Tag Archives: Charley Crockett

In Search of the 24 Best Albums of 2024: August

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Still still on about this!

Once upon a time there was a boy named Chris. Having spent years backfilling on decades gone past, in 2021 he set out on a quest to catch up on newer music. He listened to the critics choices for the best albums of the 2010s, and picked his favorites. He did the same for 2020, picking his top 20 from the critics most highly rated albums. And he listened to new releases monthly in 2021, eventually picking the 21 best albums of 2021. That was so much fun he decided to do it again in 2022 and 2023, listening each month and picking out the 22 best albums of 2022 and the 23 best albums of 2023. He grew up to be me!

There are links to the albums in the posts cited above, but if you’d like a one-stop playlist, I’ve got that set up in YouTube Music:

Here are the previous editions of the 2024 monthly review if you missed them:

( January February March April May June/July )

A quick word on the “yes” and “maybe” categories I’ve sorted things into, before we get going with the latest:

Yes– This isn’t a guarantee, but it represents the albums that, upon first listen, I think could definitely be in the running for best of the year.

Maybe– These albums have something to recommend them, but also something that gives me pause. I’m putting them in their own category, because I have found “maybes” sometimes linger and eventually become “yeses”.

And now, on with my top picks from 114 August 2024 new releases that I listened to!

Amy Rigby, Hang in There With Me– Opens with a genuinely rollicking acoustic number on turning sixty. Then gets a little psychedelic/electronic on a song about being too old to be so crazy, a nineties electric guitar number on being Dubuque’s answer to Bob Dylan. And so on throughout a literate, personality filled, musical inventive and playful whirl. She is a singer-songwriter who has been making sharp indie albums since the nineties, and I am glad to meet her!

Beabadoobee, This Is How Tomorrow Moves– Rick Rubin Produced! Achingly poppy! Nineties guitar rocky and yet dancy!

Charley Crockett, Visions of Dallas– Sequel to his album from earlier in the year, which I loved, and this one is equally as good, and maybe even better with its segues into blues and folk without ever losing that country feeling.

Deerhoof, The Free Triple Live Album– Deerhoof is not only one of my favorite bands of the millennium so far, a great purveyor of challenging but melodic post-rock, they are also a really great live band. So, when I heard they’d put out this live album from a 2024 performance in Berlin, I had high hopes. They were not disappointed!

Doechii, Alligator Bites Never Heal– This mixtape is so full of swagger, disarming honesty, humor, raunch, beautiful liquid flow, and 80s-early 00s elements in the mix. 26-year-old L.A-based Florida native Doechii is now on my watch list!

Hamish Hawk, A Firmer Hand– In subject primarily deals with his relationships with men; not just lovers, but friends, family, and the questionable rogues his career has thrown at him. Literate and emotionally complex lyrics, doleful vocals (in the best way), 80s synth atmospherics, post-punk moodiness.

Heems, Veena– On his new solo album, the Queens rapper tackles his struggles with addiction and intergenerational trauma. His signature mix of smart-dumb humor is still there, but it no longer feels like a security blanket. Playing off his Indian heritage both in terms of lyrical material and aspects of the mix, and with significant nods to the Jay-Z school of hip hop. All around a delight.

Killer Mike, Michael & the Mighty Midnight Revival, Songs for Sinners and Saints– Backed by his live band, the rapper remixes and elaborates the autobiographical themes and gospel uplift of 2023’s Michael. And oh man is it a beautiful thing. There’s old school grooves, gospel, the best of 00s and 10s hip-hop, with an imaginative and variable mix, and engaging flow.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Flight b741– Oh, such a beautiful mid-sixties garage/psyche rock sound, with all the zany range those bands had. Listening to this, it’s almost impossible to believe it isn’t from a Nuggets compilation.

Laurie Anderson, Amelia– Laurie Anderson in high from delivering a spooky and well-delivered concept album based on Amelia Earhart’s final flight? Count me in! No, really. The best albums are often a journey, and this one literally does that.

Meshell Ndegeocello, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin– I knew between the subject matter and the artist that this would be worthy of my attention. But also, some trepidation, because artistic ambition and creative excellence don’t always make for good listening. So, what a pleasant outcome to find that the jazz inspirations, African polyrhythms, acoustic interludes, and more ethereal passages, combined with the poetry and inspiration of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde and Meshell Ndegeocello’s own clarity of vision and plethora of well-deployed production flourishes, is both arresting and a musically engaging listen from start to finish.

MJ Lenderman, Manning Fireworks– Country feelings, shredding guitar, reverb, tremolo, and songs about trying to pick up on nurse nuns and feeling like a jerk about it. At times here he feels almost like a second coming of Neil Young. I’m not sure there’s anything here not to like!

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Wild God– Power, glory, orchestral flourish, evocative poetic lyrics and an honest to goodness story arc. You can’t shake the feeling that it’s charged with meaning, and it’s a compelling listen. This is a later-day master at work.

Osees, Sorcs 80– A sound palette driven by synths, percussion, and a horn section. In press materials, John Dwyer described the record as “sort of vacuous and maybe a bit sci-fi in sound,” and, more specifically, “sort of a Dexy’s Midnight Runners meets Von LMO meets the Flesh Eaters meets the Screamers kinda punk junk.” I could not tell you what it meant, but I can tell you that on their 28th album this San Francisco indie stalwart is making a discordant, distorted, noisy mélange as interesting and edgy as anything they’ve ever done.

Sabrina Carpenter, Short n’ Sweet– Solid and fun EDM, and her snark and personality, delivered with such melodic perfection, take it to another level. At times she’s Taylor Swift but raunchier, Lana Del Ray but for a dance floor.

Shelby Lynne, Consequences of the Crown– A kind of Dusty in Memphis, Nashville Sound, rambling talk poems with a pop edm shine. It’s impossible to turn it off!

SOPHIE, SOPHIE– final album released posthumously after transgressive artist’s 2021 accidental death, it’s beautifully hyper-poppy and avant garde, sometimes on the same damn song

Spirit of the Beehive, You’ll Have to Lose Something– Impossible melodies meets hyperpop production overdrive and occasional dissonance on an electronic music outing that is consistently interesting and arresting.

Swami & the Bed of Nails, All of this Awaits You– Different people deal with grief in diverse ways. Swami John Reis, the punk firebrand who founded Rocket from the Crypt, was a close friend of guitarist Rick Froberg, one of his musical partners in the band Hot Snakes. Reis was writing material in anticipation of recording a new Hot Snakes album when Froberg died unexpectedly on June 20, 2023. powered by that, and his impeccable sense for no nonsense hard rock/garage/punk, this album roars out of the gate. Plus, there’s a song about ketchup, mustard, and relish. How can you go wrong?

The Bug Club, On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System– Imagine an excellent album had vanished somewhere in-between the late punk of the Jam and Wire, and the early post-punk of Gang of Four and Magazine and had just now re-appeared through a time-space warp as the product of a Welsh indie band formed in 2016. I can’t explain how or why, but that’s what this feels like. And I love it!

X, Smoke and Fiction– Always beware of a golden oldie who says this is their “last album”. (But also, how weird is it that X is now a golden oldie?) That being said, there’s no fat here- 10 songs in 28 minutes, and they sound tight, blistering, and incisive as ever, with just enough of a touch of world weary looking back. If this is the last album, it’s a darn good one!

Maybe

  • Bill Wyman, Drive My Car– Nothing that new here, but it is a relaxed, masterful outing. I’d listen to it again!

  • Charlie Overbey, In Good Company– He’s a Punk Rock Spy in the Halls of Honkytonk Heaven! So says the opening track, and a fair bit of it sounds exactly like that would make you think, with detours into outlaw country and Springsteen territory. It’s a little too slickly produced-feeling, but I appreciate the territory it explores.

  • Duke Robillard, Roll With Me– Back in 2005, Duke Robillard conceived a maximalist studio album based on jump, Chicago blues, and NOLA-styled R&B. Given commitments to appearing alongside Ronnie Earl on The Duke Meets the Earl and to participate in the New Guitar Summit sessions with J. Geils and Gerry Beaudoin, he abandoned work on the date but never forgot about the album. Robillard’s Roll with Me is his 37th album and the program consists of four Robillard originals and eight covers of classic R&B and blues tunes associated with Fats Domino, Gatemouth Brown, Big Joe Turner, Howling Wolf, and Muddy Waters. I’m darn glad he made it!

  • Fontaines D.C., Romance– Their usual excellent, and it even has a through line!

  • Ka, The Thief Next to Jesus– The mix and flow is appropriately dark and heavy, and the sampling unsettling for the sober meditations on the role of religion in inspiring the African American community but also in perpetuating oppression. It may be a little narrow tonally, but it’s worthy, both in and of itself, and as a memorial to the artist for his final album.)

  • Nikka Costa, Dirty Disco– As an 80s Electro fan I am flipping over this. Such an excellent spare EDM funk dance set! By its nature, a little derivative? Sure, but come on, the quality!

  • Pom Poko, Champion– Of all the quirky melodic and yet anarchic Scandinavian post-rock bands that are near and dear to my heart, Pom Poko is one of them. No, but really, there are several in this category! And this Norwegian band named for Japanese anime that reminds me of Deerhoof is a good one.

  • Sarah Kinsley, Escaper– I almost feel like I’m listening to a later-day Kate Bush. As such, it does sound a little derivative, but so well done and such a great derivation. I also think she may have accidentally invented it herself. She herself cites Chopin, Clara Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy, Ravel, Lorde, Fleetwood Mac, ABBA, Sting, the Eagles, Foreigner and Madonna as influences. Put that in a blender and mix it!

  • The Shivas, Can’t Stop Coming Around– Fuzzy garage rock with a sixties reverb/doo-wop/girl group feeling, and more than occasional flashes of the Velvet Underground. So, by definition, not the newest things, and there are other contemporary bands that mine this same vein (hello Raveonettes!) but my goodness does this Portland band do it well!

  • The Smashing Pumpkins, Aghori Mhori Mei– Musically it’s a kind of flashback, for sure, though a flashback to an era I love. But it doesn’t stop there, there is something spare and bright to many of the arrangements here. And lyrically and vocally, there is a sense here of the passage of time, of elegy. I’m not sure if it adds up, but this is what one might wish for from a Pumpkin become Tribal elder.

  • The Softies, Bed I Made– first new album in over two decades, beloved Pacific Northwest twee pop duo, and it is perfectly done sweet melodic pop rock. It does get a little same-same, but it is so well done I almost don’t mind.

  • Tinashe, Quantum Baby– Really about as pleasing a set of sophisticated enough but fun enough mid-tempo dance music as one could ask for. It’s not profound or groundbreaking, but I’ve been a Tinashe fan for a while now, and I’m going to continue!

  • Why?, The Well I Fell Into– Is this a slower introspective indie rock outing a la Elliot Smith? Or an electronic remix album? Or chilly art rock? I’d accept all of these as an answer. And in fact, Wikipedia subsequently informed me, “Why? (styled as WHY?) is an American alternative hip hop and indie rock band. The band was founded in 2004 by Cincinnati rapper and singer Yoni Wolf, who had been using Why? as his stage name since 1997.” Whatever it is that’s going on here, I kinda like it!

Onward to September/October!

In Search of the 24 Best Albums of 2024: January

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If you’re just joining us for the first time, and are wondering what the heck is going on here, in 2021 I set out to catch up on newer music, which I hadn’t really done in about a decade at that point for various reasons.

I listened to the critics choices for the best albums of the 2010s, and picked my own favorites. I did the same for 2020, picking my top 20 from the critics most highly rated albums. And I started off listening to new releases each month in 2021, eventually picking the 21 best albums of 2021. I had so much fun in the process that I decided to do it again in 2022 and 2023, listening each month and picking out the 22 best albums of 2022 and the 23 best albums of 2023.

There are links to the albums in the posts, but if you’d like a one-stop playlist, I’ve got that set up in Spotify for the 2021 top 21 and the 2022 top 22, and in YouTube Music for 23 Best Albums of 2023. (Eventually I’ll move the 2021 and 2022 lists to YouTube, because artists are asking us to avoid Spotify for very good reasons.)

Okay, so now you know what we’re doing. Well guess what? I’m doing it again! A quick word on the “yes” and “maybe” categories I’ve sorted things into, and then we’ll get going:

Yes– This isn’t a guarantee, but it represents the albums that, upon first listen, I think could definitely be in running for best of the year.

Maybe– These albums have something to recommend them, but also something that gives me pause. I’m putting them in their own category, because I have found “maybes” sometimes linger and eventually become “yeses”.

And now, without any further ado, let us get on with my top picks from 71 new January releases that I listened to!

21 Savage, American Dream– Dreamlike classic grooves backing glitchy beats, philosophical lyrics, and presented with a steady accessible flow. It may run with cliché themes at times, but it also never let me down for the entire 50-minute run. In the hands of this British-American artist, hip hop is not dead!

Billy Porter, Black Mona Lisa– Clear, powerful, and masterful in its feeling for the dance, R&B, and Broadway idioms it targets. That, frankly, might be enough even if it had no particular import on top of it, but in this era of bubbling danger against people of diverse races and sexualities in America, actor and singer Billy Porter leaves no punches pulled. Without sacrificing the sheer joy of the music in the process!

Charley Crockett, $10 Cowboy– I knew from the title that I was potentially in danger of love, and indeed. Suffused with a feeling for both outlaw country and the Nashville sound (and the seventies intersection of R&B & country), and songs here are musically straight up while channeling being down and out in America. As solid a set of songs as you could ask for to remind you that country can still country and thank God for that!

Cheekface, It’s Sorted– Goony new wave music! Goony new wave vocals! Goony new wave lyrics! I could have heard this on college radio in the eighties and I would have loved it. But the lyrics are about things like changes in the New England hardcore scene, drones not leaving you alone, and dark web e-mail breaches, so plenty current. There is an artlessness here that’s pure fun, and a sound that is seriously sharp at the same time as it’s being silly. Per the Wikipedia article on this Southern California band, they’ve been compared to Stephen Malkmus, LCD Soundsystem, The Dismemberment Plan, Jeff Rosenstock, The B-52’s, and Devo. Okay, plucky little band. Okay!

Eye Flys, Eye Flys– This is giving me some serious Melvins and Mastodon vibes, which if you know, tells you a lot. But if you don’t know- it is Heavy! And lumbering and sludgy, pulling you under in the best kind of way. I haven’t been this enamored of a new metallic release in a while.

Kula Shaker, Natural Magick– In this case, the cover gives you a highly accurate clue! This album has a nice rollicking sixties garage rock sound, with layers of psychedelia and Indian pop influences. It’s almost hard to believe at times that this isn’t a genuine artifact from circa 1968-1972, and also hard to find anything to not like about it. Kula Shaker made my honorable mention list for 2022, and I have a feeling they are going to be in contention again this year.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse, FU##IN’ UP– Oh, I like this one! This is the lyrically and sonically dense and seething Crazy Horse that I personally can never get enough of. Per another review: “Neil Young’s latest effort with his longtime backing back Crazy Horse is both a new album and an old one. FU##IN’ UP is a spiritual sibling to their 1990 comeback album Ragged Glory, but this time repurposing each track with loose, sprawling, guttural new edges.” Even as a derivation, I can’t fault it!

SPLLIT, Infinite Hatch– I love the perfect lo-fi pop-rock as mutated by off-kilter rhythms, electronic squelches, and weird and snarky lyrics. This is a good example of how being “damn fun” renders “not necessarily profound” utterly irrelevant as an objection. Get going little Baton Rouge band!

Tapir!, The Pilgrim, Their God and the King of My Decrepit Mountain– Are you in the market for some beautiful, oddly anguished folky pop? I am told that, “Tapir! is a six-piece indie folk band from London. Known for their blending of folk music with genres such as post-punk and art pop.” I’ll tell you that I found this to be intriguing from start to finish!

Trevor Horn, Echoes: Ancient & Modern– The “ancient” echoes here are perhaps twofold, Horn himself, a widely influential music producer in the 80s (and founding member of The Buggles’ and power behind their single “Video Killed the Radio Star”), and the song cover choices, hearkening back to his 80s heyday. If so, the “modern” ones are surely the polished reworkings and the new power the songs draw from his touch and his smartly curated list of guest stars. I recommend this for fans of both the eighties, and fans of albums where you can see a producer show off doing their thing.

Maybe

  • Angry Blackmen, The Legend of ABM– Sharp cutting sounds, inventive stuttering glitchy mix, lyrics with weight. The vocals are a little flat, but the mix is magic, and the best songs are revelatory.

  • Bruiser Wolf, My Story Got Stories– One of my favorites of 2021 for his album Dope Game Stupid is doing it again! The hilarious verbal barrage, tongue in cheek delivery, repositioning of hip hop history and presenting himself as an OG who ought to shuffle off the stage while simultaneously not ceding an inch of it is a winning combo. Maybe not quite as sharp as his 2021 outing, but still with plenty to recommend it.

  • Ekko Astral, pink balloons– Fuzzy, distorted, properly serrated, with dense elliptical lyrics that perhaps involve anonymous burials, sexism, and never having seen Star Wars? If not totally together, it is an echo, astral in a noisy way, and thank goodness for it.

  • Loukeman, Sd-2– What I read that got me interested was “The Canadian producer laces glow-worm synths and house beats with vocal snippets culled from indie-folk gems and Billboard hits.” And indeed, it does sound like that, and very unlike other electronic projects floating out there. It sometimes drifted a little toward the abstract, which was my hesitation, but I also never wanted to turn it off. Three cheers for folks who are still out there looking for new soundscapes!

  • Marika Hackman, Big Sigh– Nuanced and textured, with an acoustic style but instrument surges reminiscent of the nineties. The deep, emotionally literate lyrics that cut in both directions are appreciated. It is a little one tone- musically and vocally, but powerful.

  • Nicholas Craven/Boldy James, Penalty of Leadership– Dense, cinematic mix and lyrics, and rich seventies soul-feeling backing. The flow is a little flat, but that fits the darkly textured picture being painted.

  • Pearl Jam, Dark Matter– We can perhaps agree there’s not going to be a “bad” Pearl Jam album. The lads just don’t have it in them! But this is not “merely” a “not bad” Pearl Jam album, it has quite a bit of verve and snap to it, and if it’s not the freshest thing ever, it is my favorite album of theirs since the eponymous 2006 album. There’s more than a bit here (without sounding AT ALL old and fogey) of the feeling of the wise and world-weary checking in that you would hope for from your veteran acts. For anyone who objects to that characterization, keep in mind that there is archival evidence that Pearl Jam’s first album came out 33 years ago, and that other albums that likewise came out 33 years ago during their 1991 debut were released in 1958. I object!

  • Sleater-Kinney, Little Rope– A nuanced album which rocks plenty hard, but also has textured depths. If it is not totally focused, and it isn’t as thunderous as my best-loved albums from them, it is about something, and has depths that repay attention without losing sonic verve.

  • St. Vincent, All Born Screaming– As darkling as any of her earlier work, but with variety, verve, and wit as well. I like it best when it’s waxing a little less meditative and a little groovier, but she does self-bill it as a “post-plague” album, so I cannot begrudge her the tone. Definitely worth another listen!

  • Ty Segal, Three Bells– I mean, you get me your fuzzed out nineties garage rock, pepper it with heavy trip 70s psych rock vibes, put it in the hands of a past master in these forms… About my only hesitation is the hour+ run time vis-à-vis how heavy it gets in parts. But regardless, rock on!

And there we have January, out in the first third of May! Let’s see what we can do with February!