die in This Town" and "Good with God" (the latter featuring guest vocals from Brandi Carlile), and even upbeat numbers like "She Hates Everybody" and "Nobody" have a rueful tone that confirms these guys have been around long enough to know how elusive good times can be. Graveyard Whistling has a strong sense of drama, but it's far from a bum trip; the Old 97's still know how to rev up when they feel like it on numbers like "Drinkin' Song" (which could be an outtake from Most Messed Up), and Rhett Miller's skills as a vocalist and lyricist are as strong as ever, giving this music the sort of heart and soul that the band has never failed to deliver. The Old 97's still sound engaged, energetic, and as committed as ever 23 years after they released their debut, and Graveyard Whistling is evidence they're not short on fresh ideas either. https://www.allmusic.com/album/graveyard-whistling-mw0003005859

 
T-#34

Marcus D - Melancholy Prequel (Rising Sun Redux)

30 points, 1 vote

Ranked Highest By: Steve Tasker

Review:  

By now, you’ll know that this album is completely instrumental. However their is an exception with track 15; 400 Years of Perseverance. The track features DMV emcee Javier Starks. Starks provides lyrics that are bold and encouraging. He lends his lyrics over a very classical jazz production. The fusion of hip hop and jazz is very familiar. Th synergy makes too much sense. So Marcus and Starks create something you’ll probably be listening to for years.

The album is 18 tracks strong and so I return back to my initial thought. As I said earlier; Melancholy Prequel (Rising Sun Redux) is the quintessential jazz hiphop fusion album. Marcus D is able to take his years of experience as a producer and Jazz student and put it on wax. You have an album that presents all of jazz and its subgenres without missing a beat.

You may not even be a fan of Jazz and that’s understandable. However if you needed point of entry to understand the genre, look no further than this album.

Marcus is something of a world warrior, so he’s on the grind performing and creating. I would recommend following him to keep update with his projects. He also shares thoughts on modern music via social media. I tend to find music talk with artists very interesting.

In closing, I recommend getting this album. If you need something to just chill to or enjoy your alone; Marcus D’s Melancholy Prequel (Rising Sun Redux) is available now for your listening pleasure. https://betterrhymes.com/2017/04/20/marcus-d-melancholy-prequel-rising-sun-redux-review/

 
T-#34

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland

30 points, 1 vote

Ranked Highest By: landrys hat

Previous Albums on Our Countdown: Nonagon Infinity (10th in 2016)

Review:  

The new Polygondwanaland is, at least from where I’m sitting, easily the strongest of the four and probably the best album I’ve heard from this band yet.

King Gizzard built Polygondwanaland out of intricate, overlapping grooves. The songs are all in unfamiliar time signatures; they’re math problems that I can’t quite comprehend. (Running errands earlier today, I just about broke my brain attempting to drum along on the steering wheel.) But King Gizzard aren’t jam-band or tech-metal types; the technical dexterity is never the point. Instead, they use all that musicianship to craft an otherworldly rhythmic swirl. It’s all there in “Crumbling Castle,” the album’s towering 11-minute opener. “Crumbling Castle” is a rocker, a staggering psychedelic beast of a song with its eyes locked on the sky. But it’s not a single-minded creature. There’s a lot of room for play in “Crumbling Castle.” At various points in the song, we hear tranced-out flutes, blazing metal riffs, raga-drone organs, and ominous vintage-synth tones that recall Tangerine Dream and John Carpenter film scores. Sometimes, the members of the band attempt to chant like Gregorian monks, which has the slightly hilarious effect of making their accents sound even more Australian than usual.

And if “Crumbling Castle” is the roadmap, it’s a huge one, one that leaves the band plenty of room to wander. There are some genuinely gorgeous acoustic folk songs on Polygodwanaland, but even on those tracks, both of the band’s drummers get serious workouts. (Shout out to two-drummer bands. I’m sure there are ####ty two-drummer bands out there, but I’ve never heard them. And the best two-drummer bands — Black Eyes, Kylesa, Thee Oh Sees, Fugazi just before their breakup, the current Bon Iver touring lineup — are just godlike.) Within their warped time signatures and psychedelic repetition, King Gizzard are great songwriters, and the melodies on Polygondwanaland can be soothing or triumphant or, sometimes, both. Lyrically, they’re into dazed galactic imagery, which doesn’t do a lot for me but which does suit the music. The whole sound is defiantly retro in a ’60s or ’70s sense, and there are plenty of obvious touchstones: Floyd, Sabbath, Can, Hawkwind, the 13th Floor Elevators. But like fellow Aussie space cases Tame Impala (a band that otherwise has nothing in common with King Gizzard), they’re great at taking those influences and subsuming them into what they do. When I’m listening to Polygondwanaland, I’m not drawing mental connections to older psych bands or marveling at the fact that these guys already released three completely different albums this year. I’m just letting it wash over me.

When King Gizzard’s grand 2017 stunt is over, when they succeed or fail at delivering that fifth album by their own arbitrary deadline, people are going to want to build narratives out of what the band has accomplished this year. And here’s the narrative that I’m already developing in my head: It took the band three quick-succession albums to build up to what they’ve done on Polygondwanaland. All four albums are worth your time, but King Gizzard had to chase their muse down a few different rabbit holes before they ended up with something truly stunning, and that something truly stunning is Polygondwanaland. If they do manage to release another album in the next six weeks, it’ll just be bonus points. What they’ve already accomplished is enough.  https://www.stereogum.com/1972402/album-of-the-week-king-gizzard-the-lizard-wizard-polygondwanaland/franchises/album-of-the-week/

 
T-#34

Colter Wall - Colter Wall

30 points, 1 vote

Ranked Highest By: landrys hat

Review:  Armed with a voice like a gravel road in a dry season, Saskatchewan's Colter Wall sounds more like a world-weary troubadour than most actual world-weary troubadours.
 
At only 21 years old, Wall's instrument may strike some as borrowed — even unearned. And yet, I'll be damned if he doesn't know how to use that impossible voice of his. Throughout his spare, acoustic self-titled debut, Wall spins tales of murder, lost love and working class politics with all the pretension of a wannabe dust bowler and the unfettered confidence of the real deal. (It helps immeasurably that he is aware of his insider/outsider role, and drops the occasional hint. Tellingly, his 2015 EP was called Imaginary Appalachia.)
 
Since it's produced by Dave Cobb, the man behind the boards for just about every top-shelf Americana act these days, from Sturgill Simpson to Chris Stapleton, Lindi Ortega to Corb Lund, expect this album to get a lot of critical attention, but don't expect it to be a hit. This is raw, gritty music, stripped down and bare, full of a kind of grinding darkness that can be suffocating in its accumulation across 11 tracks.
 
Wall falls on the folky side of the Americana divide, generally, and fans of Townes Van Zandt (whom he covers here) will be well served for sure. But there're some nods to Jerry Jeff Walker, David Allen Coe and others in the shambling troubadour tradition scattered throughout the record, a rare, confident, and remarkable debut from a talented newcomer.  https://exclaim.ca/music/article/colter_wall-colter_wall

 
kupcho1 said:
Wow, two 'albums' I really liked and both not even in the rundown?  Thought we didn't have drafters.
Click to expand...
Yeah, pretty much have to drop the 30 point bomb for them to get in if no one else puts them on a list. I like that Sylvan Esso album too but it didn't crack my top 20.

 
#33

Foo Fighters - Concrete and Gold

30 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: jvvdesigns, steelcitysledgehammers

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Sonic Highways (#47 in 2014)

Review:  

Finally, Dave Grohl’s inevitable transition into a flannel shirt-wearing Freddie Mercury-with-tats is complete. Kicking off the ninth Foo Fighters album with one minute and 22 seconds of Queen-worthy bombast, the glistening sonic flare that is ‘T-Shirt’ sets the tone for a blistering, high-gloss ‘Concrete and Gold’, a record that features some of the band’s most vital and impressive tracks in years.

Following up 2014’s ‘Sonic Highways’ – a conceptual indulgence which saw the group travelling to some of the US’s most legendary music studios – this is a return to a more simple way of doing things. Written in his pants in an Airbnb in the hippy enclave of Ojai, California, this back-to-basics, underwear-driven approach has served Grohl well. ‘Run’ is up there with some of the Foos’ most impressive work, a throwback to the raw riffs of the self-titled 1995 debut and bare bones emotion of its follow-up ‘The Colour and the Shape’. The subtle force of funk is also a key factor in the sheer buoyancy of ‘Concrete and Gold’, with ‘Make It Right’ plugging into an almost Prince-ly groove. It’s a move that gently echoes their pals Queens of the Stone Age, who recently worked with pop producer Mark Ronson. Taking a similar tack, the Foos have teamed up with Greg Kurstin – known for his work with the likes of Lily Allen, Adele and Sia – and his added gloss makes this album really glimmer.

Grohl said he wanted it to sound like “Motörhead’s version of Sgt Pepper”. Gracefully mixing the rough with the smooth throughout, he’s not far off. The visceral ‘La Dee Da’ is a case in point, mixing up the slick Southern rock swing of the Allman Brothers with a screamo chorus and mega-riffs. This is an album where acoustic ballads like ‘Happy Ever After’ that recall the Beatles sit comfortably alongside moody ragers like ‘The Line’. Proof that there’s definitely still life in the old Grohl left.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/reviews/album/foo-fighters-concrete-gold-review#zDfHlWIq3JySomX3.99

 
Let's get a house, you and me and your twelve cats

#32

Ron Gallo - Heavy Meta

30 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Jaysus, E-Z Glider, El Floppo

Review:  Ron Gallo spent close to a decade exploring the boundaries of his blues, country, and roots rock influences with his band Toy Soldiers, but when he jumped ship to go solo, he left all of that behind. At least that's the very strong impression given by Gallo's second solo album, 2017's Heavy Meta. Gallo's first solo effort, 2014's Ronny, was a step away from Toy Soldiers' sound into a brighter and poppier direction, but with Heavy Meta, he's done an about-face into raw, wiry, guitar-based rock & roll. Backed by bassist Joe Bisirri and drummer Dylan Sevey, Heavy Meta is a gritty, energetic exercise in punk-informed 21st century garage rock, with Gallo's buzzy, rough and ready guitar figures and high-attitude vocals front and center in the mix at all times. Even the relatively subdued numbers like "Black Market Eyes," "Started a War," and "All the Punks Are Domesticated" are sharp-witted and lyrically cutting (especially the latter, a bitter tirade against the cultural abuses of contemporary thirty-somethings). And when Gallo and his bandmates shift into high gear on "Young Lady, You're Scaring Me," "Please Yourself," and "Put the Kids to Bed," the fusion of Gallo's dirty but melodic melodies and waves of lyrical swagger suggests how Bob Dylan might have ended up if his primal influence had been Black Francisinstead of Woody Guthrie. And chances are slim anyone will release a better song in the foreseeable future about bad parenting than the ferocious "Why Do You Have Kids?" Gallo's songwriting is Heavy Meta's greatest strength, but the production by Gallo and Bisirri is excellent, documenting the performances with force and clarity but retaining just the right amount of rough-edged texture to keep this music tough and effective. Heavy Meta is the sound of Ron Gallo reinventing himself, and he does it so well that one could view his impressive body of work with Toy Soldiers simply as a warm-up; this is tough, smart, impassioned rock & roll with a sense of purpose and lots of swagger, performed with the confidence of a veteran and the scrap of a newcomer. It's heady stuff well worth your attention.  https://www.allmusic.com/album/heavy-meta-mw0003001182

 
First time one of their albums has failed to crack our top 10.

#31

The National - Sleep Well Beast

31 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: The Dreaded Marco, shuke, Northern Voice

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Trouble Will Find Me (8th in 2013), High Violet (7th in 2010), Boxer (4th in 2007)

Review:  Liking The National has somehow become a parody of itself—a bunch of white dudes that make sad music about loneliness and growing up somehow seems so... predictable, and, frankly, pointless during a Trump administration. For instance, if I were to tell you The National's new album, Sleep Well Beast, opens with a sad, beautiful song, would you be surprised? If you found out that lead singer Matt Berninger pleads not to "#### it up" within the first three tracks, would that shock you? If you heard Sleep Well Beast has a song called "Guilty Party," would you even bat an eye?

But if I told you that Sleep Well Beast is one of the best albums of 2017—would that surprise you?

Because, in spite of the expectations of "another National album," Sleep Well Beast is a towering achievement. It's a tweaking of the formula that the band has been riding since Alligator (and that they perfected on Boxer). But here, they're taking chances like they haven't since then, and almost everything they're trying works beautifully. The first hint of this is in opener, "Nobody Else Will Be Here"-behind the usual piano and Berninger's still-stirring baritone, electronic sounds and synthesizers gurgle. It's not until "Walk It Back" that they burst into the foreground, with a chugging beat that decays into a Karl Rove (yes, that Karl Rove) quote.

First single "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness," with its jagged guitar bursts and widescreen choruses, sounds like a sharpening of the "National sound." "Turtleneck" is a chugging Krautrock squealer, harkening back to the best of The National's Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers era, while highlight "I'll Still Destroy You" builds off a skittering drum machine beat and marimba flourishes. These sounds are unexpected, a surprising shift in a band not recently known for their shifts.

The National also reminds listeners that it is one of the best bands this side of Radiohead that can build to an epic close out of recurring bits of sound-nowhere is this more apparent than on standout "Guilty Party." The song rides to a stunning conclusion on the back of a series of sounds (particularly a piercing guitar line), all while Berninger sings about a guilt-ridden lover—okay, so maybe that hasn't changed.

Sleep Well Beast is the sound of one of the best bands of this decade pulling new sounds into their repertoire and making those sounds wholly theirs. It's difficult to deny music this well-crafted and affecting—and perhaps being able to make anything beautiful and affirming in the Trump era is notable. This is the band's best album since Boxer, and will stand as one of the year's best

 
She was a shark smile in a yellow van

#30

Big Thief - Capacity

31 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: The Dreaded Marco, Workhorse, Eephus

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Masterpiece (14th in 2016)

Review:  Sometimes all a songwriter needs is the right supporting cast to help her songs reach that next level. Minnesota's Adrianne Lenker has spent the majority of her life writing songs, but it wasn't until she found a kindred spirit, guitarist Buck Meek, that she unlocked her potential. Once the duo found the missing pieces — bassist Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia — Big Thief was formed, fully and completely.
 
Last year, the now-Brooklyn-based band turned heads with their debut album, Masterpiece, a collection of deeply expressive folk-rock songs they'd been honing since their onset. Just one year later they return with their second album, Capacity, seemingly as if no sweat was involved.
 
Capacity shares a lot of the same characteristics that made its predecessor so endearing, but it also wastes little time demonstrating that this band have undergone remarkable growth in almost no time. The devastating "Mary" is the most obvious example of this: its stark yet blithe minimal arrangement allows Lenker's haunting voice to hit your ear like the softest caress. It's one of the most arresting vocal performances you'll hear all year.
 
Lenker's ability to weave heartbroken narratives with hopeful outcomes is a tremendous talent to have. It's never more powerful than on "Shark Smile," which tells of a woman saying goodbye to her partner after a car wreck, and "Mythological Beauty," where she recalls a traumatic experience from her own childhood. The band's insistence on treating such delicate themes as loss and distress with loose, winding rock structures really allows the songs to show off their versatility and breathe.
 
Capacity is both a logical successor to Masterpiece as well as a great leap forward for Big Thief. The chemistry that Lenker and her band have established on album number two is extraordinarily strong, but no matter how good they get, her songwriting seems as though it will forever be raw to the core.  https://exclaim.ca/music/article/big_thief-capacity

 
Am I the best... Or just the first person to say yes?

#29

Charly Bliss - Guppy

32 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: Northern Voice, Ilov80s

Review:  

Put succinctly, Charly Bliss makes guitar pop-rock of the fuzzed-out kind embodied by ’90s acts like the Breeders, Weezer, and others of their ilk. But rather than sounding like some Johnny-come-lately imitation, the band does its musical forbears one better: It has crafted a record so engaging and resonant, it feels more like a contemporary bedfellow of those acts than a latter-day application of the same tactics. It’s a joyous outburst of brash and irascible energy, rising up with a wellspring of enthusiasm and a howl of 4/4 intensity that never forgets to be hooky or hummable. Whatever fizzy elixir of chemistry the band distilled in order to produce these 10 tracks of jangling chords and harmonies, it’s a combination that succeeds where so many others fail. It’s simple without being base, and familiar without once becoming derivative. Drummer Sam Hendricks meshes seamlessly with Dan Shure’s pulsing bass lines, a rhythm section that grounds all those shimmering guitar riffs with the propulsive backbeats of arena-ready acts 10 times their seniors. And guitarist Spencer Fox has long had a knack for the unassuming guitar lines that complement, rather than take over or attempt to outdo, the music. Even when guitar solos threaten to take center stage, he wisely keeps the focus on the melody, sacrificing flash for songcraft.

But the lodestone in Charly Bliss’ scruffy pop edifice is singer Eva Hendricks. An infectiously effervescent frontperson with the energy of a punk-rock cheerleader and the biting lyricism to match, her vocals have the rough sandpaper edge of a Kim Deal fused to the freight-train shout-alongs of a Kathleen Hanna, bringing the best of both elements to the forefront. When things threaten to turn saccharine, she belts out appealing screams with the best of them, adding the necessary roughness to sweet musical hooks and savvy softer squeals to the harder melodies. But it’s her words that create the atmosphere of forever-young passion and searching that permeate Guppy, making both rueful confessions and declarations of emotional war sound as relatable as breathing. When she describes the bad decisions that come from late nights with someone you shouldn’t have stuck around with, it’s both universal and perfectly individuated. “Don’t you know I aim to please? I’m everybody’s favorite tease, put your hand on my knee, that’s what friends are for,” she sings on album opener “Percolator,” capturing the too-intimate-by-half mood of every impulsive hookup in history, as well as her own badass declaration of purpose. “My conscience is ####ed, and my judgment is leaking”: This is the sound of American youth, forever one step forward, three steps back, and another one sideways and tripping head-first into an amp for good measure.

From there, it only gets better. “Glitter” nails the suspicion that comes with being someone’s ostensible object of lust, only to realize it might be more fleeting than that (“Am I the best / Or just the first person to say yes?”), while “DQ” evokes the sense of fatalistic frustration we all confront at times, the fear that nothing good will ever come of our hopes and plans. Even album closer “Julia,” the only song to slow things down and take a breather, eventually builds to a screaming coda of distortion and feedback, the only appropriate end to a record that so vitally documents the churning miasma of emotional wanderlust that characterizes the best rock albums. And maybe that’s what is so essential about Guppy: It’s the sound of rock music doing the timeless job it only achieves from its best practitioners. It’s wholly adrift and disposable by any metric of serious analysis, but those very qualities are why it is absolutely necessary. It speaks to the uncertain core of each of us, doling out the screams and hollers of inner upheaval the rest of us lack the artistry to express in such passionate and expressive ways. Charly Bliss has made a record as alive and irrepressible as anything I’ve heard in years. #######, but this is a record for the ages—I can only imagine where they go from here.

 
Kicking cameras and taking names.

#28

Queens of the Stone Age - Villains

33 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: ericttspikes, steelcitysledgehammers, Northern Voice

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Like Clockwork (#28 in 2013), Era Vulgaris (#50 in 2007)

Review: 

It’s relatively safe to say the news that Mark Ronson—the British pop producer behind Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black, who struck gold in 2014 with his single “Uptown Funk”—was producing the forthcoming Queens of the Stone Age record sent waves of fear through the hearts of the band’s longtime followers. Is QOTSA’s seventh album Villains a little slicker? A little tidier? Danceable? The answer is yes. But Ronson’s touch has not made Josh Homme’s songs any less heavy, weird or ambitious.

Take a song like “Domesticated Animals,” Villains’ best offering. It’s got it all—a bass line that will rattle your fillings, crisp drumming, sinister hand claps, squirrelly guitars, an apocalyptic chorus, all held together by Homme’s silky voice. The buzzy “Un-Reborn Again” sounds like a cross between Gary Numan and the Cars at their darkest. The glam rock stomp of “Head Like a Haunted House” is met with the plastic soul of “Hideaway” (no doubt a byproduct of Homme’s collaboration with Iggy Pop on 2016’s excellent Post Pop Depression) and the balls-out stomper “The Evil Has Landed.” While the Queens pull from rock touchstones of yore, Homme and co. are very much making something new with them.

It helps that Homme’s mind and voice are directing the ship. Ronson’s bone-dry production also plays a key role—matching ’70s studio tricks with modern ambient flourishes. Villains also benefits from the fact that Homme settled on a sturdy lineup (including longtime guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen) vs. the glut of revolving guest musicians and egos of past albums. In that sense Villains is far more consistent and taut than 2013’s sprawling …Like Clockwork—every song punches hard. Add to that the levity of Rated R, which busts up any semblance of being too overwrought. Homme’s rock ’n’ roll instincts are still as keen as ever.

Paste Magazine’s review of …Like Clockwork propped QOTSA up as sort of the modern-day Zeppelin or Metallica. That might be even more true now—a band that somehow straddles the mainstream while retaining their rock credibility. Sure, some fans will ##### about it, but time will undoubtedly be kind to the band. The evolution of Queens of the Stone Age has been slow and steady; and 20 years in the band still sounds amazingly energized. Even more miraculous is the notion that Queens of the Stone Age have perhaps yet to hit their creative peak—no small feat for any band, let alone one that still tinkers with a form of music as old as rock.

 
All you gotta do is let me know

#27

Kelela - Take Me Apart

33 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Ilov80s, Eephus, Steve Tasker

Review: 

Eighty seconds into Kelela’s debut LP ‘Take Me Apart’, the shimmering pads that opened proceedings drop out and lead track ‘Frontline’ explodes into life. Two strands of her voice wrap around each other with breathtaking power, as the track flips into an infectious club rhythm full of percussive whirrs and sharp snares. It sets the tone for the record, which bursts with textured atmospheres and danceable beats, all led by the unwavering might of Kelela’s lungs. The styles explored across the LP are diverse: ‘Blue Light’ is moody club scuzz, ‘Jupiter’ oozes through tender ambient, and ‘Truth Or Dare’ marries a stripped-back beat with some glossy synths. Above the production, each track is emotionally anchored by Kelela’s affecting, human lyricism. “I’m gonna prove you wrong,” she sings on ‘Bluff’, a 72- second interlude that packs immense feeling into its brief running time. At once both vulnerable and subversive, throughout the album she touches upon love, identity and the human condition. “It ain’t that deep,” she jibes about a one-night stand on ‘LMK’, taking a swipe at gendered relationship constructs, while ‘Turn To Dust’ drips with Björk-esque melancholy, and a silky pop hook dominates ‘Waitin’. Talk in the early stages of Kelela’s career often centred around what she brought to the futuristic productions of the likes of Arca, Jam City and Kingdom, whose names would be included in the track titles. On ‘Take Me Apart’, though, the titles stand alone: here, Kelela rightfully takes centre stage. http://mixmag.net/feature/november-18-albums-you-need-to-hear-this-month/34

 
Previous FBG album poll winner alert!

#26

Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up

33 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: shuke, ericttspikes, Workhorse

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Helplessness Blues (#1 in 2011), Fleet Foxes (3rd in 2008)

Review: 

Robin Pecknold's Fleet Foxes are back with another gorgeous, unique album that balances profundity and earnestness.
 
The band's sonic expansion is evident early on. "I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar" begins with detuned acoustic guitar and the lowest singing heard yet from Pecknold, before blooming into the lush strums and layered vocals that characterize their sound; another guitar articulates a 2/3 polyrhythm with a repeated note, adding tasteful tension. The track ends with watery paddling sounds, and a crowd singing the "ooh" melody from 2008 track "White Winter Hymnal."
 
"Cassius" begins with that same paddling sound and a perhaps electronically triggered vocal sample. For a band whose past work sounded so pastoral, even medieval at times, pulling off samples, electronics and polyrhythms with such subtlety feels like an impressive feat. However, these elements also enhance the feelings of anxiety and alienation in navigating life's ambiguities, an important theme early in the album's flow. Crack-Up picks up the pieces of Pecknold's existential crises (expressed on Helplessness Blues and grappled with in the interim), and tries to forge a way forward.
 
"If You Need To, Keep Time On Me" insists on a kind of stability after the self-examination and questioning of the first several songs, the repeated titular phrase seeming to analogize an existential belief, the choice to make one's own meaning in a chaotic world. "Fool's Errand" seems to suggest, furthermore, that seeking some grand, universal meaning is pointless, and that such a meaning is not necessary to enjoy life anyways. Acknowledging that there are no big answers here provides the album its own kind of direction.
 
With Crack-Up's earnest explorations of the human condition and evocative, progressive composition, Fleet Foxes maintain their status as one of the best folk rock bands of the 21st century.

 
Causing tabulation errors by not deciding if they're a "The" band or not since 1976

#25

The Feelies - In Between

33 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: ericttspikes, The Dreaded Marco, El Floppo

Review: 

The Feelies' new record opens with the sound of a crackling campfire and chirping birds, an implication of contentment in place and time. Then there's that defining strum, the jangly interplay of guitarists Glenn Mercer and Bill Million. Mercer's voice enters, speak-singing in a worn whisper "Make a plan / Let it be", seeming to echo that initial impression of peace. But as he continues, here and throughout the Feelies' sixth album In Between, it becomes apparent that finding contentment is hard work, an ongoing struggle against doubt and a hundred other internal and external complications.

Even the album's collective song titles, all two- and three-word phrases, amplify a sense of dis-ease amidst the search for inner peace in later life: "Turn Back Time", "Stay the Course", "Been Replaced", "Gone, Gone, Gone", "Time Will Tell", and then the book ended versions of the title song "In Between". How cleverly evasive it is to place the "In Between" on the ends, thereby encompassing all else here. Does Mercer have a message for us: Is everything "in between"? And, if so, what are the defining poles? Well, that last answer seems obvious, and the sense of being in between is perhaps heightened by an awareness of which side of the mortal clock Mercer, along with most of us who have long followed his band's career, is on.

But this is not a record about death; rather, it is one that firmly embraces life (again, the "in between") while contemplating the complexities of aging. There is contentment here, but it is not untroubled: such is the reality for anyone who has undertaken life's trials and persevered. Maybe the scariest thing about growing older is the realization that so much of what used to matter gets stripped away and revealed as an external distraction from our internal growth. Mercer's lyrics throughout the album seek to strip away the extraneous, to bore into the core of being.

Sometimes in art, it takes strict adherence to a framework to reveal the deepest levels of creativity and mastery of vision. In Between is a testament to that truth. The Feelies have always been defined by Mercer and Million's droning guitars, but the atomic clock precision of drummer Stan Demesky along with the contributions of percussionist Dave Weckerman and bassist Brenda Sauter fill the framework of the band's sound so thoroughly that to remove anyone would destroy the group's cohesion.

Weckerman's mad box of percussive tricks spices the mix of every song, sometimes subtly, as with the blocks and cowbells of "Turn Back Time", at others in the forefront, as when his sleigh bells bring acceleration to "Make It Clean" or where his wood block pulse provides a foundation for Mercer's Spanish guitar run. Most importantly, his interplay with Demesky allows bassist Brenda Sauter to break away from the rhythm section and find her own sonic space. Sometimes the effect is to give a song something like multiple heartbeats, each working in synchronicity but nonetheless distinct. At still others, Sauter's deep bass lines are the melodic foundation upon which Mercer and Million build their famous jangle. But at significant points on In Between, Sauter will move to the lower strings, her higher tone serving as the primary engine of the sound. In the break between choruses in "Turn Back Time", for instance, she is leading from behind, the rest of the band following along. So, too, in "Stay on Course", Sauter's chugging bass is the engine of forward motion for the song, while, in "Gone, Gone, Gone" her playing provides the swing in what might be the world's first existential angst dance record.

The extended, Velvet Underground-inspired jam of "In Between (Reprise)" offers a strong statement of music's life-affirming power. That this mostly quiet album ends on so loud a note is no accident. The poet Galway Kinnell once wrote of our mortality as "being forever in the pre-trembling of a house that falls." Mercer seems well aware of such poetic truth. Despite intimations of mortality, there's plenty of rocking and rolling left in this house. https://www.popmatters.com/the-feelies-in-between-2495400022.html

 
Prolific

#24

Ty Segall - Ty Segall

35 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: ericttspikes, landrys hat

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Manipulator (27th in 2014), Hair (33rd in 2012)

Review: 

Ty Segall is back with his first self-titled record since his 2008 debut, which should tell you that this is a restatement of basic principles: dispensing with overdubs and recording instead with a full band, this is an album that comes marching out of the gate, grabbing you by the front of your shirt and then playing the most heavenly rock your ears have heard in many a month. And that's not even half the story.

Things kick off with Break a Guitar, which is crunchy and riff-tastic and perfectly in keeping with what you’d expect: yes, it’s slightly psychedelic; yes, it could be a Big Star B-side (still high praise), but whack it up high and by the time you hit the three-minute mark you’ll be painting your face, dancing in robes and half expecting the Age of Aquarius to resurrect itself.

Then there's two minutes of Freedom, a garage anthem in waiting (it’s also the kind of song you’ll stick on repeat and listen to until you die; perhaps this is what David Foster Wallace meant by Infinite Jest). And just when you think Ty's all about the rock this time round, Warm Hands (Freedom Returned) takes Freedom down a peg – think Syd Barrett impersonating Neil Young circa Tonight’s the Night. Talkin’ mellows us out still further; the kind of thing Ryan Adams used to do so well. Clearly, he's taking us on a ride.

The Only One roars like Sabbath and Thank You Mr. K hits ‘Maiden country, but Orange Color Queen (a song he’s written for his current squeeze, which could see him being thrown a few more Lennon comparisons) and Take Care (To Comb Your Hair) are just about the loveliest folk-pop ballads it’s been our good fortune to hear in an age.

In other words this is an album of light and shade, an album of nuance – which might surprise some people. He wears his influences on his sleeve, sure, but he makes all kinds of beautiful rackets. Not only are Ty Segall fans likely to be pressing this on people for the next few months, it also might be just about the best album he’s put his own name to. And that means it’s also likely to be the gateway Ty Segall drug for all those people who have yet to pay him any attention at all.

 
"Lena Dunham's ex-boyfriend"

#23

Bleachers - Gone Now

35 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: kupcho1, Nick Vermeil

Review: 

When Jack Antonoff first debuted Bleachers in 2014, the band seemed like a quaint side project for the fun. guitarist. But in the ensuing years, he’s become one of music’s most in-demand producers, minting pop gold for the likes of Taylor Swift and Lorde. Now, three years later, he’s returning to Bleachers once again — and the result, Gone Now, is his most accomplished to date.

On the proper follow-up to Strange Desire, Antonoff is more sonically self-assured and conceptually mission-driven, weaving together a 12-song cycle — inspired by the heartbreaking death of his sister, Sarah, from brain cancer when he was 18 — that explores the relationship between loss, youth, and rebirth. While Carly Rae Jepsen and Lorde add star-power to the radio-friendly pop explosions of “Hate That You Know Me” and “Don’t Take The Money,” Gone Now, as a whole, is a decidedly more contemplative offering. On an album that uses the jazzy gospel-pop blend of Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book as a touchstone, much of the set is defined by its recurring refrain (first introduced in “Goodmorning”) of bittersweet farewells and warm gratitude.

Songs like “Everybody Lost Somebody” and “I Miss Those Days” betray the intensely personal backbone of Antonoff’s latest, a record rooted in deep nostalgia (in both form and content) that finds the 33-year-old singer on a spiritual quest to find some peaceful salvation in pop melody. “Trying to get myself back home,” he sings halfway through. By the time he reaches the series of codas that conclude Gone Now, Antonoff sounds like he’s just arrived at his destination.

 
Northern Voice said:
Previous FBG album poll winner alert!

#26

Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up

33 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: shuke, ericttspikes, Workhorse
Click to expand...
Cool to see them making music again and there are some pleasant tunes on here, but Helplessness Blues was so good that this was still a let down for me. 

 
Placed higher than it did last year :shrug:  

#22

Run the Jewels - RTJ3

40 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: rockaction, steelcitysledgehammers, Workhorse

Previous Albums on our Countdown: RTJ3 (#25 in 2016), RTJ2 (#9 in 2014), 

Review: 

Hip-hop is a genre that thrives on freshness and the shock of the new: hot rappers rarely get more than three years in the spotlight, and late-career renaissances are unheard-of – which makes the ongoing, mainstream-nudging success of Run The Jewels all the more extraordinary. A pair of 41-year-olds with four accumulative decades in the game are the most buzzed-over act in rap right now, and they just rounded off an ecstatically received triptych of albums with their most bar-raising, industry-quaking collaboration yet. Up is down, black is white and all bets are off.

A quick synopsis for newcomers: rapper/producer El-P first emerged in 1997 as leader of New York futurists Company Flow, whose extraordinary debut album ‘Funcrusher Plus’ helped set the template for the ‘backpack rap’ wave that revolutionised late-’90s hip-hop. He went on to forge a solo career in the noughties, honing his razor-sharp, super-smart take on rhyming and beat-making to unfailing critical acclaim. Killer Mike, meanwhile, made his name on the swaggering post-Outkast Atlanta rap scene, unleashing four solo albums of heavy-yet-graceful hip-hop before calling on El-P to produce his fifth – the bombastic, old-skool-referencing ‘R.A.P. Music’. The pair forged an instant bond over a shared love of hip-hop that balances aggression, humour, innovation and defiant political awareness.

It’s the latter that is ‘RTJ3’’s defining quality. Amidst all the braggadocio and rapper-wounding one-liners, ‘RTJ1’ and ‘RTJ2’ always maintained a rage against machine, but the slow-motion horror-show of the last 12 months has focused Mike and El-P’s political ire like never before. Trump, police brutality, viral poverty and America’s accelerating descent into darkness are all grist for the mill – hip-hop has seldom sounded this righteous since Public Enemy. 

‘RTJ3’ is purpose-built to inspire and soundtrack insurrection over the coming months and years – as El-P scowls on ‘Thieves! (Screamed The Ghost)’, “Fear’s been the law for so long rage feels like therapy”. Not that you’re ever at risk of enduring a worthy, hectoring lecture. There’s tonnes of fun to be had from absorbing the duo’s fury, and El-P’s sci-fi beats are as thrillingly big ‘n’ bad as ever. But if 2017’s nightmarish status quo has you feeling powerless, anxious or alone, ‘RTJ3’ is the therapeutic rallying cry you need right now.

Read more at http://www.nme.com/reviews/album/run-the-jewels-album-review#Pxkbc51SxswVZJV6.99

 
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A little Irish in your blood
A little Polish in your name
A little Boston in your attitude

#21

The Menzingers - After the Party

42 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Jaysus, dal_boys_phan, Northern Voice

Review: 

The Menzingers have always excelled at conveying nostalgia. Embodying the moment after a trip down memory lane, with flashbacks still fresh in the mind and a keenly felt anticipation for the future in the air, After The Partyshowcases the band at their boldest and brightest yet. Take lead single "Lookers" for example: directing their cries of "I know the old you, and you know the old me" straight to the you as you listen, you find yourself drawn straight to the very heart of The Menzingers' world - a world that's conveyed with such familiarity it might as well be your own.

Reminiscing about "Julie from The Wonder Bar" on "Lookers" and "all our stick and pokes, all our inside jokes" on "Midwestern States", the album is a glass poured full, brimming with the warmth of the recognizable. Recounted with the band's characteristic brand of addictive punk rock, After The Party is a force of freewheeling expression and determined resolution.

Opening track "20's (Tellin' Lies)" is made up from tidal waves of pent-up exasperation and frenetic performance purpose built to leave you breathless. By the time the relentlessly rumbling drum beats of "Thick As Thieves" roll around, the group have reintroduced themselves as the close friend you've long felt missing. From there, the ensuing attachment is inevitable.

"Lookers" is a rollercoaster ride through your favourite memories with the people you're most fond of, "Charlie's Army" a brazen declaration of adoration caught up in a whirlwind of ernest emotion. There's adventure too: "Your Wild Years" the soundtrack to the mundane-yet-magical moments road tripping with a loved one, "Black Mass" a stripped back ode to faded romance. Then there's end of the night anthem "The Bars", carrying itself with an inebriated swagger and melodies that hearken back to Irish folk songs of old with a brazenly raw kick.

"We'll regret them when we're dead and sober," the band sing on "Midwestern States", "we're still breathing, and the party ain't over." This sentiment is the lifeblood of The Menzingers' latest record. Whether looking back or looking forwards the album courses with the determination to make the most of the present, no matter how terrible everything might seem.

 
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Northern Voice said:
All you gotta do is let me know

#27

Kelela - Take Me Apart

33 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Ilov80s, Eephus, Steve Tasker
Click to expand...
I did enjoy this album, but it was honestly a little bit of a disappointment for me overall.  I had really high hopes after Hallucinogen, I thought this would be my #1 of the year.  Didn't work out that way though.

 
Former FBG Album poll winner alert #2

#20

Arcade Fire - Everything Now

42 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider, shuke, jvvdesigns

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Reflektor (#4 in 2013), The Suburbs (#1 in 2010), Neon Bible (#9 in 2007)

Review: 

Arcade Fire have spent a career making a virtue of their own pomposity. Since 2004 debut ‘Funeral’, they’ve been unafraid to wrestle with big ideas that most bands wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. If it sometimes appears as though they believe society’s ills can be solved, or at least diagnosed, through the medium of grandiose art-rock records, you nonetheless have to admire their conviction that music ought to represent something more than mere ‘content’. Thankfully, after the ambitious-but-uneven ‘Reflektor’ (2013), ‘Everything Now’ marks an emphatic return to those lofty standards.

“Every song that I’ve ever heard is playing at the same time, it’s absurd,” declares starry-eyed frontman Win Butler on the album’s title-track, which is certainly one way to describe its mash-up of ‘Dancing Queen’ and Talking Heads’ ‘Road to Nowhere’. Uplifting, incisive and sublime would be another.

On the flipside, the empty hedonism of ‘Signs of Life’ and the self-loathing, suicidal youths of ‘Creature Comfort’ – one of whom, Butler notes, “Came so close/ Filled up the bathtub and put on our first record,” – serve as a reminder of the cruel irony that in this age of total connectivity, we’ve somehow contrived to make ourselves more isolated and alone than ever. ‘Everything Now’ might occasionally marvel at how far we’ve come, but it’s tempered by notes of dread at where we’re going.

Aptly enough for a record about information overload, it’s also had the veritable kitchen sink thrown at it, employing myriad styles, multiple big-name producers and the sort of ingenious, overblown marketing campaign that’s become the norm for this band. On the two-hander of ‘Infinite Content’ and ‘Infinite_Content’, the same song is presented in contrasting styles – one as a knowing postmodern thrash, the other as a languid acoustic ramble – but ultimately it’s the album’s sense of humanity, not its innate clever-cleverness, that elevates it to something special. “If you can’t see the forest for the trees, just burn it all down,” urges Butler as the mournful synth-pop of closing track ‘We Don’t Deserve Love’ builds to its climax, no longer sermonising from his pulpit, but howling in empathy from the ether.

Read more at http://www.nme.com/reviews/album/arcade-fire-everything-now-review-2017#fXpxQu3gkTZQRCxS.99

 
Thought they had a top 10 spot on hold

#19

The xx - I See You

43 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Ilov80s, E-Z Glider, Steve Tasker

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Coexists (#13 in 2012), XX (#2 in 2009)

Review: When The xx first emerged eight years ago, mining a brand of introspective alt-pop that united electronica and indie rock tribes, their impact was seismic. Then, in 2014, a watershed. During a series of New York shows, Jamie, Romy and Oliver barely made eye contact with their audience. It was their way of saying goodbye to the old xx: immediately after, they began making ‘I See You’, with each of the trio juggling it with other commitments – Romy a songwriting course in California, Oliver modelling for Dior and Jamie… well, you know what he did. His solo debut, ‘In Colours’, is an overarching influence on ‘I See You’, but that’s not to say that it’s full of dancefloor jams. Rather, it’s informed by a similar spirit – the deployment of samples, the way beats are utilised, the use of the ‘drop’. ‘Dangerous’ opens with a fanfare of horns, before settling into a 2-step gallop. It’s a sign that things are now different on Planet xx, further bolstered by ‘Violent Noise’, built on a trancey hook you could imagine in an old Paul van Dyk set. ‘Performance’, the most familiar-sounding track here, features forlorn guitar and emotional strings; it’s contrasted by ‘On Hold’, in which a vocal sample from Hall & Oates’ ‘I Can’t Go For That’ is accompanied by 80s-style synth drums and lithe bass. The band’s real X factor (xx factor?) is Romy and Oliver: not since Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell has male/female vocal interaction sounded so seductive. It’s why ‘I Dare You’ is elevated beyond just another love song. “I’m in love with it, intoxicated,” sings Oliver; “A rush of blood is not enough, I need my feelings set on fire,” responds Romy. The xx have undergone a gentle makeover, but what lies at their heart remains the same. Songs for lovers. Songs for the rejected. Songs for all of us.  http://mixmag.net/feature/february-18-albums-you-need-to-hear-this-month

 
Blues from the lost world, news from the future

#18

The New Pornographers - Whiteout Conditions

43 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Northern Voice, Steve Tasker, mphtrilogy

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Brill Bruisers (#17 in 2014), Together (#33 in 2010), Challengers (#40 in 2007)

Review: 

It’s a fitting introduction to spring, a blast of synthesizers and harmony and aural smiles. They sprinkle the album with unconventional touches, but they avoid the self-conscious oddballism of, say, “Spyder,” instead relying on the strength of AC Newman’s writing and the band’s performance. No doubt some of the record’s pop emphasis stems from the recent departure of songwriter/singer/instrumentalist/Vancouver musical generalist Dan Bejar. Though he only contributed a few songs per album, the erstwhile Destroyer leader’s enigmatic lyrics, skewed melodies and unusual singing voice (at times, he seemed to channel three different Dylan phases simultaneously) offset the more accessible tracks, giving each record more texture, if slightly less cohesion.

While Newman’s knack for melodies is on full display here—every song on Whiteout Conditionsinvites head-bobbing or singing along—the album’s success stems at least as much from his penchant for experimenting with arrangement and structure. Verses flow into choruses with such little fanfare, it hardly seems fair to call them choruses. Instead, the songs come off as collages of uniformly important, but musically distinct melodic lines. The daydreamy album opener “Play Money” shifts from verses into the refrain “For a fee, I’ll fight any foe” with no flourish at all: no drum fill, no chord change, not even a cymbal crash. Instead, the song glides conversationally from section to section over a steady synth-pop heartbeat.

In the past, The New Pornographers have generally laid spidery keyboard hooks on top of a guitar-based foundation. On Whiteout Conditions, though, the band opts for a more explicitly new-wave feel; synths provide the bulk of the sound, with splashes of guitar for color. Sonic references to the ‘80s abound: the title track owes a debt to OMD’s “If You Leave,” while “High Ticket Attractions” and “Darling Shade” wouldn’t sound out of place on The Breakfast Clubsoundtrack.

If the NPs have always benefitted from the strength of their singers, Whiteout Conditionsabsolutely revels in their versatility. Newman, Kathryn Calder and the always arresting Neko Case trade lead duties throughout as well as pitching in harmonies, countermelodies and bright vocal chords, often in a song’s first minute. “Second Sleep” opens with a collage of vocal samples, parading their six voices (bassist John Collins, new drummer Joe Seiders, and keyboard player Blaine Thurier all provide rock-solid backing vox) past the listener, savoring the diversity of the instruments at their disposal. Elsewhere, “Juke” features a staccato three-part arrangement in which Case, Newman and Calder alternately harmonize and provide rhythm for one another, and the sparse instrumentation of “We’ve Been Here Before” confirms that the band’s voices alone can carry a song.

Three years ago, an elated Newman described Brill Bruisers as his “celebration record,” a return to more straightforward, listener-friendly power pop after the self-conscious eccentricity of the last three albums. Whiteout Conditions keeps that celebration going. And while The New Pornographers’ appealing quirks abound, their melodic gifts rightfully steal the show.

 
The music and the parties
Jack Daniels and speed

#17

Margo Price - All American Made

43 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: dal_boys_phan, landrys hat, Workhorse

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Midwest Farmer's Daughter (#5 in 2016)

Review: Margo Price throws her hat into the ring as one of the best Southern songwriters of the modern age with All American Made. Price's sophomore record takes the microscope that she fixated on herself on Midwest Farmer's Daughter and points it back at the world, examining politics and society while maintaining the heart that made her debut such a sensation.
 
The album kicks off with a couple of upbeat numbers, "I Don't Say" and "Weakness," that not only show off Price's dynamic vocals but also some impressive musicianship from her band. The embellishments of whirling Leslie speakers and toe-tapping guitar leads add a flavour of Southern rock and blues, and later cuts feature luxurious strings and a gospel choir. It's a bit more adventurous for Price, who says she didn't want to be limited by just making a traditional country album here.
 
That sonic exploration continues on "Pay Gap," a Mexicali, accordion-infused tune that's the most matter-of-fact political statement on the record, and also one of the best. The song tackles the income disparities still faced by women and minorities, but the refrain of "pay gap, pay gap, ripping my dollars in half" isn't backed by anthemic passion; Price sings it with dejected resignation, seemingly weary and a little jaded from the battle she can't believe must still be fought.
 
Price gets some help from recently befriended country legend Willie Nelson, who acts as her duet partner on the intimate "Learning to Lose," a musing on working-class struggles. Price and Nelson's harmonies jazzily dance in and out of time with each other, supported by steady acoustic guitar and beautiful pedal steel swells. Nelson even lends some lead guitar work here with the help of his legendary Martin acoustic, Trigger; the eight-bar solo is raw and visceral, with every pick scrape and inadvertent guitar bump left in the recording. You can almost smell the haze of smoke that surely filled the studio it was cut in.
 
Price is an Americana sweetheart on "Heart of America," where she sings about the darker side of the farming industry, and although "Wild Women" feels like a carefree romp, Price takes on more double standards, singing about balancing touring and motherhood and how "all the men run around and no one bats an eye."
 
Not every track is so heavy, though. "A Little Pain" is an organ-driven boogie that's catchy as hell, and "Cocaine Cowboy" cuts down the rail-riding, western wannabes who Price says are all hat and no cattle.
 
The album closes with the title track, a poignant political statement Price wrote under the Obama administration that's even more vital under Trump. She reflects on welfare and the threat of nuclear war while handpicked, sampled speeches crackle away in the distance. Price says she tried to keep the voices balanced, light and dark at all times; at one point, it's Richard Nixon and Martin Luther King, each hard-panned to a side. Throughout the song, the at-odds voices are broken up by reverb-drenched guitars, a chorus of children and Price herself. The album fittingly fades out as Nixon and Bill Clinton yammer on.
 
All American Made is provocative, charismatic and endearing, proving what many of country's all-time greats already seem to know: Margo Price is a legend in the making.

 
#16

GRMLN - Discovery

45 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: Nick Vermeil, kupcho1

Review: 

You can say it all you want, but you’ve all been waiting for someone to pull off the Strokes with the same infectious quality the band had…especially in their first two releases. Lucky for you, GRMLNseem to have done it perfectly, and while it might be a touch of a rip-off, I’m still going to blast it super loud. I mean, that swagger in the vocals with those guitar-monies working in the background…don’t tell me you’re not excited by the execution alone! Look for the band to release their latest offering, Discovery EP, this Friday, filled with expected hooks and repeat listens.

 
#15

Benjamin Booker - Witness

47 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: ericttspikes, steelcitysledgehammers

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Benjamin Booker (#15 in 2014)

Review: 

For the most part, Booker leaves behind the punk-inspired blues rock of his first LP. Sequels to the snarling “Have You Seen My Son” and the quick-hitting “Violent Shiver” can be found bookending Witness on the opening “Right On You” and less-than-two-minute closing “All Was Well.” But for the most part, Booker trades the yelping for melodic musings, offering a soulful, fearless record that castigates racial and social injustices today.

Frequently, Booker seems to search for a reason behind the racism he grew up with in Virginia and Florida. As a brief string introduction hits its vibrato-laden peak in “Believe,” he sings, “I just want to believe in something/I don’t care if it’s right or wrong/I just want to believe in something/How can I make it on my own?” That doubt returns in “Overtime,” as Booker wonders, “When did you become such a faithless man?”

But the highpoint of Witness is its title track, in which Booker collaborates with gospel legend Mavis Staples (even dropping the f-bomb in front of her, which is actually a pretty punk-rock move). Each narrative verse returns to the pre-chorus, quote obviously about Trayvon Martin. Booker switches back from his rasping half-rapping to his singing voice and describes, “See we thought that we saw that he had a gun/Thought that it looked like he started to run.” Each time, the maternal Staples interjects, “Am I gonna be a witness?” That line especially serves as a rallying point for the whole album. It’s rhetorical, but also pragmatic—a reminder that our greatest chances for success happen when we have are when we grow and change together.

 
Northern Voice said:
#15

Benjamin Booker - Witness

47 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: ericttspikes, steelcitysledgehammers

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Benjamin Booker (#15 in 2014)

Review: 

For the most part, Booker leaves behind the punk-inspired blues rock of his first LP. Sequels to the snarling “Have You Seen My Son” and the quick-hitting “Violent Shiver” can be found bookending Witness on the opening “Right On You” and less-than-two-minute closing “All Was Well.” But for the most part, Booker trades the yelping for melodic musings, offering a soulful, fearless record that castigates racial and social injustices today.

Frequently, Booker seems to search for a reason behind the racism he grew up with in Virginia and Florida. As a brief string introduction hits its vibrato-laden peak in “Believe,” he sings, “I just want to believe in something/I don’t care if it’s right or wrong/I just want to believe in something/How can I make it on my own?” That doubt returns in “Overtime,” as Booker wonders, “When did you become such a faithless man?”

But the highpoint of Witness is its title track, in which Booker collaborates with gospel legend Mavis Staples (even dropping the f-bomb in front of her, which is actually a pretty punk-rock move). Each narrative verse returns to the pre-chorus, quote obviously about Trayvon Martin. Booker switches back from his rasping half-rapping to his singing voice and describes, “See we thought that we saw that he had a gun/Thought that it looked like he started to run.” Each time, the maternal Staples interjects, “Am I gonna be a witness?” That line especially serves as a rallying point for the whole album. It’s rhetorical, but also pragmatic—a reminder that our greatest chances for success happen when we have are when we grow and change together.
Click to expand...
That one slipped by me.  

 
If I saw you on the street, would I have you in my dreams tonite?.

#14

Alvvays - Antisocialites

54 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Nick Vermeil, kupcho1, Northern Voice

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Alvvays (#18 in 2014)

Review: 

By adding a warm synth sheen for their sophomore release, the Toronto-based quintet managed to somehow make their jangly guitars seem even lusher. They’ve achieved what every band strives for on their second album but most fail to do: striking the middle ground between attempting to avoid making the same record twice and wanting to evolve and change their sound.

By just subtly tweaking their songwriting process ever so slightly, Alvvays have managed to one-up their 2014 breakthrough record. “Plimsoll Punks” plays like a fuller, more tightly wound version of Alvvays’ “Next of Kin;” “Dreams Tonite” is a supercharged, groovier take on “Ones Who Love You.” Antisocialites feels like Rankin & co. dissected every minute detail from their debut and subsequently took three meticulous years to figure out how to truly improve upon each part, one by one.

Those small flourishes – a more pronounced synth line here, an unexpected key change there – haven’t distracted from what makes Alvvays great, they’ve only made the group’s overall sound even better. The focus is, and likely always will be, on Rankin’s blasé and ultra-clear voice and the near-perfect guitar tones that prop her up. Everything new on Antisocialites simply amplifies the Alvvays we’re already familiar with. They’re not adding much to the already solid formula, but they refuse to stand still, pushing themselves both musically and lyrically.

So while Rankin may be dealing with the uncertainty of aging while being unsure of whom she really is, she still makes her insecurities and romantic incompatibilities sound fun and engaging. For all its darker and uneasy lyrical content, this is still a record that begs to be blasted on road trips and at rooftop parties. Alvvays was a mid-June perfect summer day; Antisocialites is a little cloudier, with a bit of a cold breeze blowing through. But, hey, it’s still summer after all.

 
The biggest mover with Ahrn's last minute list

#13

Pissed Jeans - Why Love Now

60 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: ericttspikes, El Floppo, Ahrn

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Honeys (#34 in 2013), King of Jeans (#30 in 2009)

Review: 

Like a fist fight in a prison yard, Pissed Jeans' music has always had a savage brutality and darkness to it. In this respect Why Love Now is no different. With riffs weighted so they're heavy enough to bludgeon, and vocals that feel like they're being torn straight from the larynx, the album is a tour de force of high octane refrains and filth-driven focus.

Clawing and scraping their way from the darkest corners of human consciousness, recounted with a tongue placed firmly in cheek, these songs tear through the facade and dig up how rotten life can be. Giving voice to plagues and demons, Pissed Jeans grate and scrape their way through the chaos to a freewheeling form of release.

Stripping raw attraction down to its most impulsive and volatile, album centrepiece "I'm A Man" is the band at their most immediate. Fuelled ever onwards by tribal rhythms, author Lindsay Hunter's monologue slithers its way through the speakers, words reaching out to grab at you with dirty hands that just can't wait to get dirtier.

The theme of gender politics is one that resounds clearly through Pissed Jeans' latest album. From the fetish-twisting of "Ignorecam" to the ridicule of body shaming on "It's Your Knees", these songs make a presentation of life at its seediest to instil a disgust that frankly should've been there all along.

Uncomfortable in places? There's no doubt. An assault on the senses? Definitely. If Why Love Now were a person, you'd cross the road for fear of passing them in the street. Presenting the sleazy and savage side of life with such momentum, Pissed Jeans lay waste to rationalisation and set standards straight. https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/reviews/albums/pissed-jeans-why-love-now

 
Former FBG poll #1 alert (kind of)

#12

Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Lotta Sea Lice

63 points, 5 votes

Ranked Highest By: landrys hat, E-Z Glider, Workhorse, Steve Tasker, El Floppo

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian at Best (#1 in 2015), Kurt Vile - B'leive I'm Going Down (#11 in 2015), Wakin on a Pretty Daze (#12 in 2013), Smoke Rings for My Halo (#28 in 2011)

Review: 

“You’ve gotta let it go, before it takes you over,” Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett harmonize on “Let It Go,” a standout from their unassuming gem of a collaborative album, Lotta Sea Lice. The lyric could work as a mission statement for the album — sporadically recorded over a total of eight days across 15 months — or to describe the personas of the two respected singer-songwriters, who have built their careers on and lyrical informality and musical immediacy. Lotta Sea Lice‘s nine tracks breeze by with the easygoing sensibility of two old friends jamming in the corner during a get-together.

Fun and positive vibes reign supreme for much of the album. Barnett, 29, and Vile, 37, yip at each other and sing about fabric softener and Tom Scharpling on the jangling “Blue Cheese.” The two rockers joke about using earplugs during concerts on “Over Everything,” Lotta Sea Lice‘s sneakily epic opener. And “Continental Breakfast,” a quaint, sun-splotched ditty about the intercontinental friendship between the Philadelphian Vile and Aussie Barnett, belongs on the shortlist of rock’s best platonic love letters. (Vile’s married with kids and Barnett has a long-term partner.) The instrumentals for many of the LP’s tracks lope along in a similarly unhurried fashion, from the stoned chords of “On Script” to the languid arpeggios of “Let It Go.”

But despite its loose aesthetic, Lotta Sea Lice is the handiwork of two meticulous and detail-oriented musicians. It’s tough to make rich rock music that truly whirrs, and Vile and Barnett adorn their productions with understated vocal harmonies, loopy guitar countermelodies, and just the right amount of fuzz. Their musical acumen comes into focus during some of the album’s relatively harsher tracks. “Over Everything” culminates with a crescendoing outro that ominously swirls without overwhelming. Guitars and voices duel on “Fear Is Like a Forest,” a cover of a 2009 song by Barnett’s partner, Jen Cloher, but the swaggering cut never feels crowded.

Lotta Sea Lice concludes, however, with two of its most reserved — and best — moments. For the penultimate track, Barnett covers Vile’s “Peeping Tomboy” (retitled “Peepin’ Tom” here), and her vocals add a new dimension the track’s signature, effervescent acoustic guitar part. (Vile also covers a Barnett track, 2013’s “Out of the Woodwork,” earlier on the album.) Closing tune “Untogether” is another cover, of a 1993 cut by alt-rockers Belly. Over a plaintive instrumental, Barnett and Vile duet about heartbreak with the directness and ease lifelong collaborators strive for. What Lotta Sea Lice lacks in flashiness, it makes up for with enduring tunes and performances that, low-stakes as they are, seem destined to resonate and yield fresh surprises for years to come  http://ew.com/music/2017/10/19/kurt-vile-courtney-barnett-lotta-sea-lice/

 
2017 Top 10 bubble album.

#11

White Reaper - The World's Best American Band

64 points, 4 votes

Ranked Highest By: Jaysus, Workhorse, El Floppo, Ilov80s

Review: 

Considering the band called its previous album White Reaper Does It Again, the posturing of White Reaper’s latest, The World’s Best American Band, remains suitably in character for the brash garage-rock group. In case the title is lost on listeners, the album-opening title track begins with the roar of an excited audience ostensibly greeting Kentucky’s self-professed kings of American rock.

Or maybe revival rock, because the 10 tracks on Best American Band nod to the ragged proto-punk of the ’60s and ’70s, heavy on distortion, howled vocals, and attitude. (It also would have fit in the early 2000s heyday of The Hives, The Vines, The Von Bondies, et al., though White Reaper has a distinctly grittier take.) It’s easy to imagine rock fans who complain about the state of current popular music taking a shine to White Reaper.

That’s not to say the band’s charms are limited to rockists who feel pop culture has passed them by, because Best American Band has plenty of charm. It also has a lot of hooks, particularly in standout songs like the title track, “Little Silver Cross,” “Crystal Pistol,” “The Stack,” and “Another Day.” “Little Silver Cross” begins atop a wash of synthesizer and staccato bass that segues into an explosively catchy chorus that recalls The National’s “Abel” with strains of Boys And Girls In America-era Hold Steady. But White Reaper has a serrated edge, made more pronounced by the general difficulty of understanding what singer-guitarist Tony Esposito is howling about. The lyric sheet is helpful, if not especially engrossing. (“Another day / No dope / Another day / No ####in’ nose drugs,” goes “Another Day.”) But it’s the whole package that matters here, and taken together, The World’s Best American Band has the elements of one of the year’s best rock albums.

 
Northern Voice said:
Interesting to me: This album coming in at the same place as Like Clockwork 4 years ago. And we probably underrated Era Vulgaris a bit.
Click to expand...
I actually think that at #28 Like Clockwork is pretty underrated -- That may be my favorite record of theirs.      outside of a couple great songs, I still don't like Vulgaris much.  

 
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