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2015 FBG Album Poll - Courtney Barnett is #1 (1 Viewer)

kupcho1 said:
Brony said:
kupcho1 said:
List PM'd

I had a hard time allocating all my points this year. Not sure if it is Spotify or what, but I find myself more singles oriented than whole albums.

It took me roughly 20x as long to come up with my 20 favorite singles (and had to stop myself at 20)

Here's my 2015 playlist if you want to seek any of these out

2015 - Loud and rough round the edges
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that link just goes to Spotify home.
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https://open.spotify.com/user/kupcho1/playlist/4ona0F0g6SvTVZaJBdzHStFixed (I think)
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:thumbup:

 
Northern Voice said:
Steve Tasker said:
Northern Voice said:
Eephus said:
I can't recall us ever sticking to the original deadline but I won't be able to send my list in until Jan 15 because (look at me) I'll be out of the country.
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I'm out of the country Jan 16-23. Countdown will be on a Friday, so either 15th or 29th - leaning 29th to get more lists in.
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29th confirmed? (I'm hoping 29th so I can be here for the reveal :whistle: )
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Yeah, it will be the 29th, FINAL deadline of the 26th, so I can compile it all for the countdown.
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Bump for the deadline. Time for all those people who file their taxes by driving by the post office on the evening of April 15 to get their album lists in.

 
I have lists from:

erricctspikes

Amused to Death

mphtrilogy

E-Z Glider

pettitfogger

El Floppo

Bonzai

Brony

The Dreaded Marco

Karma Police

Fiddles

Nick Vermeil

NorthernVoice

kupcho1

JZilla

Abraham

If you have sent a list and aren't on here, let me know. If you have a last minute list SEND IT RIGHT ####### NOW or at least by the end of the day.

 
Deep year. Lots of stuff that I liked but nothing that I loved enough to warrant the 30 point hammer.

FFS --- FFS --- 20
Laura Marling --- Short Movie --- 20
Bop English --- Constant Bop --- 20

Wolf Alice --- My Love is Cool --- 15
**** Diver --- Melbourne, Florida --- 15
Mikal Cronin --- MCIII --- 15
Girls Names --- Arms Around a Vision --- 15
Father John Misty --- I Love You, Honeybear --- 15
The Internet --- Ego Death --- 15

Django Django --- Born Under Saturn --- 10
Gold Class --- It's You --- 10
Gaz Coombes --- Matador --- 10

Beach Slang --- The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us --- 5
Car Seat Headrest --- Teens of Style --- 5
EL VY --- Return to the Moon --- 5

New Order --- Music Complete --- 1
A Projection --- Exit --- 1
Moon Duo --- Shadow of the Sun --- 1
East India Youth --- Culture of Violence --- 1
The Weeknd --- Beauty Behind the Madness --- 1
Posted rather than PMed so I can refer to it later

Spotify album playlist

Poorly maintained songs playlist

 
1. Grimes - Art Angels - 30

2. Jamie xx - In Colour - 26

3. CHVRCHES - Every Open Eye - 24

4. Beach House - Depression Cherry - 19

5. Vulfpeck - Thrill of the Arts - 14

6. Bully - Feels Like - 12

7. Wolf Alice - My Love is Cool - 11

8. Tame Impala - Currents - 10

9. The Internet - Ego Death - 9

10. Noveller - Fantastic Planet - 8

11. TWIABP - Harmlessness - 8

12. Purity Ring - Another Eternity - 6

13. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly - 5

14. Summer Camp - Bad Love - 5

15. My Morning Jacket - The Waterfall - 4

16. Keep Shelly in Athens - Now I'm Ready - 3

17. Leon Bridges - Coming Home - 2

18. FIDLAR - Too - 2

19. Speedy Ortiz - Foil Deer - 1

20. Ryn Weaver - The Fool - 1
 
Work got in the way this AM but this will go down after lunch. I may just keep it in this thread, unless there's a reason i should start a new one?

 
Yeah, shoutouts to the the guy who tried to give an album 70 points, and also the guy who's total equalled 224 points (I basically took 10% off every total on that one).

 
no need for a new thread.

yeah- strange year, music-wise, IMO. a bunch of stuff that was *ok* to me, but not a lot that grabbed and shook me. I surprised msyelf to put the tennis people at #1, but c'est la guerre.

 
Same as last year, I'm going to plow through the bunch that were tied and the ones that only received one vote:


T-#50

The Internet - Ego Death

24 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: Steve Tasker, Eephus

Review: Song for song, there's hardly a miss in this bunch. Having been enticed first by the bass line of single "Special Affair," listeners are faced with album opener "Get Away," a marching nod to the stress of trying to make it and the necessary opiate of escapism. Throughout the album, Midtown Pat's bass tones combine with Syd's vocals to form the perfect high end/low end duo. This is especially true on the more stripped down "Just Sayin'/I Tried."


"Under Control" is a particular standout, as a soft guitar strums over Slick Rick's "Children's Story"-style drums with punctuating keys. In it, Syd sings promises to the object of affection that she's about to blow up, assuring her she'll be well taken care of, "When I'm a legend baby." It's an audacious theme, softened by Syd's gentle delivery and beats that win you over long before you have time to contemplate the harsh disposal of her expired infatuations.

The Kaytranada-assisted "Girl," the second single, is an intoxicating aberration in that it sounds more like a Syd tha Kyd feature than a the Internet song. Songwriting sensation James Fauntleroy appears on "For The World," a breezy meld of Michael Jackson's "I Can't Help It" and Pharrell's "Frontin'." The rest of the guest features are somewhat extraneous, often overshadowed by what the band has brought to the table. Vic Mensa and Tyler, the Creator both lend unremarkable vocal performances, while you'd be hard pressed to even identify Janelle Monáe in the otherwise brilliant "Gabby."

The beauty of Ego Death is in how it evokes the past without plagiarizing it; from Bob James, to the King of Pop, to Dwele and more, Syd and company have shrugged off contemporary trends in exchange for earlier inspirations. On paper, that may not seem like anything particularly unique, but in doing so they've made an album that is superior to anything those influences have delivered in recent years. Ego Death frees the Internet from Odd Future connotations and R&B norms; it's their best work yet.
T-#50

Lord Huron - Strange Trails

24 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: mphtrilogy, E-Z Glider

Review: A solid seven years ago, Lord Huron’s sophomore album might’ve broke the bank a little bit, but now, the Los Angeles troubadours’ particular brand of ensemble indie-folk (Fleet Foxes, My Morning Jacket, M. Ward) has faded into the cultural outfield. But here’s why trends are dumb: Lord Huron’s Strange Trails is enchanting from start to finish. A lush collection of guitar-and-bass-led rootsy-tootsy ballads, the record is in head-over-heels with both nature (thus the title) and also infatuation itself. Lead singer Ben Schneider invokes the elements on the handclap-laden “Hurricane” (“I get a thrill outta playing with fire / ‘Cause you hold your life when you hold that flame”), faces his fears by likening them to a remote forest in “Meet Me in the Woods,” and sings love’s praises in the too-on-the-nose but addictively upbeat bouncer “Fool for Love,” which effectively puts the “spring” in “Springsteen.” Pulling a Bon Iver-gone-to-Walden Pond move might be grossly overdone by now, but Lord Huron has skillfully overturned the tired mulch in favor of tuneful new growth. — RACHEL BRODSKY
 
T-#44

The Mountain Goats - Beat the Champ

25 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: kupcho1

Review: The wrestling world Darnielle paints is full of people being stabbed in the eye “with a foreign object” and having their faces “torn to shreds”. More importantly, however, it is also a world that takes its emotional toll on its participants. The crucial moment comes in ‘Heel Turn 2’, when Darnielle sings a plaintive “I don’t want to die in here”, marking the point at which the visceral blood rush ends and the spiralling descent into frustration, depression and anonymity begins.


There’s a loneliness Darnielle attaches to the wrestler that speaks to all of us, and which seems particularly appropriate for the sportsperson or the musician, for those among us who rely in some way on the adulation of others. The second half of Beat the Champ thus feels like a journey of self-discovery, albeit one in which the answers are not always entirely pleasant. The album reaches a bizarre mix of starkness and humour on ‘The Ballad of Bull Ramos’, which seems to be a paean to a late wrestling star turned truck driver ravaged by some combination of accidents, blindness and diabetes in his later years. The closer ‘Hair Match’ prompts Beat the Champ to end on a similarly mixed emotional note. It’s a tale of humiliation – in which match loser suffers a public shaving post-defeat – but features a declaration of love in its conclusion that, in the wider context of the record, strangely seems utterly appropriate.

It’s also probably the most expansive-sounding Mountain Goats record to date, less because of the occasional use of horns than because of the album’s dynamic variety. There’s a far heavier use of piano than one would expect from an album about wrestling, but the more restrained tracks that rely on it are balanced neatly against the punk blast of ‘Choked Out’ and the cavalcade of drumming that dominates ‘Werewolf Gimmick’. This ensures that Darnielle’s use of what could easily become gimmicky subject matter remains firmly grounded, anchored as it is to some impressive, and highly suitable arrangements; the gorgeous piano coda of the aforementioned ‘Heel Turn 2’ is a particularly good example.
T-#44

Lady Lamb - After

25 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: kupcho1

Review: Lady Lamb the Beekeeper (known to her parents as Aly Spaltro) sounds like the arty young woman you knew in college who would jam with her friends in the basement of a video store after hours and sell CD-R's of her songs in homemade packages on consignment at the local record shop. And seeing as all of that happens to come from Lady Lamb's biography, it stands to reason, but while there are hundreds of artists with similar résumés whose music is barely tolerated by their closest friends, Spaltro is that rarity, a semi-hippie artist-slash-musician with real talent and the will to do something with it. While there are plenty of drums and electric guitars at work on After, Lady Lamb's second proper album, the core of her sound is rooted in folk, and there's an unforced sunniness and sweet soulfulness in Spaltro's vocals and an elemental force in her melodies that sound like they could have come from a guitar pull around a bonfire. But Spaltro is also one folkie who gets what to do with electric instruments, and the massed vocals and distorted guitars on "Heretic," the funky drumming on "Spat Out Spit," and the full-on rock of "Vena Casa" shows that she has an eclectic pop sensibility that weaves itself in and out of her songs to impressive effect. While the production on After had just enough polish (and the accompanists have strong enough chops) to give this music a smooth veneer, Spaltro's songs sound alive and responsive throughout, and her vocals are strong and expressive without seeming at all affected. Lady Lamb is playful without being silly, serious without weighing down her music, and impressionistic without being oblique; she can express herself and make her music work in the studio without seeming pretentious or gazing into her navel. Add it all up, and After is a minor triumph that makes it clear Lady Lamb is going to be around for a while, and may give you new hope for those kids making arty noise in their basement down the block.

T-#44

Stone Foxes - Twelve Spells

25 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: Jaysus

Review:

For a long period of time, blues rock and The Stone Foxes were inseparable. It wasn’t as if they tried to rid themselves of the association either, but like anything, they have evolved into a much bigger beast with more heads (literally). Twelve Spells allures directly to the number of songs on the album that were released for free one at a time each month up until the actual release of the album, which isn’t a conventional tactic, but a luxury for an independent artist like them.
“On what record label would they allow us to release each single for free and then an album?” acknowledges Koehler. “We have a lot of creative control this way. I’m not saying they’re a billion offers coming all the time, but for now, we can do this our own way. “
And as far is Spells is concerned, pick your poison. Garage, grunge, punk and their staple hard rock emit throughout the album with subject diversity.
“We want to talk about where we’re from. We talk about gentrification and income inequality and relationships. We wanted to be at the root of rock and roll, our heart is that rock and roll, but what we want to create a space. I think our darker tones are really coming out, especially in the first half of the record. “
Although numerically Twelve Spells is album number four, it does feel as though whole new chapter has begun for band that has made music for nearly a decade.
T-#44

The Libertines - Anthems for Doomed Youth

25 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: erricctspikes

Review: There are several instant classics here: the olde-worlde The Milkman’s Horse, whose bouncy “get out of my dreams you scum” chorus is pure joy; Doherty’s wistful, woozy acoustic drug paean Iceman; Heart Of The Matter, rattling along early Baby Shambles-fashion; the huge sing-along title track and rueful You’re My Waterloo.


Even when things get a bit iffy (which they do), something often comes to rescue, as with first single Gunga Din, whose clumpy cod-reggae verses surrender to a sweeping, earworming chorus. Only Fame And Fortune, a swaying Britpop knees-up eulogising The Libs’ early days, falls foul of needless self-parody and hubris.

Anthems For Doomed Youth must, of course, be an ironic title. The Libertines aren’t young any more, and the doom they once so cavalierly courted has been left instead for the likes of Alan Wass, Doherty’s friend who died early this year and is remembered in the desolate final track, Dead For Love.

As for The Libertines, they’re back in their self-romanticising, chaotic, self-made world. For how long who knows; enjoy it while you can.
T-#44

AWOLNATION - Run

25 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider

Review: Deliver 12 new versions of "Sail," or keep Awolnation weird. He does the latter, and that's a good thing. On Run, Bruno acts like a short-order cook serving up a menu of diverse sounds as fast as possible: the Ryan Tedder hook-slinger special, the Jeff Lynne and Brian Wilson instrument-drenched combo, the Trent Reznor with a side of schmaltz. His stamina alone is worth applauding; a number of his songs are too. "Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)" welds '80s dance pop to throbbing industrial skronk, like OMD getting a piggyback ride from Skinny Puppy. "Fat Face," with its soft-shoe beat and winsome pianos, could be mistaken for Electric Light Orchestra if Bruno weren't screaming its chorus. And the charming acoustic ballad "Headrest for My Soul" is as unassuming as its title.


If there's another "Sail" here, it's grinding rocker "Windows," but even that features Pet Sounds-esque arrangements and cascading pop vocals. Like the rest of the LP, the song brims with textures and moods that go in multiple directions at once. Listening to Bruno try to pull it off is fascinating, though not particularly moving. It's like watching someone juggle chain saws.

As evidenced by Bruno's forebears -- those aforementioned pop visionaries -- there's a long and storied line of geniuses/nutjobs who can anchor their orchestral ambitions with real emotion. Bruno's not there yet, and it's possible he never will be; his rightful place may just be behind the boards rather than in the spotlight. Emo lyrics aside -- "Last night I fell apart/Broke from my swollen heart," he sings over the delicious synth pop of "Woman Woman" -- Run is more of a technical accomplishment than an artistic one. Bruno the pop star is not nearly as appealing as Bruno the juggler.
 
Consensus music critic album of the year...

#43

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly

25 Points, 3 Votes

Ranked Highest By: Karma Police, Fiddles, Steve Tasker

Review: No accomplishment in hip-hop is rarer or more celebrated than the classic debut, so the rap world was eager to welcome Kendrick Lamar’s breakthrough Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City as one in 2012. Never mind that it wasn’t actually Lamar’s first album: Good Kid announced the arrival of a major talent, and like every mythologized rap debut, it seemed almost presciently aware of its own importance. Lamar even subtitled the album “A Short Film By Kendrick Lamar,” a needlessly pretentious billing that telegraphed his cinematic vision for the project. He brought a screenwriter’s sense of order to Good Kid’s day-in-the-life narrative about coming of age in Compton. Even its detours were tightly plotted. The trade-off for that meticulous structure, however, was that it fed Lamar’s tendency to over-explain himself. He highlighted every theme in yellow, repeating and underscoring every major point, often with redundant skits and interludes. The album played like a Cliffs Notes version of itself.


On Lamar’s longer, denser, and even richer follow-up To Pimp A Butterfly, he stops holding the listener’s hand. As on Good Kid, he’s consumed by hot-button issues—racial injustice, skin tone, addiction, broken homes, sexual politics, the limits of faith, and the legacy of slavery among them—but this time he refuses to connect his own dots. Where Good Kid was a linear story, To Pimp A Butterfly is an 80-minute pileup of loose ends, unfinished thoughts, and contradictions. Lamar will hint at a conclusion, then refute it; point fingers, then redirect them. And sometimes, as if maddened by the impossibility of making all these misshapen puzzle pieces fit together, he turns his anger on himself. He screams his parting verses on “U” into a hotel mirror, berating himself for abandoning his old neighborhood, including a fallen friend he never got around to visiting in the hospital. On the raging “The Blacker The Berry,” he continually calls himself out as a hypocrite. At first, he wears the word with some pride, but by the song’s end it’s a damning slur, snarled with disdain.

Befitting Lamar’s thematic sprawl, the music on To Pimp A Butterfly is similarly wide-ranging, crowded with swollen funk grooves and scribbled jazz horns, and almost completely uninterested in anything resembling a radio single. There’s plenty of recent precedent for albums this virtuosic and unbound, but it comes not from rap but rather neo-soul, where artists like Erykah Badu, Bilal, and D’Angelo have painted on ever-expanding canvases. Bilal in particular serves as a model for Butterfly’s warm, studio-session feel. He flanks Lamar periodically, as part of a rotating chorus of credentialed soul singers including James Fauntleroy, SZA, Anna Wise, and Lalah Hathaway. Jazz pianist Robert Glasper, another player with deep ties to the neo-soul scene, lays his dazzling key-work all over the “For Free” interlude, and even the tracks built from samples feel as if they were recorded live.

There’s a moment at the end of To Pimp A Butterfly where Lamar teases a clean takeaway from this impressionistic mishmash of stray thoughts and new and old black music styles. “Mortal Man” culminates in a lengthy, imagined conversation with Tupac Shakur, pieced together from a 1994 radio interview with the late rapper. Lamar hits it off with his idol. They exchange their views on society and art, laughing in agreement. Then Lamar closes with one last question, positing a long, plausible-enough theory that would seem to tie the album’s primary themes together into one poetic metaphor about butterflies and caterpillars. “What’s your perspective on that?” he asks Shakur, eager for affirmation. But instead he receives only silence, as the album ends abruptly. Even in its final moments, To Pimp A Butterfly refuses easy answers.
 
#42

Drenge - Undertow

27 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: El Floppo, JZilla

Review:
Drenge might have ditched the sticks, but there’s still a dogged commitment to keeping things local. ‘The Woods’ – the best thing they’ve written – is not just a beautifully evil ******* of a song, but one that sees them trudging through neighbouring landmarks (“Burn my body by the banks of the Derwent”), quoting the Lord’s Prayer ( “Lead us not into temptation/but deliver us from evil”) and cribbing from ‘Rumours’ era Fleetwood Mac on what is the most epic powerhouse guitar solo of 2015 so far. ‘Have You Forgotten My Name?’ boasts similar geographical amblings (“We lit a fire on the moors/To watch the purple heather and the gorse/Go up in smoke”) and so much drum thwacking and stadium-sized guitar widdling that it seems ready to break out into ‘The Chain’.

This isn’t so much a progression as a rebirth. Sonically, the touchstones are also kept to mainland Britain. With a growling rhythm but strangely cutesy lyrics ("I wanna be hugged and I wanna be kissed/I don't wanna be ####ed I just wanna be his"), ‘Favourite Son’ might initially seem like a Nirvana pastiche, but it’s indebted to the grot-abilly of Brighton’s Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster.

Where ‘Drenge’ offered brutal bloodshed and casual violence, ‘Undertow’ is much more focused on sneaking malevolence. The addition of bass guitar, played by Rob Graham – old friend and ex of blues-rock duo Wet Nuns – on ‘The Snake’, pulsing QOTSA-style instrumental ‘Undertow’ and the decidedly mean ‘Side By Side’, not only beefs up Drenge’s sound, but adds a depth of emotion that carries throughout this gripping record. Like a well-paced thriller, we skip from moody scene-setters (the Danzig-on-a-day-trip of ‘Never Awake’) to the likes of full-throttle comeback single ‘We Can Do What We Want’, which makes a rare excursion into a major key for some Buzzcocks punk carnage.

‘Undertow’ doesn’t just make Drenge sound like the UK's most brilliantly disorderly band, it makes the Peak District seem utterly sinister place, full of gun-toting deviants in North Face jackets and cream-tea-guzzling car-jackers. Consider our train tickets booked.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/reviews/drenge/15996#RPbZxYOLUYkECqzb.99
 
lol... I liked the Kendrick Lamar album... but figured the rest of you would give it plenty of votes, so didn't even rate it.

 
#41

Beach House - Depression Cherry

29 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: Steve Tasker, kupcho1

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Bloom (#32 in 2012), Teen Dream (#4 in 2010)

Review: It’s only been three years since Beach House last released an album, but music changes so quickly that it seems like the Baltimore duo had been gone for ages. At any rate, Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally are back now with their fifth full-length album, a collection of nine songs that are more intimate than the music on their past few records.


That’s not coincidence: as Beach House grew into bigger stages and played for larger crowds, the duo’s sound expanded, too, and the somewhat more streamlined aesthetic of Depression Cherry is their reaction. The songs are still plenty lush, wrapping Legrand’s sleepy voice in gauzy synthesizer drifts adorned here and there with languorous stabs of guitar. What’s different here is the relative simplicity: instead of layer upon layer of instrumentation, Legrand and Scally leave more space in their arrangements. The difference is mostly subtle, but clearing away some of the sonic underbrush helps emphasize the essential elements of their songs and the elegance of their music.

Legrande’s voice floats over gently pulsing accompaniment and a tap-tapping electronic rhythm on opener “Levitation,” and she sings in distant, breathy tones punctuated with a whining guitar that surges and recedes. A huge cyclone of guitar spins through the start of “Sparks,” fading into synths that frame Legrand’s sweet voice with crackles of static, while “Days of Candy” closes the album with an aching lament that stretches past six minutes. Legrand sighs through a wispy melody that evokes a classic Judy Garland-esque torch song, and an array of synthesizers spin around her voice in tight concentric circles.

 
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T-#34

Czarface - Every Hero Needs a Villain

30 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: Jaysus

Review: The rhymes are as crippling as kryptonite on Every Hero Needs A Villain, Inspectah Deck's sophomore effort with Boston battle rap legends 7L & Esoteric. Deck — who was the Wu-Tang Clan's unsung hero before this villainous new turn — unleashes one hilarious doomsday diss after the next on the LP, while Esoteric spouts boasts worthy of the zaniest of mad scientists. On "Red Alert," they mock their rivals for being gluten-free, celiac disease-afflicted yuppies, and on "World Premier," they boast about their "piss (that can) cut toilets in half."


7L handles the no-frills production, which is rife with early '90s RZA homages on "Night Crawler" and the aforementioned "World Premiere." But the Bostonian beatsmith also experiments with crunchy classic rock style guitar riffing on "Czartacus" and "The Great (Czar Guitar)." Those beats prove to be a dynamic soundtrack for Esoteric and Deck's shameless, endlessly entertaining punch lines, which are bizarrely charming enough to leave you rooting for the bad guy. (Brick)


T-#34

Fort Frances - No One Needs to Know Your Name

30 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: kupcho1

Review: No One Needs To Know Our Name is a leap forward for the Chicago trio, leaning more toward rock than their folk beginnings. Traces of Spoon and Dawes ooze out of every song while singer David McMillin maintains his pop radio-friendly voice.


The biggest similarity between this new EP and some of their older work is the idiosyncrasies that you find all throughout. There’s some phrasing in the lead track “Days Get Heavy” that you don’t hear very often (reminds me a bit of Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine) that betrays the campfire feel produced by the pretty three-part harmonies.

“Best Of Luck” sounds like it could’ve been a Good News For People Who Love Bad News song that just missed the cut. The music overpowers the lyrics a bit, but I like the line at the end, “Your mind takes pictures of everywhere you’ve been, and everything that’s lost can be found again.”

The record may be called No One Needs To Know Our Name, but I think people will want to know Fort Frances once this EP hits. These are five well-crafted tunes performed by guys who’ve been making hits flying under the radar for years. Take some time to listen to The Atlas and Harbor before everyone knows their name.

T-#34

Ike Reilly - Born on Fire

30 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: The Dreaded Marco

Review: Ever since the release of his debut album Salesmen and Racists back in the day, it was clear that Ike Reilly would stray the way of the rock ‘n’ roll troubadour: never quite famous, but always the fringe realist demanding universal respect within his niche in the musical world. 15 years and six albums later — both with and without his band the Assassination — Reilly’s still got this description finely emblazoned on all that he does, acting as a true trailblazer of the industry in his own right. Crafting his own space somewhere between the cockles of rock and roll roots throughout the past decade and a half, his sound comes to a whole on the fantastic Born on Fire: a culmination of his years recording and performing that totally embrace his well-worn policy of “quality over quantity.”


As far as his overarching body of work is concerned, Reilly’s sonic indelibility only remains second fiddle to his astounding ability to craft a personal story and envelop it in song. It’s in tracks such as opener “Born on Fire”, from which the album takes its title, that it becomes evident why comparisons between Reilly and Bob Dylan don’t seem quite so alien. “I can’t leave you no money,” he forthrightly sings with a no-nonsense, at-ease rigidness to his vocal, “I can’t leave you no land / I can’t leave you no faith / I lost what little I had…But I can leave you this truth / Hold on to desire / And take your flames to the streets / ‘Cause you were born on fire”. Ending the track with an expansive chorus, Reilly strikes a unique chord by wrapping a song in such forthright, auspicious favor.

Also of prominence among the more roots-flavored offerings on the record is “Am I Still the One For You”. At first featuring a simplistic acoustic melody stamped out by a guitar that evolves into full instrumentation with a clap-along groove, Reilly inhabits the song as snugly as a good winter coat. With a little grit, he delivers as many frank, often socially stringent truths to a perceived love, asking of them bluntly: “Am I still the one for you?” What truly makes the song shine is in the way that Reilly so easily takes on the song. By all means, it’s a relaxed, danceable folk rock-feeling number, but lyrically, it’s taken to a one-part optimism, two-parts cynicism area that Reilly and few other modern artists know how to occupy so comfortably.

Closing track “Paradise Lane” takes a similar route in those vocal regards as “Am I Still the One for You”, but culminates with the choral genius of the titular “Born on Fire”, with Tom Morello’s brilliant signature work on electric guitar driving it home as an easy rocker tinged with psychedelics not previously seen within Reilly’s 15 years of prolific work. Other tracks that are especially of note include the strong funk-driven groove of “Job Like That (Laselle & Grand)” and the DJ-led “Do the Death Slide!”, the latter of which strongly accentuates Reilly’s special knack for slipping into character before rocking out at full force. It isn’t that Reilly can go toe-to-toe and win with modern day incarnations of those whom he’s often compared to — artists like the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Bob Dylan — but that he could easily go head-to-head with them and still put up one heck of a fight. Born on Fire accentuates that fact to a great degree, and as far as this year’s rock offerings go, you’d be hard-pressed to find much better.

T-#34

Destroyer - Poison Season

30 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: The Dreaded Marco
Review:

The gap between reality and ruse in Dan Bejar's work as Destroyer is often a heady, maddening space to occupy. While there's still mystery and misdirection on his new album, Poison Season is nakedly ambitious and utterly satisfying.

Compared to his dense lyrics in previous efforts, Bejar says less, but his phrasing and delivery render places, ideas and people vividly. The songs shift between lush pop rock and ornate, evolving pieces.

Dream Lover's closest cousin sonically is Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, but not in the glorified vintage way that the War on Drugs evoke. It's a contemporary E Street jam, measured by Bejar's hilariously grumpy subversion, "Oh ####, here comes the sun."

Often, layers of instrumentation are utilized sparingly. Forces From Above contains an alluring percussion bed: a kit and hand drums mingle with a halting bass line, while Bejar sings in fits and starts.

The real stars are the "classical" analog instruments. Poison Season employs strings, piano and horns to perfectly complement Bejar's even, offhand delivery of lines that, when stitched together, make up a droll, wondrous travelogue of storied metropolitan meccas.

T-#34

Elder - Lore

30 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: Karma Police

Review: heir newest album, entitled Lore, is without a doubt their best to date. Yes that's quite a bold statement but there's valid reasoning behind it. Lore is intricate. It covers more ground in just five tracks than most other bands can fit onto twice that many. Now that isn't saying much considering all five average about ten minutes each, but in such a time frame lies progressive intensity ranging from emphatic breakdowns to occasional subtle bridges which quickly switch back into lengthy jam sessions that could continue indefinitely. The energy is non-stop, being evenly distributed in the music, vocals, and lyrics that are each spotlighted without being overshadowed by one another. That being said, Lore does an excellent job of not stretching out longer than it needs to be. Instrumentals typically dominate much of the music while vocals are incorporated irregularly but effectively.


The Production of the album is certainly one of its salient strong points. The progression of Lore is monitored carefully so as not to hasten the switch into a new musical direction. This greatly maintains the overall flow and helps the listener settle in and get a good feel of one section of the track before moving onto the next one. Lore is anything but predictable which is actually a good thing because the activity is meant to give the listener a sense of scenic exploration into uncharted territory, blowing hot and cold when they least expect it. There is never a clear indication when a song may change or even end which encourages those listening to unconsciously follow wherever it is the music may take them.

None of the songs on Lore can be seen as memorable in the sense that each is dynamic beyond the point of any noticeable consistency. The tracks are likely elongated to discourage any need for skips or repeats. Lore is meant to be experienced cover to cover to really capture the sense of atmosphere the album is trying to project. Lore isn't so much an album as is a composition almost evocative of a single entity rather than a collection of individual recordings. While most other albums follow along a rail going in one direction, Lore mainly just floats in any which way never sticking to one course or pattern. Elder have created a milestone for the modern stoner rock scene that will certainly encourage bands to follow a similar sense of free spirited writing and maybe even expand on such a style. With albums like Lore being released so early in the New Year, it's hard to understand why anyone would think that rock has lost its way.

T-#34

Houndmouth - Little Neon Limelight

30 Points, 1 Vote

Ranked Highest By: erricctspikes

Review: The group’s four-part harmonies are liberally applied through the record, but there’s still enough space for each member to front alternate tracks, and it’s when keyboardist Toupin assumes those duties that Little Neon Limelight reveals its beating heart. The languid sweetness of the strummed guitar and velvety organs on "Otis" complement a lovelorn Southern drawl that needs the love of a Georgia man and bemoans the big old range that keeps her apart from her beau. You can practically see the petroleum jelly on the camera lens and the suede tassels swaying from her jacket. Though present throughout, hers is a distinctly underused lead vocal on the record, and both of the tracks on which she is given top billing – "Otis" and "Gasoline" – carry themseves with a transcendent mien, the latter a stripped back latter and achingly humble self appraisal: "No, I am nobody's girl/I just wasn't made for no diamonds or pearls", sings Toupin, ministered by her bandmates on the chorus.


Little Neon Limelight benefits from sparingly irreverent inflections, reminders that while Houndmouth can string together a superior approximation of a tried and tested genre they can also puncture it with personality. The well-worn patterns and petty bourgeois balladry of "Black Gold" harbour a mischievous raconteur in Myers, skipping along in Conor Oberst mode, embellishing sketches of the characters that inhabit the song: “I used to see her sister/Her name was Jenny Gasoline/I used to see her picture/On the cover of a dirty magazine”. The fourpiece manages the same on the surely encore-designated "My Cousin Greg" (“a greedy sonofa#####”), this time trading verses before all pitching in for the sage advice of the chorus: “If you want to live the good life/Then you’d better stay away from the limelight”. It’s like listening to The Last Waltz except without the accordion solos, and this time all the guests are permanent members of The Band. This is a churlish but important point: even when they’re passing the proverbial mic four ways within the space of a four minute cut, none of it sounds messy or tacked-on, and there’s a triumphantly familial feel to the way they craft their harmonies

 
Okay, gets good here IMO, with everything over two votes.

#33

Youth Lagoon - Savage Hills Ballroom

30 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: Brony, The Dreaded Marco

Review: Something’s shifted in Trevor Powers. Three albums in, the Idaho musician has gone from bedroom-based breakout to fully-fledged force. Songs that used to swim around in hazy tones are sharp and precise, with nothing to hide. In doing this, Powers has still retained his ability to seem unhinged, on the point of emotional implosion. It’s first and foremost this that makes ‘Savage Hills Ballroom’ so engrossing.


But there’s more to Youth Lagoon’s evolution than choosing rich production over the gloomy patchwork quality defining debut ‘The Year of Hibernation’. Powers has nothing to hide on his latest work. He could tell stories for days, and he compresses tragic, ponderous tales into striking songs backed by strings and wild instrumentation.

When a close friend of Powers’ suddenly passed, he began to reconsider his place in the world, and that of everyone around him. This shift in perspective undeniably defines ‘Savage Hills Ballroom’. ‘The Knower’ sees him speaking for “everybody”, about how they want to think “that they won’t grow old, yet they keep ageing.” Before, Powers’ tales would revolve around friendship, trips outside, intimate stories that could be pinned into a diary. This time, he’s focused on the big picture.

And instead of getting weighed down in second-guesses or ‘what if?’ deep thinking, this is a record that’s designed to expresses itself in the grandest way possible. There’s no getting bogged down in misery. Pain and sorrow are half of this album’s story. The rest is about finding a way out. ‘Rotten Human’ is a blood-stained ballad delivered in a new way, drum machine patterns sharing space with dramatic vocals. ‘Free Me’ is a dazzling, glam-nodding trip through reality. Youth Lagoon always sounds in danger of verging into previously-conquered territory. The way ‘Kerry’ builds into an anthem, it could be a clichéd number - instead, Powers throws just enough of his own inquisitive character to find his finest moment. He does it time and time again on this record.
 
#32

The Districts - A Flourish and a Spoil

31 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider, El Floppo

Review: The worry with still-teenage bands who’ve crafted an awesome live reputation is they get too hyped too soon and spook like dogs hearing fireworks. They hit the studio only to emerge months later, blinking into the daylight, having lost the spark that made them great.


No such concern with The Districts, whose philosophy in their short life has been: record now, worry later. The four-piece, from a small Pennsylvanian town called Lititz, self-released the gravelly-sounding ‘Telephone’ back in 2012 while they were still at school. Last year, they followed it with an equally hard-riffing self-titled EP. Their iron is hot, and they’re striking the #### out of it. ‘A Flourish And A Spoil’, their debut for Mississippi indie label Fat Possum, is less polished than Shane MacGowan’s bathtub, and just as full of infectious grunge.

Ramshackle opener ‘4th And Roebling’ comes on like The Libertines raised on moonshine instead of gin in teacups, and will rattle around your skull for weeks. There’s a scrappy exuberance to tracks like ‘Peaches’, with it’s My Bloody Valentine howl, and the slower ‘Chlorine’, that suggests a band who heard Dinosaur Jr's 'You're Living All Over Me' and decided to see just how loud they can play.

There are misfires, like the psychy echo on ‘Hounds’ that sounds like hearing a gig from the toilets, or ‘Sing The Song’ which resembles a scratched My Morning Jacket record and renders singer Rob Grote’s usually full-blooded voice a strained shadow of itself.

But tracks such as the melancholy ‘Suburban Smell’ redeems them. Essentially a Grote solo track, the 19-year-old frontman strums a sparse acoustic melody and meditates on a real-life incident when he realised small-town life wasn’t for him after seeing a group of jocks bullying a mentally handicapped child.

‘Young Blood’ is better still, and the album’s centrepiece. Clocking in at nearly nine minutes, it’s the perfect example of The Districts capturing the ferocious squall that gave them that live reputation.

This isn’t the band as a finished product, rather a snapshot of them as they began to understand their power. A freshly squeezed record with the pulp left in it.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/reviews/the-districts/15906#7auDe8Yw3uI0owEV.99
 
T-#30

Rush - R40

32 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: Amused to Death, Fiddles

Review: R40 Live finds the band in their home country, performing before an ecstatic crowd over two nights in Toronto. Sprawled over three CDs and a DVD, the set list is reverse chronology, so it begins with two tracks from their stellar 2012 release Clockwork Angels and ends with their breakthrough classic “Working Man”. They curiously tack on a several bonus tracks at the end that could have easily been mixed in with the rest of the show so that they aren’t out of place, but that’s a minor quibble.


It’s an entertaining listen throughout, especially if you’re already a die-hard Rush fan (and let’s face it, this set will hardly appeal at all to those who aren’t). There are songs here that have never appeared on a Rush live album before. In fact, “Losing It”, a track from their 1982 album Signals, made its live debut on this tour. The band brought in violinist Ben Mink to perform on the song as he did on the studio version, and the result is an absolute thrill. It works so well it’s hard to understand why they’ve never played it before. “How It Is”, from 2002’s Vapor Trails , is another track the band had never played live prior to this tour. They also revisit “Jacob’s Ladder”, which hadn’t been part of the band’s set since 1980.

Of course, some songs are pretty much always part of their set, and no matter how many times the band plays them they never get old. “Tom Sawyer”, for instance—that opening wave of synths and drums is still magic. It’s never short of amazing to watch Neil Peart’s extraordinary drumwork on the song (the DVD that comes with the set is well worth watching). The instrumental “YYZ” is as much a herculean workout as ever, and the band shows that even in their ‘60s they are more than up to the task of performing the immensely demanding classic. Two other favorites from Moving Pictures are also featured: “Red Barchetta” and the 10-minute epic “The Camera Eye”. “Spirit of the Radio” is a crowd-pleaser as always, and those thick waves of synth on “Subdivisions” sound as epic as ever. “Animate”, from the band’s excellent 1991 album Counterparts, emanates ferocious power.

The band explores their progressive rock roots on the long, breathtaking “Xanadu” and their old warhorse “2112”, without which no Rush show would be complete. The fans certainly never tire of it, based on the ecstatic reaction from the audience. The trio seems to feed off the crowd’s manic energy. After the end of the final encore of “What You’re Doing”/”Working Man”, two tracks from the band’s 1974 self-titled debut, the band offers a bonus section of tracks from various segments of their career.

“One Little Victory” is a rush of pure adrenaline. “Distant Early Warning” captures all the menace of the cold war era with brooding synths and an aura of tension and anxiety.
 
just realizing I underplayed Hooton Tennis Club, even as my #1, and likely their only vote. Should've thrown more points their way... :kicksrock:

 
T-#30

James McMurty - Complicated Game

32 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: Bonzai, Abraham

Review: The album finds its subject matter mainly in relationships, and though the title is the same as his new label, the word Complicated is particularly fitting. There are the hopeful, the spiteful, the perseverant, the patient, the thankful and shades of others across the songs, in characters and vignettes McMurtry sculpted from blood, bone and brain.


The album begins with “Copper Canteen,” with McMurtry, the master of finding big-picture themes in small-town life, picking through the fears and cravings of men who grew up hard, and have stuck to that mode of living ever since: “We turned into our parents before we were out of our teens” sings this nameless narrator. It’s a portrait of hunting, chopping wood, an unrepentant dalliance here or there, all wrapped up in a streak of fierce independence and quiet dignity.

In “You Got To Me,” McMurtry sings of a man at a wedding, the fall weather and his own hometown framing a rush of memories, all centered on a woman who ultimately wasn’t meant to be. The internal thoughts blend and intertwine with the external scene intertwine throughout as McMurtry delivers one knockout line after another: “The wedding party is raging yet / How the old and desperate misbehave / The limo smells like cocaine sweat / cheap cologne and aftershave,” he sings.

The banjo shuffle of “Ain’t Got a Place” offers a lighter mood, one of rambling and roaming. Leaving or staying, coming or going, no matter which way the rivers run, sometimes it’s all the same.

“How’m I Gonna Find You Now” is the album’s roadhouse rocker, its driving backbeat leading McMurtry on a bizarre roadtrip odyssey, served up as a meth-paced talking blues tune. It’s a bit paranoid, a bit overzealous and the type of song you’d expect to find lurking around some strange town on the side of the highway.
 
Perennial FBG favourite

#29

Jason Isbell - Something More Than Free

32 Points, 3 Votes

Ranked Highest By: mphtrilogy, Nick Vermeil, Abraham

Previous Albums on Our Countdown: Southeastern (#16 in 2013), Here We Rest (#31 in 2011)

Review: Ever since his astonishing debut with the Drive-By Truckers in the early 2000s, we've been watching Jason Isbell. Here was a kid from a tiny town in Alabama who could sing, play guitar and (most thrillingly of all) write songs with a wisdom, wit and swagger rarely seen even in the crowded Americana field. Isbell arrived fully formed, and his best work with the Truckers ranks among the best work that great band has ever released.


When he went solo half a decade later, he had lost much of this early fire. Struggling with alcoholism and a mean streak, wading through the morass of a failing marriage, he released a few spotty solo records before finding his voice again with 2011's Here We Rest. Since then, sober and happily re-married, the one-time whiz kid has solidified his place as Americana's veteran master. His last record, 2013's emotional, confessional Southeastern, was an out and out triumph.

How do you follow an intimate tour de force like Southeastern? If you're Isbell, you turn down the volume and flip the camera around. Recalling the blue-collar vignettes of Reagan-era Springsteen, Something More Than Free offers a series of narrative tunes about people struggling to overcome mundane hardships set to midtempo, largely acoustic arrangements.

But despite the mellow feel and the persistent tribulations suffered by his protagonists, Something More Than Free is imbued with a healthy dose of optimism. These people are not trapped, for the most part; their circumstances are cruel, but they retain their agency. On album standout "Speed Trap Town," a man comes to the decision to finally leave his dead-end small town, while opening track "It Takes A Lifetime" tells of a man who has given up his old rambling ways because "I thought that I was running to, but I was running from." Sometimes you have to leave. Sometimes you have to accept where you are.

As always, Isbell's lyrics cut like shards from some shattered mirror. You want dire family politics in a phrase? "All the years I took from her," he sings on "Children of Children," "just for being born." You want nihilist barstool philosophy? "You thought God was an architect," he taunts on "24 Frames," "Now you know: He's something like a pipe bomb ready to blow." You want evocative character introductions? "I got lucky when I finished school," he sings on "The Life You Chose," "lost three fingers to a faulty tool. Settled out of court, I'm no one's fool."

Still walking the high wire, with Something More Than Free, Jason Isbell continues his streak of genre-defining masterworks.
 
Apparently she hasn't made our countdown before?






#28

Florence & the Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

33 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: mphtrilogy, Nick Vermeil

Review: Thanks to a broken foot suffered while performing during Coachella’s opening weekend in April, Florence Welch has been promoting her third album from a new vantage point: a seat. It’s a jarring image considering Welch tends to indulge in the kind of grand physicality (wild arm-flailing, purposeful pogoing) that matches the high drama of her baroque pop sound.


But having to perch and belt has ironically been the ideal delivery system for the songs of How Big How Blue How Beautiful, Florence + the Machine’s most raw and stripped-down album to date. The fantastical imagery of 2011’s Ceremonials has been largely replaced by direct confessionals about Welch’s heartbreak. And the simple, lovely “Caught” is a prime example: Over a clean piano and guitar and spare percussion, Welch wavers between cooing and bellowing about being “pulled apart against my will.” She’s never shied away from songs about her love life, but both the joy and sorrow on How Big feel more immediate, which in turn make the shifts in sound, subtle as they are, all the more intense, especially on the morphing “Mother.”

This is all relative, of course—it’s not like Florence has suddenly become a minimalist folkie. There are still harps aplenty, and songs like “Ship to Wreck” and “Third Eye” pack the powerhouse vocal wallop she’s known for. But How Big is Welch’s most accomplished album yet, primarily because she doesn’t rely solely on operatics to make herself heard. Welch may have gone slightly smaller with her sound, but her emotional depth and capacity for wonder remain gigantic

 
This somehow manages to be the first album from him on one of our countdowns and also places 4 places higher than the original did last year...


#27

Ryan Adams - 1989

34 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: mphtrilogy, Abraham

Review:
It’s still unusual for any act to do a full-album cover-version tribute; and virtually unheard of for the album in question to be less than a year old, as with this reimagining of Taylor Swift’s multi-platinum 1989. But Ryan Adams has previous form in this regard, having once recorded a blues version of The Strokes’ “Is This It” – although that remained unreleased, just one hillock of the mountain of outtakes facing the singer’s future box-set curator.

The 1989 project is less off-piste than one might think: both performers started out on the country fringes of rock, before navigating more towards the mainstream, so there’s a shared history of sorts here, Adams hunting down the underlying raft of singer-songwriter sensibility beneath the crisp electropop carapace of Swift’s originals. It’s not a task he’s taken lightly, either. There’s no flippancy about his treatment of 1989; instead, as hinted in an Instagram post, Adams has taken material sometimes torn from Swift’s own diary, and covered it “as played by The Smiths” – that is, with due respect for the raw emotions on display.

He also promised what would be the “saddest version of ‘Welcome to New York’ ever – or your tears back”, and just about lives up to that on the opening track here. With his earnest, gritted-teeth delivery over a backdrop of piano and organ, he evokes whole worlds of Springsteen yearning in the song’s surging, youthful desire, bringing the wearied experience of his own crestfallen “New York, New York” to this incomer’s anticipation. Elsewhere, exotic guitar flourishes and peppery percussion – even castanets – lend additional street-operatic drama to the shared escape of “I Know Places”.

Both are utterly transformative, though not quite as much as the album’s other Springsteen gambit, which uses haunted organ and desolate vocal to give the monster hit “Shake It Off” a makeover in the style of “I’m on Fire”, taking it from playground chant to barstool reflection .

Other influential precedents transform songs in equally effective ways. Set to sparse piano and string pad, “This Love” recalls Neil Young at his most fragile, and several songs are profitably re-routed to Adams’ country-rock home turf of Byrdsy arpeggios. Mandolin replaces the “Vienna”-style synth portents of Swift’s version of “Out of the Woods”, while the acoustic strumming on which his version of “Bad Blood” is built suits lines like “What was all shiny, now it’s all rusted”. A similar tone of rustic regret is applied to “Blank Space” by Adams’ intimate, whispered vocal and fingerpicking, with strings and wistful accordion deepening the mood.

Likewise, the clunky line in “Style” about “that James Dean look in your eyes” is ingeniously changed to “that Daydream Nation look in your eyes”, the Sonic Youth reference matching the song’s transformation from scudding electropop to dark outsider rock.

What’s most impressive about Adams’ 1989 is the experienced troubadour’s eye and ear with which he brings out the material’s underlying strengths, finding melancholy currents lurking beneath supposedly upbeat, celebratory songs. It’s obvious what he gets from the association –not just the attention of Swift’s vast fanbase, but also access to the pop smarts of Swedish production maestri Max Martin and Shellback, furnishing him with some of the best tunes he’s had in years. But Swift also gains by the association, which reveals her to be a much more nuanced songwriter than her own album suggested.
 
#26

Iron Maiden - The Book of Souls

35 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: Amused to Death, Karma Police

Review: The sequencing on both halves of The Book of Souls is very strong throughout, but brilliantly executed on disc one. In the tradition of such past progressive-minded album openers as “Caught Somewhere in Time”, “Moonchild”, and “Satellite 15… The Final Frontier”, “If Eternity Should Fail” opens things on a dramatic note. Originally written by singer Bruce Dickinson for a new solo album, it’s a perfect fit here, its somber overture giving way to a stately gallop and rich twin guitar harmonies, two of Maiden’s calling cards. Collaborations between Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith have always yielded gold, going back to “Flight of Icarus” and “2 Minutes to Midnight”, and the energetic “Speed of Light” is a very worthy barnstormer, the band’s finest – and catchiest – lead single since 2000’s classic “Wicker Man”. “The Great Unknown” focuses on a heavier groove, Smith again lending the track some welcome swagger as Dickinson turns in a powerful vocal performance.


One of only two Steve Harris solo compositions on the album, “The Red and the Black” is the one track where the bassist settles into classic “’Arry” mode, and as predictable as his songwriting gets, this time around it’s a delight to hear. His melodies – especially that contagious chant that’s bound to be a new live favorite – sound particularly inspired, with Smith, Dave Murray, and Janick Gers all chipping in during a rousing six-minute solo section. It’s the closest you will ever hear to Iron Maiden “jamming”, the best example on the record of this band’s extraordinary chemistry. “When the River Runs Deep” benefits from some very strong dynamics, Smith’s rock ‘n’ roll instincts offsetting Harris’s rigidity, while the Mayan-themed “The Book of Souls” takes a page from 1984’s Powerslave, affording Dickinson a wonderful showcase for his theatrical singing, eventually exploding into a nasty, dark, heavy groove that hasn’t been heard in some 31 years.

Before jumping to the next disc, pause for a moment and look at what just happened. Disc one is a crisp 50 minutes, just like Powerslave, and beautifully paced too: progressive opener, speedster, heavy cut, rousing epic, dynamic rocker, theatrical epic. This is as commanding and as focused as Iron Maiden has sounded in nearly three decades.

The real challenges lie on disc two, however. Well, to be more specific, challenge. Paced much more differently than the first half, the first four songs set the stage for the opus that lies ahead. The album’s other Dickinson/Smith collaboration, the World War One tale “Death or Glory”, kicks into an unexpected swing driven briskly by drummer Nicko McBrain, a welcome change of pace from the usual tempos the band use. “Shadows of the Valley” is the album’s one slight slip-up, as Harris and Gers wander a little too far into the old songwriting toolshed, leaving Dickinson to rescue the track from stagnation by selling it in his usual brilliant fashion, especially during the song’s last three minutes. Harris’s “Tears of a Clown”, meanwhile, is a huge surprise, his contemplative portrait of the late Robin Williams both sympathetic and forceful, striking a deft balance between melancholic and invigorating. Meanwhile, Murray adds some welcome texture to “The Man of Sorrows”, which like 2006’s “The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg”, shifts well from a solemn ballad to a hard-driving, mid-paced metal tune.

The 18-minute “Empire of the Clouds” is the album’s make-or-break moment. Started as an idle project Dickinson composed on piano during off-hours, what became a mild obsession turned into a sprawling composition inspired by the R101 airship disaster of 1930, which crashed in France and killed 48. Never intended to be an Iron Maiden song, the band tried it out at Harris’s urging, and as you hear immediately, it sounds nothing like an Iron Maiden song. Which, quite frankly, is shocking. Maiden songs almost always play to Harris’s upper-register basslines, but this time all five members take a backseat to Dickinson’s piano, Harris playing to the piano, all three guitars adding texture instead of riffs, McBrain adding more expression and punctuation than a driving beat. The graceful piano ballad gives way to tension at the seven-minute mark as McBrain adds some inspired “SOS” Morse code syncopation, and the track builds majestically, the pace quickening as the ship hits the storm and crashes. Interspersed with movements that catch listeners off-guard, it’s an authoritative display of progressive rock ebb and flow, the music telling the tale as much, or even more than Dickinson’s lyrics. It’s every bit as spellbinding as 1984’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, and every bit as deserving of the descriptor “masterpiece”.

 
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Let it happen...

#24

Tame Impala - Currents

36 Points, 4 Votes

Ranked Highest By: mphtrilogy, pettifogger, Steve Tasker, NV

Previous Albums on our Countdown: Lonerism (#10 in 2012), Innerspeaker (#11 in 2010)

Review: “Where’s the rock?” Tame Impala fans will ask upon listening to the Australian band’s hotly anticipated third album. Rather than bong-worthy psychedelics, distorted guitar and trippy drums, the Bee Geesish Currents seems made for hazy late-night dance floors. Past albums have been great for headphone listening, but there’s something about this one that seems meant for leaving your house and experiencing life.


It’s unabashedly pop-soul but still plenty psychedelic, thanks to band visionary Kevin Parker’s genius studio experimentation. Songs teem with unexpected blurry effects and fade-in/-outs, disorienting panning (listen to The Moment while seated), drums and modular synth textures strategically placed and unlike any you’ve heard before.

The style takes a page from PBR&B, with Parker’s glorious falsetto upfront. (Old-school fans might be relieved to know he still sounds very much like John Lennon.) And the whole thing has a beautiful and unexpected tenderness to it. Yes I’m Changing is exquisitely vulnerable and honest. Like the best pop lyrics (see Phil Collins’s), Parker’s say a lot with a little. It’s clearly a breakup album, but its bitterness is couched in optimism about the potential for self-reinvention. Put another way, it’s the soundtrack to moving away from the old and toward the new.
 
Scratched a ticket with a leg of a cricket and I got triple jesus

#23

EL VY - Return to the Moon

37 Points, 4 Votes

Ranked Highest By: Brony, The Dreaded Marco, Eephus, Northern Voice

Review: Matt Berninger has been on a decade-long hot streak with his band of (literal) brothers, The National, so it was simultaneously worrisome and exciting when he announced he’d briefly step away and try something new. It turns out that the new something—EL VY—is more of a gentle pivot than a full-on reinvention, and that nobody should’ve worried at all: Return To The Moon is one of the best albums of 2015.


Though looser, simpler, and slinkier than his main band, EL VY—a partnership with his pal Brent Knopf, formerly of Menomena and currently of Ramona Falls—is also unmistakably Berninger, whose talky baritone would be difficult to disguise. And he’s not doing anything radically different with that gorgeous voice here; casual fans might easily mistake many songs on Return for new National numbers. Those more invested will find something more earthy in this side project, starting with the fantastic first single, “Return To The Moon,” a bouncy, easy-to-digest, weird pop song with a guitar line and overall structure that Berninger’s main band would likely never let pass without some layers and tinkering. But that simplicity has its rewards, and Berninger seems more free to explore both his flights of fancy and more intimate moments with EL VY.

Berninger told NME that this is his “most personal album” yet, while at the same time describing its vague shot at a concept: It’s inspired by the musical love affair between the Minutemen’s D. Boon and Mike Watt, though knowing that legendary band’s story will only provide sonic easter eggs, not revelations, when listening to Return To The Moon. So one moment he’s singing nonsense about scratching a ticket with a cricket leg, the next he’s pining for the real-life places of his Cincinnati youth, from Eden Park to “####### Delhi.” It’s a weird, wonderful way to explore Berninger’s knotty brain, and it pays off magnificently on the spooky, playful “Paul Is Alive,” which imagines an alternate childhood spent “sitting outside the Jockey Club, crying in my 7-Up.” As usual, his poet’s eye for detail makes something simple feel profound; his sense of nostalgia is complicated, dotted with regret and joy.

Elsewhere, things get markedly more sexual than Berninger has flirted with in the past; perhaps he was inspired by the hip-pushing sonic beds that Knopf provides (via email, which is largely how Moon came together). “I’m The Man To Be” features the narrator’s peaceful, happy **** in the sunlight, held up by kites, and its most sing-a-long-able line is a delightfully mumbled, “I’ll be the one in the lobby in the green-colored ####-me shirt—the green one.” “Sad Case” is similarly though less overtly horn-dogged, and “Sleepin’ Light” is almost ’70s-inspired in its vibe, with a dose of Tindersticks thrown in for dour flavor.

And, just like a National record, when things seem like they’re getting a little samey, there’s another gorgeous, occasionally subtle curveball around the corner: The short, sharp “Happiness, Missouri” sounds like Wolf Parade, and it ducks into Return’s beautiful closer, “Careless.” It’s the most National-sounding song on the record, though where that band might’ve employed a full orchestra to push the emotion, this one offers a thin, haunting synth line. It’s the flip side of the same gorgeous, engaging coin, and it’s more than just a placeholder while the next National album marinates—it stands shoulder to miserable, brilliant shoulder.
 
Thread needs more chatter between NV posts but I haven't listened to a lot of the picks (yet).

I didn't like the Tame Impala album but maybe didn't give it enough of a chance. I liked 1989 a lot conceptually but the more I listened to it, the more I preferred the original. The Kendrick Lamar seemed more like an album to respect than love but since my kids moved out this year, I listened to a lot less rap than in recent memory.

 
KarmaPolice said:
Nice to see another vote for Maiden. I assumed I would be the only one.
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I'm trying to find the appropriate time to fit this one into my busy schedule

The 18-minute “Empire of the Clouds” is the album’s make-or-break moment. Started as an idle project Dickinson composed on piano during off-hours, what became a mild obsession turned into a sprawling composition inspired by the R101 airship disaster of 1930, which crashed in France and killed 48. Never intended to be an Iron Maiden song, the band tried it out at Harris’s urging, and as you hear immediately, it sounds nothing like an Iron Maiden song. Which, quite frankly, is shocking. Maiden songs almost always play to Harris’s upper-register basslines, but this time all five members take a backseat to Dickinson’s piano, Harris playing to the piano, all three guitars adding texture instead of riffs, McBrain adding more expression and punctuation than a driving beat. The graceful piano ballad gives way to tension at the seven-minute mark as McBrain adds some inspired “SOS” Morse code syncopation, and the track builds majestically, the pace quickening as the ship hits the storm and crashes. Interspersed with movements that catch listeners off-guard, it’s an authoritative display of progressive rock ebb and flow, the music telling the tale as much, or even more than Dickinson’s lyrics. It’s every bit as spellbinding as 1984’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, and every bit as deserving of the descriptor “masterpiece”.
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Hella pizza late at night













#22

Adele - 25

38 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: mphtrilogy, Jaysys

Previous Albums on our Countdown: 21 (#23 in 2011)

Review:
Adele's 2011 blockbuster, 21, was all about turning pain into power. Four years and 30 million albums sold later, remorse is still her muse. But where 21 was the sound of a woman soldiering through bad romance, 25 finds her queenly and resolute, lamenting the past on songs with titles like "Water Under the Bridge" and "When We Were Young." Even "Hello" is a goodbye. The nostalgic mood is the perfect fit for an artist who reaches back decades for her influences, even as her all-or-nothing urgency feels utterly modern.

Some of pop's biggest names, from Max Martin to Bruno Mars, join familiar faces like Paul Epworth and Ryan Tedder in 25's dream team of producers and co-writers. They help create a rich set of songs without getting in the way of the lady in charge. "River Lea," a collaboration with Danger Mouse, is an organ-heavy soul shouter, and "Water Under the Bridge" builds to gospel-steeped ecstasy. Adele is more somber on "Million Years Ago," a gorgeous acoustic reverie that suggests Caetano Veloso writing for Dusty Springfield. "I feel like my life is flashing by," she sings, her voice deepening with regret and sounding decades beyond her years.

The music feels more mature, too, on torchy ballads like "When We Were Young" and "Love in the Dark." The most powerful moment is "All I Ask," a silken tempest co-written with Mars, where Adele addresses a lover on what she knows will be their final night, processing the end of an affair in what feels like slow motion. When she sings, "Give me a memory I can use," it's like she's already imagining the heartrending song she'll craft from the experience. There's vulnerability in that moment, but there's also grace and resilience.

Throughout 25, there's a deeper sense of artistic command. In a great, intimate bit before the start of "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)," she issues orders to the guys in the studio: "Just the guitar." The Martin-helmed song that follows – built on a nimble acoustic figure – is a farewell to an ex who couldn't deal with Adele's fire, sung with chill composure.

Whether she's holding notes with the strength of a suspension bridge or enjoying a rare lighthearted "whoo-hoo!" on "Sweetest Devotion," her incredible phrasing – the way she can infuse any line with nuance and power – is more proof that she's among the greatest interpreters of romantic lyrics. "No river is too wide or too deep for me to swim to you," she sings on the gently lifting "Remedy." On 25, no feat of strength comes as a surprise. Let's just hope the next one is called 28, and not, say, 30. Each new chapter of her story is too good to wait for.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/adele-25-20151124#ixzz3yfAP0ExQ
 
Last edited by a moderator:
#21

Young Fathers - White Men are Black Men Too

39 Points, 3 Votes

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

Review: All in all, Young Fathers' "Nest" is as catchy as any other pop song currently ascending the Top 40: its grooving rhythm is an undeniable force of nature; its hook is warmly singable, thanks to its rhyming of "sister" and "mister" amidst shouts of "Hey!" and a choir murmuring "Baby baby." But what's even more astounding is how snugly the tune fits on an album that is otherwise abrasively industrial, rife with fiercely spat hip-hop and occasionally reaching the far-flung corners of world music.


These are the vast hemispheres that Young Fathers traverse on White Men Are Black Men Too. And just because "Nest," the eighth of 12 tracks, is the most accessible point of entry, that doesn't make it a lull on the LP's rugged terrain. Consider it an oasis, or the eye of the hurricane, because the album otherwise gusts and bellows and downpours, electrifying all the while. Preceding track "Old Rock n Roll" has a taunting "nah nah nah" rhythm that slowly builds tension as MC Alloysious Massaquoi (who trades verses throughout the album with Kayus Bankole and Graham 'G' Hastings, who also produces) not only raps about his refusal to "blame the white man" but also assertively declares that a "black man can play" that Caucasian.

The album's contrasting pop and experimental aesthetics collide on "Dare Me," White Men's penultimate track. It opens with the kind of gentle crooning that fits on most power ballads, or at least on hazy, dark R&B, but its midway drop off into grinding lo-fi drones, rat-a-tat drum lines and harshly whispered raps about being "safely tucked in" by blankets "over your chin," is as terrifying and sadomasochistic as Trent Reznor's worst nightmare.

In less assured hands, these contradictions of genre, tone, and theme would capsize an album. Fortunately, Young Fathers have proven themselves to be more than capable of not only balancing all those elements, but also letting them budge just enough to make every song utterly unpredictable. Case in point: midway track "Rain or Shine," on which the rapid organ riff that makes the track so upbeat escalates quickly enough to make it foreboding. That twitchiness is furthered by Hastings' plaintive singing about "no demons" and "no Jesus" in his life, as if he were begging for that wish to come true. Massaquoi's subsequent monotone raps sound uncaring and unforgiving in comparison.

None of it should coalesce, but it does. White Men Are Black Men Too is a perfect storm of influences and talent that make for an unforgettable album.

 
Eephus said:
Thread needs more chatter between NV posts but I haven't listened to a lot of the picks (yet).

I didn't like the Tame Impala album but maybe didn't give it enough of a chance. I liked 1989 a lot conceptually but the more I listened to it, the more I preferred the original. The Kendrick Lamar seemed more like an album to respect than love but since my kids moved out this year, I listened to a lot less rap than in recent memory.
Click to expand...
there were a couple of tunes on the Tame Impala album I really liked... but I just kept losing steam listening to the whole thing.

the Kendrick Lamar album is really, really good... I said earlier that I figured it was going to get a lot of votes, so I abstained.

 
El Floppo said:
Eephus said:
Thread needs more chatter between NV posts but I haven't listened to a lot of the picks (yet).

I didn't like the Tame Impala album but maybe didn't give it enough of a chance. I liked 1989 a lot conceptually but the more I listened to it, the more I preferred the original. The Kendrick Lamar seemed more like an album to respect than love but since my kids moved out this year, I listened to a lot less rap than in recent memory.
Click to expand...
there were a couple of tunes on the Tame Impala album I really liked... but I just kept losing steam listening to the whole thing.

the Kendrick Lamar album is really, really good... I said earlier that I figured it was going to get a lot of votes, so I abstained.
Click to expand...
Kendrick beaten by Scottish rappers. :rolleyes:

 
T-#19

Ultimate Painting - Green Lanes

40 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: Bonzai, The Dreaded Marco

Review: Green Lanes feels like the quintessential summer album, a laid-back drift through wistful, melodic pop, with nods to the Kinks, the Beatles, the Feelies and Teenage Fan Club. It floats in as if through an open window, surrounds you like a warm, scented breeze and passes softly on its way. A mild sense of well-being is the only mark it leaves.


And yet, this second album from the UK duo — that’s James Hoare from Veronica Falls and Proper Ornaments and Jack Cooper from Mazes — is a bit twitchier and more complicated than you might, at first, give it credit for. The songs are ingratiating not wholly easy, Zen calm but infused with existential query. The melodies amble in a loose-jointed, murmuring way, but the two guitars tangle and contradict and conflict with one another, pulling gem-like songs into unexpected geometric contortions.

Take, for instance, the sleepy glow of “Break the Chain,” with its slow, reassuring melodic build, its campfire communal chorus. An acoustic break, midway through, leads to a “Strawberry Fields”-ish bucolic psychedelia, all plunking piano chords and looping guitar lines. Yet even in the vanilla-millkshake lulling-ness of the cut, alienation lurks. It’s all right to tell the truth, it’s all right to lie, people come and go, what the hell difference does it make? (I paraphrase.) It’s a pretty dark message.

The arrangements, too, are a little more challenging than they sound at first, Hoare and Cooper working in a very loose collaboration on their respective guitars, so that they at times to be in conversation, at other times at odds, but never quite in lock-step. It’s the dual guitar work that has earned them comparisons to Television, and while the two of them never attempt pyrotechnics a la, say, “Torn Curtain,” their playing is a continually absorbing element.



T-#19

Tobias Jesso Jr. - Goon

40 Points, 2 Votes

Ranked Highest By: erricctspikes, kupcho1

Review: Hype for Tobias Jesso Jr.'s Goon arguably hit peak levels during his Tonight Show network television debut, where he played a heartbreaking (and Roots-assisted) rendition of the flawless, flooring single How Could You Babe.


It's a relief, then, that the whole album lives up to that hype. Written at his parents' North Vancouver home, Goon sparkles with powerful emotional depth. It's one of the best pop debuts in recent memory, teetering dangerously on the edge of perfection.

Jesso Jr. rolls through personal heartache and snapshots of his time in L.A. with ease and insight on tracks like the devastating electric piano nu-classic Bad Words, the understated, Beatlesesque Can We Still Be Friends and Hollywood, a sprawling centrepiece about hitting rock bottom, featuring the coda "I think I'm gonna die in Hollywood."

Goon is an indisputable triumph and a staggering opening statement from pop music's newest Piano Man.

 
I was so non plussed by this year that I didn't rank Florence or Kendrick or a few others that at some point I made note to put on my list. Honestly, I thought Kendrick would win this going away, or at least be in the top 3. I did vote for young fathers precisely because I didn't think anyone else would and I wanted to call attention to their record, which I think starts well then gets boring.

 
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