It’s our final monthly review! Almost a year ago, as part of an effort to catch up on newer music, I set out to find the 21 best albums of the year by listening to new releases each month, and sorting them into yes/maybe/no. And here we are, the last month, after which I’ll do a final shakedown to get the 21 best albums of 2021.

If you missed the earlier installments, you can find them here:

( January February March April May June July August September October November )

This is one of three music-related blog series I did this past year. The final installment of my review of critic’s choices for the best albums of the 2010s is here, and the wrap-up of my review of the critic’s consensus on the 20 best albums of 2020 is here.

Before we wrap up December, a quick note about the three categories:

Yes– These are the albums that, based on my initial listen, are in definite contention to be considered for the 21 best albums of the year. There are now 244 albums on the list, so every final victor will have dispatched a host of foes.

Maybe– These are albums that had definite strengths, but about which I have some reservation. I’ve noticed over the years that sometimes “maybes” linger, so I’m giving them a category just in case.

No– These albums are not in contention. Some of them deserve discussion, though, which I note.

Now, on with the review of 55 December new releases!

Common, A Beautiful Revolution, Pt. 2– Part 2 to this hip-hop stalwart’s 2020 Part 1. On the musical side it’s dynamic and jazzy, the flow is muscular, it’s brimming over with positive message, and the whole has a sense of unity. Because of the comparison effect it’s not easy to clear the bar at this point in the year, but this absolutely does it!

Curren$y, Pilot Talk 4– Strong clear beats backing a jazzy swirl with some pleasing flow. The street talk isn’t always the freshest ever, but the deeper meditations on the downsides of street life, and the so well done musical and vocal backing elevate it. This New Orleans rapper has apparently been prolific as hell this year, and this shows it has been to good effect.

Don Trip, Pray God’s Not Watching– In a way, this album dives deep into hip-hop album theme cliches. But this pioneer of the Memphis scene brings a smooth spare mix, wit, and presence All that, and the strong storytelling of the vocals and lyrics really carries it through. And the ending is an unvarnished heart-tugger.

Jazmine Sullivan, Heaux Tales– This is not a December release, but both NPR and Pitchfork had it at the top of their pre year-end Top 50 lists. Not sure how it slipped through my net earlier, but I figured I should give it a listen! I’m glad I did, it’s a musical tour de force with the mix of R&B and hip-hop stylings, vocally dynamic, and, beneath a shiny pop veneer, a nuanced and at times quite personal exploration of female empowerment and both resistance to and complicity with hip hop culture’s misogyny.

Krolok, Funeral Winds & Crimson Sky– If you tell me you’re a Slovakian black metal band, I’m always going to want to hear what you have to say next. As it turns out, I did. This sounds, and I mean this in the very best way possible, like a metal band did a Halloween album for a vampire theme park. Musically, they pulled off something that I find bands like this often have a hard time with, bridging the looming atmospheric parts with the more straightforward metal parts. Lyrically, I barely caught a word, but I feel like every word penetrated my soul. Easily one of my favorite metal albums of the year.

Mach-Hommy, Balens Cho– This album is much like his Prayer for Haiti earlier this year. But whereas the sprawl of that got away from me, this was much more focused, and musically rich, lyrically challenging, and well structured. That’s how you album!

Michael Hurley, The Time of the Foxgloves– Hurley has been playing folk music since the Greenwich Village scene in the 60s. Every note of this sounds with the beautifully burned-out music veteran power you would expect from that.

Nicole Atkins, Memphis Ice– North Carolina-based self-professed purveyor of “pop noir” Nicole Atkins recorded this album in Memphis, and it feels like an excellent merger of her lush pop vocal style and the 60s soul Memphis sound.

Ryan Sambol, Gestalt– There’s a gruffness in the vocals, a weariness in the lyrics, and a spirit of variety in the music that I find very appealing. Acoustic, blues, country and lo-fi indie all get mixed up in this album from a Texas-raised singer-songwriter and poet. (Full disclosure: This is not really a December release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of underrated albums of 2021. No stone left unturned!)

Speedy Ortiz, The Death of Speedy Ortiz & Cop Kicker…Forever– Does a remix of two old albums from 2011 plus eight new songs=something new? I hope so, because the guitar crunch and fuzz, layers of sound, and thick vocals and sharp lyrics of this Massachusetts band led by Sadie Dupuis have utterly charmed me.

Maybe

• Bat Fangs, Queen of My World– Do you know how much I appreciate jumping in at full rock from the first note? I appreciate it a lot! This whole thing is steeped in the brighter side of 80s hard rock and hair metal, but with two female principles. This works well, they deliver flawless cock rock but without the downsides of cock attitude. The only reason it didn’t hit “yes” is that the vocals were a little flat, production-wise. It would have been nice to hear them cut loose a little more!
  
  
• Biffy Clyro, The Myth of the Happily Ever After– “Scottish band” just inherently makes me happy, and “Scottish band formed in the 90s” is a further booster from there. There’s no denying that this is high energy, and has a considerable spark of something musically and lyrically. It’s a little prefab sounding, but it’s a good fab.
  
• Bitchin Bajas, Switched On Ra– “Psych rockers cover cosmic jazz legend Sun Ra with vintage 70s synthesizers” is actually a pretty decent way to get my attention as far as album concepts go. There are multiple things here that aren’t usually my bag, and there’s one vocal guest track that feels totally out of tone with the rest, but darned if it doesn’t create some really fun and interesting soundscapes.
  
  
• Charlotte Greve, Sediments We Move– Sometimes surging with power and feeling, but sometimes more on the ethereal side of classical/jazz/experimental mixes. There are definitely some interesting approaches here, but perhaps a little uneven in terms of energy/engagement to completely work as an album. (Full disclosure: This is not really a December release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Jeff Tweedy, Live is the King– Live versions of his 2020 release Love is the King. That album was thoroughly on the country side of Tweedy’s work, and these live versions are too. I’m in kind of a conundrum with this- the material is great, and the versions are very good. But it’s not very “live”- it was recorded live in studio, so there’s no audience feedback, no interactions between musicians on the stage, etc. So what (besides a nice Neil young cover) does this really do to go beyond the original album?
  
  
• JJJJJerome Ellis, The Clearing– This album is the philosophical flow of an ongoing thesis about Blackness in America ranging from history and literature to modern pop culture and everything in-between. That general focus is anchored by his specific meditations on music, and his own personal experience with his lifelong stutter (which he works in to the lyrics and music in various ways). All this is accompanied by clear beats and the light touch of smartly deployed electronic keyboard surges. It’s really pretty amazing, about my only reservation is a long low-music lull in the middle.
  
  
• Mo Troper, Dilettante– This starts off as rock with the appropriate amount of feedback and chaos, and then keeps going. It could get bogged down, but the fact that there are 28 songs in 49 minutes keeps it moving along. The variety of modes does as well- it explores multiple varities of 80s alt and 90s indie. Some songs are noise pop, some more traditionally melodic, some thoroughly tongue in cheek if not slightly snotty. The pacing occasionally gets a little uneven, and the songs also sometimes sound very young. Put that’s where the zeal and the noise come from too! A worthy outing from this Portland band. (Full disclosure: This is not really a December release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Neil Young & Crazyhorse, Barn – All right, let’s start with the necessary disclaimer- Neil Young is on my all-time musical top five list. I’m never going to not react well to his work. I also like the extra musical oomph Crazy Horse gives him. In fact, this album has all the Neil Youngs- slow balladeer, saw-toothed feedback-laden guitar rocker, stirring anthemist, sometimes overly on-the-nose lyricist. It doesn’t feel like it quite comes together with a strong theme musically or lyrically though, which is what separates it from “great” versus merely “good”.
  
  
• Pearly Gate Music, Mainly Gestalt Pornography– Pearly Gate Music is the brainchild of Pacific Northwest singer/songwriter Zach Tillman, the brother of Josh Tillman (aka Father John Misty). Solid guitar rock on the acoustic side, with bright chords and arch lyrics. This feels like something I could have run into in the 80s on a college radio station. I’m not convinced it adds up to something strong/different enough to get to “yes”, but it does what it does very well.
  
  
• Tasha, Tell Me What You Miss the Most– Chicago singer-songwriter Tasha has delivered a set of torchy emotional songs with an acoustic vibe, and her voice is strong and clear. The material in a way is simple and often low-key, but the feeling is so genuine, the content gets the emotions of romance right, and the presentation is very appealing. We could all do worse!
  
  
• Volbeat, Servant of the Mind– “Scandinavian rock band is one of my happy places, so hearing they were Danes favorably pre-disposed me. Seeing them described as playing a fusion of rock, metal, and rockabilly further piqued my interest. In practice they’re also pretty darn fun. Is it a little formulaic? Yes. Is the more than hour run length a concern for me? Also yes. But it is so gleefully and sincerely delivered- a rocking good time that isn’t trying to do anything much more than that.

No

• Aeon Station, Observatory– It’s a fine moody synthy indie rock outing. I have probably heard a few dozen this year that were no better or no worse than this.
  
  
• Alicia Keys, Keys– This double album is beautiful like Alicia Keys so often is. The first side is, as she describes it, her “classic” sound, the second is “Unlocked”, doing the same songs but expressing herself in new/different ways.I was definitely more grabbed by that second half. Because of the sprawl and lack of focus I don’t think it works as an album, but that’s not to say there isn’t a ton of great material in it.
  
  
• Arca, Kick iiii– Arca is a Venezuelan musician, singer, composer, record producer, and DJ, based in Barcelona who has released four, count them, four, albums in December! If you like your electronic music danceable, weird, with an edge of discord and dread, this might be for you. I do like those things, though ultimately there wasn’t enough consistent substance musically or lyrically for me to really sink my teeth into.
  
  
• Arca, Kick ii– If you listen to Kick iiii first, you may, as I did, wonder how much different Kick ii will be. As it turns out, it was quite a bit different! I don’t know if it was the Latin influence, the comparatively smoother mix, or the greater sonic unity it had, but I liked it quite a bit better. It was well on its way to maybe until an extended dissonant weird-out in the middle.
  
  
• Arca, Kick iii– Okay, not so much on iiii, ii fared much better, how will iii do? Turns out, it’s kind of a bridge between the weird and discordant iiii and the Latin-themes and club smoothness of ii. I don’t feel like it totally comes together, but I have been having a kick with all the Kicks. So to speak.
  
  
• Arca, Kick iiiii– If you listen to ii, iii, and iiii, how are you not going to listen to iiiiI? (For those wondering, Kick i came out last year, which is why we’re not listening to it as part of this batch.) This is easily the most ambient trending of the four. I have trouble latching on to ambient.
  
  
• BBC Symphony Orchestra/Jules Buckley/Paul Weller, An Orchestrated Songbook– This is Weller doing versions of his song backed by BBC Symphony. It’s an interesting form of career retrospective, and some of the covers are quite amazing and really showcase a mature power that matches what’s always been the high ambition of his work. It of course doesn’t sound bad, it’s the BBC Symphony Orchestra for pity’s sake! And I certainly would recommend it for Weller fans, but I’m not sure it makes the leap from there to overall “year’s best”.
  
  
• Benjamin Lazar Davis, Benjamin Lazar Davis– This is certainly high quality, and has a lyrical edge, but it’s a little too smoothly laden with all the 2000s production tricks to make enough emotional connection.
  
  
• Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Keyboard Fantasies Reimagined– A rework of a classic 1986 instrumental keyboard album by contemporary artists. It’s a nice concept, and leads to some interesting results, but a little too abstract, and not coherent enough, to make a proper album.
  
  
• Brian Wilson, At My Piano– Here Wilson is playing instrumental piano versions of his songs. It’s good, but a little, well, instrumental piano. Very much all in one vein, which is hard to make a full-length album work with. A Wilson and/or Beach Boys fan might well want to have this in their collection, though.
  
  
• Chief Keef, 4Nem– It’s got some power and dynamism, but is it among the best albums I’ve heard this year? Is it even in the top ten hip-hop albums I’ve heard this year? 11 days left…
  
  
• Craig Taborn, Shadow Plays– From a 2020 live European performance. This trended toward a muted, almost ambient end of jazz. (Full disclosure: This is not really a December release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Darius Jones, Raw Demon Alchemy (A Lone Operation)– It starts with a horn like an enervated traffic jam. It upset my cat. The bunnies were not fans either.
   
• Gas, Der Lange Marsch– Ambient to the point of being somnolent. Nyet.
  
  
• Geese, Projector– I really like waterfowl. I also like the kind of young male rock that this New York band is doing, but it began to wear a little thin before the end. They went straight from high school to studio album, though, so definitely keep an eye on them and what they might grow into.
  
  
• Jeff Parker, Forfolks– Some very nice jazz-influenced guitar, but as a pretty-mellow all instrumental, it never really cohered as an album for me.
  
  
• Jeniveve, Division– It’s some good R&B/dance music, I can see what they mean by “underrated”. But year’s best? Competition is tough in these final days! (Full disclosure: This is not really a December release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of underrated albums of 2021. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Juçara Marçal, Delta Estácio Blues– All Music Guide will tell you that, “Juçara Marçal is a Brazilian singer, songwriter, and educator whose music bridges traditional Afro-Brazilian folk sounds, electronic music, rock, and hip-hop.” I will tell you that, despite the complete language gap, the joyous kaleidoscope of styles and complexity of rhythms had this well on its way to being at least a strong maybe until a terribly autotuned track turned up toward the end. That may seem like a rough reason to bounce something, but we’re in December now- it’s wheat from chaff time!
  
  
• Kenny G, New Standards– I didn’t really think I was going to go for this- as a kid of the alt 80s, if there is an anathema par excellence to my people, it’s Kenny G. I was intrigued by the concept though- it’s his attempt to record new songs as if they were old standards. Unfortunately, it sounds like Kenny G.
  
  
• King Krule, You Heat Me Up You Cool Me Down– This album from a UK singer/songwriter, sometimes rapper, is from live shows just before the tour had to be cancelled because of COVID. I wasn’t familiar with him going in, but the music is a muscular mix of jangly rock, jazz, and surprising sound effects, and the vocals are raw and bruising, which I appreciate. It gets to be a little the same after a while, and the almost hour and twenty run time is a tough thing to sustain, but it does make me curious to hear more of his stuff.
  
  
• Lotic, Water– This was very interesting as dance-oriented music goes, in a heavily experimental vein. Not consistently listenable enough to make “year’s best”, but certainly not unworthy.
  
  
• Myriam Gendron, Ma délire– Songs of love, lost & found– Moody, French, quiet with dark jagged edges, but the language barrier is ultimately too much for me to “get” the album. (Full disclosure: This is not really a December release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of underrated albums of 2021. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• New Found Glory, December’s Here– Christmas-themed albums are an inevitability this time of year. They can work, but they can also make my skin crawl. A pop-punk album with an emo bent is an inevitability in life. It can work, or it can make my skin crawl. Multiply one by the other, and your odds of success considerably decrease.
  
   
• Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, La Panthère des Neiges (Original Soundtrack)– This is my favorite Nick Cave soundtrack for a documentary about a snow leopard. No really, this is the soundtrack to Marie Amguet and Vincent Munier’s wildlife documentary La Panthére des Neiges, in which Munier (a photographer) and writer Sylvain Tesson pursue a rare sighting of a snow leopard in Tibet. It’s a little muted musically, and not general audience enough to work as an album of the year, but yay leopards!
  
  
• Quadry, They Think We Ghetto– Definitely fresher than many another hip-hop album out this year, but we’re late in the year now, so it takes a lot to rise above. (Full disclosure: This is not really a December release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of underrated albums of 2021. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Rival Consoles, Overflow– Electronic and experimental- some of these tracks have a sense of looming dread, which I always appreciate, and some have interesting thought-provoking verbal and sound juxtapositions. But it feels more like an art project, and less like something one would repeatedly listen to.
  
  
• Robert Sotelo, Celebrant– It’s a little post-punk sounding, a little herky-jerky side of new wave, it’s more than nice enough, but it’s not enough to blow the rest of the year out of the water.
  
  
• Roddy Richh, Live Life Fast– I was on the edge for a while. There is a good deal of higher aspiration in this album from Compton-based hip hop artist Richh, clever wordplay, and interesting music mixes. Eventually the misogyny and autotune got the better of me, but it stayed in contention for quite a while.
  
  
• Rx Nephew, Transporter 4– Pitchfork recommended this album from an extremely prolific hip-hop artist to me. It’s powerful and driving, but I think it ultimately goes under with the weight of “street” clichés. He is from my wife’s mythical homeland of Rochester, NY, though, so there’s that.
  
  
• SeeYouSpaceCowboy, The Romance of Affliction– Brutal hardcore/metal assault, which I appreciate. Dip into swelling symphonic melodies, which I tolerate. Screamed vocals, which I do not groove with.
  
  
• Teen Daze, Interior– It’s electronic. It’s dancey. It’s nice enough. It’s late in the year.
  
  
• Tony Shhnow, Authentic Goods– I can see what they mean in terms of it being underappreciated, but this is way late in the year. It takes not just good, but extraordinary to break into the list at this point. (Full disclosure: This is not really a December release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of underrated albums of 2021. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Wild Up, Julius Eastman, Vol. 1: Feminine– California collective recording arrangements of songs from a Jazz great who died largely unsung (and too young) in the 90s. It was an interesting enough premise to get me listening, and there is something arresting about it, but given the instrumental and abstract nature, I’m not sure it’s accessible enough to rise to top spot of the year.
  
  
• yes/and, yes/and– Some of these are ambient, some of these are more instrumental, all of them are a bunch of nice sounds that don’t add up to an album (Full disclosure: This is not really a December release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of underrated albums of 2021. No stone left unturned!)

And so, it is finished. Or not quite! As soon as I can manage it, I’m going to complete my relistens of the “Yes” (and selected “Maybe”) albums from the year and bring you the final list of THE 21 BEST ALBUMS OF 2021 Stay tuned!

Almost there! We’re now at 11 of 12 of our month-by-month survey of 2021, en route to our ultimate goal. Speaking of which, if you’re just joining for the first time, I’m listening to new releases each month, sorting them into yes/maybe/no, and then doing a final shakedown to get the 21 best albums of the year.

You can find the earlier installments here:

( January February March April May June July August September October )

This is one of three music-related blog series I’m doing this year. The final installment of my review of critic’s choices for the best albums of the 2010s is here, and the wrap-up of my review of the critic’s consensus on the 20 best albums of 2020 is here.

Before we proceed with November, a quick note about the three categories:

Yes– These are the albums that, based on my initial listen, are in definite contention to be considered for the 21 best albums of the year. There are now 234 albums on the list, so every survivor will be standing on the mounded corpses of at least nine dead albums. The horror!

Maybe– These are albums that had definite strengths, but about which I have some reservation. I’ve noticed over the years that sometimes “maybes” linger, so I’m giving them a category just in case.

No– These albums are not in contention. Some of them deserve discussion, though, which I note.

Now, on with the review of 110 November new releases!

Adele, 30– It starts off with “I’ll be taking flowers to the cemetery of my heart” which lets you know what kind of material this post-divorce album is grappling with. Musically, though, it’s much lusher and often more up-tempo than that might make you think. If it’s more subtle and nuanced than some of her earlier work, it’s also more varied in modes, and moods. Some things stun with the vulnerability of the personal window she opens up here. Others find her alternately furious with her partner, angry with herself, eager for something new, and weary and wise. With this much power at 30, it makes one wonder what lies ahead.

 

Aesop Rock/Blockhead, Garbology– I’ve listened to many great hip-hop albums this year. And a whole lot of bad ones. So the bar is pretty high now, but this collaboration of Portland-based underground hip-hop impresario Matthias Bavitz, aka Aesop Rock, and Manhattan record producer and DJ Tony Simon, aka Blockhead, delivers. The vocals are pleasingly goony and un-smooth, the musical mix is wildly varied and muscular, and the lyrics are smart and off-kilter.

BackRoad Gee, Reporting Live (From the Back of the Roads)– This British-Congolese artist brings together African pop, hip-hop, UK dub, and a delightfully skillful wielding of varied sound effects and musical backgrounds. All this would work well just on the sonic side, but on top of that, lyrically it grapples honestly and intelligently with details of hard life in Africa and the UK.

Curtis Harding, If Words Were Flowers– Sometimes jazzy, sometimes funky, very informed by 70s soul and AM radio, but with more than a hint of hip-hop diction. Reading up on him afterward, this amalgam is his signature style, which he calls “slop ‘n’ soul”. It makes me feel lost in time, and it’s an exquisite trip.

David Christian & Pinecone Orchestra, For Those We Met on the Way– 30-year UK music veteran David Christian has come out with a fine album with traces of the more introspective singer-songwriter side of UK 80s alt (think Lloyd Cole, for example), 60s-influenced acoustic, and country. The whole thing has a tone of looking back on life and taking stock, with intelligent and emotionally complex lyrics.

Deap Vally, Marriage– Now that is a crunching guitar and feedback start! A female rock duo from Los Angeles, sounding exactly like a female rock duo from Los Angeles should sound. They do fast, they do slow, they do mid-tempo, and they’re gloriously menacingly rocking the whole time.

Defcee & Messiah Musik, Trapdoor– This Chicago hip-hop artist brings super-smart and conscious lyrics, muscular vocal delivery, and a spare approach to beats and mix. This reminds me of a certain stream of 90s hip-hop that I’ve missed.

Foxx Bodies, Vixen– Oh, help me. It’s that band! Punky. Poppy. Heavy crunching guitars, but with melody. Female lead with a strong presence. They’re from Los Angeles in this case, seem to have been kicking around since 2016, and do a very high level of engaging gender politics and identity issues in their music. Huzzah! 

Lukah, Why Look Up, God’s in the Mirror– At first this seems to be a very solid, driving and muscular hip-hop album, with a strong personality, but one that’s kind of typically hitting the street bluster clichés. Along the way, though, it ends up going through an arc where there’s a bottoming out, and a spiritual rebirth. Really interesting and well done!

Margo Cilker, Pohorylle– Oregon-based Margo Cilker cut her teeth playing covers of Creedence, Dylan, and Neil Young before touring extensively on her own material. She clearly learned the craft, with dense story songs, a voice that never sounds false, and a sure feel for country-tinged Americana. There’s also some excellent use of the word “fuck”, and even when a song gets a little polemical it never sounds less than achingly sincere.

Marta Del Grandi, Until We Fossilize– This Italian-born artist weaves a spell with her voice and delicate instrumentation that reflects both electronic and jazz influences. It won me over despite being in a low-key vein. The depths it pulls one into are rich and worthwhile.

Model Home, Both Feet en th Infinite– This was very interesting! They’re described as an “experimental hip-hop duo from Washington, D.C.”, and indeed, it’s kind of electronic, kind of jazz-influenced, very strong hip-hop influence. The audio collage keeps one going, and the repeated choruses and stomping beat create a kind of spell.

Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, The Future– On the first track this Denver-based singer-songwriter seemed to be channeling late 60s/ early to mid 70s Bob Dylan, which is a great way to get my attention. Subsequently, though, he proves to be doing a romp all through the Americana and R&B of that era. And he does it very well! Does it feel a little like a museum piece? Yes. But a flawless and sincere one!

Naytronix, Other Possibilities– The first track is like space jazz playing with a radio tuning dial, the second has what sounds like an electric xylophone intro, the next is like AM radio gold being played on an 80s synth keyboard, and so on. That’s the musical side, the lyrical side is full of longing, and the vocal side is heavy on melody with an occasional side trip into gonzo distortion. Naytronix is the solo musical project of Nate Brenner, who is also a member of the band tune-yards whose album Sketchy. I was very favorably impressed with earlier this year. As for this album, I think it literally delivers on the promise of its title, introducing an array of sonic possibilities.

Pip Blom, Welcome Break– This Dutch band knows how to do a poppy, high-energy rock song, and I like the earnest straightforwardness of leader Pip Blom’s vocals. Is it super-profound? Probably not. But it is a super-fun, flawlessly executed example of what it is. Okay, yes, I’m a sucker for a guitar-crunching, female-led band. So sue me!

R.A.P. Ferreira, The Light-Emitting Diamond Cutter Scriptures– Rory Allen Philip Ferreira is an American rapper and producer from Kenosha, Wisconsin. On this album he brings vivid, poetic, spiritually-infused vocal flow with relaxed beats and some spare jazz-inflected background. It might be hard to keep this going for an hour, but at a half-hour run time, it never flags for a moment.

Silk Sonic, An Evening With Silk Sonic– Silk Sonic being a collaboration of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, you might be expecting some kind of invocation of 70s soul and funk. Hearing Bootsy Collins is involved with the album, you might expect that even more so. You would be exactly right, and it’s like glorious slowly-pouring sonic gold.

  

The Darkness, Motorheart– Hard rock and metal, in a gloriously trashy 80s vein. Some throwaway Star Trek references. Guitars, guitars, guitars! It’s kind of like this UK band received the instruction “make an over-the-top parody of this kind of music, except do it totally sincerely” and then brilliantly executed on that mission.

Maybe

• Aimee Mann, Queens of the Summer Hotel– Mann developed these songs for a stage version of “Girl, Interrupted” that ended up itself being interrupted by COVID, after which she decided to release them herself. She is as good as she ever is, but it’s somehow not consistently up to her best (admittedly a high bar).
  
   
• Chime School, Chime School– Based on the band name, you might expect something like the Byrds, or maybe the paisley underground channeling the Byrds. And you would be getting exactly that from this San Francisco band! In many ways it’s a museum piece, which is making me question “yes”, but it’s a flawlessly executed one.
  
  
• Circle/Richard Dawson, Henki– Dawson is an English neo-folk musician, and Circle is a Finnish experimental rock band. They describe this album as “flora-themed hypno-folk-metal”. That’s actually a pretty fair description of the mind-bending sound here. A little like prog rock, a little like Bowie and Ferry at their most theatrical, a little pinch of Bauhaus, a little off-kilter musically, vocally and lyrically, but always interesting and feeling looming with import. It’s not like everything else. Which after 938 albums so far this year I put quite a premium on! My only reservation is a section in the middle that bogs down a little.
  
  
• Courtney Barnett, Things Take Time, Take Time– Her sometimes I sit and think was one of the critics’ picks for the 2010s that I agreed with. Like that album, this has unique vocals, a sure feel for melody and rock chords, and smart and sometimes knife twist lyrics. It mostly keeps a little too all to one vein musically and emotionally, which is my main reservation.
  
   
• Dave Gahan & The Soulsavers, Imposter– I don’t know what I was expecting from a Depeche Mode member’s side projects, but I guess something generally Depeche Modey? To be sure, this is darkly textured and full of mood, but is a series of widely ranging covers that are musically treated as an invocation of old fashioned R&B, 60s soul, and the darker minor chords side of 60s rock. Among others, he covers Neil Young and Dylan cover, which is a good way to win me over. There’s always been an undercurrent of homage to soul and R&B in synth pop, and I can see the dotted lines between Depeche ModI and what he’s doing here musically, but it’s still an interesting and welcome surprise!
  
  
• IFE, 0000 + 0000– per YouTube Music’s summary: “The electronic music moniker of New Orleans based producer and percussionist Otura Mun, ÌFÉ blends elements of Afro-Cuban folklore and Yoruban religious music with the bass driven sounds of modern day Jamaican Dancehall, Trap and Afro-Beat.” That maybe gives you the proper flavor, and while I wasn’t quite sold on it having enough coherence, structure or sheer oomph to be a year’s best album, it was a consistently interesting (and fun!) listen that I never felt tempted to turn off.
  
  
• Julie Doiron, I Thought of You– Doiron is a Canadian singer-songwriter who has been a fixture of the Canadian indie scene since the 90s. And with guitar rock that rings like bells, sometimes haunting and sometimes plaintive vocals, and incisive emotionally complex lyrics, there is a lot here to like. My only reservation is the pacing of the material, I’m not sure the shifts from faster/slower are spaced out for best album flow.
  
  
• NRBQ, Dragnet– I feel kind of bad not having heard of them before, since they’ve been around since 1965. Always something new to learn! Technically, only one original member is left, backed here by a band that he’s had together for a decade now. But what really catches me about it is the spontaneity, variety, and sincerity of the music. It’s kind of like it samples various styles from the last half-century, and then plays every single one of them as if 100% in that era. What it lacks for in overall coherence is mostly offset by the impressive inventiveness and skill.
  
  
• Rod Stewart, The Tears of Hercules– His 32nd studio album! One the one hand, does it match his best work, and will it be an album people are still talking about two years from now? It doesn’t seem likely to me. On the other, it’s livelier than the average outing his contemporaries produce these days, and completely naively joyously committed to its pseudo-classic, pseudo-disco, pseudo-sleazy ethos. I gotta say maybe!
  
  
• Sherelle, Fabric Presents Sherelle– AllMusic tells me, “London-born DJ, label founder, and producer Sherelle has earned widespread praise for her high-octane sets”. And that definitely keys in on what I love about this- its over the top manic energy level. This would be a great set to spend the night at the club dancing too, but as an hour and a half album, I’m not sure it works. On the other hand, I did thoroughly enjoy it. So maybe?
  
  
• The Flaming Lips/Nell Smith, Where the Viaduct Looms– If you’re the Flaming Lips, you know what you do for your next album? You do an album of Nick Cave covers with a 14 year old Canadian singer-songwriter on lead vocals. Do you know why? Because you’re the Flaming Lips, you can do any damn thing you want, and the weirder the better! Between the off-kilter musical approach typical of the Flaming Lips, the strong source material, and the contemporary pop vibe of the vocalist, it’s a weirdly successful and compelling mix. It doesn’t *totally* feel like it all fits together, but isn’t that kind of the point?
  
  
• TisaKorean, mr.siLLyfLow– The fresh sound directions from this this Houston rapper, producer, and dancer include soundtracks and cartoons sampling, gonzo vocal flow, and hilarious lyrics. Also, the sound effects made my dog fitfully bark. It doesn’t always feel like it fully fits together, but it’s all great. Dog and man recommend! (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Tony Allen/Joan as Police Woman/Dave Okumu, The Solution is Restless– This collaboration between indie pop powerhouse Joan Wasser, Afro-beat veteran Tony Allen (this was his last record before his recent death), and producer Dave Okumu is very interesting. It emerged out of what was essentially an extended studio jam session, the results of which they later refined. I was constantly on the edge of thinking it sounding unfocused, but then being utterly charmed by the spontaneous energy and the intriguing mix of jazz, beats, and sophisticated pop that they were weaving together. A strong maybe!
  
  
• Walk The Moon, Heights– I was continually tipping back and forth between “this is the epitome of post-2000 pop/rock, and not in a good way” and “I really like their energy, and this is pretty darn catchy”. So I think, by definition, we have ended up at “Maybe”. So all right, Cincinnati-based band founded in 2006. Maybe!
  
  
• Willie Nelson, The Willie Nelson Family-This is exactly what you might think based on the name- Willie Nelson, musically and sometimes vocally accompanied by his two sons, two daughters, and sister. His backing band has been called The Family since the 70s, so really it’s a double serving of family. Perhaps fittingly for that, this selection of covers of country gospel songs is very relaxed-feeling. Is it stupendous? No. Did I wish it would just keep going, and would I listen to it again? Yes. We could do a lot worse! 

No

• ABBA, Voyage– “First new ABBA album in 40 years” is, if nothing else, notable. It’s actually pretty well done, but in a slow and syrupy dripping with nostalgia way. It doesn’t start to hit the kind of high energy Abba territory one might be expecting until a third of the way in. It’s not bad, but not their best, or the best of the year.
  
  
• Alex Malheiros, Tempos Futuros– Leading Brazilian Jazz bassist since the 70s. It is very pleasant and richly textured, but it just doesn’t click in for me. I try jazz, I really do!
  
  
• Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, Raise the Roof– It’s as solid as you would expect, but for the most part it doesn’t differentiate or distinguish itself enough, especially given their earlier collaboration. This is the trap of being compared against your own best!
  
  
• anaiis, this is no longer a dream– Definitely some worthy material here, musically lush and vocally powerful. Ultimately it doesn’t get beyond a certain energy sameness to me. (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Ashley Shadow, Only the End– Jangly reverb-heavy guitar chords are a good way to get my attention. This was doing well for the first few tracks, but then bogged down in the middle with too many slower low-energy tracks in a row. (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• aya , im hole– Part feedback, part performance art, part experimental synth jazz club beats. This outing from UK club DJ aya is not without merit, considerable merit, but a little too abstract/experimental to be an album for the year/ages.
  
  
• Beach Fossils, The Other Side of Life: Piano Ballads– These are piano ballads. They’re fine. They have a song named “Sleep Apnea”. It’s appropriate.
  
  
• Ben LaMar Gay, Open Arms to Open Us– Now this is interesting! A little jazz, a little experimental, a little electronic, and all thoroughly vocally and musically offbeat and quirky. It wears a little thin after about a quarter of the way through, but I did appreciate how different it sounded.
  
  
• Body/Head/Aaron Dilloway, Body/Dilloway/Head– I want to like this, I really do. The inclusion of Sonic youth’s Kim Gordon pre-disposes me kindly. Unfortunately, it’s very much on the “atonal noise experiment” side of her (and her collaborators) output. Alas!
  
  
• Casper Skulls, Knows No Kindness– The vocals are shimmery, the music is billowing, it’s all well-rendered and establishes a mood, but it doesn’t particularly stick while listening, or afterward.
  
  
• Chris Liebing, Another Day– This reminded me of that kind of late 80s techno/industrial that one found in, well, the late 80s. Pretty good as far as it goes! But it started to wear thin partway through.
  
   
• Christian McBride, Live at the Village Vanguard [2021]– American jazz bassist, composer and arranger, with over 300 side-man recordings. So, he’s probably very good. It doesn’t sound bad, I just generally can’t jazz. I keep trying!
  
  
• Cleo Soul, Mother– This is a very intelligent, emotionally and lyrically profound album on motherhood. It’s all so much musically in one low-key track to track vein that it just doesn’t sustain.
  
  
• Constant Smiles, Paragons– This reminds me of some kind of bulge bracket encompassing 80s alternative and 80s AOR. So I guess I’m saying guitars and mood like the Church, but with a hint of Moody Blues prog to it? It was working for me for quite a while, but then eventually collapsed into fuzzy sameness.
  
  
• Converge/Chelsea Wolfe, Bloodmoon: 1– I guess if I were a depressed teenager I might like this? I did definitely like the depressed teenager music of my era when I was a depressed teenager. It’s all a little paint by numbers meeting between goth indie rocker and prog metal, though.
  
  
• DAF/Robert Gorl, Nur Noch Einer– This feels like a trip down the early version of electronic music’s memory lane. And that’s exactly what it is- DAF were pioneers of electronic music in Germany in the late 70s, and this album is based on unreleased material they’d written in the 80s, re-worked by the surviving original band member after one of the other founder’s untimely passing. It’s a fun enough listen, and might certainly appeal to aficionados, but I’m not sure it’s hitting “best of year” territory.
  
  
• Damon Albarn, The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows– Sometimes synthy and moody in that brooding English kind of way, sometimes more electronic and experimental. It actually might have sold me with more of those really gonzo moments. Maybe. It was really pretty pleasant, it just wasn’t usually more than that.
  
  
• Diana Ross, Thank You– It’s decent, if somewhat low energy. But not up to her finest work (admittedly, an absurd bar to top) or among the year’s best for R&B.
  
  
• Dijon, Absolutely– There are moments where it gets to an abstract, almost chaotic mix with rising and falling rhythms. Those are interesting times. It doesn’t get there consistently enough, though.
  
  
• Dltzk, Frailty– It was starting off as a nice low-fi approach, albeit in a kind of emo/indie vein, but then just started becoming too autotuned.
  
  
• Doran, Doran– My sources inform me this is a four-person freak folk collective. They do lovely harmonies, but it’s all kind of stuck in one tone/low-energy groove.
  
  
• Dream Unending, Tide Turns Eternal– Ah, instrumental orchestral metal with the unintelligible guttural monster voice. Next!
  
  
• Eastern Margins, Redline Legends– I was really hoping for something interesting in this collection of East Asian club music. There are some off the hook high-energy tracks here that I appreciate, but also way, way, wayyyyy too much autotune. (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Elbow, Flying Dream 1– It reminds me in a way of  the slower side of Peter Gabriel. It all ends up being a little too sonorous for extended listening, though.
  
  
• Fine Place, This New Heaven– This is a little on the chilly side of synth/electronic, which I actually appreciate about it. Though it reminded me of my moody teen music home in a way, I didn’t think it added up as an album.
  
  
• Foxes, Friends in the Corner– Kind of the British version of a Taylor Swiftian teen album. Not badly done, by any means, but not really rising above either.
  
  
• Goldenboy Countup, Chicken Man 2– This is a solid hip-hop album, and makes some fun and interesting mix/sample choices, but it doesn’t really rise up to the level of best hip-hop albums I’ve heard this year. End of year is a tough time to measure up! (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Gov’t Mule, Heavy Load Blues– Hey, Gov’t Mule is good mule! And they come to the blues-based sound very honestly. But it too often feels a bit “playing genre by rote” here for me, and especially with a run time of well over an hour, it needs to be consistently very sharp in order to work.
  
  
• hackedepicciotto, The Silver Threshold– Kind of new age, kind of orchestra, kind of abstract electronic. Kind of no.
  
  
• Hana Vu, Public Storage– This LA singer-songwriter has produced music that is spare, smart, and full of a surging, looming feeling. It’s very well done, but ultimately it’s too in one tone musically and vocally to really stand out and work at full album length.
  
  
• HARD FEELINGS, HARD FEELINGS– This is some very fine club dance music, but is it the finest club dance music we’ve heard this year? Or better/as good as the best of what we’ve heard in other genres? This is the peril everything I’m listening to in November/December has to face!
  
  
• Haviah Mighty, Stock Exchange– There are definitely some good things about this rapper from Toronto, Ontario. She’s got something to say, and keeps hi-energy tracks moving. Unfortunately, it’s also autotuned all to hell.
  
  
• Hawthonn, Earth Mirror– A very background, almost somnolent sound. It fits deep slow earth magic, but maybe doesn’t so well fit listening and remembering.
  
  
• Hayden Pedigo, Letting Go– Apparently, Hayden Pedigo is an American avant-garde musician, politician, performance artist, and model. This is a lovely acoustic set. Doesn’t really zing into “best of year” status. (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• HTRK, Rhinestones– Richly textured vocally and musically, strong on a dreamy acoustic mood. It never really gets outside of that same track-to-track vein though. But I do want to give this Australian band props for having been originally named “Hate Rock Trio” and for having rallied back after the suicide of one of their founders.
  
  
• Ichiko Aoba, Windswept Adan– The soundtrack to a movie that exists only in this Japanese musician’s mind. I love the concept, and the execution is pretty, but is a little too in an ethereal neo-classical, largely instrumental vein to hold my attention.
  
  
• Idles, Crawler– I like this so much better than Ultra Mono, the Idles album I listened to for the 2020 list. As good musically and lyrically (sometimes very punky, sometimes bruising hardcore, sometimes brooding atmospheric songs) as that earlier labum, and it’s gotten itself much more out of the shouted vocals business. Ultimately, I think it ended up too uneven in its musical approach given the length- some sequencing and structure would have really benefited it as an album. There’s a lot of good material in there, though!
  
  
• Irreversible Entanglements, Open The Gates– Some hip-hop/spoken word-infused jazz, interesting but eventually gets bogged down in lengthy mostly instrumental tracks.
  
  
• Jason Aldean, Macon– Do you like your formulaic lyrics and topics pop-country with a rock edge? If so, God bless, and this is for you.
  
  
• Jessy Lanza, DJ-Kicks– Jessy Lanza is a leader of the hyperdub movement, and a talented DJ and multinstrumentalist. She’s collected this album of mixes, and there’s no denying there’s some great dance music here, but there’s not enough holding it together for the nearly hour and a half run length to get it to “great album” status.
  
  
• Jon Hopkins, Music for Psychedelic Therapy– Well, the title just about perfectly tells you what to expect. And I think it would honestly be pretty good for the suggested purpose, just maybe not as good for repeated listening under any other circumstance.
  
  
• Key Glock, Yellow Tape 2– The flow is solid, and I like the driving spareness of the production. This album by a Memphis-based hip-hop artist doesn’t get enough beyond cliché and sameness track to track to really stand out, though.
  
  
• Kip C, meraki– Some low-key hip-hop flow and a jazz background. It’s pleasant enough, but never really grabbed me. (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• KrispyLife Kidd, The Art of Spice Talk– It’s a good hip-hop album. We’ve only got room for extraordinary at this point. (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Ladyhawke, Time Flies– This is a kind of pastiche of disco and 80s pop and 90s dance music. It’s all well enough done, but, well, it’s getting to be late in the year, and the bar for getting my attention at this point is pretty high…
  
  
• Leif, 9 Airs– There was some nice swirling instrumental work, some keyboard sound effects, something that sounded like a plastic container rolling down a hallway. Eh.
  
  
• Lord Jah-Monte Ogbone, Beautifully Black– It’s a pretty darn good hip-hop album, with some clever and interesting material, but the bar, well, she is very high at this point in the year.
  
  
• Makaya McCraven, Deciphering the Message– Through the years, venerable jazz label Blue Note has made it’s archive available to hip-hop artists, often to great effect. This bleeding edge drummer, producer, and self described “beat scientist” has produced something sonically pleasing, but not as dynamic and engaging as when Us3 did something similar, for example.
  
  
• Makthaverskan, For Allting– The totally ambient intro pretty much lost me, but the second track from this Swedish band started to win me back with its lively surging rock and yearning vocals. The tracks do have a tendency to kind of fuzz together in an undifferentiated way, but when they’re on, they’re great- brimming over with a spontaneous 80s alt kind of feeling. In the end it was a little too uneven to really gel together as an album, but it was a close call.
  
  
• Mira Calix, absent origin– It opens with de-synchronized beats and what sounds like a repeated fart or deflating balloon. It does get considerably better and more interesting than that, but is too discordant and experimental to make a sustainable “best of year” album.
  
  
• Modeselektor, EXTLP– German electronic music duo. When it gets in to dub, and the more vocal tracks, it definitely comes alive. Otherwise it gets a little abstract for me.
  
  
• Mortiferum, Preserved in Torment– I mean, you see the band name, you see the album name, you know what you’re in for. At that point, it’s actually a bigger problem for a band if they you don’t deliver it than if they do. Musically, it’s doing an excellent job of alternating between shambling sludgy doom and blistering guitar metal. The lyrics and vocals, unfortunately, are utterly lost behind an incomprehensible monster mumble voice.
  
   
• New Age Doom/Lee “Scratch” Perry, Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Guide to the Universe– One of the final outings from the acclaimed Jamaican producer, teaming up with proggy metal band New Age Doom. It’s interesting, trippy, and I wouldn’t say it doesn’t work. It certainly is the kind of experiment that should be celebrated. But I’m not sure it makes an album that one would repeatedly listen to.
  
  
• Ovlov, Buds– This is some really good indie-guitar rock, but it all kind of fuzzes together after several tracks.
  
  
• Parris, Soaked in Indigo Moonlight– There are some good dance singles here, but I’m not hearing anything that adds up to a complete album.
  
  
• Pelt, Reticence/Resistance– Pitchfork tells me “over the past 30 years, Pelt has become known for their distinct blend of Americana, drone, improvisation, and psychedelic rock”. It is impressive that these are live recordings, but the album’s two 20+ minute tracks are on the drone side of psychedelia. That’s a lot of minutes of that sound.
  
  
• Penelope Isles, Which Way to Happy– They’ve got beats, and dreamy shimmery music, and swirly vocals. It’s all very nice, but I’m not sure I picture it being remebered much after the year is over.
  
  
• Portrayal of Guilt, Christfucker- If you know it’s a metal band, and you see the album title, you know what you’re getting in for. Musically it’s pretty good, though there’s an occasional almost electronica touch that strikes me as odd. The vocals are all in that hoarse exaggerated monster scream voice that keeps you from getting anything out of the lyrics, though.
  
  
• QRTR, infina ad nausea– A little electronic sometimes tending toward ambient, a little autotune, a little nah. (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Rosie Lowe/Duval Timothy, Son – This collaboration between UK and South African artists is sonically interesting, but maybe a tad abstract and experimental to be coherent and bear repeated listening.
  
  
• Scott Hirsch, Windless Day– There are moments where this mix of heartland rock and 70s production effects really felt like it was working for me. Then there were others when it felt a little flat and overproduced. Too many more of the later. (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Sean Khan, Supreme Love: A Journey Through Coltrane– Some great jazz musicians paying tribute to a jazz great. I’m sure it’s great. Although I do wonder- I one of the things about the original is how groundbreaking it was. I’m not sure the responses measure up to that. Ever the trap when covering/responding to a great!
  
  
• Shubh Saran, Inglish– It’s a thoughtful, if all-instrumental, meditation on identity. Done in an electronic-informed jazz vein. (Or a jazz-informed electronic vein?) Certainly not unworthy, but ultimately not enough to hang coherent, repeatable album status on.
  
  
• Sloppy Jane, Madison– I do like the spell of her voice, and the emotional depth of the lyrics, and I really admire the musical gonzo spirit of recording the whole thing in a deep underground cave. It’s all of one slow tone, though, that doesn’t make for a sustainable, interesting album.
  
  
• Snail Mail, Valentine– Skilled young indie rocker, but this is a little too much in a same low tempo track-tot-track vocal and musical vein.
  
  
• Spirit Was, Heaven’s Just a Cloud– Although I wasn’t sure about the opening track, it did have a way with melody, and moody guitar layers that I appreciated. There was also some interesting experimentation along the way. I think it stayed all too much in one fuzzy, woozy vein (although a nice one) to work as an album, but I would keep an eye on this New York City band.  (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Sting, The Bridge– I think the last time I listened to a new Sting album was probably some time in the 90s. And don’t get me wrong, I know it’s hip to dislike him, but as an alt 80s kid I was a big fan of the Police and Sting’s earlier solo albums. So, I’m not inherently hostile, and this is not bad, in parts it’s even soaring musical storytelling. But it’s not consistently at that level, and not up to his best.
  

• Summer Walker, Still Over It– The sentiments expressed here are worthy, but otherwise it’s musically unremarkable 2000s soul/R&B, down-tempo, with a lot of autotune.
  
  
• Swallow the Sun, Moonflowers– “Finnish doom band” does leave me favorably disposed in general. And, to be sure, they do their orchestral, occasionally thrashy, thick with dread emotional vocals thing well. Maybe not well enough to sound particularly more or different from other things like this, though?
  
  
• Taylor Swift, Red [Taylor’s Version]– We’ve talked earlier in the year about the admirable audacity of Taylor Swift’s project of re-recording earlier albums to re-gain control of her catalogue. And, not wanting fans to feel tricked or cheated, she’s loaded the releases with additional material. That’s praiseworthy! But, a two and a half hour run-time is…a bit much. Not to say there isn’t a lot of great material here, but it’s extreme overflow for an album.
  
  
• Terrace Martin, Drones– There were moments when this was doing a jazz-inflected channeling of 70s/early 80s soul that I quite liked. There were others when it was doing something more like autotuned hip-hop that I didn’t. On balance, it didn’t quite come together.
  
  
• The Dodos, Grizzly Peak– The descriptor “San Francisco indie rock duo” makes me want to like them, but it was a little on the bleary, unfocused side of indie for me.
  
  
• The KVB, Unity– This British duo has produced a nice, moody, shimmery shoe-gazey outing here. To be sure, it’s pretty good. But is it especially more good than other similar things? Will people still be listening to it and talking about it five years from now? A year from now even?
  
  
• They Might Be Giants, Book– Earlier this year I reviewed a Barenaked Ladies album, and I remember thinking they sounded as good as they always do, and the songs were all fun and well done, but I was curiously unsure it added up to a proper album. I have that same feeling here.
  
  
• Tristan Arp, Sculpturegardening– It is like sonic sculptures, and it’s very well done, but it’s also very abstract. Not bad, just not in the general area of what I’m looking for. (Full disclosure: This is not really a November release. It’s from a Pitchfork list of 27 albums you might have missed this year. No stone left unturned!)
  
  
• Uffe, Words and Endings– Experimental electronic, some dub influence, which I like. Doesn’t stand out.
  

• Various Artists, Highway Butterfly: The Songs of Neal Casal– Casal was a country-rock songwriter who released fourteen albums himself, and played on hundreds of songs for other artists before becoming a member of Ryan Adams band. You can see how widely respected he was by the breadth and depth of artists who contributed covers of his songs to this tribute. It really is great material and well covered, but, at more than three hours, too unwieldy to function as an album for the general listener. But still well worth exploring!  

And now, on to December! Can I make it before the year ends?

October is the tenth month of the year, and thus we are 10/12 through with our search the 21 best albums of 2021. We have come far my friends!

If you’re just joining for the first time, I’m listening to new releases each month, sorting them into yes/maybe/no, and then I’ll do a final shakedown to get the best 21 albums of the year. You can find the earlier installments here:

( January February March April May June July August September )

This is one of three music-related blog series I’m doing this year. We’re at the tenth of ten installments of my review of critic’s choices for the best albums of the 2010s, and the wrap-up of my review of the critic’s consensus on the 20 best albums of 2020 is here.

Since we’re nearing the end of this mad venture, I thought it might by an opportune time to say a few words on the theory and practice of a great album. Or to put it another way, what am I listening for? In my opinion, there are several potential ingredients that make for a successful album:

• Consistency- We’re all familiar with the “one or two good songs, but the rest is crap” phenomenon. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with being a great singles artist who never pulled off a great album. They can, and do, produce music that will live forever. But for an album as a whole to be great, there shouldn’t be a song on it, much less whole sections, where one is thinking, “This is shit, but I’ll hang in there because of what comes before/after.”
  
• Quality- This is kind of a difficult to nail down concept, but I think it’s crucial. It could be that the album is incredibly ambitious musically. Or, it might be doing something more modest musically, but doing it very well. Perhaps it’s the vocals or lyrics that are a cut above- in sophistication, in intelligence, in the depth of the feeling they’re conveying. Probably it’s several of these things in combination. Whatever it is, there has to be something that’s somehow above and beyond.
  
• Pacing/Sequencing- I can’t tell you how many times I was listening to something that was well on its way to being a “yes”, but then the second half went flat after a great first half. Or energy built up by one song was dissipated by a series of songs that were in a completely different tone or mood. In many of these cases, it wouldn’t even have been necessary to cut anything, it could have just been arranged differently so that the ups/downs, fast/slows, quiet/louds, etc. had a natural rhythm to them.
  
• Listenability- Here you might be thinking, “duh”. I mean, of course you should enjoy listening to it. And that can be quite a subjective quality, of course. But there are many albums where I found what they were doing interesting, or challenging, even thoroughly worthy, but it ended up being a little too discordant or grating to bear extended listening. Or others where it was all so much in one tone musically, vocally, or emotionally, that it all started to blend together in a way that lost my attention. If you’re going to listen to the whole thing, and want to listen to it more than once, is needs to be listenable. Duh.
  
• Honesty- How’s that for an abstract term? I’m not sure how precisely to define it, but what I mean is, for almost any song to work, there has to be something authentic, genuine, vital to it. It might be in the music, the vocals, the lyrics, somewhere in between, but it’s the difference between something that is technically solid or well produced but leaves you totally cold and something that catches your attention and sticks with you later.
  
• Unity- This is a big one. For a whole album to work, and work greatly, there needs to be something holding it together. This doesn’t at all mean every album needs to be a rock opera, have a grand story arc, or be a concept album with repeated motifs, though all of those can work. It could be something as simple as a common set of themes that the lyrics are wrestling with. Or a particular musical vein or sonic approach that’s developed throughout. Even, as ephemeral as this can be, simply a spirit or an attitude holding the whole thing together.

And these things are to some extent substitute with each other. A given album might succeed by doing, say, three of these things really well, but the other three not as strongly. If you’re thinking of a great album that you like all the way through, and go back to again and again, though, I’m betting some combination of most of the above is at play.

All right, enough philosophizing, let’s get on with it! But before we proceed, a quick note about the three categories:

Yes– These are the albums that, based on my initial listen, are in definite contention to be considered for the 21 best albums of the year. This list is now up to 216 albums, so a minimum 90% slaughter is headed their way. Gird your loins!

Maybe– These are albums that had definite strengths, but about which I have some reservation. I’ve noticed over the years that sometimes “maybes” linger, so I’m giving them a category just in case.

No– These albums are not in contention. Some of them deserve discussion, though, which I note.

Now, on to the truly excessive 134 October new releases I listened to!

Atmosphere, WORD?– Trippy, fun, and often hilarious hip-hop, served well by the completely artless vocal styling (I mean this in a good way- it’s often like he’s just talking to us!). This American hip hop duo from Minneapolis, Minnesota, consisting of rapper Slug and DJ/producer Ant, started in the 90s, which makes sense in terms of the sound and the tone, which reminds me of KRS-One.

Billy Bragg, The Million Things That Never Happened– Billy Bragg has many different modes/moods. This one is more slow and bittersweet, a collection written from age/wisdom taking stock of where one is in life, and what one still believes in and wants. Which is not to say there aren’t moments of humor, stirring music, optimism, and his trademark fiery political commitment in there too.

Charlotte Cornfield, Highs in the Minuses– This Canadian singer-songwriter is a hidden (at least heretofore to me) gem! The songs know how to work a chord change and are solid musically, but where it really shines is the lyrics. They seem in a way, insularly personal and specific, but in their very specificity are somehow relatable- this is her life, and her thoughts and feelings about it, and hey, that kind of reminds me of my life, and my thoughts and feelings about it. Her straightforward and flawlessly authentic vocal delivery further sells it.

Clamm, Beseech Me– By the sound of it, I would not be surprised if this album had landed on us from the late 70s LA Punk scene, or from the early 80s U.S. hardcore scene. In fact, it’s from Melbourne in 2021. Despite the weird time-capsule feeling, I kind of love it- as it turns out, the original punk sound is still a good way to warm an old punk’s heart.

Eris Drew, Quivering in Time– What do you do if you’re holed up in a log cabin in New Hampshire during plague times? If you’re DJ and producer Eris Drew, you mix together this very fine house/electronic album. If you’ve been following along at home, you know that electronic music is often a tough sell for me, but this is so full of energy, and a wit in production that moves it dynamically forward while the trance of the beats pulls you hypnotically under that I never even thought about touching that dial. Or clicking that mouse, as it were.

Guided by Voices, It’s Not Them. It Couldn’t Be Them. It Is Them!– This is the second Guided by Voices album of the year, and, as is their wont, sounds different from the other one, and sounds excellent. This one is more in an early 70s prog/psychedelic groove, with enough guitar in a punk/80s alt vein to keep it moving.

Illuminati Hotties, Let Me Do One More– American indie rock band from Los Angeles created by producer/audio engineer Sarah Tudzin. It’s really something! On the one hand, it seems a little like 2000s YouTube pop. But at other times it’s channeling grunge and full-on 90s guitar-crunching songstress. And sometimes it’s in experimental and manic hyperpop modes all its own. And I mean the name is pretty cool too, right? Definitely a talent worth keeping an eye on!

JPEGmafia, LP!– Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks, known professionally as JPEGmafia, is an American rapper, singer, and record producer from Brooklyn. His hip-hop comes from an electronic direction with an interesting and challenging musical and lyrical mix. It reminds me a bit of 90s Conscious hip-hop, and also of 80s metallic beats, but is something unique and all its own on top of that.

Karen Peris, A Song Is Way Above the Lawn– This album by Innocence Mission alumni Peris is meant to be a children’s album, but it works for adults. In fact, it’s exactly those aspects that might make it work for children- a kind of lyrical naiveté, a fable-like quality, a straightforward even somewhat bare musical and vocal presentation, that makes it so affecting. It feels a little like a haunted fairy tale.

Lana Del Rey, Blue Bannisters– This is her second album this year, and, consistently, she’s amazing. I did wonder about the slow vein it started in and mostly maintains, but as it goes on, it’s clear that this is deliberate- the album is a meditation on the richness of heartbreak and feeling blue. And it’s magnificently done.

Lilly Hiatt, Lately– I have a friend who is a big John Hiatt fan, and, under her influence, I am learning to significantly appreciate him. So I was naturally curious to see what his daughter Lilly is up to. It turns out that she’s up to making a really good country-themed album, with great playing, powerful vocals, and just the right mix of respect for traditionalism and verve.

Megan Thee Stallion, Something for Thee Hotties– The stallion named Megan is never less than interesting. She released this mix of previously online free-styles and archive tracks as a gift for fans and proceeds to spend it blisteringly talking trash, female empowerment, and in our faces sexuality. With some great beats and non-stop excellent vocal flow thrown in. If this was a male hip-hop artist doing something similar, it probably wouldn’t work, but the gender inversion makes me say, “Go girl!”

Mon Laferte, 1940 Carmen– The second album out from this Chilean songstress this year. It is just so darn pretty, and her voice is stunning. It also has a mix of Spanish and English, and dips into pop styles of the 60s, making it more accessible (to me, anyway) than her earlier in the year all-Spanish album which focused on Mexican folk music.

Natalie Hemby, Pins and Needles– Second solo album by an artist who has written hit songs for many other country artists over the last 20+ years. I expected/feared from this something that would be very pop country. In fact, while definitely coming from a  country direction, it’s often got a rock feeling to it, and, while being pop catchy, has a good sense for emotional complexity, delivered in a  voice that rings authentic.

ONETWOTHREE, ONETWOTHREE– We kick into gear with a grooving head-bopping start, with a staccato vocal punch. This is the product of three female bassists/singers from classic Swiss post-punk bands, and that’s what it sounds like. In a wonderful way! Dissonant, spare, driving, nervy.

Pokey LaFarge, In the Blossom of Their Shade– Vocal pop with country, 50s rock, swing, ska, and Latin sounds in the mix. This description is true, but I think it undersells how delightful the combination of this, and his plaintive croon, is. This is some really excellent Americana.

Remi Wolf, Juno– Musically, this is definitely coming from a dance/pop direction, but her personality, hilarious and super-smart lyrics, and the verve and variety of the music mix all put it over the top. Apparently, she was on American Idol in 2014 as a high school student. She was way too good for them, as she subsequently proved by getting a music degree and then self-releasing her own material. This is her studio album debut, and I’m firmly convinced she’s an exciting talent to keep an eye on!

UNIIQU3, Heartbeats– I think I like Jersey Club, because between this, and Cookie Kawaii’s album earlier this year, I’m on board! The beats and mix are relentless, the sexuality is over the top and hilarious, and the general wit and unusual presence is non-stop fun.

Wiki, Half God– American rapper and record producer Patrick G. Morales, aka Wiki, has produced an album that is in some wise a meditation, delivered in love but also hard honesty, on his native New York City. It’s also full of lyrics heavy on his life and feelings. The production by Navy Blue meanwhile keeps this potentially heavy material buoyed up by spare and clear grooves, and Wiki’s unadorned vocals also buoy things up.

Xenia Rubinos, Una Rosa– This is kind of weird! Some of it sounds like experimental electronic music, or perhaps a theremin-informed movie soundtrack, but then there’s quite a bit of balladeering and hip-hop dance music along the way. Sometimes all of these modes will appear in a single song. All of it informed by a wicked wit that shows up in the lyrics, vocal changes, and mix choices. Well worth a repeated listen! 

Maybe

• BandGang Lonnie Bands, Hard 2 Kill– Low key music mix and vocal flow adds to the lyrics in delivering a slow steady sense of dread. In a way, it’s thoroughly and unremarkably stuck in the gangster subroutine, but stands out from the skillful way it’s put together.
   
• Boy Scouts, Wayfinder– Boy Scouts is the stage name of Oakland, California musician Taylor Vick. The fuzzy lo-fi sound, and lackadaisical undertow of vocals is low key, and sort of the same track to track, but with the emotionally charged and literate lyrics, it’s also affecting in the mood it creates and really pretty excellent.

• Brandi Carlile, In These Silent Days– From her debut on, I have liked Brandi Carlile a lot. This is a fine album (I don’t think she can do a bad one). But I’m not sure it’s up to her best, or the other bests of the year. Maybe?

• Dean Wareham, I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of LA– The intelligence of the lyrics, dry humor, and world-weariness of the vocals is a wonderful thing. The music is deliberately muted, and this low-key tone and lack of variability is perhaps the thing holding it back from the”yes” category.
   
• Deerhoof, Actually, You Can– I do love me some Deerhoof! Reville and Apple O are two of my favorite albums of the 00s, and I’ve seen them live several times, which has never been less than great. The opening song is about vegetables and a refrigerator, and every song sounds like a power-pop song exploded and was reassembled. This is lacking some of the surging moments and repeated structure of their best albums, but is a pretty worthy outing, all in all.

• Ducks Ltd., Modern Fiction– This sounds like some hi-energy alt 80s jangle pop. That, and the name, are both good ways to dispose me favorably. Time capsule sound from this Toronto band, but darned if it isn’t well done!

• Hayes Carll, You Get it All– Vocally and musically this Texas singer-songwriter delivers- sometimes in an outlaw country vein, sometimes bluegrass-tinged, or blues, sometimes 70s pop country. But his lyrical edge and wit take it up another notch. There are a few tracks where it falls flat, sound too produced and/or dips into cliché, which is a shame, because minus, say, 2-3 tracks here, it would have been an enthusiastic yes.

• HONNE, Let’s Just Say the World Ended a Week From Now, What Would You Do?– I mean it’s autotuned too much, and it’s “just” a good pop album. But a good pop album that never lets you down for a single track is really good! Just enough energy, just enough interesting touches in the electronic mix, some wit in the lyrics, and melody and hooks.

• Jason Isbell, Georgia Blue– His previous album, Reunions, was one of my favorites of 2020. This is the result of an election dare, but an inspired one- he campaigned for Biden in Georgia and said if Joe won, Jason would do an album covering songs from Georgia artists. He pulls the covers from a variety of sources, and plays them to his and his band’s strengths, concentrating on the instrumental side and pulling in guest vocalists. It’s so well done that even the 12-minute Allman Brothers cover doesn’t throw me off.

• Jerry Cantrell, Brighten– It is still the 90s on this Alice in Chains alum’s album. I miss the 90s. And it’s hard to find anything this album is doing wrong- it would have made a great mid/late 90s “grunge is no longer fresh and new but this still works” album. The dated sound now is the source of my reservation.

• Kevin Morby, A Night at the Little Los Angeles– These are 4-track demos from this Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter’s 2020 album Sundowner. He originally hails from Texas and Missouri, and works in a very Dylan/Springsteen “haunted-sounding songs of troubled lives” space, and the spare four-track setting enhances it. The second-half sequencing sometimes dissipates the energy it was otherwise building up, which is the only thing that got it docked from “yes”.

• Kurt Elling, Super Blue– I am informed he’s the “standout male jazz vocalist of our age”. He does have a great voice, and his vocal phrasing is really interesting. He’s paired here with jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter, who’s funky, driving tracks I appreciate. Between these two forces and some literate, imagistic lyrics, my interest got carried along the whole way through. Call me crazy, but I think this is a strong maybe. See, I can like a jazz album! I can!

• Lily Koningsberg, Lily We Need to Talk Now– Koningsberg is one of the members of Palberta, whose album Palberta5000 made my “maybe” list earlier this year. She’s great here- bringing a mix of lo-fi dance and rock, with propulsive music, crunchy guitar, songs that remember melody, and vocals and lyrics that are smart and true. If it wasn’t for a few dreamy keyboard pieces that seem out of joint with everything else, this would have been an automatic yes.
   
• Mastodon, Hushed and Grim– I do love me some Mastodon! This has their characteristic moments of both heaviness (nobody current does heavy better), orchestral flourish, and musical experimentation (one track has practically a disco vibe in parts) as they explore themes of grief, centering on the death of their long-time manager. While full of range, this definitely leans more on the prog/arena rock side, and it does run for an hour and a half. Albeit a much more accessible hour and a half than their concept albums sometimes manage. So I’m not entirely sure it hangs together at that length, but it also brings a lot to the table.

• Orquesta Akokán, 16 Rayos– Orquesta Akokán is a multi-generational big band of top musicians from Cuba and New York’s Latin music scene. Their sound puts together mambo, other related musical styles, and Latin jazz. Despite the language barrier, it’s a winning and vigorous mix!

• Papur Wal, Amser Mynd Adra– driving upbeat rock with great hooks and a pop feeling. A lot of the album is in Welsh, which definitely is a barrier, but the music is so darn accessible!

• Parquet Courts, Sympathy For Life– What’s wrong with a nice, energetic rock album that evokes a range of eras and styles, combining solid playing with a sense of melody? Nothing! This New York City band is not going to cure cancer, they’re not doing something incredibly profound here, they’re just making a solid rock album with range. Amen! It was headed straight toward “yes” until the questionable decision to close on a six-minute long slow song.

• Pia Fraus, Now You Know It Still Feels the Same– The descriptor “Estonian noise pop group re-records their 20 year old debut with everything they’re capable of now” pretty much had me pre-hooked. It was going really well- the kind of fuzzy noise that makes you take notice but also remembers melody- until about halfway through, when it decisively slide into overly dreamy gauzy territory for two songs in a row. So, it would be a “yes” if it dropped two tracks=maybe?
   
• Sam Fender, Seventeen Going Under– This album by a UK musician is a well-produced, varied, pop album hiding a lyrically and emotionally deep introspective look back at childhood memories. The anthemic feeling as he tackles this material reminds me of Springsteen even though musically it has more in common with 80s synth pop and the more orchestral/bombastic ends of 80s alt. It ends on a somewhat somber note, and the smoothness sometimes feels a little deadening, but then again the smoothness is the very thing that disguises, while also delivering, the heaviness of what it’s doing.
   
• The Lathums, How Beautiful Life Can Be– Brings to mind 80s jangle pop. I personally kept veering between “this sounds a little paint by numbers” and “this is a masterful evocation of that sound”. So I think, by definition, we land at “maybe”.

• Tony Bennett/Lady Gaga, Love For Sale– There’s a lot that can go right here- two great vocal performers, classic Cole Porter material. This kind of thing can also go wrong by feeling like a gimmick, or hewing too exactly to the originals, leaving no room for surprise or discovery. In this case, the stuff that can go right does, and if the versions are a little on the conservative side, it’s musically lively, and there’s a chemistry between them that works. Perhaps not new and different enough to be a screaming ‘yes”, but worthwhile.

• Tori Amos, Ocean to Ocean– There’s no such thing as a bad Tori Amos album, only those that are more focused and musically interesting than the merely “good” others. This is subtle on the musical side (but with depths in the subtlety), but is thematically tied together with the energy of quarantine and isolation and the tides of the sea, which ends up being lyrically rich and suggestive.

No

• Ali Shaheed Muhammad/Adrian Younge, Instrumentals JID009– All instrumental is a tough sell for me. Jazz, well, I try. Put the two together, we’re probably headed for a “no”.

• Andrew Leahey & the Homestead, American Static, Vol. 1– Andrew Leahey is a master of a certain era/spirit of Americana- 80s heartland rock, but with a 2000s indie rock polish. As befits a master, it is well done, but it feels a little too smooth and prefab along the way. I think there’s a version of this album just a pinch less finely polished and more unleashed that would have worked really well.

• April Magazine, If the Ceiling Were a Kite, Vol. 1– Dreamy and jangly, which is a good way to get my attention, but it ended up too muted and same track to track.

• Aquaserge, The Possibility of a New Work for Aquaserge– French art collective making music kind of like you might imagine a French art collective making.

• audiobooks, Astro Tough– audiobooks is a duo made up of vocalist/visual artist Evangeline Ling and David Wrench — who has a deeply impressive resume as a producer/mixer. They’ve got some electronic dance music going here, clever effects, dark undertone, understated vocals, and narratives that spin dense stories of scenes from life. Somewhere in all this is enough sense of melody, refrain, and song structure to propel it along. It was really doing well despite not being total coherent, but ended with such a low-energy final track that it kind of deflated.

• BADBADNOTGOOD, Talk Memory– This Canadian instrumental group’s album sometimes sounds like electronic music, sometimes like straight out rock, sometimes a little jazzy. It’s skillfully done, but I don’t think it clears the hurdle to “year’s best” album.

• BeMyFiasco, Where I Left You– Top points for the name! Dallas-based Bianca Rodriguez courts a version of R&B harking back to the sleeker more sophisticated side of the 80s. It’s very well done, but a little too in a mellow groove to break out.

• BIG|BRAVE/The Body , Leaving None But Small Birds– It does it well, but it’s a little too “Celtic Fire Hour on Public Radio” for me.

• Black Dice, Mod Prog Sic– Experimental music duo from Brooklyn. It’s interesting, metallic in a good way, but a little too much “sound experiment” to totally work as an album in a lasting kind of way.

• Black Marble, Fast Idol– A nice moody electronic project by some nice Brooklyn musicians. It’s well done, but also not particularly better done than other similar things this year.

• Bremer/McCoy, Natten– Danish duo of Jonathan Bremer on acoustic bass and Morten McCoy on the keys and tape delay. This is very well-played instrumental music, but too in a neo-classical/jazz vein for me.

• Carolyn Wonderland, Tempting Fate– This blues singer from Texas, delivers good electric blues with a country flavor. It’s always fun and well done, and at its best it’s downright rollicking. But overall, I don’t know if it rises enough above the genre for “year’s best”.

• Circuit des Yeux, -io– Stage name of Chicago-based American musician Haley Fohr.  The music is interesting in its orchestral swell and playing with rising tension, and the vocals are clear, but everything ends up a little too ethereal and abstract.

• Clinic, Fantasy Island– This English band first formed in the late 90s is doing a good, moody version of post-punk, but I don’t know that it’s better than a lot of other good, moody versions of post-punk I’ve heard this year.

• Coldplay, Music of the Spheres– Coldplay is one of those bands that I am confidently told I should like, and so I keep trying, but, alas. The framing space theme of this album is nice, and everything in it is well done. It’s well done in that Coldplay way, totally smooth, totally competent, but not much hint of real human feeling or musical vitality anywhere in the mix.

• Cradle of Filth, Existence is Futile– How’s that for a metal group and album name? They’re a well known quantity in metal circles, this being their thirteenth album. (Lucky 13!) They certainly do a good job of their mix of thrash and orchestral, infused by horror lyrics. Genre fans will have a good time here, but I’m not sure it’s doing anything new or different enough to reach year’s best, or accessible and coherent enough to justify the more than hour run time.

• Dar Williams, I’ll Meet You Here– As with Brandi Carlile above, Dar Williams is probably not capable of making a bad album. Some of the songs here are quite affecting, and all are never less that well-played and very literate. But it doesn’t come together as an album that rises above for the year as a whole.

• Dear Laika, Pluperfect Mind– Interesting, but also abstract and experimental in a way that’s hard to engage with at length. It is an impressive effort, though, considering that this U.K. based musician is only 23.

• Dinner, Dream Work– Dinner is Copenhagen-based Danish producer and singer Anders Rhedin. As befits the album name, it is shimmery and dreamy. Well instrumented, with a nice gauzy mood, but doesn’t beyond that.

• Domingæ, Ae– This sounds like the dissonant opening of a Pink Floyd song, only at album length.

• Dummy, Mandatory Enjoyment– Despite the name, this L.A. band is no Dummy. What they are is a smart purveyor of a combination of shoegaze, 70s electronic, and psychedelia that often has good, rocking momentum. And, whether or not it was mandatory, I enjoyed it a lot. The thing that’s keeping it from being a yes is the ethereal opening that’s out of tone with the rest, and the times it gets bogged down in a hazy psychedelic swirl for too long, dissipating the momentum.

• Duran Duran, Future Past– Reviewing a new Duran Duran album is an unexpected time warp, for sure. That being said, they’re sounding pretty good here. Kind of more in their late-80s mode, whereas I preferred early 80s, and it feels, as it always has, a little pre-fab, but few other people from that era are still putting out something this creditable.

• Ed Sheeran, =– Ed Sheeran is a UK hit-making machine, and you can certainly hear why here. It’s radio-friendly 2000s pop-rock par excellence. Please save me from it.

• Efterklang, Windflowers– Well-produced, pleasantly dreamy outing from this Danish indie rock band. It never really stands out or gets beyond a certain energy level.

• Elton John, The Lockdown Sessions– Elton John’s 30th studio album. I have made zero studio albums, so maybe I should just shut my mouth. And, to be fair, it has solid production and interesting mixes, a kaleidoscope of well-deployed “contemporary” guest stars, and some interesting covers. But, well, ultimately it doesn’t totally come together as an album, or as something that lands solidly in “good” late period Elton John territory. Competing with yourself is tough!

• ESP Summer, Kingdom of Heaven– The side project of musicians Ian Masters and Warn Defever attracted some notice with a (seemingly) one-off release in the 90s, and now they’re back more than twenty years later delivering this neo-psychedelic and dreamy outing. It’s interesting, especially on the two shorter tracks, but about half of it meanders very far afield.

• FINNEAS, Optimist– Like his sister, he’s a solid songwriter and performer (he’s Billie Ellish’s brother, and has produced a fair amount of her music as well). He tends more toward the conventional and less toward the soul-baring than she does though. I like things that are unconventional and soul-baring.

• Fire-Toolz, Eternal Home– The hour and a half run time had me on guard, and the mechanized screaming of the vocals in the opening didn’t help. It is kind of interesting, like a doom metal vocal on an otherwise cheery synth-jazz electronica, but a little too grating for way too long to work as an album.

• Full of Hell, Garden of Burning Apparitions– Maryland/Pennsylvania grindcore band, and man, it’s brutal from the get-go. Musically, I could have been totally on board with this relentless assault, but vocally, well, I’m a little old fashioned, to the extent that I like to understandably hear a lyric every once in a  while.

• Good Morning, Barnyard– If you name your album “Barnyard” I’m preemptively rooting for you, and if your band name is “Good Morning”, between those two things I’m looking for some hi-energy ruckus. Instead Australian band Barnyard is doing something that sounds like 90s slow rock, with a twist of Modern Lovers. Not bad, but a little too all in one muted tone.
   
• Grouper, Shade– The opening is gorgeously fuzzy- it sounds like it was recorded on tape recorder off of AM radio. What comes next gets clearer than that, but is still on the gauzy lo-fi melody side. In the end, it’s a little too muted and indistinct track-to-track to work as an album at length.

• Hand Habits, Fun House– Hand Habits is the project of American studio musician and guitarist Meg Duffy. It’s richly instrumented, with strong mood and emotionally complex lyrics, but very musically muted. It’s this last factor that kept it from “yes” for me.

• Hayden Thorpe, Moondust for my Diamond– This English songwriter has produced something with synth sounds and swirling abstract lyrics that would have sounded pretty at home on alternative rock radio in the 80s or 90s. It’s not badly done, but also not internally distinguished much track to track.

• Helado Negro, Far In– Stage name of Roberto Carlos Lange, a Brooklyn-based first generation Ecuadorian-American. Somewhere between electronic and jazz and lounge, and well done, but a little too low key and fading into the background along the way.

• Hovvdy, True Love– Austin-based indie-pop duo, and this is shimmery and full, if ultimately too all in one tone song to song.

• James Blake, Friends That Break Your Heart– Smooth pop, high clear vocals, nice sound effects. Eh. This is a good example of something technically completely solid, but lacking an ounce of vitality or genuine feeling.

• Jaques Greene, ANTHO1– Canadian electronic musician, based in Toronto. A little too far on the spare, repetitive side of edm for me.

• Jarvis Cocker, Chansons d’Ennui Tip-Top– Solo album from founder/frontman of Britpop pioneers Pulp. A bit more particular than that though, in this case, 12 covers of classic French pop songs as a tie-in to the Wes Anderson film The French Dispatch. They’re well done, I think, but between the specificity of the form (French pop songs of a certain era) and the language barrier, it was hard for me to connect with it.

• Kacy Hill, Simple, Sweet, and Smiling– Kind of on the synthy side of dance. It’s not bad, but doesn’t stack up to the best things I’ve heard in that genre from the last year or two.

• Kedr Livanskiy, Liminal Soul– Russian electronic musician, singer-songwriter, record producer and DJ. That description had me curious, and this is well done, but a little ethereal and spare for my tastes. Plus, you know, being almost entirely in Russian. Though I did enjoy that!

• Kit Sebastian, Melodi– Kit Sebastian is a duo formed by Kit Martin and Merve Erdem, spread between Turkey and France. As one might expect from all of that, it has a swinging global sound. Kind of jazzy, kind of funky, kind of a lot of vocals in Turkish. Not my cup of tea, but not at all unpleasant.

• La Luz, La Luz– This all-female group from Los Angeles is known for working the vein of surf music, with a dash of psychedelia and 60s harmonies (i.e. doo wop, girl groups). This is in that vein, surfy and dreamy. Everything about it is well done, but leaning more heavily on the dreamy side than the propulsive side makes it hard to sustain. A real shame, because I love a lot of things about it!

• Lady A, What a Song Can Do– I mean, they’re good. They’re solid. They’re well produced. It just isn’t big on musical dynamism or real human feeling.

• Lala, I Want the Door to Open– Lala is the indie rock project of Chicago-based songwriter Lillie West who I’m assuming, along with Kanye West, is my cousin. This is somewhere in the bracket between teenish indie pop and something more electronic and experimental. Ultimately it ends up feeling like it’s not quite there in terms of album coherence/impact, but definitely a talent worth keeping an eye on.

• Le Ren, Leftovers– Twangy, plucky acoustic-flavored singer-songwriter, with emotionally bare lyrics. It was really well done, but too all in one low-key groove to work at album length.

• Lone, Always Inside Your Head– Swirling beats, ethereal keyboards, vaguely disembodied lyrics. Please save me.

• Magdalena Bay, Mercurial World– This sounds like an 80s dance remix, with traces of video game soundtrack. It’s good high-energy fun, but it doesn’t really get beyond that.

• Marissa Nadler, The Path of the Clouds– Unbeknownst to me, Marissa Nadler has apparently been recording and touring for twenty years now. Shame on me for not knowing, and that definitely explains the depth of songwriting and presence she has here. It really is masterful, but the somber and muted tone musically and vocally eventually anchors the album down, even if it never quite drags it under.
    
• Matthew Stevens, Pittsburgh– As jazz guitar odes to Pittsburgh go, this is a fine one.

• Maxo Kream, Weight of the World– At the outset, I thought this album was going the gangster cliché route, but then was pleasantly surprised by its wit and deeper meditations on street life (and crisp vocal delivery plus great sampling/production). However, as it wore on, it tipped back into cliché. Alas!

• Maya Jane Coles, Night Creature– The more ethereal easy listening end of electronic. Nah.

• Meek Mill, Expensive Pain– Rapid-fire hip-hop, great production, with a good, distinctive voice, but more gangster clichés and autotune than I care for. However, it also includes reflections on the limits of street life, and a desire for something more. The balance of plusses and minuses kept me listening for quite a while, but eventually the minuses took it.

• Melvins, Five-Legged Dog– “The Melvins do an acoustic album” is something that could go either way, given how outside of their usual wheelhouse it is. That part actually goes pretty well, the setting brings out the inherent mix of melody and menace in their music in a new light. A two and a half hour acoustic album, well… There is a 40-50 minute version of this album that really would have been a “yes”, but as is, it’s a good outing for Melvins fanatics. Of which I am one!

• Mess Esque, Mess Esque– Collaboration between indie rockers Helen Franzmann and Mick Turner. It sets a fine mellow mood, with vocals weaving in and out of dreamy waves of guitar. But it remains a little too indistinct to really catch fire.

• Ministry, Moral Hygiene– Ministry is one of those bands that I kind of vaguely thought maybe wasn’t around anymore. They are! They’re even in pretty good form here, and I appreciate the heaviness and the political bent, but it’s a little all too in one tone to really rise above. The Jello Biafra appearance and a Stooges cover are welcome, though.

• My Morning Jacket, My Morning Jacket– They’re sort of one of the signature bands of the 2000s, and one would not want to be on the side of arguing against them being good. But this whole thing sounds too slick, and emotionally flat to me. It’s fine, in fact in many ways it’s very good, but I just can’t picture a lot of people particularly remembering it or turning to it a few years from now.

• Nightmares on Wax, Shoutout! To Freedom…- About 2/3 through it really catches fire into something interesting, but until then it’s spent a lot of time as a groovy easy listening international electronic outing. If it had started in with some vocals and lyrics and content earlier, it might have been saved!

• Nubya Garcia, Source: We Move– This is a set of remixes from her 2020 album Source, which I listened to as part of my blog series reviewing that year. These mixes certainly do liven up those tracks, which had been at their best when they got out of a “smooth and mellow jazz” vein, but the original didn’t make into my top 20 for 2020, and this isn’t making it into my 21 for 2021.

• Petitie Amie, Petitie Amie– Pleasant French pop, sometimes does some quite interesting musical things, but as a whole doesn’t really stand out.

• PinkPantheress, to hell with it– English singer, songwriter and record producer who first broke out on TikTok. It’s nice enough, though way too autotuned, and doesn’t really stand out.

• Pistol Annies, Hell of a Holiday– Miranda Lambert’s side project with two other country music songwriters. I like the girl power, and it’s solidly done, but a little formulaic. But she did already end up in my “yes” column for the year with another side project, The Marfa Tapes, so that goes to show that Blake Shelton can suck it.

• Porches, All Day Gentle Hold !– Lo-fi indie synth pop isn’t a bad way to go, and there are some songs on here that are really fun and affecting. But for the most part, it doesn’t add up as an album.

• Reb Fountain, Iris– Somber clear vocals and incantory poetic lyrics. That’s the upside. The downside is that musically it’s too muted and smooth to really land and sustain itself at album length.

• Ross From Friends, Tread– British DJ/electronic musician, and associate of DJ Seinfeld, which goes to show you what jokers they are with their names. It’s fine as such things go, but a little abstract and “low content”.

• RP Boo, Established!– Chicago-based electronic musician, producer and DJ known as one of the originators of the footwork genre during the 90s. What’s here is a little too on the echoey/repetitive side of techno to work at album length.

• Sable, Japanese Breakfast– I guess if video game soundtracks are a thing, we need to review them. Hour and 36 minute soundtracks, though, whatever they’re for, are a bit much. And this is all way too ethereal to work at that length.

• Sam Evian, Time to Melt– It’s mellow, and groovy, and jazzy. I can’t prove that it’s ever killed anyone, but I have my suspicions.

• Santana, Blessings and Miracles– I mean, it’s not a bad Santana album. Can that even happen? But it’s also not an especially new or different one, kind of continuing the “duets with more contemporary pop stars” approach that he’s done for a while.

• Screensaver, Expressions of Interest– Some nervy and well-done post-punk with more than a trace of British 80s alt and industrial. But it doesn’t really reach above to something that stands out.

• Shannon Lay, Geist– An acoustic singer-songwriter album that has solid playing, vocals, and lyrics, but doesn’t really stand out from the pack of similar musicians.

• Soshi Takeda, Floating Mountains– Vaguely new agey synth background music.

• Sue Foley, Pinky’s Blues– Canadian blues musician, and pinky is her signature guitar. This is very strong southern blues, but doesn’t feel like it gets a lot beyond the genre or latches on to something especially authentic.

• The Convenience, Accelerator– This album by a duo of New Orleans-based (but originally hailing from New Jersey and San Francisco) indie musicians is full of sounds of the quirkier/poppier side of new wave, and indeed of 80s pop in general. That is fun, and well done, but never really adds up to a compelling album.

• The Doobie Brothers, Liberte– As with several other things we’ve gotten up to, a new Doobie Brothers album is not something I expected to see in 2021. One should note they still tour with Michael McDonald, but they don’t record with him these days, so this is the three core members of the original group. It’s well done, and has some classic sounding moments, but overall, it has the blandly overproduced sound of “classic rock folks issue contemporary album”.

• The Pineapple Thief, Nothing But The Truth– British progressive rock band, started in 1999. Right off, I find myself thinking, “Did the world really need new prog rock bands in 1999”? And then I smack into the hour and a half run time, which is an inherently tough thing to justify. It could at least have been intricate and weird and unwieldy. Instead it’s kind of blandly pop-produced. No, just no.

• The Record Company, Play Loud– This rock band from Los Angeles sounds kind of like they’re doing a Black keys impression. Sometimes it’s a really good impression, and I’m almost sold on it, but then it goes a bit prefab and soulless and I’m not.

• The Specials, Protest Songs 1924-2012– The Specials cover almost a century’s worth of protest songs in different veins. They may not be as inspired musically as they were in the late 70s and early 80s, but they’re solidly, dependably good. Some of the material suits their strengths better than others, and when it does, it really shines. Other times it’s merely “good”. So, it doesn’t add up to great album, but it is worthwhile.
   
• The War on Drugs, I Don’t Live Here Anymore– People keep telling me I should like the War on Drugs, and I’ve tried. I really have! It’s well produced music, establishes a mood, at moments reminds me of Dylan. But it’s also a little too smooth, radio-packaged, and slickly produced. I just can’t find something really authentic enough in it to latch onto and carry me throughout the length of an album.

• Theon Cross, Intra-I– This is at its best when it gets really in to the dub side, and less good when it does a more typical kind of electronic music. Between the back and forth, it just doesn’t catch on as a coherent album. Though it is definitely notable for being led by a tuba player. We could use more tuba-based albums!

• Thrice, Horizons/East– American rock band from Irvine, California, formed in 1998. It sounds like a lot of 2000s radio-friendly American rock. Urck.

• Tirzah, Colourgrade– English singer and songwriter, this is very interesting electronic experimentation, but spends about half its time on the grating edge of hard to listen to.

• Toby Keith, Peso in My Pocket– Toby Keith has been a reliable country hit-maker for decades, and this album feels very reliable. It kind of skates the edge between courting cliché and seeming classic. As a result, I was riding the edge with it, but the last track “Happy Birthday America” tipped me over- I can read a collection of right wing talking points online anytime, I don’t need them in my music.

• Tom Morello, The Atlas Underground Fire– The opening tracks mix of some promising rock with some nonsense autotune sound effects was concerning. The follow-up cover of AC/DC with Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder guest appearances is great! From there we’re on firmer and more expected ground based on Morello’s history with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Between the false start, the occasional dip back into too much autotune, and the fact that it’s expected rather than extraordinary, though, it doesn’t fully add up.

• Tonstartssbandht, Petunia– According to Wikipedia “Tonstartssbandht is an American psychedelic, noise rock band consisting of brothers Andy and Edwin White, based in Orlando and New York City”. I think that’s right, and I did hear the psychedelia, but in an extended groovy kind of way that honestly had me feeling like I was listening to a jam band. Jam bands are all well and good. In their proper place. In proper proportion.

• Topdown Dialectic, Vol. 3– To quote Bandcamp: “The dissociative electronic designs of incognito American producer Topdown Dialectic originated as a set of software strategies, rather than compositions”. That gives you a pretty good idea of what’s happening here.

• Trivium, In the Court of the Dragon– I can see why metal started going with orchestral concept albums. It suits the genre and its beautiful ability to get overblown. However, we may have reached a point where it would be okay if not every metal act does it. When they’re just getting down to playing, this is pretty good. When they’re doing ponderous intros and setting up story…

• Twelve Foot Ninja, Vengeance– I mean, there’s the band name, there’s the album name, there’s the cover depicting an arcade game breaking through a blasted desolate landscape. All of this gives you a pretty accurate sense of what you’re in for from this Australian band- thrash metal mixed with operatic moments, and leavened by a heavy dose of humor and some unexpected musical choices. It doesn’t quite come together, but it is fun!

• Vanishing Twin, Oookii Gekkou– It’s interesting, but too gauzy, abstract, and easy listening to really take hold.

• Various Artists, The Metallica Blacklist– “Artists contribute covers of a classic album” is a noble formula, and Metallica’s 1991 Black Album is a worthy target for such homage. More than four hours of covers though (each song gets five or more) is, well, long. My recommendation is to check out the list of songs and 53 different artists covering them, and listen to the ones that particularly intrigue you, because there are many gems to be found, even if it isn’t listenable as an album as a whole. One of the things the variety and quality of covers does do, though, is really spotlight why that album, and Metallica in general, works so well- behind the thunder and the darkness, there’s a core of emotional complexity and even vulnerability in these songs.
   
• Xeno & Oaklander, Vi/deo– This electronic music duo has delivered something spare and unusual enough that it held my attention longer than this genre often does, but ultimately it didn’t stick.

• Yikii, Crimson Poem– This album by Chinese multi-genre artist Yikii sounds like neo-classical neo-electronic music made by a haunted doll. But I mean, really well made! It’s a little too outré for regular listening, but it is genuinely eerie and unsettling.

• Zac Brown/Zac Brown Band, The Comeback– This is absolutely as good as rock-friendly pop country gets. It’s fine if you like that kind of thing, admirable even, but it’s not up to the best of the year, or the best country of the year.

And so we conclude October, with a whole day in November to spare. Crunch time is coming up, but we’ve come too far to turn back now! See you soon for November…