Esquire's (US) 10 Best Albums of 2014

With its lushness and atmospheric beauty, *Morning Phase* is Beck’s most accomplished (and straightforward) musical endeavor since *Sea Change*. Guitarist Smokey Hormel, bassist/multi-instrumentalist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and ex-Jellyfish keyboardist Roger Joseph Manning Jr. give *Morning Phase* its finely detailed instrumental warmth.

*Black Messiah* ends one of R&B\'s most mysterious disappearing acts, arriving almost 15 years after D\'Angelo\'s sophomore full-length, *Voodoo*. Filled with fluid musicianship, political dissent, and bewitching production, *Black Messiah* is a mosaic of funky, rule-breaking neo-soul that\'s alternatively rebellious, sensual, and deeply spiritual. The serpentine melodies of D\'Angelo\'s ‘90s work are here, but they’re pushed to an experimental edge by his aptly named band, The Vanguard ((which includes Roots drummer Questlove and jazz luminary Roy Hargrove). Soulful keyboards and richly layered vocal harmonies are at the core of the psych-funk of “Ain’t That Easy” and the piano-driven saunter of “Sugah Daddy,” which stand in contrast to guitar-spiked protest songs like “1000 Deaths” and “The Charade.”

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Robert Ellis has a voice that sounds like a soft-rock troubadour who’s been dreaming of Bakersfield’s country music while writing lyrics that read like those from either a hip indie rocker or a Gram Parsons disciple. He relocated from Houston to Nashville and enlisted town producer Jacquire King to wring out an authentic country sound while also veering toward Calexico and Lambchop. “TV Song” is a riff on people who live their entire lives vicariously through the small screen, while “Pride” and “Only Lies” ache with a straight-ahead honesty that sounds like what people thought Richard Buckner might be doing after hearing *Bloomed*. Both the seven-minute epics “Houston” and “Tour Song” turn to autobiography. “Chemical Plant” follows a couple from start to end. “Bottle of Wine” tells a dark tale. The cover of Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” comes out of left field, which in Ellis’ case makes sense, since he’s a country singer who’s also something more.

The songs on “The Lights From The Chemical Plant”, which range from the majestic string-adorned title track to noir pop rock and somber confessionals, both show Ellis’ growth and the various sides of this multidimensional songwriter. Ellis recently told Rolling Stone The Lights From The Chemical Plant is “stylistically ambiguous,” as he is inspired by a wide variety of artists. “On this record I was trying to channel everything from Paul Simon, Randy Newman and Bill Withers, to free jazz artists like Ornette Coleman,” Ellis explained.

Singer/songwriter/guitar-shredder Annie Clark\'s fourth studio album as St. Vincent is, simply, her best yet. While her catalog is full of twists and turns, including 2013 David Byrne collaboration *Love This Giant*, this self-titled release is both audacious *and* accessible, a canny balancing of Clark\'s experimental leanings with her pop sensibility. Amid a flurry of sonic textures ranging from the clamoring horn section of \"Digital Witness\" to the subdued balladry of \"Prince Johnny,\" Clark critiques our technology-obsessed culture (\"Huey Newton\"), satirizes suburban ennui (\"Birth in Reverse\"), and shares about her love for her mother (\"I Prefer Your Love\"). Her anxieties laid bare, the songwriter asserts herself via pyrotechnic guitar riffs, rhythmic somersaults, and a wayfaring vocal range, resulting in a vertiginous set that\'s as dizzying as it is captivating.

*The Way I’m Livin’* was made nearly six years after Lee Ann Womack’s previous studio album—2008’s *Call Me Crazy*—and it\'s clear that much has changed in her world. This is the sound of a refreshed artist who\'s more authentically country than ever. Womack’s husband, Frank Liddell, handles the production; he smartly fit his wife into his schedule, which has also included manning the boards for Miranda Lambert and The Pistol Annies. The two chose the best songs around, from songwriters such as Hayes Carll (“Chances Are”), Julie Miller (“Don’t Listen to the Wind”), Mindy Smith (“All His Saints”), and Neil Young (“Out on the Weekend”). Then they went about making them Womack’s own. As a superior singer, Womack has always had the ability to deliver a song with unfussy phrasings and sincere commitment. Liddell’s acoustic-based production gives Womack the room she needs while never pushing her to sing too hard. It’s as if the writers were composing with Womack in mind.

TV on the Radio\'s fifth album sounds as fresh as their debut, proving that the band\'s incandescent fusion of alt, world, and electronic influences remains as inimitable today as it was in 2004. There are subtle tweaks to the formula, though: producer and founding member David Sitek employs a warmer sonic palette, and the songs aren\'t as frenetic. With its lockstep drums and whirring guitars, the single \"Happy Idiot\" nods to the saccharine precision of The Cars, while the horn section on \"Could You\" lends vibrancy to the song\'s motorik pulse. *Seeds* manages the neat trick of being the band\'s most accessible release to date while still being characteristically adventurous.

When *Lazaretto* roars to action with the sweltering, Hammond-driven rocker “Three Women,” Jack White is on familiar terrain, unleashing a supercharged, garagey blues riff that’s as archetypal as the theme. But when the “red, blonde, and brunette” ladies in question appear in a “digital photograph,” the anachronism is a striking reminder of White’s gift for recasting classic musical elements in arrestingly modern contexts. There are plenty of such moments on *Lazaretto*, like when the title track’s heavy bass rumble is augmented with a squall of 8-bit Atari noise *and* a vaguely Appalachian fiddle solo. Throughout, White’s brand of heated, high-powered blues-rock dominates, but he mixes things up with breezy, country-inflected charmers (“Temporary Ground”, “Entitlement”) and eerie, would-be spaghetti western themes (“Would You Fight for My Love?” “I Think I Found the Culprit”). The album’s best tracks, like “Alone in My Home” and “Just One Drink,” combine all of the above in a heady, hot-blooded, hook-oriented package.

Tim Showalter has titled this 2014 album *HEAL*—all in capital letters—and it shows a hard rock approach that suggests something closer to Arthur Janov’s primal scream therapy than any type of meditative or introspective healing. Working with producer John Congleton, engineer/synth player Ben Vehorn, and drummer Steve Clements, Showalter unleashes some serious ’70s/‘80s/‘90s–styled hard rock, far from the folk-rooted Americana of his previous work. “Goshen ’97” brings us back to his teenage years in Goshen, Ind., where he first imagined music as an escape. J Mascis adds a guitar solo that mirrors Showalter’s battling emotions from the time. The incredible seven-and-a-half-minute “JM” is a tribute not to Mascis but to the late Jason Molina, whose music (as Songs: Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co., and under his own name) greatly influenced Showalter’s intensely personal style. “Woke Up to the Light” finally slows things for a Mark Kozelek–like confessional. But little here settles for anything sedate. This is a big rock album with big beats and anthem-like songs that never teeter over into clinical bombast but remain infused with blood on the tracks.