Best Albums I Missed in 2019
- Beware of the Dogs — Stella Donnelly
As a singer, Donnelly is capable of an impressive variety of styles, from New Wave to pop to classical crooning. But her bite is certainly worse than her bark, as throughout the album her sugar-sweet vocals coat an acerbic wit and keen-edged social commentary.
- Complex — Montaigne
Complex offers up a dizzying array of sounds and emotions, but it never feels gratuitous or unfocused, and Montaigne’s ambitious vision is always grounded by her unique voice that cuts through the production. There’s a darkness that runs throughout the album, but it’s transformative, a reckoning with past relationships that is in many ways a response to the self-doubt and denial on 2016’s Glorious Heights. While that album ends in a place of anxiety, Montaigne clearly states on the final track of Complex that she is no longer afraid.
- Salt — Angie McMahon
McMahon has a similar 70’s rock vibe to fellow Aussies Middle Kids, but with a more stripped-back sound that focuses on her guitar, her voice, and her own internal struggles. That’s not to say it’s boring, though, as McMahon’s dynamic range, flowing smoothly from slow, contemplative tracks to full-on rockers (sometimes in the same song), keeps you engaged from start to finish.
Honorable Misstions
- Even in the Tremor — Lady Lamb
- The Fall of Hobo Johnson — Hobo Johnson
- Four of Arrows — Great Grandpa
Artists to Watch
- Advance Base
- Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
- Deal Casino
- EB
- fuvk
- Gang of Youths
(In case you didn’t know, I wrote a whole thing about this song.)
- girl in red
- Hayley Williams
- katie dey
- King Princess
- rama gu
- Ruby Fields
- The Sonder Bombs
- William Basinski
Best Albums of 2020
- Jump Rope Gazers — The Beths
Jump Rope Gazers is mostly more of the same, but when the same is this good that’s not a bad thing. There are a few subtleties that expand their sound a little, and even a couple tracks that dip below 130 bpm, but the draw here is a great band doing what they do best.
- Look Alive EP — Shakey Graves
Building off the sound he developed on Can’t Wake Up, Shakey Graves really leans hard on the psychedelic side—3 of these songs could soundtrack some drug-taking scene in a 70’s period drama—except on “Not Everything Grows” where he strips it down to just guitar and vocals. It’s a small collection, but there’s not a dud in the bunch.
- Making a Door Less Open — Car Seat Headrest
Making a Door Less Open is the kind of album that’s maybe more interesting than it is enjoyable. Well, maybe that’s not right, but it’s definitely not an album for all seasons, if that makes sense. While a lot of the neo-80’s music that’s come out in the last decade or so has taken the typical electronic sterility of that era and filled it out with modern instruments and production techniques, Will Toledo uses those same techniques to really perfect the harshness of that 80’s sound, creating songs that are aggressive without being cacophonous. This matches the at times angry and at times bitterly detached cynicism that runs throughout the album, only finding slight relief in sadness and regret. You might say it’s a very 2020 album.
- The Neon Skyline — Andy Shauf
Shauf continues to find the beauty in the mundane, this time through stories of the regulars at a bar (the titular The Neon Skyline). The narrator weaves together present-day conversations between himself and his fellow patrons with moments from their past, creating a sense of nostalgia that edges into melancholy, though with touches of humor that keep it from being too depressing. As with 2016’s The Party, it’s all held together by the warmth of Shauf’s arrangements and his distinctive voice.
- Our Two Skins — Gordi
I feel like I could write the whole review just about “Aeroplane Bathroom”. I could listen to this song on a loop for several hours without complaint. Context may be a too-heavily weighted factor here—part of what makes Gordi’s vocal so achingly vulnerable is that we know how powerful her voice can be, and it’s possible that without that knowledge her nearly-whispered falsetto here might come off as twee. But art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and I think this song is beautiful. The whole album generally forgoes some of the bombast of Reservoir for a more reflective, more tentative sound that definitely feels appropriate to the times.
- Remember It Now — Jeff Pianki
Remember It Now might be the most surprising album of the year, if only for the fact that it even exists. Pianki’s last album, Paper Windows, came out in 2010 (which is about when I discovered him), and while he released a few singles over the next few years, he seemed to have disappeared by 2014. Cut to November of last year when he started dropping a new single almost every month before suddenly putting out an album of almost all-new material in May. There may be clues throughout his new work as to why it’s been so long since we last heard from him, but mainly these songs prove that he hasn’t lost his touch. (The two new singles that didn’t make it on the album, “Bad Timing” and “Delilah”, are worth checking out as well.)
- See You at the Singularity — Laine Donaldson
I’d been waiting for this EP for over a year and was starting to think it would never come out, and then it did, and for a self-produced debut it’s actually pretty good. Donaldson mixes a variety of influences here, with perhaps the most obvious being Andrew Bird, not just because of the heavy use of violin but also the sly (and occasionally slightly weird) lyrics. Technically this is his finest work yet—but hopefully there will be plenty more to come.
Honorable Mentions
- Boreas — The Oh Hellos
- The Cormorant I & II — San Fermin
- Free Love — Sylvan Esso
- Likewise — Frances Quinlan
- Shakey Graves IX: Mystery of the Ivory Tablet Original Motion Picture Soundtrack — Shakey Graves
- Silver Tongue — Torres
- A Written Testimony — Jay Electronica
Best Holdovers From 2019
- Above/Below EP — Shakey Graves
- Atlanta Millionaires Club — Faye Webster
- Grim Town — SOAK
- Heard It In a Past Life — Maggie Rogers
- I Love You. It’s A Fever Dream. — The Tallest Man on Earth
- i,i — Bon Iver
- In The Shape of a Storm — Damien Jurado
- My Finest Work Yet — Andrew Bird
- Pity Boy — Mal Blum
- Practice Magic and Seek Professional Help When Necessary — Tōth
- Satis Factory — Mattiel
- Sucker Punch — Sigrid
- There Will Be No Intermission — Amanda Palmer
Certain of Eventual Failure 