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2018 FBG Album Poll - 13th Annual (2 Viewers)

Missed this the first time around.  I'll try to get something in by the end of next week.  

I feel like I listened to less new music this year than recent years.

 
El Floppo said:
:wub:  ... love the list even if you did it all wrong.

didn't realize tracey thorn had an album out... heading there now.

and is that Pärt album new music? will check that out too.
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The  Pärt album is like a greatest compositions album with new versions of Tabula Rasa, Fratres, etc.  I ended up listening to the Mullova album a lot more than the collected  Pärt symphonies record that came out earlier in the year on ECM. 

The other new classical record I loved this year was Aequa by Anna Thorvaldsdottir and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Man, I'm getting old.

 
Eephus said:
The  Pärt album is like a greatest compositions album with new versions of Tabula Rasa, Fratres, etc.  I ended up listening to the Mullova album a lot more than the collected  Pärt symphonies record that came out earlier in the year on ECM. 

The other new classical record I loved this year was Aequa by Anna Thorvaldsdottir and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Man, I'm getting old.
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thanks... I'll check out your vulva... mullova... whatever.  as awell as Aequa. new steve reich work out this year too- was good, but in a "yep- that's steve reich" way. 

floppinho learned about reich in his music history class last week. I was gobsmacked. but that's definitely a guy to know for a young percussionist. even corrected my pronunciation (I've said the "ch" more in the back of the throat, his teacher says it more "sh"). I've seen reich perform a couple times, but must have never listened to how people said his name. or my kid's teacher is full of ####. 

same with Part... which I think is "pear-t". but :shrug:  I pronounce your name AY-fuss in my head... whenever I've met FBGs, I always imagine other people's aliai sounding different than how they hear them.

 
Eephus said:
El Floppo said:
and is that Pärt album new music? will check that out too.
Click to expand...
The  Pärt album is like a greatest compositions album with new versions of Tabula Rasa, Fratres, etc.  I ended up listening to the Mullova album a lot more than the collected  Pärt symphonies record that came out earlier in the year on ECM. 

The other new classical record I loved this year was Aequa by Anna Thorvaldsdottir and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Man, I'm getting old.
Click to expand...
the part album is fantastic. I'd heard some or all of tabula rasa before, but it's really connecting with me today. and I've always loved fratres... and of course spiegel im spiegel- which if I ever get the mood/energy up to continue the songs to die to draft, would've been my next pick. surprised to see so many part releases this year- I missed most of them.

will check out aequa next.

 
Jaysus said:
done.
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Here was my submission:

  1. Jeff Rosenstock -Post-
  2. Antarctigo Vespucci - Love in the time of Email
  3. Rainbow Kitten Surprise - How to: Friend, Love, Freefall
  4. Nathaniel Ratecliff - Tearing at the seams
  5. The Dirty Nil - Master Volume
  6. Spanish Love Songs - Schmaltz
  7. Dollar Signs - This will Haunt Me
  8. Mt. Joy - Mt. Joy
  9. Fucked Up - Dose your Dreams
  10. Direct Hit! - Crown of Nothing
  11. McCafferty - Yarn
  12. Parquet Courts - Wide Awake
  13. Ghost Mice - Dark Times
  14. Ty Segall - Freedom Goblin
  15. Franz Fernidad - Always Ascending
  16. Decemberists - I'll be your girl
  17. The Go! Team - Semicircle
  18. Larry and his flask - This Remedy
  19. Cloud Nothings - Last building burning
  20. Bass Drum of Death - Just business
 
Jaysus said:
Here was my submission:

  1. Jeff Rosenstock -Post-
  2. Antarctigo Vespucci - Love in the time of Email
  3. Rainbow Kitten Surprise - How to: Friend, Love, Freefall
  4. Nathaniel Ratecliff - Tearing at the seams
  5. The Dirty Nil - Master Volume
  6. Spanish Love Songs - Schmaltz
  7. Dollar Signs - This will Haunt Me
  8. Mt. Joy - Mt. Joy
  9. Fucked Up - Dose your Dreams
  10. Direct Hit! - Crown of Nothing
  11. McCafferty - Yarn
  12. Parquet Courts - Wide Awake
  13. Ghost Mice - Dark Times
  14. Ty Segall - Freedom Goblin
  15. Franz Fernidad - Always Ascending
  16. Decemberists - I'll be your girl
  17. The Go! Team - Semicircle
  18. Larry and his flask - This Remedy
  19. Cloud Nothings - Last building burning
  20. Bass Drum of Death - Just business
Click to expand...
You misspelled IDLES

 
I get broken-hearted every time a new cranberries tune pops onto my spotify. the couple I've heard sound pretty good. :(  

 
This isn't happening tomorrow, #### work week for me, father in law has a mass on his bowel found yesterday and may have surgery as soon as tomorrow. 

I'll do something with this in the next couple weeks, whether it's just posting results or a mini reveal, just been a lot going on with big changes in my job and health stuff (not mine but everyone around me, it seems...)

 
Northern Voice said:
This isn't happening tomorrow, #### work week for me, father in law has a mass on his bowel found yesterday and may have surgery as soon as tomorrow. 

I'll do something with this in the next couple weeks, whether it's just posting results or a mini reveal, just been a lot going on with big changes in my job and health stuff (not mine but everyone around me, it seems...)
Click to expand...
whatever works for you, gb. sorry to hear about the calamities.

 
#22





Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino

30 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Eephus, Northern Voice, E-Z Glider

Review: 

Prepare for liftoff and enter "warpspeed chic" as shimmering keyboards and muffled tom toms orbit frontman Alex Turner's lunar suite in opener "Star Treatment." Unlike the torn-denim thrills of AM (2013), the L.A.-UK quartet's sixth full-length glints of Pet Sounds swapping six-string contortions for zero-gravity synths, moonwalk bass, and vintage electronics. The eerie weightlessness of "American Sports," intergalactic hallucinogen "Golden Trunks," and skull-cracked "She Looks Like Fun" find Turner convulsing between absurdist poetry and freewheeling narration that unravels into political ennui. The Monkeys' most anti-rock album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino proves their most adventurous, pop accessibility be damned. https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2018-10-05/sunday-acl-fest-2018-record-reviews-arctic-monkeys/

 
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#21

The Dirty Nil - Master Volume

32 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: Jaysus, Northern Voice

Review: 

For those who still pray at the altar of rock music, the Dirty Nil might feel like a second coming. While the disciples of Dewey Finn can seem like a thinning herd these days, this trio from Dundas, ON has thrived on their unabashed devotion to rock'n'roll in its purest, loudest and most electrifying form. And Master Volume is a defining sermon, distilling decades of guitar-charged power and wisdom into 10 succinct commandments.
 
If the sound of amp feedback makes your hair stand on end and an absolutely monumental chorus has you cranking up your stereo's volume knob, this band's second studio album will have you sold in a matter of seconds. "That's What Heaven Feels Like" delivers on all of the Dirty Nil's promises since they debuted with "####in' Up Young" back in 2011, and it's only just the start of a legendary three-track opening assault along with "Bathed in Light" and "Pain of Infinity."
 
They somehow manage to top that energy with "Please, Please Me," a shotgun blast of punk rock that fits into its surroundings better than the similarly raucous, feral ragers of Higher Power and their Smite EP. "Auf Wiedersehen" and "Evil Side," meanwhile, are slow burners that find the band pacing themselves while still doing everything they do so well.
 
Kudos to veteran producer John Goodmanson for making perhaps one of the best-sounding rock records in recent memory. Even just the final 13 seconds of track four are a master class in committing to tape the pulverizing fury of a live band on the best night of their lives. Master Volume wields high-octane riffs that are dialled in perfectly, and dynamo Luke Bentham steals the show even more than usual with his dazzling vocal chops.
 
Here, Bentham and his band lean into their cheeky, smirking personas, refusing to take themselves too seriously with lines like, "I mean this in a nice way: #### you!" and an ode to crashing at cheap chain motels ("Super 8"). But they do get real, in their own way. "I Don't Want the Phone Call" extends a helping hand to someone with substance-abuse problems, but not without a greeting of playful tough love: "Listen up, mother####er / I'm your friend."
 
Some of rock music's purveyors have been going through an identity crisis in recent years. But what people like us don't need is yet another thinkpiece asking, "Is rock dead???" (or worse, another meme comparing Freddie Mercury to like, Nicki Minaj or something). We just need to sit back and enjoy it when a band like this comes around and puts out a record as big and fun as Master Volume. So praise be to The Dirty Nil.

https://exclaim.ca/music/article/the_dirty_nil-master_volume

 
#20

Middle Kids - Lost Friends

33 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Nick Vermeil Northern Voice, mphtrilogy

Review: 

Middle Kids aren’t massive fans of albums. Interviewed by NME last month, bassist Tim Fitz revealed he rarely listens to a full LP, concluding: “If you make a whole album nowadays, then you’ve done a very good job.” Full marks for Middle Kids, then, because ‘Lost Friends’ is a set of pile-driving anthems that demands your undivided attention.

Based in Sydney, the group released their self-titled debut EP at the start of last year. Since, they’ve been touring relentlessly, hitting up buzzy UK festivals like The Great Escape, as well as hitching a ride on tour with acts including Ryan Adams and Cold War Kids. 

The road is where this album belongs. Its 12 tracks of pummelling, uncompromising indie-rock are perfect for long drives in the boiling summer or night-time journeys in the city. “Wheels on the road, white painted rows/Windscreen wipers on, silent radio,” singer and songwriter Hannah Joy sings on ‘Lost Friends’. Meanwhile, for ‘On My Knees’ we’re stood on the pavement: “I am the second hand, I am a roadside distraction / And they’re looking at me as if I got what they need”. Wherever Middle Kids are going, the listener is bundled into the back of the car too.

Not content with being able to write genuinely brilliant choruses on every song, the band are also able to tackle our everyday nuances and flaws with humour and understanding. ‘Don’t Be Hiding’ offers the group’s finest all-round performance to date, pairing Fleetwood Mac harmonies and riffs with relatable zingers on modern life. “Are you cashed up or struggling with a hole in your pocket?” asks Joy. “If it’s bad then I relate/You should see the junk I spend my money on” – comforting every drunk-eBaying survivor who’s listening along. 
Read more at https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/middle-kids-lost-friends-review#mc0vWbxQrtBwShmg.99

 
#19

Jeff Rosenstock - POST-

33 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: Jaysus, Northern Voice

Review: 

Originally a surprise release on New Year's Day, Jeff Rosenstock's third solo album POST- announced 2018 with a BANG, at a time where almost any other musician wouldn't dare to release new music. It was a gamble that paid off, earning Rosenstock's latest the title of 'the first great album of 2018' from many critics happy and willing to take this genuinely surprising full-length on board. Of course, it doesn't hurt that POST- is a genuinely brilliant album, but it's also not unlike Rosenstock, previously of 'Guerrilla DIY' ska-punk band Bomb the Music Industry! to take chances like this.

Rosenstock had begun to make waves in the indie-rock world with his previous long-player WORRY. in 2016, which led to some highly notable TV and festival appearances, loudly proclaiming the huge amount of money he was earning at one particular performance. But if that seemed like an insolent move from a snotty punk not willing to grow up, the proof that Rosenstock is legit is all here to see in POST-, as he was able to pay for the record's production and self-release from the fees earned in his previous band.

Musically, POST- is a fierce, fiery record that feels appropriate for the world in 2018. Opening track USA – following a voice message which begins 'Hello, best friend..' – was just the shake-up any listener needed to wake from their New Year's malaise, though it still sounds just as exciting three months on, and will continue to throughout the year. In places, the power-pop of tracks like All This Useless Energy or the Beatles-indebted TV Stars sounds like Weezer if they had continued down the more 'serious' path they set down on Pinkerton. 

Overall, POST- is a moment-defining record both for Rosenstock but also for wider popular music and culture; it's equal places angry and fun, something we could all do with in 2018. https://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/reviews/albums/jeff-rosenstock-post

 
#18

Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin

34 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: ericttspikes, Jaysus

Review: 

His new album Freedom’s Goblin deserves some time to stand on its own—to be fully absorbed by us mere mortals —before the next wave of Segall’s music rolls in on a raft of 7” records, collaborations, short-run cassettes and stray-track collections.

Freedom’s Goblin is that good. And it’s that much. At 19 tracks and 75-ish minutes long, it’s a sure-footed expedition through Segall’s sprawling world of influences and interests, from psych, garage rock, pop and punk to soul, hard funk, heavy metal and beyond. And somehow, despite the run time and the diversity of sounds, Freedom’s Goblin never wanders for long. It’s thrilling, through and through.

That’s a testament not only to the vision of Ty Segall, but to the work he’s put in over the past 10 years, testing new forms and trying new things. So when it’s time to call in the horn section for a boisterous classic-rock jam like album opener “Fanny Dog,” he’s in familiar territory. And when he wants to follow that up with a radiant Beatles-esque ballad like “Rain,” he’s in familiar territory. And when he absolutely must recreate Hot Chocolate’s funk-rock blazer “Every 1’s A Winner” with the funk turned down a notch and the scuzz cranked up…well, that may be uncharted territory. But scuzzin’ things up is what Segall does best.

You’ll find evidence of throughout Freedom’s Goblin, on songs like “When Mommy Kills You” and “Shoot You Up” and “She,” each of which rumbles at typical Ty pace. But the album is also littered with credible efforts at drum-machine disco-funk (“Despoiler of Cadaver”), euphoric pop (“Alta”), skronky jazz-punk (“Talkin 3”) and an extended Crazy Horse homage (“And Goodnight”) to close things out.

In “My Lady’s On Fire,” a delicate verse blooms into a beautiful song with a Southern country-rock soul. “Meaning” is a tightly wound dance-rock nugget with Segall’s wife, Denee, on lead vocals. “The Main Pretender” juxtaposes a strident saxophone lick with a kaleidoscopic chorus. And the lyrics for “I’m Free” seem to underline the philosophical core of this, Segall’s 10th true solo album in as many years: Late at night when I’m all alone/ No distractions, nobody’s home/ I’m not the person you think I might be/ I’m someone different, I’m free.

It’s no coincidence that Segall spent the past decade refusing to be pinned down. Once we had him pegged as a garage-rocker, he went psych and glam. After a whole bunch of fuzzed-out scorchers, he made an album full of gentle acoustic songs. Once we labeled him a solo artist, he started a band (OK, a few bands). And whenever we thought he couldn’t possibly put out more music, he did just that.

And now, a decade later, Ty Segall has made a massive album that not only celebrates that freedom he’s carved out for himself, it also effectively summarizes the journey so far. And it’s pretty darn listenable to boot. It may very well be his greatest accomplishment yet, which is why he ought to feel free to pull the ultimate surprise: take a break and let Freedom’s Goblin ring for a while.

Don’t hold your breath.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/01/ty-segall-freedoms-goblin-review.html

 
#17

Khruangbin - Con Todo El Mundo

34 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: landrys hat, Eephus

Review: 

Feeling stressed? Are the woes of another grey, cold winter weighing heavy on your shoulders? Do you need an escape? Do you need sunshine? Well, you could do worse than drift away with the trouble-shunning, sun-worshipping vibemasters Khruangbin. On their first album, 2015’s ‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’, the international cratedigging trio ploughed heavily into the depths of obscure Thai funk, creating a dreamy, largely instrumental sound that mixed up extreme muso geekery with their enviable talent. Three years later and they’ve spun the globe again, this time landing upon the joys of 1970s Iranian funk and soul, weaving it into straight outta Bristol 1990s breakbeats (‘Cómo Me Quieres’) and early hip-hop grooves (‘Maria Tambien’), coming on like DJ Shadow off on a backpacking gap year with Gilles Peterson.

Made up of Laura Lee (bass), Mark Speer (guitar) and Donald ‘DJ’ Johnson (drums), the band are simultaneously tight as hell as languid as a lazy midsummer night when you’ve had one too many fruity ciders. ‘Cómo Te Quiero’ is a dreamy case in point, all swooning, wobbly croons and reverb-soaked guitar wobbles, while ‘Evan Finds The Third Room’ ups the pace and brings in some perky disco flourishes and ‘A Hymn’ a sweet soul sensation. Though all their songs hover around the four-minute mark, at their heart, Khruangbin – which means ‘airplane’ in Thai – are a jam band, all endless grooves and hypnotic soundscapes that instantly take you out of whatever happens to be getting on your #### at that very minute in time. The overall lack of lyrics – the most repeated line on the 10-track record is a simple, wistful “oooh” – is only a positive, letting the listener get fully, deeply lost in the band’s fertile psychedelic world. Now is the time to take a trip with Khruangbin.

Read more at https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/khruangbin-con-todo-el-mundo-review#DdPdoYLZiXlzptKE.99

 
#16

Snail Mail - Lush

35 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: Steve Tasker, Northern Voice

Review: 

With Snail Mail’s Lush, indie rock has officially entered its “Black Crowes era,” where young artists refigure music from the decade they were born. But that’s not a bad thing here. As the brainchild of 18-year-old Lindsey Jordan, who counts Helium’s Mary Timony and Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield as mentors, Snail Mail worship at the altars of Pavement, Liz Phair and Dinosaur Jr. She’s packed Lush, her debut full-length, with the same sort of smart lyrics about unrequited love (“Heat Wave”), personal dissatisfaction (“Pristine”) and the places where those feelings coalesce (“Golden Dream”) as her forebears and set them to a soundtrack of chugging, glassy-toned guitar. She also sings in the same endearingly off-key way as many of her apparent influences once did.

Lush is best, though, when Jordan stretches out beyond coffeehouse indie-rock busking and embraces deeper Sonic Youth-style textures, on tunes like “Anytime” and “Deep Sea.” The latter song opens with just a guitar but it builds outward (including a French horn solo) until the music seems to enfold her voice as she sings, “You can be anyone/It took so long to know someone like you.” And on the album closer “Anytime,” she plays at a slow tempo before a church organ and acoustic guitar add some clarity and emotional weight, leading to her moving, closing stanza, “I’m not in love with your absence/’Cause I’ve fallen so hard for the space.” It’s here where Lush lives up to its title, and it’s here where Jordan shows promise for coming up with a new sound all her own. 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-snail-mails-lush-is-the-work-of-an-indie-rock-prodigy-628936/

 
#15

Superchunk - What a Time to be Alive

37 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: El Floppo, Fiddles, D_House

Review: 

The most groan-inducing cliché that followed the 2016 presidential election predicted a influx of artistic masterpieces, because creators would channel their rage into bold new art. A year into the Trump regime, it’s too early to tell if that will actually happen, but Superchunk’s ironically titled 11th album gives some credence to the cliché. Recorded quickly and announced unexpectedly, What A Time To Be Alive is the rawest Superchunk album since the band’s 1990 debut and undoubtedly its most ferocious. The band’s well-honed style of highly melodic, punk-inflected indie rock remains, but with a serrated edge. There’s minimal polish and no accoutrements beyond the core instruments of guitars, drums, and bass, making it the first Superchunk album without keyboards in more than two decades. The hooks remain plentiful, but the rage is palpable, like when Mac McCaughan opens “I Got Cut” with, “ALL THESE OLD MEN WON’T DIE TOO SOON,” the only words rendered in all caps in the lyric sheet. Turns out fury suits Superchunk.

RIYL: Sing-along rage. Complaining that Come Pick Me Up and Here’s To Shutting Up were too mellow.

Start here: The title track is basically What A Time To Be Alive in a nutshell, a pleasing mixture of hooks (that are vintage Superchunk) and barbs (like the blistering chorus, where McCaughan sings, “To see the rot in no disguise / Oh what a time to be alive / The scum, the shame, the ####### lies / Oh what a time to be alive / Oh what a time to be alive”). [Kyle Ryan]

https://www.avclub.com/car-seat-headrest-polica-stargaze-brandi-carlile-and-1822940420

 
#14

Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats - Tearing at the Seams

38 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Jaysus, mphtrilogy, steelcitysledgehammers

Review: 

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats have distillated the ups and downs life throws at you into a vibrant collection of many-hued vignettes.

It’s that distinctive coupling of heart and spirit that Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats tap into once again here, to capture the very essence of soul stirringly and purely. This time round though, their sound, a free-spirited form of blues-rock-tinged retro soul, feels filled out, like there’s more meat on the bones. The band sounds brawnier and better, crisper and tighter, instruments played with a gusto and zeal that completely absorbs.

The loose boisterous moments, like “Shoe Boot” and “Intro”, groove harder with more stomp, and ooze more attitude. The breezy uplifting moments, like “Say It Louder”, “Be There”, and “Coolin’ Out”, reach new heights, buoyantly wafting on brass and piano, brighter and more effervescent. The tender serene moments, like “Hey Mama”, “Babe I Know”, and “Still Out There Running”, tug even more intimately on heartstrings, organs whirring warmly, the vocal harmonies sumptuous. And in amongst it all, an “all cried out” Rateliff shines, putting every fibre of his being into “finding a better way”, his honeyed, gravelly voice recalling soul greats like Cooke and Redding.

With Tearing at the Seams, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats have distillated the ups and downs life throws at you into a vibrant collection of many-hued vignettes; some make you smile, some make you well up, and some make for the ideal accompaniment to good ol’ sauced-up revelry. Whatever the case, they’ll all make you feel that thing inside you. Soul.

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/reviews/albums/nathaniel-rateliff-and-the-night-sweats-tearing-at-the-seams

 
#13

Hookworms - Microshift

40 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Eephus, El Floppo, ericctspikes

Review: 

Sound and community: two things Leeds band Hookworms know plenty about. Last year almost 30 releases were recorded at Suburban Home in Kirkstall, the studio run by the band’s synth player and vocalist Matthew Johnson (MJ). From quirky pop-punk to melancholic grunge, a bit of everything passed through the doors.

Over the past few years the space has become a mecca for the DIY scene – a place that’s affordable, inclusive and inspiring at a time when few studios are. Which is why, back in late 2015 when the building was devastated by flooding, an online fund was set up to help pay for its restoration.

So, it’s no coincidence those are two big themes on this, Hookworms’ third album, recorded in the aftermath of that rebuild. Their band’s redevelopment is also stark. In 2014 ‘The Hum’, their second album, solidified their identity, tightening the misty psychedelic sounds of their debut ‘Pearl Mystic’. And despite the album’s title, ‘Microshift’ represents not a minor step up but a gigantic stride.

On an immediate level the songs sound much bigger, cleaner and more confident. Every component is crisper, from the sharpened hi-hat to MJ’s scrubbed-up vocals.

Lead single ‘Negative Space’, a late contender as one of 2017’s best tracks and the opener on the album, is the purest indicator of that: seven minutes of LCD Soundsystem meets ‘Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)’ glory. And that high standard’s no fluke. Next up, ‘Static Resistance’ is stadium-filling rock from a band still committed to their DIY ethics. And they keep on coming: the propulsive ‘Ullswater’, teary ‘The Soft Season’ and the epic ‘Opener’.

It’s not just the production of the tracks that feels brighter. As in the past, MJ’s lyrics explore some difficult territory – depression, death and grief. But this time, it feels there’s some light creeping into the dark matter – ultimately messages of hope, strength and unity.

In an ever-changing landscape for British ‘guitar music’ – hello Shame, farewell Wild Beasts – this is a sound, a set of songs, that deserves to expand the size of Hookworms’ hard-won community. It’s been well earned.
Read more at https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/hookworms-microshift-review#giBzC1HHSjLUOgqT.99

 
#12

The Decemberists - I'll Be Your Girl

41 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider, Nick Vermeil, Jaysus

Review: 

For I’ll Be Your Girl, the shake-up was multi-faceted: The band hired John Congleton, best known for his work with St. Vincent, to produce. They poured all their folk power into Offa Rex, a collaborative project with singer-songwriter Olivia Chaney, clearing their palette for something new. Meloy wrote noticeably shorter songs. And collectively, they decided to explore their common interest in glam, Roxy Music, new wave and New Order.

The results are mostly successful; occasionally a strange sound seems shoehorned into a perfectly good Decemberists song. Opening track “Once In My Life” starts out as a classic Meloy strum-and-singalong, but with the chorus comes a simple, overcast synth line that sounds imported straight from an ‘80s film soundtrack. It works well with Meloy’s plaintive lyrics: “For once in my life, could just something go right?”

That’s just the first of the many grievances that form a thread on I’ll Be Your Girl. “Severed” pairs a set of vengeful threats with a buzzy synth arpeggio for an unnerving effect. “Everything Is Awful” attempts to offset the world’s current state of despair with a jaunty pace, a choir of angels (including Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Connor Kean) and a cathartic wordless coda. And “We All Die Young” turns the titular lament into an arena-rock anthem, complete with a weird saxophone solo and a chorus of children. It is an arrangement that perhaps worked better on paper than in practice. (The same could be said for “Cutting Stone,” a classic Olde-Tyme Meloy’s Tale that doesn’t quite jibe with its synth accompaniment.)

In the middle of I’ll Be Your Girl, however, is a string of songs that come together nicely, including “Tripping Along,” an ambling, lustful lullaby that recalls the band’s Picaresque era, and “Sucker’s Prayer,” a capable country-rock number with a luscious chorus. And then, just before the closing title track—a gentle love song Meloy could probably write in his sleep—The Decemberists squeeze out one eight-plus-minute performance that’s actually two songs run together: “Rusalka, Rusalka” and “The Wild Rushes.” Both are stories of temptation and death based on a Russian mermaid myth, and both are beautiful in very different ways. One listen to them bound together will immediately transport any longtime Decemberists fan back to the band’s recorded peak (so far), its 2006 major label debut, The Crane Wife.

In the end, “Rusalka, Rusalka / The Wild Rushes” is a vivid reminder of the unique thing The Decemberists do better than just about any other band, and the rest of I’ll Be Your Girl doesn’t quite reach that same height. But the rest of I’ll Be Your Girl is also evidence that Meloy and his mates are willing and able explorers who fear stagnation more than risk-taking. Those are great qualities for a band to have. The hyper-literate historical epics will be there when the pendulum swings back that way.

 
#11

No Age - Snares Like a Haircut

45 points, 2 votes

Ranked Highest By: El Floppo, ericctspikes

Review: 

In certain musical circles, the word “accessible” is a death-sentence, a Judas-esque betrayal. Or worse, a synonym for “sell-out.” For noise-punk veterans No Age, it means their best release in recent memory. With recurring choruses and a selection of guitar riffs you can actually hum, much of Snares Like A Haircut feels like a new era for Dean Spunt and Randy Randall, who got their start doing time at L.A.’s The Smell, a grotty, sweat-marinated touchstone of DIY legitimacy.

“Cruise Control” signals this change, as the duo turn their churning, rumbling noise into an almost hooky(!) melody, and introducing the positive feeling of release that characterizes the album. “Tidal” actually gives us a recognizable chorus, with Randall chanting “Don’t you wanna go,” as they venture as far into hammy, power-chord punk as their ever going to. Surprisingly, they’re still managing to find new ways of making a massive racket—the force of their deafening roar still their most distinguishing feature.

The massive, kinetic drums and humming guitars of “Stuck In The Changer” are boosted with a locomotive clatter. Waves of reverb, echoing swishes of cymbals and the grounding thud of the snare and kick drum all swirl around in the wash together on “Drippy,” creating a thick, endless static sure to inspire shaking legs and swinging heads. And while “Send Me” takes their foot off the gas, the sound is ceaseless. As shimmering, effects-laden guitars melt into each other, a comforting insulation of noise is created, taking the edge off of Spunt’s persistent questions.

Indeed, most of the 12 tracks on Snares are motion, motion, motion, noise, noise, noise. The musical equivalent of burying your head in the sand, if only for the album’s length. The spots where there is room to breathe, “Snares Like A Haircut” and the intro of “Primitive Plus,” have the effect of submerging yourself underwater—the sound of your thoughts and your own heartbeat suddenly moving to the forefront.

Perhaps it’s this effect that made Spunt and Randall describe the record as being “made for the disparate band of misfits who 2017 couldn’t kill,” with Snares Like A Haircut as a kind of safety blanket of noise in a perilous 2018. It’s what you should put on when you don’t want to think; aggressive, enveloping, and with just enough of a bite to corroborate your deeply held belief that you’re not one of them.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/01/no-age-snares-like-a-haircut-review.html

 
#10

Iceage - Beyondless

48 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: ericttspikes, Eephus, D_House

Review: 

On album four, the Danes continue to turn angst into art

“I can’t stop killing, and we’ll never stop killing and we shouldn’t stop killing,” Iceage‘s Elias Bender Rønnenfelt snarls on the machine-gun opener to their fourth album. It’s a welcome battle-cry from a band who we’ve been without for too long.

The band formed of teenage angst in 2008, and the last ten years have seen the four Danes defy genre, delight critics, and rattle more than a few skeletons across three acclaimed albums. It’s been a long wait between 2014’s ‘Plowing Into The Field Of Love’ and album number four – especially for a band who once restlessly rattled out records at breakneck pace. But in their time away, Iceage have grown highly evolved – and a little more sensual.

While gothic gloom is ingrained in their DNA, ‘Beyondless’ boasts flourishes of colour and sex. “Praying at the altar of your legs and feet – your saliva is a drug so bittersweet,” Rønnenfel moans on the Sky Ferreira-assisted, Bad Seeds-meets-Primal Scream soul-punk of ‘Pain Killer’. Not only is it in the running for one of the best rock singles of the year so far, but there’s something in its dynamic charm that seems to sum up the spirit of ‘Beyondless’, too: it’s unhinged, but poetic, assured, direct and deviously loveable.

The dizzying, existentialist din of the opening and closing tracks fittingly showcase a band who continue to turn angst into an art, and horns only add to the menace of the scorched-brimstone blues of ‘The Day The Music Died’ and the hypnotic psych of ‘Catch It’. ‘Thieves Like Us’, meanwhile, howls and stomps like a hootenanny turned into a bar-room brawl. Rough-and-tumble aside, though, there’s glacial grace of the string-led ‘Take It All’ – the cigarette after the seduction.
Read more at https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/iceage-beyondless-review#PPYxbKjbFwuOZ5fK.99

 
#9

The Go! Team - Semicircle

56 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Nick Vermeil, E-Z Glider, Jaysus

Review: 

After The Scene Between's indie pop leanings, Semicircle shifts back to the classic GT sound with equal parts funk, hip-hop, shoegaze, indie pop, and schoolyard chants represented. To this Parton adds some marching band swagger, with many songs boasting mighty horn sections and stomping beats. Next, he whipped up his usual blend of offbeat and unexpected singers, traveling to Detroit to record vocals by the Detroit Youth Choir and area high-school kids, finding Texas mod rocker Darenda Weaver on Bandcamp, and adding Annelotte de Graaf (aka Amber Arcades) to the mix. He also utilized Angela "Maki" Won-Yin Mak, who sings in the live band, and called in original member Ninja. It's a typically interesting mix of voices, and Parton matches them up with the songs perfectly. The kids have just the right amount of sweetness and swagger on their songs; "Chain Link Fence" is a dreamy R&B confection that floats on air effortlessly, their massed vocals fill the whomping soul jam "Mayday" with soulful intensity, and their innocence gives the title track a lighthearted bounce. Elsewhere, Ninja shows she hasn't lost a step in the sass department on the fiery "She's Got Guns," Julie Margat's breathy French intonations lend "Hey!" some continental charm, Weaver's girlish voice has just the right amount of toughness for the girl group-inspired "The Answer's No - Now What's the Question?," Maki handles the steel drum-heavy "If There's One Thing You Should Know" with a light touch, and de Graaf's feature "Plans Are Like a Dream U Organise" is a mind-bending blend of sunshine pop, hip-hop, and shoegaze that she helms in just the right understated fashion. Add in a couple of witty instrumentals and a strutting hip-hop-meets-marching-band jam that samples a 1981 record made by a class of Chicago high-schoolers ("All the Way Live"), and the result is another eclectic, iconoclastic record that doesn't sound like anything else happening in the world. That the Go! Team can sound as fresh and inventive on Semicircle as they did when they started is an impressive, almost miraculous, feat that defies nature and defines triumphant joy.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/semicircle-mw0003115015

 
#8

IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance

61 points, 4 votes

Ranked Highest By: El Floppo, Northern Voice, The Dreaded Marco, steelcitysledgehammers

Review: 

There are, improbably, a couple of nods to ’80s romantic drama Dirty Dancing on Bristol punks Idles’ instant classic second album ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’. On the deceptively brooding ‘Love Song’, which pairs howling guitar lines (that could have been lifted from the start of a horror movie) with compassionate lyrics about the redemptive power of romantic love, frontman Joe Talbot roars, “I carry the watermelon / I wanna be vulnerable”, a line partially borrowed from the movie. The record also features a cover of ‘Cry To Me’, the 1962 Solomon Burke soul song that appears on the soundtrack (and was covered by The Rolling Stones in 1965), here reimagined as a grinding, skeezy industrial shuffle.

Well, it’s a fun film, and they’re fun punks; there’s a notable dissonance between Idles’ music and collective persona. The former is serious, important, tackling taboos with thunderous production and lyrics that are pro-immigration, anti-Brexit, pro-equality and determined to decapitate toxic masculinity. And yet Idles are a colourful bunch whose debut, 2016’s ‘Brutalism’, peppered their righteous punk with bizarre jokes (“Mary Berry loves reggae / So why don’t you love reggae?”). ‘Joy As An Act of Resistance’ dials down the eccentricity.

Instead, this record is – for the most part – serious business delivered with a smirk, heavy subjects handled with lightness of touch. ‘Danny Nedelko’ is joyous, bubblegum punk named after a friend of the band, a Ukranian immigrant, of whom frontman Joe Talbot bellows: “He’s made of flesh, he’s made of love / He’s made of you, he’s made of me /Unity!” Talbot recently dedicated the track to all immigrants, saying: “We wanted to celebrate their bravery for coming over here to start a new life… Long live the open-minded.” Anti-Brexit anthem ‘Great’, meanwhile, concludes with the frontman sneering: “You can have it all / I don’t mind / Just get ready / To work overtime”.

You could blow your entire word-count on quoting Idles’ amazing lyrics. ‘Samaritans’ attempts to annihilate toxic masculinity as Talbot screams, “This is why you never see your father cry,” before roughly 1000 guitars pile in on the defiant line: “I KISSED A BOY AND I LIKED IT.” On the towering ‘Colossus’, an ode to addiction, he rages: “I’m like Stone Cold Steve Austin / I put homophobes in coffins.” The nuance – the attention to detail – in the compositions, though, may be what makes ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’ so rewarding to return to.

It’s in the shrieked backing vocals (surely the best job in the world: being the dude that stands at the back of Idles screaming “YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!” over and over again); the clattering beat that opens ‘Samaritans’; the jungle bassline that snakes through ‘Great’. Guitarist Mark Bowen recently explained to NME: “To me, ‘Joy As An Act of ‘Resistance’ means approaching guitar music with a certain amount of levity and a lack of self-consciousness. It’s just about a burst of joy, and I hope that come across on the album.” It certainly does.

Everything about ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’ is just so perfectly realised. The band began to write the album immediately after they finished work on ‘Brutalism’ – and it shows. The songs feel lived in, the record’s overarching message – that of the necessity of unity, positivity and loving yourself – so empowering that it almost amounts to an entire worldview. It’s even more powerful for the fact that Talbot worked on the album in the midst of massive personal trauma. This is a proper classic punk album, one that people will turn to in times of need, one whose authors are unembarrassed about still believing that art can manifest positive change. As Talbot roars on ‘I’m Scum’: “This snowflake’s an avalanche.”
Read more at https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/idles-joy-act-resistance-review#dgtBRptQYhir6vTr.99

 
#7

Brandi Carlisle - By the Way, I Forgive You

63 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: mphtrilogy, Nick Vermeil, E-Z Glider

Review: 

Cozy up to the year’s early standout: On her sixth LP, veteran songwriter Brandi Carlile teams up with co-producers Shooter Jennings and Dave Cobb for a moving and righteous piece of Americana-infused pop. Across the 10-track LP, the folk-tinged singer belts with gusto, whether offering nostalgic, harmonized forgiveness on album opener “Everytime I Hear That Song” or a shoulder to cry on with anthemic ballad “The Joke.” She flexes her country roots on the quaint “Fulton County Jane Doe,” which references the opening chords of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” before telling a tried-and-true story of a long-lost memory of a girl with “Jesus on [her] hand.” The album’s strongest moments, however, are Carlile’s riskier departures towards the LP’s end. She hits a bouncy pop chord on the tender “Harder to Forgive” and settles into a booming Adele-meets-Joni moment with lonely, reflective tour de force “Party of One,” a delicate masterpiece that teems with the most effective delivery of the album’s underlying tones of forlorn, affectionate sadness. 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-brandi-carliles-by-the-way-i-forgive-you-is-righteous-americana-205823/

 
#6

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs

68 points, 6 votes

Ranked Highest By: Buckfast1, Eephus, JZilla, D_House The Dreaded Marco, Northern Voice

Review: 

This Melbourne band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s full-length debut is a minor marvel: 10 perfectly pitched guitar-pop songs, not a dud among ’em. There are echoes of other bands – generous handfuls of R.E.M. and the Cure, mostly, with a little New Order and Television thrown in – but they make it all sound absurdly crisp and new, like some kind of magic trick.

Take “Mainland,” the album’s third track and one of several instant winners. The lyrics are a revolving door of Kings of Leon-ish clichés (“I said I’m just a servant to my base desires/She said I’ll tell you a few things free of charge”); the riffs are the kind you’ll swear you’ve heard before, somewhere on a teen-movie soundtrack or a cassette that your Walkman ate a few lifetimes ago. Except you haven’t, you’re hearing them for the first time right now, and you’re tapping your feet, and maybe humming along a little, and when’s the last time a band like this made you do that?

This happens again and again on Hope Downs. “Talking Straight” rushes ahead with such wild cosmic bliss that you won’t even notice it’s a cars-and-girls song about someone named Jenny and her midnight-blue coupé. “Cappuccino City” is a brain-fogged ballad that would make Paul Westerberg proud. Every amp tone on this album is just sweet enough, every jangling rhythm hits exactly where it should. Rolling Blackouts are playing an old game, but they’re damned good at it.

 
Northern Voice said:
#15

Superchunk - What a Time to be Alive

37 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: El Floppo, Fiddles, D_House

Review: 

The most groan-inducing cliché that followed the 2016 presidential election predicted a influx of artistic masterpieces, because creators would channel their rage into bold new art. A year into the Trump regime, it’s too early to tell if that will actually happen, but Superchunk’s ironically titled 11th album gives some credence to the cliché. Recorded quickly and announced unexpectedly, What A Time To Be Alive is the rawest Superchunk album since the band’s 1990 debut and undoubtedly its most ferocious. The band’s well-honed style of highly melodic, punk-inflected indie rock remains, but with a serrated edge. There’s minimal polish and no accoutrements beyond the core instruments of guitars, drums, and bass, making it the first Superchunk album without keyboards in more than two decades. The hooks remain plentiful, but the rage is palpable, like when Mac McCaughan opens “I Got Cut” with, “ALL THESE OLD MEN WON’T DIE TOO SOON,” the only words rendered in all caps in the lyric sheet. Turns out fury suits Superchunk.

RIYL: Sing-along rage. Complaining that Come Pick Me Up and Here’s To Shutting Up were too mellow.

Start here: The title track is basically What A Time To Be Alive in a nutshell, a pleasing mixture of hooks (that are vintage Superchunk) and barbs (like the blistering chorus, where McCaughan sings, “To see the rot in no disguise / Oh what a time to be alive / The scum, the shame, the ####### lies / Oh what a time to be alive / Oh what a time to be alive”). [Kyle Ryan]

https://www.avclub.com/car-seat-headrest-polica-stargaze-brandi-carlile-and-1822940420
Click to expand...
I didn't expect this to be as good as it is. Title track is a classic.

 
#5

Foxing - Nearer My God

75 points, 3 votes

Ranked Highest By: Eephus, Fiddles, Nick Vermeil

Review: 

Foxing has always been ambitious. From its ornate music videos to the post-rock sprawl of 2015’s Dealer, the band has never taken the direct route to anything. This was evident even before Nearer My God was released, as the band put out five different versions of the title track, each one seeing vocalist Conor Murphy tackle the song in a different language. It was impressive, not only because it showcased how strong Murphy’s singing has become since the release of Foxing’s debut album, The Albatross, in 2013, but also because it hinted at the full scope of the group’s latest. While Foxing was once pegged as an emo band, it always wanted to achieve more, and Nearer My God is proof of it. Opener “Grand Paradise” is more Prince than The Promise Ring, with thunderous electronic claps serving as the backbeat to Murphy’s effects-drenched voice. Even when Foxing plays the part of a rock band, the songs buck easy definition. “Slapstick,” “Nearer My God,” and “Crown Candy” are all expansive works that pull from post-rock, indie, soul, and electronic without feeling like some ham-fisted combination. It’s as impressive as it is expansive, a perfect showcase for modern emo’s elasticity.

RIYL: Radiohead. The Appleseed Cast. Sad songs that make you want to dance.

Start here: No one song easily encapsulates the record, but listen to “Slapstick” and watch the accompanying video to get a sense of the sheer scope of this thing. [David Anthony]

https://music.avclub.com/foxing-s-excellent-elastic-nearer-my-god-leads-this-we-1828193732

 
#4

Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel

75 points, 8 votes

Ranked Highest By: ericttspikes, E-Z Glider, Buckfast1, Nick Vermeil, Northern Voice, landrys hat, Eephus, steelcitysledgehammers

Review: 

Back in 2013, Courtney Barnett covered Kanye West’s ‘Black Skinhead’ on Australian radio as a guitar-charged glam-grunge stomp, reframing its outrage in her bedhead Melbourne white-girl flow. It was a questionable yet telling move for a fellow verbose storyteller, delivered just as her single “Avant Gardener” – a deceptively offhand first-person account of an asthma attack – announced the arrival of a rare talent.

Now a bona fide indie-rock heroine, Barnett has made a second LP that occasionally recalls her early come-to-Yeezus session. Tell Me How You Really Feel is noisy and way more pissed off than her 2015 debut, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, unsheathing sharp new earnestness alongside her trademark sabers of sarcasm and penetrating observation. She opens by paraphrasing Nelson Mandela. “Y’know what they say/No one’s born to hate/We learn it somewhere along the way,” she whispers at the outset of “Hopefulessness,” a slithering post-punk inspirational that builds from ambivalent incantation to near-snarl, twin guitars cresting into a glorious noise burst before receding comically behind the earthbound wail of a teakettle – a perfectly Barnett-ish touch.

Humor, often dark, flickers throughout like a candle. “Nameless, Faceless” – an echo of Nirvana’s “Endless, Nameless” – riffs off a quote from Margaret Atwood, measuring the psychic burden of violence in light of the schism between the sexes. “Men are scared that women will laugh at them,” Barnett intones dryly before the punchline: “Women are scared that men will kill them.” The song is a marvel of tonal control – she expresses sincere-seeming empathy for an Internet troll, laced with acid sarcasm at the notion women must play the role of default comfort dispensers.

Similar dual consciousness appears in songs about relationships (“Need a Little Time”) and dream-chasing (“City Looks Pretty”), and in straightforward screeds “I’m Not Your Mother, I’m Not Your #####,” a furious punk smackdown that takes a moment for measured self-examination, and “Crippling Self Doubt and a General Lack of Self Confidence,” a passive-aggressive rant egged on by girl-gang backing vocals from the Breeders’ Kim and Kelley Deal, two of Barnett’s foremost indie-rock foremoms.

They’re the most Nirvana-esque moments on this modest masterpiece of an album, made by an avowed fan who shows a kindred underdog solidarity. Kicking against the pricks, including the ones in her own head, Barnett encourages us to do the same, with an impressive generosity of spirit. “Take your broken heart/Turn it into art,” she counsels at the LP’s outset. “Your vulnerability is stronger than it seems.” As Tell Me How You Really Feel amply demonstrates, so is hers.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-courtney-barnetts-raging-empathetic-tell-me-how-you-really-feel-630480/

 
#3

Shame - Songs of Praise

77 points, 4 votes

Ranked Highest By: The Dreaded Marco, El Floppo, Eephus, D_House

Review: 

Loveably sarky and sordid work from the fantastic south London band

Shame once received a hate letter that read, “Dear Shame… You can’t even compare yourself to a crusty piece of ####e hanging from Mark E Smith’s slender ####. Some would suggest that it’s time to call it a day. Give over.”

Well, the London five-piece is audibly indebted to Smith’s revered Manchester post-punk group The Fall – louche vocal delivery, abrasive and atonal guitar and barbed lyrics all present and correct – but debut album ‘Songs Of Praise’ courses with venom and a lithe vigour that is all their own. Along with HMLTD and INHEAVEN, the band belongs to a fertile south London scene that lays waste to the myth that guitar music is no longer a place for innovation, excitement and – in Shame’s case – lyrics that splat in your earholes like lumps of hot, rotten fruit.

Take the fecund ‘Gold Hole’, which sees frontman Charlie Steen smarm his way through a sordid tale of a man seducing a younger woman: “Sweat stains the wrinkles / Tongue touches the hole / His wife’s at work and his kids are at school”. You’ll crave a series of long showers after hearing it. Here he perfects the sickly, simpering croon that he also employs on menacing opening track ‘Dust On Trial’ and the excellent, understated closer ‘Angie’.

Elsewhere, on ‘Tasteless’, he rails against those “distorted by distance”, only arsed when world affairs affect them personally, and delivers the lines with a desperate, hoarse bark. If all this sounds a bit heavy, it doesn’t account for the sense of sarcasm and dark fun that laces the album. On standout ‘Friction’, with its insistent, looping refrain and jaunty, camp drum fills, you can almost hear Steen wink through the lines, “Do you ever need the needy? Do they ever tug on your heart?” He’s deadly serious, and at the same time sending himself up, the sarky ####e.

This is a band with a real sense of showmanship, as those who have witnessed Shame’s sweat-slicked live shows will know. It’s this that makes ‘Songs Of Praise’ utterly invigorating.
Read more at https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/shame-songs-praise-review#uetQMxrARXtB2v4p.99

 
#2

The Beths - Future Me Hates Me

107 points, 6 votes

Ranked Highest By: Nick Vermeil, D_House, steelcitysledgehammers, Northern Voice, El Floppo, Eephus

Review: 

A wonderful little record that never lets up, piling on unassumingly buzzy fun until you start realizing you might be in the presence of a true power-pop monument. The Beths are from New Zealand, so singer-guitarist Elizabeth Stokes’ accent might make you think of Courtney Barnett a little – especially when she’s firing off auto-critical logorrhea like “you’re in my brain taking up space / I need for remembering pins and to take out the bins / And that one particular film that that actor was in I see your face superimposed over everything / It ain’t right.” But the Beths are more a band-band and a song-band than a singer-songwriter-band, brilliant at bright guitar frenzy, instantly memorable melodies and tune-mad group sing-alongs with the joy of Sixties bubblegum rock; there’s a real love at solving pop formula here (they’ve got a song called “Uptown Girl,” for gosh sake), but they never lose the sense of discovery at heart of rock and roll. Stokes sings about the usual self-doubt and affliction without getting bogged down in the sads, punching through pain on songs like “Great No One,” “You Wouldn’t Like Me” and “Happy Unhappy” with the help of lead guitarist Jonathan Pearce, whose sunny squall suggests a ritual sweetening of Bob Stinson’s AOR god-barf. On “Whatever” love gets her so mixed up she threatens to swerve her car and you with it right into the water (“and wait for the maker”) but the song is as sleek as, well, the Cars themselves.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-the-beths-future-me-hates-me-is-a-power-pop-monument-711511/

#1

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!

121 points, 9 votes

Ranked Highest By: El Floppo, Northern Voice, E-Z Glider, D_House, Jaysus, The Dreaded Marco, Eephus, ericttspikes, steelcitysledgehammers

Review: 

At the conclusion of "Total Football," the captivating introduction to Parquet Courts' wondrous and outspoken new album, Wide Awake!, there's a lyrical barrage worth contemplating: "Swapping parts and roles is not acting but rather emancipation from expectation / Collectivism and autonomy are not mutually exclusive / Those who find discomfort in your goals of liberation will be issued no apology / #### Tom Brady."
 
The abrupt shift from empowering manifesto to nihilistic provocation is in keeping with the kind of agit-prop Parquet Courts are up to on this, their seventh proper album. Wide Awake! is a letter-perfect musical contemplation of modern times, where social uprisings are actually affecting positive change. It's urgent and potent music that's thought-provoking and danceable, and whose rage is measured by a pointed optimism. As such, an easy corollary can be made between the album's coy title and being "woke."
 
The kind of conscious protest music that Parquet Courts have crafted for Wide Awake! is certainly punk-infused in spirit, and it's also refreshingly anchorless rock'n'roll. Produced by Danger Mouse, the band's gritty, open-minded aesthetic is intact, with elements of almost every (good) genre signifier you can name: "Mari Gras Beads" evokes the contemporary country of the Sadies; the title track is a block party funk workout worthy of Talking Heads; and "Violence" has a breakdown with a synth line that Dr. Dre would contemplate copping, evoking the band's recurring interest in hip-hop.
 
With the kind of cultural reflection and commentary going on here, it's no accident that in the midst of a socio-cultural sea change among young people investing in their own future, Wide Awake! has floated to the surface, and is just waiting to get you through some ####, like a beacon.

https://exclaim.ca/music/article/parquet_courts-wide_awake

 
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