Slant Magazine's 25 Best Albums of 2014

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.

You can purchase this album on vinyl or CD at store.spoontheband.com.

With 2011’s *Slave Ambient*, The War on Drugs offered a collection of emotionally rich, guitar-driven grandeur that earned songwriter/bandleader Adam Granduciel accolades from far beyond his hometown scene in Philadelphia. The War on Drugs’ fourth full-length operates with a bigger, bolder agenda—evident in the clattering electronics and hypnotic production of the nearly nine-minute opener, “Under the Pressure”. From there, *Lost in the Dream* unfolds with warm, melancholic rock that combines Granduciel’s mystical tenor with a blurry haze of vintage synths, chiming guitars, horn accents and reverb-soaked ambience. Uptempo tracks like “Red Eyes” and “An Ocean in Between the Waves” juxtapose pulsing, mechanical backbeats with droning synths. Ballads, like the heartbreaking “Suffering” and the gently paced title track, float along in a beautiful fog. After *Lost in the Dream* closes with a couple of minutes of wordless feedback, the album leaves a hypnotic, lingering impression.

'Lost In The Dream' is the third album by Philadelphia band The War on Drugs, but in many ways, it feels like the first. Around the release of the 2011 breakthrough 'Slave Ambient', Adam Granduciel spent the bulk of two years on the road, touring through progressively larger rock clubs, festival stages and late-night television slots. As these dozen songs shifted and grew beyond what they’d been in the studio, The War on Drugs became a bona fide rock ’n’ roll band. That essence drives 'Lost In The Dream', a 10-song set produced by Granduciel and longtime engineer Jeff Zeigler. In the past, Granduciel built the core of songs largely by himself. But these tunes were played and recorded by the group that had solidified so much on the road: Dave Hartley, (his favorite bassist in the world), who had played a bit on The War on Drugs’ 2008 debut 'Wagonwheel Blues', and pianist Robbie Bennett, a multi-instrumentalist who contributed to 'Slave Ambient'. This unit spent eight months bouncing between a half-dozen different studios that stretched from the mountains of North Carolina to the boroughs of New York City. Only then did Granduciel—the proudly self-professed gearhead, and unrepentant perfectionist—add and subtract, invite guests and retrofit pieces. He sculpted these songs into a musical rescue mission, through and then beyond personal despair and anxiety. 'Lost In The Dream' represents the trials of the trip and the triumphs of its destination.

Despite his reputation as something of a hard-partying rock prankster (not many musicians play a guitar customized with an old beer bottle cap), Mac DeMarco, on record at least, has always been a hopeless romantic. And here, on his second album, the Canadian singer/songwriter effectively leans into loverman mode (just see “Let My Baby Stay”). But “Passing Out Pieces” is a particular marvel: Cast in cloudy synths and dark humor, it’s the sound of slacker rock’s clown prince getting serious.

“As I’m getting older, chip up on my shoulder…” is the opening line from Mac DeMarco’s second full-length LP ‘Salad Days,’ the follow up to 2012’s lauded ‘Mac DeMarco 2.’ Amongst that familiar croon and lilting guitar, that initial line from the title track sets the tone for an LP of a maturing singer/songwriter/producer. Someone strangely self-aware of the positives and negatives of their current situation at the ripe old age of 23. Written and recorded around a relentless tour schedule (which picked up all over again as soon as the LP was done), ‘Salad Days’ gives the listener a very personal insight into what it’s all about to be Mac amidst the craziness of a rising career in a very public format. The lead single, “Passing Out Pieces,” set to huge overdriven organ chords, contains lines like “…never been reluctant to share, passing out pieces of me…” Clearly, Salad Days isn’t the same record that breezily gave us “Dreamin,” and “Ode to Viceroy,” but the result of what comes from their success. “Chamber of Reflection,” a track featuring icy synth stabs and soulful crooning, wouldn’t be out of place on a fantasy Shuggie Otis and Prince collaboration. Standout tracks like these show Mac’s widening sound, whether insights into future directions or even just welcome one-off forays into new territory. Still, this is musically, lyrically and melodically good old Mac DeMarco, through and through. The same crisp John Lennon / Phil Spector era homegrown lush production that could have walked out of Geoff Emerick’s mixing board in 1972, but with that peculiar Mac touch that’s completely of right now. “Brother,” a complete future classic, is Mac at his most soulful and easygoing but with that distinct weirdness and bite that can only come from Mr. DeMarco.“Treat Her Better” is rife with “Mac-isms,” heavily chorused slinky lead guitar, swooning vocal melodies, effortless chords that come along only after years of effort, and the other elements seriously lacking in independent music: sentiment and heartfelt sincerity. We’re only at Part 2 and 1/2 (one EP and two LP’s in) into Mac’s career.

FKA twigs’ first full-length album brims with spartan, icy songs that whisk between distorted R&B and ethereal pop. While twigs’ pristine vocals and sensual lyrics are the cornerstone, *LP1* showcases the kind of confident production and instrumentation that play easily alongside celebrated pop minimalists like James Blake. Album highlight “Pendulum\" sees FKA twigs dabbling in manipulated vocals, as wavering guitars and electric drums stutter-step intoxicatingly, while “Video Girl” finds her melodic falsetto fluttering over churning, wobbling synths and creaking percussion.

Filled with haunting melodies and bluesy guitars, Hozier\'s self-titled debut is a spine-tingling tour of soulful rock ’n’ roll. The Irish singer/songwriter sets the stage with \"Take Me to Church,” where a lover’s lament unfolds with a dose of gothic drama. As the unforgettable album rages on, Hozier’s openhearted storytelling is paired with dusky, understated soul (“Someone New”), explosive blues-rock (“Jackie and Wilson”), and shadowy love ballads (“In a Week”).

Robyn may be an international pop star, but she hasn\'t forsaken the more underground (or unlikely) artists she’s befriended and admired over the years. She’s collaborated with The Knife, Teddybears STHLM, and Snoop Dogg, to name a few, and her old pals Röyksopp make especially fine musical partners. Her pop-flavored EDM energy combines effortlessly with Röyksopp\'s more downbeat, mood-inducing style. That\'s apparent from the get-go on “Monument,” a tune that starts with a comfortable heartbeat wrapped in a samba, only to slowly morph into an ultra-mellow, warmly hissing synth note that keeps time for a slithering saxophone. It’s 10 minutes of bliss, kept alive at times by the sparest layering of percussion and synth whispers, and it’s sublime. “Do It Again” and “Say It” are dancefloor polishers, with the latter hinting at Röyksopp’s Kraftwerk influences and the former a frothy celebration of doing what we want (and doing it again). (A remix collection with versions of “Do It Again” was released shortly after the EP.) 

On his first album in 13 years, Richard D. James, the godfather of cerebral electronic music, is in top form. This isn\'t a comeback, nor a departure of any kind: *Syro* sounds like highly concentrated, classic Aphex Twin, a singular aesthetic that dates all the way back to 1982: beat patterns wiggle into the foreground, then disappear; analog synths snap, crackle and pop; moods vacillate between aggressively percussive and smoothly melodic. These tracks – they work together like one long set -- demand to be listened to with excellent headphones, the better to discern their highly intricate sequencing, arguably some of James\' most ambitious. Each tune is teeming with juicy noise, all of it gleefully arranged. What comes through most is joy: it sounds like James is having so much fun. 

Sia Furler’s sixth album immediately unveils its kinetic potential with the unreined anthem “Chandelier”. *1000 Forms of Fear* offers the artist’s most thunderous and frenetic sound to date, employing her powerful voice to punch through layers of tinny electric drums and glitchy synths. Sia teams with The Weeknd and Diplo on “Elastic Heart”, an uptempo electric ballad that uses a dizzying composition and polished harmonies to showcase both Sia’s talent as a songwriter and the album’s skilful production.

*This Is All Yours* is replete with a mesmeric, album-opening “Intro” of revolving vocal snippets and the disarming, pre-halftime instrumental interlude “Garden of England.” It includes the mischievous guitar groove of “Left Hand Free,” the spectral, Bon Iver-like beauty of “Warm Foothills” and the Miley Cyrus-sampling hypnotics of “Hunger of the Pine.” 

This Swedish duo of sisters Johanna and Klara Soderberg play a sleek, pretty version of Americana that can only be achieved by outsiders who learn the music from the outside-in. Their harmonies are fresh and not always what one might expect from the Americana genre. Neither is the production, which is again handled by Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis; songs like “Master Pretender” and “Cedar Lane” have gorgeous orchestration. The duo’s Fleet Foxes influence can still be heard, but the sisters veer closer to Handsome Family–styled Southwestern music on the mystical title track and the album opener, “My Silver Lining.” There’s also a Southern-style Bobbie Gentry/Jeannie C. Riley undercurrent; it\'s truly odd and fascinating coming from these young Swedes. “Shattered & Hollow” slows the tempo for the harmonies to shine even further. “The Bell” adds more bucolic instrumentation, which is enhanced by Mogis’ spacious production. “Waitress Song” imagines giving everything up to live in a small town and work in the food industry—as if these young women could ever turn away from the music they clearly love. 

Avant-hip-hoppers Shabazz Palaces finally let it be known that they\'re the master duo of former Digable Planets member Butterfly (now known as Palaceer Lazaro) and instrumentalist Tendai “Baba” Maraire. After the critical success of their debut, *Black Up*, it’s likely the follow-up, *Lese Majesty*, will draw even more critical and commercial interest. The sounds themselves are low-key, letting the various instrumental patches respond to one another or enhance the atmospherics. Maraire excels at minimalism and texture, creating a complete track with the least amount of ingredients and thriving on providing seamless interludes. Lazaro provides a variety of vocals that shift from philosophical quips to word-associated ramblings where seriousness and clever thinking often work together. “Dawn in Luxor,” “Forerunner Foray,” and “They Come in Gold” form an intense opening trilogy, while “Motion Sickness,” “New Black Wave,” and “Sonic MythMap for the Trip Back” close the album with a similar focus.

'Lese Majesty' is the follow up album to 2011's 'Black Up' by Shabazz Palaces.

Parquet Courts’ highly flammable third album clinches their place as one of the best—and smartest—rock bands of the post-grunge era. They\'re capable of mixing psychedelic looseness with the muscle of hardcore (“Sunbathing Animal”), odd post-punk experiments (“Vienna II”) with rambling, romantic ballads (“Instant Disassembly”), blues with Black Flag (“Ducking & Dodging”), and poetic visions with moments of hilarious plain-spokenness (“Whoever she might be going to bed with/You can read about that in her Moleskine,” goes a line on “Dear Ramona”). Students of history without being beholden to it, the band manages to synthesize about 70 years of guitar music into a strange, lopsided groove all their own.

The year and change since the release of Parquet Courts monumental Light Up Gold is reflected in ways expected and not with Sunbathing Animal, its sharper, harder follow up. Light Up Gold caught the ears of everyone paying even a little bit of attention, garnering glowing reviews across the board for its weird colors and raw energy, saturated punk songs that offered crystal clear lyrical snapshots of city life. It was immediately memorable, a vivid portrait of ragged days, listlessness, aimlessness and urgency, broadcast with the intimacy of hearing a stranger's thoughts as you passed them on the street. As it goes with these things, the band went on tour for a short eternity, spending most of 2013 on the road, their sound growing more direct in the process and their observations expanding beyond life at home. Constant touring was broken up by three recording sessions that would make up the new album, and the time spent in transit comes through in repeated lyrical themes of displacement, doubt and situational captivity. To be sure, Sunbathing Animal isn't a record about hopelessness, as any sort of incarceration implies an understanding of freedom and peace of mind. Fleeting moments of bliss are also captured in its grooves, and extended at length as if to preserve them. Pointed articulations of these ideas are heard as schizoid blues rants, shrill guitar leads, purposefully lengthy repetition and controlled explosions, reaching their peak on the blistering title track. A propulsive projection of how people might play the blues 300 years from now, "Sunbathing Animal" is a roller coaster you can't get off, moving far too fast and looping into eternity. Much as Light Up Gold and the subsequent EP Tally All The Things That You Broke offered a uniquely tattered perspective on everyday city life, Sunbathing Animal applies the same layered thoughts and sprawling noise to more cerebral, inward- looking themes. While heightened in its heaviness and mania, the album also represents a huge leap forward in terms of songwriting and vision. Still rooted firmly in the unshackled exploration and bombastic playing of their earlier work,everything here is amplified in its lucidity and intent. The songs wander through threads of blurry brilliance, exhaustion and fury at the hilt of every note. Parquet Courts remain, Austin Brown, A. Savage, Sean Yeaton, and M. Savage.

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.

The big buzz on Drive-By Truckers’ 12th album is that Mike Cooley, the band’s secondary writer after Patterson Hood, penned six of the album’s 13 tunes, making *English Oceans* a dialogue between the two senior members. This friendly conversation/competition only further strengthens a band that’s always considered songwriting of premium importance. Recorded over 13 days at Chase Park Transduction Studios in Athens, Ga., with their longtime producer David Barbe, *English Oceans* features nasty, grungy guitars (“Pauline Hawkins”), stinging social commentary (Cooley’s “Made Up English Oceans,” Hood’s “The Part of Him”), and a virtual walk through rock ’n’ roll history, with the opening Lynyrd Skynyrd barroom romp “S\*\*\* Shots Count” and the chiming Byrds-like “Primer Coat” (or is that R.E.M., considering its Athens roots?). There\'s a Celtic vibe to “Grand Canyon,” a tribute to Craig Lieske, a longtime member of the band’s road crew who died suddenly and to whom the album is dedicated.

A sonic collage artist with a great sense of flow, Flying Lotus (real name Steven Ellison) is the king of instrumental hip-hop. *You’re Dead*, a shape-shifting album with a sense of story, is best listened to from beginning to end. Virtuoso electric bassist and vocalist Thundercat cowrote several tracks. Pianist Herbie Hancock, rappers Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg, violinist/arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, singer Angel Deradoorian (who’s worked with The Dirty Projectors), and others also contribute to this expansive effort. Jazz, prog-rock, fusion, funk, and other elements are bent and stretched; the intriguing result dissolves genre borders.

Damien is out of his goddamn mind. This isn’t a recent development, but it’s an important aspect of his work that often goes ignored. In place of this key element is the idea that his music is a sober and in-depth excavation of the American landscape and rural psyche. Well, folks, I’m sorry, but it’s not. In other words: there is no railway station east of Ohio. Abandoned motels, barren highways, magazine killers, Chevrolets backing out of driveways in the middle of the night, wedding photos, intoxicated hands, bleary-eyed circus clowns, barstool salvation, yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it: “America”. We’d all like to live there, but we don’t. No one does. We’re stuck with Jamba Juice and the internet, occasionally a charming, aesthetically pleasing dilapidated monument of the pre-Air Conditioned Nightmare on the side of the road. For a minute we can marvel and say “Wow, there’s nothing out here!” Nothing except a huge fucking interstate freeway and a massive telecommunication network on which we can Instagram bucolic isolation. Out there is nowhere, but inside is endless You know what else they have a lot of in “America”? Religion. Don’t leave out that old-time relijun or your souflee of polite, revisionist, fantasy America is going to fall flat at the foot of the Cross. When “folk” comes up in their iTunes genre column, them lily-white champions of gravel-voiced, hard-won-wisdom-shilling, Millennial old-timin’™ expect some goddamn symbolic imagery, man! Not actual faith per se, I mean, c’mon now, what are you: fucking insane? Damien Jurado is every character in every Damien Jurado song. He is the gun, the purple anteater, the paper wings, the avalanche, the air show disaster, Ohio, the ghost of his best friend’s wife. It is a universe unto its own, with it’s own symbolism, creation myth, and liturgy. You might go as far as to call it a religion, and your religion is a character in his religion. Level with me. You're reading this because of Damien Jurado’s new album, 'Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son' (produced by Richard Swift). You are a progressive minded, left-leaning person who in parlor-style conversation regarding the globo-political ramifications of Sky Person relationships laughs knowingly so as not to be judgmental and very reasonably concedes “Well, I don’t believe He’s some old man with a beard sitting up in the clouds” at which point everyone agrees on [insert benign middle-ground] and moves on. Consider this: What if the only way to understand a religion is to create your own? Who is this Silver community? Where the hell are they in the Bible? Is this heresy? Agnostic reference? Isn’t this sun business a little, I don’t know, animistic? Pagan? Go ahead and answer that question for yourself. I’ll give you a second. Do you understand the music any better? Faith is like theater: it isn’t meant to be read, or analyzed it is meant to be performed and inhabited. Upon being asked if he believed in Gawd or not, Norman Mailer replied, “Sure, why don’t you and make him better?” You know that adage we all use so we have something to say while we shrug our shoulders? “People change”? That one. Is that applicable to Jesus Christ? Maybe he’s been on a personal journey of discovery since he ascended. He went through the 60’s, 70’s, he turned on, tuned out, got disillusioned. Why can’t we talk about that Jesus? Does it have to be the old-timey one all the time? American folk Jesus, ugh. The one who’s always winning Best Soundtrack Oscars for people. Rarely do stories of faith make us identify with Jesus. It’s Abraham, Satan, Silver Timothy, Salome, Dr. J, Saul of Tarsus; divinely imperfect brothers and sisters who give Gawd something to do. Damien Jurado made up his own Jesus because a Damien Jurado album needs a beautiful Jesus. Some freaky space Jesus that I don’t recognize. The name is the same, a lot of the imagery is the same, but he’s reborn. Born again, I mean. Yeah, as if Jesus got born again. That’s what this album sounds like. Jesus is out of his goddamn mind and I want to live in Damien’s America. Sign me up. --- Father John Misty; 09-20-2013

After a four-year hiatus, The Hold Steady returned in 2014 with *Teeth Dreams*, the group’s sixth studio album. In between releases, the group recorded a version of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” for HBO’s *Game of Thrones*—series co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss were devoted Hold Steady fans—while lead singer Craig Finn released his debut solo record, 2012’s *Clear Heart Full Eyes*. Meanwhile, guitarist Steve Selvidge—who’d toured with the band for *Heaven Is Whenever*—had joined as a full-time member. You can hear his contributions throughout *Teeth Dreams*, which finds Selvidge and founding member Tad Kubler slamming out dueling guitars as Finn howls and sings his spirited, blue-collar tales of rough living and even rougher redemption. The first lyrics on the album—referring to Finn’s fictional Twin Cities gang—could double as a mission statement: “I heard the Cityscape Skins are kinda kicking it again.” With *Teeth Dreams*, The Hold Steady created a big, rollicking album that focuses on both heartbreak and hopeful longing. The band’s mature confidence is on full display in songs like “I Hope This Whole Thing Didn\'t Frighten You,” “Spinners,” “The Only Thing,” and \"Big Cig.” But it’s the album’s closing track—the soulful, nine-minute ballad “Oaks”—that steals the show, quenching the thirst of any Hold Steady fan who\'d missed the band’s music for almost half a decade.