December 10, 2024 by A.S. Van Dorston

It’s that most wonderful time of the the year — lists, more lists and lists of lists!

“More music is being released today (in a single day) than was released in the calendar year of 1989” — Will Page, former Chief Economist of Spotify, — “All subscription models are from Satan and there is a special place in hell for those people in charge that went for this business model”: Are music software subscriptions really as bad as some people say?, Music Radar

Anyone who’s primary takeaway from that quote is that there is too much music, with luck their janky simpleton genes will die out with them. It’s more of a terrifying reminder that the global population has grown from 5 billion to over 8 billion since 1989, when this planet can only sustain a maximum of 2 billion without having countless species of plants and animals go extinct. Theoretically 3 billion if humans could stop behaving like selfish assholes, but as recent elections reminded us, that will never happen.

So as we hurtle toward an accelerated extinction crisis, I cannot spare a fraction of a second fretting over music streaming subscription models. If the film and television industry can figure it out — licensing out content for finite periods with the option to buy-to-own, the music industry will figure out, belatedly as usual, the best ways to balance ripping off their artists while keeping consumers somewhat happy. Or they won’t, who the fuck knows. I mean, if people can’t figure out that a fascist psychopath with narcissistic personality disorder and probably dementia is not going to help make their lives better in any possible way, then I’m not optimistic about pretty much anything.

Nevertheless, we have music. Shitloads of it, rivers of it overflowing from laptops to the cloud. Some have given up and just let algorithms automate their playlists and determine what tiny fraction of that music enters their brains. This is for the rest of us, who like to take part in the curation of their listening habits, and still find it a worthwhile distraction to read about music and dig into magazines, music sites, YouTube channels (this has become a ritual for me since the pandemic while cooking and cleaning up), and of course, year-end lists. If you like the latter, you’ve come the the right place. Sure, you can look at the Album of the Year aggregate of most of the major publication lists, but it’s polluted by garbage lists that were not compiled by music writers who spent every day listening to music and thoughtfully putting together what they gleaned from their unique experiences. You’ve got some junior editor at Business Insider spending five minutes looking at what’s popular on other lists and copying that. Even if that’s not the case, who would possibly care what music Business Insider recommends? Such is life in 2024.

Anyway, it was another good year for music. Some, like the deep cuts YouTube channel, broke a two-year silence to say it’s the best year since 2016. Sure, why not! I’ll take any commentary that doesn’t whinge about [fill in genre/style here] being dead. Despite my little rant above, you’re not going to find any pretentious articles linking music to politics. Those are for people who don’t think music is important enough on it’s own. Music doesn’t have to directly address current politics, cultural events, etc., to be relevant. It can reside in it’s own world, timeline, universe, whatever the songwriters dream up, and just help us stay sane through insane times.

So leave your guns in the safe (I’m in TX, you know), take a break from self-medication, find some new choons and follow the advice of these mid-20th century artists:

Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream (It is not dying)
Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void (It is shining)
That you may see the meaning of within (It is being)

Genre

2024 was GOTH AS FUCK. It seems every other artist I listen to are at least in part self-identifying with goth. Of course they are. The goths have known what’s up for over two hundred years.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”
William Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

While Robert Smith has never admitted to being goth, because a king need not acknowledge his minions, former Cure drummer/keyboardist Lol Tolhurst was not so proud, writing his own personal history of goth in Goth: A History (2023), a sort of companion to Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys (2016). Suddenly everyone’s writing goth books, including Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth (2024) by Cathi Unsworth, The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth (2023) by John Robb, Paint My Name in Black and Gold: The Rise of the Sisters of Mercy (2023) by Marc Andrews.

Spirit Adrift’s Nate Garrett went full on goth metal with the great Neon Nightmare project which just missed the Lucky 13. From singer-songwriters Chelsea Wolfe, Nadine Shaw and Hamish Hawk going to the goth side and haunting year-end lists to Pøltergeist, Coughin’ Vicars, Ist Ist, Rosegarden Funeral Party, Then Comes Silence, Demon Head, Rope Sect, Dool, The March Violets, Tribulation, Unto Others and dozens of others it’s cool to be goth. Even Marilyn Manson can’t ruin it for everyone, though inevitably some waste of space pop artist is going to create some horrible goth-hyperpop meme on TikTok and it’ll be all over.

It’s indicative of the times how many subgenres are fairly subtle variations of blind bloody rage. Last year I noted Powerviolence and Crossover Thrash, and now I’m seeing Beatdown Hardcore and Deathcore. Will Apocalypsecore be next? Actually, an honorable mention goes to my own Psych Noir, which was spotted out in the wild in a UK glossy magazine no less, Prog magazine’s review of Rosalie Cunningham’s album. It lives!

Comeback

Not only has it been sixteen years since The Cure’s last album, but 4:13 Dream (2008) got plenty of poor reviews, and the band seemed to be in decline. In hindsight, it’s better than most people remember. However, The Cure was already established as a stadium-filling institution. Robert Smith achieved icon status when a cartoon version of himself vanquished the previous generation’s icon, Mega Streisand on South Park to 12.5 million viewers in 1998. However, The Cure’s most impressive achievement is making an album that can measure up to their peak work from three decades ago, and they did just that.

For The Jesus Lizard it’s been 26 years since the lackluster major label album Blue (1998). The fact that Rack is just about as good as their fourth album Down (1994) is really impressive, given the energy it takes to whip up that kind of noise.

Debut

The Narcotix with Dying. What an incredible album, which has received no love anywhere else. Also The Other Sun, Neon Nightmare, English Teacher and Deadletter.

Memoriam

As I related in this piece, Steve Albini was important through several stages of my life and many others, and his untimely loss stung sharply.

May they also rock in excelsis DIO and rest in pieces: Wayne Kramer (MC5), Aston Barrett (The Wailers), Mojo Nixon, Damo Suzuki (Can), Karl Wallinger (World Party), Steve Harley (Cockney Rebel), Dickey Betts (Allman Brothers), Duane Eddy, Richard Tandy (Electric Light Orchestra), Dennis Thompson (MC5), David Sanborn, Doug Ingle (Iron Butterfly), Francoise Hardy, Kinky Friedman, Joe Bonsall (Oak Ridge Boys), Toumani Diabate, John Mayall (Bluesbreakers), Martin Phillipps (The Chills), Sergio Mendes, Herbie Flowers, Tito Jackson, J.D. Souther, Freddie Salem (The Outlaws), Cissy Houston, Paul Di’anno (Iron Maiden), Phil Lesh (Grateful Dead), Lou Donaldson, Shel Talmy, Bob Bryar (My Chemical Romance).

Underrated

While Fontaines D.C. are doing incredibly well, topping year-end polls, their last three albums reaching #1 or 2 on the charts and two Grammy nominations for Best Rock Album and Best Alternative Music Performance, it would be nice to see some trickle down effect for bands that inhabit similar territory, and do it even better in my opinion, starting with The Sea Kings, as well as The Buttertones and The Blinders.

Disappointment

For every artist who’s successfully maintaining both quality and longevity, there’s many more who just can’t, no matter how hard they try. Smashing Pumpkins seem to be trying harder than just about anyone, with Billy Corgan reaching high with ambitious album concepts. After last year’s triple album rock opera project ATUM fell flat, I was rooting for Aghori mhori mei, truly. I kind of liked some of it, but alas, not enough to keep me coming back, and it languishes near the bottom of my 1,000 album list this year.

I’d also love to see Ride, The Pixies, Mercury Rev, The Libertines, and even Razorlight do better.

Worst

I can’t objectively or subjectively pinpoint the worst thing to happen in music this year, because there’s too much, and I try to avoid them as much as possible. If someone paid me enough I suppose I would listen to Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign, MGK & Trippie Redd, Falling in Reverse, Meghan Trainor and Skillet. But they didn’t so I won’t, and can’t verify which of these are the worst. I can only identify a couple bands that irk me for random reasons. It’s a tie between Snow Patrol, who have been offensively bland since the beginning, and yet there’s still inexplicably demand for them on their ninth album, and Coldplay, who were at least once a real rock band who could put on a good show and have a few decent songs. But their past six albums have been embarrassing abominations of them chasing stylistic and production trends into creative dead ends. So cringeworthy.

Surprise

Peter freakin’ Perrett. Just the fact that he survived his years of horrific substance abuse to just nonchalantly drop a massive double album that’s one of his best. And while all four of his post-Only Ones solo albums are solid, his latest really knocked it out of the park.

Fester’s Lucky 13 – Favorite Albums of 2024

1. The Cure – Songs of a Lost World (Polydor)

I honestly had not anticipated a Cure album with any kind of excitement since Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (1987). When Disintegration (1989) came out I though I’d outgrown them as I had U2 and others. I’m still not quite as impressed by that album as most fans are. I suppose I’m a bad Cure fan, but I did pick up all the subsequent albums eventually, and I re-listened to them all once the “Alone” single was released on September 26 and I realized this might be the real deal. That and the fact that there never really was a bad Cure album. Even nu metal producer Ross Robinson couldn’t completely ruin The Cure (2004). Still, when it dropped on the Day of the Dead, I was as shocked as anyone to find this band’s fourteenth album sitting imperiously atop Fester’s Lucky 13, trolls shrinking away from it’s hard baleful stare.

For a band to produce one of their best albums late in their career is a rare achievement, and they were rewarded with a #1 album in the UK and #4 in the US. There’s actually plenty of artists from the same era as The Cure who are releasing good new music, like And Also The Trees, who’s debut was produced by The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, X, Judas Priest, Peter Perrett and Kim Gordon. All great efforts, but not anywhere near career bests in my book.

A lot of my fellow Gen Xers may not buy much new music anymore, and give zero Fs about the Cure’s peers from their early post-punk days, but they still can’t resist The Cure.

2. The Sea Kings – Fear is all Around (Iffy Folk)

The fact that a serious contender for album of the year isn’t on any other year-end list that I know of could drive be crazy if I let it. But I’m used to the fact that some of the very best bands and artists are truly independent, with no major label budget to promote them or support touring in other countries. It’s sitting there easily available on most streaming services and Bandcamp. You can even order a vinyl copy. While you’re at it, pick up their lost classic debut Woke In The Devil’s Arms (Iffy Folk, 2014). This Glasgow band’s darkly literate, indie pop/art rock is essential listening for fans of any of the artists below and more.

Indie Pop | Art Rock | Psych Noir. RIYL: The Smiths, The Go Betweens, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Fontaines D.C., The Cure, Syvdoh | Full Review | Bandcamp

3. Opeth – The Last Will and Testament (Reigning Phoenix)

It seemed to take a while for the year to get going, but it’s gratifying to see a diverse music community getting excited about event albums like the ones from The Cure and Opeth. While Mikael Åkerfeldt has shown his prog influences on his sleeve since Opeth first released music in 1995. Understandably, much of their core audience was not excited for Opeth to go full-on prog on the four albums they released between 2011 and 2019. As good as they are, most of the fans love Opeth for their progressive death metal era. The fact that they could add death metal back into the mix while also moving forward with music as complex as ever, yet somehow more accessible, is a pretty damn triumphant feat.

Prog Metal. RIYL: Anciients, Madder Mortem, Mastodon, Iotunn | Full Review | Buy

4. Rosalie Cunningham – To Shoot Another Day (Esoteric Antenna)

I’ve been a fan since I included her in a piece documenting the explosion of great female-lead bands in early 2013, before the first album was released and they only had two singles out, and saw Purson live in 2016 before they imploded. While I usually have an aversion to overly theatrical presentations, everything Rosalie has been involved with has just the right amount of great riffs and interesting proggy changes to keep me engaged. I think St. Vincent fans should give this a chance as well as heavy psych and prog fans. Basically she should be a star, but it’s unlikely to happen in a cruel and unfair world. At least the latest issue of Prog magazine featured both a four page spread and a featured review, so her cult following should continue to grow.

Psych Prog | Art Rock | Dark Cabaret. RIYL: Beatles, Alice Cooper, Kate Bush, Blood Ceremony, Bobbie Dazzle, Amanda Palmer/Dresden Dolls, St. Vincent | Full Review

5. The Sonic Dawn – Phantom (Heavy Psych)

When I hear certain Danish music, I think about the clean, minimalist designs of speakers and electronics like DALI, Dynaudio, Bang & Olufson and Lyngdorf that hark back to the Danish modern movement that started over a hundred years ago. My impressions are not accurate for all Danish music, of course, but the Causa Sui folks in both their production values and album art designs for their El Paraiso label that eschew extraneous ornamentation. Similarly, The Sonic Dawn have always been restrained in their approach to psychedelic pop, a genre often known for throwing everything plus the kitchen sink into sound effects, pedals and excessive reverb. After all my talk about minimalism, the band introduces a fourth member, at least in the studio, Erik ‘Errka’ Petersson on piano, Hammond B3, Rhodes and clavinet while still retaining an uncluttered sound.

Psych | Psych Prog. RIYL: Dungen, Tame Impala, Syd Arthur, King Gizzard, Levitation Room, Dream Phases. | Full Review

6. Ducks Ltd. – Harm’s Way (Carpark)

Rickenbacker wasn’t the first 12 string electric guitar, but they were the first to think of gifting the Beatles with their early protoypes which can first be heard on “A Hard Day’s Night,” “I Should Have Known Better” and “I Call Your Name.” From there, and Roger McGuinn and The Byrds’ cover of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” jangle pop took off, though it wouldn’t be called that for another couple decades in association with R.E.M., The Smiths, The Feelies and others. Yet arguably, no band has tackled the sound with such fervent focus as recent bands like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, The Tubs and Ducks Ltd. After a great EP and debut album, it seemed like the Canadian duo were ramping up to something special when they released a series of covers in the tradition of The Feelies — “Head On” (The Jesus and Mary Chain), “In Between Days” (The Cure) and, appropriately, “Invitation” from The Feelies’ fourth album Time For A Witness (1991). And sure enough, while Harm’s Way may seem taken for granted,, it ranks as one of the most perfect executions of the sound.

Jangle Pop | Indie Pop. RIYL: The Feelies, Real Estate, Rolling Blackouts Costal Fever, The Tubs, Chime School.

7. Dream Phases – Phantom Idol (Coconut)

Brothers Graham reach new songwriting heights with hidden depths on their third full-length of California psych pop.. There’s something iconic in how brother bands like the Beach Boys, Sparks and Redd Kross have epitomized facets of California. Brothers Brandon and Shane Graham formed Dream Phases in 2016 with Keveen Baudouin and Anthony Marks, with help from many other musicians associated with the L.A. psych/power pop scene that includes Levitation Room and the Blank Tapes, who Brandon has worked with. Since then they’ve produced a consistently great batch of songs between two EPs, two albums and a load of singles. For their third album, they hooked up with producers Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck) and Matt Schuessler (Cat Power, Kurt Vile). Already with a wide range of influences from the Byrds, CSNY, Laurel Canyon folk and the Rain Parade, the band sought to add some kosmische, post-punk and shoegaze into the mix, as well as perhaps a shade of surf noir underneath the sunny psych pop surface. The title evokes a certain eeriness, even if it could have been a title of a Nancy Drew or Three Investigators mystery, The Curse of the Phantom Idol. Hey, I haven’t been a kid for several decades, and I’d read the book, see the movie and buy the soundtrack. “Living in a Cave,” “Come on Now” and “Haunt Me” may evoke the beach, but at dusk when it’s no longer safe to stay in the water. The piano-led “No Reflection” has Brandon going for a Lennon-like timbre, as well as similar emotional buttons. It shows some nicely evolving songwriting chops, the kind that, inserted into just the right moment of a movie or TV show, would blow the band’s exposure to the stratosphere.

Psych Pop | Psych. RIYLThe Byrds, Rain Parade, Levitation Room, The Sonic Dawn. | Full Review

8. The Buttertones – Face to Face With Fantasy (Buttertones)

On their first four albums, Hollywood garage/surf rockers The Buttertones seemed content to inhabit a murky, lo-fi sound influenced by The Cramps and The Gun Club. It’s a good sound, and plenty would have been happy if they stuck with it, but on Jazzhound (2020) they revealed greater ambitions, upgrading to a more sleek mix of post-punk and psych noir. A lineup shakeup threatened to end the band, as remaining members Richard Araiza (vocals, guitar) and Modeste “Cobi” Cobian (drums, multi-instruments) considered a new band name (the title of their sixth album, Face to Face With Fantasy), but wisely chose to stick with The Buttertones. Their sound has expanded even more, similar to how Fontaines D.C. and Thus Love have stretched out, encompassing poptastic melodies on “Awesome Monster,” ethereal female backing vocals on “Judy Do a Spin” and stuffing a song to the gill with riffs that would make Interpol jealous on “Jarring.” The slippery saxophone lines on songs like “Sweetest Sweetheart,” “Bye Guy Gotta Fly” and “Fingerwoman Found” bring to mind a mix of Psychedelic Furs and a touch of mainstream sophisti-pop. Araiza pushes his singing beyond his normal repertoire of Ian Curtis baritone and Jeffrey Lee Pierce yelps, achieving Morrissey levels of range and expressiveness on the latter song and “Weight of Blood.” In the middle is a nice Jim Morrison/Ian McCulloch mix on “Let the Songbird Drink.” While it’s their most diverse, melodic and accessible album they still go dark, such as the fierce deathrock dirge on opening title track, which includes an Explicit warning for it’s frank subject matter, as well as the frantic “Chaos Reigns.” With each repeated listen I’m increasingly confident that this beats out all competition this year in terms of post-punk/garage noir guitar pop.

9. The Narcotix – Dying (Narcotix)

Brooklyn band’s debut is a master class in polyrhythmic vocal innovation and beauty. Citing influences like African wedding music, neoclassical symphonies, Afrobeat, Paramore, Kofi Olomide, and Warpaint, their first EP was an extension of the shapeshifting, ethereal music of Raincoats’ Odyshape (1981), Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s global post-punk fusion on Mambo Nassau (1981), and The Slits circa Return of the Giant Slits (1981) where they fuse their dub roots with skewed African rhythms. The full-length is not much longer, but it packs a lot in, including lushly layered arrangements weaving Siera Leonean Adam Turay’s beautifully abstract guitar shapes and 12/8 polyrhythms. The dense but dreamy production recalls peak Kate Bush. But where they really push things forward is their vocals, which careen through French, Spanish, and wordless yodels, whatever it takes for Quansah’s and Foinchas’ voices to express their spiritual and existential meditations. Check out the emotional range they project with just “la la la” on “The Maiden.” This is one area where Western music has played it very safe and conservative the past couple decades. I have to go back to Sheila Chandra’s ABoneCroneDrone (1996), Sussan Deyhim’s Madman of God: Divine Love Songs of the Persian Sufi Masters (2000), and Björk on Medúlla (2004) to find equally adventurous use of vocals in pop music.

10. The Blinders – Beholder (Universal)

I love that a garage noir band can still get radio play in the UK, and that getting signed to a major label is a thing that still happens. According to UK press, the band’s debut Columbia (2018) did quite well, but the momentum faltered with Fantasies of a Stay at Home Psychopath (2020) due to Covid. Lineup changes hasn’t impeded the band’s artistic progression as reflected on the two Electric Kool-Aid EPs in 2022, which showed the band’s raucous punk blues/garage psych sound get more brooding and menacing, like a mix of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds with the dark romance post-punk of Echo & the Bunnymen and late era Arctic Monkeys, but less loungey louche. At times Thomas Hayward brings to mind The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser’ bruised soulfulness, while the band evokes some of the most evocatively cinematic crime noir atmospherics since Gallon Drunk and The Flaming Stars.

Garage Noir | Garage Punk | Heavy Psych. RIYL: Echo & the Bunnymen, Nick Cave, Gallon Drunk, The Flaming Stars, The Walkmen, Arctic Monkeys, Fontaines D.C., Thus Love, The Buttertones. | Buy

11. Vitskär Süden – Vessel (Ripple)

While I’ve been a big fan of Vitskär Süden’s first two albums, and The Faceless King (2022) showed a strong progression from their 2020 self-titled debut (complete with an AD&D module!), I was hardly prepared for the stylistic leap on their third album. While there was previously enough gothy darkness in their psych prog that I used the psych noir tag on the first two, Vessel takes a giant Talk Talk/Radiohead level step into a really original blend of art rock, psych, space rock and even, more subtly, post-punk, as Ian Curtis’s ghostly presence wafts through the album, leaving a cold chill. Every story-oriented song has it’s own uniquely sound designed flavor, bringing to mind the studio experimentation of Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Pink Floyd. On the post-industrial pulse of the Lovecraftian “R’Iyeh,” I could imagine David Bowie being stoked to contribute guest vocals were he alive. Despite the ambitious variety of sounds, the overall vibe is cohesive. It took a while for this one to sink in, as it simply does not play well with other artists on a playlist. It absolutely demands at least a few listens of focused attention. Which sadly means it will soon be relegated to the cult classic ghetto, spoken of with reverence and fervor by a small following, but flying completely under the radar of the masses. Their loss.

Psych Prog | Art Rock | Psych Noir | Space Rock | Heavy Psych. RIYL Pink Floyd, King Buffalo, Sergeant Thunderhoof, Shaman Elephant, Kings Of The Valley, Turtle Skull, Elder

12. Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom (In The Red)

There’s a group of musicians in the L.A. garage psych scene anchored around Ty Segal that have come out with an impressive body of work, including Osees and other bands on John Dwyer’s Castle Face label, WAND, Charles Mootheart, Fuzz, Together PANGEA and Meatbodies. The latter three all include Chad Ubovich, with him taking lead guitar, songwriting and vocal duties on Meatbodies. The fourth album is certainly not more of the same, but rather an expansive double album that relates an intense personal journey involving a self-described 90s comic book vampire lifestyle of drug-hazed socialite parties and unnamed trauma. Their sound has expanded to encompass shoegaze, noise pop via Smashing Pumpkins, space rock and other elements. The three previous albums are great, but Ubovich has really raised his game to match similarly ambitious opuses from …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead and The Black Angels, not to mention Quadrophenia!

Garage Psych | Heavy Psych | Shoegaze | Noise Pop. RIYL Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, Ty Segal, WAND, …Trail of Dead, The Black Angels

13. The Other Sun – Daimon, Devil, Dawn (Invictus)

The punters who love the debut full-length of Sweden’s The Other Sun are struggling to describe it, referencing Dick Dale, Ennio Morricone, occult rock and even goth. It’s not rocket science people, it’s clearly psych noir, get with it! The band themselves self-identify as dark rock, but they just haven’t stumbled upon my sexier descriptor yet. Their atmospheric sound has roots that came out of the darker underbelly of garage punk in the 80s with The Cramps, The Gun Club, The Birthday Party, Scientists, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Crime & the City Solution and Swans. Garage, surf and psych noir, these are a few of my favorite things, and it’s gratifying to see new bands continue the thread. While there are stand-out tracks like “Stalking the Stalker” and “A New Dawn,” there are rarely hooks that jump out at you. Rather, it’s a beguiling stack of layered sounds that reveal themselves with close listening, the murky, menacing lyrics evoking, magic, mystery and murder. I sense a crossover buzz about this album with metalheads and others not normally attuned to this subgenre getting excited about this much like they did with Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats thirteen years ago or Ghost. I hope I’m right.

Psych Noir | Goth | Occult. RIYL Scientists, The Devil’s Blood, Lucid Sins, Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows.

Mix

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Favorite Albums of 2024

The Cure – Songs of a Lost World (Polydor) | UK | Buy
The Sea Kings – Fear is All Around (Iffy Folk) | UK | Bandcamp
Opeth – The Last Will and Testament (Reigning Phoenix) | Sweden | Buy
Rosalie Cunningham – To Shoot Another Day (Esoteric Antenna) | UK | Bandcamp
The Sonic Dawn – Phantom (Heavy Psych) | Denmark | Bandcamp
Ducks Ltd. – Harm’s Way (Carpark) | Canada | Bandcamp
Dream Phases – Phantom Idol (Coconut) | USA | Bandcamp
Custard Flux – Einsteinium Delirium (Custard Flux) | USA | Bandcamp
The Buttertones – Face to Face With Fantasy (Buttertones) | USA | Buy
The Narcotix – Dying (Narcotix) | USA | Bandcamp
And Also The Trees – Mother-of-Pearl Moon (Border) | UK | Bandcamp
The Blinders – Beholder (Universal) | UK | Buy
Vitskär Süden – Vessel (Ripple) | USA | Bandcamp
The Other Sun – Daimon, Devil, Dawn (Invictus) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom (In The Red) | USA | Bandcamp
Early Moods – A Sinner’s Past (RidingEasy) | USA | Bandcamp
Ufomammut – Hidden (Neurot) | Italy | Bandcamp
Crypt Sermon – The Stygian Rose (Dark Descent) | USA | Bandcamp
Khana Bierbood – Monolam (Guruguru Brain) | Thailand | Bandcamp
Neon Nightmare – Faded Dream (20 Buck Spin) | USA | Bandcamp
Slift – Ilion (Sub Pop) | France | Bandcamp
The Smile – Wall of Eyes (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Mojo & the Kitchen Brothers – Into the Centre of the Cat’s Eye Nebula (Lay Bare) | Belgium | Bandcamp
The Mystery Lights – Purgatory (Wick) | USA | Bandcamp
Sergeant Thunderhoof – The Ghost of Badon Hill (Pale Wizzard) | UK | Bandcamp
Fontaines D.C. – Romance (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Transit Method – Othervoid (Brutal Panda) | USA | Bandcamp
Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media) | USA | Bandcamp
English Teacher – This Could Be Texas (Island) | UK | Bandcamp
Levitation Room – Strange Weather (Reverberation Appreciation Society) | USA | Buy
Goat Girl – Below the Waste (Rough Trade) | UK | Bandcamp
WIZRD – Elements (Karisma) | Norway | Bandcamp
White Denim – 12 (Bella Union) | USA | Bandcamp
Pøltergeist – Nachtmusik (Bad Omen) | Canada | Bandcamp
Brigitte Calls Me Baby – The Future is Our Way Out (ATO) | USA | Bandcamp
Remina – Erebus EP (Avantgarde) | New Zealand | Bandcamp
Louse – Passions Like Tar (Feel It) | USA | Bandcamp
Thus Love – All Pleasure (Captured Tracks) | USA | Bandcamp
Lucifer – Lucifer V (Nuclear Blast) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Elephant Stone – Back Into Dream (Elephants On Parade) | Canada | Bandcamp
MOOON – III (Excelsior) | Netherlands | Bandcamp
Deadletter – Hysterical Strength (Soak) | UK | Buy
Chime School – The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel (Slumberland) | USA | Bandcamp
Brume – Marten (Magnetic Eye) | USA | Bandcamp
Memorials – Memorial Waterslides (Fire) | UK | Bandcamp
Cemetery Skyline – Nordic Gothic (Century Media) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Color Green – Fool’s Parade (New West) | USA | Bandcamp
The Volcanics – Volatile World (Citadel) | Australia | Bandcamp
Coughin’ Vicars – Curses & Prayers (Venn) | UK | Bandcamp
SoftSun – Daylight in the Dark (Ripple) | USA/Norway | Bandcamp
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister – Tarot Part I (Sound Effect) | Spain | Bandcamp
La Luz – News of the Universe (Sub Pop) | USA | Bandcamp
Motorpsycho – Neigh!! (NFGS) | Norway | Bandcamp
Smoke Bellow – Structurally Sound (Moon Glyph) | USA | Bandcamp
Desperate Journalist – No Hero (Fierce Panda) | UK | Bandcamp
Goat – Goat (Rocket) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Ian Blurton’s Future Now – Crimes Of the City (Pajama Party) | Canada | Bandcamp
Kosmodome – Ad Undas (Stickman) | Norway | Bandcamp
Flavor Crystals – Gone Six (Mpls Ltd) | USA | Bandcamp
Magic Shoppe – Down the Wych Elm (Magic Shoppe) | USA | Bandcamp
Black Doldrums – In Limerence (Fuzz Club) | UK | Bandcamp
The Smile – Cutouts (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Garrett T. Capps & NASA Country – Everyone is Everyone (Spaceflight) | USA | Bandcamp
Wand – Vertigo (Drag City) | USA | Bandcamp
Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More (4AD) | USA | Bandcamp
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild God (Play It Again Sam) | Australia | Buy
X – Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum) | USA | Bandcamp
Shellac – To All Trains (Touch and Go) | USA | Bandcamp
Hello Mary – Emita Ox (FrenchKiss) | USA | Bandcamp
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 – Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head) (Record Kicks) | Nigeria | Bandcamp
Kanaan & Ævestaden – Langt, Langt Vekk (Jansen) | Norway | Bandcamp
Caldwell – Caldwell (Popclaw/Rise Above) | USA | Bandcamp
Bent Knee – Twenty Pills Without Water (Take This to Heart) | USA | Bandcamp
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – South of Here (Stax) | USA | Bandcamp
Anciients – Beyond the Reach of the Sun (Season Of Mist) | USA | Bandcamp
Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja (Nuclear Blast) | Finland | Bandcamp
Unto Others – Never, Neverland (Century Media) | USA | Bandcamp
9K33 – Super-Cannes (9K33) | USA | Bandcamp
Iotunn – Kinship (Metal Blade) | Denmark | Bandcamp
Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us (Columbia) | USA | Bandcamp
Causa Sui – From the Source (El Paraiso) | Denmark | Buy
Hamish Hawk – A Firmer Hand (Fierce Panda) | UK | Buy
Needlepoint – Remnants of Light (BJK/Stickman) | Norway | Bandcamp
Redd Kross – Redd Kross (In the Red) | USA | Bandcamp
The Resonars – Electricity Plus (Resonars) | USA | Bandcamp
Tarot – Glimpse of the Dawn (Cruz del Sur) | Australia | Bandcamp
Oneida – Expensive Air (Joyful Noise) | USA | Bandcamp
Upupayama – Mount Elephant (Fuzz Club) | Italy | Bandcamp
Pallbearer – Minds Burn Alive (Nuclear Blast) | USA | Bandcamp
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield (Epic) | UK | Bandcamp
Orange Goblin – Science, Not Fiction (Peaceville) | UK | Bandcamp
Bobbie Dazzle – Fandabidozi (Rise Above) | UK | Bandcamp
Zombi – Direct Inject (Relapse) | USA | Bandcamp
Lydsyn – Højspaendt (Bad Afro) | Denmark | Bandcamp
Miranda And The Beat – Can’t Take It (Ernest Jenning) | USA | Bandcamp
Castle – Evil Remains (Hammerheart) | USA | Bandcamp
Hands Of Goro – Hands of Goro (Nameless Grave) | USA | Bandcamp
MONO – Oath (Mono) | Japan | Bandcamp
Spirit Mother – Trails (Heavy Psych) | USA | Bandcamp
Peter Perrett – The Cleansing (Domino) | UK | Bandcamp

Bubbling under: See full list of 1,000+ albums here.

2024 Breakdown: Genre Lists

As always, you can deep dive any of these these genres with the list search. While previously I had limited an album to one genre list, it didn’t accurately reflect the multi-genre nature of many of these albums. So this year an album will show up in multiple lists. I have a widget that automatically pulls from the database, so as albums are added and moved around in the future, this will reflect it.

Psych

A great year for psych as always, with four of the big hitters residing in the Lucky 13. A recent discovery is Dutch band MOOON, already on their third album. It’s refreshing to hear a psychedelic band not use synths as a crutch. While drummer Gijs de Jong does contribute some analog keyboards at times, the band has a finely honed set of bass-guitar-drum tunes that are trippy, but rock in a way that few have heard since the era of Cream. There’s a few, like the one-and-done The Hidden Masters, The Sonic Dawn, and now MOOON.

Bubbling under: Memorials, Rick White And The Sadies, Xiu Xiu, The Haven Green, Weite, delving, Karkara, Ty Segall, St. Vincent, Nolan Potter, La Luz, Infinite River, The Asteroid No. 4, Dummy, Mdou Moctar, Terry Gross, Poppycock, Plastic Crimewave Syndicate, Sahra Halga, Acid Rooster. | More

The Cure – Songs of a Lost World (Polydor) | UK | Buy
Rosalie Cunningham – To Shoot Another Day (Esoteric Antenna) | UK | Bandcamp
The Sonic Dawn – Phantom (Heavy Psych) | Denmark | Bandcamp
Dream Phases – Phantom Idol (Coconut) | USA | Bandcamp
Khana Bierbood – Monolam (Guruguru Brain) | Thailand | Bandcamp
MOOON – III (Excelsior) | Netherlands | Bandcamp
Memorials – Memorial Waterslides (Fire) | UK | Bandcamp
SoftSun – Daylight in the Dark (Ripple) | USA/Norway | Bandcamp
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister – Tarot Part I (Sound Effect) | Spain | Bandcamp
La Luz – News of the Universe (Sub Pop) | USA | Bandcamp
Goat – Goat (Rocket) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Flavor Crystals – Gone Six (Mpls Ltd) | USA | Bandcamp
Magic Shoppe – Down the Wych Elm (Magic Shoppe) | USA | Bandcamp

Psych Pop & Prog Pop

Since their debut EP Let’s Talk About It (2007), White Denim songs have been a glorious mess of sometimes conflicting styles like garage prog, psych, soul and chooglin’ boogie rock together. They were also one of the very best American bands one could see live in the 21st century. The pandemic didn’t seem to slow them down, as they gave themselves a challenge to write, record and release an album within 30 days – World as a Waiting Room (2020). A year later, Crystal Bullets / King Tears was released on vinyl only. By that point, bandleader James Petralli had relocated his family and recording studio from Austin to L.A. Would this be the end of White Denim as a band? Petralli’s growth as both artist and technician, producing and writing songs for others, working as a guide vocalist on the Daisy Jones and the Six TV series, watching producers work at Sound City and absorbing knowledge, could logically end up with him being a Prince-like auteur. While that could very well where he ends up, for now we still have the band, actually an expanded lineup with old members like Steve Terebecki sending in contributions from Texas, original drummer Josh Block contributing to tracks and also doing the mix, and guests like Tameca Jones and Jessie Payo on vocals, Midlake’s Jesse Chandler on woodwinds. Members Michael Hunter wrote the Steve Wonder-ish “Second Dimension,” Matt Young “We Can Move Along” and Cat Clemons wrote “Precious Child.” Citing Scritti Politti, Aztec Camera, Nick Lowe and Joe Jackson as influences, it makes sense, as the density of styles and ideas are still there, but the enhanced production provides more clarity on highlights “Light On” and “Look Good,” which outdoes Beck’s Midnight Vultures-era Princeisms. “Flash Bare Ass” sounds like a hybrid of Dave Edmunds‘ robobilly and Ween in the best way. “Swinging Door” could be their “Bohemian Rhapsody,” with four drummers and three bassists pieced together, except it all sounds smooth and cohesive. Not the first descriptors that used to come to mind with White Denim, but we’re in La-La Land now, so get used to it.

Bubbling under: The Blank Tapes, Giant Day, Elbow, Jane Weaver, La Luz, The Asteroid No. 4, Shadow Show, The Soundcarriers, The Heavy Heavy, Carpet, Joanna Wang, The Last Dinner Party, Bananagun, Kit Sebastian. | More

Dream Phases – Phantom Idol (Coconut) | USA | Bandcamp
Levitation Room – Strange Weather (Reverberation Appreciation Society) | USA | Buy
White Denim – 12 (Bella Union) | USA | Bandcamp
Elephant Stone – Back Into Dream (Elephants On Parade) | Canada | Bandcamp
MOOON – III (Excelsior) | Netherlands | Bandcamp
La Luz – News of the Universe (Sub Pop) | USA | Bandcamp
Smoke Bellow – Structurally Sound (Moon Glyph) | USA | Bandcamp
Caldwell – Caldwell (Popclaw/Rise Above) | USA | Bandcamp
Needlepoint – Remnants of Light (BJK/Stickman) | Norway | Bandcamp
The Resonars – Electricity Plus (Resonars) | USA | Bandcamp
Crumb – AMAMA (Crumb) | USA | Bandcamp
Field Music – Limits of Language (Memphis Industries) | UK | Bandcamp
Klark Sound – What Is Music (Public Access Group) | USA | Bandcamp

Kosmische & Space Rock

It’s gratifying to see Slift’s space rock cross over to relatively wide popularity. The psych band from Toulouse, France really connected on their second album, Ummon (2020), and after blowing people’s faces off on stages around the world, they noticed how the heaviest material really connected live. They followed the natural course of recording their heaviest album yet for their third full length, venturing into stoner metal territory, as well as psych prog, kosmische and avant-jazz elements that would appeal to fans of the heavier end of Motorpsycho and Elder. The Cthulhu style monsters on the cover, the 79 minute run time, a Homeric storyline about (of course) “the fall of humanity and the rebirth of all things in time and space,” this is maximalist all the way, with no risk of fans feeling unsatisfied. As others have suggested, a ten hour Hyperion (Dan Simons) series by Denis Villeneuve (Dune) soundtracked by Slift would be a fine thing indeed.

Bubbling under: Ufomammut, Zombi, Winged Wheel, delving, Karkara, Finom, REZN, Water Damage, Weite, The Soundcarriers, Dummy, Modern Stars, Terry Gross, Plastic Crimewave Syndicate, Acid Rooster, Osees. | More.

Vitskär Süden – Vessel (Ripple) | USA | Bandcamp
Ufomammut – Hidden (Neurot) | Italy | Bandcamp
Slift – Ilion (Sub Pop) | France | Bandcamp
The Smile – Wall of Eyes (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Mojo & the Kitchen Brothers – Into the Centre of the Cat’s Eye Nebula (Lay Bare) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister – Tarot Part I (Sound Effect) | Spain | Bandcamp
Smoke Bellow – Structurally Sound (Moon Glyph) | USA | Bandcamp
Goat – Goat (Rocket) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Flavor Crystals – Gone Six (Mpls Ltd) | USA | Bandcamp
The Smile – Cutouts (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Garrett T. Capps & NASA Country – Everyone is Everyone (Spaceflight) | USA | Bandcamp
Wand – Vertigo (Drag City) | USA | Bandcamp
Kanaan & Ævestaden – Langt, Langt Vekk (Jansen) | Norway | Bandcamp

Jam

How much jammy psychedelic instrumental rock does one need? When we’re talking about the music of Jakob Skøtt and Jonas Munk, all of it. And not just all thirteen albums of their flagship band Causa Sui, but pretty much everything on their label they jointly run out of Denmark, El Paraiso. Whether it’s collaborations that they’re involved with or electronic, jazz fusion or rock, everything fits in the label’s aesthetic thanks to Jakob’s pristinely lush analog production and Jonas’ cover art. Their last album Szabodelico (2020), a tribute to Hungarian jazz guitar legend Gábor Szabó, may have been the closest the band got to actual jazz-rock, and their body of work could be considered the same way one would listen to a jazz or jazz fusion artist. And yet they are still primarily psychedelic space rock, without a single note being led astray into the hot garbage that is Grateful Dead or Frank Zappa territory, even on the epic length 24:09 final track, “Visions of a New Horizon,” their longest since “Incipiency Suite” on Pewt’r Sessions 3 from a decade ago.

Bubbling under: Kungens Män, Billy Strings, Astrodome, The Cosmic Dead, Kungens Män.

Causa Sui – From the Source (El Paraiso) | Denmark | Buy
Seedy Jeezus & Isaiah Mitchell – Tranquonauts 2 (Lay Bare) | Australia | Bandcamp
Terry Gross – Big Improvement (Thrill Jockey) | USA | Bandcamp
Elkhorn – Other Worlds (Cardinal Fuzz) | USA | Bandcamp
Acid Rooster – Hall of Mirrors (Tonzonen) | Germany | Bandcamp
Jeffrey Alexander & The Heavy Lidders – Planet Lidders (Worried Songs) | USA | Bandcamp
Maruja – The Vault (Maruja) | UK | Bandcamp
Sendelica – Requiem For Man Kind (Fruits De Mer) | UK | Bandcamp
Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal – Catching Fire (Rune Grammofon) | Norway | Bandcamp
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Live at Northerly Island, Chicago, IL (9/1/24) (KGLW) | Australia | Bandcamp
The Sheepdogs – Hell Together EP (Sheepdogs) | Canada | Buy
House Band – Adventurine (Ground Scores) | USA | Bandcamp
The Sheepdogs – Paradise Alone EP (Sheepdogs) | Canada | Buy

Noir (Folk, Garage, Psych, Punk, Surf)

When The Mystery Lights try on sinister garage noir like “What Happens When You Turn the Devil Down” from their 2016 debut, “Someone Else is in Control” from Too Much Tension! (2019) and “Cerebral Crack” on the latest, it’s so good I wish they would focus on that approach. Instead, the band has more stylistic diversity than ever, but with some of their most consistently great songwriting. The ghost-organ driven “Together Lost” sounds like The Coral invoking a desolate, Doorsy version of Ennio Morrison that would be a monster showstopper if applied judiciously to the right context in a movie.

Bubbling under: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Bobbie Dazzle, Miranda and the Beat, Spirit Mother, Crows, Dool, Magmakammer, Inca Babies, The Janitors, Kid Congo & the Pink Monkeybirds, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Still Corners, Thee Headshrinkers, Occult Witches, Hail Darkness. | More .

The Sea Kings – Fear is All Around (Iffy Folk) | UK | Bandcamp
The Buttertones – Face to Face With Fantasy (Buttertones) | USA | Buy
The Blinders – Beholder (Universal) | UK | Buy
Vitskär Süden – Vessel (Ripple) | USA | Bandcamp
The Other Sun – Daimon, Devil, Dawn (Invictus) | Sweden | Bandcamp
The Mystery Lights – Purgatory (Wick) | USA | Bandcamp
Goat Girl – Below the Waste (Rough Trade) | UK | Bandcamp
Brigitte Calls Me Baby – The Future is Our Way Out (ATO) | USA | Bandcamp
Lucifer – Lucifer V (Nuclear Blast) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Brume – Marten (Magnetic Eye) | USA | Bandcamp
The Volcanics – Volatile World (Citadel) | Australia | Bandcamp
Coughin’ Vicars – Curses & Prayers (Venn) | UK | Bandcamp
Black Doldrums – In Limerence (Fuzz Club) | UK | Bandcamp

Psych Prog

Former The Luck of Eden Hall frontman Curvey has conducted an experiment of all acoustic psych prog with Custard Flux from 2018-22 with great success. On his fifth album, he’s gone all electric, resulting, unsurprisingly, in his hardest rocking album yet. It’s a band effort, with rhythm section Timothy Prettyman (bass), Nick Pruett (drums) second guitarist Vito Greco and Andy Thompson on mellotron. While there are ten tracks, most of them have transitions linking them to the next song, giving it the feel of an extended suite, tied together by the theme of atomic madness (Einsteinium is the unstable element that was discovered in the debris after the first hydrogen bomb explosion). As the future looks ever more bleak with the likelihood of nuclear disaster in our lifetime, we at least have this thoroughly modern yet out of time, spiritual, heavy trip.

Bubbling under: The Honey Pot, Mr. Bison, Dool, Ty Segall, Wizard Must Die, Gnome, Elephant9, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, Nolan Potter, Carpet, Bedsore, Sean Ono Lennon, The Cromagnon Band, Tusmørke, Mammoth Volume, Magic Fig, Louise Patricia Crane. | More.

Rosalie Cunningham – To Shoot Another Day (Esoteric Antenna) | UK | Bandcamp
The Sonic Dawn – Phantom (Heavy Psych) | Denmark | Bandcamp
Custard Flux – Einsteinium Delirium (Custard Flux) | USA | Bandcamp
Vitskär Süden – Vessel (Ripple) | USA | Bandcamp
Slift – Ilion (Sub Pop) | France | Bandcamp
Mojo & the Kitchen Brothers – Into the Centre of the Cat’s Eye Nebula (Lay Bare) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Sergeant Thunderhoof – The Ghost of Badon Hill (Pale Wizzard) | UK | Bandcamp
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister – Tarot Part I (Sound Effect) | Spain | Bandcamp
Motorpsycho – Neigh!! (NFGS) | Norway | Bandcamp
Kosmodome – Ad Undas (Stickman) | Norway | Bandcamp
Tarot – Glimpse of the Dawn (Cruz del Sur) | Australia | Bandcamp
Mirror Queen – Dying Days (Tee Pee) | USA | Bandcamp
Plantoid – Terrapath (Bella Union) | UK | Bandcamp

Prog & Prog Metal

From the cover art you’d think the fifth album from Austin’s Transit Method was a progressive death metal album. The fact that they actually have roots in both grunge and prog (think Skin Yard, Love Battery, The Fluid and mid-period Die Kreuzen mixed with the proggy alt rock of locals …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead) appeals to me a lot because while I like 70s prog, I just can’t get past the slick production of most modern prog and prog metal. But bands that rough it up with a bit of greasy garage punk, and grunge, like The Fierce & the Dead, Crown Lands and Mondo Drag, I’m all in. While the production has gotten incrementally cleaner and more accomplished on The Madness (2020) and this one, the prog metal retains just enough grungy flavor to keep them from sounding like hundreds of other stoner metal/heavy psych bands lumbering about the rock landscape.

Bubbling under: Dissimulator, Bedsore, Cave Sermon, Siderean, Job For A Cowboy, Sean Ono Lennon, MesaVerde, Jupiter Fungus, Crippled Black Phoenix, Chapel of Disease, Caligula’s Horse, Kiran Leonard, DVNE, In Vain, Kalandra, Papangu, Guided By Voices, Frost*, The Verge, Lowen, An Axis Of Perdition, Tusmørke, Múr, Hideous Divinity, Held By Trees & Martin Smith, Sans Froid, Vokonis, Cosmic Putrefaction, The Barock Project, Clarissa Connelly, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Ihsahn, Isbjörg, The Flying Luttenbachers, Theurgy, Replicant, Leprous, Aeons, Bruce Dickinson. | More.

Opeth – The Last Will and Testament (Reigning Phoenix) | Sweden | Buy
Mojo & the Kitchen Brothers – Into the Centre of the Cat’s Eye Nebula (Lay Bare) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Transit Method – Othervoid (Brutal Panda) | USA | Bandcamp
Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media) | USA | Bandcamp
WIZRD – Elements (Karisma) | Norway | Bandcamp
Anciients – Beyond the Reach of the Sun (Season Of Mist) | USA | Bandcamp
Iotunn – Kinship (Metal Blade) | Denmark | Bandcamp
Needlepoint – Remnants of Light (BJK/Stickman) | Norway | Bandcamp
Bobbie Dazzle – Fandabidozi (Rise Above) | UK | Bandcamp
Plantoid – Terrapath (Bella Union) | UK | Bandcamp
Aseitas – Eden Trough (Total Dissonance Worship) | USA | Bandcamp
Civerous – Maze Envy (20 Buck Spin) | USA | Bandcamp
Elephant9 – Mythical River (Rune Grammofon) | Norway | Bandcamp

Punk & Post-Punk

Those who have followed me for a bit know that post-punk is my jam. My first records were Gary Numan’s The Pleasure Principle and Talking Heads’ Fear of Music. I focused on post-punk on my college radio show and have never stopped seeking it out. Aside from a period in the late 90s when post-punk pickings were lean, it’s never really receded, despite some complaints from the normals when there was a resurgence in the 2000s, Now it’s part of the fabric of a wide variety of music — I have over 120 albums in this list, including punk, art punk, pop punk and Celtic punk.

The eerie, folky psych prog of Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) was right up my alley, and while I’d have loved to hear more in that direction, the lack of new material since then has not been disappointing. The Smile may not be Radiohead, but it is two key members, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, unfettered by the expectations of a brand so colossal it could crush the greatest talents into a writer’s block. They appeared to have so much fun with drummer Tom Skinner on A Light for Attracting Attention (2022), that they kept it going, and thank fuck. Their second album has them chasing inspirations down ever more diverse rabbit holes, but resulting in even more breathtaking highlights. The murky, subdued soundscapes of the first two tracks might lead one to assume they kept their ambitions modest, but then we get the corker of “Read the Room,” featuring a Greenwood riff that competes with some of his best, as is his synergy with Skinner’s progressively more complex rhythms toward the end. “Under Our Pillows” features some fabulously angular licks that recall Robert Fripp with mid-70s King Crimson. “Friend of a Friend” and “Bending Hectic” are two sides of a Beatlesque coin, both employing the London Contemporary Orchestra for dissonant “A Day in the Life” crescendoes. The former invokes Paul McCartney’s melodicism at it’s most bittersweet, and the latter is an eight minute epic that could be a companion to J.G. Ballard’s novel Crash, a disgraced public figure taking a glorious dive off an Italian mountainside. Those whingeing about the so-called death of rock need to simply shut up, take a leap of faith with closed eyes and just listen.

Bubbling under: Coughin’ Vicars, Smoke Bellow, Desperate Journalist, And Also The Trees, X, Hamish Hawk, Ist Ist, Sprints, Spectres, Black Doldrums, Rosegarden Funeral Party, Then Comes Silence, Objections, Loose Articles, Erotic Secrets of Pompeii, Rope Sect, Crows, Winged Wheel, Tribulation, The March Violets, Slate, Inca Babies, Chain Cult, Omni, High Vis, Nightshift, Kid Congo & the Monkeybirds, Nadine Shah, Ekko Astral, Moin, Idles. | More.

The Cure – Songs of a Lost World (Polydor) | UK | Buy
The Buttertones – Face to Face With Fantasy (Buttertones) | USA | Buy
And Also The Trees – Mother-of-Pearl Moon (Border) | UK | Bandcamp
The Smile – Wall of Eyes (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Fontaines D.C. – Romance (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
English Teacher – This Could Be Texas (Island) | UK | Bandcamp
Goat Girl – Below the Waste (Rough Trade) | UK | Bandcamp
Pøltergeist – Nachtmusik (Bad Omen) | Canada | Bandcamp
Brigitte Calls Me Baby – The Future is Our Way Out (ATO) | USA | Bandcamp
Louse – Passions Like Tar (Feel It) | USA | Bandcamp
Thus Love – All Pleasure (Captured Tracks) | USA | Bandcamp
Deadletter – Hysterical Strength (Soak) | UK | Buy
Memorials – Memorial Waterslides (Fire) | UK | Bandcamp

Goth, Goth Metal, Deathrock & Darkwave

Sometime back in 2023, Nate Garrett (Spirit Adrift) mentioned a new project that had been percolating in his head on his semi-weekly YouTube channel Big Riff Energy. He said he wasn’t going to talk about it in detail until after it’s released and he was true to his word. Before any tracks were laid down, I took a guess that it would be incorporate influences that weren’t usually found in his Spirit Adrift albums — shoegaze, post-punk, maybe some gothic country and metal along the lines of Type O Negative, who he’d talked about listening to as a kid. Once the first video was released, the narrative was that it was just a Type O Negative tribute. But that’s just one small element of many, including Danzig, and bits of all the genres I guessed at except for country. I also hear some subtle horror synth vibes. It remains song based, with no extended synth textures, and yet the spirits of John Carpenter and Goblin lurk in the shadows. Honestly, while I had a few of the Type O Negative albums in the 90s, I like this project better. It’s more focused, a concise album that manages to be both dark and exuberant, and packed with nearly as many great riffs as a Spirit Adrift album. A perfect album for those who keep their Halloween decorations up through New Year’s.

Bubbling under: Tristwch Y Fenywod, Black Doldrums,, Rosegarden Funeral Party, Then Comes Silence, Demon Head, Rope Sect, Dool, Chelsea Wolfe, Crows, Tribulation, The March Violets, Slate, Inca Babies, Chain Cult, Chat Pile, Nadine Shah, New Skeletal Faces, Michael, Zetra, Crippling Alcoholism, Twin Tribes, Counting Hours, High Parasite, Molchat Dolma, VR SEX, Topographies, Vuur & Zijde, Anja Huwe, Vexing Hex, Chameleons. | More.

The Cure – Songs of a Lost World (Polydor) | UK | Buy
And Also The Trees – Mother-of-Pearl Moon (Border) | UK | Bandcamp
The Other Sun – Daimon, Devil, Dawn (Invictus) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Neon Nightmare – Faded Dream (20 Buck Spin) | USA | Bandcamp
Fontaines D.C. – Romance (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Pøltergeist – Nachtmusik (Bad Omen) | Canada | Bandcamp
Remina – Erebus EP (Avantgarde) | New Zealand | Bandcamp
Louse – Passions Like Tar (Feel It) | USA | Bandcamp
Brume – Marten (Magnetic Eye) | USA | Bandcamp
Cemetery Skyline – Nordic Gothic (Century Media) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Coughin’ Vicars – Curses & Prayers (Venn) | UK | Bandcamp
Black Doldrums – In Limerence (Fuzz Club) | UK | Bandcamp
Unto Others – Never, Neverland (Century Media) | USA | Bandcamp

Hardcore Punk, Crust Punk, Crossover Thrash & Powerviolence

“Abrasive cult music akin to an auditory sandblasting,” says Gaoled’s Bandcamp page. That’s the ticket. I think nearly everyone needs their ears boxed now and then to shake them out of their doomscrolling trances. If social conventions or spouses prevent you from running naked in the streets and emitting denomic gutteral howls to express your extreme dissatisfaction with global events, then this hardcore punk band from Perth, Australia are happy to do it for you.

Bubbling under: Soft Play, Bootlicker, NØ MAN, Mannequin Pussy, Sweat, Lucta. | More.

Gaoled – Bestial Hardcore (Iron Lung) | Bandcamp
Drug Church – Prude (Pure Noise) | Bandcamp
Nails – Every Bridge Burning (Nuclear Blast) | Buy
Wasted Death – Season of Evil (APF) | Bandcamp
The Chisel – What a Fucking Nightmare (Pure Noise) | Bandcamp
Slope – Freak Dreams (Century Media) | Bandcamp
Dead Pioneers – Dead Pioneers (Hassle) | Bandcamp
The Feat – Schemes for Decades (The Feat) | Bandcamp
Candy – It’s Inside You (Relapse) | Bandcamp
Scumripper – For a Few Fixes More (Scumripper) | Bandcamp
Daisy Cutter – Daisy Cutter (Daisy Cutter) | Bandcamp
Zig Zags – Strange Masters (RidingEasy) | Bandcamp
Pissed Jeans – Half Divorced (Sub Pop) | Bandcamp

Garage Rock

It’s surprising that this is only Goat Girl’s third album, as they have covered a lot of artistic ground since their first single in 2016. In the past I’ve associated them with other bands I’ve tagged Trip Jam, but their latest lacks a particular kind of groove that links that music, as they have become both more subdued and experimental. I had no doubt this new direction in art rock and the diffuse array of sounds is a slow burner and it did grow on me over the course of the year.

Bubbling under: Jack White, The Galileo 7, Karkara, Inca Babies, The Red Pears, The Ar-Kaics, Ty Segall, His Lordship, Ekko Astral, Shadow Show, The Prisoners, Heavy Heavy, Charles Moothart, Michael, Des Demonas. | More.

The Blinders – Beholder (Universal) | UK | Buy
Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom (In The Red) | USA | Bandcamp
Khana Bierbood – Monolam (Guruguru Brain) | Thailand | Bandcamp
The Mystery Lights – Purgatory (Wick) | USA | Bandcamp
MOOON – III (Excelsior) | Netherlands | Bandcamp
The Volcanics – Volatile World (Citadel) | Australia | Bandcamp
Coughin’ Vicars – Curses & Prayers (Venn) | UK | Bandcamp
La Luz – News of the Universe (Sub Pop) | USA | Bandcamp
Ian Blurton’s Future Now – Crimes Of the City (Pajama Party) | Canada | Bandcamp
Caldwell – Caldwell (Popclaw/Rise Above) | USA | Bandcamp
Redd Kross – Redd Kross (In the Red) | USA | Bandcamp
The Resonars – Electricity Plus (Resonars) | USA | Bandcamp
Lydsyn – Højspaendt (Bad Afro) | Denmark | Bandcamp

Hard Rock

While I’ve been a fan of both Maggot Heart and Lucifer after Linnéa Olsson and Joanna Sardonis parted ways after The Oath, a part of me felt that they were better together. In Joanna’s efforts to avoid leaning on any obvious influences, their brand of hard rock and psych noir could get a a little flat. However on their fifth album, the band is finally embracing some classic 80s heavy metal, as well as some AOR friendly hooks that make this feel like in some alternative post-70s timeline, this would be a chart-topping party album loaded with hits. Nicke Anderson sounds like he’s saving all his best riffs since The Hellacopters’ High Visibility (2000) for this album, and having some evil fun, whether on drum or guitar duties. There’s at least two guitarists at any given time, including Linus Björklund from VOJD. If there’s ever some triple guitar action, there’s certainly plenty of tasty licks for everyone.

Bubbling under: Zeal & Ardor, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Helvetets Port, Cortez, Planet Zeus, Ruff Majik, Battlesnake, Ghost, Daniel Romano’s Outfit, Zig Zags, Teh Watchers, The Hazytones, Mooch, The Dictators, Sandveiss, White Dog. | More.

Lucifer – Lucifer V (Nuclear Blast) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Ian Blurton’s Future Now – Crimes Of the City (Pajama Party) | Canada | Bandcamp
Tarot – Glimpse of the Dawn (Cruz del Sur) | Australia | Bandcamp
Sacri Monti – Retrieval (Tee Pee) | USA | Bandcamp
Jack White – No Name (Third Man) | USA | Bandcamp
Gloomy Reflections – Oath of the Paladins (Crypt Of The Wizard) | Australia | Bandcamp
The Beasts – Ultimo (Bang!) | Australia
Mean Mistreater – Razor Wire (Mean Mistreator) | USA | Bandcamp
Fu Manchu – The Return of Tomorrow (At the Dojo) | USA | Bandcamp
Freeways – Dark Sky Sanctuary (Dark Victim) | Canada | Bandcamp
Haunt – Dreamers (Church) | USA | Bandcamp
MaidaVale – Sun Dog (Silver Dagger) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Lover – Fatal Attraction EP (Northern Sun) | Canada | Bandcamp

Stoner/Desert/Fuzz

The most highly regarded band on the heavy psych/stoner/doom scene in recent years, Elder, has influenced a ton of bands. Some recognizably borrow from their sonic signature, but even more positively, others have taken the queue to push boundaries outside of the typical subgenre confines, such as King Buffalo, Vitskär Süden and Sergeant Thunderhoof. The band has been around for a decade, releasing their first EP in 2014, but really made a move to stand out with This Sceptred Veil (2022). As they’ve expanded the scope of their sound palate, they’ve also grown more ambitious in songwriting and concepts, this time tackling The Battle of Badon, the accounts of the 5th century clash between Britons and Anglo-Saxons were hazy and fragmented with Arthurian legend mixed in. Prime material for a progressive psych metal album. While the band’s earlier work had been aligned with stoner doom, like Elder, Pallbearer and Anathema, they’ve evolved beyond those boundaries into an elegantly moody, melodic territory that could be comparable to bands outside of their genre confines, like Radiohead and Elbow.

Bubbling under: Highg On Fire, Iota, Duel, Fue Manchu, Wizard Must Die, Gnome, High Desert Queen, REZN, Still Corners, Caracara, Mount Hush, Mammoth Volume, Phantom Hound, Castle Rat, Elkhorn, 1000mods, KANT. | More

Ufomammut – Hidden (Neurot) | Italy | Bandcamp
Slift – Ilion (Sub Pop) | France | Bandcamp
Sergeant Thunderhoof – The Ghost of Badon Hill (Pale Wizzard) | UK | Bandcamp
Transit Method – Othervoid (Brutal Panda) | USA | Bandcamp
SoftSun – Daylight in the Dark (Ripple) | USA/Norway | Bandcamp
Causa Sui – From the Source (El Paraiso) | Denmark | Buy
Orange Goblin – Science, Not Fiction (Peaceville) | UK | Bandcamp
Sacri Monti – Retrieval (Tee Pee) | USA | Bandcamp
Slomosa – Tundra Rock (Stickman) | Norway | Bandcamp
Seedy Jeezus & Isaiah Mitchell – Tranquonauts 2 (Lay Bare) | Australia | Bandcamp
Mr Bison – Echoes From the Universe (Heavy Psych) | Italy | Bandcamp
REZN – Burden (REZN) | USA | Bandcamp
Elephant Tree / Lowrider – The Long Forever (Blues Funeral) | UK/Sweden | Bandcamp

Heavy Metal

Every time I start getting an itch for some good rock ‘n’ doom, a new band pops up to scratch it — Green & Wood (2009), Magic Circle (2013), High Reeper (2017), and then L.A.’s Early Moods with their debut in 2022, carrying on the proto-metal era of early Sabbath and the more swinging, up tempo sides of Pentagram, Trouble and The Obsessed that you don’t often hear in modern doom metal. On their sophomore album, Early Moods includes some traditional doom along the lines of Candlemass, but the plodding rhythms are injected more often than not with a NWOBHM twin guitar gallop and Uli Roth era Scorpions. An excellent followup to a cracking debut and a hopeful sign of potential longevity, though it’ll be hard to match the likes of The Obsessed, who just released a new album 48 years into their career.

Bubbling under: Gloomy Reflections, Tribulation, The Obsessed, Mean Mistreater, Writhen Hilt, Legions Of Doom, Satan, Traveler, Demon & Eleven Children, Worshipper, High Reeper, Lünd, Haunt, I Am the Intimidator, Markgraf, Grand Magus, Saxon, Blitzkrieg, Castle Rat, Coffin Storm, Sunbomb, Vulture, Iron Curtain, Triumpher, Helvetets Port, Midnight, Warlord, Morgul Blade, Attic, Crystal Viper, Show N Tell, Sabïre, Battlesnake, Jupiter Cyclops, Flotsam & Jetsam, Interceptor, Toxikull, Black Capricorn, Freeways. | More.

Early Moods – A Sinner’s Past (RidingEasy) | USA | Bandcamp
Crypt Sermon – The Stygian Rose (Dark Descent) | USA | Bandcamp
Neon Nightmare – Faded Dream (20 Buck Spin) | USA | Bandcamp
Unto Others – Never, Neverland (Century Media) | USA | Bandcamp
Tarot – Glimpse of the Dawn (Cruz del Sur) | Australia | Bandcamp
Pallbearer – Minds Burn Alive (Nuclear Blast) | USA | Bandcamp
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield (Epic) | UK | Bandcamp
Castle – Evil Remains (Hammerheart) | USA | Bandcamp
Hands Of Goro – Hands of Goro (Nameless Grave) | USA | Bandcamp
Ironflame – Kingdom Torn Asunder (High Roller) | USA | Bandcamp
Scarecrow – Scarecrow III (Ritual Sound) | Russia | Bandcamp
The Gates Of Slumber – The Gates of Slumber (Svart) | USA | Bandcamp
Scavenger – Beyond the Bells (No Remorse) | Belgium | Bandcamp

Doom

It’s gratifying to hear bands like Crypt Sermon progressing. The Philadelphia band takes a slow and steady approach, with just their third album since their 2015 debut, Out of the Garden. Five years after The Ruins of Fading Light (2019), it’s clear that the band kept busy working on their craft. When I was blown away by Solitude Aeturnus at Hell’s Heroes this year, I wondered how they might have progressed if they kept recording after 2006. But just as they added to the foundation of Candlemass, Crypt Sermon has more than ably taken the reigns of hard rockin’ epic doom metal stuffed full of grade-A riffs, solos, vocal performances, and production (Arthur Rizk at his best). This is so good I was tempted to buy tickets to next year’s Hell’s Heroes before the lineup was announced based solely on the hope that Crypt Sermon will be there (I didn’t prices went way up, no Crypt Sermon).

Bubbling under: Writhen Hilt, Legions Of Doom, Duel, REZN, Demon & Eleven Children, Worshipper, High Reeper, Slower, Caracara, Oda, Lowen, Phatom Hound, Castle Rat, 1000mods, KANT, Coffin Storm, Deserts Of Mars, Alunah, Heavy Temple, Deer Lord, Grave Next Door. | M ore.

Early Moods – A Sinner’s Past (RidingEasy) | USA | Bandcamp
Ufomammut – Hidden (Neurot) | Italy | Bandcamp
Crypt Sermon – The Stygian Rose (Dark Descent) | USA | Bandcamp
Neon Nightmare – Faded Dream (20 Buck Spin) | USA | Bandcamp
Remina – Erebus EP (Avantgarde) | New Zealand | Bandcamp
Lucifer – Lucifer V (Nuclear Blast) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Pallbearer – Minds Burn Alive (Nuclear Blast) | USA | Bandcamp
Castle – Evil Remains (Hammerheart) | USA | Bandcamp
Scarecrow – Scarecrow III (Ritual Sound) | Russia | Bandcamp
The Gates Of Slumber – The Gates of Slumber (Svart) | USA | Bandcamp
Grendel’s Sÿster – Katabasis into the Abaton (Cruz del Sur) | Germany | Bandcamp
REZN – Burden (REZN) | USA | Bandcamp
Elephant Tree / Lowrider – The Long Forever (Blues Funeral) | UK/Sweden | Bandcamp

Metal

Blood Incantation’s fourth full-length album will likely end up being the popular crossover choice at the end of the year, the token metal album on lists that focus on other genres. That’s not quite me, as I do listen to as many extreme metal albums as I can handle. This year it’s over 113 albums, particularly variations of technical death and thrash metal. There’s a good reason why this will appeal to a wide range of tastes. Two years ago they surprised fans with a completely non-metal space ambient album, Timewave Zero (2022), pretty much a genre study in Berlin School progressive electronic (Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Edgar Froese) that wasn’t to everyone’s tastes. But as the Luminescent Bridge EP (2023) indicated, they were building up to something special, an epic mashup of technical death metal with prog and electronic space rock. | Bandcamp

Bubbling under: Siderean, Job For A Cowboy, Fracture, Nile, Deceased, Chapel Of Disease, Knocked Loose, Thou, Nails, DVNE, Counting Hours, High Parasite, In Vain, Sumac, Bedsore, Norna, Noxis, Gatecreeper, Devenial Verdict, Phantom, An Axis Of Perditiion, Zeal & Ardor, Hideous Divinity, Brodequin, slimelord, Inter Arma, Mother Of Graves, Cosmic Putrefaction, Defeated Sanity, Ripped To Shreds, Hulder, Thy Catafalque, Kanonenfieber, Spectral Voice, Molder, Necrot, Skeletal Remains, Sabbat, Laceration, Atræ Bilis, Replicant, Civerous, Neckbreakker, Deicide, Korrosive, Oxygen Destroyer, Midnight, Witch Vomit, Wraith, Fulci, Defeated Sanity, Borknagar, Inter Arma, Couch Slut, Mother Of Graves, Darkthrone, Iron Monkey, Scumripper, Hail Spirit Noir, Bewitcher. | More.

Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media) | USA | Bandcamp
Remina – Erebus EP (Avantgarde) | New Zealand | Bandcamp
Anciients – Beyond the Reach of the Sun (Season Of Mist) | USA | Bandcamp
Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja (Nuclear Blast) | Finland | Bandcamp
Iotunn – Kinship (Metal Blade) | Denmark | Bandcamp
Aseitas – Eden Trough (Total Dissonance Worship) | USA | Bandcamp
Civerous – Maze Envy (20 Buck Spin) | USA | Bandcamp
Nile – The Underworld Awaits Us All (Napalm) | USA | Bandcamp
Coltaine – Forgotten Ways (Lay Bare) | Germany | Bandcamp
Slimelord – Chytridiomycosis Relinquished (20 Buck Spin) | UK | Bandcamp
Sovereign – Altered Realities (Dark Descent) | Norway | Bandcamp
Dissimulator – Lower Form Resistance (20 Buck Spin) | Canada | Bandcamp
Nuclear Tomb – Terror Labyrinthian (Everlasting Spew) | USA | Bandcamp

Tidal Playlist

Power Metal, Epic Adventure & Symphonic/Dark Romance Metal

This quirky concept focuses on a fantasy based on the final days of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt’s life. Barely album length at 30:42, it’s a fairly scruffy sounding heavy metal album created by one-man band, Portland’s Andrew Stromstad that draws from the “athletic rock” of NWOBHM era Raven, mid-80s speed metal and power metal via fellow northwest heroes Metal Church. What makes it so addictive is that it’s got riffs for days, or at least 200 laps.

Bubbling under: Flotsam & Jetsam, Belore, Myrath, Galneryus, Unleas The Archers, Warlord, Ensiferum, Rage, Wolfheart, Týr, Powerwolf, Vanden Plas, Hammerfall, Bloody Valkyria, Wintersun, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Orden Ogan, Nightwish, Ad Infinitum. More.

Iotunn – Kinship (Metal Blade) | Denmark | Bandcamp
Ironflame – Kingdom Torn Asunder (High Roller) | USA | Bandcamp
Scavenger – Beyond the Bells (No Remorse) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Writhen Hilt – Ancient Sword Cult EP (Jawbreaker) | Germany | Bandcamp
Savage Oath – Divine Battle (Postmortem Apocalypse) | USA | Bandcamp
Traveler – Prequel to Madness (No Remorse) | Canada | Bandcamp
I Am the Intimidator – I Am the Intimidator (Miserable Pyre) | USA | Bandcamp
Funeral – Gospel of Bones (Season Of Mist) | Norway | Bandcamp
Sentry – Sentry (High Roller) | USA | Bandcamp
Sear Bliss – Heavenly Down (Hammerheart) | Hungary | Bandcamp
Triumpher – Spirit Invictus (No Remorse) | Greece | Bandcamp
Thornbridge – Daydream Illusion (Massacre) | Germany
Warlord – Free Spirit Soar (High Roller) | USA | Bandcamp

Experimental, Modern Classical, Drone

This Boston experimental art rock/prog pop band had a great run of five albums from 2011-19. Their sixth seemed guaranteed to further widen their audience if it continued the growth shown on You Know What they Mean (2019). But as a stark reminder that nothing in life is guaranteed, Frosting (2021) was unlistenable, incorporating incredibly annoying production trends like hyperpop. With expectations shattered, I wasn’t even paying attention to Bent Knee’s release schedule, so I was pleasantly surprised that their seventh sounds like what most fans were hoping for previously. Pop elements have still displaced the heavier avant-prog sounds of early material, partly due to a major lineup change, leaving vocalist/keyboardist Courtney Swain as the senior member. The production is cleaned up, and the songs are better, while still retaining the band’s quirky, adventurous persona. “Illiterate” and “Big Bagel Manifesto” are standouts on the first half, while the second revels in slow, dreamy atmospherics, with “Never Coming Home,” “Drowning” and “Lawnmower” (evidence of their namecheck of Phoebe Bridgers in their music) each offering their own flavor of twinkling beauty. “DLWTSB” eventually brings in some satisfyingly clangy percussion and noise. If the band were aiming for a mix of Prince and Radiohead’s In Rainbows, they certainly did it better than any other current band could do.

Bubbling under: Bingo Fury, Still House Plants, Senyawa, Einstürzende Neubauten, Kelly Moran, Crippled Black Phoenix, Rafael Toral, Extra Life, Tashi Wada, Fat White Family, Writhing Squares, Horse Lords, Aluk Todolo, Yellow Swans, White Canyon & The 5th Dimension, Akira Kosemura & Lawrence English, Melt-Banana, Beings, Caxtrinho, Buñuel , The Flying Luttenbachers, Janel Leppin. | More.

Hello Mary – Emita Ox (FrenchKiss) | USA | Bandcamp
Bent Knee – Twenty Pills Without Water (Take This to Heart) | USA | Bandcamp
Oneida – Expensive Air (Joyful Noise) | USA | Bandcamp
Zombeaches – A Taste of Oxygen (Buttercup) | Australia | Bandcamp
Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum (Glitterbeat) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Alan Jenkins and The Kettering Vampires – Painting the Horse’s Nose in the Wrong Place (Cordelia) | UK | Bandcamp
The Flying Mausoleum – Sunken Seaport to Atlantis (Boul God) | USA | Bandcamp
Xiu Xiu – 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips (Polyvinyl) | USA | Bandcamp
Mamaleek – Vida Blue (The Flenser) | USA | Bandcamp
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – No Title As of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead (Constellation) | Canada | Bandcamp
JB Nelson – Body Bags Clapping (Cheap Wine) | UK | Bandcamp
Nightshift – Homosapien (Trouble In Mind) | UK | Bandcamp
The Janitors – An Error Has Occurred (Rocket) | Sweden | Bandcamp

Industrial & Noise

There’s dissonance between the tragedy of Steve Albini’s untimely passing just days before this release, and the casual, even fun atmosphere of the album, recorded over four weekends between 2017 and 2022. I actually asked Steve about any news on the next Shellac album back in 2021 and he said there wouldn’t be anything for a long time. I suppose another two and a half years is pretty long, but at the time half the sessions were already on tape. For the past 32 years, Shellac has been the trio’s “grown up” band, meaning they all had their lives and day jobs, and they got together to play or record whenever they felt like. It was a pattern that easily could have worked for the rest of their lives. Despite the coincidental darkness of closer “I Don’t Fear Hell,” Albini had every intention of living many more years. While Shellac recordings are generally spare and pristine, there’s a touch of garage rock grime that reminds me of Albini’s work with The Stooges. And while Albini has very publicly mellowed with age, there’s certainly still fangs to be found in songs like “WSOD” and “Scabby the Rat.” But the grim parts are always balanced by his dark humor — “I don’t fear Hell / The floor show would be incredible…If there’s a heaven, I hope they’re having fun / Cause if there’s a hell, I’m gonna know everyone.”

Bubbling under: Water Damage, Senyawa, Chimers, Amiture, Gouge Away, African Imperial Wizard, Einstürzende Neubauten, Zetra, Crippling Alcoholism, Painkiller, Uniform, Karl D’Silva, Mount Eerie, Buñuel, Aluk Todolo, Drahla, Gurriers, The Bug, Mount Eerie, Party Dozen, J.R.C.G., Amiture, Melt-Banana. | More

Shellac – To All Trains (Touch and Go) | USA | Bandcamp
Bent Knee – Twenty Pills Without Water (Take This to Heart) | USA | Bandcamp
9K33 – Super-Cannes (9K33) | USA | Bandcamp
Oneida – Expensive Air (Joyful Noise) | USA | Bandcamp
The Jesus Lizard – Rack (Ipecac) | USA | Bandcamp
Sprints – Letter to Self (City Slang) | Ireland | Bandcamp
Zombeaches – A Taste of Oxygen (Buttercup) | Australia | Bandcamp
Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum (Glitterbeat) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She (Gine) | USA | Bandcamp
Julie Christmas – Ridiculous and Full of Blood (Red Creek) | USA | Bandcamp
Crows – Reason Enough (Bad Vibrations) | UK | Bandcamp
Xiu Xiu – 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips (Polyvinyl) | USA | Bandcamp
Voice Imitator – Of How Hits (12XU) | Australia | Bandcamp

Ambient, New Age & Post-Rock

A few years ago I took a deep dive into the rabbithole of current post-rock, and quickly overdosed. There’s so much of it, I can’t even comprehend how so many of them exist. And yet, bands like Japan’s MONO, who have been at it for a quarter century, have become kind of the gold standard. The albums have often exuded a Zen spirituality, which feels even more pronounced on Oath. This was underscored by their current triumphant 25th anniversary tour, where a 12 piece orchestra helped them sound more magisterial than ever. A recent shows at Chicago’s Thalia Hall reportedly had dozens of hardened metalheads openly weeping. Drummer Dahm Majuri Cipolla a Breeders t-shirt in tribute to Steve Albini, who recorded the album.

Bubbling under: Pete Kvidera, Pangea de Futura, SML, Acid Rooster, Rafael Toral, Suss, Maruja, Midwife, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Held By Trees & Martin Smith, Seawind Battery, Tashi Wada, Jeffrey Silverstein, Belong, Moon Wiring Club, Alora Crucible, Cowboy Sadness, Chuck Johnson, Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn, Robin Guthrie, Maya Ongaku, Ephilexia, Porta d’Oro, Lifted, Powers/Rolin Duo, Total Blue, Astrid Sonne, claire rousay, Black Decelerant, Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice, Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin, Max Richter, The Balloonist. | More.

Memorials – Memorial Waterslides (Fire) | UK | Bandcamp
MONO – Oath (Mono) | Japan | Bandcamp
Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum (Glitterbeat) | Belgium | Bandcamp
BleakHeart – Silver Pulse (BleakHeart) | USA | Bandcamp
Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She (Gine) | USA | Bandcamp
Alcest – Les Chants de l’Aurore (Nuclear Blast) | France | Bandcamp
God Is An Astronaut – Embers (Napalm) | USA | Bandcamp
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – No Title As of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead (Constellation) | Canada | Bandcamp
King Hannah – Big Swimmer (City Slang) | UK | Bandcamp
Moin – You Never End (AD 93) | UK | Bandcamp
Infinite River – Tabula Rasa (Birdman) | USA | Bandcamp
Still House Plants – If I Don’t Make It, I Love U (Bison) | UK | Bandcamp
Nicholás Jaar – Archivos de Radio Piedras (Other People) | USA | Bandcamp

Instrumental

The follow-up to Nick DiSalvo’s Hirschbrunnen (2021) solo project delving, focusing on instrumental space rock, post-rock, psych prog and progressive electronic music. Like the last one, and really everything he touches (Elder, Weite, Gold And Silver) mixes 70s kosmische with more modern elements with consistently stellar results. He can also be found on the drum kit on the follow-up to Weite’s Assemblage (2023), translated to Oasis, cites some Canterbury Prog influence as well as kosmische, post-rock and Americana. This began more as bassist Ingwer Boysen’s (delving) project, and has turned into a full fledged band, with guitarists Michael Risberg (Elder, delving) and Ben Lubin (Lawns).

Bubbling under: Astrodome, Monkey 3, Clouds Taste Satanic. | More.

Alan Jenkins and The Kettering Vampires – Painting the Horse’s Nose in the Wrong Place (Cordelia) | UK | Bandcamp
Weite – Oase (Stickman) | Germany | Bandcamp
delving – All Paths Diverge (Blues Funeral) | Germany | Bandcamp
Naïm Amor – Stories (Fort Lowell) | USA | Bandcamp
Elephant9 – Mythical River (Rune Grammofon) | Norway | Bandcamp
Sean Ono Lennon – Asterisms (Tzadik) | USA
The Surfrajettes – Easy as Pie (Hi-Tide) | USA | Bandcamp
The Cromagnon Band – Mode (BBE) | UK | Bandcamp
Yasmin Williams – Acadia (Nonesuch) | USA | Bandcamp
Seawind Of Battery – East Coast Cosmic Dreamscaper (WarHen) | USA | Bandcamp
Sendelica – Requiem For Man Kind (Fruits De Mer) | UK | Bandcamp
Project Gemini – Colours & Light (Mr Bongo) | UK | Bandcamp
Sheverb – She Rides Again (Ladies of Reverb) | USA | Bandcamp

Art Pop & Dream Pop

The fact that Kim Gordon received her first Grammy nominations at 71, and Kim Deal’s first solo album at 63 is making several year-end album lists feels especially important with the full on culture war against women. I’d been thinking of a historically underrated artist like Marianne Faithfull, who by her 15th album, Easy Come Easy Go (2008) at the age of 62, had been finally getting some belated respect for the past few years. Hopefully this is a trend that more female artists will keep creating music for their entire lifetimes, like Willie Nelson. Kate Bush and Madonna haven’t released new albums since they were 53 and 61, respectively, but Kim Deal’s music feels like the beginning of something, not the end. She’s always been a singular talent since joining the Pixies in 1986, and releasing the first The Breeders album in 1990. With some songs recorded over a decade ago, this feels shockingly fresh, with approaches to art and dream pop that are more creative and innovative than artists a third of her age.

Bubbling under: Aluminum, Humdrum, Alcest, Virgins, Finom, somesurprises, Molina, Vampire Weekend, Jane Weaver, Mt. Fog, Nadine Shah, Still Corners, The Asteroid No. 4, Dummy, Plant Cell, sunshy, DIIV, Quivers, Einstürzende Neubauten, Julia Holter, Joanna Wang, Zetra, Clinic Stars, Deary, Trentemøller, The Black Watch, The Church, The Woodentops, NewDad, Topographies, Corridor, Newmoon, Midwife, Vuur & Zijde, Anja Huwe, Sea Dramas. | More.

The Buttertones – Face to Face With Fantasy (Buttertones) | USA | Buy
Remina – Erebus EP (Avantgarde) | New Zealand | Bandcamp
Smoke Bellow – Structurally Sound (Moon Glyph) | USA | Bandcamp
Desperate Journalist – No Hero (Fierce Panda) | UK | Bandcamp
Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More (4AD) | USA | Bandcamp
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild God (Play It Again Sam) | Australia | Buy
Bent Knee – Twenty Pills Without Water (Take This to Heart) | USA | Bandcamp
Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us (Columbia) | USA | Bandcamp
6kitty – Under Pins (Hardstop) | USA | Bandcamp
Tamar Berk – Good Times for a Change (Tamar Berk) | USA | Bandcamp
Quivers – Oyster Cuts (Merge) | USA | Bandcamp
Tristwch Y Fenywod – Tristwch Y Fenywod (Night School) | UK | Bandcamp
Crumb – AMAMA (Crumb) | USA | Bandcamp

Shoegaze & Noise Pop

A year or so ago, Shoegaze became a popular excursion by mainstreamers thanks to social media. Since then, there’s been a noticeable uptick in mainstream bands incorporating shoegaze. Fontaines D.C. is clearly not a shoegaze band, but there are trace elements. Fret not, there’s plenty more full-on ‘gaze in the list, like SoftSun, Mo Dotti and sunshy.

I have to admit that after the promisingly energetic debut Dogrel (2019) that had just the right balance of piss ‘n’ vinegar and tapping into their Dublin literary history, I’d been disappointed by the band for the following four years. To my ears, even on A Hero’s Death (2020) it sounded like the air had been let out of them. But in anticipation of their fourth album, which hinted that they would be making another interesting evolution, I revisited the second album and Skinty Fia (2022) with growing interest. I don’t subscribe to the theory that’s been floating about that there are no more good bands, and it’s all about solo artists. The pop charts have not been any real indication of what’s actually good since the 60s. So at this point, I’m just happy to see any band, (well, not the 1975), get some commercial success and mainstream attention. The breathless hyperbole of Uncut implying their “apocalyptic sci-fi stadium rock” is the next Ocean Rain, Disintegration or OK Computer is way off the mark, as they largely sound more subdued in comparison. However the new album did debut at #2 in the UK charts, and they do offer a wider variety of pacing and sounds since their debut. String arrangements were added to songs like “In the Modern World” without sounding too gaudy, more Elbow than Coldplay. It’s still a bit sluggish, but with enough sweeping romance and melody to make it a hit. Between “Starburster,” “Favourite” and “Here’s the Thing,” there’s enough hooks and melodies to appeal to the masses amidst the atmospheric goth textures to hold the interest of past fans. I don’t see why they couldn’t at least be as popular as Arctic Monkeys, probably the closest example of a band with some crossover success that most aren’t embarrassed to admit liking. They should add a bonus of their fabulous cover of Nick Drake’s “Cello Song” to future editions.

Bubbling under: 93MillionMilesFromTheSun, Elephant Tree / Lowrider, Malamiko, Alcest, Virgins, somesurprises, St. Vincent, The Asteroid No. 4, Been Steller, Dummy, Plant Cell, sunshy, Healees, DIIV, Parannoul, Shower Curtain, Big|Brave, Cindy Lee, Clinic Stars, Deary, The Fever Haze, The Black Watch, Newmoon, Wussy, Vuur & Zijde, Smush, Wishy, Miners, Robber Robber, Burrrn, Blushing, White Canyon & The 5th Dimension, samirc, Sadness, Julie, Bryan’s Magic Tears, Yoo Doo Right, Joyer, Cold Gawd, Fucked Up, Belong. More.

Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom (In The Red) | USA | Bandcamp
Fontaines D.C. – Romance (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Remina – Erebus EP (Avantgarde) | New Zealand | Bandcamp
Brume – Marten (Magnetic Eye) | USA | Bandcamp
SoftSun – Daylight in the Dark (Ripple) | USA/Norway | Bandcamp
Flavor Crystals – Gone Six (Mpls Ltd) | USA | Bandcamp
Magic Shoppe – Down the Wych Elm (Magic Shoppe) | USA | Bandcamp
Wand – Vertigo (Drag City) | USA | Bandcamp
Hello Mary – Emita Ox (FrenchKiss) | USA | Bandcamp
6kitty – Under Pins (Hardstop) | USA | Bandcamp
Mo Dotti – Opaque (MD) | USA | Bandcamp
Whitelands – Night-Bound Eyes Are Blind to the Day (Sonic Cathedral) | UK | Bandcamp
Aluminum – Fully Beat (Felte) | USA | Bandcamp

Synthpop, New Wave, Coldwave, Minimal Synth

When I saw Rosegarden Funeral Party’s live show at a small Austin club in 2022, they sounded more like a hard rock band leaning toward metal than the post-punk/goth styles they’re normally identified with. That’s totally alright by me, and the albums do contain a good balance of ethereal textures with the more slamming tunes, same with their third album.

Bubbling under: Topographies, The Drin, Love Fiend, Karl D’Silva, Fat White Family, Ghostly Kisses, The WAEVE, Beak>, Belong, Magdalena Bay, Modern English, Ploho, Hoorsees, The KVB, MGMT, Porta d’Oro, The Green Child, Azure Blue, Tricky, Urban Heat, Sofie Royer, Washed Out, Mui Zyu. | More.

The Buttertones – Face to Face With Fantasy (Buttertones) | USA | Buy
Pøltergeist – Nachtmusik (Bad Omen) | Canada | Bandcamp
Brigitte Calls Me Baby – The Future is Our Way Out (ATO) | USA | Bandcamp
Bent Knee – Twenty Pills Without Water (Take This to Heart) | USA | Bandcamp
Rosegarden Funeral Party – From the Ashes (RFP) | USA | Bandcamp
Living Temples – Glass (Living Temples) | Germany | Bandcamp
A Place To Bury Strangers – Synthesizer (Dedstrange) | USA | Bandcamp
Zetra – Zetra (Nuclear Blast) | UK | Bandcamp
The WAEVE – City Lights (Transgressive) | UK | Bandcamp
Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk (Mon + Pop) | USA | Bandcamp
Twin Tribes – Pendulum (BDM) | USA | Bandcamp
Disintegration – Shiver in a Weak Light (Feel It) | USA | Bandcamp
Molchat Doma – Belaya polosa (Sacred Bones) | Belarus | Bandcamp

Indie Rock, Pop & Jangle Pop

This debut from Leeds, UK indie pop combo English Teacher quietly snuck up on me with the dry humor that achieves a rare state of charming wit without annoyingly trying too hard. With topics like broken biscuits, side boobs and not having the voice to sing R&B, Lily Fontaine injects just enough bittersweet melancholy to sound poignant rather than jokey. This just might have the kind of staying power of Body Type and Wet Leg. Mainstream pop has gone so far down a wrong turn that it’s bitten it’s own ass like an oroborous, so don’t hold your breath of seeing this band getting widespread coverage. I wrote the above the day of it’s release, and actually since then I’m pleasantly surprised that it’s made a number of year-end lists.

Bubbling under: The Jesus Lizard, Spectres, 6kitty, Tamar Berk, Magic Shoppe, Crumb, Mo Dotti, Aluminum, Loose Articles, Erotic Secrets of Pompeii, Humdrum, EggS, Jim Nothing, Love Burns, Xiu Xiu, The BV’s, Malamiko, The Maureens, The Red Pears, The Shop Window, Virgins, Finom, Good Looks, Mt. Misery, St. Vincent, King Hannah, Mary Timony, La Luz, shadow Show, Been Stellar, Dummy, Plant Cell, Chimers. | More.

The Sea Kings – Fear is All Around (Iffy Folk) | UK | Bandcamp
Ducks Ltd. – Harm’s Way (Carpark) | Canada | Bandcamp
The Buttertones – Face to Face With Fantasy (Buttertones) | USA | Buy
Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom (In The Red) | USA | Bandcamp
Fontaines D.C. – Romance (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
English Teacher – This Could Be Texas (Island) | UK | Bandcamp
Brigitte Calls Me Baby – The Future is Our Way Out (ATO) | USA | Bandcamp
Thus Love – All Pleasure (Captured Tracks) | USA | Bandcamp
Chime School – The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel (Slumberland) | USA | Bandcamp
La Luz – News of the Universe (Sub Pop) | USA | Bandcamp
Magic Shoppe – Down the Wych Elm (Magic Shoppe) | USA | Bandcamp
Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More (4AD) | USA | Bandcamp
Shellac – To All Trains (Touch and Go) | USA | Bandcamp

Power Pop

Along with Goth, Glam, Shoegaze and Post-Punk, a lot more artists seem to be including Power Pop in their repertoire. All genres I’ve been consistently championing for decades. Oh shit, am I an influencer? Or better yet a wizard?

Battleboro, VT’s Thus Love hit some long-neglected pleasure buttons for fans of the jangly post-punk of The Chameleons on their debut Memorial (2022). Like their British counterparts IDLES and Fontaines D.C., they were not content to mine the same influences beyond their debut, and moved on to a wider palate of British guitar pop and art rock. While Echo Mars’ vocal range and louche swagger ‘n’ strut resembles Alex Turner on latter era Arctic Monkeys, he also brings to mind some fellow Yanks along the lines of Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen and Tony Rolando of We Ragazzi. This can border on affected, but it’s all in the interest of expression and passion, which Thus Love has loads of. Most importantly, they’re honing their songwriting skills, with several standouts that should bring them to the attention of fans of any of the aforementioned bands. If they keep this up for a couple more albums they should be spooking the sales charts and headlining decent sized venues too.

Bubbling under: Holiday Ghosts, Buffalo Tom, The Sleeveens, Drunk Mums, Alvida, Neutrals, Cats in Space, Nada Surf, 2nd Grade, Wits End, Motorists, Star Trip, Daniel Romano’s Outfit, Mark & the Clouds, Laughing, Bad Moves, Sheer Mag, The Lovely Eggs, Daryl Johns, Mean Jeans, SAVAK. | M ore.

White Denim – 12 (Bella Union) | USA | Bandcamp
Thus Love – All Pleasure (Captured Tracks) | USA | Bandcamp
Elephant Stone – Back Into Dream (Elephants On Parade) | Canada | Bandcamp
Ian Blurton’s Future Now – Crimes Of the City (Pajama Party) | Canada | Bandcamp
X – Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum) | USA | Bandcamp
Redd Kross – Redd Kross (In the Red) | USA | Bandcamp
The Resonars – Electricity Plus (Resonars) | USA | Bandcamp
Tamar Berk – Good Times for a Change (Tamar Berk) | USA | Bandcamp
The Galileo 7 – You, Me and Reality (Damaged Goods) | UK | Bandcamp
The Blank Tapes – Good Ol’ Days (It’s A Gas!) | USA | Bandcamp
Sharp Pins – Radio DDR (Perennial) | USA | Bandcamp
The Prisoners – Morning Star (Own-Up) | UK | Buy
Best Bets – The Hollow Husk of Feeling (Meritorio) | New Zealand | Bandcamp

Jazz

I keep a jazz playlist throughout the year but it goes neglected for long stretches. As a tween I had enough talent on trumpet/cornet to win a music camp scholarship in a jazz solo/composition contest and guest with the high school jazz band. I didn’t stick with it because honestly I had no means of lugging my instrument the four miles round trip to high school because I had no bus service for some reason. Since then 99% of my listening time has been with rock, even though I enjoy jazz and keep up with it best I can. Basically it means I have some knowledge but am not an expert, and simply rank what’s pleasing to my ear. There are plenty of jazz critics you can get better expertise from.

Hence, my top picks are what all the other jazz nerds are listening to, Nala Sinephro and Arooj Aftab, both of whom achieve a distinctive late night atmospheric vibe that is easily appealing, probably for the same reasons why Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue was such a crossover hit. On her follow-up to acclaimed debut Space 1.8 (2021), Belgium’s Sinephro, based in London now, pushes her space ambient jazz fusion, with the assistance of some progressive electronic elements, further out beyond neighboring galaxies, contemplating infinity, but without the existential horror and space madness.

Bubbling under: Tryp Tych Tryo, Fay Victor, Wendy Eisenberg, Immanuel Wilkins, Amaro Freitas, Mary Halvorson, SML, Vijay Iyer Trio, Tyshawn Sorey, Ches Smith, Matt Mitchell, Aaron Parks, Igmar Thomas’ Revive Big Band, Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding, The Jamie Baum Septet+, Marta Sánchez Trio, Matthew Shipp, Vanessa Gould, Sealionwoman, Kris Davis Trio, Anna Butterss, Darius Jones, Johnny Coley, Shabaka, Carlos Niño & Friends, Potter Mehldau Patitucci Blade. More.

Nala Sinephro – Endlessness (Warp) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Arooj Aftab – Night Reign (Verve) | Saudi Arabia | Bandcamp
Bingo Fury – Bats Feet for a Widow (The State51 Conspiracy) | UK | Bandcamp
Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few – The Almighty (Division 81) | USA | Bandcamp
Nubya Garcia – Odyssey (Concord) | USA | Bandcamp
Kamasi Washington – Fearless Movement (Young) | USA | Bandcamp
Rich Ruth – Water Still Flows (Third Man) | USA | Bandcamp
SML – Small Medium Large (International Anthem) | USA | Bandcamp
Painkiller – Samsara (Tzadik) | USA | Buy
Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few – The World is on Fire (Division 81) | USA | Bandcamp
Patricia Brennan Septet – Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic) | Mexico | Bandcamp
[Ahmed] – Giant Beauty (Fönstret) | UK | Bandcamp
Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra – Live At The Adler Planetarium (International Anthem) | USA | Bandcamp

Jazz Fusion & Jazz-Funk

Los Angeles psych pop band Levitation Room released two exceptional albums and an EP from 2015-19, but didn’t quite get the attention they merited. Perhaps the familiar sounding psychedelic production made it a challenge to stand out, which is why, after a five year absence, their third album focuses more on the songwriting, aiming for laidback but sticky pop melodies with fairly simple, clean production. Along with the quality songwriting, their musicianship has become more notable, the rhythm section achieving Wrecking Crew levels of jazz-funk nimbleness. The riff on “Scene for an Exit” has been haunting me all month, as it reminds me of some 70s soul classic that I can’t put my finger on. Or maybe it just sounds like it should have been a classic. They bring to mind another underrated psych band, the Netherlands’ The Sonic Dawn. This sounds like what Kevin Parker was aiming for on Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush (2020) but got bogged down with synth oversaturation. Musicians should hear this and take note of how it’s done right.

Bubbling under: Sean Ono Lennon, Nubya Garcia, Kamasi Washington, Rich Ruth, Carpet, The Messthetics, Ghost Funk Orchestra, Jeff Parker ETA Ivtet, The Verge, The Cromagnon Band, Ezra Collective, Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal , Fievel is Glauque, Meshell Ndegeocello, Jembaa Groove, Nubiyan Twist, WILLOW, Geordie Greep, House Band, The Flamboyant Train. | More.

The Smile – Wall of Eyes (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Levitation Room – Strange Weather (Reverberation Appreciation Society) | USA | Buy
WIZRD – Elements (Karisma) | Norway | Bandcamp
Deadletter – Hysterical Strength (Soak) | UK | Buy
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister – Tarot Part I (Sound Effect) | Spain | Bandcamp
The Smile – Cutouts (XL) | UK | Bandcamp
Nala Sinephro – Endlessness (Warp) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Plantoid – Terrapath (Bella Union) | UK | Bandcamp
Klark Sound – What Is Music (Public Access Group) | USA | Bandcamp
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister – Tarot Part II (Sound Effect) | Spain | Bandcamp
Mamaleek – Vida Blue (The Flenser) | USA | Bandcamp
Elephant9 – Mythical River (Rune Grammofon) | Norway | Bandcamp
Bingo Fury – Bats Feet for a Widow (The State51 Conspiracy) | UK | Bandcamp

Global, Reggae, Dub & Afrobeat

I wanna visit the Goat lair. I know they have one, packed to the rafters with hippie psychedelic tapestries, lava lamps, a menagerie of exotic instruments, bookshelves full of occult literature, sci fi, anthropology and musicology texts, and masks up the wazoo. And speaking of masks, while fellow Swedes Ghost gave up ended up unmasking for the media, Goat remain, after twelve years, steadfastly masked and anonymous. That’s some impressive commitment.

A few albums into their catalog, I did start to wonder if they’d ever learn to write a tune. Their music is a craftily layered patchwork of rhythms and riffs, on which they hang their psychedelic sound design and chants, switching it up with some folky diversions. Their self-titled album number six shows, however, that they don’t need to become traditional style songwriters, as it’s their strongest, most immediate collection since their debut. Actually, it might be better than World Music (2012). Compare, for example, “Disco Fever,” with it’s sequel on the latest, “Frisco Beaver.” It’s more dynamic, varied, with improved musicianship and production. That keyboard through the second half of the song is perfect, evoking classic period Fela Kuti. Overall the album rocks harder than anything they’ve done before, with a delightfully nasty guitar fuzz throughout many of the songs, including “One More Death,” “Dollar Bill” and “Zombie” mixing in Zeppelin-sized heft with Funkadelic grime, “Goatbrain,” featuring a lick that sounds like it could have been a lost track from Maggot Brain.

“Ouroborous” enters us into a cosmic time loop. Perhaps we ought to go back to 2012 and unfuck some things up. Constraints of reality aside, Goat’s new jams are good enough to help see us through 2024 at least somewhat spiritually intact.

Bubbling under: Lowen, Ezra Collective, Liam Bailey, Newen Afrobeat, Caxtrinho, Jembaa Groove, Carmela, Carme López, Yannis & The Yaw, Nubiyan Twist, Yemen Blues, BaBa Zula, Mdou Moctar, Rogê, Cazayoux, Liam Bailey, Lee “Scratch” Perry & Youth, LAIR, Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding, Omar Souleyman. | More.

The Narcotix – Dying (Narcotix) | USA | Bandcamp
Goat – Goat (Rocket) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 – Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head) (Record Kicks) | Nigeria | Bandcamp
Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum (Glitterbeat) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Mdou Moctar – Funeral For Justice (Matador) | Niger | Bandcamp
Senyawa – Vajranala (State51 Conspiracy) | Indonesia | Bandcamp
Sun Atlas – Return to the Spirit (Mocambo) | USA | Bandcamp
African Imperial Wizard – Mbuya Nehanda (Tesco) | Angola | Bandcamp
MaidaVale – Sun Dog (Silver Dagger) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Sahra Halgan – Hiddo Dhawr (Buda) | Somalia | Bandcamp
Etran de L'Air – One Hundred Percent Sahara Guitar (Sahel) | Somalia | Bandcamp
Bananagun – Why Is the Colour of the Sky? (Full Time Hobby) | Australia | Bandcamp
Kit Sebastian – New Internationale (Brainfeeder) | UK | Bandcamp

Electronic

Chicago via Pittsburgh progressive electronic/horror synth/synthwave duo Steve Moore and A.E. Paterra recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of their debut Cosmos (2004). One would think there’s only so much one can do with the templates established by Goblin, Tangerine Dream and John Carpenter, but their touch of analog, proggy musicianship keeps things fresh.

Bubbling under: Mermaid Chunky, Semantix, Lord Spikeheart, Nídia & Valentina, Tricky, The Balloonist, Anna Butterss, A.G. Cook, Masayoshi Fijit, Staś Czekalski, Carlos Niño & Friends, Container, A Lily, Isik Kural, Moor Mother, Nonpareils, Jlin, Quadeca, Fat Dog, Monolake, Four Tet, Clark. | More.

9K33 – Super-Cannes (9K33) | USA | Bandcamp
Zombi – Direct Inject (Relapse) | USA | Bandcamp
John Carpenter – Lost Themes IV: Noir (Sacred Bones) | USA | Bandcamp
Violence Gratuite – Baleine à Boss (Hakuna Kuala) | Uganda | Bandcamp
Moon Wiring Club – Sepia Cat City (Gecophonic) | UK | Bandcamp
Maquina – Prata (Fuzz Club) | Portugal | Bandcamp
Moon Wiring Club – Cat Location Conundrum (Gecophonic) | UK | Bandcamp
Dungen – Otis EP (Future Retro London) | Sweden | Bandcamp
The Bug – Machines I-V (Pressure) | UK | Bandcamp
Moor Mother – The Great Bailout (Anti-) | USA | Bandcamp
Ghost Dubs – Damaged (Pressure) | Germany | Bandcamp
Örnatorpet – Fordomdags (Nordvis) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Floating Points – Cascade (Ninja Tune) | UK | Bandcamp

R&B, Soul & Funk

The name The Heavy The Heavy suggests a too on-the-nose heavy stoner/fuzz psych band. They are not that, but they are a UK duo who delve in the lighter side of psychedelic soul and pop which may not get the critical acclaim of Michael Kiwanuka, Mk.gee or Brittany Howard, but it’s what I’ve been enjoying the most.

Bubbling under: Thee Marloes, Michael Kiwanuka, Baby Rose, Mk.gee, Fantastic Negrito, Liam Bailey, Shirlette Ammons, Bilal, Lady Blackbird, Alice Russell, Gary Clark Jr., Chicano Batman, Hildegard, Circles Around The Sun & Mikaela Davis, Hiatus Kaiyote. | More.

The Narcotix – Dying (Narcotix) | USA | Bandcamp
White Denim – 12 (Bella Union) | USA | Bandcamp
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – South of Here (Stax) | USA | Bandcamp
The Heavy Heavy – One of a Kind (ATO) | UK | Bandcamp
Sun Atlas – Return to the Spirit (Mocambo) | USA | Bandcamp
Brittany Howard – What Now (Island) | USA | Bandcamp
Ghost Funk Orchestra – A Trip to the Moon (Karma Chief) | USA | Bandcamp
Parlor Greens – In Green We Dream (Colemine) | USA | Bandcamp
Barry Adamson – Cut to Black (Barry Adamson Ltd) | UK | Bandcamp
Liam Bailey – Zero Grace (Big Crown) | UK | Bandcamp
Grande Mahogany – As Grande As (Laundry) | Finland | Bandcamp
Lucky Daye – Candydrip (Keep Cool) | USA | Bandcamp
GUM, Ambrose Kenny-Smith – Ill Times (p(doom)) | Australia | Bandcamp

Hip Hop & Rap

While I grew up listening to hip hop from the early Sugar Hill singles, I’ve been disheartened the past couple decades as the rampant accounts of misogyny and domestic violence seems to have knocked feminism back to the dark ages of pre-1960s cultural change. Sure there’s talent, but it’s a depressing wasteland when the extremely uneven Kendrick Lamar is considered the gold standard. So I’m all in with Violaine Morgan Le Fur (aka Violence Gratuite), who has family in Cameroon but grew up in Paris, and references everything from the Neptunes to Tricky and Lizzy Mercier Descloux.

Bubbling under: Mach-Hommy, Cappo, JPEGMAFIA, SahBabii, Heems, Toro y Moi, Megan Thee Stallion. | More.

Violence Gratuite – Baleine à Boss (Hakuna Kuala) | Uganda | Bandcamp
Ka – The Thief Next to Jesus (Iron Works) | USA | Bandcamp
Kneecap – Fine Art (Heavenly) | UK | Bandcamp
LL Cool J – The Force (LL Cool J Inc.) | USA
Tyler, The Creator – CHROMAKOPIA (Columbia) | USA
Dillom – Por cesárea (Bohemian Groove) | Argentina
Shirlette Ammons – Spectacles (Puddin Pie) | USA | Bandcamp
Bob Vylan – Humble as the Sun (Ghost Theatre) | UK | Bandcamp
Elucid – Revelator (Fat Possum) | USA | Bandcamp
Kendrick Lamar – GNX (pgLang) | USA
Shabazz Palaces – Exotic Birds of Prey (Sub Pop) | USA | Bandcamp
Erick The Architect – I’ve Never Been Here Before (Architect) | USA | Bandcamp
Joey Valence & Brae – No Hands (JVG) | USA

Folk & Americana

When I wrote about Color Green’s 2022 self-titled debut, I predicted interesting developments in their future, and that’s what we’ve got. They’ve expanded their Dead/Allman cosmic Americana and J.J. Cale choogle into a a diverse psychedelic landscape. While the band had expanded from two to a four-piece by the first album’s release with Kyla Perlmutter (bass, vocals) and Corey Rose (drums, vocals), they’ve had time for the chemistry to be established with some live gigs and integrating their input into new songs. I can hear the difference in the new album, as it sounds more like a band playing in a room, resulting in more expansive reach of sounds, presented as a cohesive unit. The band namedropped diverse interests in Canterbury prog (Gong), Madchester era Primal Scream, and an obscure jangle pop/post-punk collaboration between Steve Kilbey (The Church) and Grant McLennan (Go-Betweens) called Jack Frost. Co-produced with Mike Kriebel (Osees, Wand) and mastered at Abbey Road Studios, the nine tracks cover spacey psych to rollicking roots rock, and even a taste of garage punk on the single “God In A $” with beautifully harmonized guitars in the middle eight. Four singers, two guitarists and a load of talent, this band has many reasons to succeed.

Bubbling under: Still Corners, Jessica Pratt, The Hanging Stars, Cameron Winter, Stick In The Wheel, Kalandra, The Psych Fi’s, Beth Gibbons, Hayden Pedigo, Tusmørke, Beachwood Sparks, Yasmin Williams, Buffalo Tom, Sheverb, Jeffrey Silverstein, Tomo Katsurada, Winter McQuinn, Zachary Cale, Elkhorn, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, The Bures Band, Hurray for the Riff Raff. | More.

Color Green – Fool’s Parade (New West) | USA | Bandcamp
Garrett T. Capps & NASA Country – Everyone is Everyone (Spaceflight) | USA | Bandcamp
Kanaan & Ævestaden – Langt, Langt Vekk (Jansen) | Norway | Bandcamp
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – South of Here (Stax) | USA | Bandcamp
Upupayama – Mount Elephant (Fuzz Club) | Italy | Bandcamp
Rick White And The Sadies – Rick White and The Sadies (Blue Fog) | Canada | Bandcamp
Susan James – Time is Now (SJM) | USA | Bandcamp
The Amazing – Piggies (Fashionpolice) | Sweden | Bandcamp
The Haven Green – Dreamers In A Dreamless World (Mega Dodo) | UK | Bandcamp
Good Looks – Lived Here for a While (Keeled Scales) | USA | Bandcamp
Ty Segall – Three Bells (Drag City) | USA | Bandcamp
Familiars – Easy Does It (Full Moon) | Canada | Bandcamp
Naïm Amor – Stories (Fort Lowell) | USA | Bandcamp

Country, Country Blues/Psych/Rock/Soul

San Antonio based Garrett T. Capps is no newbie to country psych, cosmic country, or “cowboy kraut” as he’s called it, but his first album under the NASA Country name, People Are Beautiful (2022), got a bit of extra attention for it’s whimsical presentation. The follow-up is thematically meant as a prequel to the Shadows trilogy that started with In the Shadows (Again) (2018) and All Right, All Night (2019). Everyone is Everyone continues the charmingly hippie sentiment of loving all humans, and doesn’t make any significant stylistic departures, much like the country psych project Rose City Band’s series of albums that present a consistently alluring variation of psychedelic motorik choogle, Capps adds a distinctly Texas flavor that is tasty enough for several courses.

Bubbling under: Wild Pink, Waxahatchee, The Sheepdogs, Styrofoam Windows, Johnny Blue Skies, Daniel Romano’s Outfit, A Country Western, Trummors, Steel Fringe, Tami Neilson, Neil Young & The Horse, The Cactus Blossoms, Jenny Don’t and the Spurs, Sierra Ferrell, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers. | More.

Color Green – Fool’s Parade (New West) | USA | Bandcamp
Garrett T. Capps & NASA Country – Everyone is Everyone (Spaceflight) | USA | Bandcamp
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – South of Here (Stax) | USA | Bandcamp
Rick White And The Sadies – Rick White and The Sadies (Blue Fog) | Canada | Bandcamp
Familiars – Easy Does It (Full Moon) | Canada | Bandcamp
Ghost Party – Ghost Moves (Outtaphase Musik) | USA | Bandcamp
Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood (Anti-) | USA | Bandcamp
The Hanging Stars – On A Golden Shore (Loose) | UK | Bandcamp
The Psych Fi’s – Can Con (Bobo Integral) | Canada | Bandcamp
Real Estate – Daniel (Domino) | USA | Bandcamp
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club – Kinnery of Lupercalia: Buell Legion (SCAC) | USA | Bandcamp
The Red Clay Strays – Made by These Moments (RCA) | USA
Grey Delisle – Driftless Girl (Hummingbird) | USA

Blues Rock

It only took seventeen years and five patchy solo albums, but Jack White finally made an album at least as good as the worst White Stripes album (not counting the solid Ranconteurs collabs). Really, that’s an impressive feat.

Bubbling under: David Gilmour, Fantastic Negrito, Brant Bjork Trio, The Dead Daisies, Ava Mendoza, Black Country Communion, Gary Clark Jr., The Black Keys, Amythyst Kiah, Little Albert. | More.

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – South of Here (Stax) | USA | Bandcamp
Jack White – No Name (Third Man) | USA | Bandcamp
The Beasts – Ultimo (Bang!) | Australia
Mamaleek – Vida Blue (The Flenser) | USA | Bandcamp
The Ar-Kaics – See the World on Fire (Feel It) | USA | Bandcamp
Mdou Moctar – Funeral For Justice (Matador) | Niger | Bandcamp
The Red Clay Strays – Made by These Moments (RCA) | USA
Mount Hush – II (Mount Hush) | Germany | Bandcamp
Black Elephant – The Fall of the Gods (Small Stone) | Italy | Bandcamp
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Flight b741 (p(doom)) | Australia | Bandcamp
Blues Pills – Birthday (Pollinate) | Sweden | Buy
The Bures Band – Fool Circle (Love Police) | Australia | Bandcamp
The Sheepdogs – Hell Together EP (Sheepdogs) | Canada | Buy

Singer-Songwriters

Along with guitars randomly becoming unfashionable (why those and not all stringed instruments, pianos, drums?) the mainstream has suffered from the tyranny of the singer-songwriter. While it’s easy to understand why it’s been easier for people to bang out music on their own during the pandemic, 9 times out of 10, it’s not as good as the chemistry of a great band. I know kiddies, bands are hard, I get it. But they’re worth it. That said, I suppose I can’t ignore all solo artists.

Singer-songwriter Hamish Hawk’s most well-known song so far is “The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973” from his third album Heavy Elevator (2021). It’s a great jangle pop tune, but one can get only so deep messing with Morrissey influences. Gifted with a buttery voice that melds Peter Murphy and Patrick Wolf, he finally figured out on his fifth album that gothy post-punk is the key to all. Isn’t it always?

Bubbling under: Beth Gibbons, J. Mascis, Bill Ryder-Jones, Mount Eerie, Daisy Rickman, Zachary Cale, Clarissa Connelly, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Elias Rønnenfelt, Jane Frances, Roy, Michael Kiwanuka, Waxahatchee, Jon McKiel, Adrianne Lenker. | More.

Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More (4AD) | USA | Bandcamp
Hamish Hawk – A Firmer Hand (Fierce Panda) | UK | Buy
Peter Perrett – The Cleansing (Domino) | UK | Bandcamp
Tamar Berk – Good Times for a Change (Tamar Berk) | USA | Bandcamp
Susan James – Time is Now (SJM) | USA | Bandcamp
Mary Timony – Untame the Tiger (Merge) | USA | Bandcamp
J. Robbins – Basilisk (Dischord) | USA | Bandcamp
St. Vincent – All Born Screaming (Total Pleasure) | USA | Bandcamp
Richard Hawley – In This City They Call You Love (BMG) | UK
Jane Weaver – Love in Constant Specatacle (Fire) | UK | Bandcamp
Naima Bock – Below a Massive Dark Land (Sub Pop) | UK | Bandcamp
Chris Cohen – Paint a Room (Hardly Art) | USA | Bandcamp
Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood (Anti-) | USA | Bandcamp

Dance-Pop

I don’t like much dance-pop, but when I pick a #1 (last year’s Chappell Roan) apparently they blow up. Will Font be next to sell out stadiums and be nominated for Grammys? Since it’s primarily a bunch of post-punk dudes from Austin, probably not, but just in case, “abracadabra,” be famous!

Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk (Mon + Pop) | USA | Bandcamp
Font – Strange Burden (Acrophase) | USA | Bandcamp
Mermaid Chunky – Slif Slaf Slof (DFA) | UK | Bandcamp
Empress Of – For Your Consideration (Giant) | USA
Charli XCX – Brat (Atlantic) | USA
Remi Wolf – Big Ideas (Island) | USA
Dua Lipa – Radical Optimism (Warner) | UK
Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department (Taylor Swift) | USA

Live Albums

I’m grateful for the Spirit Adrift album because plans for a triumphant tour after their best album yet, Ghost at the Gallows (2023) was canceled due to personal reasons. They only played in Little Rock, Tulsa, Dallas (which was recorded for this release), and finally the Metal Injection fest in Anaheim on Sep 2023. Nate lives nearby, maybe I should put up a stage at Rancho Bulboso…

Bubbling under: Frankie And The Witch Fingers, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, The War On Drugs, Neil Young & The Horse, Billy Strings, Blur. | More.

Spirit Adrift – Hot & Heavy: Live in Tejas (Century Media) | USA | Bandcamp
[Ahmed] – Giant Beauty (Fönstret) | UK | Bandcamp
Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal – Catching Fire (Rune Grammofon) | Norway | Bandcamp
Custard Flux – Live at the 20th Dream of Dr Sardonicus Festival (Custard Flux) | USA | Bandcamp
Tropical Fuck Storm – Tropical Fuck Storm’s Inflatable Graveyard (Three Lobed) | Australia | Bandcamp
Horse Lords – As It Happened: Horse Lords Live (RVNG) | USA | Bandcamp
Electric Wizard – Black Magic Rituals & Perversions: Vol 1 (Spinefarm) | UK
Hayden Pedigo – Live in Amarillo, Texas (Mexican Summer) | USA | Bandcamp
Yellow Swans – Out of Practice I & II (Jyrk) | USA | Bandcamp
Kavain Wayne Space & XT – YESYESPEAKERSYES (Feedback Moves) | USA | Bandcamp
Swans – Live Rope (Young God) | USA
Royal Headache – Live in America (What’s Your Rupture?) | Australia | Bandcamp
Diamanda Galás – Diamanda Galás in Concert (Intervenal Sound) | USA | Bandcamp

Trip Jam

This tag is in tribute to Peluché, who first used the words, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, to describe their style of languid hybrid of post-punk, art pop, dream pop and trip hop, developed from long practice sessions, letting the groove take them for a ride. While that band has sadly been MIA for over half a decade now, a whole slew of artists have been incorporating this sound, probably none of them knowing about the trip jam term. It probably won’t take off, but it’s a handy tag for me to use when identifying this particular vibe that really works for me. Smoke Bellow’s mix of art pop and post-punk is essential Trip Jam, and I’m sad to hear it’s their fourth and final album.

The Narcotix – Dying (Narcotix) | USA | Bandcamp
Goat Girl – Below the Waste (Rough Trade) | UK | Bandcamp
Memorials – Memorial Waterslides (Fire) | UK | Bandcamp
La Luz – News of the Universe (Sub Pop) | USA | Bandcamp
Smoke Bellow – Structurally Sound (Moon Glyph) | USA | Bandcamp
Desperate Journalist – No Hero (Fierce Panda) | UK | Bandcamp
Hello Mary – Emita Ox (FrenchKiss) | USA | Bandcamp
Crumb – AMAMA (Crumb) | USA | Bandcamp
Finom – Not God (Joyful Noise) | USA | Bandcamp
Nightshift – Homosapien (Trouble In Mind) | UK | Bandcamp
Amiture – Mother Engine (Dots Per Inch) | USA | Bandcamp
Poppycock – Magic Mothers (Tiny Global) | UK | Bandcamp
Set Piece – Set Piece (GoldMold) | UK | Bandcamp

The Golden Circle

The Golden Circle is the club for musicians and bands who have been in action for 40 years to over a half century. Not everyone peaks in their 20s or 30s, as some musicians have done their best work well into their 70s and 80s. To put this into perspective, Frank Sinatra, who’s first single was in 1942, had what anyone would consider a long career. But he would have had to release great albums after 1982. It’s interesting that while The Cure of course gets the most attention, And Also The Trees have been consistently releasing great albums since 1984 with no duds.

Despite their self-titled debut in 1984 being produced by The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst, And Also The Trees have remained a cult band. Their post-punk/goth sound over the years evolved into a brooding, dark cabaret tinged pastoral folk and art rock, with Simon Huw Jones’ baritone high in the mix, a direction often shared with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, exemplified by (Listen For) The Rag and Bone Man (2007). The distinctions between the subsequent five albums released since then are subtle, with every album hitting it’s aesthetic mark. Their latest may be their most subdued outing in a while, but those with patience will be rewarded with some top notch grown ass mood music, infused with the ambient beauty of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis or David Sylvian.

Bubbling under: The Church, The Woodentops, The Effigies, The The, Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Chameleons, Richard Hawley, Robyn Hitchcock, Gavin Friday, Modern English, Melvins, Robin Guthrie, David Gilmour, Ian Skelly, Cock Sparrer, The Dictators, Hawkwind, Neil Young, Tears For Fears, Milton Nascimento, Bruce Dickinson, Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks, Saint Etienne, New Model Army, Saxon, Alejandro Escovedo, Ian Hunter, Laurie Anderson, Steve Wynn, Steve Hackett, Moggs Motel, Sweet, James, MC5.

The Cure – Songs of a Lost World (Polydor, 2024) | Buy
And Also The Trees – Mother-of-Pearl Moon (Border, 2024) | Bandcamp
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild God (Play It Again Sam, 2024) | Buy
X – Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum, 2024) | Bandcamp
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield (Epic, 2024) | Bandcamp
Peter Perrett – The Cleansing (Domino, 2024) | Bandcamp
The March Violets – Crocodile Promises (Metropolis, 2024) | Bandcamp
Inca Babies – Ghost Mechanic Nine (Black Lagoon, 2024) | Bandcamp
Kid Congo & The Pink Monkeybirds – That Delicious Vice (In The Red, 2024) | Buy
Kim Gordon – The Collective (Matador, 2024) | Bandcamp
The Prisoners – Morning Star (Own-Up, 2024) | Buy
John Carpenter – Lost Themes IV: Noir (Sacred Bones, 2024) | Bandcamp
Einstürzende Neubauten – Rampen (apm: alien pop music) (Potomak, 2024) | Bandcamp

Non-Metal For Metalheads

I liked San Francisco doom band Brume’s second album, Rabbits (2019), but slept on their third release until I saw it sitting imperiously atop The Obelisk’s year-end list. This is classy, emotional music that, with new full-time member Jackie Perez Gratz (Grayceon) on cello & vocals, should appeal to fans of both Pallbearer and Chelsea Wolfe.

Success (2022) was a comeback of sorts for Oneida. The experimental Brooklyn band formed in 1997 has always had a restlessly innovative approach to psych, noise rock and kosmische, and after Rated O (2009) they engaged in a wide range of collaborations and explorations that made not have made for thoroughly consistent albums, but invested a lot of new knowledge into the band’s creative pool, consolidated into Success and Expensive Air. While the former featured a group of surprisingly catchy and melodic garage punk tracks, the latest maintains the manic energy, while stretching out the experimentation. “Reason to Hide” features a thick chug reminiscent of prime Wipers, and “La Plage” is a hectic, fun carnival ride with squelchy no wave synths. “Stranger” maintains the high tempo but with a darker garage noir feel. “Here It Comes” features some jangly guitars and exuberantly shouty verses. The atmospheric title track is another highlight, and the album ends, unusually, with an eight-plus minute cover of Swell Maps’ “Gunboats.” It’s a moody, smoldering triumph, a perfect tribute to deconstructed garage punk injected with adventurous avant psych textures.

Bubbling under: God Is An Astronaut, JB Nelson, Nightshift, Elephant9, Kim Gordon, Moin, Water Damage, Isleptonthemoon, Suldusk, Bingo Fury, Still House Plants, Senyawa, Cave Sermon, Amiture, African Imperial Wizard, Crippled Black Phoenix, Einstürzende Neubauten, Zetra, Crippling Alcoholism, Big|Brave, DVNE, Sumac, Painkiller, Uniform, Extra Life, Vuur & Zijde, Karl D’Silva, Fat White Family, Writhing Squares, Envy, Sólstafir, Buñuel. | More.

Brume – Marten (Magnetic Eye) | USA | Bandcamp
Hello Mary – Emita Ox (FrenchKiss) | USA | Bandcamp
Bent Knee – Twenty Pills Without Water (Take This to Heart) | USA | Bandcamp
Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja (Nuclear Blast) | Finland | Bandcamp
9K33 – Super-Cannes (9K33) | USA | Bandcamp
Oneida – Expensive Air (Joyful Noise) | USA | Bandcamp
Zombeaches – A Taste of Oxygen (Buttercup) | Australia | Bandcamp
Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum (Glitterbeat) | Belgium | Bandcamp
Dool – The Shape of Fluidity (Prophecy Productions) | Netherlands | Bandcamp
Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She (Gine) | USA | Bandcamp
Julie Christmas – Ridiculous and Full of Blood (Red Creek) | USA | Bandcamp
Alan Jenkins and The Kettering Vampires – Painting the Horse’s Nose in the Wrong Place (Cordelia) | UK | Bandcamp
The Flying Mausoleum – Sunken Seaport to Atlantis (Boul God) | USA | Bandcamp

2024 AOTY Music Year End List Aggregate (with my rankings)

This is not to illustrate how lame the consensus opinion is (most of the albums are good in various ways), but how vast the music world is, and how much you miss by only looking at top ten lists, or considering the year done, dusted and shelved just because the calendar year is ending. Yes, the runaway crowd favorite Charli XCX is one of my least favorites, aside from Sabrina Carpenter and Doechii who I sampled but could not take the whole albums. I do think Charli XCX is the best at what she does — it’s just that the production of that particular kind of electro/hyperpop and EDM wears on me quickly. If I want my nerves frayed, I tend to do it with extreme metal experimental noise. In the meantime, I’d say 100% of every contributor to every list, including myself, can still discover new things from 2024 if they continue to explore.

Charli XCX – BRAT (1,283)
Fontaines D.C. – Romance (19)
The Cure – Songs From a Lost World (1)
MJ Lenderman –Manning Fireworks (1,243)
Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter (1,259)
Waxahatchee– Tigers Blood (687)
Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee (330)
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft (1,245)
Kendrick Lamar – GNX (1,077)
Tyler, The Creator – CHROMAKOPIA (773)
Jessica Pratt – Here in the Pitch (274)
Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven (1,111)
Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet (NA)
Mk.gee – Two Star & the Dream Police (685)
Kim Gordon – The Collective (213)
Adrienne Lenker – Bright Future (752)
Clairo – Charm (519)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild God (60)
Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk (604)
Doechii – Alligator Bites Never Heal (NA)
English Teacher – This Could Be Texas (22)
Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us (207)
The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy (197)
Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown (346)
Jack White – No Name (103)

Reissues

Vinyl is getting hard to find for certain titles, so I was glad to see the reissues of The Sound and Magazine. I thought the Talking Heads: 77 bookback set was going to be more compact, but it’s HUGE. I’ll have to put it either in the big bookshelf in the living room or with the records.

The Sound – Jeopardy/From the Lions Mouth/All Fall Down (Rhino, 1980-82) Colored Vinyl
Talking Heads – Talking Heads: 77 (Rhino, 1977) 4CD/Blu-Ray
Magazine – Real Life/Secondhand Daylight/The Correct Use of Soap (Integral, 1978-80) Colored Vinyl
David Bowie – Rock ‘N’ Roll Star! (Parlophone, 1972) 5CD
Can – Live in Paris 1973 (Spoon)
Queen – Queen I: 50th Anniversary (Universal, 1973) 6CD
Nico – The Marble Index/Desert Shore (Domino)
King Crimson – Red: 50th Anniversary (Panegyric, 1974)
Robin Trower – Bridge of Sights 50th Anniversary (Chrysalis, 1974) 4CD
Faces – Faces at the BBC (Rhino, 1973) 8CD
Hawkwind – In Search of Space (Atomhenge, 1971) 3CD
Thin Lizzy – 1976 (UMR) 5CD/Blu-Ray
UFO – Lights Out (Chrysalis, 1977) 2CD

Bubbling under: Lou Reed, Black Sabbath, Galaxie 500, Alice Coltrane, Margo Guryan, Joni Mitchell, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Def Leppard, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Dorothy Carter, Kevin Ayers, Neil Young, Gastr Del Sol, Aphrodite’s Child, SRC, Northwind, Aphex Twin, Suede, Air, The Yardbirds, Mark Lanegan, Paul McCartney & Wings, Drive-By Truckers, Anne Briggs, Elvis Costello, Sonic Youth, Nancy Sinatra, John Lennon, Royal Trux, Billy Idol, KISS, Jack Bruce.

Late Entries

From my former home city of Chicago sprouted a fabulous new band called Brigitte Calls Me Baby, mixing jangle pop, post-punk, garage noir and new wave, essentially crack candy for me. The band has a striking profile with a menagerie of fashions and hair styles fusing goth and glam with some sharp post-mod clobber (suits!), solid musicianship and a flamboyant front man in Wes Leavins who spins engaging yarns of unrequitted queer love in a voice that’s like Morrissey if he had Roy Orbison and Engelbert Humperdinck as voice coaches. They have a bunch of great videos and could really catch on if they keep up the quality on their next album.

I belatedly found out about this Pøltergeist album from Bryce Talks Metal’s top 10 for the year. Kalen Baker of Canadian heavy metal band Whyte Diamond started Pøltergeist as a one-man band in 2019 when he he moved 450 miles away from Calgary to the more isolated Alberta. Shifting from metal to post-punk and goth, he was inspired by Vancouver post-punkers Spectre to discover 80s post-punk like The Chameleons and The Sound, and early goth (Sisters Of Mercy, The Mission) and dream pop (Cocteau Twins). While heavy metal remains in his DNA, this project leans more into post-punk than the likes of In Solitude, Unto Others, Tribulation and Neon Nightmare. These are many of my favorite things, and Pøltergeist had me at The Sound. The bandcamp page documents Baker’s progress from 2019 demos to the Hallucinations in the Catacombs EP (2021), and finally, the full-length debut, in it’s gleaming obsidian glory, fleshed out by band members Ben Whitham (bass) and Jacob Ponton (guitar).

I should have expected a new Kanaan project, and yet their record of two releases in 2020, 22 and 23 continues to surprise me when it’s such a rare thing. This time they collaborated with Nordic folk rock group Ævestaden for an unsurprisingly brilliant fusion of Norwegian folk and heavy psych.

I suppose I can understand how the mainstream critical community only has time for attention for just a couple token albums in genres like metal, psych and post-punk. The UK’s Desperate Journalist got some attention in the past, but clearly are not the flavor of the year with their fifth album. While they’ve been experimenting with varying success, No Hero feels like their most confident, direct, and best album so far.

The fact that I have well over a thousand albums in my total list yet I still miss bands I’ve been following for years makes me want to crack my head against the wall. Better late than never. Mpls space rock/psych/shoegaze band Flavor Crystals are sounding more gorgeous than ever on their sixth album, the first since 2020. I discovered Boston’s Magic Shoppe around the same time about a decade ago, and they too have their sixth album, with their approach to shoegaze/noise pop more rocking than ever, reminding me of the energy of early Swervedriver. Yet another band on their sixth album is Sweden’s psych/dream pop combo The Amazing, featuring Dungen’s Reine Fiske. I remember seeing them open for Tame Impala years ago, and a bunch of indie lemming twats were talking through the band’s set, until I offered to punch each of them in their pencil necks.

German heavy metal/epic doom bands Grendel’s Sÿster and Writhen Hilt snaked under the radar, but are tons of fun, the former citing Slough Feg as an influence, but rather than Celtic folk, they dabble in Mittelalter-Metal (German Medieval folk metal). It’s essentially a double album, as they repeat all nine songs in German. Also, I love their cover star/mascot, Cÿril Ungol, squirrel of fire. Writhen Hilt lean toward power metal. Add their name your price single, The Iron Sparrow to the Ancient Sword Cult EP and you’ve got just under 32 minutes of rough but rollicking heavy metal.

As everyone gets list fatigue and craves something unusual that wouldn’t be found anywhere near the herd aggregate choices, Avalanche Kaito is just the kind of band that some would be drawn to at this point. However, this Belgium trio deserves a better fate than just a pre-Holiday palate cleanser. They may be difficult to categorize, but I hear an adventurously experimental mix of noise and avant rock with post-punk, and Griot Music, thanks to vocalist Kaito Winse, who also contributes flute and mouth bow. Born in Burkina Faso, located between Mali and Ghana, I love how they embrace Afro pop influences without being precious about authenticity. They just let their creative spirits run wild and get weird.

Back in 2018, before shoegaze became a TikTok meme, UK’s Whitelands (a wryly ironic name, given they’re one of Britain’s few Black guitar bands) released a low-key self-titled debut on cassette and Bandcamp that made my shoegaze/dream pop list, but was seemingly forgotten. What a nice Winter Solstice gift to discover their second album, the band’s ethereal sound intact, but full of seductive hooks.

I was embarrassed to learn I’d completely missed the July release of Ironflame’s fifth album. I’ve been a big fan since Andrew D’Cagna told me about the project when he was still with Brimstone Coven. He was part of their amazing three-part vocal harmonies, so of course he can belt it out as well as metal god Rob Halford. Like Chris Black, Trevor William Church and Nate Garrett, he plays most of the instruments himself on the recordings, though on the last couple albums he also has Quinn Lukas and Jesse Scott contributing lead guitar.

Bubbling under: Whitelands, Aluminum, Luke Temple and the Cascading Moms, Plantoid, Klark Sound, Ironflame, The BV’s, Objections, Loose Articles, Humdrum, Grendel’s Sÿster, Rick White and the Sadies, Gloomy Reflections, The Third Sound, Writhen Hilt, Mr Bison, Crows, The Amazing, Aseitas, Civerous, The Flying Mausoleum, Xiu Xiu, Elephant Tree / Lowrider, The BV’s, The Red Pears, Iota, Malamiko, Chain Cult, Savage Oath, The Maureens, The Shop Window, Molina, Nolan Potter, Daevar, New Skeletal Faces,The Society of Rockets, Des Demonas, Terry Gross, African Imperial Wizard, Sun Atlas, Christopher Owens, Healees, Swirls, Mammoth Penguins, Trentemøller, Etran de L’Aïr, Joanna Wang, GIFT, Newmoon, Wussy, Molder.

Pøltergeist – Nachtmusik
Brigitte Calls Me Baby – The Future is Our Way Out
Louse – Passions Like Tar
Cemetery Skyline – Nordic Gothic
Brume – Marten
Desperate Journalist – No Hero
Flavor Crystals – Gone Six
Magic Shoppe – Down the Wych Elm
Black Doldrums – In Limerence
Kanaan & Ævestaden – Langt, Langt Vekk
Hello Mary – Emita Fox
Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum
Mo Dotti – Opaque
Whitelands – Night-Bound Eyes Are Blind to the Day

Those paying close attention (all three of you) will see there was some other seemingly new entries in the top 200, which were simply albums that I got to spend more time with the past couple weeks, and creeped up the list. List creep never ends here, because until death, everything moves. These include:

Unto Others – Never, Neverland (Century Media) | Bandcamp
Memorials – Memorial Waterslides (Fire) | Bandcamp
Tristwch Y Fenywod – Tristwch Y Fenywod (Night School) | Bandcamp
Crumb – AMAMA (Crumb) | Bandcamp
Field Music – Limits of Language (Memphis Industries) | Bandcamp
Love, Burns – Blue (Calico Cat) | USA | Bandcamp
Winged Wheel – Big Hotel (12XU) | Bandcamp
Tribulation – Sub Rosa in Æternum (Century Media) | Bandcamp
Alcest – Les Chants de l’Aurore (Nuclear Blast) | Bandcamp
Omni – Souvenir (Sub Pop) | Bandcamp
J. Robbins – Basilisk (Dischord, 2024) | Bandcamp
God Is An Astronaut – Embers (Napalm) | Bandcamp
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – No Title As of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead (Constellation) | Bandcamp
Elbow – Audio Vertigo (Polydor) | Bandcamp
Peel Dream Magazine – Rose Main Reading Room (Topshelf) | Bandcamp
Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us (Columbia) | Bandcamp
Whores. – War (The Ghost is Clear Records, 2024) | Bandcamp

New Old Discoveries

Along with listening to new music, I of course continue to discover old music. It never ends. Last year I had discovered under 300 albums, and this year over 400. Some, like Michael Nesmith and Van Morrison, I knew about for a long time, but just gave a focused listen for the first time. Others are brand new discoveries, like Orchestre Rouge (1980-83) and Passion Fodder (1984-91), two post-punk bands based in France, lead by American ex-pat Théo Hakola. The first band is classic post-punk/coldwave that was pretty popular in France, while Passion Fodder adopted a distinctly punk blues/garage noir style influenced by The Cramps, Gun Club, Scientists and of course Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. It’s like crack to me, and I’m astounded I’m only just this year discovering it.

Passion Fodder – Fat Tuesday (Beggars Banquet, 1986)
Orchestre Rouge – Yellow Laughter (RCA, 1982)
Michael Nesmith – The Prison (Pacific Arts, 1974)
Orchestre Rouge – More Passion Fodder (RCA, 1983)
Ian Matthews – Valley Hi (Elektra, 1973)
Syvdoh – Gentlemen (Iffy Folk, 2022)
Music For Pleasure – Into the Rain (Polydor, 1982)
Space Opera – Space Opera (Columbia, 1973)
Passion Fodder – Woke Up This Morning… (Beggars Banquet, 1989)
Ian Matthews – Some Days You Eat the Bear and Some Days the Bear Eats You (Elektra, 1974)
Death Of Samantha – Come All Ye Faithless (Homestead, 1989)
Van Morrison – No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (Mercury, 1986)
The June Brides – There Are Eight Million Stories… (Pink, 1985)

Bubbling under: The Astronauts, Fuchsia, Jorge Ben, Bored!, Adorable, Majesty Crush, Tales Of Terror, Screamfeeder, Hydra, The Peep Tempel, Into Paradise, KaS Product, Fehlfarben, The Telescopes, Half Man Half Biscuit, Colin Blunstone, The Neutrons, Paraf, Puressence, The Victims, The Grays, Witch Cross, Flipper’s Guitar, Hydra, Gypsy, Griffin, Pugwash, Starflyer 59, Every Which Way, Grobschnitt, The Slow Readers Club, God, Planchettes, Shirley Brown, Lamont Dozier, Red Guitars, Abbey Gogo, The Twilights, Clan Of Xymox, Fif Juz, Jane Siberry, Mark Shreeve, Hammered Hulls, The Band of Holy Joy.

Records

I went to my first Austin Record Show in October, which was pretty fun. I stuck with post-punk/new wave sections to make it easier to get through it in less than three hours. I got discounts on all eight records, but still, it’s a lot of dough. My space is very limited in the doom cave, so I will probably slow down the purchases next year. I still listen to music via my ROON system, which can stream FLAC files to every room in the house.

Bad Brains – I Against I
Agent Orange – This Is The Voice
Big Star – #1 Record
The Birthday Party – Junkyard
Cheap Trick – Cheap Trick
The Comsat Angels – Sleep No More
The Chameleons – Strange Times
The Cure – Faith
Echo & the Bunnymen – Heaven Up Here
The Gun Club – Fire of Love
Joy Division – Closer
Killing Joke – Killing Joke
Magazine – Real Life
Martha & The Muffins – This Is The Ice Age
New York Dolls – New York Dolls
Pere Ubu – Datapanik in the Year Zero
The Pretty Things – S.F. Sorrow
Radio Birdman – Radios Appear
Rush – Hemipsheres
Simple Minds – Sister Feelings Call
Siouxsie & the Banshees – Juju
The Slits – Cut
The Sound – From The Lions Mouth
Stiff Little Fingers – Inflammable Material
Velvet Underground – White Light/White Heat
Wipers – Youth of America
Wire – 154
The Woodentops – Giant
X – Los Angeles
XTC – Skylarking

The only 2024 vinyl album I bought was The Sonic Dawn – Phantom. While last year I bought six, this year, space and budget were a factor, not related to the quality of music. A lot of times I buy the download on Bandcamp, so I don’t want to pay yet again for a $30+ record just so I can look at it on the wall. I buy T-shirts at shows to show my support. Colour Haze’s Tempel also became available again, so I got that as far as a 21st century album. Top of my want list is the first Birthday Party album with the picture of the band (not the Hee Haw version). It would be nice if Neurot reissued the early Ufomammut LPs.

Best of Texas

Halloween marked my third anniversary at Rancho Bulboso in Texas, and as always this list may not be complete, as I’m going from the top of my head, as I don’t have anything other than country location in my database, as it could get messy when there’s members in different cities let alone countries. Texas is well represented with thirteen albums sitting in the top 120.

I haven’t spent much time with the Good Looks album, as their sophomore release snuck past me at first, despite my being a big fan of their debut. They continue with the heartland rock and indie folk styles, and are even better on the new one. Fifth album from Austin hard rockers Duel, who always add a touch of swingin’ boogie/Southern rock that sets them apart. Heavy stoner/desert psych band, High Desert Queen have made an impressive progression from their debut album, placing them near the top of the heap over their peers. While the band has presented a high energy, positive vibe with a sense of humor in their videos, they can do cosmic dread and rage with the best of them, exemplified by the stunning closer “Solar Rain.” Ghost Moves is a very promising debut album from Houston Cosmic Americana/country psych band Ghost Party with tasty morsels of garage and surf noir.

Neon Nightmare – Faded Dream (Austin/Bastrop)
Transit Method – Othervoid (Austin)
White Denim – 12 (Austin/L.A.)
Garrett T. Capps & NASA Country – Everyone is Everyone (San Antonio)
Rosegarden Funeral Party – From the Ashes (Dallas)
Good Looks – Lived Here for a While (Austin)
Duel – Breakfast With Death (Austin)
High Desert Queen – Palm Reader (Austin)
Ghost Party – Ghost Moves (Houston)
Water Damage – In E (Austin)
Nolan Potter – The Perils of Being Trapped Inside a Head (Austin)
Twin Tribes – Pendulum (Brownsville)
Sheverb – She Rides Again (Austin)

Bubbling under: Deserts Of Mars, Hayden Pedigo, Amigo The Devil, Leon Bridges, Being Dead, Black On High, Cazayoux, Destroyer Of Light, Earthen, Fostermother, Glassing, Kolga, Khruangbin, Land Mammal, Lord Buffalo, Mean Mistreater, mugger, Oceans of Slumber, One-Eyed Monsters, Only Ever, Porcelain, Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Stone Nomads, Warlung, White Dog.

AOR

Cats In Space – Fire in the Night Live (Harmony Factory) | UK
The Barock Project – Time Voyager (Crevalroad) | Italy
Cats In Space – Time Machine (Esoteric) | UK
Black Diamonds – Destination Paradise (Metalapolis) | Switzerland
Vain – Disintegrate Together (Jackie Rainbow) | USA
Eclipse – Megalomanium II (Frontiers) | Sweden
Lionheart – The Grace of a Dragonfly (Metalville) | UK
Praying Mantis – Defiance (Frontiers) | UK
Nestor – Teenage Rebel (Napalm) | Sweden | Bandcamp
Remedy – Pleasure Beats the Pain (Escape) | Sweden
Teramaze – Eli: A Wonderful Fall From Grace (Teramaze) | Australia | Bandcamp
Honeymoon Suite – Alive (Frontiers) | Canada
The Hot Damn! – Dancing on the Milky Way (Fat Earth) | UK | Buy

Labels
After Ripple dominating the last three years in a row (with 15 albums), Sub Pop surprised with 17 releases making the list, lead by Slift. Note that most of these labels released even more, but these are what grabbed my attention. Ripple may be at #4 with 13 (lead by Vitskär Süden), but their $5/mo subscription continues to be a bargain. Small labels Drag City, Heavy Psych and 20 Buck Spin are doing a great job up against metal heavy hitters Nuclear Blast, Century Media, Metal Blade, and Season Of Mist.

Sub Pop (17)
Century Media (16)
Nuclear Blast (15)
Ripple (13)
Season Of Mist (13)
Metal Blade (13)
Drag City (11)
Heavy Psych (11)
20 Buck Spin (11)
Napalm (11)
Domino (9)
Thrill Jockey (9)
Blues Funeral (8)

Bubbling under: Relapse, Fuzz Club and Magnetic Eye at seven each.

Singles

As usual, I’m waiting for my singles guru Toby to come up one of his rare, but essential postings on The Finest Kiss. He almost tempts me to start buying actual 7″ records again. Best selection of indie pop, jangle pop, dream pop, and soul that you won’t see on any other list. At the moment, it is not published yet, so here’s last year’s.

Videos

Shows

I see fewer shows every year cuz I’m less tolerant of crowds, especially indoors, for a variety of reasons. I’ve loved the Hell’s Heroes shows the past few years, but next year the prices went way up for parking, and it’s gotten too crowded in the indoor venue for me, so I won’t be going for the VII installment in 2025. I woulda had they given me a press pass, but nope. Still, seeing Solitude Aeturnus again was definitely worth the trip. And the Circuit of the Americas is just 15 minutes from me, so I had to see Judas Priest, and that was definitely worth it. I would have seen King Gizzard there but I don’t know anyone around who would go with me to that. Of course I got to shows alone too, but stadium shows it feels to pathetic to sit alone.

Solitude Aeturnus (Hell’s Heroes VI)
Early Moods (Hell’s Heroes VI)
Judas Priest, Sabaton (Germania/COTA)
All Them Witches (Austin Psych Fest, Far Out Lounge)
The Buttertones (Parish)
The Sword, Pentagram, Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol (Levitation, Stubbs)
Chameleons, The March Violets (Levitation, Elysium)
Truckfighters (Ripplefest, Far Out Lounge)
Frankie & the Witch Fingers, L.A. Witch, Witch, Earthless (Austin Psych Fest, Far Outt Lounge)
Watchtower (Hell’s Heroes VI)
Queensrÿche (Hell’s Heroes VI)
Dozer, Gozu, Mars Red Sky, High Desert Queen, Bongzilla, Domkraft, The Otolith, Thunder Horse (Ripplefest, Far Out Lounge)
Rattlesnake Milk (Antone’s)

Movies

We pay so much a month on streaming apps, that we just can’t make ourselves chuck over $20 to $30 for a new movie. Still plowing through 26 seasons of Silent Witness.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Hundreds Of Beavers
Molli and Max in the Future
My Old Ass
Drive-Away Dolls
Band Aid
Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshop
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls
American Fiction
Bottoms
Bob Marley: One Love

Meh: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Marlow, The Garfield Movie, The Idea of You, Space Cadet, Summer Camp

Haven’t seen yet: Anora, A Real Pain, Borderlands, Challengers, The Crow, Dahomey, Deadpool & Wolverine, Doctor Jekyll, Not Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, Dune: Part Two, Flow, Good One, His Three Daughters, The Holdovers, Inside Out 2, Maria, Megalopolis, Robot Dreams, Successor, Venom: The Last Dance, The Wild Robot. Despicable Me 4, Moana 2, Kung Fu Panda 4.

Television

My favorite two shows were both based on comic series I read years ago. Things tend to escalate beyond bonkers by S4 on these kinds of shows, and they delivered. We watch a lot of cozy mysteries because anything too close to the hellscape that is reality is, well, too real. Who needs that?

The Boys S4 (Prime)
The Umbrella Academy S4 (Netflix)
Hacks S3 (Max)
Elsbeth S2 (Paramount)
Loot S2 (Apple+)
A Man on the Inside (Netflix)
Moonflower Murders S1 (PBS/Prime)
Belgravia: The Next Chapter (MGM/Hulu)
The Marlow Murder Club S1 (PBS/Prime)
The Night Manager S1 (BBC)
The Gentlemen S1 (Netflix)
Vienna Blood S3 (PBS/Prime)
Bad Sisters (Apple)

Bubbling under: The Bay S4, Van Der Valk S4, The Abigail Mysteries, Annika S2, Beyond Paradise S2, The Change S1, Dead Boy Detectives, D.I. Ray S2, Father Brown S11, Granite Harbour S2, Grantchester S9, Hotel Portofino S1, The Inheritance S1, McDonald & Dodds S4, Miss Scarlet and the Duke S3, No Offense S3, The Nordic Murders S2, Professor T S2, Quirke S1, Ridley S2, Shetland S8, Sister Boniface S3, The Tower S3, Three Little Birds S1, True Detective S4, Upload S3.

Haven’t seen: Dr. Who (Disney), Three Women (Starz), Sunny (Apple), Shrinking (Apple), The Penguin (HBO), Bad Monkey (Apple), Dark Matter S2, Interview With the Vampire S2, Lord of the Rings S2, Pachinko S2, Time Bandits, Watchmen: Chapter 1

Books

After books on both The Comsat Angels and Modern Eon last year, I was chuffed to get Simon Heavisides’ book on Adrian Borland of The Sound. One more step in correcting historical wrongs and reintroducing these bands’ classic albums into the post-punk canon.

I’m behind in reviewing the music books I’ve read this year. Music non-fiction isn’t for everyone, and can get pretty dry. Basically if you’re a fan and so inclined, you’re bound to read it no matter how well or poorly written it is. Or maybe that’s my excuse. I’ve been working on this all week, I’m tired!

Fiction: It felt like I mostly read music non-fiction, but I had a few new and old fiction. After finally reading Haruki Murakami’s Killing Commendatore five years after I bought it and liking it a lot (as I do most of his books), I bought his new book, The City and Its Uncertain Walls the day it came out, but haven’t started it yet.

Music Non-Fiction

Destiny Stopped Screaming: The Life and Times of Adrian Borland by Simon Heavisides (2024)
My Effin’ Life by Geddy Lee (2023)
1973: Rock at the Crossroads by Andrew Grant Jackson (2019)
Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth by Cathi Unsworth (2023)
Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division by Peter Hook (2013)
Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits by Barney Hoskyns (2009)
Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines, and Tomorrow’s Music Today by Simon Reynolds (2024)
Goth: A History by Lol Tolhurst (2024)
What Does This Button Do? An Autobiography by Bruce Dickinson (2017)
Fearless: Post-Rock 1987-2001 by Jeanette Leech (2017)
Mud Ride: A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion by Steve Turner (2023)
Electric Light Orchestra on Track by Barry Delve (2022)
Pink Floyd: Album by Album by Martin Popoff (2018)

Fiction

Polostan: Volume One of Bomb Light by Neal Stephenson (2024)
Cat’s Cradle: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut (1963)
Grommets #1-5 by Rick Remender & Brian Posehn (Comic)
Saga #67-68 by Brian K. Vaughan (Comic)
The Artificial Kid by Bruce Sterling (1980)
Villa Incognito: A Novel by Tom Robbins (2005)
The Serpent of Venice: A Novel by Christopher Moore (2014)
Where The Body Was by Ed Brubaker & Sean Philips (Comic)
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (2022)
Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows: The First of the Cthulhu Casebooks by James Lovegrove (2016)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (2012)
The Great When: A Long London Novel by Alan Moore (2024)
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)

YouTube Channels

The Sea Of Tranquility (100K Subscribers, 5.5K Videos): Daily music talk show covering the genres of heavy metal, progressive rock, jazz-fusion, hard rock, classic rock, blues rock, both new and old, with your host & SoT Publisher Pete Pardo. The Schedule: Monday-Hudson Valley Squares (hard rock/heavy metal panel show) Tuesday-In the Prog Seat (progressive rock/fusion panel show) Wednesday-What’s Hot With Sea of Tranquility (new releases review day) Thursday-The Monster’s Den (horror/monster/sci-fi/thriller film panel show) Friday-Friday Morning at the Funhouse with Martin Popoff (themed music discussion) Saturday-The UK Connection (music discussion with Simon Bray & Steven Reid) Sunday-Ranking the Albums (one band discography ranked, each week) Plus monthly shows like 4Fusion Friday, and The Curse of the Collector.

I was a bit unsure about this when I started watching in 2020, but the community that Pete Pardo has built over a decade is truly remarkable, full of friendly, passionate music geeks. His daily countdown series of various themes that air at 8 PM CST has been a daily ritual for nearly four years for me. Legendary metal writer/archivist Martin Popoff joins on Fridays, and the new Review Crew show is great. Congrats to Pete and crew for surpassing 100K subscribers recently!
Nate Garrett’s Big Riff Energy (16.7K, 98): I make music with Spirit Adrift and Neon Nightmare. I talk about music on the Big Riff Energy podcast.

I’ve felt pretty isolated since moving to Rancho Bulboso on a 7 acre property outside of Austin on Halloween 2021, with just a couple friends in the city. Nate actually lives and records within a few miles of me, and it’s cool to have a neighbor so passionate about similar things. He’s great about interacting with his audience via email and comments too.
Capo Fetish (3.44K, 209): A music obsessive spreading the word.
The Vinyl Years (18.7K, 38): Music is finite, opinions are endless. On The Album Years podcast, long term friends, collaborators and music nerds Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness discuss and bicker about their favourite music released during the golden album years, which they reckon to be from around 1965 to the end of the millennium. Each episode focuses on a single year picked at random. At the end of each episode they pick their personal favourites and the album they think had the most long-term impact on music. Can you guess which albums they will pick?
Dead End Street (519, 32): Music channel dedicated to discussing music. We cover Post-punk, Power Pop, Punk, 70s Glam rock, Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Brit Pop, Classic Electronica… we’ll also take time for Classic Rock and Metal. Basically, Gen-Xers talking about things we love.
Jim Driver (10.3K, 117): I live in the English seaside town of Ramsgate, 70 miles south-east of London, as the gull flies. Quite near Margate. I love YouTube. After escaping the music industry, I’ve been videoing and writing almost full-time. I’ve also been putting on gigs in London and beyond for more than 50 years.
The Vinyl Sanctuary (322, 36): Join me in taking refuge in records.
Christian is fairly new to this, and his yearly countdown videos can be feature movie length, but that’s okay by me — I like listening to these when I’m doing my thing in the kitchen. His commentary is getting better every month, and his tastes align enough with mine that when he has something I haven’t discovered yet, there’s a good chance I’ll like it.
Norman Maslov (37.5K, 1.4K): My friends call me Mazzy. This channel is primarily about music and my record collection, however on occasion I will post something on another topic, which may not be of interest to the music or vinyl community.
The Vinyl Douche (1.3K, 213): We talk about a fair amount of so-called indie rock, indie pop, shoegaze/dream pop, power-pop, post-punk, punk, jangle pop, and sometimes other crap.
David Atkinson – Life Matters (5.17K, 298): What I’ve grown to love doing is creating MUSIC APPRECIATION videos, where I’ll select an album and reminisce about how I discovered it, and what it has come to mean to me, all in the service of inspiring others to seek it out. I’ll also do the occasional rundown of favourite albums by artists I’ve invested a serious amount of time in appreciating their work.
The Metal Meltdown (18.8K, 1.1K): Join Robert, Anna, & Chompy as they get drunk and talk sh*t.
Andy Edwards (44.7K, 866): Annoying drummer dude who’s career highlight was drumming for Robert Plant (which is pretty cool) who considers himself an intellectual and a comedian. He’s best when he actually taps into his actual passion for music, which happens once every dozen videos or so. For a while, I commented on all of his clickbait style videos where he hates on various things, or pretends to in order to stir up controversy. It’s his channel, if that what he wants, but I suggested he balance out his karmic debt and actually talk frankly about music he loves, and perhaps make an effort to listen to discover new music he likes. And it seems he listened, as he’s started doing that more in the past couple months. So, he makes the Lucky 13.
Songs From the Attic (975, 47): A channel where a group of men and women discuss various albums, gigs and songs. Albums get ranked and debate and humour ensues.

The Needle Drop (2.98M, 4.6K)/fantano (1.89M, 1.7K): Of course this guy. I’ve followed his channels since 2016, and his intensely annoying mannerisms have mellowed with age, and he’s always been one of the more intelligent and well spoken music tubers. He actually has smart things to say about culture and politics too. However, while I won’t say his tastes completely suck, there is little overlap with what I’m into. With his massive audience, he basically has to cover the mainstream in order to keep them watching.

I do NOT, however, subscribe to Rick Beato, because his only motivation is to sell his crap, and you can tell he has absolutely zero passion for current music. Not once has he shown any interest in exploring new music that excites him. His strength is deconstructing songs down to their most basic musical building blocks. However, watching him only do this for either over-familiar classic rock or crappy chart hits quickly becomes a chore. This is just work for him, and I have no time for it.

Disappointing
As It Should Be (2.49K, 308): For several months I enjoyed catching up on their epic yearly countdown series which started from the 1950s. The three of them — Paul, Crystal and Tommy have a pretty endearing chemistry together, and have deep knowledge of music from the 60s through 80s. However, cracks started appearing in the 90s they they started to lose steam, getting a bit whiny about the state of music. Then it all fell apart for the 21st century, where they became complete crybabies about how there’s no more good music, often listing just a couple albums that they liked for an ENTIRE FREAKIN YEAR. I tried to suggest albums that aligned with their particular tastes, but no one was having it. It was surprising, as all the other channels mentioned above were really enthusiastic about interacting with viewers and listening to recommendations. After an episode when they again pigpiled on Captain Beefheart (having only heard TMR), I defended him, and Paul lashed out pretty viciously. So for now they’re in the time out corner, unsubscribed. I’m not boycotting them or anything, do check out those early episodes.

More: BANGERTV, Melanie Loves Death Metal, Vinyl Richie, The Contrarians, Classic Album Review, Now Spinning Magazine, Clean and Sober Stoner, Justin Hawkins Rides Again, Ruthless Metal, Bryce Talks Metal, Let It Vee, Larry Graves Canadian Studmuffin, Brendan Snyder.

Non-Music
Flick Connection (590K, 780): Never run out of good movies to watch on Netflix, Prime Video, Max, Tubi, YouTube, and more. In a world saturated with streaming options, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle and miss out on extraordinary options. No more sifting through countless titles or feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices. Darren Van Dam simplifies your streaming experience, presenting you with a handpicked assortment of underrated and uncommon movies every week.

Fester’s Favorite Things

I ain’t Oprah, so don’t expect a surprise goody bag in your fireplace, but these thingys may take the edge off the apocalyptic dread. I did ask Krampus to throw Trump in a sack with some rocks into a deep hole, but alas…

WiiM Ultra music streamer & digital preamp
Last year one of my picks was the WiiM Pro Airplay 2 WiFi multiroom streamer, which replaced by Sonos for streaming to a couple rooms in the house. This year, they rolled out the Ultra, and it’s getting awards for being the best value audio product. Since I just bought the Pro, I don’t really need it myself, as I control my music via ROON either on my phone or a couple small Kindle Fire controllers. For a bedside unit with the screen and controls, it could be ideal.

Major Fitness SML07 Smith Machine
Minor injuries and just stupid ageing shit has prevented me from doing the bench press routine I’ve done pretty much my whole life, so I need to start diversifying my weight routines, and got this monstrosity to help. Grateful we have space for it in the gym, but not looking forward to assembling it this week.

TheraGun Relief Handheld Percussion Massage Gun
This is the only gun I’ll be packin’. Used it today to work out kinks from sitting five straight days writing this thing. Sorry there’s no fun music gear. Maybe next year. Here’s a preview of my listening station though.

Fester’s DOOMbox Music Station V2
DOOMbox V1 from 2018 is starting to have problems, so I researched updated parts a few months ago. I was just going to upgrade a few things, but since I need a new motherboard and CPU, I might as well do a whole new machine. While I’m slightly curious how much faster 4x4TB M.2-2280 PCIe solid state drives will handle my 23,000+ FLAC album library, it’s not enough to be eager to start. I’ll probably do so in the next few weeks. Here’s my PCPartspicker list if you’re curious.

Krampus art from Etsy
Everyone here knows the most wonderful time of the year between Halloween and Xmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa is not Thanksgiving, but Krampusnacht on December 5. Just like last year, the Lucky 13 banner art features a Margaryta of RytasArtWorld‘s painting. Below is another one of her series with Krampus and black cats.

Perhaps I gave you gift ideas (for which you’ll never be forgiven) or even more likely, your own wishlist. If they still listen to music files, a Bandcamp gift card is pretty cool.

Posted in: Bandcamp, Books, Features, Film, Listicles, Lucky 13, News, Rants, Reissues, Reviews, TV, Videos/Singles

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