Do you mostly listen to older music? Me too! In fact, I spent a lot of the new millennium so thoroughly backfilling on genre deep dives and missed gems of the 60s through 90s that I hit 2020 with very little familiarity with newer artists. What to do?
I set out to educate myself! In 2021 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. And I started off listening to new releases each month, eventually finding the 21 best albums of 2021. I had so much fun in the process that I decided to do it again in 2022, listening each month and discovering the 22 best albums of 2022.
There are links to the 2021 and 2022 albums in the posts, but if you’d like a one-stop playlist, I’ve set that up in Spotify:
And now in 2023 I’m doing it again! I got a little behind in the beginning of the year, so I batched the “yes” and “maybe” albums of the first three months together:
Speaking of “yes” and “maybe”, this is how those categories work:
Yes– This 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 put them in their own category, because I’ve found “maybes” sometimes linger and eventually become “yeses”.
Now that we’ve got all that sorted it, let’s proceed with my picks for the most promising albums from 99 April new releases!
Black Thought/El Michels Affair, Glorious Game– The Roots founder Black Thought and producer El Michels Affair have teamed up well on this album, with Black Thought’s philosophical lyrics and authoritative flow marrying up with an innovative and sharp live/sampled mix from Michels. Add to this the dub and classic soul elements, experimental touches, and the import of the lyrics combine to make a thoroughly excellent package.
Esther Rose, Safe to Run– I was looking forward to this since her album How Many Times made my top 21 in 2021. And here again we have her delightfully sincere vocals, emotionally literate storytelling, and utterly authentic feeling for country, pop, rock, and their fit together. I’m not sure if I’m totally sold on the sequencing, but damn does every single individual song hold up.
Facs, Still Life in Decay– A spare, glowering, bruising set from this Chicago experimental trio. There are also layers of depth in the billowy darkness, a kind of emotional transformation even. It reminds me of the more metallic ends of post punk, of industrial, of the heavy break of a Nirvana song.
Kero Kero Bonito, Intro Bonito– High-energy mix, playing with fragments of electronic, classic video-game sound effects, dance, new wave, J-pop, and hip-hop. It is sweet, melodic, and so darn catchy that it works equally well whether the individual songs are in English or Japanese.
Natalie Merchant, Keep Your Courage– If Natalie Merchant can make a bad album, we have not yet discovered it. The songs here are serious and it ends on a somber note, but not unusually for her, and with much lush beauty, soaring emotion, and poetic turns of phrase along the way. About the only complaint I can lodge is that this could have come from her at almost any time in the last 30 years. Well…
Nourished by Time, Erotic Probiotic 2– I read before listening that Baltimore-raised singer-songwriter and producer Marcus Brown (aka Nourished by Time) “channels everything from ’90s alt-R&B to bedroom indie-pop and bubbly synthpop in the vein of ’80s Prince”. I would say that’s correct, though it doesn’t quite convey how delightful the meld is. What results is recognizably part of its various influences but doesn’t quite sound like anything else out there. More of this please!
Spencer Cullum, Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 2– This Nashville-based English pedal-steel master has produced something redolent of the more acoustic side of psychedelic and prog, a la 70s AM radio sound, with pleasingly ornate yet whimsical musical touches a-plenty. It never sounds like it is taking itself too seriously, but without a moment’s lag in musical quality. All-in-all, a weird delight.
TERRY, Call Me Terry– Ringing jangly propulsive guitars, walls of synth sound, catchy refrains, delightfully artless vocal phrasing delivering artsy elliptical lyrics. Listening to this felt like I was in a great part of the alt 80s, yet also contemporary. Three cheers little Australian indie band!
TisaKorean, Let Me Update My Status– The energy, inventiveness, and sheer fun in the first two tracks here alone shows up most of the hip-hop albums so far this year. The multi-layered production makes it like an orchestra, but an orchestra of voice samples, bright synth music, and repeated tonal motifs that provide a structure that holds the whole thing together. I had a similar reaction to this Houston-based artist’s 2021 album mr.siLLyfLow, and if this is lower on the delightfully gonzo factor than that outing, it is higher on coherence.
Maybe
- Bruiser and Bicycle, Holy Red Wagon– So much goes on in the first track alone in terms of high energy, quirky moments, and off-kilter arrangements. And there are at least two songs going on simultaneously in the second song. By the time the third track shifts from shoegaze to electronic to 70s folk to 90s guitar, you’re 22 minutes in. They are apparently a “freak folk” group. They are apparently from Albany, NY. By the end of it, I’m not sure what journey I’ve been on, and if it quite came together as an album, but I never once wanted to turn it off.
- Indigo De Souza, All of This Will End– Oh these earnest young things who so effortlessly combine singer-songwriter vulnerability, dance music fun, and crunching 90s guitar rock! There is a whole crop of them out these days, and we are blessed for it. Though it didn’t quite make my 2021 list, this North Carolina singer’s album Any Shape You Take caught my eye for the same strengths of musical inventiveness and emotional rawness that are on display here. I’m not totally sold on the sequencing, but it’s got a chance!
- Kara Jackson, Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?– The power of the plain voice of this one-time National Youth Poet Laureate is what drives this album, but the stripped-down musical settings- spare piano backings, minimal instrumentation, make everything pop that much more. Her voice itself is a choral instrument, and the songs have poetry, but also stories, and know how to have melody and structure as well. And the variety of approaches is amazing, none of them feeling less than heartfelt. The whole thing is a slow burn, but more powerful for it. I’m not quite sure about the overall flow as an album, but it never let go of me.
- Lael Neale, Star Eaters Delight– There are the chilly artsy edges, the arch intelligent lyrics, a driving directness to the musical approach. I can see why I like her, even if I’m not 100% sure that flow and sequence came together.
- motifs, Remember a Stranger– I loved this album from Singaporean dream pop quintet motifs almost as much as I loved Air Guitar by the Singaporean band Sobs last year, for all the same reasons. The fact that it is so dreamy has me a little on the fence, but apparently there is a scene in Singapore I need to check out!
- Poison Ruin, Harvest– Orchestral intros that give way to rocking menace, sometimes shambling metal, sometimes something more like hardcore (which the vocals are reminiscent of as well). It is a good deal more accessible and fun than so many a recent metal album. I don’t know that it’s great, but it’s certainly welcome!
- Robbie Fulks, Bluegrass Vacation– Chicago singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks has a decades-long love of country music roots. That, and a basket-full of talented bluegrass musicians recording in Nashville has produced this delightful album. This is not “new,” but it certainly does ring true.
- Teleman, Good Time/Hard Time– The parts are recognizable enough- synth pop, new wave, a little disco revival, a pinch of art/prog. But together they work in a way that, if it isn’t new and fresh, still sounds genuine and is engaging from end to end.
- The National Honor Society, To All the Distance Between Us– The sound here is somewhere between a chiming 60s, a paisley jangly 80s, and a dreampop 90s. It isn’t the most original thing ever, but so solidly done. Surprisingly, given the UK-feeling influences, they are a Seattle band, and they’re doing it well- the album won’t let you down for a single track.
- Wednesday, Rat Saw God– Oh I like this! Moody layers of guitar, alternating feedback-laden surges and quiet lulls, lead-vocalist Karly Hartzman singing with just the right tone of lackadaisical anguish. On the song “Bull Believer” they let it all go for 8 minutes, and then on “Get Shocked” they show they can pull it together into a two-minute package. Either way, there are worlds of feeling inside these songs. There are sequencing issues with the faster and slower moments, but that’s the only thing keeping this Asheville, North Carolina from “yes”.
And there we have the April review! Out before the end of June, so I think we’re catching up. There’s even a chance I’ll have May out too before month’s end, and if not, shortly thereafter…
Chris LaMay-West 