50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Although Lord Huron have been of note in indie folk circles for a while, the group’s fourth LP Long Lost really sees them come into their own. While still treading indie folk/Americana waters, here the band have moved into a much more lush sonic direction (think Honey Harper with a tinge of Ruston Kelly), while also leaning into classic country influences. While the country aspects of this record can feel like pastiche, they work, especially as it’s pretty clear that Lord Huron mastermind Ben Schneider is self-aware enough to understand he’s not Waylon Jennings. For listeners who, like most of my music-loving friends and I, are enthralled by forlorn old songs drenched in bourbon and steel guitar, this album is a godsend. Before the sunset haze of a lengthy ambient drone closer brings us home, Long Lost leaves us with the repeated mantra, “What does it mean if it all means nothing?” — a line that ultimately isn’t just a reflection on familiar tropes of long lost love and hard-drinking wandering songsmiths. More than anything, it’s a reminder that simple words can capture elusive and quite deep concepts. Now that’s a true country music tradition! –Sunnyvale
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Have no fear, ladies and gentlemen: Porter Robinson has emerged from his slumber to affirm your life, and he knows exactly how to get the job done. Nurture works because of its sincerity, a facet of its sound that makes it diametrically opposed to some of the other top albums of the year. In a social climate masked beneath bottomless layers of irony, Porter Robinson veers dangerously close to cliché with both the themes and presentation of Nurture, but the authenticity of his perspective and strength of his songwriting result in a triumph of a sophomore release. It doesn’t hurt that he’s also taken his production game to the next level, creating one of the most pristine-sounding releases of the last handful of years, let alone 2021. Nurture slaps and it’s good to have Porter Robinson back. –Jack Mancuso
Finding out that The Turning Wheel‘s two opening cuts both surpass the five-minute mark might come as a shock. Any other Cool avant-garde (baroque) progressive (indie) pop artist would have pushed briefer cuts towards the front in order to maximise accessibility and amplify digestibility. Not Spellling. Taking all that is Pleasant & Smooth about any and all indie and pop-adjacent genres and spreading it out across a wonderful, hour-long experience, the artist manages to highlight her wonderful voice as well as the lush instrumentation all throughout. As the record unfolds, Spellling appears to fall apart, documenting her fractures in great detail. No secret is left uncovered, except for the potential mysteries that arise during the process. On The Turning Wheel, such oddities provide both conclusions and brand new points of departure, leaving many intriguing possibilities for future projects. –Jesper L.
[Official site] // [Spotify]
The current motto in non-mainstream pop is ~nostalgia ain’t a dead scene~, and Magdalena Bay have perfectly understood it, with Mercurial World cohesively blending many pop-adjacents genres into a hotchpotch of lascivious retrofuturism with lyrics resembling austere Tweets. ’80s synths constitute the basis of a soundscape complemented with the grandeur of disco, vaporwave’s retro shtick, EDM’s aural highness, bubblegum hyper energy, and the most emotive side of hyperpop. It’s a constant fight between several moods, with vocals resembling more Grimes’ bittersweetness than Jepsen’s bomb-ass-thicc hushes, but even in its most subdued moments, the music is so lush it forces you to shake da ass. It does lack that flashy arrogance that would allow these songs to become radio hits, yet Mercurial World ultimately follows modern indie pop impetus: it’s almost bombastic, not enough to immediately strike you with its greatness, but sufficiently enough to let you hum its tunes after a couple of encounters. All they need is an überbanger that allows itself to fall into nonsensical over-the-top-ness à la Carly, and they’ll become trve indie babes. –Erwann S.
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Heavy yet melodic. Spacious yet intimate. Intense yet gentle. With Loss, Devil Sold His Soul have crafted a post-hardcore/metalcore record full of moments of beautiful harmonies combined with crushing, punchy riffs. From the opening guitars and melodies of “Ardour”, Loss establishes itself as an album of atmospheric capacities, yet never loses its intensity. Whether it’s the airy composition of tracks like “Loss” or the abrasiveness of “The Narcissist”, Devil Sold His Soul’s return is one that not only stands out in their discography, but one that solidifies itself as one of the best of the year. –Tyler W.
Wracked with turmoil between albums, it’s surprising that the album’s emotional explosions are this contained. As much THAT moment of opener “737” and the efficacious requiem “Speak with the Dead” are undoubtedly theatrical bookends, Draw Down the Moon usually feels like it’s holding back. While it might never match the sonic rambunctiousness of Nearer My God, it’s never impersonal. Their dancy beats hardly try to mask the overwhelming anxiety brimming at the heart of this album, but they sure do make it sound nicer. –neekafat
[Label site] // [Bandcamp]
For y’all listening to way too much metal: here’s some boom-boom music.
Boom-boom can be still; boom-boom can move. On Pool, no breakbeat blasts its rhythm without being softened by some serene tones, and no ambient passage finishes its course without being slashed by some hectic basses. It constantly zigzags between stillness and motion without being attached to one specific kind of boom-boom. Boom-boom’s front line see jungle breaks, techno, drum’n’drill’n’bass, and footwork trade places to induce head boppin’, while the background displays bending acid arrangements or mellow ambient to give a track its specific edge. It sometimes happens within a single tune, with “Testo BC Mashup” being a, uh, mashup trading gabber for drill’n’bass — only to end up switching keys in one of the record’s darkest moments.
With such an ever-changing soundscape, two features allow Pool to surpass the length issue. First, the ability to make the synthetic feel organic — the lush ambient paysage of “Stone Cold 369” or the street gloom overhanging “Absence” both feel all too real — resulting in an always-emotional listen. Secondly, Pool is a work of incessant attention, each lil detail having a purpose within this gigantic electronic fresco. That, ultimately, is what makes this beauty one 2021-aesthetic tour de force. –Erwann S.
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Thrice’s reunion years haven’t exactly been noteworthy. Sure, the band scored the biggest hit of their career with “Black Honey”, but To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere and especially Palms pale in comparison to the band’s pre-hiatus output. Horizons/East doesn’t quite exist on that level, either, but it’s a colossal improvement over the band’s last two releases — managing to at least prove that Thrice have still got it. They’re playing with a zeal here that we haven’t seen since Major/Minor, such as on the spectacular “Summer Set Fire to the Rain”, and even in quieter sections, like the stunning opening of “Still Life”. Horizons/East is an encouraging return to form for Thrice, and the most enjoyable output that we’ve seen from them in over a decade. –Jack Mancuso
Squid is the sound of post-punk revival (revival) in 2021. Move over Black Country, New Road, Dry Cleaning, the entire Talking Heads discography: there’s a new sheriff in town. Like the hotly anticipated return of a classic TV gameshow, post-punk’s back, baby (again)! But this time it’s different: it’s manic, it’s paranoid, by god it’s from East Sussex. Squid’s influence transcends their unlikeliest of upbringings, a dormant seaside town and the smallest BRIT school in the country. Of their unique sound, vocalist Ollie Judge’s manifesto is clear: “If we write something that feels a bit too familiar, we’ll scrap it and move onto something else.” This lack of homogeneity shines through angular guitar and quirk-lyricism. Squid’s talent is undeniable, flaunting complex instrumentation with an almost nepotistic ease. Their instrumentation claims a paradoxical melodic-intense sophistication akin to jabbing your toe on a marble plinth. Squid have arrived. –callum theatre
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Emma Ruth Rundle’s music never fails to wreck me. Whether she’s pitching her magical vocals against dense layers of droning post rock or enhancing dream-like acoustic textures, the singer-songwriter knows how to connect unlike anyone else. As such, Engine of Hell might just be her most emotionally intense record yet. Stripped down to nothing but one guitar, one piano, and one voice, there are no hints of distortion or the comfort of camouflage in sight. As the clouds of previous ventures lift, the album reveals a barren yet beautiful landscape: every minor flaw is on full display, yet augments the vulnerability of Rundle’s songwriting. She needn’t stretch her voice to combat against dense layers of sonic onslaught; instead, she appears to be wrestling with inner concepts of clarity and restraint. On the gorgeous “Dancing Man” she whispers in a delicate falsetto, quietly building tension before breathing out the song’s deeply moving chorus. Engine of Hell takes intimacy to unprecedented levels: “In My Afterlife” provides a shattering, yet hopeful conclusion to a record of muted desperation. Imagining an iteration of her body floating through the depths of space, Rundle declares that “now, we’re free.” It’s not exactly optimism, but it’s proof that even the most vulnerable moments and individuals are not perpetually exempt from light. –Jesper L.
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Sometimes all you need is great songwriting and production. Simple as that.
Wait, no, it’s not as simple as that. First, you need ambition. Hella ambition. You need to have a vision of what you wanna convey, and bandleader Michelle Zauner’s goal is to create POP. Not some kind of run-of-the-mill pop, nah, POP — all caps when you spell the man’s name — at its most bombastic, delicate, cathartic, and glorious.
That ambition needs some work to do, though — Rome wasn’t built in a day. After indie pop records that already showed Zauner’s vocal elasticity as well as her hookscrafting, she took music theory lessons and studied piano. And boy does it show, with Jubilee dexterously balancing grandiose bangers with smoother cuts while always retaining a lush and uplifting nature, even in the moodier moments that formerly constituted the core of her music. It’s the duality between the grand and the intricate that makes this record so great, managing to invoke intimacy despite the bomb-ass-thicc-ness. Pop music at its very best, Jubilee is the work of an artist who found new altitudes in terms of confidence and earnestness, conserving some of her root indie sensibilities while embracing her artsier side. It’s about an artist knowing she’s at the top of her game, achieving her ambition, and ultimately finding bliss through artistic expression. –Erwann S.
Let’s be honest: it’s a miracle that Ascension Codes is even as good as it is. So much has happened since Cynic’s 2008 comeback record Traced in Air: the drama between frontman Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert, both members coming out as gay, the disappointing follow-up album Kindly Bent to Free Us, the tragic deaths of Reinert and bassist Sean Malone, and so on. But the band, now reduced to a duo (with some guest musicians in tow), somehow soldiered on and created an extremely solid record despite such hardships. Ascension Codes retains the group’s newfound penchant for mellow, spacey progressive rock while experimenting with a tracklisting format that’s never been tried before on a Cynic record. Instead of a lean 8- or 9-song set, the band have now opted to give us 18 tracks that alternate between short ambient pieces and full-length cuts. It’s a refreshing format, and one that allows the album to breathe and develop at a very natural pace. While the experiments don’t always work — the interludes can be monotonous from time to time — it’s nice to know that Cynic are still willing to experiment and spread their wings this far into their career. Ascension Codes is the group’s most forward-thinking and creative project since Traced in Air, and I’m excited to see what they have in store for the future. –Brendan Schroer
In a single, continuous composition, this record is a journey painted by Sam Shepherd, who transcends through Pharoah Sanders’ saxophone. The central theme, whose notes are played in unison by synthesizer, piano and harpsichord, is repeated throughout the piece from beginning to end, incorporating some variations over time. Shortly thereafter, Sanders’ tenor saxophone fills the screen with atmospheric passages that heighten the dream effect. The string arrangements, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra by the hand of conductor Sally Herbert, appear in this instrumental canvas between Shepherd and Sanders as a backdrop, but without ever falling into the ignoble.
Promises is a masterpiece that unites two musicians from different generations. With classical, jazz and electronic nuances, the album is essentially ambient, with abstract and minimalist qualities. Nothing is randomly created like an improvisation done over the knee; the saxophone functioning as a brush that perfectly paints the artist’s vision. An authentic celebration of the juxtaposition of sound and silence with a sophisticated musicality that transcends every listen. –Zig
Erika de Casier knows how to be smooth, but more importantly, she knows how to let her music encapsulate smoothness. On Sensational, she juxtaposes calm beats, angelic guitars and a voice like silk in a beautiful r&b-tinged blend where the organic and calculated perpetually complement one another. Its low-key aesthetics envelop small tales of the everyday, culminating in understated, yet explicitly memorable hooks. Sensational is elegance without extravagance; it’s romance without recklessly flaunting its wings. –Jesper L.
[Official site] // [Spotify]
The classic 3.8 band with yet another 3.8 record to add to their discography. Nearly five years after the release of The North Corridor, Chevelle return with their newest venture into alt-metal, pushing further into progressive songwriting and composition much like the Tool-esque “Punchline” from their previous record. Mixing punchy riffs and grooves with soaring harmonies, NIRATIAS seamlessly executes both subtle aggression and melodic highlights. From the catchy, heavier “Mars Simula” to the vulnerable “Endlessly”, Chevelle continue to provide fans with a familiar-yet-fresh style that greatly enhances their already stacked repertoire. –Tyler W.
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Pressure Machine was nowhere close to being my favorite album of 2021, yet it feels like one of the year’s most necessary releases nonetheless. Like his idol Bruce Springsteen, Brandon Flowers seems eternally torn between concerted Lyrical Thoughtfulness and big warm-n-fuzzy singalongs, and though he’ll probably never be able to fully square that circle the way the Boss did in his prime, Pressure Machine finds him stronger on both fronts than ever before. Check the rootsy mandolin swoon of opener “West Hills” or the steely, confident synth groove on “In the Car Outside” — O, the poptunes, how they sparkle!
Most crucially, Flowers’ stabs at scene-setting and character study are now undergirded by a focus and sympathy he’s only hinted at previously. He’s rarely profound, but never anything less than honest. His aim isn’t to diagnose any deeper societal ills here; hell, he probably can’t. He’s ultimately as trapped in the spiritual prison of small-town America as the doomed souls that populate this album are, able only to give voice to their traumas and their aspirations. It can make for a frustrating listen if you have your own complicated feelings on the kinds of places and people sung about here — frustrating in the way hard, necessary conversations between people with different worldviews often are. Pressure Machine is important less because of what it offers than because of what it doesn’t: easy answers, clear-cut villains, catharsis. It’s a muddled, yet bracing portrait of a community in decay; Brandon Flowers can check out any time he likes, but he can never leave. –Nic Renshaw
In the unending ocean of available epithets to describe Year of the Horse, ‘imaginative’ might be a good start. Fucked Up have come a long way since their angst-filled hardcore punk days in the early 2000s, crafting a post-genre narrative of a horse and a little girl trying to find their way in a dust-opian westworld of hexes, demons and downtrodden folks. Apart from the masterful plot control and progression, the band’s musical maturity becomes evident in the way they balance harsh riffs and whiskey-tinged vocals with Spaghetti Western passages and post-rock climaxes, seamlessly blending soundscapes, voices, and styles. Lyrical and musical leitmotifs change appearance and meaning throughout the four lengthy “Acts” (the shortest being 19 minutes), and find their most ethereal and cathartic versions in their final minutes, where the frenzy resides and gives way to pensiveness. What could have easily come out as a pompous extravaganza with clay legs is actually a dark and surprisingly moving fairy tale: illustrating an artistic vision that transcends typical labels and boundaries, in equal doses familiar and groundbreaking. –Mythodea
[Official site] // [Spotify]
I think it’s safe to say that Cradle of Filth have been on a late-period winning streak ever since 2015’s Hammer of the Witches. After experimenting with a variety of approaches to their gothic extreme metal sound — with many of those ventures leading to mixed or downright disappointing results — Dani Filth and company finally returned to what made their first four albums so wonderfully engaging. With Existence is Futile, I’m happy to report that this newfound string of successes has yet to be broken. The group’s flair for gothic grandiosity and eldritch horrors is still in full force here, but there’s a newfound sense of existentialism and dread in the lyrics that helps humanize and ground the band’s signature sound. Musically, the record delivers something of a greatest hits collection of vintage Cradle throwbacks: you have the symphonic black metal elements, the NWOBHM and speed metal touches, and that classic Hammer Horror atmosphere. It really feels like a love letter to those who cherish the band’s classic output and felt disillusioned with the direction of their mid-period records, but it never strikes as an overt throwback or anachronism. This is classic Cradle of Filth, but reinvigorated and refined for the modern metal landscape — and if you haven’t been listening to the band’s recent output, Existence is Futile is the perfect chance to dive back in. –Brendan Schroer
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Once again, Toby Driver has found himself on the metal side of Kayo Dot’s ever-shifting face, returning from the orbit of his perplexing, yet fascinating art rock run. Many would gladly note one exception in this return: the unofficial revival of maudlin of the Well. It’s easy to see this move as a desperate source of creativity, but I prefer the perspective that this was always the natural progression for both projects. Kayo Dot’s evidence is seen in their last two records, where pent-up agitation in the instrumentals of Blasphemy was too obvious for hiding — that agitation was vulnerable for proper expression. Not even one minute of “The Knight Errant” was needed for that manifestation to occur. In maudlin of the Well’s case, Part the Second was the bright successor to the infamous 2001 sister records. Cue Newton’s Third Law of Motion, and we have ourselves a dark, dirge-filled successor, whose success can be considerably credited to the lyrics’ rather feral support in the compositions at hand. Toby and Jason eloquently babble on about olden tragedies while the instrumentals follow with hardly any order. The atmosphere often spirals into madness with its writing, but the smooth pacing, captivating riffs, and hypnotizing synth work make the experience all the more exceptional. I feel like the kind of trance this album offers is not as different from Kayo Dot’s previous work as some might think; however, this fusion of avant-garde metal giants has made something that, in my eyes, rivals the best of both worlds. –BlazinBlitzer
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Fashioning an admirable set of alt-rockers from their usual synthesized soundscapes, CHVRCHES’ latest is brimming with a nervous energy that pulses through its upbeat anthems and convincing ballads alike. The soaring “California” best nails the core of the album: the hidden glory of life mistakes and failed chapters. Rejuvenated after a rocky prior album, Screen Violence finds CHVRCHES at the top of their game with a record that anyone trapped in a sea of transition should appreciate with open hearts. –neekafat
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