I’ve given up on my gimmick of trying to match the length of this list to the last two digits of the year, which of course made assembling the list harder each year, and I’d rather keep the list organic – these are the albums I really liked from 2019, period. I think it was a down year for music overall, and my top 100 songs of the year will reflect that too, but there were still fifteen albums I liked and went back to repeatedly, with the top two albums standing up against those from any year.
Previous years’ album rankings: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013.
15. Crows – Silver Tongues. Signed to the new label under punk band IDLES, Crows are two generations removed from punk’s heyday, with sludgy post-hardcore that sounds like a mad scientist crossed Thrice with Drenge. The best tracks include “Wednesday’s Child,” the closest thing to a single on this album; the droning crusher “Hang Me High;” and the bottom-heavy title track that opens the album.
14. Town Portal – Of Violence. Progressive, technical, entirely instrumental metal, with offbeat, intricate guitar work that I thought might be played on a Chapman stick (it’s not). It’s one of two records on this list that subvert typical standards of rock song rhythms and song structures.
13. Temples – Hot Motion. What a great opening troika of songs for this psycheledic trip – the title track, “You’re Either On Something,” and “Holy Horses,” the last of which features one of my favorite guitar riffs of the entire year. The album travels within a narrow path of that late ’60s and early ’70s subgenre of rock, but that kind of music has proven timeless and Temples’ version of it is suffused with good hooks.
12. Wheel – Moving Backwards. Bottom-heavy progressive metal from Finland, with an English vocalist, that features tight radio-friendly singles like “Vultures” and nine- to ten-minute opuses like the title track or “Tyrant,” all of which revolve around giant, crunchy guitar riffs on a foundation of strong bass lines and big percussion.
11. The Amazons – Future Dust. I wanted the Amazons to make more music like “Black Magic,” built around their obvious talent for crafting huge guitar riffs, and they’ve done so with this second album, which has more uptempo songs and lots of muscular guitar work. The best tracks include “Mother,” “Doubt It,” and “End of Wonder.”
10. Foals – Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Part 2. Better than Part 1, released six months earlier, the second half of Foals’ diptych is heavier and more consistent throughout, with some of the best grooves they’ve ever laid down. Standouts include “The Runner,” “Like Lightning,” and “Black Bull.” The ten-minute closer “Neptune” is interesting as well, if a bit indulgent.
9. Alcest – Spiritual Instinct. Death metal-shoegaze isn’t really a blend you’d anticipate, but Alcest pioneered it, and for their second straight album (after 2016’s Kodama) they’ve delivered a record of long, thoughtful, intense metal tracks, occasionally punctuated by blast beats and screamed vocals, but with plenty of clean singing and easily discerned melodies.
8. Ten Fé – Future Perfect, Present Tense. Ten Fé’s second album in two years is full of more soft-rock gold, including this song, “Won’t Happen,” “Echo Park,” “Here Again,” “Not Tonight,” and the ballad “To Lie Here is Enough.” The general sound would have fit in on AM radio stations in the 1970s, and they seem like spiritual descendants of 10cc, which blended artsier musical ambitions with enough soft-rock elements to make it on the radio, but Ten Fé manage to do this without sounding anachronistic while working in a slew of great melodies.
7. Hatchie – Keepsake. I liked some of her earlier singles (“Sure” and “Sleep” were both on her Sugar and Spice EP last year) better than what’s on this debut album, but it still includes a number of shimmering ’90s dream-pop tracks that remind me of the best of Lush and other female-fronted Britpop acts that borrowed or just emigrated from Shoegaze. I wish her voice were stronger, but she mostly stays within her range. Standouts include “Obsessed,” “Stay With Me,” and “Without a Blush.”
6. YONAKA – Don’t Wait Til Tomorrow. The Brighton quartet’s debut album doesn’t include either of their best singles from the last two years, “Wouldn’t Wanna Be Ya” or “Teach Me to Fight,” but is still full of great tracks and builds on themes of toxic relationships in Theresa Jarvis’ vocals. Standouts include the sultry “Creature,” the poppy “Rockstar,” the syncopated opener “Bad Company,” and the danceable “Fired Up,” but all of the tracks rely on Jarvis’ tremendous presence and smoky voice.
5. FKA Twigs – MAGDALENE. A whisper of an album, just nine tracks and 39 minutes long, and uneven in a few spots, although I’d say that’s unsurprising given FKA Twigs’ experimental style. Standouts include “sad day,” mournful closer “cellophane,” and her surprising collaboration with Future, “holy terrain.”
4. whenyoung – Reasons to Dream. A stunning debut album from this Irish trio that incorporates shoefgaze and dream pop to back lead singer Aoife Power’s potent vocals, eerily reminiscent of Dolores O’Riordan but with more range. The album starts with a strong quartet of songs in “Pretty Pure,” “Never Let Go,” standout single “The Others,” and “A Labour of Love,” and never lags, peaking again with “In My Dreams” and with the gorgeous closer “Something Sweet,” which is indeed a confection but builds towards a big finish.
3. black midi – Schlagenheim. Schlagenheim is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. It is dense, intellectual, and challenging, often asking you to rethink the basic tenets of melody and rhythm that have been part of rock music since its inception. It’s also pretentious and at multiple points seems to dare you to skip to the next song, especially with Geordie Greep’s weird intonations and sudden dives into extreme-metal screaming. The album doesn’t include their strong lead-up singles “Talking Heads” or “Crow’s Perch,” which would actually be its most accessible songs if they’d made the record. “Reggae” was my compromise choice for the playlist, because it shows off their tonal oddities and still adheres a little to some rock conventions. The closer “Ducter” has some of the album’s highest points, as does the eight-minute “Western,” but they are endurance tests as well. “Near DT, MI” is a two-minute burst of ideas, but you have to get past Greep screaming at you – and his lyrics typically make little sense. “Speedway” could be a better introduction to what black midi, named after an obscure form of music that can only be played by computers because there are so many notes that sheet music for the songs would appear smudged with black ink, are trying to express through dissonant chords and polyrhythmic drumming. It’s the most interesting and bold album of the year.
2. Michael Kiwanuka – KIWANUKA. The Guardian called this one of the best albums of the decade; I might not quite go that far, but it’s tremendous and grows on me the more I listen to it. His previous album, 2016’s Love and Hate, was nominated for the Mercury Prize and got some airplay here on “adult alternative” stations, which … okay I have no idea what that means or why he’d fit there. There are elements of funk, classic soul, even some psychedelic rock, and his voice sounds a bit like Jimi Hendrix’s in pitch but with more depth. Standout tracks include “Rolling,” “You Ain’t The Problem,” “Hero,” and “Final Days.”
1. Ceremony – In the Spirit World Now. The best new wave album in 35 years, Ceremony’s latest perfectly spans the gap between the most iconic post-punk albums (Gang of Four’s Entertainment!, Wire’s Chairs Missing) and the initial influx of new wave bands that introduced more synthesizers into their sound, like Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division. You can hear Ceremony’s punk roots throughout the album, but this is an overtly accessible album, full of tracks that would have been mainstays on college radio in 1981. The title track, “Turn Away the Bad Thing,” the rousing “Further I Was,” “Say Goodbye to Them,” the almost-punk “We Can Be Free,” the guitar-driven “Years of Love” are all worthy, and other than “Presaging the End” there isn’t a letdown on the 11-song, 32-minute album.