2017 in Review: Quarter 3, Pt. I
11/03/2017 05:25:00 PM
Since 2014, Alvvays have built up a cult indie following on the back of a single nine-track, 30-minute LP of charmingly lo-fi dream pop. Their sophomore release, Antisocialites, polishes the edges of that sound without losing sight of their debut's scrappy exuberance. Hazy, layered pop gems like "In Undertow," "Your Type," and "Not My Baby" pick up more or less where they left off, just with clearer production and more refined hooks. But the album also finds the band stepping outside of their comfort zone, however slightly. The punchy, forceful melodies of "Plimsoll Punks" shake vocalist Molly Rankin's voice free of its typically blasé trappings, and closer "Forget About Life" strikes an unexpectedly somber note, as Rankin intimately questions her listener, as though begging, "Did you want to forget about life with me tonight?"
In 2015, Briana Marela's All Around Us was a late entry in my top 30 albums of the year. Although it experimented with electronic minimalism, it was at its best with charmingly bubbly pop songs of infatuation and yearning. Marela capitalizes on these further with Call It Love, an album which feels at once both quaint and huge, both distantly robotic and intimately human. Gauzy, intricate layers of ambiance and beats cradle rather than cover Marela's sweetly lilting voice, while gently pulsing beginnings give way to lush, sweeping finales. "Give Me Your Love," "Quit," and "Feel What I Feel" are built on circular melodies and lyrics that slowly build in intensity, emphasizing the strain of girl against machine, like desperate love missives scrambled in transmission and dropped in the listener's ear as puzzles in need of decoding.
For years, Chelsea Wolfe has been mastering the art of blurring the lines between terrifying and beautiful, and her fifth proper album, Hiss Spun, doesn't deviate from this aim. In fact, it may take it to even bolder extremes, juxtaposing some of the loudest, heaviest instrumentation she's employed so far against her most ethereal vocal performances yet. Further reflecting this dichotomy of extremes, the album hits hardest when Wolfe either gives her dark, brooding melodies room to expand organically - as on "The Culling" and "Twin Fawn," which expertly marry her many influences, from monstrous, metal-esque guitars to post-rock atmospherics and pacing to almost operatic vocals - or spends everything on short, relentless bursts like "Offering" and "Scrape," the latter being one of the most haunting things I've heard all year.
Eleven years on from the drearily pretty Knives Don't Have Your Back and following increasingly lackluster returns from her primary band, Metric, I hardly expected Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton's Choir of the Mind to become one of my favorite albums of the year, but it undoubtedly has. Like her 2006 debut under the moniker, Choir of the Mind is largely piano-based, which means its impact relies on the subtle drama of Haines' fragile rasp and precise melodies. While some songs successfully test the boundaries of her minimal balladry - "Fatal Gift" builds into a dark, pulsing blood-rush that recalls peak Metric, and the title track is a woozy spoken world swirl - others, like "Legend of the Wild Horse," "Nihilist Abyss," and "Statuette" are soothing aural balm, as cozy and comforting as a well-worn pillow.
The most accurate way I can think of to describe Florist is as therapy in musical form. Although officially a three-piece, Emily Sprague is the beating heart at the band's core, and she uses songwriting as a means of navigating and excising personal trauma. Last year's The Birds Outside Sang detailed her recovery following a near-fatal car accident, and If Blue Could Be Happiness is significantly informed by her mother's death. But neither album is defined by tragedy; instead, they catalog the small, quiet reasons to stay alive, full of simple reassurances ("The air is light blue today") and optimistic self-affirmation ("Next time you see me I'll be glowing brightly"). Less electronic and more folk-oriented than its predecessor, the album meanders along at a gently measured pace, Sprague's soft vocals enveloped in warm, rich acoustics.
If, like me, you've had enough of this bullshit year to the point where sad music is no longer cathartic but only makes you sadder, Great Grandpa's Plastic Cough may be the perfect album for you. Deftly balancing pop and punk rock, it's loud and angry enough to void any other feelings but quirky and catchy enough to make repeated listens, in less volatile moods, worthwhile. The Seattle five-piece certainly knows its way around a memorable chorus. Short, aggressive bursts like "Fade" and "Expert Eraser," with Alex Menne's charismatic snarl warring against walls of grungy guitar, are a blast, as is the epic closer, "28 J's L8R," a pot-fueled take on the zombie apocalypse. Meanwhile, "All Things Must Behave / Eternal Friend" illustrates what Great Grandpa is capable of when they flex subtler songwriting muscles.
Several indie stalwarts, many of whom I've long loved, have recently returned from long hiatuses, but few of the resulting releases have truly moved me. Painted Ruins, Grizzly Bear's first album in five years, is the latest in this chain of quality but somehow underwhelming returns. Maybe the problem lies within my shifting tastes. Possibly it's the fact that musical proclivities that once seemed innovative now register as merely expected. Still, Painted Ruins is a tightly-composed, well-performed, and often beautiful work. Daniel Rossen's raspy tenor and Ed Droste's smooth baritone, sounding better than ever, coalesce to turn good songs into great ones ("Losing All Sense," "Neighbors"). Multi-instrumentalist/producer Chris Taylor gets a turn in the vocal spotlight with the dreamy "Systole," one of the album's only real surprises.
Last year, Happy Hollows released a couple of spectacularly catchy synth-pop one-offs in "Way Home" and "Astrid," songs which settle into a permanent home on the band's third album, Concordia, where they find themselves in very good company. What the album may lack in surprise and innovation, it makes up for in sheer infectious energy. The robust post-punk leaning instrumentation and massively propulsive choruses are rivaled only by Sarah Negahdari's yelps, warbles, and gasps, which recall Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O in their exuberant explosiveness. The previously-mentioned singles are certainly among Concordia's strongest tracks, but others, like "On the Wave," "Meteors," and "Feel the Moon," maintain a trend of instantly hummable choruses while expanding their horizons to the outer limits.
It's tempting to reduce the appeal of Hundred Waters' music to Nicole Miglis' voice alone. It's a slippery, supernatural, serpentine being that always seems to be chasing its own tail and getting tangled in its own coils, an effect which sounds both manipulated and natural at once, as unsettling as it is beautiful. However, its full hypnotic impact depends on the labyrinthine soundscapes constructed around it. Communicating, the band's third album, fully capitalizes on this deceptively simple complexity. Most of its songs clearly began life as stark piano compositions before being transformed by erratic synths and skittering percussion, the dark atmospherics of which turn barely meaningful utterances - "This is my wave to anchor," "Blanket me," "Are we communicating?" - into powerful incantations.
Last year, Japanese Breakfast's Psychopomp, a lo-fi passion project turned sleeper indie hit, placed high on many year-end lists, including mine. Soft Sounds from Another Planet ups the production value of its predecessor while simultaneously tackling more ambitious sonic palettes and lyrical themes. Atypical lead single, "Machinist," for example, is the cyborg new-wave love song you never knew you needed - complete with groovy saxophone solo. Yet even as Michelle Zauner's infectious melodies and emotive singing are wrapped in dreamy layers of harmony and synths, she manages to land plenty of lyrical punches, tackling both the personal ("I can't get you off my mind/I can't get you off in general") and the political ("All our celebrities keep dying/While the cruel men continue to win") with darkly comic candor.
I've never been one for automatically listening to albums based solely on label association, but I'm getting awfully close with Double Double Whammy, which not only released 3/30 of my favorite albums last year but three albums in this post alone. Alongside Florist and Great Grandpa, Lomelda's Thx continues a steady upward trend for the small Brooklyn label. As Lomelda, Hannah Read makes warm and inviting but quietly stormy folk-pop that's bound to tug at your heartstrings. As she finds meaning in childhood memories ("Do you see me in this moment/As a young girl out in center field/Feeling for the fence") and eulogizes dead heroes ("Elliott, what have you done to us?"), Read's voice has the steely resilience of someone constantly swallowing back tears. An occasional tremor slips through, but she's no less strong for it.
I've admitted before that hip-hop is my biggest musical weak spot, but I've recently expanded my knowledge base from barely existent to minimal, which is a big deal considering I've now probably heard and loved more hip-hop albums this year than the entire rest of my life. What's caught my ear most is the "conscious rap" of the mid-1990s: Fugees, Digable Planets, The Roots, etc. Milo's excitably-titled Who Told You To Think??!!?!?!?! recalls these in its laid-back beats, jazzy minimalism, and hyper-intellectual lyrics. In two to three minute bursts, Milo references everything from Walt Whitman's "barbaric yawp" to Thelonious Monk to Pokemon Go to the mythological hero Ganymede in a loose and easy drawl. These brief snapshots of his interior mind seamlessly thread together into a sum far greater than its parts.
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