Albums of 2020

It’s time for the annual wrap of the best new albums added to your blogger’s collection this year. There’s been a few, but I’ll choose ten for this post, and then take a look at the best of the rest, compilations/reissues, and EPs in a series of separate posts as we enter the new year. This is not so much a “best of” 2020, because I’ve no doubt I’ve missed many of the actual best albums, but more of a personal “most-listened-to” list. As ever, the only prerequisite for inclusion is that I picked up a copy of the album during the year (in any format), which does, admittedly, rule out a good number of decent albums I merely preview-streamed via Spotify and failed to follow through with.

10. The Beths - Jump Rope Gazers

2020 saw Auckland indie-pop nerds The Beths consolidate their reputation as one of the best young bands in the country. A fact confirmed when they picked up three gongs at the annual Aotearoa Music Awards. Sophomore album Jump Rope Gazers wasn’t dramatically different from the band’s debut, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. My full review is here.

9. The Phoenix Foundation - Friend Ship

Five years on from the release of Give Up Your Dreams, which for me was something close to a career high watermark for The Phoenix Foundation (and an album rated number two on this blog’s year-end list for 2015), Wellington’s most eclectic pop collective returned with Friend Ship. And while it didn’t quite scale the lofty heights of GUYD, or earlier work like Horsepower, Pegasus, or Buffalo, it was another great set from a bunch of guys who continue to poke away at boundaries without compromising their core sound. On Friend Ship we got everything from elaborate orchestral stuff - see collaborations with the NZSO - to odd psychedelic moments, proggy flavours, and more snippets of humour than you can shake a funny cigarette at. But mostly we got crafty intelligent pop music dressed in a variety of threads, and the collaborations with Hollie Fullbrook (‘Decision Dollars’, ‘Tranquility’) and Nadia Reid (‘Hounds of Hell’) were outstanding. I also really loved the pomp and swagger of ‘Guru’, the scene-setting album opener. Oddly though, given that it was one of the more high profile album takeaways, and clearly loved elsewhere, I was less taken by the faux-disco of ‘Landline’, which for me veered beyond pastiche and into the realm of just plain cheesy. But then, I’ve always struggled with irony, and it wouldn’t be a proper Phoenix Foundation album if there wasn’t at least one track that left me scratching my head. Not reviewed on the blog.

8. Murmur Tooth - A Fault in This Machine

I was heavily invested in this one during our autumn lockdown period. In my original review (here), I called it the most uneasy listening “easy listening” album you’re likely to hear all year, and nothing happened to change that view. I loved it.

7. Alicia Keys - Alicia

I’m a fan of pure unadulterated pop music, and although Alicia Keys is not usually an artist I’d necessarily gravitate towards, Alicia was an album for the ages. Socially conscious, empowering, and life affirming. My review is here.

6. Nadia Reid - Out of My Province

How could any local not love an album that opens with the line “you took me to Levin”? ... for the uninitiated, Levin is a small soulless market town, about an hour’s drive north of Wellington in New Zealand’s lower North Island, and a million miles removed from any of the romance implied on Nadia Reid’s album opener ‘All of my Love’. And coincidently, a town not a million miles away from where your blogger resides. Anyway, it’s that sense of “us” that first attracted me to Reid’s work as long ago as her Preservation album (of 2017) after overlooking far too much of her early stuff. Out of my Province was probably the biggest “grower” of this year’s bunch. After the first couple of listens I concluded it was all a bit too beige and “generic folky”, but I stuck with it, and as time passed I became far better acquainted with all of its many hidden charms. In fact, although it is only number six on this list, Out of My Province was probably the album I listened to more than any other across the full year. It just wasn’t my ultimate favourite. It helped that it was so workplace (office) compliant and I was able to spend a lot of time with it. Best cuts: ‘Best Thing’, and the silver scroll-nominated ‘Get the Devil Out of Me’. Not reviewed on the blog, which is perhaps just as well, because I feel very differently about it today than I did when I first picked it up.

5. Matt Berninger - Serpentine Prison

Another genuine grower, after curiosity got the better of me. I mean, a Matt Berninger (The National) solo work in collaboration with the great Booker T. Jones, what could possibly go wrong? Not much, evidently. My review is here.

4. The Orb - Abolition of the Royal Familia

An all new intoxicating blend of disco, deep house, ambient electronica, and skanky dub. New Orb, just like old Orb, and if there was a track that summed up the post-apocalyptic nature of 2020 better than album closer ‘Slave Till U Die No Matter What U Buy’, which appropriates Jello Biafra’s ‘Message From Our Sponsor’ spoken-word narrative, then I didn’t hear it. My review is here.

3. The War on Drugs - Live Drugs

Given that I’m going to do a blog year-in-review write-up specifically on compilations and reissues, I was tempted to save this one for that piece. A live album is a compilation by default, right? Um, I guess, but Live Drugs was just too good to ignore and there were a few occasions late in the year when I had this on repeat, so it has to qualify on my most-listened-to list instead. Way more than the sum of its parts, the album is essentially a collection of live extracts from a bunch of different gigs played in support of the band’s two most recent - and most commercially successful - albums, Lost in the Dream (2014) and A Deeper Understanding (2017). Yet it plays like it could all have been recorded at the same gig. The flow, the feels, and sense that this was, or is, a band right at the top of its game. It’s a virtual live “greatest hits”, with eight of the ten tracks coming from those two albums, including seven singles, while there’s one very early TWOD offering, ‘Buenos Aires Beach’, and a fairly choice Warren Zevon cover ‘Accidentally Like A Martyr’. I’ve never been able to put my finger on exactly what appeals most about The War on Drugs; all those classic rock touchstones - big keys, harmonica breaks, and lengthy guitar solos - and all that big Springsteen-esque Americana would usually be enough to have me reaching for the industrial-strength Nurofen, yet somehow it works. There’s some truly epic moments on Live Drugs, and highlights include wonderful versions of ‘Pain’, ‘Red Eyes’, ‘Thinking of a Place’, and ‘Under The Pressure’. No blog review.

2. Antipole - Perspectives II

If I’m going to break unwritten but notional blog rules by including live albums, then I simply have to throw in this remix album, which revisits tunes from Antipole’s 2019 album, Radial Glare. It’s a sister release for the Anglo-Norwegian dark-wavers to Perspectives (which topped this list in 2018), and it was another regular go-to album for me during the autumn lockdown period. My review is here.

1. Fontaines D.C. - A Hero’s Death

I was very slow on the uptake when it came to Fontaines D.C., somehow missing all of the initial hype surrounding the band’s debut album Dogrel (2019), before being seduced into complete and utter submission by the sheer post-punk majesty of this year’s follow-up, A Hero’s Death. I had to chuckle when I read the band’s claim in the NME, upon completion of the album in late 2019, that it “was inspired by the Beach Boys”. Yeah, only if the Beach Boys had been raised on the rain-swept streets of Dublin, consumed Guinness for breakfast, dressed entirely in black, and listened to nothing but the Velvet Underground. This is post-punk 101, 2020-style. A state-of-the-art example of raw, gritty rock n roll, propelled by big basslines, weighty guitars, and a vocalist with a thick booming Irish accent to die for. Which is more than enough, but what really gives A Hero’s Death its next level heft is its clever and artful collection of lyrics. Songs packed full of urgency, insight, irony, and humour. There’s no filler here, and tracks like ‘Televised Mind’, ‘I Don’t Belong’, ‘A Lucid Dream’, and the title track itself, would all be fully legit contenders for any notional eveythingsgonegreen tune of the year.

If there was such a thing. For now, I’ll stick to album reckons. And I’ve got no valid excuse for not giving A Hero’s Death the full review treatment on the blog. Of the ten albums covered here, four are local releases, yet I could just as easily have included a couple more (not least Darren Watson’s Getting Sober release) and I thought it was a pretty good year for homegrown stuff. More on that in my next post.

The flip side to that of course is that it was a terrible year for the local live music scene. With Covid-19, closed borders, lockdowns, and social distancing in effect for large chunks of 2020, quality live gigs were hard to come by. I can’t even really present a decent case for a gig of the year, given I attended so few. I guess it has to be The Beths at Wellington’s San Fran in October, pretty much by default. And I suppose if there was one positive to emerge from a lack of overseas touring acts, it was that local artists got more opportunities to shine as headliners when our nightlife did finally spring back into life mid-year.

Anyway, I’ll have a few more reflections on an extraordinary year over the next few weeks when I take a look at the best of the rest (albums), the best compilations and reissues, and even a post on the remarkable number of great EPs I managed to pick up during the year. In the meantime, be gone 2020. Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out …

Albums of 2014

Okay, time for the annual EGG awards, aka “the Eggs” … or more simply, a list of your blogger’s favourite (read: most listened to) albums of 2014 …

10. Todd Terje – It's Album Time

It might well have been album time, but it was also about time. Norwegian producer Todd Terje has been relatively prolific as a remixer for other artists over the past few years, but this time it was finally all about him and he came up with a cracker. It's Album Time was an absorbing mix of tracks that had been out for a while in one form or another ('Strandbar', 'Inspector Norse') and newer previously unreleased material. It was also an almost perfect hybrid of state-of-the-art technology and old school dance vibes, with disco rhythms grinding hard up against softcore techno beats – all set to Terje's trademark electronic pulse. Bryan Ferry made a cameo appearance and gave us one of the album's surprise gems with his take on Robert Palmer's 'Johnny And Mary'. The album may have been a long time coming, but it was well worth the wait.

 

9. Al Dobson Jr – Sounds from the Village Volume 1

To be honest I probably wouldn't have known too much about this one if an old friend (connected with the artist and label) hadn't sent me a Bandcamp download code. Although some of the shorter sketches barely qualify as tunes, when consumed as a whole, the album was never anything less than a warm and seriously infectious listening experience. My original review can be found here.

8. Jack White – Lazeretto

Another year, another Jack White album, and while he appears to have overstayed his welcome in some quarters, I remain a fan. In fact I've got a theory about why I love Jack so much: for years I cursed that genre loosely defined as "classic rock" – it was just music for those who relied only on FM radio for their daily music fix and it wasn’t for me. In any form. Ever. Then along came Jack White – unconventional (White Stripes), raw (Dead Weather), challenging (Raconteurs), and farking loud (everything). A basket to place all those classic rock eggs I'd been denying myself (but had subconsciously, secretly even, started to appreciate). And so now that I'm at an age where the guilt has been removed from the notion of "guilty pleasures", I can just fully indulge in the music of Jack White without fear. Because White is nothing if not old school classic rock, and Lazeretto is merely the latest quite brilliant manifestation of that. Even though I know it's all been done before, there's no overkill here, and this shit still sounds relatively fresh to me.

 

7. Ha the Unclear – Bacterium, Look At Your Motor Go

Dunedin and/or sometime Auckland-based band Ha the Unclear is one of the few bands I missed at the Galatos showcase gig back in September … more fool me. And although I only picked up a copy of this album in early December, it's been given a good old fashioned thrashing across the past month – so much so I just had to include it as one of the most instantly loved albums of my year. To call the album “quirky” and quintessential Kiwi pop feels like an injustice to a work that’s so much more than that, yet for me those (admittedly lazy) descriptions somehow best nail the most immediate appeal of Bacterium, Look At Your Motor Go. I think vocalist Michael Cathro’s strong local accent only enhances that sense of Nu Zild-ness, because for the most part the album’s lyrical themes are universal, if somewhat odd and peculiar, and not at all exclusive to this part of the world – from religious ritual (‘Apostate’) to old age and regret (‘85’). But it’s when the perspective is expanded to include that of a coffee table reflecting upon its relationship with its owner (on ‘Secret Lives of Furniture’) that the narrative truly astounds … all set against a series of triumphant jangly/harmony pop tunes.

 

6. The Nomad – 7

7 was one of those albums that just kept getting better and better each time I heard it. Which was often. I got the chance to interview and profile Daimon Schwalger (aka The Nomad) for NZ Musician mag and I think what separates him from the vast majority of electronic producers is that he bears none of the stereotypical dance music snobbery you often tend to encounter with many DJ/producers. He is, in fact, a music lover first and foremost. It's something that shines through on all of his work, never more so than on 7, an album rich with the sort of cross-genre pollination we've come to expect from him. Co-conspirators on 7 included Jamaican up-and-comer Dexta Malawi, Melbourne-based grime merchant MC Lotek, talented newcomer (vocalist) Christina Roberts, Israel Starr, and past collaborators like Caroline Agostini, King Kapisi, and Oakley Grenell. Plus others. A line-up that pretty much speaks for itself. The album release party at Wellington's Boat Cafe in September – part of a NZ-wide tour – turned out to be one of the best nights out I had all year.

5. Tackhead – For The Love of Money

Some will just as likely write this one off as little more than just another covers album from a band struggling for any degree of 2014 relevance. I pity those people, for they know not what they miss. My original review is here.

4. Radikal Guru – Subconscious

Radikal Guru is a longtime everythingsgonegreen favourite and Subconscious was a more than worthy (late 2013) bass heavy follow-up to The Rootsteppa album, which topped this list in 2011. My review is here.

3. Sun Kil Moon – Benji  

It's a simple enough formula: man, guitar, stripped back folk rock, and a lyric sheet full of compelling lyrics. Mix deathly themes with no little amount of personal tragedy, and you get the wholly unique yet nonetheless unsettling Benji. Original review here.

2. The War On Drugs – Lost In The Dream

I'm sure I must have played Lost In The Dream more times than any other album during 2014. It probably helped that its smooth lines and nostalgia-friendly grooves were so workplace compliant ... my original review is here.

1. Robert Plant (& The Sensational Space Shifters) – Lullaby and The Ceaseless Roar

Harking back to that classic rock thing again, it turns out my favourite album of the year was made by a 66-year-old man whose music I could barely bring myself to listen to 30 years ago. But as much as I avoided Led Zep (where possible) during my teenage years, I've also grown to love the solo career of its key protagonist. Across the past decade particularly – from 2005's Mighty Rearranger to 2010's Band of Joy, and all collaborations in between – the music of Robert Plant has been nothing less than a revelation. And as much as that has given me a different and far more positive perspective on the band that made his name, Plant's latest work bears little resemblance to that of Zep. In fact, given the eclectic nature of Lullaby, it's practically impossible to burden it with any label – there's fiery Celtic rock, soft acoustic tones, some bluegrass, and a smattering of unrepentant edgy Americana. The critical element to all of it though is Plant's unmistakable vocal, which just keeps getting better with age. Another great body of work to add to an already incomparable legacy.

 

Honourable mentions: Celt Islam's Generation Bass, Brian Eno and Karl Hyde's High Life, First Aid Kit's Stay Gold, Jakob's Sines, and Vorn's More Songs About Girls and the Apocalypse.

Best reissue of 2014: it is impossible to go past the deluxe version of Nightclubbing, the 1981 Grace Jones classic. Aside from the original full length album you get five additional mixes of 'Pull Up To The Bumper' – including a particularly early version produced under the working title of 'Peanut Butter', which was credited to the Compass Point Allstars as a nod to the incredible studio line-up who worked alongside Jones at the legendary Bahamas-based studio. There are also alternative mixes for key album tracks like 'Use Me' and 'Demolition Man', but the other truly interesting artefact here is the cover of Gary Numan’s 'Me, I Disconnect From You'.

 

Best compilation of 2014: given the attention to detail I paid when diligently reviewing all four volumes of Hyperdub’s 10 series, I can’t really go past that little lot when it comes to ‘various artists’-type releases. With 101 tracks over the course of nearly seven hours it was as comprehensive as these types of retrospectives can be. A great collection from a seminal bass music label.

2014 was a year I finally got to listen to more Kiwi music. Something I’ve wanted to do for many a year, without really following through. Although The Nomad album shaded the Ha the Unclear release for my New Zealand album of the year, I could just as easily have selected a handful of local releases for the blog's ten albums of the year. That includes work from Jakob, Vorn, and Darren Watson.

Other thoughts: despite criticism elsewhere and a general shrug regarding the Pink Floyd finale, I thought the bulk of The Endless River represented a fairly decent album of previously shelved material. I also thought regular blog favourites like The Raveonettes and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart made good albums in 2014, even though neither scaled the heights of previous work. Thom Yorke’s latest solo effort also had its moments.

Flops of the year: U2’s spam effort, whatever the hell it was called. The Sinead O’Connor album was very ordinary and something of a generic plod-rock release with few redeeming features (and I say that as a Sinead fan). And naturally enough the Smashing Pumpkins (aka Billy Corgan) threw up another very disappointing effort, one that landed itself in the recycling bin after just one listen.

So there it is, the obligatory annual list posted for another year … here’s Grace doing Gary Numan:

 

 

 

 

 

Album Review: The War on Drugs - Lost In The Dream (2014)

Lost In The Dream is the third full-length release from Philadelphia-based indie rockers The War On Drugs.

Such was the level of critical acclaim during the weeks and months following its March 2014 release, Lost In The Dream is almost certain to feature on many of those upcoming end-of-year “best album” lists. And when it does, those plaudits will certainly be well deserved. In fact, despite the departure of the influential Kurt Vile after the release of its 2008 debut album, The War On Drugs is a band on the rise.

With its Eighties-style sheen and glossy pop production, Lost In The Dream was almost instantly familiar to my ears. In a warm and comforting way. It was like I’d heard it before, but I kept having to remind myself that I couldn’t possibly have – it was brand spanking new. It was like an old friend whose face I recognised but couldn’t quite place … I knew this music, but where the hell did I know it from?

It turns out that I knew it from the hybrid of Eighties reference points that feature heavily throughout its hour long duration. Such touchstones are everywhere on Lost In The Dream – from the dark Americana feel of Bruce Springsteen, to Fleetwood Mac, to The Blue Nile, to the “big” sound of The Waterboys … and beyond, well beyond. Derivative yet still unique, new, and original to The War On Drugs.

Then there’s the cinematic imagery: a vast open space, somewhere like the Arizona desert maybe, a road trip, top down in a ’56 Cadillac convertible. It’s dreamy pop music with a slightly shadowy hue, uplifting yet also a little paranoid, disturbing, claustrophobic ... calming, and liberating … all at the same time.

I’m pretty sure some will call it a masterpiece … and they probably won’t be too far wrong.

Highlights: ‘Under The Pressure’, ‘Red Eyes’, and the title track, but generally there’s no filler and this is a “no skip” album …