→ April 21, 2015
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Undertow (Drenge album).

The debut album from British rock duo Drenge was one of my favorite albums of 2013, and remains one of my favorite of the decade so far, an unabashed sneering post-punk cataclysm that took the now-common guitar-and-drum format to a logical extreme. They were more Gang of Four than White Stripes, with lyrics that focused on sex, violence, and self-loathing, yet the album was full of strong hooks that sustained the mostly two to three minute tracks and extended them beyond mere guitar/drum demo material.

The album didn’t make a dent in the U.S. at all – it wasn’t even released here until about six months after its UK release – and for their sophomore set, Undertow, Drenge have changed their approach, incorporating more hard-rock sounds while largely relegating their angry punk influences to the background. The results are strong but a little bittersweet; it’s a very good album, one that shows substantial musical growth, but if you liked Drenge and were hoping for more of the same, it’s a serious departure from their initial sound.

The change is noticeable right away in the first proper track, “Running Wild,” with multiple layers, an actual bass line, and reverb that makes the track sound like Richard Butler brought the Psychedelic Furs back together to be a hard-rock band. There’s still a distinctive guitar riff in the transition from verse to verse, but I wonder if someone told the brothers that they needed to sound a little more like fellow UK duo Royal Blood, whose sound is heavier and slower, drawing more from mid-70s metal than late-70s new wave. “Never Awake” comes from similar territory as the first album’s “Face Like a Skull,” but the opening drum riff is exponentially more intricate, and that same muted, reverb-heavy production quality feels like we’re referring back to pre-grunge Soundgarden or Nirvana.

The new-wave stylings aren’t limited to Gang of Four/Wire influences, as there’s a groove element to several songs here that, while not quite dance-able, at least sit in that shaded area where the post-punk portion of new wave overlapped with bands like Blondie who adapted that sound into something that did work on the dance floor. The main guitar riff in “The Snake” slithers low and mid-tempo, with an actual harmony in the song’s vocals and a drum pattern that departs from anything the brothers tried on their first album. “Side by Side” scared me at first with a hand-clap pattern that might make Imagine Dragons proud, but the song evolves into an irreducible complexity shortly thereafter with a two-tone guitar riff and percussion lines that are probably drummer Rory Loveless’s best work to date, swirling in a way that refuses to let the listener get comfortable with the pattern.

Drenge haven’t eschewed punk entirely on Undertow, as “We Can Do What We Want” sits somewhere between classic punk and modern punk-pop variants like the Vaccines’ “Teenage Icon,” opening with a very Drenge-ish image of a “balaclava on my boyfriend’s head.” (The melody reminded me, inexplicably, of “Kids in America.”) “Favourite Son” is by far the song most comparable to the core tracks from Drenge (“Backwaters,” “Bloodsports,” “Gun Crazy”), hard and fast and sparse, with quickly-sung, rage-filled lyrics delivered without apparent irony or concern for your opinions.

I don’t know if the album’s title is in any way a nod to Tool’s album of the same name, itself a seminal work of dark, progressive metal that created a new subgenre and led to a number of bands that, for better or worse, tried new song structures and greater musical experimentation that weren’t typically found outside of technical or extreme metal. That album took the brooding standard in grunge and alternative rock at the time to a new level of angst, a sound that struck me as self-parodic but that evidently appealed to a broad cross-section of listeners looking for something more serious about its seriousness. Drenge aren’t serious or even as pissed off as they were on their first album; they’ve lightened up and expanded their sound rather than merely refining it. I didn’t see any connection to Tool until I reached the final track on Undertow, “Have You Forgotten My Name?,” which begins with a heavy, deep guitar-bass-drum section that wouldn’t have been out of place on Ænima, although Tool would have had the song go on for eight more minutes. The wrath of Drenge is now resigned submission, and while it’s not what I wanted from them after such a phenomenal debut, it’s a clear step forward for a band worthy of more more attention from American audiences.

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→ April 2, 2015
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Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.

My latest boardgame review for Paste covers NanoBot Battle Arena. I also have an updated top 50 prospects ranking up for Insiders.

Courtney Barnett’s two singles from 2014, “Avant Gardener” and “History Eraser,” were both on my top 100 tracks of the year primarily for her clever, witty lyrics, which told complete stories with inventive wordplay and a willingness to break out of standard meters and rhyme schemes. Her first true full-length album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit, more than delivers on the promise of those earlier songs, with better hooks and more upbeat rock sounds while maintaining the high standard of wordsmithing she’d already set for herself.

Led by two stomping tracks, “Elevator Operator” and lead single “Pedestrian at Best,” Sometimes I Sit… is a tour de force of finding humor in despair and setting it to a guitar-rich soundtrack; it harkens back to the halcyon days of the Smiths, where Johnny Marr could get you off the couch and Morrissey would send you to the therapist’s. The opener tells the story of a disaffected white-collar worker who has had enough of cubicle life and reveals that all he ever wanted was to be an elevator operator; the second track comes at you like a shouted-word (rather than spoken-) statement of purpose, with a chorus that candidly offers, “Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you/Tell me I’m exceptional and I promise to exploit you.” Barnett has no use for the typical tropes of the female pop artist, and instead asserts herself in juxtaposition with statements of insecurity or even occasional self-loathing.

Barnett is too young to remember the ’80s but there are hints of that decade’s strain of British new wave artists who built their hooks around guitars rather than synths and employed wry irony that often went over listeners’ heads throughout the album. “Debbie Downer” sounds like the descendant of an Aztec Camera tune, shockingly upbeat for its title (where, indeed, she’s told by a somewhat older woman to quit frowning, only to inform her target, “Don’t stop listening, I’m not finished yet”). “Aqua Profunda!” revisits a common theme in Barnett’s lyrics, that of the embarrassing incident, this one where she’s swimming in a lap pool, notices the guy in the next lane, and tries to impress him, only to have the whole thing go awry. “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go to the Party” is true.

Barnett’s slower songs have always fallen short of the mark for me because she’s not a singer; she talk-sings, and her lyrics would largely work as spoken-word offerings anyway, but without solid music behind her the unmusical nature of her voice is exposed. Sometimes I Sit has two long, meandering bluesy tracks, “Small Poppies” and “Kim’s Caravan,” that clock in at just about seven minutes apiece and couldn’t hold my attention that long. When she reduces the tempo, it works better with more storytelling; “Depreston” starts out as an ennui-scented trip to buy a house in the suburbs, only to turn dark when she sees signs of the previous owner’s life in some of the house’s features and décor. The story evolves so that the languid pace of the song never becomes an obstacle for the listener. Plus she points out in the lyrics that by making coffee at home she’s saving $23 a week; we should all admire such thrift. “Dead Fox” is one of the album’s catchier songs, but it’s a rare case of Barnett’s lyrics – a critique of consumerism (including the feel-good variety) – feeling forced.

Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit is the best debut album I’ve heard so far this year, and one of maybe a half-dozen albums I can think of so far this decade that I’d recommend on the basis of its lyrics alone. Barnett’s ideas threaten to spill out of the speakers, and the quality of her music is already improving. She’s probably destined to remain on alternative stations because of her quirky delivery and too-cerebral lyrics (you have to pay attention to them), but she deserves a wide enough audience to keep her producing this kind of art for many more albums.

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→ February 3, 2015
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Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance.

Is there anything quite so Belle & Sebastian as a song titled “Enter Sylvia Plath?” The veteran Scottish indie-folk-rock-whatever group, known as much for their low profile as for their music, have always enjoyed great critical acclaim but never much commercial success, which I believe is the result of their refusal to sound un-British and their use of song titles and lyrics that range from abstruse to sinister, too cerebral for mass appeal even though much of their music is blatantly pop in nature. They’ve had a few gold records in the UK, but have had very little sales traction outside of Britain, not even in Australia, often the most receptive market for distinctly British acts.

“Enter Sylvia Plath” encapsulates the paradox of B&S, as it’s a 131 bpm electronic dance song that name-drops a poet/author who produced depressing material that matched her tragic biography. It’s part of the soft middle of the band’s new album, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, their first since 2010’s quiet, underappreciated Write About Love. The new album kicks off with a quartet of effusive pop songs that would fit as well on any pop/top 40 station as on independent or alternative radio, including the lead single “The Party Line” (#3 on my list of the top songs of 2014), enough to buoy almost any album on to a year-end best-of list. Beyond the initial promise the boys (and girl) can’t sustain the energy that drove the opening chapter, with music that’s more pleasant background listening rather than the hook-laden stuff that demands your full attention, more intriguing lyrically than musically.

Ah, but that opening tetrad is something else. “Nobody’s Empire” begins with a swirling piano riff and softly thumping bass drum before lead singer/songwriter Stuart Murdoch introduces a sunny melody that goes back to 1960s pop, belying the lyrics describing Murdoch’s own experiences with the debilitating chronic fatigue syndrome, along with the first of many wonderful quotes from the record – “Marching with the crowd singing dirty and loud/For the people’s emancipation” (Shouldn’t all protest songs be dirty and loud?) “Allie” plays like a sly, sinister detective story describing a woman fighting some kind of mental illness that puts her through delusions and desires for self-harm, over the album’s best hook, a shuffling minor-chord blues pattern that refuses to let you catch your balance any more than the song’s subject can. “The Party Line” might be the best pure pop song Belle & Sebastian have ever recorded, replete with Murdoch’s typical wordplay (he’s calling you to the dance floor more than to a partisan debate). “The Power of Three” at least starts to downshift the listener before the softer middle third of the album, moving towards a glammier ’70s vibe with the tinny synth riff that powers the bridges after each chorus, although by the end of its four minutes they’ve dissipated much of the energy that powered the first trio of tracks.

The middle of the album drags both due to the drop in tempo and the length of several of its songs, with “The Cat with the Cream” a sedative to bring everyone down from the high of the start of the album, leading into “Enter Sylvia Plath” almost with a whisper. “The Everlasting Muse” dips into a musical allusion to Russian folk dances for an incongruous middle movement, certainly true to the band’s roots in folk music but less subtle than their best work. The pace doesn’t pick back up until the seven-minute opus “Play for Today,” featuring Dum Dum Girls singer/songwriter Dee Dee Penny sharing vocal duties with Murdoch in a song laced with mid-80s new wave trappings that seems to run far shorter than its actual length thanks to the shared vocal duties. That song sets up “The Book of You,” with Sarah Martin taking over lead vocals on another banger that builds up to an old-fashioned rock guitar solo, but the newfound momentum collapses with the dirge-like closer “Today (This Army’s for Peace.”

For a band that’s been around for nearly twenty years now, releasing nine albums, Belle & Sebastian manage to sound new at several points on Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, never more so than when they live up the album’s title by producing songs that combine great hooks with beats and rhythms suited for the dance floor. The album is surprisingly incoherent for a group whose songwriting and production always feel so meticulous, almost like it’s two half-albums mashed together without a thought to sequencing. The portion that finds Belle & Sebastian feeling the urge to get up and dance is the revelation here, a new dimension from a group that, while talented, seemed to have fallen into its own set ways.

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→ February 1, 2015
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January 2015 music update.

The whole top 100 prospects package is now up for Insiders, including:

I got a complaint yesterday that one of the team reports wasn’t long enough. With over 48,000 words in the whole package, you can send any such criticisms to /dev/null.

January was a great month for new releases, especially tracks previewing albums coming in March or April. Here’s the Spotify playlist, with a note on each song coming up below:

Purity Ring – “Push Pull.” I didn’t love their first album, Shrines, but this lead single from their upcoming sophomore LP Another Eternity is a marvel, especially in Megan James’ lyrics, which seem to draw heavily from classical English poetry. “A fever billowed with the wind/And I bade the sky therein.” The music struggles to keep up with her vocals, at times sound like a weird remix the way the track doesn’t line up with her meter, but she could probably sing this a cappella and I’d still listen.

Wildhoney – “Molly.” This Baltimore shoegaze act, one of two Charm City bands on this playlist (along with Lower Dens), is signed to a Canadian punk label, but their music is more Curve, Swervedriver, and early Lush than Bad Religion or the Descendants. The tiny guitar line behind the vocals is the track’s separating factor, although I liked how the walls of guitars in the chorus referenced My Bloody Valentine without drowning out Lauren Shusterich’s vocals.

HOLYCHILD – “Running Behind.” The percussion lines remind me of tUnEyArDs’ “Water Fountain,” but with non-irritating vocals. My daughter loved this song on first listen, and I have a feeling it’ll be a quick crossover to pop radio, since it’s only “alternative” in the sense that it’s not popular yet.

The Districts – “Peaches.” Seems like my favorite fruit (especially for pie) is a popular topic for songs of late, including this new release that has some resemblances to the Hold Steady with its blues/roots-rock backing and sung-talked descending vocal lines. The whining guitar riff that parallels the vocals in the chorus strikes a fine balance between hooky and annoying.

Viet Cong – “Silhouettes.” I admit to being a little off from the consensus on this debut album featuring two of the three surviving members of Women, finding it very uneven, with lead single “Continental Shelf” missing my top 100 from last year. “Silhouettes” has a dark, Joy Division/Bauhaus kind of vibe but with harder guitar lines that made it the standout from their eponymous album, relased two weeks back on indie Super Tuesday.

Modest Mouse – “Lampshades On Fire.” It almost sounds like Johnny Marr never left. I never loved Modest Mouse before “Dashboard,” which I suppose means I’m not a True Fan or something, but also means I particularly like this new song’s rhythm – and as always there’s a lot of fun wordplay in the lyrics.

Coasts – “Oceans.” They’re going to be compared to Coldplay because their next single is called “A Rush of Blood,” but the similarity is just in the attempt to craft songs that feel anthemic with big climaxes of drums and shimmering guitars. Coldplay has its detractors, and I find their work frustratingly inconsistent, but they do write some pop hooks that prove indelible, something few imitators (save, perhaps, Bastille and Imagine Dragons) have been able to do. Coasts has a shot, though, based on these two singles, both of which came out last year in the UK.

Matt and Kim – “Get It.” Solid melody, weak lyrics, which unfortunately has been the duo’s formula for much of their careers.

Belle & Sebastian – “Nobody’s Empire.” I adore the first four tracks on this album, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, but it tapers off into maudlin material that is probably more authentic B&S but just not my style. “The Party Line” was my #3 track of 2014; “Nobody’s Empire” will likely rank very high for me on this year’s list.

A. Sinclair – “Suit Up.” From this Austin band’s October album Pretty Girls, this single kicks the door down with the intense introductory riff. I imagine they’d be fantastic to see live given how much energy comes through in their studio recordings.

Young Ejecta – “Welcome to Love.” Formerly known as Ejecta, this side project of Neon Indian’s Leanne Macomber – who is once again au naturel on the album cover – put out their second short album of ethereal, quietly melodic synthpop that highlights Macomber’s breathy alto.

Sleater-Kinney – “Price Tag.” The opener from their amazing comeback record, No Cities to Love, which I reviewed in January.

Tobias Jesso Jr. – “How Could You Babe.” I’m still not sure how much I like this mournful piano ballad, which is driven primarily by Jesso – whose debut album comes out in March – crooning the song’s title repeatedly. It’s been stuck in my head a few times already, though.

The Mowgli’s – “Through The Dark.” They may never do anything I like as much as “San Francisco,” but I do love this septet’s sound when the entire group starts singing in unison, practically begging you to join in. Their second proper album is due this spring.

Death Cab for Cutie – “Black Sun.” It seems like 2015 is the big year for comeback records from some of the biggest alternative acts of the aughts – these guys have been gone for four years, Belle & Sebastian for five, the Decemberists for four, Modest Mouse for six, and Sleater-Kinney for nine. “Black Sun” is very promising, especially the guitar interlude, which brought back to mind my favorite track from 2011’s Codes and Keys, “You are a Tourist.”

Lower Dens – “To Die in L.A.” Did they steal that guitar sound from Robert Plant’s “Big Log?”

Courtney Barnett – “Pedestrian at Best.” When she plugs in and there’s some real music to back up her brilliantly twisted lyrics, she’s among the best voices in independent/alternative music today, contorting the language into whatever shapes she desires, with brilliant imagery and incisive wit. Here’s hoping her next album continues what she’s started here.

Twerps – “Back to You.” Twerps, an Australian quartet who remind me in many ways of the Go-Betweens, seem to specialize in understated, pleasantly annoying pop tracks, a formula that works about half the time on their debut album Range Anxiety. Everyone’s raving over “I Don’t Mind,” one of the two longest tracks on the album, but the off-key singing and twangy, repetitive guitar licks work much better on songs half that length, as with the syncopated riff that powers this sunny bit of indie-pop.

Voivod – “We Are Connected.” Voivod’s 1989 album Nothingface had a huge influence on my tastes in music; at a time when “metal” largely meant the glam-rock derivative of hair bands, with Metallica the edgy alternative to Poison and Cinderella, Voivod – who toured off this album with two similarly unknown acts, Faith No More and Soundgarden – produced intelligent, aggressive, intricate songs exploring dark themes with lyrics that, if nothing else, moved beyond what was available on the radio in those pre-satellite, pre-web days. The band’s sound changed in the mid-90s with Negatron, going more toward death-metal growls and “groove” riffs; withh the 2005 death of original guitarist Denis D’Amour they will probably never recover their original vibe, but “We Are Connected” at least restores the clean vocals and spaced-out thrash sound that made them one of metal’s first real innovators.

And while I’m not going to put anything from Napalm Death’s upcoming album on the playlist (I’ve never been a fan of their brand of extreme grindcore), this piece on the letter that lead screamer Barney Greenaway wrote to Indonesian President (and Napalm Death fan) Joko Widodo is worth a read. Here’s hoping it succeeds in convincing Widodo to commute those two criminals’ death sentences.

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→ January 21, 2015
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No Cities to Love.

Just a reminder that the top 100 prospects package will appear on ESPN.com next week for Insiders, running from January 28th to the 30th. I’ll chat on the 29th (but not this week), the day that the top 100 itself goes up.

Regardless of the actual quality of the album, Sleater-Kinney’s No Cities To Love (also on iTunes) was going to garner rave reviews from critics and fans who were just happy that the trio was back after a nine-year absence from recording. It didn’t matter whether their sound had changed, whether they could still write great hooks, whether Corin Tucker could still sing, as long as they were still Sleater-Kinney, because that band and that name stood for something, although for what it stood probably depended on where you were standing – independent music, anti-corporatism, feminism, LGBT issues, sometimes stuff the band themselves never openly espoused. They never experienced commercial success commensurate with their critical standing, perhaps in part because of Tucker’s deliberately abrasive vocal style, but also because they never did much to court it. Their breakup in 2006 and move into other projects, notably Carrie Brownstein’s career as an actress (co-creating Portlandia with Fred Armisen – go Thinkers!), only served to heighten their legend, with Brooklyn Vegan promising to play a Sleater-Kinney track on its Sirius XMU show each week until the band reunited. By 2014, Sleater-Kinney was an idea rather than a pretty good, defunct punk band.

That makes it all the more gratifying that their album No Cities to Love, released on Tuesday on Sub Pop, is such a tight, sophisticated, hook-filled record, sophisticated without becoming staid, more of a second take on the Sleater-Kinney sound than more of the same they gave us through their first half-dozen albums. There’s a cleaner sound throughout the record, better production quality combined with less distortion on the guitars (Sleater-Kinney has never used a bass guitar, ironic since that’s often what the token girl plays in male-fronted rock bands), which means the songs are carried by memorable riffs, layered vocals, and non-traditional (for them) drum patterns. Tucker’s vocals are just as intense and emotional as ever, but it’s a lot easier to pick up what she’s saying and to distinguish each vocal or guitar track within a song.

Lead single “Bury Our Friends,” my #12 song of 2014, gave a strong preview of this slight shift in Sleater-Kinney’s direction – angst-ridden yet hopeful, stomping through the chorus (“exhume our idols/bury our friends”), driven both by one of Brownstein’s strongest riffs ever and some intricate drumwork from Janet Weiss. Weiss’ role on the album may be the most pleasant surprise, as she’s expanded her style and is mixed more toward the front; “Fangless,” which opens almost like a prog-rock track that’s made a small withdrawal from the jazz machine, would go nowhere without Weiss’ syncopated percussion lines. You can hear throughout Cities why Weiss has been in such demand from other indie rock acts during Sleater-Kinney’s hiatus.

Album opener “Price Tag” serves both as one of the album’s best tracks and a transitional song to reintroduce old listeners to the band’s slight shift in direction while bringing new fans immediately into the fold, building up a store of potential energy in the verses before exploding into a chorus where Tucker sounds like she’s still holding a little piece of rage in reserve for future use. “Surface Envy” completes the opening troika by paradoxically turning a descending scale into a memorable riff, I think primarily because of how it ends in a crash between Brownstein’s power chords and Weiss’s pulsating drums, an aural waterfall hitting the rocks and splashing everywhere. “No Anthems” borrows a little from stoner rock to underlie Tucker’s introspective lyrics, evincing some nostalgia for the band’s former, reluctant role as standard-bearers for the riot grrl movement. The album’s only real stumble, “Hey Darling,” a stab at power-pop that sounds wrong coming from Tucker’s lungs, gives way quickly to the melancholy closer “Fade,” which alludes to pre-grunge sounds from Mudhoney and Soundgarden in the first movement, after which Weiss powershifts into a march for the bridge, leading into Brownstein’s pedal-point riff that drives the reprise of the first third to close out the song and the album. It’s the most ornate song on Cities, the right way to finish an album that would otherwise have been split in two by its complexity amidst a run of tighter, faster tracks.

I was never fully on board with the hype around Sleater-Kinney, because I thought they were more of A Really Important Thing than a producer of great tracks, which may color my impression of No Cities to Love … but it’s my favorite album by the band, by a huge margin. This is the kind of album we would hope middle-aged punks could produce after some time away from their main act, but that very few artists are capable of pulling off.

If you’re a fan of Sleater-Kinney, I highly recommend this Pitchfork feature story on the band, with many enlightening comments from the band members on the direction of this latest album. I also suggest you check out the 2013 album Silence Yourself by Savages, who walk the same paths first plowed by bands like Sleater-Kinney, Babes in Toyland, and 7 Year Bitch.

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→ December 11, 2014
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Top 14 albums of 2014.

My Insider content from the last few days:
* The Jimmy Rollins trade
* The Mat Latos and Alfredo Simon trades
* The Matt Kemp trade
* The Rick Porcello/Yoenis Cespedes trade
* The Wade Miley trade
* The Howie Kendrick/Andrew Heaney trade and Brandon McCarthy signing
* The Dee Gordon trade
* The Jon Lester signing
* The Francisco Liriano re-signing
* The Miguel Montero trade
* The Jeff Samardzija trade (and David Robertson signing) and Oakland’s return
* The Jason Hammel signing
* The Brandon Moss trade

My review of the boardgame Concordia is up at Paste, and I did an interview about baseball and metal with Decibel.

–

My ranking of the top 14 albums of the year is below, and reflects my own personal preferences, with a balance between albums that have a few standout songs and ones that worked better as cohesive units. You can see last year’s top 13 albums list for a comparison and to see if something you expected to see here actually made last year’s list (e.g., CHVRCHES, Arctic Monkeys). I heard a lot more than I ranked here, but getting to fourteen albums I truly liked and would recommend wasn’t even easy.

Linked album titles go to full reviews. My ranking of the top 100 songs of the year will follow in a few days.

14. The Kooks – Listen. Goofy British pop-rock songs that didn’t work so well as a collection, especially with a few tracks worth skipping, but featured a number of very strong singles, including “Bad Habit,” “Down,” and “Forgive and Forget.”

13. Animals as Leaders – The Joy of Motion. (amazon• iTunes) An all-instrumental technical/progressive metal-fusion record … or something like that. If you love guitarwork, including jazz-inspired soloing, with unconventional song structures, featuring numerous musicians operating at the far right end of what is possible with their instruments, you’ll love this album. Otherwise, maybe just move on to #12.

12. To Kill a King – Exit, Pursued by a Bear. (amazon• iTunes) It’s an EP, which is kind of cheating since I hadn’t included EP releases on previous lists, but 1) this is my list so I get to make up the rules 2) I love the title and 3) it’s a really fucking good EP. They remind me in particular of Animals that Swim, a British band from the 1990s and early 2000s that made folk-rock songs that often sounded like great drinking songs and made great use of horns as well as guitars. To Kill a King aren’t afraid to work the horns, the acoustic and electric guitar, the piano, unconventional percussion sounds, and backup harmonies that range from the typical to the borderline-annoying. Wikipedia’s entry compares them to The National, but To Kill a King’s lead singer actually sings rather than mumbling his lyrics. Opener “Oh My Love” plays like a dirge with a nod to Andrew Marvell; “Love is Coal” seems like a straight middle finger to Mumford & Sons and all of their clones, saying “this is how you do the slow-fast-slow thing, posers.”

11. Insomnium – Shadows of a Dying Sun. The best metal album of the year for me comes from this Finnish melodic death-metal act previously known for primarily downbeat and often soporific music that wasn’t saved by the technical prowess of its guitarists. Shadows brings them much more firmly into the melodic camp, with the occasional clean vocal, far more ornate song structures (with actual movements in some tracks), and somewhat less dreary lyrics. There aren’t many bands operating in this demilitarized zone between classic thrash, classical metal, and straight-up death metal, but it’s a sweet spot for my particular tastes.

As an aside, my top metal albums of the year: Insomnium, Animals as Leaders, Pallbearer’s Foundations of Burden, Horrendous’ Ecdysis, and At the Gates’ At War With Reality.

10. Band of Skulls – Himalayan. I like to rock, or more specifically, I like to listen to bands that rock, preferably without apology or relent. (I do like to rock a little, though.) Band of Skulls draws deeply on genres from 1970s classic rock to the more commercial part of 1990s grunge, and most of this album is driven by huge guitar riffs, blues shuffles, and bass-heavy grooves. This is music for people who just love hard rock that isn’t metal and still boasts great melodies, from the title track, “Asleep at the Wheel,” “Toreador,” and the psycheledic “Nightmares.”

9. Ex Hex – Rips. It’s good to have Mary Timony, formerly of noise-rock icons Helium and the all-female Wild Flag (with Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney, whose 2015 album should appear on my list next year), back with a new band. Ex Hex is punk-pop more than anything else, hook-filled with a slew of short, punchy, fast-paced songs that are a little light lyrically but incredibly fun to listen to, including “Beast,” “Don’t Wanna Lose,” and “New Kid.”

8. Kaiser Chiefs – Education, Education, Education, and War. The big comeback album for the band best known for their 2004 hit “I Predict a Riot” was by far their most mature, measured, balanced effort ever, easing up on the overly clever lyrics just a bit and filling the album with compelling hooks and more nuanced songwriting. Lead single “Coming Home” found them almost serious and pensive, while “Cannons,” “Ruffians on Parade” and opener “The Factory Gates” brought the electricity you’d expect from the Chiefs along with newly thoughtful, sardonic lyrics. This album, with a title mocking a speech once given by Tony Blair, didn’t chart in the U.S., but hit #1 in the UK and went gold, their best showing since their second album came out in 2007.

7. Broods – Evergreen. (amazon• iTunes) This New Zealand brother-and-sister duo first hit with their single “Bridges,” a top 10 song for me this year due to its stunning contrast from the sweet, piano-driven verse to the thumping chorus where singer Georgia Nutt shifts up to a falsetto that almost strains her range. Their full album has great contrasts throughout within that dream-pop/electronic framework, most with strong melodies, showing a lot of range for a very young pair of songwriters on their first album.

6. …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead – IX. With their ninth album (duh), the ol’ Trail of Dead are at their most melodic and textured, with tremendous percussion work by their tandem of drummers and hypnotic, swirling guitar lines, without losing the structural complexity that has marked nearly all of their work. It might not have received the insane acclaim of Source Tags and Codes, but it’s a more accessible and thoughtful album, led by “The Doomsday Book,” “Jaded Apostles,” “Lie Without a Liar,” and the closer “Sound of the Silk” that just left me on the floor gasping for air.

5. Spoon – They Want My Soul. Spoon has become, for me, the definitive American rock band, or perhaps rock-and-roll band, drawing as they do on influences from throughout rock history while incorporating folk, country, and more current electronic elements in their songs. They Want My Soul was a bounceback of sorts after a pair of less exciting albums, bringing more experimentation and a wider range of styles with barely any hiccups along the way (other than the single “Inside Out”). You’ve heard and probably liked the straightforward singles “Rent I Pay” and “Do You,” but when Spoon get nostalgic on the cover “You Just Don’t Understand” or start playing around with structure and synths on “Outlier” or “Knock Knock Knock” they manage to expand boundaries without losing their ability to craft compelling hooks.

4. HAERTS – Haerts. Three of the five best songs on here appeared on an EP late last year, but that’s not to say the remaining songs on the band’s full-length debut, produced by St. Lucia (who appeared on last year’s list with his own debut album), which all showcase singer Nini Fabi’s powerful, slightly smoky voice over masterfully crafted strata of keyboards and drum machines. “Giving Up” is the best new song and the only one on my top 100 this year, but “Wings,” “Hemiplegia,” and “All the Days” are standouts from their first EP.

3. alt-J – This is All Yours. It wasn’t as groundbreaking or mindblowing as their debut album, An Awesome Wave, my favorite album not just of 2012 but of the decade so far, so I could call This is All Yours a mild letdown … and yet it’s still a work of great imagination and continues the trio’s refusal to work within the conventions of modern music, even within what’s generally called “alternative” but isn’t quite as radical as the name might indicate. This is All Yours is uneven, with a few songs they could just as easily have omitted (“Choice Kingdom” and “Pusher” in particular), but they soar with the manic complexity of “Every Other Freckle,” the slow expansion of “The Gospel of John Hurt,” the four-vocalist gimmick that actually plays on “Warm Foothills,” and the so-bad-it’s good “Left Hand Free.” It’s not as cleanly produced as their debut, unfortunately, which cuts into the atmosphere it creates and stunts the beauty of tracks like “Warm Foothills” or “Hunger of the Pine.”

2. New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers. I don’t know how a collection of singers and songwriters this broad and diverse could push out an album this cohesive, but Brill Bruisers is an ebullient power-pop masterpiece; what it might lack in invention (compared to, say, Twin Cinema) it more than makes up for via its sheer pop brilliance. The title track is one of the best songs of the year, landing in my top 10, but “Dancehall Domine,” “Fantasy Fools,” and “War on the East Coast” all shimmer with gorgeous pop hooks and note-perfect performances across the board.

1. Hundred Waters – The Moon Rang Like a Bell. (amazon • iTunes) I never reviewed this album because I didn’t quite get it when I first received it a review copy back in May; it was just too weird, too unconventional, almost the way I never quite got the Cocteau Twins. But I kept coming back to certain songs that stuck with me – “Xtalk,” “Innocent,” “Out Alee” – and realized the issue was that I had to get used to the production, which put singer Nicole Miglis’s voice so front and center that you can almost hear her thinking. This is cerebral music, but that doesn’t mean it requires more of the listener than an open mind; think of Hundred Waters’s songs as the pattern on a lake when hit by a raindrop or a skipped stone, with each track within a song rippling outward on its own to create a gorgeous, cohesive whole. I haven’t heard anything quite like it before, which is something I want to say about any album I’m calling the best of its year.

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→ December 2, 2014
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November music update.

My analysis of the Nelson Cruz signing went up yesterday for Insiders, as did my annual gift guide for the home cooks on your list this year, the latter here on the dish.

I’ve already begun sketching out my top 100 tracks of 2014 list as well as a ranking of my favorite albums of the year, but I’m holding that until after baseball’s winter meetings, which are next week in San Diego, just to steal myself another week or so to make sure I haven’t missed any songs I’ll regret omitting. In the meantime, here’s one more monthly playlist to tide you over, with a few songs that will appear on the year-end ranking.

Kele – Closer. Bloc Party’s lead singer goes in a totally different direction in his solo work, with elements of trip-hop, two-step, and more traditional electronica. The album is uneven, but “Closer” is its best track between the tempo changes and the duet with an unknown female artist (I can’t find proper credits for the track anywhere).

TV on the Radio – Lazerray. I was psyched for their latest album, Seeds, to come out, but was mildly disappointed in how much of it is 1) mid-tempo or slower and 2) vaguely commercial-sounding. When they really let ‘er rip, they’re at their best; “Lazerray” should bring back memories of last year’s one-off single “Mercy” or their first crossover hit, 2006’s “Wolf Like Me.”

Young Fathers – Get Up. Young Fathers were the surprise winners of the 2014 Mercury Prize; this British rap trio’s album Dead was … well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have given it the award. But “Get Up” winks back at ’60s/’70s Motown-era soul in the chorus, and YF’s technical shortcomings are far less evident because the verses are tight and the music is strong.

King Tuff – Black Moon Spell. That fuzzed-out guitar riff seems lifted off some lost ’70s vinyl, maybe a Thin Lizzy B-side, and the slight shift into a minor chord when it repeats the second time through each chorus is just perfect. I’m a sucker for a distorted lead guitar hook.

Dreamers – Wolves. Indie-rock with a good sense of melody, not terribly distinguished (so far) from a few dozen other bands with similarly ungoogleable names, but with the benefit of some early support on Sirius XM that at least is getting this strong lead single (“and if you lie down with wolves/learn to howl”) some airplay in advance of their debut album, due next year.

Death from Above 1979 – Always On. I didn’t know these guys did heavy, but the grinding guitar riff overpowers the grunge-pop drum and vocal lines here to take the song beyond the generic.

Ex Cops – Black Soap. I actually assumed Ex Cops were from somewhere in Scandinavia, just based on their sparse arrangements and lead singer Amalie Brunn’s voice (turns out she’s Danish, but the band is based in Brooklyn). I guess she was involved in a controversy earlier this year when she put out a dark metal record under the name Myrkur without revealing her identity, to which I give a giant ¯\_(?)_/¯. Anyway, “Black Soap” is a solid alt-pop track that’s gotten some quick buzz thanks in part to the involvement of Billy Corgan in producing the record. Not to be confused with Futurecop, which also put out an album last month.

Empires – Please Don’t Tell My Lover. It’s electro-pop, I think, but the guitar riff is more pronounced than most tracks in that subgenre, which is worth extra points in my book.

Dan Sultan – Under Your Skin. Winner of the ARIA award for Best Rock Album for his Blackbird (just $5.99 on iTunes right now) this year, Sultan is an Australian Aborigine singer/songwriter who draws deeply on 1960s/1970s soul sounds … which a lot of folks do these days, but Sultan actually pulls it off without sounding a bit like a fraud. “The Same Man” is the other standout track from Blackbird, but I like “Under Your Skin” best for its snarling intro riff and tight two-and-half minute run time.

Stars – This is the Last Time/Trap Door. Stars made my 2012 top 40 with their New Order-mimicking “Hold On When You Get Love.” Their latest album doesn’t plow any new soil at all; they’re playing it very safe, hewing close to their new-wave inspirations, but they do that sound particularly well, regardless of which vocalist takes the helm. The former has a hint of New Pornographers when Neko Case takes the mic; the latter is the song that reminded me most of that 2012 standout track.

Broncho – Class Historian. This song is going to annoy me if I listen it too much, due to that weird “duh-duh-duh” thing they do every thirty seconds, and I don’t love tracks that overproduce the vocals to make them sound low and distant, but there’s a decent pop hook underneath here and I think the song’s going to get a ton of airplay.

CHVRCHES – Get Away. Mentioned earlier this year, now available on Spotify. The song is from the BBC’s “re-scoring” of the movie Drive.

Banks – Waiting Game. Yeah, “Begging for Thread” is the best song from her Goddess album, but I figure you’ve probably heard that already; this was my second-favorite.

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→ November 3, 2014
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Haerts.

HAERTS – yeah, I’m not big on the deliberately-misspelled band names trend either – put out a strong EP late last year as a teaser for their full-length debut; “All the Days” made my top 100 songs of 2013, “Wings” would have made my top songs of 2012 had I heard it when it was released, and I liked their overall sound and lead singer Nini Fabi’s powerful, slightly smoky voice. Their self-titled debut album came out last Tuesday, including three of the four songs from last year’s EP along with six new tracks that follow the same general aesthetic – indie-pop, a little new wavish but never retro, all buttressed by Fabi’s tremendous vocals.

Produced by Jean-Philip Grobler, who records his own music under the moniker St. Lucia, Haerts isn’t as bright as his own work but features the same kind of lush, layered sounds that made his album When the Night (which made my top albums of 2013 list) so compelling. Haerts’ songs work best when Fabi is at the front, as on lead single “Giving Up,” where she begins singing just over a repeating keyboard line, after which her vocals are doubled before we get the remainder of the band involved. Like “Wings” and “All the Days,” there’s a relentlessness in the backing key and guitar lines, like a haertbeat beneath the voice that gives the album’s best songs their energy.

That’s lacking when the pace slows, as on “Call My Name,” the intro to which is way too similar to Chris Deburgh’s “The Lady in Red” (good luck unhearing that now); Fabi gets to belt it out during the chorus, but by that point I’d lost some interest, and the formula doesn’t work any better on “Lights Out,” which sounds a bit like a mediocre ’80s ballad and doesn’t let Fabi show off at all. Haerts sound best when they hit the gas from the first measure and leave the cruise control on for the whole four minutes – even deep tracks like “Be the One” (with the perhaps unintentional double entendre “can you show it/when you go down?” in the bridge) and opener “Heart” cast a spell with solid hooks and Fabi’s performance. I understand the desire to vary their sound and tempo across the 40 minutes of a full album, but their style doesn’t work as well at ballad speed.

Those songs from last year’s Hemiplegia EP are the strongest, though – the two I mentioned above plus the title track – with mesmerizing vocals and richly textured synth-bass-drum combinations that grow as each track progresses. “Hemiplegia” might be the unlikeliest title for a pure pop song, but it’s a remarkably crafted track that recalls the best moments from When the Night as it adds layers (like the guitar riff at 2:20) to increase its complexity without losing its hookiness. “Wings” is the only track on the album that feels driven by percussion, but the strength of the beat contrasts beautifully with the flow of Fabi’s vocals, but when everything drops out behind her at the halfway point, she hits this series of notes that mark the highest point of the entire album. There’s enough consistency on this album to make it well worth the purchase, as long as you didn’t buy the EP last year; it’s among the year’s best albums, on the strength of those three songs and one of the best new voices in alternative music.

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→ November 1, 2014
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…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead’s IX.

I wrote about the Giants and Royals hitting on high draft picks for Insider, as well as a look at the top 30 prospects for the 2015 draft (with Chris Crawford). This week’s Klawchat will have to tide you over for two weeks, since I’m heading off on vacation on Wednesday.

My October playlist is up on Spotify now, featuring tracks from Ben Howard, Sleater-Kinney, Soundgarden, Ásgeir;, HAERTS, Belle & Sebastian, To Kill a King, and Wytches.

There’s also a new CHVRCHES track out, but it’s not on Spotify yet.

…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead have one of my favorite band names ever, but despite my occasional references to them, I don’t have a lot of history with their music. I thought Source Tags & Codes, one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the last twenty years, was much less memorable than the glowing reviews indicated. It was a landmark album of the “emo” subgenre of alternative rock, a point where their earlier noise-rock inclinations found balance with more ambitious song structures and lyrics. Pitchfork even gave it a perfect 10/10 rating, which means some editor there fell down on the job by allowing such a score to be applied to a record that’s this accessible. But because I didn’t come to their subsequent work from the perspective that Source Tags was their magnum opus, I never held the view that they were a band in decline that seems to have affected views of their next four albums.

Coming to their latest release, simply titled IX, rather fresh probably helped me get into the album as quickly as I did – or maybe it’s just one of their more hook-laden records, with five or six tracks that boast strong melodies on top of their usual walls of distorted guitars. What sets this album apart in particular is the tremendous percussion work by Jason Reece and Jamie Miller; the drums drive nearly all of the album’s best tracks through tempo shifts and time signature changes, and they’re mixed towards the front the way John Bonham’s drums were on vintage Zeppelin albums. It’s a new dimension for the band as they continue to evolve within their particular niche of alternative rock.

The new emphasis on heavy, layered percussion work starts up with the first track, “The Doomsday Book,” where the rich drums and cymbal crashes set the tone for the guitars rather than the converse; it feels like a race where no one else can let up for a second because of the pace set by the drums. The track bleeds directly into “Jaded Apostles,” which I think is the album’s best shot at a successful single, starting with a hypnotic, rotating guitar line that subtly changes shape when the drums arrive with a tropical-accented rhythm that pulses through nearly the whole song. (It must be exhausting to play the drums for for these guys.) “Lie Without a Liar” is the first appearance of truly guitar-driven music, with a jangly lead line contrasting with the quicker rhythm section until the wave crashes in the chorus; it’s their best use of textural shifts anywhere on the album, moving from quiet to loud, slow to quick, appearing to peter out after the second chorus before the solo and wall of noise return before the final verse.

There’s some bloat on the disc, especially in the midsection, with two songs crossing the six-minute mark (and becoming tedious strictly due to their length) as well a pair of instrumentals that suffer from the lack of lyrics, which would have forced a more elaborate structure on to each song. The second one, “Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears,” starts out as a piano-and-strings song before the guitars kick in about halfway through, but it’s only effective as a prelude for the album’s closer, “Sound of the Silk,” which has the complexity of a ten-minute track in half that length. “Sound” starts with a two-minute mini-song that, by Trail of Dead standards, is practically a pop tune, although with an unconventional time signature, but then it ends abruptly with a drum breakdown (with a lot of bongos and Caribbean drumming patterns), which itself seems to peter out before we get a spoken-word passage over a guitar fill that crescendoes through the entire poem until reaching its apex in the last thirty seconds with a final chorus that alludes to the earliest part of the track without repeating it. That’s all in 5:13, by the way, and it’s masterful, even if it’s about as uncommercial as any track on the album.

I’m not qualified to say if IX, which is already out in Europe and comes out here on November 11th, is a “comeback” album for …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, because I’m just not familiar enough with their catalog and don’t line enough with the consensus on their earliest work. IX is better than mere “emo” – a term I always thought was pejorative anyway – with art-rock leanings, complex structures, and among the band’s best hooks ever.

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→ October 1, 2014
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September 2014 music update.

September was a heavy month for new releases, but a light month for good new tracks. I reviewed the new alt-J album, the best release of the month, earlier and haven’t included them here. Here’s the newest Spotify playlist, which includes all of the tracks I listed here but two:

Superhumanoids – “Come Say Hello”/”Hey Big Bang.” I was remiss in omitting these tracks from the August playlist. Sarah Chernoff’s vocals are just incredible, a true soprano soaring over two memorable dream-pop backing tracks.

Snakehips ft. Sinead Harnett – “Days With You.” A soulful trip-hoppy track with unforgettable vocals from Harnett that I first mentioned back in June but that wasn’t released until the very end of August.

The Kooks – “Forgive & Forget.” Maybe the best track from their newest album, reviewed here.

Strand of Oaks – “For Me.” I found their new album to be wildly uneven, often far too low-key given their overall sound, but when Tim Showalter cranks up the tempo just a little bit he finds a sweet spot where the contrast between the guitars’ distortion and his lyrical laments is perfectly balanced.

Broods – “Mother & Father” Not quite as good as their first single, the amazing “Bridges,” but boasting a similar combination of a strong melody and Georgia Nott’s ethereal vocals. This is listed on Spotify but the song isn’t playing for me right now, so it may no longer be available.

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness – “Cecilia And The Satellite.” Modern synth-pop, reminiscent of the Hooters (perhaps because that band had a minor hit called “Satellite” too) with earnest vocals at the front of the mix.

Tweedy – “Low Key.” Mostly included just so I can link to the video, directed by Nick Offerman and starring, among many others, John Hodgman and Michael Shannon.

Max Jury – “Black Metal.” A bit precious, perhaps, but I got a laugh out of the lyrics and video, and the chorus is rather catchy. The 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Iowa draws on folk and country influences in his better tracks, but at other times veers off towards faux-jazz territory, which I’d say is the wrong direction for him or anyone else who wants to maintain his self-respect.

Cold War Kids – “All This Could Be Yours.” I’ve always found their music to be a little histrionic, mostly the result of Nathan Willett’s vocal style but also found in their dramatic piano/drum riffs. Sometimes it works really well, sometimes less so, with this song, released in July as the first single off their forthcoming album, somewhere in between those two points.

Death from Above 1979 – “Trainwreck 1979.” It seems like a lot of music critics/writers are making of a big deal about this group’s reunion ten years after their apparently one-and-done debut album, of which I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever. For electro-rock, it’s not bad, but I’m a little confused by all the hype; it seems like there are a few dozen U.K. acts putting out similar music right now.

Ex Hex – “Beast.” A new trio led by Mary Timony, former lead singer of noise-rockers Helium and member of Wild Flag, Ex Hex just released their debut album yesterday and it’s full of tight, power-pop tracks that betray Timony’s post-punk roots but are among the most melodic things she’s ever put out.

Animals as Leaders – “Tooth and Claw.” I think I mentioned these guys a few months ago, and I recognize this is pretty out there even for me, but Animals as Leaders’ highly experimental, technically precise brand of instrumental metal is totally riveting for me as a longtime guitar player and occasional fan of melodic death metal – which this resembles, just without the growled or screamed vocals.

Opeth – “Eternal Rains Will Come.” I left this track and “Tooth and Claw” at the end since they’re so unlike everything else on the playlist, moving way into the progressive realm right down to the Hammond organs and psychedelic harmonies. If you only know Opeth from their death-metal past, give this track a listen with fresh ears.

Tracks not on Spotify:

Ty Segall – “Tall Man Skinny Lady.” Getting a ton of play on Sirius XM right now, this song is one of seventeen on Segall’s latest album, with a simple guitar riff over a two-step percussion line that repeats incessantly throughout the song. I don’t know why they ran Segall’s vocals through reverb, which makes it sound like he recorded them from out in the hallway, but otherwise it’s a strong slice of psychedelic rock with an anarchic guitar solo.

Telegram – “Regatta.” An obnoxiously British-sounding act, from the Libertines influences in the music to the lead singer’s almost indecipherable Welsh accent, so the result sounds like a bit like the Arctic Monkeys replaced Alex Turner with Gruff Rhys. The video features the band’s members wandering around Tokyo.

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