As I said in my other post, this has been an incredible year for music and it’s the first year in a very long time I have a tie for my number one album.
Even more amazing is that I hadn’t heard either of these bands before July.
But enough preamble, in no particular order, apart for the number one albums…
Slowdive
Blah, blah, First album in 22 years. Blah, Blah, N.M.E were wankers, blah, blah, blah.
Is it any good?
Happily, fuck yes.
Out of all the come backs over the last decade, this is easily one of the best, able to stand proudly beside the rest of the band’s discography. This is just a great album, shoegaze or otherwise, catchy songs, great production and the new material sounds amazing live.
Job done.
Couldn’t ask for more.
It’s strange but I’m really proud of a bunch of people I don’t know, because they really deserve all the praise they’re getting after the shit they went through the first time.
Blanck Mass
Once you know Blanck Mass is a Fuck Buttons side project, you know what you’re in for. There will be fully on, almost power electronics (No pun intended) but where this works better than any of the other two Blanck Mass albums is that this is catchy. Rhesus negative could be played in a club, it’d have to be a Techno club but it would work, while other tracks, like Please are more chilled head nodders. It works better than it has any right too and it may have surpassed Fuck Buttons.
Junius
It’s not a great sign when your guitar and bass player leave the band as you start writing your new album, but being the main songwriter, Martinez didn’t let it stop him.
What we got was Junius’s heaviest album to date. It sounds amazing, the production is impeccable, the riffs crunch and the bottom end fills the songs, giving a warm sound. They get called post metal but this is just amazing alternative rock, well worth a listen of you’re a Deftones fan. A perfect mix of beauty, spirituality and anger.
Granddaddy
Where do start to talk about this? This is a warm hug of an album, mixing simple keyboards with indie rock but filled with the usual sense of slacker Americana that Grandaddy do so well.
Even though they broke up over 10 years ago, Last Place is business as usual, and to be honest, that’s no bad thing.
Granddaddy do understated melancholy better than most. They have such an enveloping sound that it’s just glorious to be able to wrap yourself in some new music by them.
Unfortunately, it’s all overshadowed by the bass player dying at the age of 41, from a stroke, so we may never get another Granddaddy album again, but we can certainty enjoy the ones we have.
Mogwai
I nearly didn’t put the ‘gwai on this list, I thought it hadn’t made much of an impression on me, but once I had a look at my Last FM I saw just how much I’d been listening to it, I knew it’d had gotten it’s hooks in to me.
Yes, they’re not breaking new ground any more but they have perfected their sound. It’s an album that’s perfectly sequenced, Coolverine is chilled out Mogwai at their best. Party in the Dark is the indie rock song that they’ve been trying to perfect for over a decade and finally have here. The album has a nice chilled start but just as you’re beginning to miss the noise, the tone shifts on the fantastically named “Don’t believe the Fife” and slowly the album slides into the wall of guitars we all know and love, leading to a much heavier back end to the album.
It’s a bit brilliant.
Public Service Broadcasting
For what should be a novelty band, PSB can really pack a lot of emotion into what are mostly instrumental songs with vocal samples. There is also no way a concept album about the fall of Welsh mining should work but somehow, it does.
The album starts off in an almost jaunty style, celebrating the peak of Welsh mining but starts to darken as the album progresses. By the track “All Out” it descends to rage. A Mogwai-esque face melter, it really sets the mood. A sample from a middle-aged woman very calmly saying “I was brought up to respect the police.” “I don’t respect them now”, leads into the track break to amazing effect.
It’s rarely loud guitars though, “They gave me a lamp” is a feminist rallying cry and You + Me is a surprisingly sweet love song, but by the time the album ends with a Welsh Choir they leave you with pins and needles, their story well told.
Daughter
Daughter play the kind of full sounding indie music that I didn’t think people made anymore. This was a band I was waiting for and didn’t know it. Sounding like an indie band with touches of the XX’s electronica and the guitars of a shoegazing band, they making it their own thing, breathing life and fire into what could very easily become dinner party music.
Elena Tonra’s voice swings between strong and ethereal effortlessly, going from the anger of Burn It Down to the floating background vocal of Flaws.
This is a soundtrack, so there are a few more instrumental tracks than you’d normally find on a Daughter album, it’s a bit more post rock than their last (and even better album) but that was never something that was going to put me off. Daughter are easily one of my finds of the year.
Paradise Lost
PL have really re-embraced their metal sound. Their last album was great, leaning to their older sound, where this album just runs straight back to it. Using the tone from their Gothic album they’ve beefed the album up, with the singer using his metal growl a lot more than he has since Shades of God back in ’92! Shockingly I would have preferred more clean vocal on this, I think I’m going soft or something.
The tracks Fearless Sky and Blood and Chaos just showcase what PL do better than everyone else in the metal world. My favourite track is the bonus track, Symbolic Virtue, a clean sung track that just has the best hook on the album.
It’s amazing to see The Lost have the resurgence they’re having 29 years into their career.
And the winners are:
Arcane Roots
I really have no idea how to describe this lot. They were a math/prog, post hardcore band who have pissed off most of their fans by selling out and making a mostly electronica heavy, indie album. Most of the vocals are clean but there is a bit of screaming here and there and in places, it’s still as heavy as hell.
Now, how the fuck do you sell that to people?
But it is brilliant.
The album is mostly just emotive music, sung in an unusually high register, mixing electronic and rock effortlessly with songs that really let rip every now and again.
It also sounds like no other band I’ve heard. Well, may be a touch of Muse, but not in a bad way.
Whatever, just listen to the song, it’s fantastic.
Eyre Llew
Eyre Llew are a much easier band to describe.
Vocal post rock.
The can call themselves an ambient rock band all they want they’re not fooling anyone.
Clearly influenced by Sigur Ros, Eyre Llew soar, it really is the only way to describe their sound. And while I say clearly influenced, it’s more in spirit, they are much more focused than SR and don’t lapse into whale noises at any point.
Massive sounding and clear, it avoids the claustrophobic sound most post rock bands go for. They write a good towering chorus and even when using the full wall of sound, it still sounds bright and clear, never falling into sonic mush.
It’s strange, but for me it’s easier to describe them visually than as sound. This music is begging to be used on something like Planet Earth, sound tracking some wildly dramatic Artic vistas.
It’s also amazing a three piece can make something that sounds this huge, I can’t wait to see if they can reproduce this live.
The ways of exile 