This is one of the only records in recent years that I've gone into blindly that abruptly, unfailingly arrested me from minute one and track one until the triumphant, final onslaught of horns that close out "Say Yes to Life" fifteen songs later. It's not that there aren't tons of records I've adored this year (there are dozens); it's that it is not often that I find an album from an artist I know next to nothing about - no bio knowledge, no preconceived idea of sound and influences - that hits me so deep to my core that I become almost obsessed with the record. The past few months have been that way for me with Go Farther in Lightness, and I'm all the better for it and didn't even see it coming. That's the kind of feeling that makes you fall in love with music in the first place, and I've realized that sort of surprise is maybe even more special once you've been jaded or cynical at some point. Gang of Youths are here to grab us by the heartstrings, help us get back on our feet and shout along to the heavens and replenish us with something like hope, which admittedly is pretty hard to come by these days.
*Read my full review.
The National - Sleep Well Beast
On Sleep Well Beast, my favorite band incorporate many
new flourishes into a palette that has been top shelf ever since Alligator.
Atmospheric synth, guitar solo, ghoulish Karl Rove monologue and the breakneck
ballast of “Turtleneck” all add new colors to the band’s catalog. The songs are
brooding, eloquent and sublime while Matt Berninger’s lyrics keep getting
stronger and exquisitely dance between bittersweet emotion and cutting
discernment with splices of obtuse imagery.
The War on Drugs – A Deeper Understanding
Adam Granduciel and company have pulled off another
recorded grand slam with A Deeper Understanding. This feels like nothing short of
a perfect album. It’s extremely difficult to do justice to what makes the songs
of The War on Drugs so consistently special, even more so when they pull it off
song after song after song across a full album (not to mention one album after
another). There an immensely human touch to every fiber of this record. The
songs wash over you with six, seven, even eleven-minute run times, and they
free you to be rapt with consciousness or rollicking comfortably with the
arrangements. I get happily lost in time and feel life deeply any time I play
these songs, and that will be the case for years to come. What more can I ask
for from rock and roll?
Japandroids – Near to the Wild Heart of Life
I’ve been more than a little astounded with how
forgotten this Japandroids record seems to have become once year-end lists
started popping up, especially considering how universally acclaimed
Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock were on these very lists a few short years
ago. Not much has changed other than Japandroids now sound even more ready to
destroy stadium amps, have fleshed out more gargantuan choruses and have added
both a dazzlingly moody seven-minute-plus rocker and a magnificent Westerberg-via-Springsteen
album-closing life affirmer into their repertoire. These songs got me as close
to being Near to the Wild Heart of Life more than just about anything whenever
I needed them most throughout 2017.
St. Vincent – Masseduction
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – The Nashville Sound
Jason Isbell is enjoying the fruits of decades of
labor in recent years, and it’s a thing of beauty to behold. Longtime fans love
it because it’s the very sort of karmic justice that seems to be absent in
pretty much every other aspect of life everywhere you look these days. The
acclaim and the love couldn’t be happening to a more genuine man or a more
deserving songwriter than Isbell, and he’s been at it and more than deserving
ever since the early years of Drive-By Truckers. He and the 400 Unit aren’t
just riding on those laurels, though; they are pushing themselves to write and
record great songs, and that’s exactly what comprises one hundred percent of
The Nashville Sound. It’s the very sort of record where it’s impossible to play
favorites. Obviously, the unanimous frontrunner is the breathtaking “If We Were
Vampires” and rightfully so, but I’d put “Molotov,” “White Man’s World,”
“Cumberland Gap” and any other damn song you choose from this album right up
there with it.
Hurray for the Riff Raff – The Navigator
The Navigator, the sixth album from Alynda Segarra under her moniker Hurray for the Riff Raff, is a rapturous statement of the personal and political at an exact moment when such considerations almost seem like the only things that really matter. It’s a rich, versatile and vital album brimming with a borderless sense of empathy and rhythm.
Segarra has created a work of art to be celebrated: a
personal triumph that is deeply relatable, a purely musical gem, and an impeccably
performed, expertly arranged and sequenced song cycle that is unquestionably of
the moment, is aware of what all that came before, and is still defiantly
optimistic for what is ahead.
*Read my full review.
LCD Soundsystem – American Dream
After retirement and the farewell shows and seven years since the last album, James Murphy and company dug in and delivered a bit of a miracle with American Dream. Brilliantly produced and as sounding fresh as every other LCD classic, American Dream is way more than a solid comeback or reunion album; it’s a flat-out great record. There’s a lot to unpack in these songs, and it only grows more joyous and complex and impossibly catchy with each new listen.
Spoon – Hot Thoughts
I can argue the case that ever since Girls Can Tell,
Spoon has been a Top Five – if not most – consistently great American band. On
record and in a live setting. Hot Thoughts is yet another highlight in a career
almost wholly consisting of highlights, and Britt Daniel and co. infuse their
distinct formula with a bunch of fresh ideas and genre-pushing textures to stir
the pot. As with pretty much every other Spoon album, I’m willing to bet a
week’s pay that this record will sound as excellent in 2022 as it did in 2017.
Hiss Golden Messenger – Hallelujah Anyhow
MC Taylor has quite quietly put out a string of
several of the finest albums in the last six or seven years. Hiss Golden
Messenger’s music is guitar-based folk and rock songwriting with pastoral air,
real emotion and southern charm, and it often feels like it fits equally
alongside a great short story collection or a journal of spiritual essays as
much as cozying up next to anything played on whatever rock radio is playing
these days. On the magnificently named Hallelujah Anyhow, Taylor takes all of
those strengths and goes to battle against the anger and inequality alive in
2017 America and turns them into songs of uncommon grace and hope. Hiss also
came ready to rock and roll aplenty which translates to tunes that blaze along
like Them’s “Gloria” while also penning a remarkable protest song about
knocking down walls that even Dylan would be proud to have written.
On her breathtakingly excellent Stranger in the Alps, Phoebe Bridgers put out hands down the finest debut collection of songs I heard all year. Within three minutes of my first listen to opening track “Smoke Signals,” I was stunned and knew I stumbled upon something special. It only got more devastating and beautiful from there. “Motion Sickness,” “Funeral,” you name it. Her songwriting is achingly sublime and the lush production balances the starker material with such fine touches that you’d never guess this was a first record if you didn’t know beforehand. I can’t wait to fall in love with all the amazing songs she has in store in the years ahead.
The Menzingers – After the Party
What are we gonna do now that the 20s are over? What
are we gonna do now that the 20s are over? Everyone’s asking me over and over!
That’s a hell of a chorus to kick off an album, especially when it’s from the
now thirtysomething, somewhat elder statesmen of a youth-oriented scene, and –
much like almost everything The Menzingers write and sing about – it’s
tremendously honest and affecting to someone of a certain age and certain
disposition, and I am of both those certainties. Thematically, After the Party
is The Menzingers’ aging and taking stock album after any wide-eyed,
romanticized youth, but the songwriting and hooks sound as fresh as many of
their best offerings. This is a blast of finely detailed, heartfelt rock and
roll with plenty of regrets and nostalgia, and it has been one of my most
addictively rewarding listening experiences all year long.
White Reaper – The World’s Best American Band
What stones it takes to name your guitar rock record
The World’s Best American Band these days. Even as a joke or as a stab at catching
novelty attention, it’s a bold move for a young band from Louisville. What’s
perfect though is the punchline is that White Reaper just about proved it true*
with these roaring, road-ready tunes. It’s the kind of record that can be a new
favorite album even if it you can try and pick all the influences and have
heard songs sort of like these before by a bunch of other bands. That’s not the
point. The point is that it’s the sort of record that can remind you exactly
why you fell in love with rock and roll in the first place. It can feel loud
and dangerous and goofy and wild, and I’ll be damned if you don’t want to crank
it up a notch louder with each new listen until you blow out a speaker and then
another speaker and then one day the car just explodes as a whole from the
contact awesomeness.
(*I can attest that White Reaper only “just about proved
it true” because they recently opened for Spoon, a legitimately great and
possibly best American band, in Indianapolis, and while White Reaper was very
good and dazzled some new fans, Spoon was a whole other level of
twenty-years-of-tightness-and-professional amazing.)
Valerie June – The Order of Time
I don’t know what the exact figure could be, but Valerie June has something even more incredible than a one in a million voice. Do a hundred people in America have a voice this original and evocative? Fifty? We’ll say she has a one in a ten million voice for the sake of brevity. I’m sure her vocals aren’t for everybody, but nothing that hard to come by ever is. Ever since the first time I heard her years ago opening for Neko Case, I was in absolute awe of her singing and her presence. June is a damn fine songwriter as well, and she has only made bold leaps in that department coming into her new album, The Order of Time. This is a dazzling collection of songs and a seriously impressive artistic statement. Every song on this album holds its own, but nothing captures the curious, otherworldly majesty of Valerie June’s powers realizing their full potential quite like the spectral perfection that is “Astral Plane.”
Big Thief – Capacity
Big Thief’s Masterpiece was one of my favorite albums two years ago, and my fervor for it kept growing in the time since. I was pretty certain whatever they created for a next album would be special, but I didn’t anticipate a record quite like Capacity. Toning down much of the guitar squall and pure ecstatic releases that dominated many choruses on Masterpiece, here the focus is on storytelling and songwriting with a deeply penetrating emotional core and poignancy. Adrienne Lenker’s lyrics are on another level of greatness throughout Capacity, and these songs will both tear your heart out while also restoring some faith that may have been lacking.
Sarah Shook & the Disarmers - Sidelong
Sidelong is an outstanding, filler-free country debut
that runs hot-blooded and unapologetically punk at heart, just as kindred to
the Replacements and the Buzzcocks as it is to Waylon and Loretta. It’s the
very sort of record you may have known next to nothing about going in, but you
just might find yourself returning to for weeks on end and trying to convert
most of your friends.
Read my full review.
Read my full review.
J.D. McPherson – Undivided Heart & Soul
The genre of music J.D. McPherson plays has been
around since at least Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, let alone pre-Rubber Soul Beatles. The Oklahoma native
is reinventing the wheel, but he’s making that wheel sound way cooler and way
more pristine and deliciously alive than it has in a long time. This time
around, he’s added in some Black Keys meets Josh Homme crunch and production
swagger to lead single “Lucky Penny” and other rockers, while also slipping in
guitar licks that could’ve snuck onto Is This It or Room on Fire. Throughout
all of Undivided Heart & Soul there is a pure, expertly arranged
tunefulness and joy that could sound the greaser spots, the juke joints and the
sockhops alike in whatever 2017’s version of those are.
Cory Branan – Adios
On his fifth full-length album, Adios, Cory Branan executes a dazzling collection of genre-crossing, silver-tongued songs with hearts of gold, whiskey breath, doses of regret and fury. Yet another wildly impressive entry into Branan’s already esteemed catalog, Adios is an addictive, sprawling 14-song output that whirls the listener into a musical gale of top-shelf songwriting, each tune as beguiling as the next for varying highs, that chugs along at expert paces and results in his finest record yet.
*Read my full review.
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Soul of a Woman
Released posthumously after her death soon after the election night results of 2016, Sharon Jones gave fans a triumphant farewell gift with this flawless collection of soul and vitality. Like everything else Jones and the Dap-Kings recorded this century, Soul of a Woman is an album packed with earnest conviction and a timeless craftsmanship that sails on the extraordinary talents of Ms. Jones. It’s a breezy, joyous blast of unwavering humanity right when we need it most.
Ryan Adams – Prisoner
I’ve been an unwavering Ryan Adams die hard since
falling in love with Heartbreaker and Whiskeytown when I was 18 years old. I’m
a bit biased to pretty much every new release (and there have been tons), and I
tend to kick back when people go to the criticism that he could’ve used an
editor through all those years. With that said, most of them and I seem to
agree that Prisoner is a high water mark in Adams’ prolific songwriting career.
It’s definitely one of the most seamlessly flawless albums in his catalog, and
the heartache always suits his strengths. Now channeling an adoration for the
production and sounds of Tunnel of Love and Born in the U.S.A. Springsteen and
more than a minor homage to the guitar tones of Johnny Marr, Adams has polished
his sound with just the right mix of textures for the moment. Plus, the songs
are reliably excellent.
Broken Social Scene - Hug of Thunder
Any new music from Broken Social Scene is cause for me
to rejoice. Being their first full album in seven years made the excitement
that much stronger. I think maybe Broken Social Scene’s greatest achievement is
the uncanny way their music – its wildly versatile, almost orchestral cocktail
of blasting instruments, soaring harmonies and propulsive rhythm – make you
feel like a part of their community. Perhaps it’s because their rotation of
friends and contributors is a community in itself and that is transferrable to
the fans, but it’s true and palpable in any case. And seven years of their
absence made Hug of Thunder something of a homecoming, and the results are a
warm and welcoming as anything I could have asked for. It’s an album of triumph
and optimism against very real odds, and it has the power to make you remember
that those feelings are still possible and at arm’s length.
Strand of Oaks - Hard Love
I’ve been rooting hard for Tim Showalter ever since the first time I listened to Heal and felt a kindred spirit singing back to me. That album went on to be my favorite of 2014. That record meant the world to me that whole year, and I’d been very excited to see wherever he would go next. Hard Love is a quite excellent rock album that feels like it got a little lost in the shuffle in 2017, which is a shame. It wasn’t lost on me though, and seeing Strand of Oaks rip through these songs live during the fall only magnified how rich this more modest collection truly is. I’m naturally inclined to fall in love with art and music that feels deeply human, possibly tragic, striving for redemption and made of blood and passion and fear and doubt. All of these qualities are right there in Showalter’s songs these days, and I could not appreciate him more for channeling them.
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile – Lotta Sea Lice
The partnership of Courtney and Kurt is every bit as
great as fans of either would have hoped coming into Lotta Sea Lice. Marked by
their evocative individual spirits and writing styles, they are a match that
made perfect sense on paper. Then, you listen to them tradeoff and harmonize on
songs like “Untogether” and “Over Everything” (which also happens to be the
most brilliant music video I saw all year long) and you understand exactly what
kindred spirits sound like as a team.
Margo Price – All American Made
Margo Price’s All American Made takes a hard look at life in 2017 America and reminds us of what ails us and how we got here. Very much a writer willing to get personal and spit fire and truth, Price is a little less autobiographical here than on her brilliant and brilliantly devastating debut, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, and instead tackles many of the political and cultural realities that hit home for her as a woman, an American and a singer and songwriter of country music. It’s both one of the finest country and folk-minded records this year.
Julien Baker - Turn Out the Lights
Julien Baker’s Turn out the Lights is a soul-stirring,
elegiac powerhouse of a record. These songs are painfully excellent. Baker
writes lyrics full of love and wisdom and balance beyond most people twice her
age, and you believe every ounce of what she sings. It’s a something of a
spiritual awakening and a poignant refuge when you get lost inside yourself
with this album. Her presence and talent is that commanding.
Richard Edwards – Lemon Cotton Candy Sunset
The Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s frontman’s
first solo album was a document of a tumultuous, frustrating and uncertain era
in Edwards’ life, which makes it all the more impressive that he was able to
craft it all into such a sublime album of low-key gems. Edwards has always been
a gifted singer-songwriter and a hometown hero around this town, so it should
come as no surprise that a collection of songs under his own name would hold
their own. Aching and restrained, these tunes sneak up on you after multiple
listens. It’s a patient album with a lot of life and redemption at its core,
and it’ll give you plenty to love once you give yourself over to it and live in
its glow.
The Yawpers - Boy in a Well
The Yawpers - Boy in a Well
Boy in a Well is a rollicking, bluesy, boogieing affair with corkscrew tempo changes, some soulful ballads, Cramps-y punk snarl, Zeppelin-conjuring stomp and swell and a blistering hotbed of rhythm. It’s a narrative-based blast of a record for bookish punks and 12-bar boozehounds who don’t usually dig concept albums.
*Read my full review.
The Districts - Popular Manipulations
Even in a year with a long-awaited, quite strong release from the always formidable Wolf Parade, I found myself surprisingly more drawn to the similarly-minded quirks of The Districts on the excellent release, Popular Manipulations. Offbeat, endlessly catchy while taking plenty of angular dynamic turns, this is a rock record that embraces whims, shoots for the stars and hits a sort of sweet spot that’s under the radar and beyond its years.
Honorable Mentions
Alvvays - Antisocialites
Father John Misty - Pure Comedy
Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
Moses Sumney - Aromanticism
Feist - Pleasure
Slowdive - Slowdive
The Kickback - Weddings & Funerals
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