Year in Review 2014.5 HD Final REmix: Music

Best Discoveries of 2014

Best Albums of 2014

• And The War Came—Shakey Graves

There are albums you wish you could hear for the first time again. Some of these are great albums, like Bon Iver’s 22, A Million, and some are albums that haven’t quite held up, like Mumford & Sons’ breakout Sigh No More. What they all have in common is a fresh, coherent sound that instantly stands out and keeps wrinkling your brain from one song to the next. And it might seem like And the War Came is one of those albums. As a follow-up to the lo-fi one-man-band style of Roll the Bones, the expansive and exquisitely-produced soundscapes here certainly showed a whole new side of Shakey Graves, and the smooth oscillations from rock/blues to sing-songwriter/folk and back again (sometimes in the same song) didn’t really sound like any one other album out there.

But 5 years on I can say with reasonable certainty that I don’t wish I could hear this for the first time again. I didn’t appreciate everything these songs had to offer that first time through—heck, I didn’t even really like “Only Son,” and had to be told to revisit it after my friend got annoyed that I didn’t play it the first time we listened to the album together. And the War Came isn’t an album that blows your mind on the first listen (though it will at least tickle your fancy); it’s an album that reveals its layers over time, and it was only after many, many repeat listens that I started to really understand this beautiful piece of art. Fortunately, I at least knew enough back then to put it on this list.

• Hozier—Hozier

I was trying to figure out recently why I don’t go back to this album as often as it seems like I should. The conclusion I’ve come to is that, for all that he’s an amazing singer and a decent lyricist, his songs are just kind of boring. Boring in a specific way, though. Because it’s not as if they’re bad songs; they’re not unpleasant to listen to, they’re not unskilled or lacking in originality or artistic intention. It’s just that, with a few exceptions, there just isn’t much depth to them. I listen to them once and I pretty much get what they’re about, and I find that I don’t need to listen to them again for another year or two or five. That being said, I stand by this selection. But if I were making a best-of-the-decade list (which, let me just say here, is not going to happen, because it would be 2030 by the time I finished it) this album would probably get bumped down to Honorable Mentions.

• lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar—Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters

Honestly, I was probably reaching at this point. I mean, I haven’t listened to this album in 5 years, surely it can’t be that great? Well, I did my due diligence and listened to it again, and…it’s actually pretty good. It’s an enjoyable listening experience, and with the possible exception of “Poor Howard” there’s not really a bad song in the bunch. Songs like the Zeppelin-esque “Turn it Up” and the surprisingly sweet and vulnerable “A Stolen Kiss” prove that Plant is still one of rock’s premiere vocalists. To say that this is Plant’s Graceland (what with all the African instrumentation) is maybe too easy a comparison—it’s not nearly as much of a sonic departure for Plant as that album was for Paul Simon, nor does it occupy the same spot in his career. That being said, it does showcase a 66-year-old artist who continued to refresh himself when many of his contemporaries were trying too hard to reclaim former glories.

• Owl John—Owl John

It’s always kind of weird when the frontman of a band whose music he is almost entirely responsible for writing announces a solo project. The question has to be asked, “What exactly are you not able to do with the band that you seem to, for all intents and purposes, run?” As with similar projects from artists like Ian Anderson, Ben Folds, and Dave Matthews, the answer is, “Something slightly different, and more of it.”

There’s not any one song on Owl John that feels like it definitely couldn’t be a Frightened Rabbit song; given the shifts that happened between each of the four studio albums preceding Scott Hutchison’s solo jaunt, there’s nothing on here that’s outside the realm of possibility. Taken as a whole, though, there’s something about this album that doesn’t quite fit in the FR ouvre (or “frouvre”). There’s a sense of ephemerality to this music, from the reverb-laden production to the more spacey electronic sounds to a persistent crackle that crops up throughout the album. Owl John, like its namesake, feels vaguely defined and not altogether real. Or perhaps it’s the sadness at the core; the album begins with inevitability and ends with disappointment—while there are musical and thematic peaks, the arc is pure ennui.

Whatever the differences, Owl John is no less a representative of Hutchison’s art than his FR output (or “frou—” well, anyway). It’s a great album, and deserves to be here.

• Sylvan Esso—Sylvan Esso

Although, like everyone else, the first Sylvan Esso song that got my attention was the inescapable “Coffee,” it’s really “Wolf” that made me keep listening. At the time this just wasn’t music that I naturally gravitated towards, and the first few tracks on the album failed to grab me. But just when I was about give up, “Wolf” comes on, and hot damn is this song good. Obviously the rest of the album eventually grew on me, but “Wolf” was the reason I gave it a chance, and is still my favorite song on here.

Best Hold-Overs From 2013

• Child Ballads—Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer

• Pedestrian Verse—Frightened Rabbit

• San Fermin—San Fermin

• Talon Of The Hawk—The Front Bottoms

• White Lighter—Typhoon