Highlighted by the sweeping ballad and lead single "No Rest for the Wicked," this 32-minute album focuses lyrically on heartbreak and loneliness, accompanied by a sonic landscape of strings, acoustic guitars, and pianos. The album is dark, as evidenced by the cover art, which perfectly describes the mood of her music. The songwriting is stellar, with perfect chord changes, and her voice is the standout. You can really hear the emotion in her voice in "Love Me Like I'm Not Made of Stone," which gives her words a rarely-realized emotional depth. It's sad, but not depressing, and flows from one good song to the next without a misstep in between.
Being a transgender person is an experience I cannot fathom. I admire the bravery of Against Me!'s Laura Jane Grace, who came out as transgender in 2012 and then wrote this album, an at least partially autobiographical account of the struggles of being transgender. The album's mission statement has been clear since its first single, which included the lines, "Silicone chest and collagen, lips, how would you even recognize me?" Many negative experiences are detailed in the ten songs here, but delivered with Grace's confident, defiant voice, these hard-hitting punk songs make it sound like she can overcome the challenges. This is the rare album on this list where there is more than music at play, and hopefully Grace can continue to serve as a role model through music.
Are We There is hard to classify as a particular genre, but whatever your favorite genre is, you can't deny the level of songwriting on this album. It's obviously highlighted by her strong voice, showcased best by a track like the 6-minute "Your Love Is Killing Me," which couples great lyrics with her strongest vocal performance.
I'm baffled by the mediocre reviews this album got. Some of Seeds stacks up with TV on the Radio's best work (like the four song opening attack of "Quartz," "Careful You," "Could You," and "Happy Idiot"), and the album has some of the highest highs of any on this list. It's a little long, and it's not quite Dear Science, but it's at least as good as 2011's (much better reviewed) Nine Types of Light. From the throbbing bass of "Careful You" to the uptempo rocker "Lazerray," Seeds draws from each part of TVOTR's bag of tricks.
32 minutes of fast, loud punk from this Cleveland trio. Here and Nowhere Else never lets up from its fast tempos and power chords, opening strongly with "Now Here In" and closing even more strongly with the tremendous "I'm Not Part of Me." Not all the songs are up to that same standard, but they keep the cathartic intensity going throughout, led by their not-exactly-secret weapon, drummer Jayson Gerycz who leads each tempo change with his relentless play.
Here's another album that was judged a bit harshly by critics this year, most likely because it's not Twin Cinema. Once you release an album like that, it's tough to come back with anything that's simply very good rather than great. But very good is good enough for fifth place on this list. Brill Bruisers incorporates many different sounds and voices (both in terms of vocals and songwriting), so it could have ended up disjointed, but all the different sounds, from the Daft Punk-style vocal manipulations and keyboards to the occasionally heavy guitars, mesh well together here.
When Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner announced early this year that she was abandoning the guitar on their forthcoming album, Shriek, many lamented the loss, as Wasner was one of the more interesting guitarists working, as proved by their previous album, 2011's incredible Civilian. And while it's easy to wonder what might have been, the lack of guitars makes Shriek an interesting contrast to their previous work. And while there was no chance of anything like "Holy Holy" appearing on Shriek, their previous incarnations could not have resulted in a song like "Shriek" or "Glory." Even a slight misstep like "I Know the Law" has a dreamy, synth-infused aura to it that keeps it interesting when it could just as easily have been boring. And isn't that really all you can ask for in an album after all: that it keeps you interested throughout?
I'll admit that the grade I gave this album in my initial review was a mistake; a B is way too low for this. There are still some valid criticisms to levy at this album: it's bogged down by long periods of ambient sound that go on waaaay too long ( like the end of "Under the Pressure," or the unnecessary instrumental "The Haunting Idle"). It's a bit like Arcade Fire's Reflektor in that regard, except thankfully, the songs here are much better. This album was the result of months of constant work from Adam Granduciel and co., and it shows: this album had more moments of brilliance than anything released this year.
I thought hard about making this one number one. It's impossible to remain sitting down while this album is playing. Annie Clark makes the difficult seem like a breeze, sliding from the synth-driven "Rattlesnake" to the guitar freakout "Birth in Reverse" to the baroque "Prince Johnny" effortlessly--and that's only the album's first three songs. Clark also cements her status as one of the best, more inventive guitarists working today. This is definitely not an album for everyone, as some might find it off-putting or too difficult, but if you can get past that, this album is a tremendous accomplishment. It's brilliant and clearly could only have been made by Annie Clark.
When this album came out, the narrative around it seemed to center around one aspect: 2010's Transference was a dud, but now Spoon is back! This seems strange when you consider that Transference was actually very well received by many of those same publications back in 2010, only to be recast for the sake of a narrative. The truth is, Spoon is good at what they did on Transference, they're just better at this; this being more straightforward rock and roll music, as Britt Daniel likes to call it. You won't find many bands that admit to making "rock and roll" music now, but Spoon wears the label proudly, from the opening drumbeat of "Rent I Pay" to the big, guitar-focused chorus of "They Want My Soul." They Want My Soul feels a lot like their 2007 album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga--short, catchy songs with some unusual decisions thrown in, and that's a very good thing, since Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is, in my opinion, their best record. This one comes pretty close to hitting that mark, and 18 years and 8 albums in, that's really saying something.
