I Guess Time Makes End Of The Year Lists of Us All: 50(ish) Albums from 2024
“Bottoms up to another year,” Amanda MacKaye famously sang, on “Birthday” (the first track side B of the Desiderata 7”, released by Dischord Records/Desichord Records in 1991). She followed this line with “this should be a happy day, I’m surrounded by the friends I’ve made.” That Ms.MacKaye signalled her ambivalence at the march of time and overriding alienation, even amongst friends and peers, thirty years before anyone had even heard of Bluesky, marks her as a prophet. Because time is indeed a motherfucker, commemorating its demarcations has rarely felt more pointless, and I’m beginning to suspect that a number of my peers may be idiots (and not just because none of them put me on their “writers I like” lists). Of course, a MacKaye exhibiting a cleareyed integrity which makes the rest of us look like compromise assholes isn’t exactly news. But what is news has been unrelentingly grim, so any retreat into existentialism is understandable. On the other hand, these lists of hierarchical art rankings won’t write themselves. I mean, they will eventually and God willing, when they do, our friends in the publicity industry will have figured out how to give an AI creative a “plus 1.” But we’re not there yet. So the good work continues.
What follows is a list of fifty-ish (I got tired of counting) albums that came out this year that I very much enjoyed. There are some notable omissions. Of those omissions, the reasons range from an album being on enough other lists that I didn’t think they needed me, an album being good but not as good as everyone claims, or an album being great and not on other lists but I just didn’t hear it (or I forgot to include it). Also, as this is for my newsletter and not my job, this list includes some artists that I’m friends with. For a full list of artists whose inclusion would constitute a conflict of interest were this my job, please send a screenshot of your becoming a paid subscriber to Abundant Living (or CREEM) and I’ll give you a name for every zero at the end of your kind donation. Ass, gas, or grass, etc. (no ass or grass please.)
As per usual, the albums are listed in the order I happened to write them, with no attention given to rating or comparative quality. They’re all my children and I love them all equally. Unless noted otherwise (but that’s family for you). Wrote mini blurbs where appropriate and provided links where I could get away with it. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ THE CREEM REVIEWS (AND YOU WOULD LIKE THAT VERY MUCH) BUT YOU DON'T HAVE A SUBSCRIPTION, JUST SIGN UP FOR THE MAILING LIST AND (FOR A LIMITED TIME) GET FULL ACCESS TO ALLLLL THE ARCHIVES. So maybe do that, yeah? (and then please subscribe so I don't need to go back to tending bar. thanks.)
OK! Let's check out what 2024 was like!
50-something Great Albums of 2024
Lost Legion - Behind the Concrete Veil (Mendeku Diskak) In terms of pure pleasure, probably my favorite album of the year. Won’t try (too hard) to convince those who aren’t already inclined to love the sound of breaking glass, but if think you don’t like bad boy street rock n roll just because you’re having a hard time discerning why cats too cool for Rancid claim to like the Chisel, give this album a try. Also, while I have your attention, I’d really appreciate it if one of you mid-tier indie labels would give Lost Legion’s Ian Wise $20,000 worth of studio time, a fairlite or two, and access to a string quartet. No idea if he would even want this but dude has a left field pop masterpiece in him (in the vein of Vic Godard, Scott Walker, the Adverts, or Blitz probably, if the kids had only believed in them), I just know it. At very least, let him do a Oblivians/Quintron type dealio. Even if the resulting album was a pretentious mess and/or total failure, the world would be better for its existence. In fact, I’ll pre-order now, Matador/Rough Trade/whomever. That’s $25 recouped before you even send Will Killingsworth a dime. Anyway, maybe the world will listen to me in the next life. CREEM review of Behind the Concrete Veil HERE.
Greaser Phase - s/t (Shambotic) Ten tracks of shameless tune mongering from Jonny Couch and Benny Imbriani (with drumming provided by Lydia Lunch/God Is My Co-Pilot drummer Kevin Shea). Couch’s Mystery Man LP was one of the best new wave albums of 2019 (that there wasn’t a ton of competition in that field in 2019 ain’t Couch’s fault or problem). If his new outfit focuses more on an overview of ‘70s pop rock radio than Rodney on the Roq specifically, it doesn’t suffer for it. Though it’s hard to tell since Greaser Phase makes every ounce of suffering sound sweet as candy (and occasionally bittersweet as… something bittersweet. Like maybe Sour Patch Bears).
Bed Maker - s/t (Dischord) that Desiderata 7” ruled hard. So a post-Revolution Summer no-core ripper by Amanda MacKaye, backed by ex-Mock Identity and 1.6 Band folx, is basically printing money.
jk jk jk, money is bad.
E L U C I D - Revelator (Fat Possum) Worth it for the Skech185 feature alone. Also worth it because it’s, as a whole, an absolutely righteous, sexy bully of a piece of artwork. If you don’t like it, you are a nerd. Reviewed HERE.
Psychic Graveyard - Wilting (Artoffact) Eric Paul’s seasick discotheque has been getting better with each album, with the poet/frontman himself getting simultaneously stranger and less oblique all the time and the band getting as close to perfecting their grotesquery-version of Egyption Lover as a coterie of avowed imperfectionists are probably willing to get. On Wilting, Rhode Island’s finest rock band (with only Throwing Muses as equals) have achieved an equilibrium that makes their anxious splatter feel almost universal. Or maybe the exterior world’s anxiety has finally hit common ground with Paul’s interiority. Pretty sure that everyone now just dreams about their teeth falling out. Either way, Psychic Graveyard’s electro infibulations feel more apt than ever.
Rəhman Məmmədli - Azerbaijani Gitara vol. 2 (Bongo Joe) Easily the coolest *sounding* album of the year. Nothing but brilliantly composed, multi prismatic storybooks, performed with an almost swashbuckling intensity and daring-do. Honestly, this shit makes me feel like a superhero. I mean, like first-run Power Man & Iron Fist, not that corny streaming stuff.
High On Fire - Cometh The Storm (MNRK Heavy) Yeah, Matt Pike believes in lizard people. But I haven’t seen any evidence that he believes in them any more than he believes that, say, Dr.Strange In The Multiverse was a documentary. Life is simultaneously too long and too short for me to worry about the boondoggle politics of a guy with six teeth, a blood alcohol count which for decades was in the positive integers, and a back catalog that includes “Holy Flames of the Firespitter,” “Fireface,” an hour long song called “Dopesmoker” and a song called “Bastard Samurai” (of any length). Matt Pike could believe that Hitler was a better painter than Rembrandt and I’d still be like “aw.” Sorry, Bluesky, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Also, Cometh the Storm has the best melodies of HoF’s career and Cody from Murder City Devils on drums, which canonically makes it a Las Vegas strip-style bump ‘n’ grind record. And that’s before Matt “sw” Pike even takes his shirt off.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Wild God (PIAS) There’s an entire essay to be written on why neither PIAS nor Cave’s publicists quoted from my (extremely positive) CREEM Magazine review of Wild God, as opposed to other reviews, most of which—with only a couple exceptions—pretty much rephrased the album’s rollout press. In the long run, I don’t know that codifying a binary of either “Nick Cave is bad, because of politics” or “Nick Cave is a saint, because of grief and beauty,” is the way to go. But, then, I’m not the one up for a Grammy. Anyway, Wild God is great, Cave’s politics are largely horsehit, I have no idea whether yelling at artists to make statements on any issue is effective culture jamming or solipsistic hobbyism but I do believe that cultural boycotts are a good thing (especially when there is no other tool at one’s disposal) and, finally (and tbc this is aimed at Cave’s sycophants more than it is at the man himself), I’m not terribly interested in any kneejerk genuflecting towards a narrative which prioritizes one man’s grief at the loss of his children over the collective grief caused by genocide just because it’s perfectly human to empathise with a single death and the latter dead are in numbers difficult to spiritually comprehend (and/or because none of the latter parents of those countless dead happened to write “O’Malley’s Bar”). Review HERE.
Workers Comp - s/t (ever/never) Stadium shit-fi that reminds me of being a dishwasher in Western Massachusetts listening to the Classic Rock station playing on the other side of the kitchen, praying that the 8 fluid ounces of Robotussin didn’t kick in until my shift was over.but suspecting the moon landing had started already. I may be romanticising that situation a bit, and my memory could be getting some years wrong, but Workers Comp sound a bit like that as well.
PyPy - Sacred Times (Goner) Loved this Montreal collective’s debut from way back in 2014, the follow up didn’t disappoint. Suburban Lawns, krautrock, and naturally derived pharmaceutical are the most surface points of reference, but PyPy (thankfully pronounced “PiePie”) are too wily to be pinned down to terrestrial comparisons alone. When Annie-Claude Deschênes (of Duchess Says) claims to be “blessed by the maiden,” I’m inclined to believe her (assuming that the “maiden” in question is the sun, the moon, and/or Venus as depicted by Shocking Blue). Longer review in the December issue of CREEM Magazine.
The Sleeveens - s/t (Dirtnap) Stiff Little Fingers’ guitar tech is in the Sleeveens which could have meant something depressing (ranging from journeyman to hacky) but instead is a nice shorthand for the effortlessly tuneful, lived-in craftsmanship involved here. Pastiche, sure, but infectiously heartfelt, and you gotta give it up for a band that throws an entire OED (or at least all the cool words) of power-pop-punk history into every song. Honestly you can just get this and throw your record collection away. Think of the shelfspace you’ll have!
MEMORIALS - Memorial Waterslides (Fire Records) Electrelane now. Electrelane forever. (Wire also has some jams.) CREEM review HERE.
Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp - Ventre unique (Les Disques Bongo Joe) Reviewed HERE.
Nox Novacula - Feed The Fire (Artoffact) It's difficult to put into words just how dire the majority of contemporary goth bands are. Partially because I don't want to name names (and put Nox Novacula in the uncomfortable position of reposting a positive notice that runs some of their peers down), and partially because my thesaurus doesn't give me a lot of options for synonyms of "rip off of Rosetta Stone because they're too gutless to take a shot at ripping of Sisters of Mercy directly," "vaguely aryan but essentially faceless techno," or "secret libertarian." Point is: I'd largely given up on finding new goth bands to champion. Nox Novacula solves this problem (which, if you're a rock critic with a Birthday Party tattoo, it most assuredly is) by A. not remotely needing me to champion them (I discovered them via the adoring notices they get on r/goth) and B. being boss as hell, having actual songs with actual choruses, and sporting their influences just proudly enough to get their released bats received (goth, like d-beat, is not a genre that prioritizes the shiny and new) without being total pastiche. Feed The Fire is a fantastic album. Extra points awarded for the band members themselves dressing like a mashup of Amebix, Gene Loves Jezebel, and the cast of Verotika.
Alambrada - Ríos De Sangre (Unlawful Assembly) Colombian punx gnawing on wires and playing five different subgenres of five different subgenres of punk/hardcore at once. Somehow, through sheer indifference towards traditional song structure or drummer etiquette, Alambrada makes it work. Or, if not “work” exactly, they make the songs explode/implode in a really neat-o fashion.
Feeling Figures - Everything Around You (Perennial) Lovely, intelligently grievous indie (in the UK ‘83-89 sonic meaning of the word, though also happily on a particularly swell independent label) songs that exist in a pocket dimension where college rock was actually interesting and didn’t get pushed aside to make room for an odious alternative nation. Anti-Lasik music. Buy it and go unionize your bookstore.
Amythyst Kiah - Still + Bright (Rounder) Honestly baffled why this didn’t get more love. Well, I have some notions but why spoil a nice day? I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocuous reason why some artists are allowed to simply exist, without having to lug around context or represent jack shit, and some ain’t. ANYWAY. Bonkers good album, catchy as all hell, and they should bring back Justified just to get at least six of the twelve tracks some syncs. Profiled Kiah HERE.
Faulty Cognitions - Somehow, Here We Are (Cercle Social Records) I don’t much go for rough-hewn feewings-punk. I’ve always disliked the Menzingers et al because I don’t like being told how to feel about drinking beer and kissing people on rooftops. I tended bar for 25 years so forgive me for losing interest in the Replacements once they made being regulars a big goddamn deal. Am I cold? Maybe! But I’ll be damned that I’m so cold that I’m ready to make having a beard part of my personality. That said, there are exceptions. Notable exceptions that maybe make a liar out of me. I’m a sucker for that one Gaslight Anthem album and the Marked Men are doing God’s work in my opinion. And, check it out, looks like we have another contender for the exception pile. This sentimental pop-punk-punky-pop wizz-banger is as gravely as the ground below a mid-sized fairground ferris wheel in a mid-sized dying industrial town and as hooky as any Pavlovian sing-along about being twenty-nine and a half, and don’t I just dig it. I think I’ll go get a beer and take my wife outside to take in the moon, see what she thinks.
Rotary Club - Sphere of Service (Iron Lung) Iron Lung Records has a policy of only releasing good music, which is such a sound policy that you’d think more labels would adopt it. If only I (or Iron Lung) was in charge, right? Anyway, Rotary Club is a landline themed punk band who manage to transcend novelty with such savoir faire you’d almost think they were all about something a bit deeper (which, conveniently, they are). Twelve buzzing and buzzcocky songs in twenty-six bubblegum sticky minutes, about technology, living in a society, and communication breaking down. Also, as one would expect, alienation up the wazoo. Longer review in December issue of CREEM Magazine.
Richard Thompson - Ship to Shore (New West) Review HERE.
Ibibio Sound Machine - Pull The Rope (Merge) Reviewed it for CREEM HERE.
Father John Misty - Mahashmashana (Sub Pop) My long standing view of Father John Misty has always been that his presence is redundant to anyone who’s had a roommate. I said as much in a review of Pure Comedy I wrote for Tyrant Books (RIP Giancarlo DiTrapano), which was commissioned after I asked on Twitter if anyone would pay me to review the album without listening to it (seriously, RIP Giancarlo DiTrapano), In a CREEM review of Misty’s Greatest Hits, I said even worse. So, considering that I’ve had no small amount of fun being a smug prick about the more talented smug prick’s catalog, it gives me no pleasure to admit that I fucking love this album. I don’t know if Misty has gotten great or if I’ve become terrible, but this shit just sends me. I prefer the mean-jeans Boz Scaggs funk to the orchestral loss-sauce but that doesn’t mean that Drew Erickson’s arrangements aren’t gorgeous and bracing throughout. There’s a few lyrics that make me go full-on Salliari with envy and the lines that don’t make me green still make me want to work harder. The reason why Mahashmashana is brilliant, and the similarly themed Geordie Greep album ain’t, is because Misty writes assholes as living and breathing charmers, thinking ill thoughts that Misty admits to thinking first, and the black midi writes assholes as aliens who think thoughts that he’d never be so icky as to subscribe to himself. Which makes Greep as much a bore as Father John is (always was????) an unadulterated pleasure to spend 51 minutes with at a time.
PS. from Wikipedia page: “Members of the Swedish post-punk band Viagra Boys receive a co-writing credit on ‘She Cleans Up’, with Tillman taking inspiration from their 2022 song, ‘Punk Rock Loser’.” As I’ve only recently come around on Viagra Boys, I can’t help but feel like this is relevant.
Drew McDowall - A Thread, Silvered and Trembling (Dais Records) I love everything McDowall does but I won’t pretend that describing his brand of holy-adjacent evocation is my strong suite, especially when the dude pretty much fucks me by using my go-to descriptors (“threaded,” “silvered,” and “trembling”) in the album title. Luckily Michael Douglass (of Fall of Efrafa) has a delightful newsletter where he lovingly describes such things better than I ever could. Also, it would be disrespectful to Drew’s career and ethos to not include a link to Enough!, theexcellent benefit album against the Israeli genocide and for the liberation of Palestine, which McDowall contributed to this year.
Straw Man Army - EARTHWORKS (D4MT Labs Inc.) There are certain strands of punk where the singing is didactically opposed to the trappings of, you know, singing. Bands like Minutemen or the Alec MacKaye Chit-Chat Explosion, where the adherence to the singer’s “natural” voice and aversion to rock and roll tropes rule out even screaming. Tbh I find it very weird. Like, do bands with singing that never rises above “conversational lecturing” bring their own monitors to shows? Not being a fool, of course I like the Minutemen. But, like the Jack Benny joke about “your money or your life” goes, when asked to choose between new wave and the truth, I’m thinking. In this, I always want to give all these singers a lil’ pinch, just to get a yelp. And I definitely wouldn’t mind if Straw Man Army got a bit more shouty or emo or something. And yet… and yet… I also don’t think I would, in good conscience, change a thing here. There’s something going on—with the mix of intonation and frantic romantic guitars, with the combination of manic intelligence and unreleased tension—that sets my teeth on edge in a way I really dig. Yeah, it’s conversational, lecturing even, but not any more so than Modern Life Is War. And the anti-imperialist tension—placed on top of serpentine bass and guitar lines so spaghetti-esque that they’re practically operating at High Noon/The Searchers levels of revisionist western—makes my heart do a skitter-scatter to match the beat (played by a drummer who seems to have their snare plugged into an exposed outlet).
Liberty & Justice - Locked In (Contra) Reviewed HERE.
OKSE - s/t (Backwoodz) Prob tied with Lost Legion for AOTY. CREEM review HERE.
Shrapknel & Controller 7 - Nobody Planning To Leave (Backwoodz) Review HERE but it would be nonsensical to have Nobody Planning To Leave and not the differently excellent
PremRock & Willie Green - Through Lines (Backwoodz) so let’s not be nonsensical.
Fat Tony & Fatboi Sharif & steel tipped dove - Brain Candy (Fused Arrow) Fatboi Sharif, being a singular artist, doesn’t need a foil to his wall-of-imagery style. And if I recall correctly, Sharif isn’t a fan of being misunderstood as purely a free association imagist, but still it’s plenty neat for the rapper, who historically favors a nice journey as much as he does a destination, to have Fat Tony, an acute interlocutor if there ever was one, for a co-star. In terms of timber, the two men sound good together (especially considering the not exactly sparkling history of clean vocals/cookie monster düos) and, as for the beats, steel tipped dove (as per usual) makes sure that both revelation and the mystery get shown equal amounts of love.
Faucheuse - Rêve Électrique (Symphony of Destruction) Reviewed HERE.
Uniform - American Standard (Sacred Bones) America’s sweetest Sweethearts. Reviewed HERE.
Mohammad Syfkhan - I Am Kurdish (Nyahh Records) Wall to wall bangers. So many bangers, you’re going to need more walls. So many bangers, you’re going to have to move to the country and build a new house. So many bangers that, even after you build that house, you’ll need to keep building extensions, a la the Winchester Mystery House, just to contain the sheer number of bangers. So many bangers that, with just one album of throbbing bouzouki wildness, Mohammad Syfkhan has solved the housing crisis.
Bab L’ Bluz - Swaken (Real World) While ever so slightly less psych than their 2020 debut, this year’s slab of Moroccan Chaâbi ‘n’ Roll has more than enough freak scene to satisfy anyone who counts speaking leather and lace as polyglot and likes their fuzz to sound like it’s coming with a comet attached.
Weak Signal - Fine (12XU) So nice to listen to that it’s easy to take for granted, but it’s deep. If I heard it in my twenties, I bet it would be my record of choice to try to sleep to, as my jaw moved from one end of the room to the other. I’ve never listened to an entire Yo La Tengo album but I suspect Fine checks similar boxes, but for people who tuck in their shirts. Longer review HERE.
MOURNING [A] BLKSTAR - Ancient//Future (Don Giovani) CREEM review HERE.
Sahra Halgan - HIDDO DHAWR (Danaya Music) I was totally unfamiliar with Ms. Halgan so this absolute barn burner of Somaliland choogle and Black and white striped alt-blues is nothing but pure, late game delight. Thanks, The Quietus!
J.R.C.G. - Grim Iconic… (Sadistic Mantra) (Sub Pop) Review HERE.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Nathan Salsburg, Tyler Trotter - Hear The Children Sing The Evidence (No Quarter) Wrote about it HERE.
Perennial - Art History (Ernest Jenning Record Co.) The Makers if they wore prescription glasses. Refused if Refused weren’t metalcore. Basically that Futurist painting of the horsey, minus the fascism. The sound of a horizontal striped shirt and the dream of a better tomorrow.
Alejandro Escavedo - Echo Dancing (Yep Roc) Wrote about this haunted beauty and the beautiful man who made it in CREEM. Reviewed it HERE.
Mary Timony - Untame the Tiger (Merge) Reviewed HERE.
Mo Troper - Svengali (self released) I’m not a power pop guy but Troper is a very fine songwriter and this would have been on other lists, so let’s just put it here. If you have an issue with this, I’m happy to discuss when we see each other in Hell.
Kid Congo Powers - That Delicious Vice (In The Red) A catalog highpoint in a career lousy with them. Wrote about it in CREEM HERE.
Neutrals - New Town Dream (Slumberland) For all their punk bonafides, this Scottish-Oakland power-twee supergroup has always couched the despair (that comes with not being idiots) in a sound that scans relentlessly hopeful. Whether it’s his keen sense of observation, a labor lawyer’s view of history, or just the accent, front person Alan McNaughten’s lyrics are endlessly wry, empathetic even, even when he’s singing about Thatcherite apparatchiks and/or the serially dim. Whether the band’s seeming good nature is deceptive or an insurmountable human virtue doesn’t really matter, and god knows I wouldn’t dream of saddling a rock band I like with such a diminishment as “essentially decent” (and I’ll see us all in Hell before I use “hope punk” or some such bullshit in a sentence), it’s hard to listen to this year’s Neutrals album and not feel like maybe humanity isn’t a complete shitshow after all. While there’s a fine line between jangling and cloying, the band is sly and propulsive enough to stay on the right side of that historical divide as well. With just enough cut to both their guitar lines and jibs, Neutrals at very least make me feel like my expanding collection of skinhead adjacent cardigans is the smart way to go.
The Voidz - Like All Before You (Cult Records) Not “good” exactly, but all the better for its bonkers-osity. CREEM review HERE.
Pat Todd & The Rankoutsiders - Keepin’ Chaos at Bay (Hound Gawd! Records) Pat Todd was the frontman for the Lazy Cowgirls, the Los Angeles punk band that, amongst a very fine catalog, put out one of the few truly great garage punk albums of the ‘90s. Todd would probably do better for his bankbook if he either entered the monetized punk nostalgia circuit or went full-on singer songwriter, but instead he’s taken the path of most resistance by making traditional, biker-inflected rock and roll music with a full band. I’m not going to pretend that this collection is for everyone (especially those of you under 40) in my readership, but for those readers looking for some tuff ‘n’ heartfelt sockhoppery—without the cartoonish posturing or maudlin slop that elder punk-turned-rockers can sometimes retreat into—this album is highly recommended. And even if Keepin’ Chaos at Bay is too capital “R” and capital “R” Rock and Roll for yr blood (in which case, your loss but also fair enough), I’ll still insist that you go out and buy a copy of Ragged Soul immediately. Just a few listens of “Frustration, Tragedy, and Lies,” and you’ll find yourself handsome in ways you wouldn’t have previously believed.
The Paranoid Style - The Interrogator (Bar/None) Wrote about it HERE.
Cameron Winter - Heavy Metal (Partisan) I’m on the record for feeling strongly that 2023’s Geese album is one of the best rock albums of the last ten years (and I profile the band in the upcoming issue of CREEM). 3D Country’s greatness is most assuredly the fruit of a collective, with Emily Green’s dancing guitar lines springboarding around a rhythm section that’s as inventive as any of yr seasoned art-faves. But there’s no denying that what puts the record over the top (for some weak souls, too much so) is Winter’s voice and performance; a combination of keening insinuation and a bravado both stadium rockin’ and existentially bossy. With that in mind, I was very much hoping to immediately love this album. I find Winter to be a charming interview and I’m pulling for him. That said, on the first few listens, I DID NOT GET THIS. While understanding on an intellectual level that Winter is a human being and not some household god that owes me a fertile harvest and whatnot, I am as guilty as any critic/fan of wanting my rock stars to be the exact thing I want them to be. And I wanted the Geese frontman to be the alternately goonish and bookish, pagan and overwrought, Casablancas-Chris Robinson-frankenweenie-hypebeast he’s so outstanding as in Geese. If I wanted Rufus Wainwright doing some Closing Time/Gris Gris hybrid, I’d listen to jazz. That said, I am indeed pulling for the galoot, so I stuck with it. And stuck with it and stuck with it and stuck with it. Did the album reveal itself as a work of misunderstood genius? I dunno. It may still be a weird album by a weird weirdo. But I rarely care for genius and goddamn if Heavy Metal didn’t start to make some semblance of sense, before becoming entirely entertaining, before finally becoming delicately moving. What at first seemed like lounge act pathos revealed itself to be offhand classicism, rendered jenky as an artful depiction of delirium. And the threads of sweetness made themselves apparent (and compelling) with each listen. And, fuck it, if I’m going to sell my soul and cop to loving the new Father Misty album, I’ll say without equivocation that Heavy Metal’s final track (“Can’t Keep Anything”) is as lovely (and potentially standard-worthy) as anything that Misty or any any other bohunk troubadour has done.
G.O.O.N. - God’s Only Option Now (Convulse) Probably not influenced by Dustheads (but maybe) and possibly not influenced by Hank Wood (but probably), G.O.O.N. are most likely influenced by a bunch of hardcore bands I’ve never heard of. Possibly by a bunch of hardcore bands that only exist in dreams, and now we have a hardcore band that covers Pink Fairies. Which wasn’t even a dream I knew I had until I heard it, and now it’s the only dream I’ve ever had that’s made a lick of sense. Great album. Possibly a classic. Probably not, but only because the hardcore tastemakers over at r/hardcore prefer easy signifiers and sports.
Kriegshög - Love & Revenge (La Vida Es Un Mus Discos Punk) Mclusky playing City Baby Attacked By Rats for literal rats. Mainly sounds like a mountain with strep throat. Occasionally the guitars sound like they’re trying to escape.
Couch Slut - You Could Do It Tonight (Brutal Panda) I’m as happy/grateful as anyone for the existence of a new Jesus Lizard album, but let’s not pretend that Rack is anything other than a better than average Nazareth album. And, luck for us, we don’t have to pretend shit. Because Couch Slut made a noise rock album for the world as it is, not how your average Park Slope dad in a secret Swans shirt would like it to be. CREEM review HERE.
Extra Life - The Sacred Vowel (Charlie Looker) Ideologically ambiguous, aesthetically gorgeous. Just like the universe, man.
Cicada - Wicked Dream (Unlawful Assembly) This album is ridiculous. Yeah, United Mutation is a (very useful, I’m sure) touchstone but so is the Tasmanian Devil, both the Looney Tunes anti-hero and the actual furry beastie. While the short-cropped barker vocally whirly-dervishes around the songs, the band plays a combination of ABC No Rio hardcore and the kind of beautiful death metal that the good people of Decibel Magazine typically go googoo-gaga over (but without any of the boring parts). All in all, the record is a perfectly absurd 11 minutes. 44+ minutes if you listen to it over and over like I do. Highly recommended.
Shellac - To All Trains (Touch & Go) I went back and forth on whether or not to include this one. Within the Albini Cinematic Universe, it’s maybe not one of his essential works, if only because the band mainly does what they do (very well) and no more, and Albini’s lyrics are offhand enough that you’d think he had all the time in the world. There’s always the next one, right? Except when there isn’t, and then you get an album that’s better than all the Albini imitators combined but also has an opening track that has a bassline more reminiscent of Green Day’s “Basket Case” than maybe Albini would have liked to be his last will and testament. It’s not as though Albini’s path in life was so simple as “great art/sketchy person becomes great person/pretty good artist” —with Shellac’s “Prayer To God” (a morally iffy track which goes harder than divorce) serving as the place where those two arcs intersected. Even if that was the case, it’s probably the better journey than its opposite. But that was not the case, because (without diminishing his early edgelord nonsense in the slightest… it fucking sucked) Albini was never quite as sketchy as the lunatics would have us retroactively believe (I know we’re not supposed to make time-and-cultural-place excuses, so I won’t, and even a cursory examination of my writing and/or social media will show multiple instances of my using Albini as an example of an archtype to be avoided… but, also, the late ‘80s underground was a very very very stupid space). And Albini never stopped making interesting work. Until, of course, he did stop. But that cessation occurred when the man ceased to exist, not when he recorded “Scabby the Rat.”
Extra points awarded for “I Don’t Fear Hell,” the final track of To All Trains, where Albini sings “Leap in my grave like the arms of a lover / If there's a heaven, I hope they're having fun / Cause if there’s a hell, I'm gonna know everyone” and presciently undercuts any future sentimental think pieces (especially those inclined to use the man’s words for purposes he’d despise) by padding the start of each chorus with “something something something…” If we’re going to be saps about Albini, we’ll have to do it on our own.
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