Stereogum's 50 Best Albums of 2014

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.

*Rolling Stone* magazine noted that Baltimore is “becoming our nation’s hub for soft-focus synth pop,” citing groups such as Future Islands, Beach House, and Wye Oak as prime examples. This might come as a surprise to fans who remember Wye Oak from their previous album, 2011’s *Civilian*, where they kept themselves rooted in tradition with guitars that gave them a yin-yang of folk and shoegaze textures. But with 2014’s *Shriek*, the duo of singer Jenn Wasner and keyboardist/drummer Andy Stack have tossed the six-strings for full-time synths, and the pop aspect is just a natural output when melodies are as light as the ones heard on the title track. “The Tower” works with a fighting rhythm, but “Glory” surrenders to the automation that makes electronics work. Wasner’s vocals are the true standout here. Her flexible approach turns the usual arpeggiated arrangements behind “Sick Talk,” “Despicable Animal,” and “Paradise” into a world of goth, pop, and diva worship all into one. 

On her third album, Angel Olsen rides waves of emotional intensity that take her from the depths of despair to the heights of hope. *Burn Your Fire for No Witness* is a worthy successor to her 2012 breakthrough *Half Way Home*, revisiting many of the earlier album’s themes with greater focus and maturity. Tracks like “Forgiven/Forgotten,” “Lights Out,” and “Enemy” probe the subtle torments of love with an unflinching hand. Olsen’s phenomenal vocal range—shifting from murmurs to howls and yodels with impressive control—brings out the expansive vision of “Iota” and the confrontational power of “High & Wild.” The album\'s pervasive angst gives way to a desperate yearning for healing and peace in the convulsive “Stars” and the tender “Windows.” Olsen’s expressive guitar work is lent sympathetic support by bassist Stewart Bronaugh and drummer Joshua Jaeger, who help her leap from the distorted alt-country of “Hi-Five” to the Leonard Cohen–like folk balladry of “White Fire” and the French chanson feel of “Dance Slow Decades.” Finely crafted and fearlessly sung, *Burn Your Fire* smolders with dark brilliance.

On her newest LP, 'Burn Your Fire for No Witness', Angel Olsen sings with full-throated exultation, admonition, and bold, expressive melody. With the help of producer John Congleton, her music now crackles with a churning, rumbling low end and a brighter energy. Angel Olsen began singing as a young girl in St. Louis. Her self-released debut EP, 'Strange Cacti', belied both that early period of discovery and her Midwestern roots. Olsen then went further on 'Half Way Home', her first full-length album (released on Bathetic Records), which mined essential themes while showcasing a more developed voice. Olsen dared to be more personal. After extensive touring, Olsen eventually settled for a time in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, where she created "a collection of songs grown in a year of heartbreak, travel, and transformation," that would become 'Burn Your Fire For No Witness'. Many of them remain essentially unchanged from their bare beginnings. In leaving them so intact, a more self-assured Olsen allows us to be in the room with her at the very genesis of these songs. Our reward for entering this room is many a head-turning moment and the powerful, unsettling recognition of ourselves in the weave of her songs.

Ten songs in 22 minutes guarantee that *Deep Fantasy* keeps up the overpowering pace that the Vancouver punks White Lung started on their second album, *Sorry*, which established the group as an exciting new band and singer Mish Way as a no-nonsense leader. Way is back with more melody than ever, and guitarist Kenneth William mixes it up between unusual guitar riffs and straight-out power chords for maximum effect. “Drown with the Monster” kicks things off in full attack mode, but “Down It Goes” makes it clear that the band does want to be accessible to more than just punk audiences. In fact, tracks like “Face Down,” “I Believe You,” “Wrong Star,\" and “Just for You” make for a catchy middle of the album, where it’s impossible to not sing along with the anthemic choruses. The album even rallies for speed with the exciting “Lucky One,” which gets it all done in two minutes; then it finishes with the layered guitar/keyboard sounds of “In Your Home.”

Even though many of the songs on *Are We There* muse on the pain of difficult relationships (plainly evident in the titles of tunes like “Your Love Is Killing Me” and “I Love You But I’m Lost”), Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Sharon Van Etten sounds strikingly confident on the follow-up to her stellar 2012 album, *Tramp*. Whether she’s leading a dusky, after-hours synth-rock dirge (“Break Me”) or mournful piano ballad (the sublime “I Know”), Van Etten is brilliantly self-possessed. Alternating between a chilling whisper and throaty wail, the songwriter\'s forceful yearning—for sleep, for patience, for a romantic silver lining—unifies much of *Are We There*. But in such capable hands, suffering has rarely sounded so good.

Sharon Van Etten writes from a place of free-flowing honesty and vulnerability to create a bond with the listener that few contemporary musicians can match. 'Are We There' is a self-produced album of exceptional intimacy, sublime generosity, and immense breadth.

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.

The Tampa, Fla.–based Merchandise signed to the influential U.K. label 4AD and performed a stylistic about-face for their third album, *After the End*. Adding two full-time members to flesh out the trio’s sound, the band set about recording and producing their music over a six-month period in their Tampa house. Gareth Jones (who’s twiddled dials for Depeche Mode, Interpol, and Grizzly Bear) helps out with the mixing, but the performances are the sound of a band growing up. No longer aiming for the aggression of postpunk, the band recreate the suave sounds of the late ‘80s. “Enemy” snags the opening riff to The Rolling Stones’ “Jumping Jack Flash” and makes it dance for a new century. “True Monument” lets singer Carson Cox put his baritone to good use, which he continues to do on songs like “Green Lady,” “Life Outside the Mirror,\" and “Looking Glass Waltz,” emerging in the process as a leader of considerable power.

Purchase physical copies here: neurotrecordings.merchtable.com/artists/yob ____________________________________________________________ Two years after leveling the expectations of critics and listeners alike with Atma, doom trio powerhouse YOB unleashes Clearing The Path To Ascend, an aptly titled album for what will undoubtedly be the crowning achievement for a band whose journey now nears two decades of creating music as commanding as it is cathartic. As is the YOB way, the tracks here don’t simply offer a vacuous glimpse into the already riff-soaked doom genre. These songs demand the tandem attention of mind, body, and soul – etching a mark across a sound that finds YOB as formidable and unequaled as they’ve ever been. True ascension requires a destruction of those barriers that prevent any movement forward. Unsurprisingly, YOB pummels any and all of these obstacles with absolute authority, clearing the way for a genuinely visceral listening experience and climbing upward into a realm that sets the band in a heavy metal place that has been and will always remain wholly their own. YOB’s music is not unlike the path that’s led them to their current place among heavy metal’s elite, slowly building from a hushed ethereal vapor into the thunderous and masterful tumult of sound domination. The ethereal mists of Eugene, Oregon no doubt provided the perfect catalyst for founding member and vocalist Mike Scheidt to call up the signature of surging doom that would soon come to garner YOB its current position as one of the most respected and revered bands in all of heavy metal. While giving due sonic credit to cornerstone influences such as Cathedral, Sleep, Electric Wizard, and Black Sabbath – YOB immediately set out to define a sound wholly singular and utterly devastating in its cathartic enormity, incomparable to any other music being created at the time. Those threads of progressive rock and drone that have always underscored the music of YOB are now fully realized with Clearing The Path To Ascend, as each track forges into the next with a ferocity that’s as completely unhinged as it is utterly focused. Drummer Travis Foster wields his signature rhythmic furor here with bombastic precision while bassist, Aaron Rieseberg, coils around the sonic tide with an unforgiving churn – all the while in a deadly synchronicity with Scheidt’s uncanny vocal range and its pendulous movement between the triumphant howls of a medieval madman and the earth splitting growls of a war-battered titan. With Clearing The Path To Ascend, YOB explores a thunderous dimension that’s familiar in its auditory clout but completely new in the execution of its trajectory, taking the band’s sound into a remarkable place as ethereally compelling in its aesthetic as it is merciless in the magnitude of its sound.

At two hours in length, *To Be Kind* shows Michael Gira’s Swans are as serious, demanding and extreme in 2014 as they were back in the early ‘80s when their music was either greatly praised or harshly condemned. There is little middle ground for this group and anyone spooked by the 12-1/2 minute Howlin’ Wolf Tribute “Just A Little Boy” should probably not go forward. However, for fans of slow, gothic, death-rattle Swans, the track is just one sign that the band’s sessions with John Congleton at Sonic Ranch, outside El Paso, Texas were an overwhelming success. Much of the material was developed live during the tours of 2012-13 and explains why there is so much to sift through. Special guests such as Little Annie, who duets with Gira on “Some Things We Do,” Cold Specks, whose multi-tracked vocals guide “Bring the Sun” and honorary Swan Bill Rieflin filled out the sessions that were recorded with a solid sextet in place. “A Little God In My Hands” adds a touch of Krautrock to its elliptical groove. The 34-minute “Bring the Sun/ Tousaaint L’Ouverture” is a complex epic worthy of their reputation. 

A NOTE FROM MICHAEL GIRA: Hello There, We (Swans) have recently completed our new album. It is called To Be Kind. The release date is set for May 13, 2014. It will be available as a triple vinyl album, a double CD, and a 2XCD Deluxe Edition that will include a live DVD. It will also be available digitally. The album was produced by me, and it was recorded by the venerable John Congleton at Sonic Ranch, outside El Paso Texas, and further recordings and mixing were accomplished at John’s studio in Dallas, Texas. We commenced rehearsals as Sonic Ranch in early October 2013, began recording soon thereafter, then completed the process of mixing with John in Dallas by mid December 2013. A good portion of the material for this album was developed live during the Swans tours of 2012/13. Much of the music was otherwise conjured in the studio environment. The recordings and entire process of this album were generously and perhaps vaingloriously funded by Swans supporters through our auspices at younggodrecords.com via the release of a special, handmade 2xCD live album entitled Not Here / Not Now. The Swans are: Michael Gira, Norman Westberg, Christoph Hahn, Phil Puleo, Thor Harris, Christopher Pravdica. Special Guests for this record include: Little Annie (Annie sang a duet with me on the song Some Things We Do, the strings for which were ecstatically arranged and played by Julia Kent); St. Vincent (Annie Clark sang numerous, multi-tracked vocals throughout the record); Cold Specks (Al contributed numerous multi-tracked vocals to the song “Bring the Sun”); Bill Rieflin (honorary Swan Bill played instruments ranging from additional drums, to synthesizers, to piano, to electric guitar and so on. He has been a frequent contributor to Swans and Angels of Light and is currently playing with King Crimson)... FULL MUSICIAN CREDITS:Swans: Michael Gira - vocals, electric and acoustic guitar; Norman Westberg - electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals; Phil Puleo - drums, percussion, dulcimer, piano, keys, vocals; Christoph Hahn - lap steel guitars, electric guitar, vocals; Thor Harris - drums / percussion, vibes and bells, wind instruments, handmade viola, vocals; Christopher Pravdica - bass guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals. Honorary Swan Forever: Bill Rieflin - (on multiple songs throughout the record) drums / percussion, piano, bass, guitar, synths, keyboards. Guest Musicians: Duet with MG on Some Things We Do - Little Annie. Strings and String Arrangement on Some Things We Do - Julia Kent. Background Vocals on Nathalie Neal, Bring the Sun, Screen Shot, Kirsten Supine - St. Vincent (appears courtesy of Loma Vista Recordings). Background vocals on Bring the Sun - Cold Specks (appears courtesy of Mute Artists LTD). Background Vocals on She Loves Us, A Little God in My Hands - Jennifer Church. More Musicians (Dallas): Violin - Daniel Hart; Mandolin - Rex Emerson; Trombone - David Pierce; Trumpet - Evan Weiss; Piano, Harpsichord, Synth - Sean Kirkpatrick; Piano – John Congleton. I love you! Michael Gira

*Transgender Dysphoria Blues* is a powerful album that features many changes. Two previous band members (drummer Jay Weinberg and bassist Andrew Seward) had left the group, leaving just guitarist James Bowman and guitarist/leader Laura Jane Grace. However, as the album title and songs make clear, Grace—who’d made previous references to wishing she’d been born a woman—was now going through the changes and issues that come with transitioning one’s gender. As music, the songs on *Transgender Dysphoria Blues* are more powerful than ever: electric punk-pop (in place of folk-punk-pop) that shows that this Florida band are fully capable of performing under pressure. In fact, Grace now writes songs with stronger hook-filled melodies and a better-defined sense of purpose. The emotions of the agitated bellows of “Drinking with the Jocks” and the hummable melody of “F\*\*\*MYLIFE666” are so refreshingly honest and heartfelt that it’s just as incredible that Grace and Bowman crafted the record as a universal cry for anyone who\'s struggled with their identity or place in the world.

After a prolific first decade as a recording artist—between the band Rilo Kiley, her solo efforts, and side collaborations, she released eight full-length albums—Jenny Lewis took her time working on *The Voyager*, her third solo album. The six years that followed her sophomore release (2008\'s *Acid Tongue*) let Lewis refine and polish these 10 buoyant tracks. Working with two producers who are worthy of her wickedly intelligent songwriting—Ryan Adams and Beck—she devised her most mature and confident album to date. Lewis has rarely sounded in greater command of her versatile vocal gifts, from the sharp, vaulting chorus of the beat-driven opener, “Head Underwater”—which chronicles her emergence from a dark period (“I put my head underwater, baby/I held my breath until it passed”)—to the classic soul melody of “She’s Not Me” and the pleading western noir “You Can’t Outrun ‘Em.” The effervescent, summery production contrasts thoughtfully with Lewis’ piercing lyrics, which find her surveying life with restlessness and resignation in equal measure.

The title tune is a raging outlaw anthem full of stadium-sized hard-rock riffs, but it\'s followed by the sparsely produced, intensely inward-looking ballad \"A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young.\" Church manages to maintain the dynamic tension between these two poles throughout the album; \"A Cold One\" and \"That\'s Damn Rock & Roll\" explode with bluesy, roughneck rock licks, while \"Talladega\" and \"Like a Wrecking Ball\" stick to an impressively soulful simmer. The most strikingly ambitious track falls outside of this template, though; the eight-minute \"Princess of Darkness/Devil, Devil\" is an ode to surviving Nashville that starts with a poetic spoken-word piece and segues into a grinding blues-rock stomper. Now, *that\'s* how an outlaw rolls.

Certain art forms are deceptively simple: calligraphy, still-life painting, dream pop. In the case of the last, details like the shimmer of a ride cymbal or the exact tone of a clean guitar can make all the difference. To listen to *Atlas*, the exquisitely produced third album from New Jersey\'s Real Estate, is to hear a quartet of master practitioners of the dream pop craft. Casually sanguine yet precisely composed, the album is moody but not mournful, peppy but not cloying. In the grand tradition of bands like Luna, Heavenly, and The Sundays, the songs here rarely feature more than a few chords, a few parts, or a few lyrical ideas (the suburbs, fatherhood)—yet everything fits together perfectly. Matt Mondanile\'s lead guitar is playful but not ostentatious, expertly complementing Martin Courtney\'s plainspoken vocals, his languid phrasings soaring above the gentle din. Snare drums sizzle and pop, basslines pogo gracefully, the mood is wistful and breezy. The cascading guitar riff of \"Talking Backwards\" will have you dreaming of The Smiths, while the cowpunk swing of \"Horizon\" shows off just how many tricks Real Estate have up their sleeve.

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.

Taylor Swift\'s \'80s-inspired fifth studio effort is her first \"official pop album,\" with heavyweights like Max Martin, Shellback, Ryan Tedder, and Jack Antonoff helping construct a sleeker, glitzier sound. \"Shake It Off\" mimics \"Hey Ya,\" OutKast\'s own pledge of allegiance to populism, and echoes of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Belinda Carlisle can be heard throughout. *1989* is a juggernaut, as brash and brilliant as the lights of Times Square.

Over the course of two astonishing albums, Perfume Genius, aka Seattle native Mike Hadreas, cemented his place as a singer-songwriter of rare frankness, creating songs that, while achingly emotional, offered empathy and hope, rather than any judgment or handwringing. Sparse, gorgeous and with Hadreas’ quavering vocals often only accompanied by piano, they were uncommonly beautiful tales of a life lived on the dark side – scarred, brutalised, yet ultimately, slowly but surely reclaimed. Too Bright, however, is something else altogether. Less self-conscious, and less concerned with storytelling and easily-digested melodies, it is a brave, bold, unpredictably quixotic exploration of what Hadreas calls “an underlying rage that has slowly been growing since ten and has just begun to bubble up”. Recorded with Adrian Utley of Portishead and featuring John Parish on several tracks, it is a stunning about-face which brings to mind audacious career-shift albums like Kate Bush’s The Dreaming or Scott Walker’s Tilt, records which walk the tightrope between pure songwriting and overt experimentation.

Chumped features three members from Colorado who relocated to Brooklyn to be seen and heard and picked up a fourth and final bandmate. As a unit, they play tight, upbeat punk-pop that’s guided by the vocals and introspective lyrics of Anika Pyle. Pyle specializes in excess verbiage that\'s both funny and emotionally conflicted. It’s what gives songs like “December Is the Longest Month,” “Hot 97 Summer Jam,” and “Old and Tired” (where Pyle wonders if being single and broke will continue through to old age) an impressive edge over the competition.

On their third full-length, Cleveland-bred outfit Cloud Nothings give joy a hard, sharp edge. “I was feeling pretty good about everything so I just made stuff that made me happy,” says founding member and mild-mannered chief songwriter Dylan Baldi of "Here and Nowhere Else." “I had nothing to be angry about really so the approach was more positive and less ‘fuck everything.’ I just sat down and played until I found something that I like, because I was finally in a position to do that.” Utilizing every possible opportunity to write while on the road for 18 consecutive months following the release of 2012′s "Attack on Memory," Baldi presented an album’s worth of new material to his bandmates with just days before they’d enter the studio with esteemed producer John Congleton. “I’m pretty sure every song was written in a different country,” he says. “It’s the product of only having a couple of minutes here and there.” But Cloud Nothings would enjoy a full week with Congleton at Water Music in Hoboken, New Jersey, followed by three days of mixing at his own studio in Dallas shortly thereafter. The result is Cloud Nothings, refined: impossibly melodic, white-knuckle noise-rock that shimmers with sumptuous detail, from Baldi’s lone, corkscrewing guitar to his dramatically improved singing to bassist TJ Duke’s piledriving bass lines and drummer Jayson Gerycz’s volcanic fills. “It’s more subtle,” says Baldi. “It’s not just an in-your-face rock record. There’s more going on. You can listen to a song 20 times and still hear different little things in there that you didn’t notice before. Every time I listen I notice something that I didn’t even realize we did.” It’s yet another staggering show of a progress from a songwriter and band still coming into their own.

With 17 songs and over an hour of music, *Pom Pom* reminds us of the daring experiments from Ariel Pink\'s formative DIY releases. But the eclectic songwriting, turn-on-a-dime influences and lush production demonstrate just how much the California musician has evolved. Sure, the album is all over the place—we’re warmed by the ‘60s-influenced pop sunshine of “Plastic Raincoats in the Pig Parade” one moment and tangled in the knotty guitars of \"White Freckles” the next. But the everything-at-once aesthetic is held together by an undercurrent of electro melancholy that’s most evident on icy, synth-based tracks like \"Picture Me Gone” and the ultra-poised “Lipstick\". As the mosaic ends with the bittersweet shimmer of “Dayzed Inn Daydreams”, *Pom Pom*’s kaleidoscopic beauty leaves our head spinning.

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Ty Segall’s public profile has steadily grown, along with a critical reputation for being the real deal when it comes to reinvigorating rock ’n’ roll from numerous angles. The garage rocker hasn’t only stayed in the garage but ventured into other genres to go along with his Iggy Pop–style psych-punk rock fixations. (*Manipulator* shows signs of picking through the T. Rex catalog.) At 17 tracks, Segall’s seventh album is laid out like a classic double album, with enough focused music to satisfy fans and enough fooling around to make the two LPs feel like the proper format for Segall’s consistently shifting visions.

The clarion call/siren sound of his guitar....the helium-steamed ride of the vocals....track after track, releasing the thought that have been holding us down, all in the name of getting higher on pop songs. Why have one when you can have two? It's a big world, and MANIPULATOR has only begun to fight.

Future Island’s fourth album and debut for 4AD deserves the title *Singles* since it does play out like an album of individual tracks with great commercial potential all joined as one. The Baltimore trio’s powerful sound is based in synths and electric basslines, from J. Gerrit Welmers and William Cashion, respectively. Together, they layer and push forward an orchestrated groove that’s both modern and steeped in the tradition of Philly soul, glam rock, and postpunk. Singer Samuel T. Herring—a stage hound who captures the audience’s imagination with the movements of a boxer—provides a soulful croon on record that can turn into a virile growl. It’s Joy Division as ballet for “Back in the Tall Grass” and Blue Nile/Talk Talk/Roxy Music for the inescapable hooks of “Seasons (Waiting on You),” “Spirit,\" and “Doves.” Producer Chris Coady (known for his work with Beach House and Grizzly Bear) works with Welmers’ synth loops and smartly composed parts until everything meshes together beautifully for a perfect musicality.

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. 

Tom Krell speaks in R&B, cloaked in the reassuring, unassuming wrappings of intimate indie pop. His voice is silky and limber and flows with ease and grace, like the best R&B singers—just without getting lost in the trappings of dance beats and saxophones. The Colorado artist has steadily refined his sound for his third album, “What Is This Heart?”. Krell’s cynical lyrics (“Tell me what love’s supposed to be,” \"Who knows if I love you, baby?”), his regal synth washes (“Face Again” has a stupefying numbers of soundscapes for such a cohesive track), and the collection’s dark, hope-perforated tones (especially on “See You Fall”) are inarguably seductive. Disembodied vocals, fingersnaps, and plentiful reverb might offer no real surprises, but delivering those (masterfully used) alongside sweeps of orchestral grandeur (“Pour Cyril”) and commercial pop sensibilities (“Very Best Friend”) takes special vision. Influences as disparate as Prince, Michael Jackson, Tracy Chapman, and even Whitney Houston have never been treated like this.

What Is This Heart? is an ambitious 21st century pop album that takes influence from artists as varied as Prince, Lou Reed, Burial and Tracy Chapman – creating and inhabiting its very own hinterland of fragility, sexuality and overwhelming joy.

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.

Brooklyn’s The Men release their fifth album in five years, sounding ever more like the last band standing at the end of a long night. The “Highway 61 Revisited”–like blast of “Pearly Gates” is several steps off the hook, with slide guitar, harmonica, and pounding piano creating a chaos that’s always been the true sound and spirit of rock ’n’ roll. In 2014, not many bands rock with this abandon without mirroring their heroes too closely. The Men have earned comparisons to The E Street Band and The Replacements along the way, though, thankfully, they aim away from the tortured-soul antics. “Settle Me Down” nails a midtempo rock ’n’ roll feel. Despite tracks being recorded in a “high-end studio” and being “their highest fidelity album to date,” according to their press materials, there’s still anarchic fun, considering the songs were recorded in two days and tracked live. No matter how they clean it up, it dirties up all over again. With tunes like “Going Down” and “Another Night” (complete with horn section), The Men might not have hits, but they have classics.

After spending much of 2011 and 2012 on the road, The Men decided to take the winter of 2012 off to work on new material in Brooklyn. The converted founding member Mark Perro’s bedroom in Bushwick into a practice space and rehearsed there nearly every day for three months, cutting more than 40 demos. By the end of that winter, The Men had pared that crop of songs down to 13. With their plans to take a break foiled by their own work ethic, they decided to record those songs before New Moon came out. They booked two days at Brooklyn’s Strange Weather studios, clocked in, and tracked all 13 songs entirely live, even including a horn section. Eight songs from those sessions made the final cut for The Men’s new LP, Tomorrow’s Hits. This is their first album recorded in a high-end studio and, appropriately, the result is their most high fidelity album to date. That being said, it is still an incredibly straightforward record. Tomorrow’s Hits is a concise collection of songs that nonetheless expands the band’s ever-evolving musical palette. It’s full of genre-bending risks, but it reinforces the overarching theme that has come to define its makers: The Men are a great rock band.

digital sales via iTunes, physical copies coming soon!

Second full-length album from Horrendous, released in October 2014. Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Subterranean Watchtower Studios. Cover art by Brian Smith. Decibel Magazine ranked Ecdysis 3rd on their 'Best of 2014' list and Fenriz listed the album among his favorites of the year.

Following the liquid beats of his 2010 breakout, *Swim*, Caribou’s Dan Snaith has fallen further in love with the dance floor. In his entrancing follow-up, *Our Love*, Snaith blends house, hip-hop, garage, and vintage soul. On “Can’t Do Without You,” Snaith flips a slowed-down soul sample into a vocal mantra that eventually bursts amidst rave-ready synths, while on late highlight “Mars,” he mixes intricate drum patterns, hip-hop samples, and one very nimble flute melody.

Contemporary R&B is enjoying an embarrassment of riches, with innovative albums by FKA Twigs, Banks, and Kelela stretching the genre\'s boundaries. Tinashe\'s debut raises the bar yet again. Building on the momentum of the roiling summer jam \"2 On,\" *Aquarius* features a who\'s-who of names, from R&B iconoclasts like Blood Orange\'s Dev Hynes to bankable pop pros like Stargate. \"How Many Times\" is a throwback slow jam enlivened by Future\'s staccato vocals, while \"Pretend\" out-Drakes Drake with its liquid production and earworm hook. Tinashe remains the star of the show, cooing, rapping, and ruminating (via several interludes). It\'s one of the year\'s most adventurous pop records.

The hip-hop industry is largely powered by bluster and bravado, which is why the matter-of-factness of *Hell Can Wait* is so compelling. Often, rappers as intelligent as Vince Staples treat their audience with a high level of sanctimony and condescension. Staples has a ferocious intellect, but he shows absolutely no interest in preaching. *Hell Can Wait* is about how he loves gangsta culture and hates it; how he loves hip-hop and loathes it; and how he\'s proud of his roots but disgusted. He speaks the truth—not only the sensationalistic details but the unbearable contradictions.

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

Recorded in January 2013 in Algiers, Louisiana by James Whitten. Mastered by Adam Tucker.

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.

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.