2018 in Review: Quarter 2
7/17/2018 11:33:00 AM
I always start off these posts by uploading all the album art and arranging the layout, and the prospect of having to then fill everything in seems almost impossibly daunting. But, of course, it always ends up being easier than it seems and even fun, especially this time around because this was an exceptionally strong quarter. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if half of this list ended up comprising most of my top ten at the end of the year. I know there are still six months to go and anything could happen, but I've had some really remarkable experiences with many of these albums that remind me why I'm so obsessed with music in the first place. Basically, it's been a really enjoyable few months for me listening-wise, so I hope something here resonates with you, too! As always, scroll to the bottom for a Spotify playlist.
Seven albums and fourteen years in, you'd more likely expect a band to be limping toward an underwhelming end than making some of the best music of its existence. Yet the aptly-titled 7 makes a convincing argument for being a career highlight, easily positioning itself in the upper echelons of Beach House's discography. Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally revitalize their sound by blending its classic dream pop components with heavier and darker experimentation. While some songs feel like long lost gems from Devotion ("Pay No Mind") and Teen Dream ("Drunk in LA"), others, while existing seamlessly alongside them, also manage to break new ground, like the droning, foreboding menace of "Black Car" and the film noir formlessness of "L'inconnue," in which Legrand's vocals twist around themselves like smoky cigarette plumes.
On Lavender, Half Waif's Nandi Rose Plunkett grapples with themes of loss, isolation, and self-doubt so beautifully you'll want to listen over and over again, even as your lungs burn and your heart aches. The serene, meditative calm of the album's atmosphere, built from layers of piano, synth, and percussion that weave expertly in and out, serves as a sort of healing balm: things may look uncertain and scary in the moment, but they can't stay that way forever. Meanwhile, the vivid poetry of Plunkett's lyrics, made even bolder by her richly expressive voice, sneakily shoots for the jugular. "In the Evening" and "Back in Brooklyn" may leave you wet-eyed, but that's nothing compared to "Salt Candy" and its brutally honest admission, "I wanted to be carried in my mother's arms/I wanted to be buried in my mother's arms."
If, for some reason, you've ever found yourself looking for the intersection between Carly Rae Jepsen, Mazzy Star, and Veruca Salt, Hatchie's debut EP, Sugar & Spice, might just hit the spot. As the title implies, it's heavy on sugar, in the form of swooning syrupy hooks that sound direct from the perfect pop song playbook, but it also throws in enough spice to stand out, with reverb-drenched walls of jangling guitar that straddle the line between shoegaze and grunge. Harriette Pilbeam's voice is sweet and pure with a touch of tongue-in-cheek coyness, the perfect vessel for the big, heart-on-sleeve declarations in her songs' choruses. "Sure," "Sleep," and "Sugar & Spice" are all dark horse contenders for song of the summer; the fact that they follow one after the other shows how much promise Hatchie's future holds.
Frances Quinlan has mastered the art of wringing every conceivable emotion out of repeated one-liners turned cathartic mantras. "Don't worry, we will both find out, just not together." "I don't know why I'm so mean each time I come around." "How can I explain it, having been seen, what would that mean?" "You're overgrown with a look of love." These are simple sentiments, but shaped by her wiry wild animal howl, they become monumental. Bark Your Head Off, Dog is Hop Along's most mature and accomplished album yet, and although it may temper much of the band's charmingly imprecise scrappiness, the wounds inflicted by the more purposeful emotional blade wielded here cut deeper and bleed longer. The gut-wrenching closer "Prior Things" was the first piece of music to make me cry this year, and I still haven't shaken it.
On 2014's Plowing Into the Field of Love, Iceage shook off their growing pains and gained critical acclaim. Instead of immediately capitalizing on this, the band took a break while singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt released two solo albums as Marching Church. This year, they've returned with Beyondless, which feels like a natural continuation of its predecessor, even if its polish buffs away much of the raw, dark passion that made Plowing so fulfilling. At times, the dialed-down angst leads to some of the band's most accomplished work yet; the building orchestral intricacy of tracks like "Under the Sun" and "Take It All" is chill-inducing. But almost more fun are the moments when Rønnenfelt's penchant for melodrama is in glorious full swing, like the drunken pop duet "Pain Killer" and the playfully swaggering "Thieves Like Us."
I was ready to say that Janelle Monáe's latest album, Dirty Computer, is good but not nearly as jaw-dropping as The ArchAndroid. Then I saw it performed live and decided it absolutely is jaw-dropping, just in a different way. It's no genre shapeshifter, sticking to the wheelhouse of Prince-indebted pop R&B, but it's possibly the most powerful album to be shaped as a response to America's current sociopolitical climate so far. On "Screwed" and "Americans," Monáe cleverly subverts expectation by dressing calls to the resistance and criticism of blind patriotism in glossy, big-chorused clothing. Then there's the unapologetic sapphism of "Pynk," the unapologetic black feminism of "Django Jane," and the relatable daily anxieties of "So Afraid." It all adds up to exactly the message and the music we need right now.
My favorite thing about any given year is those albums that aren't on your radar at all arriving from nowhere to knock you off your feet. Let's Eat Grandma's I'm All Ears is one of those albums in the biggest, most satisfying way. Nothing prepared me for how fully its first three singles would bowl me over, and they're still probably the best songs here. But to fixate solely on them would be to miss out on the startling but effortless transformation from pristine synth-pop to intense, sprawling post-rock I'm All Ears undergoes. It's tempting to call the gorgeously spine-tingling "Cool & Collected" and boldly ambitious "Donnie Darko" accomplishments beyond the young duo's years, but, in fact, they couldn't have been written by anyone but teenage girls, and teenage girls are some of the most fascinating people on the planet.
Despite being enamored by its singles, I was initially concerned The Future and the Past had so much consistency in tempo and tone that its songs would blend into one pretty but homogeneous blur. Luckily, the subtle intricacies of its delicate melodies soon leapt out, and it's become one of my most quietly rewarding listens this year. Natalie Prass is often commended for her voice and rightfully so; here, it strikes the perfect balance between sweet Disney princess ("Far from You") and sultry torch songstress ("Hot for the Mountain"). But equally compelling is the craftsmanship of these songs, which package political lyrics in smooth, sprawling grooves reminiscent of classic artists like Joni Mitchell and Carole King. It's radicalization made palatable, which is sometimes just as necessary for real change as more incendiary stuff.
Neko Case is one of the most consistent singer-songwriters out there right now. She's yet to release a bad album, even if her last, The Worse Things Get..., paled slightly in comparison to its monstrously impressive predecessors. Luckily, Hell-On marks a return to the darker, weirder, broodier side of her songwriting. It's a world built on surreal but resonant imagery, where God is "a lusty tire fire," a voice is "a stolen mile of fingerprints," a mouth is a "frowning compass" that's "sharp as the rib of a star," and worry nests in hair and sheds "like a Christmas tree." The music perfectly accompanies Case's storytelling, from the jaunty and upbeat "Last Lion of Albion" to the melancholy "Halls of Sarah" to the intensely stormy "Oracle of the Maritimes." Through it all, Case's brassy voice remains a clarion call, wringing emotion from every syllable.
Now, Now's career trajectory has been halting and elusive. When they released Threads, a dark alt-pop cult hit, in 2012, they seemed on the threshold of breaking through to bigger things. But then Jess Abbott left to pursue her solo project, Tancred, and news of a potential follow-up grew sporadic and uncertain. Last year, remaining members Cacie Dalager and Bradley Hale finally released a new single in the form of "SGL," a surprisingly light and breezy return. It's also the opener on Saved, which at first sounds like more of the same: pleasant and catchy but unadventurous synth-pop. But there's more going on here than what first meets the ear, particularly in the subtle digital manipulation on tracks like "Saved," "Knowme," and "P0WDER," which reveals an intriguingly vulnerable (and highly re-listenable) side.
As serpentwithfeet, Josiah Wise makes music that defies categorization, transcending genre to distill sound into its purest form so that it more accurately conveys his deepest, most sensual desires. His debut album, soil, transforms acts of love into startlingly powerful and intimate acts of worship. All stages of his attachment to one man are cataloged with equal intensity, from infatuation ("waft") to singular devotion ("cherubim") to all-consuming sorrow when it ends ("mourning song"). This drama plays out not only in Wise's lyrical romanticism but in his rich falsetto and the lush, mystical soundscapes in which it lives. By centering his deep reverence for his lover, Wise extends his listeners the chance to experience their own: "Boy, whoever reads about how much I adore you/I hope my words bring them something new."
SOPHIE's OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES is an experimental pop opus about the danger of using a hierarchy of authenticity to police self-expression, but, more importantly, it's also about how to break free of all that. By expanding our perception of what it means to be via their sound design, structure, and lyrics, its songs also expand our perception of what it means to feel. Are the emotions accessed truer in "It's Okay to Cry" than in "Faceshopping" because one's a pretty, sappy ballad and the other's a cold, metallic banger? Is the sentiment more valid in "Is It Cold in the Water?" than in "Immaterial" because one's artfully brooding and the other's "cheap" and "mainstream?" SOPHIE's answer to these questions would be a resounding no, and all the proof she needs lies in the beating human heart at the core of each song.
In 2015, Them Are Us Too released their debut album, Remain, full of utterly gorgeous and incredibly promising dark dream pop. Devastatingly, one half of the duo, Cash Askew, lost her life far too early in the Ghost Ship fire in late 2016. On Amends, her musical partner Kennedy Ashlyn, alongside family and friends, has built a stunning tribute to Askew's life and talent by completing their unfinished work together. It's a beautiful but heavy listen, particularly the elegiac finale. On the nine-minute "Could Deepen," Ashlyn delivers a Liz Fraser caliber vocal performance, gravely unspooling slow motion threads of grief. "I've been told the melody lingers on," she sings, "How can I? How can I?" This raw outpouring is heartbreakingly mirrored in the title track: "The world we made I must abide/Now so hollow/How can I?"
The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs is another solid entry in Wye Oak's discography, and a few of its tracks are clear all-timers. "It Was Not Natural" and "You of All People" are two of the most beautiful songs they've crafted, the former being just about the realest meditation on depression I've ever heard ("As I expected, with time, it hasn't gotten easier/I have to work now at things that used to be like breathing") and the latter transforming its title phrase into the weightiest accusation in the world by means of Jenn Wasner's delivery alone. On the opposite end of the spectrum, "Symmetry" is a relentless, nearly psychedelic tangle of guitar, drums, and angular melodies. This is Wye Oak showing off what they do best, which they've done two or three times over already, making the sum slightly less impressive than its parts.
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