Gentle men and women, lend me your eyes for this fifth
annual instalment of my end of year favourite records list. I am quietly hopeful that my audience might
even number more than ten folks this time around. How’s that for passive expansion?
Despite the glut of these lists around the internet and the
big words used, let’s be honest for a moment.
They’re not even remotely objective, arguably not really proper journalism
and as comforting as they are, lists are an extraordinarily lazy way of forming
and writing an article. Neither they nor the music they mention are going to cure cancer or strife in Syria anytime soon, not even the new Daft Punk record on the 67th listen. Still with me? Great, clearly you care about music not sorting out the world's problems as much as I do (maybe it can, but I'll save that for another time), so let's plow on together regardless.
My shame
Not that it really matters, but I do like to point out that
I pick my ten favourites from 70+ records I have bought, acquired, been given
or perused via Spotify over the year.
This is as opposed to out of, say, eleven, because that would be
ridiculous. As varied as I think my
taste is, there are inevitable gaps, blackspots and things I just haven’t found
the time for. These are to my shame,
because ultimately I am just a narrow-minded dirty philistine, and include:
- Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip – Repent Replenish Repeat (this is made worse in that I bought it weeks ago, but I’ve only listened to it once. Being mostly about the words it feels like it needs to be concentrated on with nothing else – no commute, no comics, no books, nada, well maybe some cereal or something, but that’s it – but ain’t nobody got time for that! I’ll get round to it)
- M.I.A – Matangi
- Savages – Silence Yourself
- Arctic Monkeys – A.M.
- My Bloody Valentine – m.b.v.
- Windhand – Soma
- Countless others, undoubtedly
Near misses
Well I don’t know about you but I feel oodles better for
confessing that. I’m like a new
man. Alrighty then, so what was good but
not top ten good? Plenty actually. Firstly and funnily 2013 was something of a
good year for golden oldies, with David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan and
(less old) Pearl Jam all putting out decent records (I’m sure Paul McCartney’s
New is decent too but I don’t care all that much).
There was some great atmospheric/instrumental/post rock over
the past year, most notably The Appleseed Cast’s Illumination Ritual (a great
recommendation from a friend right there), the ever reliable And So I Watch You
From Afar’s All Hail Bright Futures, Explosions In The Sky & David Wingo’s
soundtrack for Prince Avalanche and Chino Moreno’s umpteenth side-project Palms
(with most of the Isis guys).
A great year for live jazz, what with the inaugural Love
Supreme Festival, annual stalwart London Jazz Festival and numerous Ronnie
Scott’s visits, but admittedly somewhat underwhelming in terms of recorded
output. Exceptions to this include half
of Soweto Kinch’s epic opera-like saga The Legend of Mike Smith (the other half
consists of the non-jazz non-hip-hop story-telling stuff which is only really
listenable the first couple of times, rendering the whole thing something to be
appreciated rather than enjoyed over and over), Melt Yourself Down’s eponymous dance-jazz
debut, super-group Sons of Kemet’s Burn (including the incorrigible Seb
Rochford on drums and rising UK saxophone playing jazz-star Shabaka Hutchings),
Terrence Blanchard’s Magnetic (bebop played perfectly but not even remotely
original), “riot-jazz” outfit Youngblood Brass Band’s Pax Volumi and The Neck’s
atmospheric 70 minute single-track Open.
Just so we’re clear, neither Daft Punk’s Random Access
Memories nor Kanye West’s Yeezus are the best album of the year. The first is well-marketed, clever,
experimental and varied. It is also
overlong and inconsistent and as great a song as Get Lucky undoubtedly is, I’m
not sure why the nudge-nudge-wink-wink “teeheehee we stay up late and have sex”
lyrics of the chorus passed the tastefulness quality control. Perhaps I’m missing the point. The other record I mentioned is as
immaculately produced as Daft Punk’s, and with Rick Rubin involved I should
darn well hope so. And the beats are
spectacular. No really, they are
incredible. Mr West cannot rap for
toffee or apparently write many intelligent lyrics, neither does he have a
particularly nice timbre to his voice, but boy can he can come up with backing
tracks. However, just so we’re clear,
stopping the beat to drop in some unrelated choral music is not “genius”.
Woah dude what’s with all the negativity? Fair point, time to spread some festive
cheer.
The cut
10: Russian Circles: Memorial
A return to form after the lacklustre Empros which in
retrospect wasn’t that bad but coming after the majestic masterpiece Geneva was
destined to suffer in comparison.
Memorial, on the other hand, has no such issue to transcend and stands
perfectly well on its own. A concept
album with, in the style of Pink Floyd’s Animals, bookending tracks Memorial
and Memoriam (with guest Chelsea Wolfe adding sung vocals for the first time in
a Russian Circles song), it runs the full gamut between crunching heaviness (they
are post-metal after all) and
superlative drumming right down to quiet and inevitably gorgeous acoustic
guitar picking. Blooming marvellous.
Check out: Cheyenne, Memorial
9: Boards of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest
After a long absence and fairly odd marketing campaign
(neither of which I paid a great deal of attention to), this record dropped in
our laps. To be honest I don’t really
want to describe or explain it. Maybe
that’s because I can’t, or maybe just because I don’t want to ruin it. It’s sorta post-rock, it’s atmospheric, it’s
tasteful electronica, it’s hypnotic, it has 17 tracks over a running time of
just over an hour. Many will find it
dull and, shudder, “backgroundy” but I find it immensely rich, rewarding and
quite simply a pleasure to listen to.
Check out: Reach For The Dead was a token single but
ultimately you owe it to yourself to sample the whole thing from start to
finish
8: Bonobo – The North Borders
A worthy follow-up to 2010’s breakthrough magnum opus Black
Sands, which had a distinctly Eastern feel and helped propel the quite
wonderful Andreya Triana into our hearts and minds, 2013’s The North Borders
shows Simon Green is short of neither ideas nor well-chosen collaborators,
including Ninja Tune mainstay Grey Reverend on opener First Fires, the
versatile and rather sultry-voiced Eryka Badu on Heaven For The Sinners, relative
newcomer Szjerdene on two tracks (Towers and Transits) and finally the
charmingly high-pitched Cornelia on closer Pieces.
Elsewhere the tasteful electronics combine with clever
arrangements, solid instrumentation and consummate musicianship in the usual
Bonobo fashion, of course in a good way.
Check out: First Fires, Ten Tigers
7: Oddisee – The Beauty in All
I wasn’t initially sure about his latest rap album People
Hear What They See, but revisiting it after his live show I see how my
hesitation was unnecessary. This album,
on the other hand, is an immediate hit and shows how Oddisee (real name Amir
Mohamed el Khalifa) is equally adept at producing instrumental music. For the sake of saying something, I’ll call
it “post hip-hop” but of course this doesn’t really mean much. It’s slightly easier to isolate a couple of
standouts than it is for the Boards of Canada which from an
electronic-no-vocals point of view is not a million miles away, but again it’s
something you really want to consume as a whole.
Check out: After Thoughts, Fork In The Road
6: Caro Emerald – The Shocking Miss Emerald
I have no idea where she came from but pop-jazz sensation
Caro Emerald seems here to stay, selling out the Royal Festival Hall and O2
arena without so much as a blink. Both
her singing and her backing band are remarkably restrained, which is probably
what makes her more pop than jazz, which inevitably means the album gets a tiny
bit less good with every listen, but no matter.
Unlike some criticisms levelled at Adele, both the song-writing and
fellow musicians on display here are Emerald’s match, removing the possibility
of a weak link in the whole package, 1920s jazz-age influenced right from the
photo-shoot and design for the album’s packaging through to the lyrics and
spoken-word samples of reporters hounding the shocking Miss Emerald for gossip.
And if the slightly darker (both lyrically and musically)
but James Bond-ian I Belong To You doesn’t result in our heroine singing the
next Bond theme, someone out there isn’t listening.
Check out: I Belong To You, Tangled Up
5: 65DaysOfStatic – Wild Light
A band that alternates between post-rock and dance-y
electronica, but always in a very human and rather fun fashion, 65DaysOfStatic
have produced yet another corker. Perhaps
not a radical departure from their winning formula, but a winner
nonetheless. In a consistent and unskippable
selection of choice tracks, the not quite title track Unmake The Wild Light
stands out as something rather special indeed.
The band are playing a two set show in London in March
2014. The first set will be the entire
The Fall of Math record, but I sincerely hope the second will feature plenty
from this new one.
Check out: Unmake The Wild Light, Blackspots
4: Cult of Luna – Vertikal
The Swedish noiseniks Cult of Luna do not make bad songs or
records, but of course some songs are better than others. I, The Weapon in particular could well be the
greatest thing they’ve ever recorded. As
for the rest of the album, as successfully inspired by Fritz Lang’s classic 1920s
silent film Metropolis, it doesn’t quite have the overall flow or build of
Salvation or Somewhere Along The Highway but upon pressing play there is still
so much to look forward to (moreso than on Eternal Kingdom, which still had
plenty). After a few listens you get
used to the awkward gap between two minute introduction The One and
track-of-the-year I, The Weapon but perhaps not the first few minutes of 18
minute epic Vicarious Redemption. As a
Mahler and The Mars Volta fan I’m more than happy to chill-out for a bit
waiting for the payoff but CoL could have cut those few minutes and no-one
would have been any the wiser.
Although no single track can beat I,TW, In Awe Of comes
close, and amid the passionate growling vocals (essentially for this sort of
band just another instrument), the clean vocals of Passing Through are yet
another highlight. Masters of dynamical contrasts
and atmospheric rhythm (having two drummers helps with this last), to name but
two aspects of their sound (recently expanded on properly with keyboards, as EK
touched on) Cult of Luna have proved yet again that there is plenty of life
left in the old post-metal dog yet.
Check out: I, The Weapon, In Awe Of
3: Iron & Wine – Ghost on Ghost
Although I understand from wise friends (well just one, but
he’s very wise) that this is weaker than his past efforts, as a newbie to Sam
Beam’s folk rock bandwagon (juggernaut more like), given the obvious, frequent
and excellent jazz influences combining with his already tried-and-tested and
frankly astonishing gift for melody and song-craft, that I fell for this record
should surprise nobody. This is a
genuine example of one of those albums where every single track is fabulous,
and as well as the two even-more-standouts mentioned below, if you’re in the
right mood Winter Prayers will bring you to tears.
Check out: The Desert Babbler, Lover’s Revolution
2: Deafheaven – Sunbather
Unlike with Messrs Punk and West, on this one (including its
high placement) I agree with the critics.
What I don’t quite understand is why all these traditionally non-metal
fans have paid attention to it. They should, absolutely, and if it gets
indie-fans listening to metal then all the better, but it surely has to be more
than that it’s a black metal record with a pink cover or that around the
expertly put together noisy brutality there’s some obvious “beautiful bits”
(e.g. the three minute interlude Irresistible), or that as metal goes it’s “tasteful”? Perhaps it’s a combination and perhaps I should
stop asking unhelpful questions, but I’m glad that heavy music can still
surprise as well as satisfy me.
Check out: The Pecan Tree, Irresistible
1: Coheed & Cambria – The Afterman: Descension
What the hec is this and where did it come from? After three mediocre records and several
line-up changes, Claudio Sanchez & company have produced their best album
since 2005’s Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through
the Eyes of Madness. Even more amazing
is that it is the second half of The Afterman double (the first being 2012’s
Ascension). How and why, then, did they
save up all their good ideas for seven years, not put them on the first half of
the double record, and then unleash them all on the second? Again I’m asking unhelpful and
non-constructive questions but I really can’t really stress enough how
perfectly and fantastically everything falls into place on this album.
Although had ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris
Pennie remained in the band it would be easier to expound on the musical chops
of this band, current (and previous) drummer Josh Eppard is no slouch by any
means, and Sanchez’s guitar playing has always been extremely good, whether the
earlier punkier stuff or the proggier stuff of the third record onwards. Perhaps this is ignored due to the
unrelenting comic book stories told via the song lyrics and spoken word
interludes, or because they’re not very fashionable, or because they only used
to get written about in Kerrang! or because of the ridiculous length of some of
the album/song titles. Take your pick,
it doesn’t matter, because once you get past the superficial stuff what is left
is still something like 99% of what makes Coheed & Cambria, when they’re on
form, on form. And that is tight musicianship,
quirky and original riffs and song structures, impassioned vocals, memorable
melodies, good songs.
All of these elements have returned with bells on for the
latest record, with some additions, most notably the ska element of Number City
(if there’s been brass on C&C songs before either I haven’t noticed or it’s
been underused) and the sheer outpouring of emotion, especially on Gravity’s
Union. OK so Sanchez has always been a
charismatic singer but coupled with a tiny bit of underproduction this song has
one of his most brilliant and heart-wrenching vocal performances. The song itself features a rather unusual
structure, consisting mostly of different choruses (with bridges in between),
each one more remarkable than the last.
In fact, there are more great ideas in this one song than most bands
have in a whole album (The Mars Volta would be proud), which build and build
until the glorious explosion of the “caged! Locked in perpetual motion” section
that starts at around the 5 minute mark (gets me every time) and sees the song
out. Key Entity Extraction V: Sentry The
Defiant comes a close second, with its spectacular riff and another incredible
vocal delivery, and in fact it’s not until the 6th track (of 9) Away We Go, when
the album begins to flag. To be fair the
token ballad, Iron Fist, as ballads go is pretty lovely, but in the manner of
something like Adele’s Someone Like You gets a little more irritating with every
repeat listen. Proceedings pick up again
with Dark Side of Me and then the relatively understated closer 2’s My
Favourite 1.
With unmistakable musical chops and a decent amount of
layering to keep you coming back, plus a generous amount of melody in the song-writing
to grab you and not let you go over dozens of repeated listens (the new AFI
record, Burials, is probably the only other one I’ve listened to as many times),
The Afterman: Descension succeeds on every level. Sometimes loyalty pays off.
Check out: Gravity’s Union, Key Entity Extraction V: Sentry
The Defiant
Extra special bonus
treat
Because you’ve been a wonderful
audience and I’m a generous guy (it’s a Leo thing, astrology fans), here’s my
top 20 songs for a 2013 playlist, in no particular order:
- AFI – Greater Than 84 (a succinct, quirky and well-made slice of pop-goth-punk courtesy of the masters)
- Bonobo – First Fires
- Caro Emerald – I Belong To You
- Coheed & Cambria – Gravity’s Union (vying with Cult of Luna’s I, The Weapon as the most incredible thing to enter my ears this year)
- Cult of Luna – I, The Weapon
- Daft Punk – Motherboard (on a very popular and famous record, this is a standout moment of quiet beauty)
- Deafheaven – The Pecan Tree
- Dream Theater – The Enemy Inside (their best song in years)
- How To Destroy Angels – How Long? (better than most things on Hesitation Marks, courtesy of Trent Reznor and friends, and wife in this case)
- Iron & Wine – The Desert Babbler
- Lifecoach – Fireball (featuring the bombastic Jon Theodore on drums)
- Mutoid Man – Gnarcissist (Cave In + Converge = this, ‘nuff said)
- Nine Inch Nails – Came Back Haunted (this and Copy of A stand out on Hesitation Marks, an album otherwise of too much sparse quirkiness and not enough bite)
- Oddisee – After Thoughts
- Queens Of The Stone Age – Fairweather Friends (actually the whole album is cracking, but the only thing that would make this song better is a few more repetitions of the chorus; less is more I guess)
- Russian Circles (with Chelsea Wolfe) – Memorial
- Sound City – Mantra (from Dave Grohl’s studio-resurrecting Real To Reel album, this is an extremely effective and satisfying collaboration between Trent Reznor, Josh Homme and Grohl himself)
- Soweto Kinch – Invidia (great backing track and insanely good (and fast, which might be cheap if not easy but I don’t care) rapping. Try A Restless Mind for a jazz rather than hip-hop track)
- Stone Sour – Do Me A Favour (from the second part of the House of Gold & Bones double album, very difficult not to like)
- 65DaysOfStatic – Unmake The Wild Light
