5. The National — First Two Pages of Frankenstein
Atonement
Warm like a homemade sweater, The National has always been a band to me whose songs are representative of a texture, slow and deliberate. Lush and pulpy in the hand like an afghan blanket that you’ve known since your childhood. Regardless of where they go with their tempo, with the size and scale of the song, there’s always a sense of being shrouded in all of that personal legacy that’s seen every palm print, every size of your growing fingers, every quiet night you stared off into the middle distance. From the first time I heard the band (‘Cardinal Song’), I knew there was a stark sadness that knew itself, that knew a bleak and still glass that was hard to summon by an artist trying to summon it. This was an embodiment. This record seems to take the psychopathic role of the narrator reconnecting with an ex and trying to reconcile things, simple things, and revisiting core memories of the relationship conversationally. Wading through the pain and looking at it with rose-colored glasses. I’ll quote The Movielife’s song ‘Except Me’: “We’ve done this one thousand times / But this time it’s different / I think I’m over you / I really think I’m over you.” There is no amount of times that I’ve heard that song and that lyric and believed that Caruana was over the subjected ‘You’, and I think The National bleeds a similar blood throughout this one. The constant references to The Other’s small nuances, their tells, their signature quips are unbearable and beautiful, especially the way that The Narrator discusses the predictability with a kind of familiar, worn-out disdain but cosmic adoration. Throughout this album and this sentiment that’s presented, there is a sense of romance all across it. But namely, the one that got to me was the final song of the record, ‘Send For Me’ which initially intoned as a cherry on top of this record’s loose story (or at least the one I was telling myself in my mind), where The Lovers are separated, but he hasn’t closed the door, the light is always on. But as I sat with it, it hit me in such a platonic way that this is how I feel about my closest friends… this deep romance with them, this global network of My People as we each seek the beacon from each other. Whenever, wherever, send for me. I’ve got you. And I think that sort of eternal love, that deep blood-woven love, is something that reaches further forward for all of us, unified. When you find your people, you’ll go to the end for them. You’ll drag them back from the brink. You’ll know when they’re calling. You’ll bring them home. You’ll wait for that call when they break. The National does not miss.
Check Out: Tropic Morning News
4. Thermal — Plaster Girl EP
The New Wave of Alternative
This is such a smart alternative release. Five tracks across twenty minutes, each of which is a shining example of how to craft post-grunge alt-revival songs. The vocals are delicate with such a light touch that floats over distorted guitars and near-dreamy drum machine loops. I think this sounds like what pre-Garbage Shirley Manson would want to make while she pouted around in her bedroom if she had access to the same music-making tools that young people do now. Phenomenal release and tells of a lot of talent to come. Love every minute of this.
Check Out: 18
3. Boygenius — The Record
Admission
You get yourself in a pickle when you listen to a record like this. Its acclaim is likely the first thing you hear about it, before the types of song, before the lyrics people love, before the actual music… you meet its reputation. Contrarian at heart, I often hear about records like this and back away from them with speed. But having loved the boygenius EP, I was at a crossroads. And because disliking something because of its popularity is always the wrong answer, I dove right in. I think the way I put it when I finally sat through the full thing was: “the boygenius record makes me want to die. it’s pretty rad.” I recommend this one with such a disclaimer about its honesty, its sadness, its power. I think it will only strengthen the resolve of whatever emotion is on your soul at the moment, whatever that may be; whether it’s Love, whether it’s Desperation, whether it’s Sadness, whether it’s Loss, whether it’s Hope… this is one of those rare records that acts as an object of power, a talisman which substantiates the possessions of your heart. There’s a testimony at the center of all of these songs, and the magic of this record is that each of these songs is a collaboration between three women who can create tempests on their very own, but the fury that they conjure when they conspire is tremendous. They’ve each opened themselves up in ways that could pave their way into the listeners’ minds in ways that are raw and impossible, but to be able to do so while creating these songs is a new type of enchantment, a kind of unity free from hegemony, where they connect without boundary or border, they enhance each others’ worst and best memories, their darkest and lightest dreams, and from this recipe they create something without shape but tangible and formidable and above all true. One-to-one, it reminds me of what the form of love is, how if it can be breathed it should be breathed, how if it should be spoken you speak the word, how every snapshot should be pressed in a book and that just as this album is a work of power, so too can these events between Us be a similar work.
Check Out: Anti-Curse
2. Wednesday — Rat Saw God
Believe Me
From the moment I heard ‘Chosen to Deserve’, I felt that this band, this record was going to be something special. It had that big, huge rock sound that reminded me right off the bat of the huge guitar sound from The Hold Steady’s record Boys and Girls In America, and there was something about that Big Americana, that crunchy, gazey guitar sound that felt enormous enough to fill the sky of the world but intentional enough to feel like it was speaking directly to me. When I finally got my hands on the full-length record, its BIG sound once it opened up consumed my entire heart, lit up my entire world. They fearlessly allow their instruments to cry, to whine, to rock and tip like the bow of a dying freighter. They let the noise spiral and supernova into spectral delights, errantly casting coiling arcs of sound into the night. Sure, the album’s opener weighs enormously. But it’s the second track that possesses you, begs for an exorcist, bends your shirt’s collar out of shape. This record holds so many cool, weird sounds for an act primarily represented by vocals and guitars. It’s almost like a Sonic Youth record with the way they push every sound into your face, really mash your nose in it. Raw emotions are the ash and skeleton of this record’s aftermath, as the band seems to leave it all on the stage, leave it all in the booth, juicing every volt they can get out of the amps, pummeling every drum skin to a flat pulp, bleeding across every guitar string. Little angelic details feel impromptu, pulled from the band’s minds in idle time, trembling from the endeavor. The first half of this record is five tracks of flawless musical enormity, a vocalist stretched beyond their emotional tension. As we carry into the second half of the record, the sonic intensity subsides a bit, but we see the band own a bit more of the indie portion of their style. More clean guitars, more silent space, more spotlight on the vocals. Screeches and distortion persist, but the intensity boils down to a more focused delivery. It feels like the panting, the recovering endurance of a prize fighter, fresh from a pummeling. And that’s sort of how it feels when the dust settles for the listener as well. It all happens so fast, and for this to be my introduction to the band, I absolutely cannot wait to dive deeper into their work and hope for them to come through Charleston. With their earnestness, their huge sound, I have to be a part of a crowd of theirs sometime soon. This is a band I must see live.
Check Out: Hot Rotten Grass Smell
1.Johnny Booth — Moments Elsewhere
Good God
I fucking love this album. It opens up with haggard brutality and revs its exposed engine until the cast iron is corroded. And it continues to drag itself forward. Johnny Booth has continued to impress since their debut and each release has moved the needle in exponentially positive directions, and this one not only got heavier, not only got smarter, not only got meaner, but also showed the most obvious growth from one record to the next than ever before. The band changes things up a great deal from one track to the next, with such interesting production on every track. Electronic work, vibrant and unique, shines on a majority of the album. Vocalist Andrew Herman has seemed to pull new and interesting surfaces to shine from, not only reaching deep into his darkest portions from which to pull the venom but also in trenches yet undiscovered, finding several new voices to scream with, to sing with, to lament, to pay tribute, to transfer the very heat of raw emotion into the thermodynamics of spirit. On repeated listens throughout the year, the width and breadth of this record never ceased to surprise. The sheer vertical drops of how heavy these breakdowns get, just how cool some of the sounds that these guitarists are using on their runs are jaw-dropping. There’s even a track (‘The Mirror’) that feels like it could have been an interlude on a Talib Kweli record. On ‘Only By Name’, outside of the deep science fiction sound effects in the breakdown, there’s a refrain that has a vast resource of pure soul, pure R&B savvy. The band continues to show that there is absolutely no limit to their output, and I’ve cried for it before, and I will continue to advocate: these boys need to be represented by a major label. Until then, the masses are missing out on an invaluable entity. The testament to the greatness of this record is something so simple, and it’s that I just do not want it to end, often playing it multiple times, end to end. One hit of this is never enough. This is my favorite record of the year.
Check Out: The Ladder
|| To Records 15–6.||
