The next order of business as I relive some of my favorite music from the past year is to give credit to the odds and ends that I really enjoyed, but considered categorically ineligible for my “Top Albums” list, either because they aren’t full-length albums, they were re-releases of older material, or they were released in 2014 and I just didn’t catch up to them in time to put them on last year’s list.
The first order of business as 2015 comes to a close is to sift through all of my favorite songs that I first heard this year (or perhaps late last year, and it just took me a little longer to appreciate them) and attempt to put them in order, which as usual starts to get a bit silly below the top 30 or so. Music videos and some live performances are embedded for that first chunk of the list. As I’ve done in previous years, I’ve also got a Spotify playlist that covers a lot of these, limited to a song per artist and more in chronological order of when I discovered them.
Circa Survive – Descensus
I was listening to this one in January, but forgot to mention it in that month’s roundup, so here it is. My brother actually suggested that I start with their previous album, Violent Waves, which seems to be one of those “magnum opus” types of heavy prog rock records that I can see a longtime fan of a band appreciating more than a compact, seemingly-anything-goes set of mostly lean & mean songs like this one. For whatever reason, this was the easier of the two records for me to get into. Its opening trio of songs are a blast of raggedy rock energy that occasionally gets a little math-y, reminding me of when Vheissu first made me a Thrice fan (which was also my brother’s doing). Then later on they hit me with the surprisingly subdued “Nesting Dolls” and “Phantom”, which are totally out of left field considering what came before, but both beautiful in their own right. Really, there’s not much to complain about here other than one or two throwaway experiments and the closing title track, which hammers on the same riff for way too darn long before ending on a bit of an anticlimax. Anthony Green’s voice is most definitely an acquired taste, but I’ve heard more outlandish frontmen in this genre, so I think I can get the hang of it.
Björk – Vulnicura
So this is Björk’s breakup album. It gets compared to Homogenic a lot due to how she meshes together the grand, intimidating strings with the cold, thumping beats, but this one doesn’t set out to redefine electronic pop music the way that Homogenic did. In many ways, it’s more of a bookend to Vespertine, a wintry, lovey-dovey little album that in its own quiet way, managed to outdo Homogenic as my belated personal favorite entry in her catalogue. The sentiment is almost the exact opposite of Vespertine‘s, since the dissolution of a decade-plus relationship was the catalyst for its set of nine songs that painstakingly – and often painfully – deconstruct her every little feeling upon realizing that ship was sinking. It’s not an easy listen. It’s not an immediately gratifying listen, either – the sad but lovely “Stonemilker” might be the most accessible thing on the project, but it gives little warning of how far down the rabbit hole Björk’s gonna go this time around. Amazingly, despite the sheer length of these songs and the way a few of them veer off into fits of inspired madness, the album ends up being her most cohesive since Vespertine, all because there’s a sense of a linear story being told throughout, sad as it may be. The Flaming Lips’ The Terror might be a good comparison, not in terms of sound but in terms of how bravely it documents that descent into a place of deep despair and the eventual climb back out of that pit. Björk’s clearly still on the mend, and as a consequence this record won’t be for everyone – I’m not even sure it’s the kind of record I’d reach for as readily as the deeply flawed, but generally more upbeat Volta. But even when it provokes a negative response within me, I really have to ask myself deep down why I have that response and why Björk did the thing that she did to make me feel that way. I still want to engage it even in that discomfort, which I think is a sign of good art.
The Good Mad – Face Your Feels EP
It was easy for me to embrace The Good Mad during that brief window of time between when I declared them my surrogate Nickel Creek and when the actual Nickel Creek reunited. But now that both bands are active, I appreciate the things about this folksy trio that differentiate them from that otherwise easy comparison. They’re venturing more into ambient, experimental territory on a few of this short EP’s five tracks, and even when the fiddle and banjo are front and center, there’s a sense of cinematic drama to it that reminds me of what Nickel Creek was going for on Why Should the Fire Die?, but without replicating it genre-wise. They’ve still got a ways to go to truly stand out as an original band, but since they began life as a side project for one of Allie Gonino’s acting gigs, I’m actually quite impressed that they’ve outlasted the show that brought them into being.
Archis – Archis EP
This is to Meg & Dia what Sucré is to Eisley. Dia Frampton has teamed up with composer Joseph Trapanese for more of an orchestral take on her confessional style of pop-songwriting. It’s much less market-driven than her solo album Red or Meg & Dia’s Here, Here & Here, and while I enjoyed those records, I also enjoy the whole “Let’s do something more unorthodox and not have to worry about what radio will think” approach taken here.
It’s that time of year again, when I arbitrarily sort through the list of songs I’ve been obsessed with over the past 12 months, and try to whittle it down to a semi-reasonable list of 100 favorites. A lot of these were released in 2013, and a few even in 2012, but as usual, I was late to the party.
Music videos and some live performances are embedded for most of the Top 30. I didn’t want to go too far beyond that, for fear of crashing your browser. I’ve also created a Spotify playlist that explores a number of these favorites, more or less chronologically in the order that I discovered them.
Artist: The Good Mad
Album: Strangeworthy EP
Year: 2013
Grade: B+
In Brief: Imagine Nickel Creek with slightly more of a pop/rock bent, and you get this young and eager band, who delivers much better results on this EP than you might expect from a side project by an actress who used to be in a tennybopper girl group.
