My Favorite Albums of 2021

Often times, as people get older, they stop following new music. Which is totally understandable: new responsibilities creep in, free time gets shorter, and our tastes get more set in stone. But thanks to Spotify being a thing, I’m happy to say that 2021 has been my most active year for new listens ever. This year was absolutely jam packed with amazing albums, with so many I loved that this list was very hard to decide on, and honestly, could probably change if you asked me again a few weeks from now. Because beyond the albums that I outright loved, there were plenty more than still caught my ear and stayed in my rotation for a while, never leaving me wanting for options when it came time to put something new on this year. Take a look at what albums I loved this year, and hey, maybe find a few that sound interesting to you, too!

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16. Weezer – OK Human

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve given up on Weezer at this point. Every time they pull me back in with a great album, they drop another 2 or 3 that simply aren’t even remotely good. So while I’ve mostly written them off, every once in a while I’m pleasantly surprised, and this time that surprise is OK Human. On this album Weezer take their biggest musical leap ever, by replacing the majority of their guitars and power-pop instrumentation with a full orchestra. The result here is their most honest, plain-spoken, and beautiful piece of work possibly ever. These songs glitter with gorgeous, Beatles-esque orchestration, augmenting the band’s already powerful ear for melody with a wall of talented musicians, and it’s a joy to listen to. While in recent years Rivers Cuomo has been pretending to be a cool, partying Californian teenager on record, OK Human finds him simply discussing the realities and mundanities of his middle aged life, and while that sounds boring on paper, it’s honestly refreshing to hear him just be his real self. That’s the quality that made the Blue album so relateably geeky, and Pinkerton a harrowing dive into the mind of a man becoming horribly isolated and misguided. And it’s what makes OK Human feel, well, human. Of course, Weezer would release the horribly corny Van Weezer just a few months later, making it the shortest lived cycle of me enjoying Weezer again yet, but this wonderful record dropped during a dark time early in the year, and it was exactly what I needed.

15. Circa Survive – A Dream About Love

After 4 long years without new Circa material (their longest gap yet), they’re back with an EP that I just couldn’t get enough of. On their previous album The Amulet, they dove into softer sounds that burned slower and sighed instead of shouted, and they’ve continued down that path here. On A Dream About Love, they introduce some twinkly keyboards to the mix, augmenting their already spacey and dreamy sound even more with a touch of ’80s nostalgia mixed in. These songs all sound beautifully sad, yet gleam with the glint of hope that maybe those good things won’t just have to be a dream.

14. Portrayal of Guilt – We Are Always Alone & CHRISTF****R

Portrayal of Guilt actually put out two short and sweet records this year, one early on in January and another to cap the year off in November. Both of these albums are hellish blasts of screamo, black metal, thrash, and maybe even a little post-metal, creating a dizzying array of ways to punish the listener. We Are Always Alone has a bit more of a spacier side, with some quieter sections peeking in to contrast against the more hateful ones, and CHRISTF****R burns with rage at almost every turn, as necessitated by such a ire-inducing title. I knew nothing about these guys when 2021 started, but as it ends, they’re very much on my radar for a while to come.

13. Halsey – If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power

As a big Nine Inch Nails fan, I couldn’t help but get excited at the idea of NIN producing a pop album. Because for as noisy and harsh as NIN could get in their heyday, they still always flirted with those radio rock sensibilities that landed them their biggest hits, even though there wasn’t room for much more than flirting. On Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love…, NIN and Halsey strike gold together. Halsey gets to dip into a darker, edgier sound that her previous outings couldn’t offer, and NIN get to write those big hooks and straightforward pop songs they’ve probably always wanted to write. This record drips with the sonic DNA of NIN, with plenty of buzzsaw guitars and eerie piano/synthisizer sounds creating a thick atmosphere of unease and power, while Halsey uses these dark beds of sound to empower herself within her newfound motherhood and as a woman making her way through the spotlight while relentlessly seeking her own happiness. The result is a vital record that finds darkness in the beautiful things and beauty in the darkness, and I hope NIN decide to produce more artists this way in the future.

12. Genghis Tron – Dream Weapon

I’ll admit that I was never really hip to Genghis Tron in their scene days, because their particular brand of crazy electronic math metal was far away from something I would’ve liked in 2008. But with Dream Weapon reintroducing them to the world, I dove into their back catalog and found a lot to love there. But as much as I’ve come to love a record like Board Up the House, Dream Weapon takes the cake for me. Shedding all traces of their metallic past, you won’t find any blasts of hardcore or harsh vocals on this record. Instead, they opt for a dreamy fusion that could best be described as Nine Inch Nails making shoegaze. Dream Weapon earns its name by somehow being propulsive and spacey at the same time, grounded through superb drumming and absolutely thick with synth pads, effects-laden guitars, and dreamy vocals that act not so much as strong lyrical or melodic hooks but as another instrument and melody to blend into the haze. A lot of times that can work against a band, making their sounds hopelessly blend into each other and just becoming a vague murk. And while I’ve seen people say that about this record, too, I personally love it. It combines a lot of my favorite sounds in a way that makes it ridiculously easy to just put on a good pair of headphones and get lost inside of it, and Dream Weapon scratches a particular itch for me that I didn’t know needed scratching.

11. LiSA – Ladybug

Sometimes I need a musical pick-me-up, something to cleanse my palette and give me a break from the often angsty and dark stuff I thrive on. And almost every time, I find myself dipping into some kind of J-pop or J-rock, and LiSA has been one of my favorite artists in those realms for a while now. So when she dropped Ladybug this year, a project that straddles the line between EP and album, I just couldn’t get enough of it. Working as a sort of musical retrospective on her first ten years in the music business, it combines some nostalgic sounds of of her past while also pushing into fresher ones of the present, which means careening from sentimental ballads, upbeat pop rock songs, pure J-pop bubblegum, and a dark electronic track that borders on rap with ease. Simply put, it’s an easy, fun listen, with plenty of different styles packed into its short runtime that make it impossible for me to get bored of.

10. Cynic – Ascension Codes

Cynic has had a rough go of things this decade. In 2014, the band seemed to implode after a series of shows in Japan, and they went radio silent for years after. And then, in the midst of an already hard year, they tragically lost two of their key founding members, drummer Sean Reinhert and bassist Sean Malone. It was heartbreaking to see such wonderful musicians have their time cut short, and it would’ve been easy for the sole remaining member Paul Masvidal to hang up his hat and call it a day on Cynic. Instead, looking to honor the memory of his lost friends, he crafted the gorgeous Ascension Codes. Cynic has always drawn influence from deep wells of spirituality and alternative theories on human consciousness, and that unique take on progressive metal is always what put them head and shoulders above their peers. And on Ascension Codes, they’ve dialed that up to 11. While some of their metal DNA is still deeply embedded into these tracks, they’ve also taken a bit of a different approach here. Replacing traditional bass with synth bass and a heavy use of keyboards, Cynic has dove into the more classic side of progressive music, creating lush soundscapes that are indebted to jazz and ’70s prog just as much as they are to Death. Records like Focus and Traced in Air are thick with complex guitars, relentless drumming, and screams to heighten the tension and give a more metal edge to the band. But Ascension Codes relishes in the negative space, leaving plenty of room for each song to breath and each instrument to play its role in its own time, instead of trying to compete against something else. These songs are not only couched in atmosphere and multitudinous layers of sound, but are also surrounded by gentle interludes that let the record flow more gently from one main track to the next. And ironically, Cynic now couldn’t possibly be further away from their own name, because this record positively glows with positive energy, and band leader Paul Masvidal uses every second of it to tell us that death is not the end, more is out there, and we’ll see our friends again.

9. Gojira – Fortitude

While I’ll always miss the more death metal feel of Gojira’s earlier stuff, I really ended up loving this year’s Fortitude. While they’re not quite as heavy these days, they’ve really grown into their own as songwriters, and they’ve put together a memorable batch of songs that balance mainstream rock accessibility with some of that classic Gojira bite. Of course, there may be a reason that they’re looking to make this record a bit more accessible. Because on Fortitude, they’ve come warning us about the looming climate destruction that humanity has brought upon itself, as we hurtle towards the point of no return. These songs pummel and push in the hopes of bringing some of us to our senses, and that’s a message worth spreading. No matter how far from their death metal roots they might stray, Gojira remains one of the most intellectual and compassionate metal bands working today, and those lofty ideals and hard-hitting sounds are why Fortitude is one of my favorite albums of the year.

8. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – G_d’s Pee at State’s End

I’ve been a fan of GYBE for a while now, but I couldn’t help but feel pretty disappointed with their last offering, 2017’s Luciferian Towers. It dragged on too long and had too little in the way of their usual climatic resolution, often feeling like it was building to something that either never came or didn’t feel satisfying once it did. Thankfully, after putting out what I thought was their weakest record, they came back this year with one of their strongest records ever, one I feel is on par at least with 2012’s Allelujah. Here, the band dips their toes back into the samples and street recordings that once made their music so eerie and unsettling, using them to fill in the slower spots of the record and to amplify the atmosphere of the more drone-focused, ambient sections. But on top of that, the band has found their inner editor again, tightening up these tracks to just the right lengths to fully let them both build tension, explode, and resolve themselves into the next piece. And yet, for all the darkness that GYBE is capable of, and exhibits all over this record, there actually feels like there’s an undercurrent of hope and happiness burbling away, too. When these tracks finally open up, they often feel celebratory and energetic, landing a ways away from the apocalyptic fare that made them perfect to score 28 Days Later. Maybe they sense that the state’s end really is near as the world seemingly falls apart, and GYBE is just dancing on those impeding ashes. Either way, I couldn’t get enough of this one this year, and I’m really glad one of my instrumental bands absolutely knocked it out of the park again.

7. CHVRCHES – Screen Violence

I loved CHVRCHES’ debut album in 2013, but I never kept a close eye on them after that. Maybe I just didn’t happen to be in the mood for them, or maybe it was because I just didn’t like their second album nearly as much, but they fell off my radar. However it happened, I got to rediscover them this year when Spotify suggested I listen to Screen Violence immediately, so I figured I’d give them another whirl. And boy I’m glad I did, because Screen Violence might just be their best – or at least my favorite – record from them yet. Slightly re-tooling their synthpop sound with a darker 1980s horror film score edge, CHVRCHES uses that unsettling edge to allow for confessional, vulnerable lyricism that explores the pressures of being a woman in modern society and dealing with the taxes and traumas that can come with nearly a decade in the music industry. These songs very quickly wormed their way into my brain and simply never left, because every song is jam-packed with effortless hooks and melodic production that insures even certain drum beats will be looping in your head for days. This was one of those records that, as soon as it ended for the first time, I just had to start it again from the top. And like a lot of the records here in my top 15, this one was never far from my repeat button.

6. Deafheaven – Infinite Granite

I’ve been a big fan of Deafheaven since the instant classic Sunbather dropped in 2013, and I’ve loved how each record was able to capture a new angle on the band’s sound. However, after the release of 2018’s Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, I started to feel like they could be doing more. That album was good, but it didn’t quite grab me the way the previous two had, and I think I wasn’t the only one in that boat. Because on their newest record Infinite Granite, Deafheaven has flipped their script entirely. They’ve taken the shoegaze influences that made Sunbather such a unique record and blown them out into the core of this album, transforming themselves from black metal-adjacent to something much closer to the Cure. Infinite Granite twinkles and sparkles, opting to focus on gentle vocals and cooing melodies with huge washes of guitars underneath, instead of chest pummeling blast beats. And while this record was pretty controversial among their fans, I fucking loved it. Because for as radically different as this album sounds from their past work, they’ve somehow managed to still make it feel distinctly like Deafheaven. The vocals still retain some of that stacatto, cold edge that was present in their harsher stuff, and the swirling pools of reverbed guitars will still sound familiar to any fan of Sunbather. This was the reinvention of Deafheaven that I was looking for, and I found myself lost in this record over and over again.

5. The Armed – Ultrapop

A couple of years back, The Armed absolutely blew my mind with their hard pivot into a maximalist version of hardcore punk on their opus ONLY LOVE. That record felt like a screamy fever dream, jam packed with as many layers of guitars, synths, drums, and flat out noise as an engineer could humanly fit into each track. And while it wasn’t for everyone, I adored both its bravery to commit to such a unique sound, and the insane sound itself. It was a sensory overload in the best way, and it’s still one of my favorite albums. So naturally, I couldn’t have been more excited for the follow up to that album, which came in the form of Ultrapop. I knew they were up to something when I was one of the lucky few fans who received a mysterious cassette from them in early January, cheekily labeled under the name “Kanye West”. What followed was a cult-like ARG filled with band-sanctioned themed Discord chats, a fake cult website straight out of the ’90s, and plenty of strange writings and ephemera to sift through from those sources. All of that set the stage for Ultrapop, a record which picks up immediately from Only Love and develops it even further. Where Only Love was still a hardcore record, Ultrapop has dropped most of that pretense. Instead, the band puts together a laser-focused fusion of the heavier sounds of hardcore with the straightforward melody and ear-catching hooks of pop music, throwing in massive shout along choruses and foot-stomping power alongside gargantuan riffs and pounding drums. The proceedings ultimately feel a little less manic than its predecessor, but instead give way to an overwhelming sense of positivity and hope that feels so rare in this genre, tying together the mishmash of genre conventions with the through-line of self-empowerment.

4. Teenage Wrist – Earth is a Black Hole

Every once in a while, a band I never heard of even in passing suddenly pops up on my radar and drops a record I end up adoring. This year, that surprise was Teenage Wrist. On Earth is a Black Hole, Teenage Wrist manage to create something of a time machine with their sound, fully absorbing so much of ’90s grunge and alt rock that it wouldn’t be hard to imagine this record was just simply written IN the ’90s. But nostalgia bait would be insipid and boring if that was all they had to offer, but thankfully, Teenage Wrist are also incredible songwriters. Every track on this record is immediately catchy, and I found myself singing along with these songs on my first listen by the time the last choruses rolled around. Earth is a Black Hole is a perfect blend of nostalgic influence, impeccable sound design, tasteful production choices, and excellent songwriting, and it earned a spot on this list very early in the year.

3. Bo Burnham – Inside

It goes without saying that the past couple of years have been pretty fucking bleak. Covid has hit us hard, climate change is lurking in the background, and a lot of us spent a fair bit of time locked in our homes with no other connection to the outside world other than the internet. And like the rest of us mere mortals, Bo Burnham also found himself in this strange situation. Right as he was about to make a long-awaited return to comedy, the world shut down, leaving him suddenly adrift. Thankfully, he took all these things and channeled them into what is easily his one-man masterpiece, the comedy special/long form music video Inside. I could write an essay about that special by itself, so we’ll leave that for another time. On a purely musical level, Inside is a phenomenal record that finds Bo at the absolute top of his game. Because once upon a time, Bo wasn’t the greatest songwriter. His early stuff sometimes felt like he was just playing the piano so that he’d have something to tell his jokes over, but that’s no longer the case. Inside is full of incredibly well-crafted songs that brim with clever chord progressions, slick and precise production, and enough hooks to open a meat packing plant. And besides being expertly put together, there’s a wide range of genres here, too: there’s dark pop, EDM, folky singer-songwriter stuff, and even theater-kid showtunes that delight in their showmanship. Inside feels like the album Bo always wanted to make, but probably never had the time to sit down and put together, and as such it’s just bursting at the seems with highlights. But beyond these songs simply being well-written and insanely catchy, there’s a lot of depth to be found, too. In between jokes, Bo covers mental breakdowns and anxiety, depression, loneliness and online dating, society’s addiction to the internet, and the exploitative nature of modern capitalism. It’s a flat out impressive thesis on the state of our world in 2021, and the most clever part of it all? Inside never once mentions the pandemic or Covid by name. It manages to be both incredibly timely while also allowing it the privilege of not dating itself by referencing this very specific time frame, which fully allows Inside tofunction as genre-hopping, society-examining piece of work full of laughs and great songs that it is.

2. Every Time I Die – Radical

When Low Teens dropped in 2016, I quickly became a late convert to the ETID party. I quickly blew through their whole catalog and became a massive fan of theirs practically overnight, and I started looking forward to whatever their next album would be. But a strange thing happened…or didn’t. Normally one of the most prolific and reliable bands in hardcore, the years started passing without any new ETID. And that was for a number of reasons: even before the pandemic pressed the pause button on so many musician’s livelihoods, vocalist Keith Buckley was in the middle of a radical shift in his life. He found himself getting divorced, finding sobriety, trying to love himself, and ultimately discovering new love. And like the trauma that birthed Low Teens, much of that turbulent period of his life has found its way into the bedrock of Radical. This is a powerfully pissed off record, but the anger feels much more righteous than injurious. While Radical does take turns skewering corrupt, cowardly police officers and the selfish pricks dragging us through hell in 2021, it also uses anger as a form of release. Here, Keith has pushed himself to the edge, expecting to fall off the cliff, only to find a path forward after all. And after discovering that there’s a way forward after all, Keith directs his anger at the person he used to be, the one who walked up to that cliff in the first place, and now has the perspective to lash himself for all the damage he’d done to his own life and to others. It’s a powerfully cathartic record full of incredible lyricism, and Keith’s presence alone would make this record for me. Thankfully though, the rest of the band comes equally supercharged. It’s pretty par for the course for metal bands to get increasingly less hungry and fiery as they hit the 20 year mark in their careers, but ETID is still as torqued up and fucking terrifying as ever. Song after song is just jammed full of finger-demolishing guitar work, stomping bass, and pummeling drums, lending this record an urgency and propulsion that a lot of bands half their age don’t even have. And most impressively, they’ve given us 16 tracks on this beast, and they’ve managed to not only make each one feel necessary and important to the record, they’ve made them flow so that this nearly hour long album never blends together or wears out its welcome. On the contrary, I’ve found myself starting it again from the top several times this year, and I still can’t get enough of it.

1. Between the Buried and Me – Colors II

Sequels are fucking scary. More often than not, they take the things we loved and bastardize them, stripping them down to what focus groups think we loved about the originals and trying to squeeze a little more cash out of the properties. So when Between the Buried and Me announced a sequel to what I consider their best album, Colors, I felt a powerful mix of emotions. Part of me was excited at the opportunity to hear more of the music that completely blew 16 year old me’s mind, but part of me had a swirl of questions: does this mean they’re out of ideas? Is there any way they could ever live up to the original, 14 years after the fact? Is this just a cynical cash grab to revitalize their career? They were taking a massive gamble, and I was nervous.

As it turns out, I never had any reason to doubt BTBAM. Colors II is one of the rare sequels that takes the blueprint laid out by the original and manages to both give us more of the thing we loved, while also building upon it and taking it in a new direction. There was an easy road for them to take when making this record, that that would’ve been to sit down and pick the bones of the original to rehash it with nothing new to say. But in the 14 years that have passed since the original, this band has done a lot of experimenting and maturing. So instead of picking the bones, they’ve used them as a blueprint: Colors II does indeed feature a good helping of that dark, hard-hitting, mind-bending progressive metal that cemented them as one of the most forward thinking bands in the genre back in 2007. But there’s also just as much of the more classic ’70s prog sound that they developed on their Coma Ecliptic album, which is one of my favorites of theirs. Colors II starts off ridiculously heavy, just like their older work, and dips back into some of the zanier, off the wall ideas that made Colors such an exciting record. But for every crushing riff and mosh-worthy breakdown here, there’s also something pretty, something melodic, or something cinematic that gives the record a powerful through-line. The record slowly and subtly shifts from the heavy to the pretty, letting the band build a wash of keyboards, soaring clean vocals, and flashy instrumental runs that give these songs room to breathe and explore while maintaining strong, coherent song structures that move with purpose and direction. Colors II acts as a roadmap of the band’s musical evolution, featuring a little of everything they’ve ever done, and yet by putting it all together like this they’ve created an album that’s wholly unique in their catalog. The genius of this album is in how they’ve managed to not only dip back into the sounds that built their career, but do it without parodying themselves or paying too much fan service. It would’ve been easy to rewrite their past for a quick buck, but instead, they bet on themselves and created something new from something old. 2021 was a great year for this band, as they lovingly remixed and reissued their back catalog, played online live stream shows, and finally pulled off a two-set “Evening With” tour that was delayed by the pandemic. So for them to top that off with an album that both looked to their past and their future was the icing on the cake for me, and it quickly cemented Colors II as the best thing I heard all year.

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Honorable Mentions, in no particular order:

Jeff Rosenstock – Ska Dream
Nas – King’s Disease II/Magic
Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Sleigh Bells – Texis
Pupil Slicer – Wounds Upon My Skin
Eidola – The Architect
Lingua Ignota – Sinner Get Ready
IDLES – Crawler
Thrice – Horizons/East
Full of Hell – Garden of Burning Apparitions
Converge & Chelsea Wolfe – Blood Moon
Manchester Orchestra – The Million Masks of God
Kaonashi – Dear Lemon House, You Ruined Me: Senior Year
Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders – Promises
Bilmuri – 400LB BACK SQUAT
Origami Angel – Gami Gang
Tiger’s Jaw – I Won’t Care How You Remember Me
Turnstile – GLOW ON
Silk Sonic – An Evening With Silk Sonic
Frontierer – Oxidized
Tyler, The Creator – Call Me If You Get Lost
Modest Mouse – The Golden Casket
Olivia Rodrigo – Sour
Limp Bizkit – Still Sucks
Kero Kero Bonito – Civilisation
Kanye West – Donda
Zack Fox – Shut the Fuck Up Talking to Me

William Patrick Corgan – Ogilala [2017]

Things haven’t been too great for Billy Corgan the past few years. The Smashing Pumpkins auteur has found himself embroiled in a number of embarrassing spectacles and creative flunks, and has seemed to be lost for years now. The proof of that came most strikingly with his 2014 release under the Pumpkins banner, Monuments to an Elegy. This was an album that showcased a musician stuck between giving his fans the sound they wanted, yet who was also desperately trying to shoehorn his current musical ambitions into. The result was a strange amalgamation of classic Pumpkins guitarwork, fused with puzzling new age synths and lyrics that would be more apt coming from a 12-year-old boy than a 46-year-old man. Suffice to say, when he announced that he would be releasing a new solo album after a 12-year gap, I had virtually nonexistent expectations – this was a man who was lying to himself musically for years and seemed completely without a rudder, what would change now?

What’s changed is immediately apparent from the first piano chords of “Zowie”, the album’s first track. Here, Corgan has stripped away everything but the bare necessities, opting for something more akin to a singer-songwriter approach than the in-your-face maximalism that was the Pumpkins’ bread and butter for so long. This track (and the album at large) is carried solely by Corgan’s gentle, melancholy piano strains and a restrained, refined vocal performance. Where he once might have layered three or four tracks of vocals on any given song, he has nothing to hide behind here – his voice is raw and exposed, perhaps putting greater pressure on himself to truly deliver. And where his voice was once full of grit, rage, snark, and sneer, on Ogilala the overriding emotion is love, exploration, acceptance, and hope. He’s no longer belting out his pain towards anyone who will listen: instead, he sounds at peace, writing these songs as much for himself as for anyone else.

However, sometimes this bare-bones approach shoots the album in the foot. While there’s nothing as outright clunky or cringe-worthy as “Run2Me” or “Anaise!”, at times it feels fairly one dimensional, with one song flowing into the next without much to differentiate it. There ARE a few moments that break up the flow and add color to the proceedings, like the yearning strings behind Corgan’s earnest vocals on “Aeronaut”. And then there’s James Iha’s shocking turn on guitar for the track “Processional”, marking the first time the pair have recorded music together since 2000’s Machina. But overall, Ogilala’s palette could have used a little expanding, as several of these songs feel more underwritten than stripped down.

But despite Ogilala’s faults, this album represents a marked return to form for a musician that has been lost for a long while now, and it presents perhaps his most honest and humble songwriting in his entire career (or at the very least, this second stage of it). He is no longer grappling with what side of himself to present to the world: It is just William Patrick Corgan, for better and for worse – stripped of anger and overwrought ambition, more at peace with himself than ever before, and making music that seems to truly strike a chord inside himself. It’s a step in the right direction, and for the first time since the Pumpkins reformed in 2005, it feels like the man is genuinely inspired. Ogilala might be more quiet, meditative, and sedate than any of his prior work, but in this case, that’s a good thing.

Avenged Sevenfold – The Stage [2016]

The past few years have been rough for Avenged Sevenfold. Ever since drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan died in 2009, the band has seemed unsure of what direction to go in: 2010’s Nightmare featured the Rev’s final songwriting contributions and had one of his drumming idols playing his parts, Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy. But Portnoy’s role was only ever to be temporary, and they quickly found another drummer in Arin Ilejay for 2013’s Hail to the King. That album found the band attempting to regroup, simplifying their sound and mining through their various hard rock and metal influences for new inspiration. But instead of sounding inspired, the band often veered too close to becoming a cheap copy of those influences rather than honoring them, and the songs were further weakened by Ilejay’s limp and rudimentary choice of drum parts. Sensing that things weren’t working out, the band has once again switched drummers, enlisting Brooks Wackerman of Bad Religion to fill the seat.

But Avenged Sevenfold had bigger ideas this time around than simply swapping drummers again. It was clear that the band was gearing up to release an album, if not this year, then probably the next. But details were scarce and besides the release of a single, “The Stage”, early in October, no one even knew if this thing had a title yet. The secrecy turned out to be for good reason: inspired by the surprise releases of Radiohead, Beyonce, Death Grips, and more, the band performed a live VR concert on October 27^th before announcing that, hey, they had a new album and you could go buy it right at that moment. And in a first for this type of release, the band managed to get physical editions made and heroically avoided a leak up until the very last minute.

The album in question is The Stage, and clocks in as their longest album to date at a whopping 73 minutes. Immediately from the titular opening track, it’s clear that the band has gotten back on track. The opening title track starts off with ominous organ akin to “Critical Acclaim”, before launching into their classic limber guitar work and muscular riffing. It’s also clear that the band has re-embraced their progressive rock roots more than they have since 2005’s City of Evil, with the track easily hitting the 8 minute mark and moving through an array of harmonized leads, classic guitar riffs, and blazing solos. “The Stage” sets the tone for much of the album, as songs like “Paradigm” (a track that’s traditionally heavy and powerful for them), “God Damn” (a song that shows off Wackerman’s drumming chops and highlights why Ilejay was such a poor fit for the band), and “Sunny Disposition” feature much of these same traits, mixing power with structural variety. The latter track, “Sunny Disposition”, is their most interesting sonic experiment in years, combining the power of traditional metal riffs with a trumpet section in order to create an eerie, unsettling effect rarely seen in their catalog. Elsewhere, the band experiments with Faith No More-esque vocal melodies on “Creating God”, and is a great example of the vocal shift on this album. It seems like their hero worship on Hail to the King wasn’t entirely forgotten or without merit, as M. Shadows switches up his delivery to include not just his stock shouted tough guy rasp, but also hints of Layne Staley in his harmonies and Axl Rose in his highs. But perhaps the biggest risk on this album is its closing track, “Exist”. Clocking in at over 15 minutes, it stands out as the band’s longest track yet, and also features its longest instrumental section as well. Opening with swirling spacey synth leads, the band comes in full force with swept arpeggio runs and thick riffs that wouldn’t be unfamiliar to any Dream Theater fan. After 7 minutes of various guitar runs, organ sections, and chaotic soloing from Synyster Gates, the track finally takes a breather and allows gentle vocals to take over. The break doesn’t last long, though, as familiar pieces from the first 7 minutes slowly reintroduce themselves under Shadows’ vocals, until the song finally gives way to a monologue about the universe and the humans living in it from none other than Neil DeGrasse Tyson himself.

While it’s great that the band has finally found themselves again and have made a more progressive, more risky body of music, The Stage is not without its dead spots. Several of the songs on this album suffer from lacking a strong hook or vocal melody to hold them together, and as a result, songs like “Angels” and “Simulation” feel like plodding repeats of each other. Avenged has also always been a very vocally driven band despite all of their instrumental flair, so for them to switch it up here and use those instrumentals for much of the album’s melodic cues is – while not a bad thing – jarring and harder to get accustomed to considering their catalog of massively hooky songs. Sections like the impressive orchestral ending of “Roman Sky” are more immediately memorable than any of its vocal lines even after several listens, as are the aforementioned trumpets in “Sunny Disposition”. And outside of those motifs, in general most of the songs feel like they could have picked up an additional 5 or 10 BPM without suffering for it, as even album highlights like “Creating God” and “Sunny Disposition” don’t feel quite as urgent as they possibly could. In combination with most of the songs’ lengths, this ends up making the album feel a bit draggy and forgettable in its middle run.

But as a whole, The Stage is definitely a step back in the right direction for Avenged Sevenfold. They’ve embraced their core sound again without needing to outright copy their heroes, and are once again taking risks musically. And while not every song here is top tier material from them, overall The Stage feels like their most cohesive and mature work to date. So despite hitting a few stumbling blocks on this album, they feel more like growing pains as they move into a newer, more progressive sound, rather than a death knell for their creativity. For a band that has historically been so eager to dive into tired metal and edgy goth cliches, The Stage opens up an exciting new path for them to trod in the future, and it’s one that we can only hope they take till the end.

Key Tracks: The Stage, Sunny Disposition, Creating God, Exist

Periphery – Periphery III: Select Difficulty

Periphery are a band that’s always moving forwards. They were once just another bedroom guitarist’s project, and over the years they’ve flourished into one of the biggest names in metal today. And with each new release, they’ve found subtle ways of growing their sound and improving their songwriting in order to keep things from getting stale. But this time around, the band was faced with something of a tall order: how do you follow up a massive concept album that sprawls two discs and runs the gamut from radio-ready rock to some of the lowest, heaviest downtuning possible with metal guitars?

Well, the answer is simple: you don’t. Instead of feeling daunted by trying to follow up such a heady record, this time around Periphery has opted to just have fun with the process. Writing and recording in guitarist Misha Mansoor’s home/studio, the band deliberately put itself in a much more relaxed environment in order to not force things, and it truly shows: Periphery III: Select Difficulty features some of the band’s most straightforward, thoughtfully arranged, and vocally-driven songs ever. While there’s some typical heavy Periphery fare to open up the album with the back to back combo of “The Price is Wrong” and “Motormouth” (two tracks which, in all honesty, tread a little too close to many of their other songs), there’s a surprising amount of variety here for a metal band. “Marigold” is what happens when you build a rock song out of proggy guitar riffs and pure pop instinct, with string embellishments and gang-vocal chants to match, and “The Way the News Goes…” is comprised of a soaring, intricate clean guitar melody that refuses to stay in any one plac and later manages to meld a blast beat to a pop chorus in the same song. Following that theme, “Catch Fire” is the band’s purest attempt at a pop track yet, possibly more so than Juggernaut’s “Heavy Heart”. Surprisingly enough, it delivers in spades, showcasing that the trademark Periphery sound can stay intact while also being able to slot in easily on the radio, and proving that this band is impossibly dynamic within an incredibly narrow genre. And while it’s the closing track, “Lune” feels more like the centerpiece of the record. Periphery has always flirted with ambience and layering to thicken up their sound, but “Lune” is the most purely mood-driven track they’ve ever recorded. Opening with an introspective guitar line and taking its time to bring in several layers of synth, strings, and effects-drenched guitars, the song is a showcase for Spencer Sotelo’s vocal prowess. It’s quite possibly the closest thing to a ballad a band like them can get, and its worth its weight in emotional heft (which is even more impressive considering that, by most standards, its lyrics are pretty plain).

But on the parts of the records where they’re not stretching their muscles, at times it feels like they’re starting to run the risk of repeating themselves. As mentioned before, the two opening tracks feel like very by-the-numbers Periphery heavy tracks, handing in riffs that feel like they could have been written by anyone on the Sumerian Records roster. They’re nothing as impressively heavy as “Zyglrox” or “Make Total Destroy”, and they also fail to bring a new twist to that sound, either, which makes them feel a little flat. Also suspect is the fact that the band is continuing to revisit nearly decade-old Misha demos for new material: for a band that prides itself on having every member be a songwriter, enough so to base an entire EP around the concept of each member writing a song based around a singular overture, it seems a little odd to dredge up and rework such old material instead. Aside from those issues, it’s hard not to feel like a few songs here run just a little too long as well. “Marigold” features a two minute long outro consisting of nothing but guitar feedback and reverb, and when that happens just three songs into the record, it’s a total flow-killer. “Absolomb” suffers from a similar fate, but for a different reason: its outro is actually a gorgeous piece of orchestral composition, and should be showcased as its own separate track. However, it simply feels tacked on at the end to inflate the track’s length instead.

But considering that the band didn’t set out to reinvent the wheel for themselves with this record, that’s okay. There’s still a lot of growth to be found even on this more laid back, less ambitious undertaking. There’s heavy amounts of orchestral strings on this record, plenty of analog synths being seamlessly melded into guitar lines for added texture and flavor, a sharper eye for actual melodic songwriting instead of smashing riffs together, and more attention to detail than ever before. The band is still having enormous amounts of fun just writing and playing together, and even when they feel like they’re treading water, that fun is infectious. Overall, Periphery III: Select Difficulty is another welcome addition to the band’s catalog, and offers up yet another new flavor of their sound.

KEY TRACKS: Marigold, The Way the News Goes…, Flatline, Lune

Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool [2016]

Radiohead isn’t a band that needs introduction at this point, at least usually. But during the lead up to their first album in five years, it seems as if they were trying to reintroduce themselves. In the days before A Moon Shaped Pool dropped, the band completely erased their internet presence, leaving nothing but a blank slate devoid of posts across their Twitter feeds and Facebook page. And when those gears DID start turning again, it was only to dribble out tiny clips of a child-like claymation video, which lacked any music, branding, or information of any kind. It signaled very clearly that something was about to happen, something that wasn’t beholden to their past, something cleaner and purer than before.

A Moon Shaped Pool is exactly that – it’s some of the cleanest, purest, and most human music the band has put to tape so far. Of course, this is Radiohead we’re talking about, so they’ll always bear some of that cold, insular, and electronic edge they’ve explored for so long. But what’s so surprising about this record is the much more emotional and naturalistic side they’ve chosen to explore within it. Acoustic guitars, string sections, and pianos take far more precedence over drum machines, sequencers and laptops, and more than ever Thom Yorke’s lyrics are focused on the pitfalls of the human condition instead of his trademark claustrophobic technophobia and paranoia. “Burn the Witch” is a perfect example of this: opening with a percussive gush of strings unlike anything in their discography, it drives forward with little need for guitars or drums, while focusing on the division of different peoples and the fear-mongering that causes it. But that song is actually a bit of a feint, as it doesn’t take long for the band to dip into more downcast, defeated territory: “Daydreaming” is one of the simplest songs in their catalog, but one of the thickest with emotion. Built upon a simple repeating piano motif, Yorke’s vocals barely rise above a murmur, and are cocooned with flourishes of violins and electronics that establish the song’s true movement and feeling. And “Decks Dark” is a slow burn of a track replete with chilly, rattling guitar lines and an introspective piano line that buoys some of Yorke’s most expressive vocals since In Rainbows – ones that equate encroaching dread and fear to visiting aliens blotting out the sky with their flying saucers.

But it’s after that three track run that the album starts revealing its truest colors. For example, “Desert Island Disk” is the closest thing to a folk song that the band has ever recorded. Calm and quiet, it’s led by an aerobic acoustic guitar line, gentle swirls of background electronics, and an oddly out-of-character set of lyrics that inspire uplift and hope instead of fear and paranoia. This track also finds a cousin on the album’s second half in “The Numbers”. It’s another gentle, folky song that this time finds its inspiration in ’60s protest music, as Yorke quietly rails against climate change and the powers that be, insisting that the people have the power to create change – which doesn’t solely have to function as an instruction against global warming. And while not nearly as folksy, “Present Tense” is a Spanish-sounding love-lost groove that’s almost danceable despite it’s lack of any sort of beat and heartbroken lyrics. Acoustic guitars aren’t the sole driving force of this album, however. “Ful Stop” throbs along with a repeating bass line courtesy of Colin Greenwood that establishes the core of the song, a song which chooses to fully explore that groove rather than searching out another, more obscure path. And on “Identikit”, the rest of the band allows Jonny Greenwood to take his electric guitar out of storage, resulting in a song with plenty of spiky dynamics and angular guitar lines to complement its grooving drums and expressive chorus.

But as always with Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool has a moodier side as well. As “Daydreaming” foreshadows, this isn’t an album without its darkness. “Glass Eyes” is a short yet powerful piano ballad punctuated with otherworldy strings, exploring the anxiety one finds themselves faced with when arriving in a new place, and its bare bones musicality only serves to emphasize its narrative (one which is formatted in the spirit of a voicemail left on someone’s phone). And conversely, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor…” finds itself straddling both that minimalist slant of “Glass Eyes” and a bigger, more sweeping cinematic feel. Its first half drifts around with little direction and a listless energy, until Jonny’s Bond-esque string score swoops in to take the song into an entirely different world. What at first seems like an almost disjointed track soon makes sense, as that swirl of strings leads into the crowning jewel, and closing track, of the album. “True Love Waits” is a storied song in Radiohead’s catalog, having been played live in one version or another dating back all the way to 1995. But it’s been a notoriously hard one for the band to try and capture, as it wasn’t until Yorke’s 23 year long relationship dissolved that they were finally able to find the inspiration to nail it. Once written with the hope and promise of a new love in mind, the song is now transformed into a fragile, twinkling, and bittersweet one of loss, barely held together as its gentle dual piano lines threaten to spiral away from each other. Despite being so gentle and low-key, Yorke manages to wring emotion out of every syllable and key, and the rasp that creeps into his voice during the chorus truly sells it.

A Moon Shaped Pool strikes a very fine balance as a whole piece of work. Despite featuring downcast, dreamy tracks like “Daydreaming” alongside folksy excursions such as “Desert Island Disk” and “The Numbers” and percussive orchestral numbers like “Burn the Witch”, and despite also pulling songs from many different points in the band’s career (“Ful Stop” and “Identikit” originated in 2012 on the King of Limbs tour, “Present Tense” in 2009 a a Yorke solo gig, “Burn the Witch” in the Hail to the Thief era, and “True Love Waits” in 1995), it feels like a body of work that was created concurrently. These songs have been massaged and finessed into the gentle, moody, yet very human forms they appear in here, and feel like puzzle pieces that were always meant to fit together. Even more so, despite their disparate eras, the fact that much of their lyrical content syncs with the huge loss Yorke has recently suffered makes these tracks feel even more fated to be together. Radiohead may have erased their own social media presence, and in doing so took a stab at erasing their own past. But the album they did it in service of inverts that by collecting little bits of ephemera from throughout their career, and uses them to form their most gentle and intimate sounding record ever, and one that’s the closest thing to a traditional heartbreak album the band has ever made. Where they once feared the world’s ever-increasing reliance on technology, here they’re fearing the breakdown of personal relationships and the loss of love. After looking outward for so long, it’s not so surprising that they’ve finally chosen to look inside and take stock of their own hearts. No longer are they paranoid androids suffering from future shock, but instead have opened their hearts up a little more to reveal the glassy-eyed daydreamers they truly are.

Key Tracks: Daydreaming, Decks Dark, Identikit, True Love Waits

Thrice – To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere [2016]

In 2012, after over 13 years of relentless touring, writing, and recording, Thrice decided to hit that ever-infamous “hiatus” button. The grind of being in a band their size had worn them down over those years, and they needed time to spend with their families – the value of which had been made even more apparent after several members losing loved ones during their last album cycle. With that in mind, the band embarked on a “farewell” tour that dug deep through fan-selected favorites, culminating in a huge 33-song long final show in July 2012. After that, the band dispersed to their families and new projects: Dustin became a pastor, Teppei opened a leather crafts shop, Riley started a baseball-themed grindcore band, and Eddie put in time with Angels & Airwaves. But the break didn’t last long, and in the waning days of 2014, the band announced their intention to get back together. And in a little under two years, they’ve returned with their first album of new music since 2011’s Major/Minor.

To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere finds Thrice essentially picking up where they left off with Major/Minor. The grungy, dirty rock sound they’ve had on that album and on Beggars before it is still firmly in place, but it seems like reconvening has also given them greater appreciation of where their music has come from in the past. One of the most obvious cues the band has picked back up are the larger, meatier guitar parts reminiscent of their Fire EP – “Death From Above” and “Blood on the Sand” both move with more power and weight than the band has shown in years, and while not quite as heavy, “Black Honey” and “The Window” pick up much of that EP’s dark and brooding undertones as well. “Hurricane” opens the album with a thick swirl of guitars and brooding atmosphere appropriate for the title, feeling as if it really could be buoyed on the winds of a storm. In fact, this record finds the band turning up the sludge and brood in every aspect, not just on the guitars – this thing is downright dirty sounding. Even in it’s most friendly and approachable moments, there’s a sense of claustrophobia and grit in the mix that doesn’t relent. Yet “Salt and Shadow” exists on that same album, a song with a gentle, heavenly atmosphere that would be able to slot itself perfectly on the band’s Air EP. But that’s about the only air and light that manages to work its way in both musically and lyrically.

Lyrically, To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere finds Dustin focusing much less on faith (as he had on more recent Thrice albums) and more on the social and political issues he first touched on with The Artist in the Ambulance. “Blood on the Sand” is a take down of the frightened apathy that causes us to build walls to keep out our fellow man instead of making an attempt at connection, and “Death From Above” tackles our willingness to bomb those same people from afar without ever putting a name or face to them. “Whistleblower” is an obviously pro-Snowden song, celebrating the individuals who risk their freedom and lives to enlighten the rest of the world to a massive wrongdoing, and “Black Honey” focuses on our often blind conquest to take the things we need without considering how the blow-back might affect us. It’s refreshing to hear Dustin have something to get angry about again, because it helps lend power to both the music and his own vocal delivery. Plus, even though some of the lyrics here suffer from being very on-the-nose, it’s brave for a band of their size to deliver a comeback album with lyrics that could potentially polarize old and new fans alike.

But for all the base-touching they do on this album, it feels like they’ve forgotten to bring anything fresh to the table. As a longtime fan you might be happy to hear those flourishes from throughout their discography, and as a new fan, they might even seem unique to you. But it’s disappointing that after five years apart – in such vastly different bands and even parts of the country – that they haven’t found one new thing to bring to the mix. In fact, a handful of tracks find the band veering dangerously close to rock cliché instead: “Wake Up” featuring a tired cock rock-esque chorus that settles for repeating the song’s title in place of any sort of lyricism, and “Stay With Me” apes U2’s worst arena rock tendencies and mixes them with a dash of sludgy guitars to no effect. At its worst, To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere ironically finds the band sloughing off some of their character and flair in an attempt to be both radio-friendly and to pay homage to their previous sonic explorations.

Sadly, this album ends up being very much a mixed bag. There are flashes of the band’s former glories littered in almost every track, but they’re also tempered by some of the band’s blandest moments ever put to tape. It’s not a bad album in any sense of the word, but after five years apart and plenty of exploration for each one of their members, it’s a shame that To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere finds Thrice simply mining old territory and watering down the rest. Perhaps this is just the band’s way of getting back to ground, consolidating the parts of the band they loved the most as a springboard for whatever comes next. Or perhaps middle age and family life has dulled their fire to prove themselves and take huge risks. And perhaps it’s too easy to compare this album to the rest of the band’s towering discography, because if this were any other band, it might be something fairly special. But in the end, they’ve simply put out an okay album after so many great ones. It happens.

Key Tracks: Hurricane, Blood on the Sand, The Long Defeat, Death From Above

My 2015 In Music: Highs, Lows, and Shows

It’s my yearly installment of a whole bunch of shit you ain’t gonna read! Cue up Huey Lewis and the News, cause it’s about to get all Patrick Bateman up in here. But anyway, this is the music I dug this year, the music that let me down, and whatever else fell in between. Here goes!

The Top Ten

1. Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden of Delete

It was honestly really hard for me to pick a number one album this year, or even a top five of any sort. But OPN gets the top spot for one very good reason: Garden of Delete is the most challenging, boundary-pushing album I’ve heard all year. Few albums ever give me that rare “what the hell is this and why do I like it?” feeling like Garden of Delete’s blend of angular, distorted synths, schizophrenic bursts of noise, and oddly melodic samples and robotic vocals did. It’s an album that refuses to stay in any one place for more than a minute, drawing in influences as far reaching as ambient and drone, dance music, rock, even industrial and metal, and yet somehow managing to make sense of it all. These disparate influences aren’t used as a way of showing off OPN’s production skill or as some hipster display of his own music taste either, they’re put to use as the building blocks of interesting songs and melodies – something that quite often falls by the wayside. No matter what genre you might claim as your favorite, I think Garden of Delete has something to offer you, and if you like being challenged by new sounds, it’s my highest recommendation of the year.

2. Death Grips – The Powers That B

Last year was an odd year for Death Grips. Within a month, they dropped their most esoteric and labyrinthine slab of music yet, Niggas on the Moon, “broke up” (but not really), and announced that that album was actually the first disc of a yet-to-be-finished double album. Well, that album was finally completed this year, with the March release of Jenny Death. Jenny Death is the polar opposite of its first half – where NOTM was built upon layers of skittering drums, vocal samples, and introspective lyrics, Jenny Death brings the aggression back in full force. This album finds the band incorporating more of a hard rock sound into their trademark blistering electronics, introducing psychedelic guitar riffs and crushing live drums to amplify their sound to the point of constant, audible distortion. And where NOTM found vocalist Stefan Burnett looking inwards, here he projects outwards, raging at the world and using that anger to try and cover up his own crippling depression instead of being consumed by it. When taken as a whole, it creates a thematic contrast between both halves of the album, and musically it presents the most evolved and intelligent version of the band yet. That, and there’s no better song to break in a new set of speakers with than the title track, “The Powers That B”.

3. Periphery – Juggernaut: Alpha and Omega

Periphery’s evolution as a band has been pretty interesting to watch. What once started as a one-man bedroom project has grown into a full-fledged creative force, with all six of its members having an equal, yet different, influence in the music it writes. And there’s no clearer example of that force than on Juggernaut, the band’s first concept album. Where once the band had a tendency to try and pack too many ideas into one song, here the songwriting is streamlined and purposeful, aiming to evoke a specific emotion or sound instead of showing off technical chops, while still retaining each member’s voice. There’s big pop choruses, bright electronics, crushing drop tuned 8 string riffs, progressive song structures, and brooding instrumentals that all combine to tell a single story with a range of emotion. It’s quite possibly the band’s best music yet, and having a concept behind it to dive into and puzzle out makes it even more rewarding to listen to over and over again.

4. Between the Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic

BTBAM is a band that fell off for me, hard. After their landmark album Colors, each new album felt like another, lesser iteration of that sound, and it was losing steam fast. Possibly sensing that themselves, they took a left turn with their sound on Coma Ecliptic into entirely new territory. While their progressive metal elements will always be there, Coma Ecliptic finds itself rooted much more strongly in the prog music of the 70s, featuring just as many synth lead lines as guitar riffs. And on top of that, vocalist Tommy Rogers has finally stepped his game up to the point of being able to carry most of a song with his clean vocals, rather than his one note growls. It’s a refreshing change to hear the band’s music buoyed just as much by melodic vocals AND crushing growls, instead of just a moment or two of singing, and it’s a change that makes this new batch of songs instantly memorable and catchy. It’s the first time in years that a BTBAM album has truly surprised me, and what a good feeling it is to be surprised.

5. The Dear Hunter – Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise

Simply put, there’s no other band out there that makes music quite like The Dear Hunter does. Of a certain kin with Coheed and Cambria, the bulk of the music is conceptual, telling one long story across several albums. And after taking a break from that concept to explore other sounds, Rebirth in Reprise finds them taking all those things they’ve explored and using them to make an even better record. From the start, this album is lush with string arrangements, layered vocals, grand soundscapes, and sticky melodies. At their catchiest, they write huge pop tunes like Waves or King of Swords, and at their most progressive, they write sprawling epics like A Night On the Town. That term ‘epic’ may have been horribly misused at the turn of this decade, but The Dear Hunter is truly deserving of it, because they’re capable of telling a story just as much with the music as they do with the lyrics. If you want to hear something refreshing, layered, and gorgeous all at the same time, you want to give this album a spin.

6. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly

While I’m on the subject of big changes in sound, I can’t leave out Kendrick. After showing the world his talent as a storyteller and a wordsmith on 2012’s Good Kid, Mad City, To Pimp a Butterfly shows him taking not just one step from there, but a couple dozen further. This album is built upon a hypnotic blend of free jazz, funk, and soul, completely sidestepping pretty much any sort of “banger” beat you’d find on most of 2015’s hip hop releases. The music is dense and huge in scope, and boasts an all star cast of musicians and producers, from Flying Lotus, George Clinton, Snoop Dogg, Thundercat, and Dr. Dre. But all that would be for nothing if it wasn’t backed up by great lyrics, and that’s where Kendrick truly shines. TPAB tackles a broad range of social, racial, personal and political issues, tying it all together with a poem that details his own struggles with fame, influence, and success, and thus grounding all these issues in the realities of his own life. Any way you look at it, it’s a modern classic.

7. Bring Me the Horizon – That’s the Spirit

As much as I hate to admit it, I think I’m officially a fan of BMTH. After 2013’s excellent Sempiternal, which found the band maturing into their metal sound while expanding it with melody and texture, 2015 finds the band deciding to take the world by storm – and somehow succeeding. That’s the Spirit is, by pretty much any definition, a pop rock album. Gone are the metal and deathcore influences of their past, as well as much of the screaming, too. Instead, Oli’s learned to sing, and the band’s learned not to rely on drop tuned chugs, and they end up defying all expectations you might have for the band that once penned “Pray for Plagues”. But while they may have traded much of their old sound for a much more polished, melodic, and even a little calculated one, the reason this album succeeds is because it still has heart. The lyrics tackle Oli’s issues with addiction and depression, and how embracing your problems and wearing them like armor can help you through to the other side. But even besides all that, these songs are just ridiculously catchy – just try getting “Throne” or “Happy Song” out of your head for the next day or two after hearing it.

8. Silversun Pickups – Better Nature

I first fell in love with Silversun Pickups because they were like a more subtle, more pretty version of Smashing Pumpkins. They brought the same sort of dreamy, fuzzed out riffs and airy vocals that even the Pumpkins hadn’t delivered in years, but without any of the cringey angst or hamfisted-ness they were capable of. But as time went on, they evolved away from that, dropping much of their guitars in favor of electronic elements and empty space, and it was a hard change for me to adjust to. But with their newest record, Better Nature, they’re found an equilibrium between guitars and electronics that leaves their trademark sound intact. Better Nature has more edge than its predecessor, Neck of the Woods, but it’s also prettier and mellower, sometimes opting for the obvious melodies and sometimes exploring a texture instead. And it’s all tied together with the band’s penchant for writing inherently ear-grabbing music, no matter which of those two things they’re doing, making this album a great next step for the band.

9. Coheed and Cambria – The Color Before the Sun

I mentioned Coheed earlier while talking about The Dear Hunter’s record, and here they are again. Coheed is another band that’s taken multiple albums to tell a sprawling story, but in their case, it was just as much to cover up their singer’s own insecurities as it was to actually tell that story. So this time around, Coheed switched things up and decided to drop the concept entirely for this album, and to put singer Claudio Sanchez’s real life at the front and center. The result is their most heartfelt, down to earth album yet, ditching much of the space opera sound they built their name on in favor of simpler, easier arrangements. Much of the music is bright and bouncy, evoking memories of their poppiest songs (“A Favor House Atlantic”, “The Suffering”) while keeping things feeling fresh and energetic. But the lyrics are a bit darker, detailing the conflicts and fears that come with reaching middle age and starting a family, yet eventually finding the security and meaning that comes from it. Who knew real life could be the most interesting story of all, huh?

10. Clutch – Psychic Warfare

You could call Clutch dad rock. Because they definitely are. But no other rock band in America does dad rock quite like Clutch does – while a lot of rock bands opt to drench their music in irony, Clutch doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the word. For years they’ve been pumping out tough, hard hitting, kick ass rock n’ roll music and they mean every damn note of it. Psychic Warfare is no different, as it finds Clutch picking up where they left off on Earth Rocker. Dropping most of their stoner rock influences, Clutch instead take us through a gritty southern-fried romp through tales of no good women, monsters from another world, and good old fashioned mind control. Clutch is one of those bands that you know exactly what you’re gonna get every time they put out new music, yet for some reason, it just never gets old.

Honorable Mentions

Tesseract – Polaris

Polaris shows original vocalist Dan Tompkins returning to the fold after a 3 year break. In the meantime, the band has honed their songwriting from the sometimes amorphous lumps of riffs present on their first and second albums into something more approachable, giving each song it’s own distinct character. Combine that with Dan’s growth as a vocalist and you get Polaris, an album that can be atmospheric, heavy, and soft without forcing any of it. My only real complaint is that it could’ve been a song or two longer, but hey, it is what it is.

Tricot – A N D

Tricot is one of the best rock bands out there right now, not just in their homeland of Japan, but in the world. Their music takes elements of math rock – that is, odd time signatures, unique chord voicings, and distinctive rhythms – and combines it with the best elements of J-Rock and J-Pop. The result is a band that can rock hard, lay on the technical guitar chops, and write hugely catchy choruses all in the same song, without ceding any ground to typical rock cliches. And did I mention they’re all girls?

The Armed – Untitled

There’s not a whole lot to say about The Armed. They’re ferociously heavy, they play at breakneck tempos, and they can somehow infuse melody into all that chaos. Untitled is only their second full-length record in 6 years, but it’s well worth the wait – from start to finish, there’s rarely a moment to breathe, with each successive song finding another way to punch you in the gut. And you can get punched in the gut totally free at thearmed.bandcamp.com.

Babymetal – Babymetal

This is an honorable mention because technically, it came out last year – it just wasn’t released in America until this year. Babymetal is the guilty pleasure of all guilty pleasures, slamming heavy metal and Japanese idol pop together without any regard for the consequences. It’s catchy, it’s fun, you can dance AND mosh to it, and you can do it without understanding a single damned word in the process. Just do what the Fox God says, man.

Good Tiger – A Head Full of Moonlight

Good Tiger was formed out of the ashes of The Safety Fire, an excellent progressive metal band that ended far too soon. Recruiting former Tesseract vocalist Elliot Coleman, they continue on The Safety Fire’s sound with a slight twist. Coleman brings a soulful, almost RnB sort of sound to the band’s knotty technical riffs, opening up interesting melodic doors for the band that weren’t once there. It’s a short listen at a little under 40 minutes, but as far as debut albums go, it’s packed with potential, and I can’t wait to hear more from them.

Deafheaven – New Bermuda

Deafheaven made their name on the unique blend of shoegaze and black metal they presented on 2013’s Sunbather, but they knew they couldn’t just recreate that album for the follow up. Instead, New Bermuda shifts things more towards a metalcore influence, dropping the long ambient passages and focusing more on hard hitting riffs and pure aggression. They still bring a lot of texture to the music, but New Bermuda just feels a lot different than its predecessor, with more varied vocals and more focus on keeping things uptempo and energetic.

Foo Fighters – Saint Cecilia EP

I’m actually pleasantly surprised by this EP. Sonic Highways was a huge letdown for me, since the band had a chance to incorporate new sounds and influences and wasted it instead. But on this new EP, instead of walking that bland middle of the road sound they walked on Sonic Highways, this EP sounds much more like the classic Foo Fighters stuff. And if I can’t see them grow as artists and try new things, I’ll at least take something that’s a shade on the classic sound I first fell in love with from them.

The Disappointments

Modest Mouse – Strangers to Ourselves

I’ve been a fan of Modest Mouse for about 6 years now. I love just about all of their albums, but in the time that I’ve been a fan, I’ve never seen them actually release something new. The band took a sort of almost-hiatus in the 8 years between We Were Dead… and this new release, and expectations were high. Instead, Strangers to Ourselves finds the band having not evolved in the slightest in that time, mailing in a collection of songs that sounds less like a complete album and more like just that – a collection of random songs. I really liked this album on my first few listens, but it just didn’t hold up, and in the end there were only a few really songs worth keeping on it (“The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box”, “Sugar Boats”, “Lampshades on Fire”, “The Tortoise and the Tourist”). Otherwise, Strangers is a very middle of the road album from a band that used to be very insistent on pushing their boundaries and making statements, and as such, it’s a let down.

Muse – Drones

Muse have been bad longer than they were good at this point. After a foray into cheesy Queen worship and overabundant keyboards in the past few years, Drones marked their return to the guitar based music of their roots. But even bringing guitars back can’t save them at this point: Drones finds the band succumbing to every arena rock cliche in the book, from overblown “epic” songs, obvious attempts at pop hits, recycled riffs, and godawful lyrics about Big Brother. Matt Bellamy has become the musical equivalent of a teenage kid typing a rant about the evil government on Facebook, and the rest of the band couldn’t seem to care less about stopping him – or ever writing a great song again.

Cloudkicker – Woum

I hate to be hard on Cloudkicker, because Ben Sharp is one of my favorite musicians, but Woum did nothing for me outside of being pleasant background music. The fun part about following Cloudkicker is that you never know what to expect from each new release, but once in a while that comes with a downside, too. Woum is a nice, warm listen, but it doesn’t have much in the way of actual songs or memorable melodies. I’m happy to hear artists explore new musical directions, but only as long as there’s great songs to back them up, and that just didn’t happen here.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Sweet, Asunder, and Other Distress

This is another album that I liked a lot initially. But the more I listened to it as a whole, the more its 20 minute drone midsection wore on me, until I eventually stopped listening to it altogether. The two main movements of the album stand right alongside the rest of the band’s material in terms of quality, but as a full piece of work, it unfortunately falls apart in the middle.

Chrvches – Leave a Trace

I liked Chrvches debut album. I wasn’t crazy about it, but it was a nice little slab of well-crafted synth pop that didn’t overstay its welcome. But the problem with their newest effort is, well…it’s the exact same thing. There’s pretty much no measurable artistic growth between the two albums, outside of maybe slightly glossier production on this new record. And since I’m already familiar with The Bones of What You Believe, I can’t really see myself taking the time to familiarize myself with another album of the same thing.

Non-2015 Releases I Discovered in 2015

Brand New

Man, I am so late on this band. But within the past two months, I absolutely fell in love with Deja Entendu, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me, and Daisy. There’s a distinct core of sadness and anger that runs through their music that I’m an absolute sucker for, and Jesse Lacey is a brilliant lyricist. So, even though I’m over a decade late on discovering these guys, I’m so glad I did.

letlive.

letlive. is my other big discovery of the year. Their first album, Fake History, is one of the best heavy albums I’ve ever heard. They somehow manage to take these intense moments of pure aggression and combine them with poppy elements, social commentary, and even a bit of soul in Jason’s vocal delivery, and that makes for a really unique mix. On top of that, their live energy is unprecedented, with the band giving such intense performances night after night that you wonder how Jason hasn’t been killed yet.

Concerts

Circa Survive

This was my third time seeing Circa, but my first time seeing them as a full-fledged fan. I finally had all the albums, knew all the songs, and I had the extra cash to spend on the meet and greet and acoustic session to boot. I got to sit in a circle a few feet away from them while they performed an intimate 3 song acoustic set, before taking to the stage later on in the night and delivering on every level. They’re a band that truly loves their fans and truly loves making music, and it shows in everything they do.

Slash

While it’s been a long time since I was obsessed with Guns N’ Roses, I’ve made it a point to see as many of their members as I can. I finally got the chance to see Slash this May when he came to the Sherman theater, and it was actually a damn good show. I got to see the GNR hits that first sparked my love of music as well as newer songs from his current band, The Conspirators. It was great to touch base with my adolescence that way and revisit the music I once loved.

Death Grips

There are few words to describe the raw power of this show. After waiting over two years for the chance to see them, I was already beyond hyped for this show. And when I got there, the band knew how to play the crowd like a fiddle – instead of having any openers, they instead played the band’s side projects and a 40 minute noise remix of unreleased material, making everyone antsy and on edge. So, when they finally did take the stage, the crowd fucking EXPLODED into a throbbing mass of pure hype and rage. I’ve never been literally scared of getting trampled or crushed at a show before this night, but that’s how intense the crowd was. The band ran through nearly two hours of music in one long, (nearly, thanks to a laptop glitch) uninterrupted set in which each song seamlessly transitioned into the next. How Zach Hill can drum like he does for so long without a rest is beyond me, and the same goes for how long Stefan Burnett can bellow his lungs out and contort his body. All around, it’s one of the craziest, best shows I’ve ever been to, and probably ever will go to.

Tricot

I never, ever expected I’d get the chance to see Tricot. But the stars aligned and this October, they crossed the globe to do a short North America run, and I got to see them on the first show of that run in a tiny, intimate venue. It’s rare that you’re literally close to enough to lean on the stage all night, and man, does it make a show so much better. I was blown away by the level of energy the band had, and how much they jumped around despite the tiny stage. I could tell this was another band who truly loves what they do, giving their all into every performance, and it was made all the more special by the small venue I got to experience it in.

Rise Against

I actually went to this show solely to see letlive. as an opener. As I expected, letlive. played an intense, albeit short set, which saw Jason Butler climb into the balcony of the Sherman Theater and get a circle pit going (I’ve seen many opening bands try, but never succeed). And I was lucky enough to see them play a brand new song, too, from their upcoming album. But I wound up being really impressed by Rise Against – I was familiar with their music, and I enjoyed a few songs before that, but they put on a heartfelt and powerful enough show that convinced me I need to pay more attention them as a band. I didn’t expect the crowd to go so nuts for them, but they definitely did, because they managed to get the second circle pit of the night going, which I definitely didn’t expect from a punk band. It’s a great feeling to leave a show as a fan of a band you didn’t like before.

So that’s that. What I loved, what I liked, what I downright hated in 2015. If you’ve made it this far, well, congratulations, and I hope I turned you onto some new music! If you just scrolled all the way to the end, well I see you too fam, it’s okay. Till next year!

Kanye West – The Life of Pablo [2016]

There’s not much to say about Kanye West – the person – that isn’t already very, very public knowledge. The lead up to his most recent album started nearly two years ago at this point, and included several album name changes, early and then later abandoned singles, and quite a few public meltdowns. And at every step along the way, it’s all been reblogged, reposted, and had gallons of digital ink spilled on think pieces analyzing single 140 character tweets. Whether it’s of his own creation, or if the media has a hand in egging him on and blowing things out of proportion, it’s been a tumultuous time to be both a fan of the man and the man himself. And nowhere does all of that become more clear than it does on the finally finished (?) project, now christened The Life of Pablo.

Kanye has made his name in hip hop for always having a clear vision and thematic core to each of his albums, from the humble-yet-ambitious soul sound of College Dropout, the alienation and loss at the center of 808s and Heartbreak, or the maximalist yet self-deprecating grandiosity of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Yet, for the first time, The Life of Pablo presents a man that somehow sounds confused, troubled, and triumphant all at the same time. It’s clear why, when you consider that the man is now married into the most famous family on the planet (for better or worse), has two young children, and a new fashion line all piled up on top of his usual responsibilities as a producer and a musician. Even for the best of us, never mind a notoriously ego-driven and opinionated person such as Kanye, it would be extraordinarily straining.

And when the man is being pulled into a hundred different directions at once, of course his music is as well. The Life of Pablo is a tumultuous listen, in the sense that one moment you can be listening to something as uplifting and life-affirming as the gospel-infused “Ultralight Beam”, and on the very next track you can hear Kanye rap about getting someone’s asshole bleach on his t-shirt. It’s why a song as gorgeous and transcendent as “Waves” can be followed up by bleak, faded, and emotionally draining tracks like “FML” and “Real Friends”. And it’s why, even within tracks that barely crack two minutes, beats can suddenly change and guests can cycle in and out like sounds carried on the breeze. Just like the album’s very public production, Kanye is using the music itself almost as if it were a real-time document of the turmoil within his own head, and it lends the album a strange sort of kinetic energy even in its weaker moments. And from the sound of things, he’s certainly not lacking in turmoil. “Real Friends” talks about the struggle that comes from trying to have real, honest relationships with friends and family after becoming massively successful, and with it, massively busy. “Wolves” lashes out at the media’s treatment of his and Kim’s marriage and their kids, and the unfair shadow Kim’s past casts on her present. “No More Parties In L.A.” laments the shallow and tiring atmosphere of the party life, and how inescapable his own public persona has become.

But The Life of Pablo isn’t all doom and gloom, either. Tracks like “Feedback” and “Famous” are Kanye at his most confrontational and outlandish, taking shots at celebrities and assuaging his own ego in classic fashion. “30 Hours” is a nostalgic, comedic look at an old open relationship he had that still left him jealous and mad at himself for. “Facts” is an unrepentant banger that throws shade at unlikely targets such as Nike, Steve Harvey, and Bill Cosby with such piss and vinegar you’d think he was taking on the world, not shoe companies and game show hosts. And “I Love Kanye”, while barely being more than a skit, shows Kanye at his most self-aware and self-deprecating ever: he knows people miss the old Kanye, the humble, less self-absorbed, “chop up the soul” Kanye, but he doesn’t really care. And “Fade” is a surprisingly groovy and upbeat ending to an album full of darkness and shade, even though it’s let down a little by it’s sparse bars and repetitive samples.

While the scatter shot and unrestrained nature of the album is one of its core strengths, it can also be its biggest weakness. “Freestyle 4” is a half-baked trap-styled hype track about fucking on the tables at a Vogue party, that feels painfully out of place both on the album and in the context of Kanye’s discography. “30 Hours” boasts an incredibly dreamy beat complete with an assist from the notoriously reclusive Andre 3000, but squanders it in the final two minutes by becoming an impromptu thank you-slash-outro track that comes three songs too early. And while only clocking in at four minutes total, “Father Stretch My Hands” is inexplicably split into two halves, despite the fact that even the individual halves barely comprise a cohesive song, never mind across both of them. But despite all that, the music still manages to succeed because of its inherent messiness and conflict far more often than it’s failed by it.

After sitting down and reflecting on this album, I may have been wrong about it not having a central theme like the rest of Kanye’s work. If you look at The Life of Pablo as a living document on Kanye’s last three years, instead of a grand conceptual work about fame or ambition or success, then it delivers in spades. Much like the man himself, this is an album full of conflict and contradictions, light and dark, humor and pain. And by allowing these emotions to spread themselves equally over the entire album, instead of relegating each one to their own songs, he’s created what feels like his most flawed and human work yet. He’s created something that lives and breathes in the moment, instead of trying to force itself into being a grand statement. He’s created the truest reflection of the multitudes Kanye West: the rapper, the designer, the father, the shit-stirrer. And in an age where public personas are carefully crafted and curated, and coming from a man who is so famously a perfectionist and a narcissist, it’s a breath of fresh air to see everything laid so bare.

Tricot w/ The Joint Chiefs of Math and Marietta – Johnny Brenda’s, October 12th, 2015

This week I got the opportunity to see a band I thought I’d never get the chance to. Hailing from Japan, Tricot is an equally mathy, punky, and poppy band with no pretensions or gimmicks. I’ve been a fan since shortly after the release of their debut album “T H E” in 2013, and only became more of one after their latest album, “AND” was released this March. But to think that they’d come to America, with the obvious language barrier and the country’s clear aversion to rock, well that was nothing but a pipe dream. So I was shocked when a little over a month ago when they announced that, yes, they actually WERE coming to America (even naming the tour after the Japanese word for “Finally” or “At last”), and proceeded to snatch a ticket. I’d never heard of the venue and it was over two hours away, but I didn’t give a shit – I was going.

And went I did. I got to the venue and immediately realized that it was perfect – the room was small, there was a bar not ten feet away, and I could literally lean on the stage if I wanted to. And I did, because it was going to be a long two bands and three hours before Tricot took the stage. I say “long” because I was skeptical as hell about the openers, at least to begin with. A local emo band and a noise rock duo seemed like a mismatch for a band like Tricot, but hell, I’ve sat through far worse in service of seeing far better before. I was wrong again, though. The Joint Chiefs of Math were first on stage, and they brought a chaotic blend of noise and instrumental rock, sounding like a much harsher version of Hella and pulling off a plethora of live effects and loops in order to deliver it. As a fan of stuff like Death Grips, Oneohtrix Point Never, and various post rock bands, this was totally hitting the mark for me, and they definitely gained me as a fan by the end of their set. Following them was a local favorite in the shape of Marietta, a band clearly influenced by the likes of early Modest Mouse and American Football. And while they weren’t really up my alley stylistically, they put on a hell of a show by mixing elements of alternative, emo, and even shades of pop punk with a ton of energy and humor, and I could truly tell that they had a fair few fans crammed into this little room.

After seeing the crowd’s reaction to Marietta, I started to have my doubts about just how many people had shown up specifically for Tricot. But my doubts were misplaced, because as soon as they launched into their first song the crowd went off. Almost every head and body was nodding and jumping around, and the band was clearly feeding off of that energy. While the girls might seem diminutive in stature, they certainly make up for it in terms of power – lead guitarist Motifour Kida skipped and danced around, bassist Hiromi Hirohiro hopped like a live wire, and touring (or permanent?) drummer Miyoko Yamaguchi absolutely pounded the shit out of her kit. And while vocalist Ikkyu Nakajima was more cemented to her microphone and guitar out of obvious necessity, she still took a few opportunities to ditch the guitar and break into a dance or even jump into the crowd. This sort of thing can be hard for mathy, intricate bands like Tricot to manage, with some choosing to sacrifice musical perfection for pure energy. But Tricot made it look easy, striking the balance between tight playing and pure fun, and at times even sounding better than the record due to Hiromi’s boosted bass volume. They also had a knack for picking a setlist, too. Among obvious choices like “Pool”, “Oyasumi”, “E”, and “Ochansensu-Su”, they also played less familiar cuts like “Bakuretsu Panie-san”, “Niwa”, and their newest song “Pork Ginger”. As someone who’s been a fan for a while now, it was great to see the songs that first hooked me alongside the ones that I came to love later on, and even being introduced to a handful of songs I wasn’t familiar with already.

All in all, Tricot’s first American show ever was a hell of a ride. Even though it was just shy of the hour mark, the band played with true passion and energy, cramming in as much music and power as possible in the short time they had. No matter what nationality or gender, it’s rare to come across a band that ticks all the boxes in the way this one does, blending technicality, power, and sticky melodies with the conviction and performance to back it up. If you get the chance to see them on this tour, I absolutely suggest that you do, because there’s no guarantee they’ll be back to the States any time soon. They’re well worth the time and money.

The Joint Chiefs of Math: https://thejointchiefsofmath.bandcamp.com/

Marietta: https://whereismarietta.bandcamp.com/

Tricot’s remaining dates (courtesy of Reddit user androph):

10/16/2015〜 Bar Le Ritz PDB/Montreal, QC

10/17/2015〜 Lee’s Palace/Toronto, ON

10/18/2015 〜 Majestic Café/Detroit, MI

10/20/2015 〜 Empty Bottle/Chicago, IL $

10/21/2015 〜 The End/Nashville, TN

10/23/2015〜 Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios/Denton, TX

10/24/2015 〜 Black Barbie/Houston, TX

10/25/2015 〜 Hi-Tones/San Antonio, TX

10/27/2015 〜 Soda Bar/San Diego, CA

10/28/2015 〜 DNA Lounge/San Francisco, CA

10/28/2015 〜 Bootleg Theater/ Los Angeles, CA

Cloudkicker – Let Yourself Be Huge [2011]

Let Yourself Be Huge was a big step for Cloudkicker when it was first released in 2011. Up to that point, Ben Sharp had built his audience with his own brand of djent-tinged progressive metal, relying on heavy guitars, technical leads, and shifting time signatures to create his sound. However, after Beacons, he was ready to step outside of his comfort zone, and this EP is the result of that.

Entirely devoid of anything that might be deemed “heavy”, Let Yourself Be Huge is largely built around acoustic and clean guitars, light drum work, and moodiness. While the playing still sounds distinctly like Cloudkicker, the timbre is different, and the overall tone of the project feels like it’s the soundtrack to the aftermath of some huge disaster (which is fitting – his previous release, Beacons, took its song titles from the last sentence of various aircrash black box recordings). It’s peaceful yet droning, melancholy but not downtrodden, and it doesn’t feel the need to suddenly and dramatically shift gears like his prior work. In fact, much of the material here is pared down relentlessly, which few tracks bothering to even crack the two minute mark. Instead of creating full songs, the music here instead sounds like little vignettes, painting small little evocative pictures instead of grandiose statements. And despite the EP’s short length, the mood created by it is so powerful and so consistent that it almost feels like a complete album anyway. Let Yourself Be Huge may be short, but it’s a beautiful piece of music, and one of the best collections of music Ben Sharp has put together to date.

As always, you can download Cloudkicker’s music for free over at cloudkickermusic.com.