Stereogum's 50 Best Albums of 2014 So Far

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.

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

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.

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.

*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.

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.”

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.

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

Agalloch\'s claim to the throne of modern black metal supremacy is pretty much undisputable. Since 1995, the Portland quartet have been one of the genre\'s foremost innovators, merging coal-dark riffs and ferociously chugging tempos with a sylvan neo-folk aesthetic for a sound all their own. Following up 2010\'s critically acclaimed *Marrow of the Spirit*, the band return with *The Serpent & the Sphere*, a monolithic slab of heaviness full of ethereal segues into foreboding folk. Featuring classical guitarist Nathanaël Larochette (Musk Ox), the album includes three acoustic interludes that provide a respite from the otherwise pummeling material, like the blast-beats and Cookie Monster vocals of \"The Astral Dialogue\" and the stratospheric shredding on the 12-minute exploration \"Plateau of the Ages.\" When Agalloch play the game of (metal) thrones, they play to win.

Sound artist and composer Ben Frost can both scare the pants off you and transport you to a distant place where, for a brief spell, nothing really matters except the aural experience around you—and it’s incredibly freeing. Frost’s work compels the listener to listen—he doesn\'t make music for backgrounds. On his fifth album, the artist cements his fondness for unexpected textures and drones, loud-soft lurching, and unsettling noise. From the muted chimes and bells set against the percussive clatter and dissonance of the remarkable “Venter” to the sustained, cicada-like hiss on “No Sorrowing” and the high-frequency static on “Sola Fide,” Frost continues to create sounds that feel unquestionably *his*, as experimental as they may be. “A Single Point of Blinding Light” is filled with mesmerizing, dread-filled, industrial clatter and chaos. “The Teeth Behind the Kisses” is a ghost in the machine, silently lurking and threatening although it’s barely there. Much of *Aurora* was composed while Frost was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, collaborating on a film reflecting the region’s notorious violence. Forget “Eraserhead.” This is the new industrial revolution.

A U R O R A is Ben Frost’s highly anticipated fifth solo release, his first since the widely acclaimed 2009 album BY THE THROAT. A U R O R A aims directly, through its monolithic construction, at blinding luminescent alchemy; not with benign heavenly beauty but through decimating magnetic force. This is no pristine vision of digital music, it is a filthy, uncivilized offering of interrupted future time where emergency flares illuminate ruined nightclubs and the faith of the dancefloor rests in a diesel-powered generator spewing forth its own extinction, eating rancid fuel so loudly it threatens to overrun the very music it is powering.

*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 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.

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.

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.

How a group of circa-2014 Brooklyn indie popsters manage to capture a variation on the glorious Anglo pop of Prefab Sprout is one of those questions that’s come about ever since millennials became so obsessed with the sounds of the ‘80s. Yet at a new Brooklyn studio owned by their longtime associate Danny Taylor, with producer Andy Savours (My Bloody Valentine, Cloud Boat), The Pains went in a very different direction than their previous album: the Flood and Alan Moulder production *Belong*. The lighter touch here works wonders. Songs like “Eurydice,” “Masokissed,” and “Until the Sun Explodes” (recalling The Cure\'s “In-Between Days”) bounce with genuine enthusiasm even when the lyrics veer toward darker territory. The departure of original members Alex Naidus and Peggy Wang means A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s Jen Goma is given solid lead vocals on the excellent “Kelly” and “Life After Life,” where the nod is toward Belle & Sebastian, Scotland’s greatest indie export. 

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.

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.

TOMBS’ third album Savage Gold is the most anticipated underground metal album of 2014. The band’s sophomore LP Path Of Totality unanimously topped 2011 end of the year metal lists (everyone from Decibel to Pitchfork to NPR, and more, dubbed it their top album of that year). Savage Gold focuses the awesome strength of Tombs’ previous works into one brilliantly dark post-punk and extreme black-metal masterpiece. Recorded and produced by Hate Eternal’s Erik Rutan (Cannibal Corpse, Goatwhore), Savage Gold both expands upon the moody post-punk foundations that Tombs’ prior albums explored while also bringing out the band’s most traditionally metal moments yet. Once every few years a record comes along that sets a new benchmark for what can be done in heavy music. This is that moment and this is that record.

DJs Armand Van Helden and A-Trak have been spiking EDM\'s punch bowl as Duck Sauce since 2009, intoxicating revelers with party-hearty bangers like the disco-sampling \"aNYway\" and the sinfully catchy \"Barbra Streisand.\" For their long-awaited debut full-length, *Quack*, the duo\'s puckish abandon is in full swing. Joining the above tracks is the 2013 earworm \"It\'s You,\" here in all its quizzically catchy alien hoedown glory. The duo\'s record collection is as deep as their sense of humor is broad: \"Radio Stereo\" is a canny reworking of The Members\' 1982 postpunk sing-along \"Radio,\" while \"NRG\" samples Melissa Manchester\'s \"Energy\" for its ecstatic jazzercise vibe. In between the unapologetically exuberant beats are various sketches and snippets (sci-fi dialogue, prank calls, bird noises), which lend the album a retro variety-show vibe, like an EDM *American Bandstand hosted by Foghorn Leghorn.*

A-Trak & Armand Van Helden first splashed on the scene as Duck Sauce with the breakout hit "aNYway," a breath of fresh disco air in the distorted world of electronic music. Next up was "Barbra Streisand," a surprise global #1 smash and true pop culture milestone, complete with 70 million (and counting…) YouTube views, a Grammy nomination, and even a Glee cover! DS cemented their rep as dance music's official pranksters with MTV VMA-nominated clips like "It's You" (6 million views) and scene-stealing festival appearances accompanied by a 20-foot inflatable duck… yet all of this was just to set the stage for Quack, Duck Sauce's highly-anticipated full length studio debut. Fueled by the duo’s strong connection with New York hip-hop, Chicago house, disco debauchery, slapstick comedy and, of course, UFOs, no other group is capable of bringing the rich and visual tradition of sample-heavy music into the current pop and EDM trends of 2014. QUACK IS BACK!

The star power of the guests on Future\'s second album—Kanye, Drake, Pharrell, Lil Wayne, and André 3000, among others—speaks to the near-insurmountable heights the Atlanta rapper has reached since his 2012 debut, *Pluto*. That he shows them all up explains how he got there. Take \"I Won,\" a solemn beat over which Kanye and Future exult their \"trophy\" wives. Where \'Ye rifles off shallow boasts, Future\'s verses are sincere, almost touching. On the sprightly surprise standout \"Benz Friendz,\" Future\'s ATL bro André 3000 dances around the whimsical beats like a peacock, but it\'s Future\'s husky baritone that brings the party. Dominated by Mike WiLL Made It\'s 16-ton production (tracks like \"My Momma\" and \"Honest\" lumber like they\'re dragging chains), *Honest* demolishes the line between hip-hop and R&B. Its Auto-Tune hooks, rat-a-tat verses, and confessional lyrics exemplify the best of both genres in 2014.

With a name and sound that would’ve guaranteed them underground/alternative status in the \'80s, the Syracuse, N.Y.–based Perfect Pussy now find their lo-fi hardcore punk attack embraced by none other than NPR, whose new generation surely grew up with the likes of Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, and eventually Sleater-Kinney pounding their eardrums. A song like “Interference Fits” offers an abrasive outer shell with a sweet melodic center that’s been the secret appeal for thousands of bands who’ve fought the good fight in determining the proper balance between the two extremes. Singer Meredith Graves nails the percentages, and everything about this debut album screams excitement. The production gives everything they touch an urgency that goes direct for the solar plexus—and this is considered a sonic upgrade from the combustion of their earlier demo. Graves sings about her issues with a passion that establishes her frontwoman credentials beyond any doubt. There’s even a lo-amplifier hum and tape hiss that draws out “Advance Upon the Real” for minutes after the song’s completion, yet it doesn’t feel self-indulgent. And the live version is even more chaotic.

The band’s gift for soaring melodies is evident throughout *Ghost Stories*—particularly on the magnetic first single, “Magic.” Chris Martin’s heart-rending falsetto floats along in a haze of synth-washed ambience (as on the entrancing *Kid A*–influenced “Midnight”) or sparely accompanied by acoustic instruments (“Oceans,” “O”). *Ghost Stories* demonstrates the expressive power of understatement.

Now a full-time quartet, the Austin, Texas–based Pure X alter course and indulge their introspective side for their third album, 2014’s *Angel*. It was recorded mostly live to tape (with minimal overdubs) over five days at Wied Hall, a rustic 100-year-old dance hall in rural central Texas. Touring guitarist Matty Tommy Davidson’s newfound permanent status lets the band fill out their skeletal sound with a musician who understands how they work from the inside out, and songs such as “Valley of Tears,” “Livin’ the Dream,” and “Every Tomorrow” center on laid-back grooves, breezy falsetto vocals, and instrumentation that’s mostly atmospheric and melodic. Even when they do ramp up the aggression for “Fly Away with Me Woman,” it appears to fall away as the verses take hold. This isn’t a group looking to pick a fight or overly flaunt their maleness, even with a tune like “Make You Want Me,” where it sounds like they might unleash their egos. Nothing, it seems, can disturb their quest for mellowness.

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.

S. Carey creates music that sounds like it\'s wandered off the path of his other gig as the drummer and multi-instrumentalist for Bon Iver. Taking the orchestrated beauty of that entity, Carey ventures deeper into the bucolic scenes that are inspired by his love for American naturalist John Muir, whose description of the Sierra Nevada mountain range inspired the title of Carey’s second solo album. Whereas Carey’s solo debut, *All We Grow*, was largely his own performances, *Range of Light* invites additional voices (including Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon), strings, woodwinds, and horns to color these often piano-based introspective pieces, all recorded in Vernon’s April Base Studios in Fall Creek, Wis. Carey says this music is informed by his love of jazz, modern classical, and Americana, and it’s easy to hear touches of each in these gentle, atmospheric tone poems. The extra percussion guiding “Crown the Pines,” in fact, sounds a bit out of place when heard alongside such understated pieces as “Creaking,” “Fire-Scene,” “Radiant,” and the sublime “Alpenglow.”

S. Carey's work is hugely beatific, restorative panorama or beauty - perfect given how landscape and the wonder of nature inspire much of Carey's imagery. His new album 'Range of Light' takes its title from the name that 19th century naturalist John Muir gave to the Sierra Nevada, and follows suit with a dazzling array of musical light and shade, drawn from Carey's love of jazz, modern classical and Americana. Like a weathered mountain range changing shadow form and color, or the ebb and flow of a river's current, S. Carey's music is simultaneously restful and rhythmic, complex and simple, and always evolving.

EMEGO 165 The last time Fennesz released an album on Austrian label Mego it was 2001 and the name of that release was 'Endless Summer'. Now, in 2014 Editions Mego is extremely proud to release the conceptual follow up that landmark of abstract pop. Bécs (pronounced 'baeetch') is Hungarian for Vienna and is the first full length Fennesz solo release since 2008's 'Black Sea'. Eschewing the more drone orientated works of 'Black Sea', 'Bécs' returns to the more florid pop mechanisms as deployed on Endless Summer. 'Static Kings' features the extra leverage of Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmayer who deploy a range of atmospheric abstract effects to shape a bewitching sound world. The 10 minute centrepiece 'Liminality' (featuring Tony Buck on drums) is classic Fennesz: epic, evocative, beautiful, impossible. 'Pallas Athene' creates a sanctuary of hovering beauty which leads into the title track. Emotional and assured, the track 'Bécs' is an astonishing contribution to contemporary pop. 'Sav' co-written by Cédric Stevens (aka Acid Kirk) inhabits a less structural terrain as one enters a forest of small sounds and oblique atmospheres, where the closing 'Paroles', a gentle melody unravels amongst swirls of electronics and fried disruption. Bécs is not just an album or a series of songs, it's a world to inhabit, a landscape ripe with sounds, songs and that esteemed Fennesz signature. A singular work by a singular artist.

Over three albums and numerous remixes, Darren Cunningham (a.k.a. Actress) established himself as one of avant-garde electronic music\'s most exciting producers, chewing up and spitting out genres like house, techno, dubstep, and abstract noise to achieve his singularly dystopic vision. Cunningham announced his retirement with the release of his fourth and final album, *Ghettoville*, which might explain why it\'s his most challenging listen yet. With a few notable exceptions (\"Gaze,\" \"Skyline\"), the album is void of beats. Instead, it\'s a monolithic slab of undulating textures—at times cacophonous, at times sublime. It opens with \"Forgiven,\" a heady stew of crackling static, which persists through \"Street Corp.\" \"Corner\" will get your head nodding with its playfully robotic lilt, but tracks like \"Contagious\" and \"Time\" bring you right back to the sonic junkyard. Cunningham is known for his cerebral productions, and this is an especially heady note to go out on.

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.

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.

Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner believe that anything is possible and that every genre has its place somewhere in their music. That so many others relate to this eclectic, unpredictable mix of sounds proves they’re tapping into a sound that’s greater than themselves. Listeners love to be dazzled by sound and even the sharpest critics are left wondering what’s exactly happening here. Garbus chants into her vocoders and steps out into the spotlight for a guiding lead vocal on “Real Thing” that’s accompanied by a complex mix of odd rhythms, synthetic sounds and swooping bass lines. Producers Malay (Alicia Keys, Frank Ocean) and John Hill (Santigold, MIA, Shakira) keep the minimalism rocking. The synths frequently sound like sketches that have been cut-up beyond recognition while vocals sound like schoolyard taunts and personal moments caught on tape (“Hey Life,” “Stop That Man”). This mix of casual, random and precise captures a relatively conventional tune and pop arrangement in “Wait for a Minute” and a field holler for “Rocking Chair.” Eclecticism is in.

CLPPNG is the debut album from LA based rap trio, clipping. for Sub Pop Records. Blending precise, quick fire vocals with caustic burst of noise, clipping. are classic west coast rap music from the tradition where sounding different wasn't cause for fear. Order here: megamart.subpop.com/releases/clipping/clppng

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.