The albums thread - 2014

[We're the Stripes]

I haven't given too much thought to what my top 10 records of the year would be, but I'm fairly sure Piñata and RTJ2 would both make the top 5.

 

[Whitechapel]

I really enjoyed RTJ2, I prefered the Ratking record, they played probably my favourite show at The Great Escape. Thanks for the list though, I will investigate.

RatKing was one of the artists who just missed out on my top 10 (I'm sure they'll be gutted.) along with Jungle, Big Narstie, The Bug, Young Fatherz, Ab-Soul, YMAS & Fatez

 

[Tarpon]

RatKing was one of the artists who just missed out on my top 10 (I'm sure they'll be gutted.) along with Jungle, Big Narstie, The Bug, Young Fatherz, Ab-Soul, YMAS & Fatez

Thanks for the Gibbs & Madlib tip - loving it & revisiting a lot of old school classics as a result.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

Thanks for the hip hop [MENTION=29779]Whitechapel[/MENTION] - hip hop was my first music love but I don't really follow it anymore, so a summary of the best bits and bobs is appreciated.

 

[spring hall convert]

What were people disappointed by this year? Liars and Wild Beasts for me, I had really high hopes for both.

Vision Fortune's new track (their released one of my favourite debuts of 2013 on Brighton's Faux Discx records - http://fauxdiscx.bandcamp.com/album/mas-fiestas-con-el-grupo-vision-fortune) is reminsicent of Liars at their very best. They release a new record on the higher profile ATP Recordings early next year. I predict it will do very well.

 

[Buzzer]

What were people disappointed by this year? Liars and Wild Beasts for me, I had really high hopes for both.

Caribou, for sure. The album has far too many weak tracks. Johnny Marr's solo album was bland andf not enough meat on the bone. As HKFC said, with a strong lead vocal he produces some wonderful music. Would love to see someone like David McAlmont have a go with him.

Two old names that had very poor albums were Marianne Faithfull and Manfred Mann. Faithfull's album sounded like she was performing in a Cabaret (the film) style pastiche. It wasn't half as witty as she thinks it was. A real shame. Manfred Mann's is bizarre. Re-workings of Free's 'Alright Now' and other rock and soul classics. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

Radiohead drummer Philip Selway's second solo album never rises above 7 out of 10 and more often scoots along at a disappointing 5. One of those albums where you can't recall a single song after listening to it. His first album is quite ethereal and very charming, this effort is just dad rock done quietly.

I get the reason for Pink Floyd's album (a tribute to Wright) but frankly it's boring.

Ryan Adams' inexorable morphing into Bryan Adams continues apace, another album of his where the quality tunes are drowned in a sea of rock by numbers.

Lastly, I'd add Half Man Half Biscuit. Too much shouty pub rock for my ears.

 

[Buzzer]

And add Diplo to the list for churning out the same ruddy tune with the same ruddy style in every sodding tune he's had a hand in this year. EDM hell.

 

[HH Brighton]

Fave albums of the year:

Future Islands - Singles
Morrissey - World Peace is None of Your Business
War On Drugs - Lost In the Dream
Caribou - Our Love
Slow Club - Complete Surrender
La Roux - Trouble In Paradise

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Caribou and War on Drugs both seem to really divide people.

As an aside I've just bough the Plastikman back catalogue on CD. Happy days.

 

[spring hall convert]

Caribou, for sure. The album has far too many weak tracks. Johnny Marr's solo album was bland andf not enough meat on the bone. As HKFC said, with a strong lead vocal he produces some wonderful music. Would love to see someone like David McAlmont have a go with him.

Two old names that had very poor albums were Marianne Faithfull and Manfred Mann. Faithfull's album sounded like she was performing in a Cabaret (the film) style pastiche. It wasn't half as witty as she thinks it was. A real shame. Manfred Mann's is bizarre. Re-workings of Free's 'Alright Now' and other rock and soul classics. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

Radiohead drummer Philip Selway's second solo album never rises above 7 out of 10 and more often scoots along at a disappointing 5. One of those albums where you can't recall a single song after listening to it. His first album is quite ethereal and very charming, this effort is just dad rock done quietly.

I get the reason for Pink Floyd's album (a tribute to Wright) but frankly it's boring.

Ryan Adams' inexorable morphing into Bryan Adams continues apace, another album of his where the quality tunes are drowned in a sea of rock by numbers.

Lastly, I'd add Half Man Half Biscuit. Too much shouty pub rock for my ears.

Agreed on the Caribou album, though the high points are really good. I actually wish he'd revisit his pre Swim days - I thought the purpose of the Daphni moniker was to take Caribou out of this "hands in the air" FM House teritory.

The Peaking Lights album was probably the biggest for me. Their 2010 release '936' is one of my favourites of the decade, the follow up was dodgy and the new one is the aural equivalent of shitted pants, horrible and useless.

 

[Whitechapel]

Thanks for the Gibbs & Madlib tip - loving it & revisiting a lot of old school classics as a result.

I ended up doing something similar. I'd shockingly never listened to Madvillan, so after Piñata I've had to give 'em a listen and loved it. Madlib really is a genius.

Thanks for the hip hop [MENTION=29779]Whitechapel[/MENTION] - hip hop was my first music love but I don't really follow it anymore, so a summary of the best bits and bobs is appreciated.

No worries lad. If you find anything in my list that you get on with, then feel free to drop me a PM and I'll happily point you in the direction of a few other albums you'll enjoy.

What were people disappointed by this year? Liars and Wild Beasts for me, I had really high hopes for both.

Didn't get the hype over Royal Blood, so after hearing good things I was a bit disappointed. Also was surprised with just how average Shady XV was, especially as I enjoyed The Marshall Mathers LP 2. Also felt let down by Diplo, Big K.R.I.T, Eblow, Kid Cudi & YG. Overall though, a good year for Music.

 

[spring hall convert]

I've had a go at albums of the year but it would probably be more accurate to call it what I've listened to most. And it'll likely change tomorrow. There's 3 Brighton based artists in there, metal makes a welcome return to the upper reaches of my list and I'm shocking myself with the amount of electronic music I'm listening to these days.

It doesn't feel like a great year to me, though these things are never known until way in the future. I would opine that the ubiquity of the War On Drugs record, regardless of your opinion of it, demonstrates the immense passion, even amongst music critics, for nostalgia. Never a healthy thing.

5 debut albums in the 20 as well and 3 in my top 10. I would imagine that's the most for some time, they're a mixed bag; East India Youth's dancefloor informed electro-pop, Fumaca Preta boundless Zappa meets Butthole Surfers zaniness, Eagulls violent, catchy and brilliantly executed Killing Joke tribute and Ought's flawless indie-rock. Kassem Mosse is technically a debut as it is his first full length but the guy's been around long enough to be considered a scene veteran.

Swans, Shellac, Nenah Cherry, Electric Wizard and Godflesh represent something that has become more important to me as the years have gone on - experience mixed with credibility. These artists have all been there and bought the T-Shirt but their enthisiasm to push boundaries remains undiminshed. These are the types of people I wish young groups today looked to.

There's a certain kind of brooding tecno-noir electronica uniquely coming out of this country, represented in this list by Andy Stott and Actress with the copeland and Dean Blunt records just missing out. We are so good in this county at creating innovative, daring music, it's something to be very proud of.

There's three albums in there I suspect are marmite. Ariel Pink's pom pom is a masterpiece to these ears he takes unloved genres and puts a new spin on them, it's like redicovering a mixtape your crazy mate gave you 20 years ago. Sleaford Mods could go on to be the most important band this country has produced this millenium, the key I think is to not get caught up in their own hype./ The Richard Dawson record is genuinely like nothing you've heard before, it's anti-music.

The Ty Segall album is just impossible to ignore. I was preparing to not like it as I prefer him in full on mode (Slughterhouse) but it's a great record. 2 or 3 fillers stopped it from being further up the list.

Which leaves Esben and The Witch's career reinvention masterpiece, an album I've been very close to all year. The Soft Walls record is better than the new Hookworms album if that's your kind of thing. The Gazelle Twin album is where The Knife meets Throbbing Gristle. I can't remember a better year for local music, the talent we have in this city is amazing. All 3 artists have amazed me live this year. Support your local scene!


20. Torn Hawk – Through Force of Will
“What sets this apart from most chillwave is the strong sweep of romantic feeling that flows through Wyatt's mesh of guitar and electronics—there's palpable emotion here amid the tinny drum machines and twists of industrial synth. It doesn't all come out that way, especially when "Streets on Fire" begins with a hollowed-out drum sound that could have been ripped from a peak Jam & Lewis production. But Wyatt frequently uses his guitar tone, aligned somewhere between the dreamy strum of Mark McGuire and the type of squelchy soloing found on longer Spacemen 3 tracks, to give his music a vital sense of yearn.”

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19195-luke-wyatt-through-force-of-will/

19. Gazelle Twin – Unflesh
“If there’s a tone to the album it is one of unsettling horror. The simplicity of John Carpenter’s film scores is often alluded to, the unrelenting shuffle of Romero’s zombies can be heard groaning in the background, and at the heart of Unflesh is Cronenberg’s unflinching body horror. It is the body that most concerns Bernholz and throughout the album she attempts to make sense of subjects like end of life care (Good Death), self-harm, altered states, and body dysmorphia.”

http://www.musicomh.com/reviews/albums/gazelle-twin-unflesh

18. Ty Segall - Manipulator
“With Manipulator, Segall arrives at his own personal promised land, the place where all the divergent paths he’s travelled intersect. As Segall has revealed in interviews, Manipulator represents the inevitable pause from his usual breakneck pace, its 17-song, double-album sprawl the product of an unprecedented (for him) 14-month writing process. You can feel that extra attention to detail on every song here:”

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19668-ty-segall-manipulator/

17. Electric Wizard – Time To Die
“If you’ve ever listened to an Electric Wizard album before you’ll know what you’re getting yourself in for. The songs are slow and built around crushingly heavy repeated riffs with lengthy jams. The vocals are distorted often to the point of incomprehensibility. Death and Satan are common themes in the songs and many feature samples from classic horror films, a classic Electric Wizard trope. In short, if you’re already a fan of the band you’ll find Time to Die another pretty excellent entry in their canon and if you like your metal especially slow, detuned and evil then there aren’t many better places to start (although it goes without saying that you must also check out their 2000’s stone-cold masterpiece Dopethrone as well).”

http://drownedinsound.com/releases/18446/reviews/4148291

16. Richard Dawson – Nothing Important
“A star rating for Richard Dawson’s latest and most widely released album, is all but irrelevant. Those who like Nothing Important may claim it is a remarkable, heartfelt statement of individuality. Those who don’t may be unable to see its point. For this is music that actually sounds wrong: a guitar playing melodies that sound like some analogue of Les Dawson’s piano routines, or, as Eric Morecambe put it: “All the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.”. If anything, it’s a distinctly English folk equivalent of Captain Beefheart’s deconstruction of the blues.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/20/richard-dawson-nothing-important-review

15. Neneh Cherry – Blank Project
Blank Project was recorded in just five days, in a (pretty successful) bid to retain its raw immediacy. Its best tracks are toweringly good. On "Spit Three Times," restrained and brooding pads are a sensitive fit for Cherry's tales of love as a dangerous mania. The closer "Everything" is a delirious take on elegiac, Zomby-ish bass music. The album's key track, "Weightless," trumps both. Propelled by a heavy, distorted bassline and a clanging cowbell, and later pivoting around a tense, bleeping breakdown (Cherry's cantering vocal is almost a rhythm track in its own right), it evokes both the muscular punk-funk of Spektrum and Cherry's one-time mentors, The Slits. Lyrically, this may be the work of a 49 year-old woman, with its ruminations on family, married life and paying the bills, but, in terms of its energy and sheer lust for life, it could not sound fresher.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=14392

14. Soft Walls – No Time
There's a recurring theme to No Time's prognosis, namely fear and loathing augmented by the realisation youth isn't eternal after all. But it's Reeves' obvious knack of fusing errant psychedelia with driving rhythms with a lo-fi veneer that stands out. Whereas No Time's predecessor introduced Reeves as a sonic pioneer in the making, this serves as a public service announcement: His time is now.

http://drownedinsound.com/releases/18334/reviews/4148025

13. Sleaford Mods – Divide And Exit
“This is Midlands white crap talking back, but you don't have to have an A to Z of their Nottingham home for it to make sense - you just need the "A to Z of nothing" (as they have it) that's a narrative of what's happening in England today. You don't even have to live on particularly grim streets to be able to empathise or understand what they're on about and why they're angry, or where they're coming from. These are vivid landscapes, as fine a document of the time they're painted in as a Hogarth, Gillray, or Mass Observation report.”

http://thequietus.com/articles/15139-sleaford-mods-divide-and-exit-review

12. Kassem Mosse – Workshop 19

“That Workshop 19, Wendel's debut album, doesn't sound especially trendy or cutting-edge probably says less about its producer than it does about what's happened in dance music since his releases first gained traction. It features no pseudo-New Age soundscapes, tacked-on sheets of noise or PhD-level modular patches. Its first sounds, in fact, are a couple of notes plunked on a Fender Rhodes and some stray Roland rimshots—hardly an opening unlike any other in house music. Rather than introduce a new aesthetic—or, conversely, take a Kassem Mosse-by-numbers victory lap—Wendel spends Workshop 19 refining the style that's indelibly his.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=14561

11. Godflesh – A World Lit Only By Fire
“A World Lit Only By Fire bears little resemblance to Hymns, the supposedly final Godflesh album from 2001, which eased Broadrick’s transition into the post-shoegaze blurs of Jesu. Instead, this marks a return to the bleak, grinding cacophonies of early classics like Streetcleaner and Slavestate, wherein monochrome riffs and dehumanised drums collide, conjuring a disorientating fog of urban desperation and fury; the machinistic momentum of krautrock and Suicide re-imagined through a cracked prism of post-Thatcher social alienation.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/02/godflesh-a-world-lit-only-by-fire-review

 

[spring hall convert]

10. Ought – More Than Any Other Day
“Yet their debut album is a deeply earnest cry of moral anxiety, a brain-rattling melodic force, and a more or less ‘life-changing’ primer on how to stay sane in sticky times. What happened here?”

http://drownedinsound.com/releases/18207/reviews/4147702

9. Esben and The Witch– A New Nature
“The band have been quoted as stating that their intention was to make a record that dispensed with clever production techniques, enabling them to capture the spirit of their live performances - "Just three of us, in a room, making noise" - And they have done so with an effortless assurance, with the assistance of producer Steve Albini, the master of raw, stripped back sound. A New Nature is unquestionably their best, most spontaneous sounding, cohesive and musically honest offering to date.”

http://thequietus.com/articles/16229-esben-and-the-witch-a-new-nature-review

8. Shellac – Dude Incredible
It’s going to be hard for Albini, Weston and Trainer to ever top what we find on Dude Incredible. Worthy of filing alongside and above At Action Park and 1000 Hurts, it’s the sound of one of the great bands at the height of their powers.

http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/reviews/albums/shellac-dude-incredible

7. Eagulls - Eagulls
Instead, it’s the hooks and riffs that really impress: the rowdy, riotous choruses to be heard in ‘Amber Veins’ and ‘Footsteps’ beckon amazing scenes live - they’re the kind of songs that were made to be yelled along to in the front row. Others like ‘Nerve Endings’ and ‘Tough Luck’ have such an uncanny ability to induce head-nodding that you can almost feel yourself being propelled forward by their sheer momentum.

http://diymag.com/archive/eagulls-eagulls/

6. Fumaca Preta – Fumaca Preta
"The studio project of Alex Figueira, a Portuguese-Venezualan producer based in Amsterdam, Fumaça Preta ('black smoke') offer a cracked Latin American psychedelia that jives to the wiggier end of Tropicalia – Os Mutantes, Tom Ze – while drinking deep from the Butthole Surfers' manky goblet of insanity. Figueira yells and cackles through a prism of reverb and echo, while tripped-out percussion and distorted saxophones drift in and out of a hallucinatory mix. There are fuzzed out nods to Hendrix and Funkadelic, but 'Tire Sua Mascara' is more acid house than acid rock, as the percussionists party around neon globs of 303."

http://thequietus.com/articles/16739-albums-of-the-year-2014

5. Actress - Ghettoville
Darren Cunningham isn't your average techno artist. If you can even call this techno: tracks on Ghettoville such as Contagious – basically a sheet-metal plant getting the chopped and screwed treatment – would be unlikely to go down well in a Sven Väth set. Billed as a sequel to his 2008 debut, Hazyville, this fourth album allegedly takes inspiration from society's outcasts – drug addicts, the homeless – although the dystopian vibe does brighten towards the climax, when Cunningham adds soulful vocal samples to his palette of ambient, industrial, techno, avant-electronica, glitch, minimalism and pretty much any other genre he feels like taking apart.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jan/23/actress-ghettoville-review

4. East India Youth – Total Strife Forever
Total Strife Forever is a brutal electronic album, but one that still retains a very humanistic core - this juxtaposition is a thematic thread which runs throughout the album. Doyle then sculpts and defines the music in order to create tension between these two disparate elements, or else uses their differences in order to surprise and engage the listener. This is done within individual songs and across the record: over 11 tracks you'll hear acid beats, euphoric electronic pop, ambient passages, drone, krautrock and more. What's incredible is how East India Youth has managed to bring all of these elements together and construct a cohesive record.

http://www.thefourohfive.com/review/article/east-india-youth-total-strife-forever

3. Swans – To Be Kind
“Frontman Michael Gira at turns drawls like Lou Reed, yelps like Damo Suzuki, barks like Iggy Pop, roars like Nick Cave, and leers with Howard Devoto’s sadistic lubriciousness; he’s like a one-man archive of the punk periphery. Between the vast oceans of soaring noise there are more uptempo beats, more rollicking bluesy hooks, more riotous viscerality, all bursting out through the atonal surfaces like the eruptions of submerged volcanoes. “A Little God In My Hands” is inflected with jazzy funk; “Just a Little Boy” with Pink Floyd-esque progginess. It’s all a great deal of fun.”

http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/reviews/albums/swans-to-be-kind

2. Ariel Pink – pom pom
“pom pom would be intolerable if it didn't dare revel in the sublime ridiculousness of the cheap, tragically dated, and deeply sleazy. One simply doesn't write a throwback single as picture-perfect (or is that Polaroid-imperfect?) as "Put Your Number in My Phone" without a command of and deep affection for the classic pop form, however cynically twisted that affection may be.”

http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/pom_pom_positive_michael_wojtas/

1.Andy Stott – Faith In Strangers
“Whatever malady infiltrated his sound around the turn of the decade has now completely reordered its DNA, resulting in the most fully formed and wholly unique record in his discography. It's like we're listening to an entirely new organism formed from the sludge that slipped off his earlier tracks. That's evident within the album's first moments—it opens with spacious silence, then a growl, then a sequence of bone-chilling horn blasts.”

http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=16022

 

[spring hall convert]

What records are people looking forward to in 2015?

Sleater Kinney, Viet Cong, HEALTH, Modest Mouse, Julia Holter (hopefully), Panda Bear, A Place To Bury Strangers, Zun Zun Egui, John Maus, Deerhunter (hopefully.)

Locally - Slum of Legs, Cold Pumas, British Sea Power (I'd imagine...), Sealings (finally.)

 

[Mellotron]

5. Interpol - El Pintor - a band recognising their strengths and playing to them
4. Thomas Azier - Hylas - simple synth pop done perfectly. not a wasted second.
3. TRUST - Joyland - haven't heard another artist doing quite what this very, very young Canadian is doing
2. Douglas Dare - Whelm - beautiful, another strong new voice in music. almost more poetry than music per se.
1. iamamiwhoami - blue - early days to put it so high but it's just stunning. The production is possibly my favourite on any album I have ever heard.

 

[Southy]

What were people disappointed by this year? Liars and Wild Beasts for me, I had really high hopes for both.

I've been re listening to Wild Beasts a lot in last few days and it's really grown on me so maybe it's a slow burner.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Locally - Slum of Legs, Cold Pumas, British Sea Power (I'd imagine...), Sealings (finally.)

Really? How confident are you? I don't think I could stand false rumours of both Hyypia getting sacked AND false rumours of another BSP album. I might resign from the internet.

*crosses fingers*

 

[Theatre of Trees]

What records are people looking forward to in 2015?

Sleater Kinney, Viet Cong, HEALTH, Modest Mouse, Julia Holter (hopefully), Panda Bear, A Place To Bury Strangers, Zun Zun Egui, John Maus, Deerhunter (hopefully.)

Locally - Slum of Legs, Cold Pumas, British Sea Power (I'd imagine...), Sealings (finally.)

I think a new thread is needed

 

[spring hall convert]

Really? How confident are you? I don't think I could stand false rumours of both Hyypia getting sacked AND false rumours of another BSP album. I might resign from the internet.

*crosses fingers*

They've only left it longer than 2 years between 'proper' albums once....

Hopefully some new stuff at Krankenhaus tomorrow, that would be nice.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

What records are people looking forward to in 2015?

Sleater Kinney, Viet Cong, HEALTH, Modest Mouse, Julia Holter (hopefully), Panda Bear, A Place To Bury Strangers, Zun Zun Egui, John Maus, Deerhunter (hopefully.)

Locally - Slum of Legs, Cold Pumas, British Sea Power (I'd imagine...), Sealings (finally.)

The School