Resolutions: My Top 10 Albums of 2015
During the last few months everything has been a bit up in the air. Finished University, went away travelling, contemplated dreadlocks and beaded bracelets, immediately regretted considering it, got a job, ate some pizza… y’know, the kind of things that stop a guy writing to a blog. Not had much time to get writing like I should and not had much inspiration so to get the creative juices flowing I’m going to make some lists and share them with people just in case my estimate of 0% interest in my favourite things of the year are a little bit pessimistic.
To start off my creative brainstorm of lists I’m going to offer up the albums I had the most fun listening to this year. To throw a major curve ball in the mix I’m filling the list with albums I have only got round to this year. So the albums can be from any year at all because I’m too lazy to listen to new albums… Also, I waited a little bit after the end of the year just in case anything came out that I might include.
- CRYSTAL CASTLES – III
Crystal Castles are a group which I just can’t help but love. Their really odd mix of a punk-ish aesthetic with dark and unsettling rave-style production is definitely a bit polarising but I can’t tear myself away from it. I’m still having trouble getting over their split after this album because in my opinion it’s definitely the best they’ve released. The atmosphere is dark and crushing but somehow also manages to be really catchy in parts and is never so abrasive that it becomes a drag to listen to.
It’s definitely an album that you just chuck on the headphones and listen from start to finish, there are stand out songs, particularly in the first half of the album with my favourites being ‘Kerosene’ and ‘Wrath of God’. For anyone who wants to listen to it there’s a brilliant video on youtube which combines the album with the early 80’s cult classic film ‘Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo’. A film about the youth drug scene in 70’s Berlin it just fits the feel of the album perfectly, a trip, but a really artsy, pretty trip that grows on you the further you dive in.
- MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA – HOPE
HOPE by Manchester Orchestra, is an exact copy of the band’s previous album COPE, but the instrumentation is completely changed. I didn’t mind COPE as an album but thought it was just… okay, nothing special but not bad. HOPE however, somehow manages to play almost the exact same songs in the same order and be so much better. I should explain that HOPE is almost entirely acoustic and a lot of the songs have had parts re-arranged to create a different kind of feel and it just brings what were already really well written songs an extra dimension.
The band themselves are one of my favourite modern indie bands, but I kind of drop in and out of listening to them because although their songs are always well-written they sometimes feel a bit bland. This is one of the albums that keeps me coming back to them. It’s expertly written, amazingly played and the voice and lyrics of the vocalist Andy Hull are totally perfect for the emotional, reflective style of the revamped instrumentals.
- GRANDVIEW – EVERYTHING BETWEEN PAINT AND WALL
I love music that make me feel upset. That might be a weird thing to say, I mean who enjoys being sad? The answer to that is no one really, but I do love a full on train-wreck of an emotional album and this one ticks all the greetin’ faced boxes. I find the whole emo revival scene going on at the moment a bit hit and miss, with some bands straying a bit too far into the whiny white kid realm for my liking. However, when an album like this comes along and gets the emotional roller-coaster going in the best possible way, my faith is restored.
The album isn’t the most musically complex or genre-redefining that you’re going to find out there, but it doesn’t need to be. A good album in this genre just needs to get the tone right, and this gets it so right. The atmosphere is constantly desperate and forlorn but also hopeful in parts and even the short opener ‘Paint’ brings a tear to the eye. It’s the kind of album you sing at the top of your voice in the car on the way home from a break-up. Can’t recommend highly enough and I’m so excited to see what these guys do next.
- PANOPTICON – AUTUMN ETERNAL
Black Metal is great. This most recent period for Black Metal is amazing, you have quality new bands out there changing the face of the genre, bands like Deafheaven, An Autumn for Crippled Children, Agalloch and more but also genre stalwarts cranking out some really great albums like Behemoth’s ‘The Satanist’ and Leviathan’s ‘Scar Sighted’. Panopticon are doing a really good job of being just different enough to be interesting and traditional enough that they don’t distance themselves from the familiar sources of black metal listeners.
The album itself is gold. Just the right mix of bluegrass melodies and suffocating black metal atmosphere. When Autumn Eternal kicks off with songs like ‘Into the North Woods’ you know you’re in for a treat. Black Metal is almost synonymous with links to Scandinavian folk music it’s really not too surprising to see the American branch of the genre use some folk that’s a bit more familiar to them.
- DESSA – PARTS OF SPEECH
So from Bluegrass Black Metal the next logical step is Minnesota Rapper/Singer Dessa… right? I am a huge fan of Doomtree and pretty much everything that the individual members do. So I’ll start off by recommending every member of the group as each one has something different to offer. Now Dessa herself has always been one of the musicians from Doomtree I come back to all the time. Mainly because I’m a total hip hop amateur so Dessa is one of the only female rap artists I’ve heard that I really enjoy. She just knows how to tell a story with each song and manages to be vulnerable and powerful in every single verse.
Parts of speech is probably Dessa’s most ‘singy’ album to date with some seriously good vocals mixed in with her trademark word-play and flow. Every song hits hard with more classic hip hop tracks like ‘Warsaw’ and ‘Fighting Fish’ sharing a run-time with more soulful singing numbers like ‘Call off your Ghost’. Even if you don’t like rap yet, get this one listened to, it’s not too far away from a lot of modern pop but different enough to challenge you and make you think about every word this lady speaks.
- CLIPPING – CLPPNG
The second half of the mid-point in my list is the newest album from Los Angeles hip hop group, Clipping. Again, this has been the year where I’ve been getting deeper into rap and hip hop and this album is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It’s harsh and abrasive and hard as hell to listen to at some points but it’s nothing short of great. The subject matter is at times gruesome e.g. ‘Body and Blood’ where Daveed Digs is rapping for a solid four and a half minutes about a girl who goes to clubs, picks up guys and dismembers them. It can also be pretty standard fare for hip hop with a few songs like ‘Work Work’ sounding like they would go down okay on your average radio station.
It’s in the really experimental side that I love this thing. In addition to songs like ‘Body and Blood’ we’ve got ‘Get Up’ a song in which pretty much the only instrumentation is the sound of an alarm clock going off repeatedly behind some really abrasive verses. All in all its more than just experimentation though, CLPPNG is an experience I would not recommend missing.
- PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH – KEEP YOU
Another album that gets the water works going. I’ve enjoyed Pianos Become the Teeth for a while, they’ve always been a pretty hard-hitting post-hardcore band with albums like Old Pride standing out for all the right reasons. So when they released this newest album last year I was pretty excited for it, but I was nowhere near prepared for what I would hear on ‘Keep You’. It’s a big departure from their earlier music but doesn’t feel so different that it’s jarring, you’re definitely still listening to the same band. The difference is the maturity of the sound, the mellower, reflective way the album is presented lets the best parts of earlier albums shine out a little brighter and gives the emotional moments in the album (there are loads) a huge boost.
There are so many highlights, the sounds, the lyrics, the atmosphere, it all just clicks really well into one of the most wide-reaching and accomplished albums from this genre in a long while. When you hear the vocalist’s voice break up singing “I’ve been so touch and go” in the third song ‘Lesions’ I defy you not to get just a little bit of a lump in the throat. I can’t praise the album enough all of the influences this band have come together into something I’ll keep coming back to for years.
- CHELSEA WOLFE – ABYSS
I had to sit myself down and have a serious think over whether this spot should go to ‘This Will Destroy You’ or not but I just couldn’t get away from Chelsea Wolfe’s new album. Probably because it makes me feel like if I didn’t have it somewhere in here she is entirely capable of killing me in my sleep. Chelsea Wolfe is just one of those singers who can do no wrong in my eyes. I’ve been totally in love with her mix of folk, metal, gothic rock and nearly everything you can think of that’s dark and broody, ever since her ‘Apokalypsis’ album and this is no different.
From the very start, the first word I would use to describe this album is crushing. Everything feels so dark and claustrophobic that you just can’t escape listening to the whole album from start to finish. It’s definitely the most doom-influenced album she’s released to date with massive walls of distortion and noise crashing about in nearly every song. ‘Iron Moon’ is a personal favourite and Chelsea’s amazingly versatile vocals knock this album out of the park, her singing just fits with the atmosphere of the album so well and lends an completely new dimension to every song. Even if darker stuff is not your cup of tea, listen to this one just for her voice, the whole album is just amazing.
- DOOMTREE – ALL HANDS
The final runner up is a doozy. Doomtree are a Minnesota-based hip hop collective formed by rappers P.O.S., Mike Mictlan, Cecil Otter, Dessa and Sims and producers Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger. All of the individuals in the group have their own solo projects which are equally brilliant in their own way and all well worth a listen, it’s when they get together though that they really get going. This album is pure genius from start to finish, every bar, every line and every killer hook is as close to perfect as you can get. They sound great together but every member’s individual style and personality manages to shine through as well. The production is brilliant, with the instrumentals in every song being fresh and experimental but also managing to be accessible enough that it’s not difficult to listen to the whole album in one sitting.
The lyrics are the real draw for this album with every song referencing anything from history, mythology, literature, politics and economics through to things like clubs and films. One of my favourite lines comes in ‘Gray Duck’ when Sims gives us a gem of a bar “Call me David Lynch / I make them act funny”. This whole album is layered and dense as well as accessible and fun. The production, vocal performances and lyrics all have so many levels to them it does take a good few listens to get everything in a certain song and every one is more fun than the last.
- THE TWILIGHT SAD – NOBODY WANTS TO BE HERE AND NOBODY WANTS TO LEAVE
And finally, the moment no one has been waiting for! A dour Scottish band brought out a dour Scottish man’s number one album of the year… Stop the presses everyone! I have been a massive fan of The Twilight Sad for years, seen them four times and bought (that’s right bought!) every album they’ve released so far. So when this new album came out I needed to get my talons into it. The Twilight Sad have always changed slightly with every new release, from their more drone-like early stage through to the Joy Division-ish post-punk sound they now offer and every step along the way has been killer in my eyes.
The new album is probably their most accessible effort to date with very apparent influences from Joy Division and The Cure, ultimately resulting in a tour in support of the latter band and their lead singer Robert Smith covering one of the new songs. As such it’s even more apparent just how good a singer James Graham is. They do deliver their signature ‘down-in-the-dumps’ style and that’s what I love about them, their music is Scottish through and through. It’s dour it’s grey and it’s great to sing after a few drinks, but also complicated and nuanced enough that you don’t just sound like your chanting football songs when you sing it in your best Kilsythian accent. Treads that balance between being accessible and being hugely introspective and emotional perfectly from start to finish.
So there we go, 10 albums I’d massively recommend you listen to if you get the time. Not saying they are the best albums of the year, just the ones I had the most fun listening to. Expect more from my blog in the next few weeks as my free time quota is pretty big right now. Watch this space!
If none of these tickle your fancy, here’s a few more I liked but just missed out on the list.
London Philharmonic Orchestra – 50 greatest pieces of classical music.
Jeremy Soule – Skyrim Soundtrack
TesseracT – Polaris
Low Roar – Self Titled
Protest the Hero – Volition
Madvillain – Madvillainy
Czarface – Every Hero Needs a Villain
Howlin’ Wolf – His Best
Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
The Contortionist – Language
This Will Destroy You – Self Titled