15. Venera — Venera
Surging Through Your Body Like Radiation
Imagine being in Korn. The massive scale of the things you’ve seen, the places you’ve played, and likely most importantly, the place you came from feels so insane, so enormous that it simply cannot be stated. James Shaffer and the boys were doing things with heavy music back in the mid-90s that just didn’t seem like it had even been considered at the time. When I heard how the strings were being used to make a signature ploinging sound, when I heard just how heavy the guitars could get, how it was utter obsidian sludge, I was blown away at that age. Even now, thinking about making those sounds with tuned-down guitars and experimenting with sound seems so ambitious that it’s a shame that Korn and the entire nu-metal genre ultimately became a memed-out cesspool lately. Eventually, I think Korn’s time ran out and they got a little bit away from what initially kept me interested in them (those first three records really blew my mind though). It’s cool that decades later, “Munky” (Shaffer’s nickname in Korn) continues to experiment and takes this record to super dark places along with his bandmate Chris Hunt. This whole record feels almost closer to an art project or a movie score through the instrumental aspects of it. There’s more to be said about the songs that include vocals as those seem to be even more conceptualized than the ones that build the landscape around it in the first place. This is a great mood-piece album, sure, but I think what makes it even better to me is how surprised I am at just how good this record ended up being. I judged this one pretty hard before it dropped, and when it finally came out, I was supremely happy to say that it’s one of my favorites of the year. It’s well-produced, goes lots of places, and most importantly, continues to innovate in a way that I know the artist who was a co-founder and a core member of Korn is super proud of.
Check Out: Ochre
14. Yo La Tengo — This Stupid World
The Good Universe Fades
I’m sure this is not entirely what the band had in mind, but this entire record feels like a bright and winding tunnel that leads us through our final moments of death into an embrace of an expanse we have yet to imagine or understand. Many elements of this album pull from a standard rock record with guitar strumming and repetitions on a theme. But there are no hooks. There are no good times. Many of the songs find themselves boundariless, spread wide and far across our entire existence, like they could repeat without end if we didn’t pinch ourselves to wake from this trajectory. Nothing pulls us back from the edge. The opening of the record is a gentle glide through a jetstream we can barely feel. It scrabbles above open roads, above light greenery, above everything. And as far as the light stretches, we pass. As the record starts coming closer to its end, the passages become choppier. Grittier. The final stretch until the last pull. The final tracks of the record, feel like a bit of release, a yin and yang of dark and light. There’s a chanting sensation in the penultimate track… dark and somewhat hedonistic. This then sublimes in the end with ‘Miles Away’, the sensation that we have accepted it all and are no longer holding on, looking back across the horizon and knowing We Were, knowing We Have, knowing We Did. A really beautiful record that somewhat recalls Spoon’s Lucifer On the Sofa from last year, but one that seems to fade behind the black veil.
Check Out: Fallout
13. Sigur Ros — Atta
Far As the Eye Sees
Sigur Ros records have always been places to me. Since ( ), they’ve always seemed improbable. They don’t seem to present as people, but instead as the voices of The Northern Lights, of glaciers, of aquatic ballet. Even some of their songs are sung in a fictional ‘language’, a vocalization that simultaneously feels haunting and fantastic, from beyond the realm of man. This newest record is no different, and to me, it’s almost more improbable that it even exists, as I had mostly closed the book on them years ago with the sexual allegations against one of their members and assumed that they had decided to part ways and leave their enormous productions as their legacy. I found out about the record on the day of release from an instagram post, and was in disbelief. And listening to this record now as the day of release truly grants some kind of existential, extraterrestrial release. Nearly impossible to separate song from song, each track feels like a new cycle of a mantra, a new layer of a labyrinth. And above all of that, each album seems to add to the mythos of the Sigur Ros library, some Tolkienian tome where it’s tough to separate album from album as well. To go back and revisit their old records through this lens was a brilliant journey, one that gave them the title of my most listened-to band this year (according to the infamous Spotify Wrapped, anyway) and that journey alone works as a personal release, a much needed personal detox mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The band’s disengagement from Today feels relevant more than ever in a year that has been pressing and difficult for me, and to allow myself to degauss has been priceless. Sigur Ros is a gift, much in the way that David Attenborough is a gift that gets us closer to our fauna in ways few others could, much in the way that Carl Sagan was a gift that got us closer to our universe. This record shows that they still understand how to make music that transforms, that creates, that is capable of scoring infinity. After the majority of this record, being able to sit through the final four or five minutes of it and letting it wash over you, letting you reassemble yourself both with and without a place in this very moment is a treasure. The record is an affirmation.
Check Out: Skel
12. Arlo Parks — My Soft Machine
Lavender Sentience
A couple of years ago, I spoke of Arlo Parks’ last record as one which had track after track of surprise, of fresh air. I had the sense that her career was going to be important, one to follow over whatever the number of years she remained active. In My Soft Machine, Arlo creates a record that picks up directly where it left off on Collapsed In Sunbeams, poems still wet and fresh on the page. Her words are still powerful and personal, direct as a crossbow bolt. There’s a round feminine beauty in every cell, every wave that radiates from this record. I feel glad, I feel joy that I am listening to this record on a sunny morning and letting the volume wash over me. Her reedy voice recites the lines with smooth confidence, a light smile, a subtle sway. While so many of her lyrics resemble poetry, she doesn’t go for prose or imagery, instead opting for far more straightforward commentary and observational snippets of her real life. You can see countertops with fresh fruit, writing desks with live plants, sunlight beaming in through every window. This is easily the most contemporary artist on this entire list, and I think even that on its own stands the test of what I’m often looking for in music. This is a calming aura, such a relaxing record. From within and without, I’m not looking for it to change my paradigm, for it to bend the aspect ratio of what music was before and after it. There’s something earnest about her intent when she’s creating, something hopeful about her message. “Write somebody a list of why they are irreplaceable.” These little sentiments are exactly the type of things that propel me forward, little affirmations that fuel my world. Something close to an inner child, something that propagates Youth where it may not have been before. As songs proceed, there are the hooks, the verses, the choruses, all that seem very loosely packed, very easily consumed, but at times she detaches from the simple path and seems as if she has to get her words spoken (often half-rhymed, half-’rapped’) with an urgency motivated by the art itself. This album is a good feeling. It resonates like a promise kept.
Check Out: Devotion
11. The National — Laugh Track
Spent
To say a record from The National is a bummer goes without saying. But damn. This album is a total drag, like watching out the window as someone leaves. And you don’t have to wait long for it to hit either. Right out of the gate, Berninger drops his voice into octaves unknown, opening his throat and letting the lungs speak, letting the heart speak, more organ than vocal. This is a record rife with restraint. Its timbre is that of cautious but lucid pen hitting overwrought notebook paper, of dimmed hope. Right out of the gate, this is a record about Them slipping right through your fingers while They’re right in front of you, while you’re in love with Their small truths, while you’re in love with the little numbers They’re made up of and the slow ticking clock of how They stopped looking at you by degrees. A few months ago, I already featured the song ‘Turn Off the House’, but I have to say that the line “Full body gentle shut down, so many people to let down, don’t even think about me” is paralyzing in its removal of The Self, in the way that it asks you to politely close the door on the entire earth, let Everyone down, let them feel you disappear, let them move on. Where the record that preceded it this year is about keeping up appearances, about moving on, about letting Them move on… about coexisting, this record is about staring in the mirror and muttering under the skin of reality about how you let the whole thing fall away and the only thing left to grab, the only thing left to hold onto in white-knuckled desperation is the memory of it all and the way it spun out into the wind while you did all you could to let it sail away. The National has made an extraordinarily intimate exhibition with this record, with small guitar sound, small piano playing, and with subdued drumming, all of which show that its capable of building, capable of cascading, but remaining sallow and minor. It’s hypnotic, all this low and slight music, enough for me to get lost in my head about it a little bit. The meditative patterns are solemn prayers to a new solitude. And out here in the vast remoteness, we await the closure of an amen.
Check Out: Space Invader
10. Wilco — Cousin
Flecks of Light
Wilco has always seemed like one of those bands that end up on every end-of-the-year list for every major music publication which OF COURSE is one of those jarring acts for me. I simultaneously want to avoid them at all costs, but also am drawn to it simply to see what the specific quality it is that they’ve distilled this time around which made them so unavoidable. Cousin composes the mystery once again, with a level of deft touch and near-mysticism that they’ve always been the masters of. There are drifting points of light, grazes of boundless heaven, sunspots, the headspins you get from holding your breath too long… it’s all here in music form. They have that timeless rock quality to them, something that sticks with you like a Tom Petty album where you’ve loved every song you’ve heard but can’t quite figure out what it is that made it this idyllic place you want to stay forever. It’s grace and beauty, heart and sentiment. Listen to this one with good headphones and a headspace that’s needy and starving, one where you’re going to drink up every last drop you hear, sopping it up with a rag and squeezing it into your mouth. There are dimensions to indulge in, greedy little morsels to swallow and get mystified by. This is one of their most ‘supernatural’ records as far as I can recall, allowing their songwriting to pass through a portal where it is brushed blinding with flourish. On their own, these passages are alternative, folk-adjacent rock songs… but in their elevated state, they’re something new, something that evokes a beautiful imagery. This record beholds the phenomenon of light and miracle.
Check Out: A Bowl and a Pudding
9. Jungle — Volcano
Pocket Groove
This is that shit. Strangely, when it first came out, I shared it with homeys from multiple walks with varying degrees of acceptance. It ranged from unease, a reaction along the lines of, “I thought it would be… more?” to someone saying “this goes directly into the rotation,” to (and I’m quoting), “Feels like the highlights are samples of shit I liked 15 years ago and everything else is a waiting room.” Brutal spread. For me though? This record is exactly the type of shit I want to groove to, the light and easy way to get the head bumping on the shoulders, the ability to sit still while listening to a thing of the past. This is such a fun album from front to back. It’s a bit surprising, considering that at its core, this is a dance record, a funk record. And while those are fun, and those are nice little television themes or whatnot, most releases in this genre don’t have the staying power that this one does for me. I feel like it’s that album that you see someone dust off from a shelf and put on and the whole room lights up. This shit makes me want to get my feet stepping. Duration seems to be a common theme across this whole list, but I do want to celebrate the idea that this record could have easily been stretched over an hour, just been a club record that doesn’t let the DJ breathe with it too much, but I think they perfected the idea of creating songs and skeletons of a live set, and will unleash an unbelievable party vibe at the venue, but on the record, they give the brief versions of it. The verse, the chorus, the hook, the beat, and the beat, and the beat again and again. One of the easiest records of the year to play front-to-back before any crowd. Big fan of what Jungle is about as a collective and I love what they’ve done with this album.
Check Out: Back on 74
8. Pale Lungs — Pale Lungs
Remorse Parallax
When people mention “Midwest emo”, I think the prevalent sound that it intones is that wildly noodly guitar, strangely mathy drum sound, yelpy vocalist archetype that had wild energy in the late 90s and then revived somewhat recently in the last decade. For me, when I think of the sound of the same genre, I think more of the somber undertones of American Football, of Colossal, of Benton Falls. Sad and miserable and droning on like some friend who just went through the breakup of the century, who continues to drink, continues to illustrate the ways that they’ve fucked it all up. The soured expression of chances never taken. And I think Pale Lungs do a brilliant job of bringing that sense of emo back, of being a total downer and living that experience to the end of its wick. Scraping the ground of emotion with your very fingertips. Knowing the bottom. But there can only be one direction you can go when they hit this base level, this under-extremity of melancholy. You have to rise. You have to go up. And each song on this record does a great job of portraying the elasticity of hope and sorrow. For an artist that I have only just discovered, I feel the incredible familiarity of a series of people who know this very sentiment, that followed their instinct from a low point to everywhere and anywhere else. This record glows. It isn’t optimistic. But it still exists. It wakes up and it walks. It prevails. From the first time I heard this record, I knew it was something special, something that truly felt like it was from another time, and more specifically, something that was done without the premise of trying to build a fanbase or to cater to an audience. This music feels organic and earnest, reverent to an era that’s gone, but also embracing the torch to move the attitude forward. Very stoked to have discovered this band.
Check Out: Favorite Memory
7. The Armed — Perfect Saviors
The Big Bang
I was introduced to The Armed by their record Only Love in 2018, and that album was absolutely off the wall. It was a completely frantic, experimental thrash fest which reminded me of a mix somewhere between The Blood Brothers and The Locust. Super aggressive. Super heavy. This time around, they put together a sound that looms somewhere around The Strokes’ Comedown Machine, …Trail of Dead’s Worlds Apart and Deafheaven’s Infinite Granite. It’s got a little bit more of that swing, a little more of that “Rock and Roll” swagger, but with a severe coked-out edge, something along the lines of what I believe a band like These Arms Are Snakes could throw together. And as I throw all of these bands at you, it may be important to mention that for all of the band’s releases before this one, the members of The Armed preferred to remain somewhat anonymous, had other people play them in interviews, and also just ultimately made up fictional members of the band altogether. The band maintained an extremely Put the Music First attitude, so really, it was difficult to form a concept of what the band’s sound is. And I think that’s what I love about this record at the end of the day. The very same band that made something that presented a piece of work that could blister my face off was now releasing a record that felt like a rock-renaissance album, but with all the knobs, all the faders, all the pedals mixed wayyy forward, making an experience both weird and exquisitely composed. These are catchy in very astronautical ways, free from the standard hooks and choruses. These are easy to groove to, fun to dance to, but in wildly outer-dimensional flavors and functions. This is an art record by a group of dudes who seem to boldly conceptualize a sound and run deep into the core of the idea, finding a nucleus and splitting the atom at its microcosmic level. This is an album of ugly, abrasive spacedust, but seen from either so far away or so close up that it’s exquisite. Beautiful. Just fucking marvelous.
Check Out: Clone
6. Health — Rat Wars
Abandoned Heat
This has been one of my favorite bands since I discovered Get Color in 2010. Just a flawless discography. Combining pillars of 80s goth, 90s industrial, 00s alternative vocals and modern metal guitar riffs, this record places a pill in every palm and tilts the patient’s head back. There’s been a quiet and steady stream of music from this band and each of them has worn some sort of different identity, though the core of the sound is the same. This album is showing its size in more sweeping and sprawling ways this time around. Its heft isn’t as noticeable (though some parts are heavier than they’ve gone in the past), instead using a guitar sound that seems in closest comparison to Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine, which is such an iconic sound. The soundscape is produced very cinematically, with lots of mood, lots of presence. Drum sounds seem to smash your face up against plate glass, while bassy synth floats almost imperceptibly in the background, pulsing just enough to feel it in the background heat. Possibly worth mentioning, the record was produced by Stint, a producer who’s mostly worked in pop music for Santigold, Carly Rae Jepsen and Kesha. I think if I had more time with this album over the year (it dropped right as we moved into December), I might have grown to love so many more of the intricacies and intimacies of the record, but for the time I’ve spent with it, I know it’s going to be a regular passenger throughout 2024. I love so many moments in this record. It’s yet another gem in the crown of the kings. Brilliant.
Check Out: Future of Hell
|| To Records 25–16. || To Records 5–1. ||
