@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #1 Creepoid "Creepoid"

The best part about making lists is that they are wholly yours. Of course as Rob explained in High Fidelity "First of all, you 're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing." But sound is a sense that we connect with sound in a way that is unlike any other sense. Interpreting sound is, if not more, as personal as interpreting touch. Both are in the very physical world, but one invokes the mind more directly since it can't be tainted by the sense of sight (think about how touch is interpreted by a bind person).

Anyway, what I'm getting at, is this whole top 20 list of mine, is mine. It's not wrong; it can't be, because it's mine. I just wanted to share what touched me most profoundly this year in the world of new music. Let me know what you think and what your favorites were.

That said, take this into consideration when listening to "Creepoid" - via The AV Club:

Press play if you like: Low; Mazzy Star; cough syrup; chronic insomnia; pop-punk 45s played at 33

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #2 The Orwells "Disgraceland"

Young adults playing loud-fast garage rock. But you're thinking #2.... really? This band has had a ton of hype. A TON. Rolling Stone, SPIN, NPR, everyone has been raving about these guys since their ep released in 2013. And guess what, it's totally deserved!

Read what Consequence of Sound senior staff writer Ryan Bray wrote about the album:

Almost every band dreams of one day meeting David Letterman, and The Orwells, whether they meant to or not, found a way to crack the king of late night comedy’s code. In January, the raucous garage pop act banged out an intoxicating rendition of “Who Needs You”, the lead single from their major label debut, Disgraceland, on the Late Show. Highlighted by the bizarre theatrics of frontman Mario Cuomo, the performance prompted a surprisingly spirited reaction from Letterman, who urged the band to keep playing through the credits. It’s tough to get a rise out of Dave these days; throughout his 22-year run on the Late Show, the host has no doubt seen and forgotten more bands than most of us. But musicians are also acutely aware of his well-established track record for introducing today’s best young bands to the masses. In a quick but ever-important three minutes, The Orwells had gained an important ally in their quest for rock and roll glory. 

With that, the crank on the hype machine started working overtime for the natives of Elmhurst, Ill., a good five months shy of the album’s release. But as the rock glitterati propped The Orwells up on their shoulders as the indie world’s next big thing, questions persisted. The band got a lot of mileage out of its wild network television debut, but how could they build upon that momentum on record? The Orwells laid their foundation on 2012’s Remember When, whose tasty nods to the Velvet Underground and neo-garage heroes like The Strokes helped the record proudly live up to its nostalgic title. There are considerably more eyes and ears zeroed in on The Orwells this time around, but surprisingly little changes about the band’s approach on Disgraceland, and that might be the record’s best quality. Read the rest at Consequence of Sound

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #3 Tycho "Awake"

Listening to the third track "L" will do more for your understanding this album than anything I could ever write. It embodies everything this San Francisco artist (tours as a trio) has created on this album. It's smooth, driving, catchy, airy, weird, and perfect. This summer I put "L" on repeat and rode my motorcycle to 2 and a half hours to Wyoming, and I still wasn't sick of the song. But if you ever tire of "L" you'll be primed to ingest the top 3 album of 2014.

Read what Pitchfork's Nick Neyland wrote about "Awake:"

Awake is the album where Scott Hansen, the San Francisco-based visual artist and musician who records as Tycho, expands into a far-reaching space. He's made gorgeously constructed techno under this name for over a decade, ultimately gaining traction with the sunny Dive in 2011. In the context of Awake—the first Tycho record recorded as a three-piece band—his previous albums now sound like mere dreams of the luminous world he was trying so hard to connect to. Here, Hansen gains a skip in his step and strides right into that place, largely due to a shedding of the muddied beats and wistful synth tones that positioned him a little too close to Boards of Canada's retro-futuristic notions. There's more air here, lending a greater expanse of room to move around in than before, like travelling from a rundown seaside resort to vast scoops of desert plane. It's still recognizable as a Tycho recording, with a familiar sense of melancholy and the embers of sundown burning through it, but with the ambition clearly heightened right from the first few notes. Read the rest at Pitchfork

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #4 St. Paul & The Broken Bones "Half the City"

Soul is sexy. It really is. It is the musical embodiment of all love and all that comes with it: lust, anger, passion, sadness, ecstasy, etc. And this album the embodiment of all things sexy and delivered in a palatable modern-soul album, despite the band players being less-than-physically sexy, their music supersedes their limited-flesh appeal. Check out the music video for "Call Me."

Read what PopShifter's Melissa Bratcher had to say:

St. Paul & The Broken Bones’ frontman Paul Janeway (St. Paul himself) was raised Pentecostal and studied to be a preacher. Upon hearing Half The City, one can only say, “Thank God it didn’t pan out.” Paul Janeway has the kind of voice that you’ll read all kinds of hype about, and for once, that hype is true. The man sings like the second coming of Otis Redding and has a killer band to back him up. Hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, St. Paul & The Broken Bones tread the same sort of ground as Alabama Shakes (and Half The City is, in fact, produced by Alabama Shakes’ Ben Tanner): soulful and bluesy, but with the added bonus of an amazing horn section. Read the rest at PopShifter.

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #5 Michael Christmas "Is This Art?"

I don't know if I've ever been struck by so much genius in one music video. When @WillDKent showed me the video for "Michael Cera," my mind broke. The cinematography is brilliant, the shots, editing, sound, as a music video, it's perfect. Then breaking down the lyrics I saw not only was it lyrically sound but were so well crafted blending whit and humor, that when I found out Christmas was on 19 years old... WTF?! Yes, I was hooked. This is without a doubt the hip-hop album of the year!

Martín Caballero of the Boston Globe wrote this:

Answering the titular question posed by Roxbury rapper Michael Christmas’s debut album is more difficult than it may seem upon first listen. On the surface, it’s a Seth Rogen movie in rap album form; Christmas plays the role of hilarious, endearing slob with such natural humor and charm, you tend to overlook the surplus of masturbation jokes. He outshines Rome Fortune on the blunt cruise anthem “Duck Duck Goose,” drops rewind-worthy lines on “Overweight Drake,” and displays an easy comic chemistry with Alex Wiley on “Step Brothers,” even if they’re just trying to top each other’s gross-out gags. But repeat listens reveal that he’s more than just a slacker comedian. There’s something very self-aware in the way he deftly mixes metaphors in the first verse on “Michael Cera,” or the way he effortlessly tosses out a line like, “I almost paid the rent, but this new hat, you know I had to get it/ standing with my white Sonata, need Xzibit” on “Y’all Trippin’.” As relentlessly entertaining as Christmas is here, “Is This Art?” sounds like just the early glimpses of one of the most original and promising young talents in the city. That, and it’s really funny.

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #6 A Sunny Day in Glasgow "Sea When Absent"

Despite the name, A Sunny Day in Glasgow is not one of the Scott-Rock groups that has made this years top 20 list. However, this Brooklyn-based dream-pop group - comprised of artists from Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and  Sydney Australia - will have listeners looking for remnants of the hay-days of shoe-gaze nodding their heads as if to say, "Yes. This is it."

Here is the video for In Love With Usless

The Guardian's Dave Simpson wrote this:

Twenty-two years ago, Nostradamic pop critic Simon Reynolds predicted that pop music would become a game of mix-and-match rather than great leaps forward, as artists would fuse genres and sounds together to create new music. A Sunny Day in Glasgow's fourth offering might have been the sort of thing he had in mind: listening to it is like standing in the middle of a festival with music coming from all directions. Somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and the Avalanches, the Philadelphia group hurl everything from shoegaze to dreampop into their sonic soup, garnishing it with 1960s girl-group melodies, children's voices, echo and FX-laden guitars. Fragments of lyrics – "Sometimes I feel so happy I'm in love with useless" – leap out, but words are used more as textures than text. Indeed, vocalists Jen Goma and Annie Fredrickson sound like lost sisters of Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser, as voice and sound are burnished to a heavenly haze.

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #7 Mutoid Man "Helium Head"

For fans of Cave-In -like myself- we can't get enough of front man Stephen Brodski's work. Be it traditional Cave-In or his solo work, his high screaming vocals layered atop the unique top end, dream-like metal guitar, puts fans into a state of post-hardcore euphoria. Teaming up with Ben Koller of Converge and All Pigs Must Die to create Mutoid Man, only means more of what the Cave-In fans crave!

Punknews.org's Bryne had this to say:

Based on the pedigree of their members, Helium Head is more or less exactly what fans would expect, but the familiarity doesn't make the trip any less fun. These songs–just seven of them in about 16 minutes–twist and turn with the furiously reckless abandon of Koller's most affecting work with Converge, and contain enough doubletime Sabbath-in-the-space-age riffs from Brodsky to satiate any Cave In enthusiast. "Gnarcissist," "Scavengers" and the especially excellent "Sacriledge" blaze by in mathy bursts, with loads of frantically calculated drumming and lightspeed guitar-tapping. Brodsky's vocals are distorted throughout, which oddly make the standout moments such like his Robert Plant-esque howl on "Scrape The Walls" all the more memorable. Read the rest at Punknews.org

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #8 Paws "Youth Culture Forever"

Distorted thick gutairs , tom-heavy drums, gravely vocals juxtaposed with air harmonized backups: This is Scott-Rock at its best!

Pitchfork's Jeremy Gordon had this to say:

There’s a scene in Cartoon Network’s "Adventure Time"—a cartoon that embodies the intersection of interests between seven-year olds and stoners—where the main character, Finn, is frustrated by the old people who tell him he’s too young to know what he’s doing. Undeterred, he yells "Youth culture forever!" as he runs away to try something new. You might consider this when listening to Youth Culture Forever, the sophomore album from Scottish trio PAWS that comes here to both praise and bury youth. Like contemporaries Yuck and Tony Molina, you can pinpoint PAWS’ 90s alt rock influences from a mile away—there’s a bit of Mascis, Malkmus, Cuomo, and the like. But while they spend time recounting the well-worn experiences of being young—the drunkenness, the heartbreak, the drunken heartbreak—they also push aside foolish things in favor of sober observations, giving them gravitas beyond their years. Read the rest at Pitchfork...

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #9 The Rentals "Lost In Alphaville"

The Rentals, a  band that will always be held so close to my heart, that they should probably be banned from all of my desert island top lists, but it's my list, so eat a dick. This is mostly a collection of Matt Sharp's work he's been doing over the past decade, and it's the same melodic synth-pop-rock that I fell in love with back in the fall of 1995.

NME's Mark Beaumont had this to say:

Ex-Weezer bassist Matt Sharp has played silly buggers with his inspired alt-synth solo project The Rentals ever since roping in Damon Albarn, Tim Wheeler and Miki Berenyi from Lush to guest on their majestic second album ‘Seven More Minutes’ in 1999. Lengthy splits, a solo album and a year-long audiovisual art project called ‘Songs About Time’ have delayed the LP, but it's a worthy comeback. With sumptuous synths and space-siren backing vocals, Sharpe brings his mighty melodies to bear on songs of nostalgia (‘Song Of Remembering’, ‘Irrational Things’), the ennui of aging (‘Traces Of Our Tears’, ‘Seven Years’) and dystopian visions of abandoned subterranean cities (‘The Future’). Warm and welcoming, Alphaville sounds a great place to lose yourself.

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #10 Mrs. Magician "Strange Heaven"

This is why I listen to lo-fi garage rock. Call me pretentious, call me a music snob, but this album is almost perfect. It probably should be much higher on my list... But we'll leave it here for now. This is what PopMatters' Zachary Houle had to say about the album:

All in all, does Strange Heaven reinvent the wheel? No, it does not. However, is it an album with catchy hooks and paisley coloured hues? Yes. Yes, it is. With Strange Heaven, Mrs. Magician simply writes all killer and no filler, keeping things to a brief, just-barely-over-30-minutes runtime; as a result, the album feels remarkably whole. Their sound might be rooted in genres and times in the distant past, but they write engrossing and invigorating songs that light up the retro-garage scene and seem less sentimental than honest and reverential. There’s a little bit of fuzziness to these songs, but they’re not so gauzy that they aren’t clean and refreshing; they bridge the gap between the sonics of the ‘60s and the production values of modern indie-rock. All of these songs, despite the occasional profanity and skewed lyrical content, could have come out of surf rock’s heyday, and possibly could have been bona fide hits. Read the rest of his view at PopMatters.

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #10 Mrs. Magician "Strange Heaven"

This is why I listen to lo-fi garage rock. Call me pretentious, call me a music snob, but this album is almost perfect. It probably should be much higher on my list... But we'll leave it here for now. This is what PopMatters' Zachary Houle had to say about the album:

All in all, does Strange Heaven reinvent the wheel? No, it does not. However, is it an album with catchy hooks and paisley coloured hues? Yes. Yes, it is. With Strange Heaven, Mrs. Magician simply writes all killer and no filler, keeping things to a brief, just-barely-over-30-minutes runtime; as a result, the album feels remarkably whole. Their sound might be rooted in genres and times in the distant past, but they write engrossing and invigorating songs that light up the retro-garage scene and seem less sentimental than honest and reverential. There’s a little bit of fuzziness to these songs, but they’re not so gauzy that they aren’t clean and refreshing; they bridge the gap between the sonics of the ‘60s and the production values of modern indie-rock. All of these songs, despite the occasional profanity and skewed lyrical content, could have come out of surf rock’s heyday, and possibly could have been bona fide hits. Read the rest of his view at PopMatters.

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #11 The Budos Band "Burnt Offering"

Known for their afro-beat funk, The Budos Band mixes up their fourth album -in title and style- but the album still makes you feel like your Charles Bronson ready to put the beat down!

Here is what Burnt Magazine's Fred Mills had to say about the album:

Although the first three Budos Band albums (helpfully titled I, II and III) were generally regarded as straight-up Afro-beat and jazz-tinged funk/soul, rock elements did creep into the mix, and in recent years reviews of the instrumental group’s live shows have steadily grown more and more psychedelic. Burnt Offering is the culmination of that evolution, and it’s telling that they opted not to title it Budos Band IV; that mystic sleeve artwork, done by art teacher (and Budos drummer) Brian Profilio isn’t a coincidence, either. They said as much when announcing the record, noting how it “reflects their love of Black Sabbath and Pentagram as much as it does Fela Kuti.”

Indeed, right from the get-go the album proceeds along the aforementioned lines: “Into the Fog” and “The Sticks” both have signature heavy riffs powered by the bass guitar, and although the group’s horn section is equally busy, the tunes’ arrangements suggest a ‘70s rock band utilizing horns rather than a traditional funk ensemble tipping its hat at rock music. The title track recalls vintage Deep Purple, what with its ominous introductory chords followed by the launching of a heavy bassline, gloom-and-doom keyboards and searing/droning lead fuzz guitar all dominant over the horns. And “Magus Mountain” has an unexpected Nuggets vibe to it—speaking of psychedelic—in the way the guitar and organ suggest a garage rock tune with horns added to it. Even the songtitles tilt in this direction: “Aphasia,” “Into The Fog,” “Shattered Winds,” “Magus Mountain,” “Turn and Burn,” etc.

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #12 Joyce Manor "Never Hung Over Again"

Image: Pitchfork

Guess what folks, making me happier than ever, EMO is on its way back into the semi-mainstream. Joyce Manor is a very accessible intro the genre.

Listen to "The Needle Drop's" review of the album (once you get past the first couple of minutes of 'YouTuber' zaniness, the review levels out and doesn't feel like its pandering to 12 year-olds).
 

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #13 Cloud Nothings "Here And Nowhere Else"

I have a feeling that this a one of those albums that will only get better and better with time and with each spin.

Here's what STEREOGUM's Tom Breihan had to say about the album:

Listen to the god damn drums. There’s a lot to like about Here And Nowhere Else, the new Cloud Nothings album: The snot-punk hooks, the scraped-out guitar textures, the overwhelming refusal to acknowledge any musical influences from anytime after, say, 1997. But those drums are the best thing about Here And Nowhere Else. Cloud Nothings drummer Jason Gerycz hits his drums like they just reminded him of everything that’s happened to every Cleveland professional sports team in the last 50 years, and he does it with serious speed and timing, at an absolutely relentless pace. The songs are good on their own, but Gerycz’s playing effectively straps a rocket to them. And as strong as the songs might be, I can’t think of a great rock album since Songs For The Deaf that would suffer this much if you took away the drummer and replaced him with some technically proficient schlub from the back of a Guitar Center. Gerycz’s playing has personality. He never sounds like he’s just waiting around for the chance to go apeshit while playing fills, but when he gets that chance, you need to get the fuck out of his way. This is exciting drumming, drumming with a sense of joy to it. And given that frontman Dylan Baldi never shows anything approaching joy, it’s a good thing he has Gerycz around to force his songs to sprint. Gerycz is the one element that takes what could be a self-pitying wallow and transforms it into a kickass rock album. And a kickass rock album is exactly what it is. Read the rest at STEREOGUM.

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #14 Vic Ruggiero "THIS"

By far THIS is Ruggiero's best solo work. He's a modern-day singer of a culture ever struggling.

Here's what Paste Magazine's Patrick Flanary had to say about THIS:

The critic Robert Palmer once wrote that blues is “something of a gumbo”; the same can be said of Ruggiero’s one-man show. He sings of trust and paranoia, love and war, senility and surveillance—often in the same song. And, just as seamlessly, he rolls from covering Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights, Big City” and The Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb” to his own rockabilly, soul, punk-folk, and boogie-woogie originals. “He’s a throwback, he’s really cut from a classic cloth,” Ara Babajian, The Slackers’ drummer since 2002, told me from a tour stop in San Francisco. “He inhabits the dark space between the notes, the place where all the swing and magic happens.” 

Read the rest at Paste Magazine. 

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #16 Get Set Go "Here Be Dragons"

Band front man and song writer Mike TV is really good at writing catchy pop tunes. Don't believe me? This is the second LP he wrote and recorded in 2014. Both of which will have you humming melodies through out the whole day. But there is nothing like going to a Get Set Go show.

Mike TV stopped into Death Ray Comics this year and did an impromptu show with Sebastian Bach. It was one of the special moments that only a few people experienced, but a moment that will be with me forever. Since you weren't there, here's the soundtrack to that memorable night.

@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #17 Rancid "...Honor Is All We Know"

image via Wikipedia

Rancid has been spacing out the release of their albums... and the wait is totally worth it!

Here's what The AV Club's Jonah Bayer had to say about the album:

At this point in its career Rancid is essentially the modern-day equivalent of Social Distortion in the sense that it isn’t so much a punk band anymore as it is an institution to be occasionally revisited. People go to the group’s shows to hear hits like “Salvation” and “Ruby Soho,” and newer songs are more of a courtesy to the band than something the audience is actually clamoring for. (To further that analogy, most hardcore Social Distortion fans would be hard-pressed to name any original songs post-1996’s White Light, White Heat, White Trash.) 

However, while the group’s eighth studio album …Honor Is All We Know sounds predictably like Rancid, it also manages to stand on its own as a testament to the band’s ability to continue crafting lasting anthems. Opener “Back Where I Belong” makes it sound as though Rancid just finished playing Saturday Night Live last week instead of 19 years ago. With Matt Freeman’s nimble-fingered bass playing leading the charge, the two-minute rocker silences cynics via guitarist-vocalist Tim Armstrong’s instantly recognizable sneer, soaring harmonies, and an unwavering backbeat courtesy of the band’s latest addition, Branden Steineckert (who has still been in Rancid for eight years now). Read the rest at The AV Club.

Top 10 of 2013 - Albums: #5 The National: Trouble Will Find Me

5. The National, Trouble Will Find MeHighlight Track: "I Need My Girl"

I don't need to spend much time on this album. It's amazing. It's in at least everyone's top 5 (and honestly, mostly top 3) for the year. Go buy it. Here's what Rolling Stone's David Frickle had to say:

"This is the sound of despair, according to singer Matt Berninger of the National: "If you want to make me cry," he claims early on this record, in "Don't Swallow the Cap," "play Let It Be or Nevermind." It is a surprising admission, given the Brooklyn band's established anguish on albums like 2007's Boxer and the 2010 bestseller, High Violet: a chaos of broken a ffections and mortal fears drawn with spare rhythmic and melodic flourishes, often in wide, open reverb. On much of Trouble Will Find Me as well, the terse phrases and single-tone exclamations of guitarists Bryce and Aaron Dessner hang around Berninger's baritone gravity like clouded starlight.

But there is pop, too: not much Beatles or Nirvana but enough pre-stadium U2 and classic David Bowie – that clarity and engagement – to draw you closer, faster, to the grace and crisis here. Berninger sings only of bad options in "Sea of Love" but does it against a sizzling pulse and a golden glaze of harmonies. In "Fireproof," his deep, scuffed voice is ringed with teardrop guitar. "I Need My Girl" is compact urgency with a dusky guitar figure that's actually a little country. In another age, the song could have been a radio-breakthrough single. Now it's just good news: The National are letting light and air into their shadows." - David Frickle

Top 10 of 2013 - Albums: #6 Mayer Hawthorne: Where Does This Door Go

6. Mayer Hawthorne, Where Does This Door GoHighlight Track:  "Designer Drug" - Bonus Track

R&B is alive and well, folks. And guess what, it's not the sexploited soft jams that suffocated the charts in the 90s. Nor was the best R&B this year attached to names like "Justin" or "Thicke." This album has so much soul mixed into poppy dance floor jams, it will have even the whitest old white man in a suit, tapping a foot in rhythm. Mayer Hawethorne's falsetto's are Timberlake-esque, but just stands strong in his normal vocal range where JT falls back to talk-singing until the next falsetto chorus. Popmatters.com's Zachary Houle reviewed the albums as such:

"With Where Does This Door Go, Hawthorne offers a set that’s more cohesive and fulfilling than How Do You Do [his previous album]. Even with the thematic of sex being awkward and mean-spirited, the LP is a joy to listen to and fans of Steely Dan will find much to admire here. The album builds with track after track of awesomeness that offers a heralded look at a genre of music that often goes overlooked, unless, of course, you’re a regular reader of Mojo or Rolling Stone. Mayer Hawthorne might be asking Where Does This Door Go, despite the fact that it’s more of a command than a question, and the obvious answer is wherever he wants to lead us down. Whether the sex vibes are good or bad, Hawthorne has the “it” sound that’s a favourite of coffee shop baristas everywhere. Where Does This Door Go improves over his last effort, which was already pretty good to begin with, and may go down as one of the year’s most exceptional releases. Where Does This Door Go is as refreshing as a tropical breeze, if not a good cup of joe at your favorite hangout." - Zachary Houle

  

Top 10 of 2013 - Albums: #7 Bored Nothing: Bored Nothing

7. Bored Nothing, Bored Nothing Highlight Track: "Popcorn"

Maybe it's the type "a" personality in me that doesn't trust other people, but I always admire when someone just makes something. I love to see someone who doesn't look for help from other people, but just makes something and puts it out there. That is exactly what we get with Bored Nothing. It's lo-fi, shoe-gaze at it's best. And yes, a few of the tracks seem to have directly channeled Elliott Smith's apparition, but is that a bad thing? Here's what Chris Girdler of Australia's beat.com.au had to say about the ablum, and I think he's right, there is more to come from Bored Nothing.

"Bored Nothing was compiled from four tapes of home recordings, with the addition of five new tracks. It’s beautifully track-listed, managing to show a range of tempos and styles but also forming a comprehensive, consistent album. In a rare feat, the second half is even better than the first, hitting you when the echoing Motown throb of Let Down kicks in. 

True, there are a couple of down-tempo numbers that veer a little too close to Elliot Smith (Get Out Of here, Charlie’s Creek), but this is an astonishing first album from a new talent still finding his voice and individuality. Having played almost all of the instruments on Bored Nothing, this release is essentially a solo project, but there is a progression toward Bored Nothing branching out to become a full band. This is one of the year’s finest albums, but I suspect there’s even better to come from this chairman of the bored." -  Chris Girdler