2014 top 10, plus

Since I've been covering music for Time Out New York, going on eight years now, I've been compiling year-end top-10-albums lists for print and/or online. This year, Time Out won't be running individual lists; in their place is this aggregate best-2014-albums rundown, chosen by and featuring contributions from various folks at Time Out Chicago and Time Out L.A., as well as me and my NYC colleagues Sophie Harris and Andrew Frisicano. A similarly styled best-2014-songs list is coming soon.

You can read a few of my blurbs in the general list linked above, but I thought I'd go ahead and publish my own personal, all-genres-in-play top 10 on DFSBP. This will likely be the same list I'll submit to Pazz and Jop, and any other general poll I happen to participate in. For readability's sake, as well as for my own sanity, I'm going to try to keep the blurbs here to a more manageable length than those on the 2014 jazz top 10 I posted recently.

One note re: the content, echoing what I wrote here: For me, the day-to-day experience of music is about songs. The records I return to most frequently are, simply, the ones packed most densely with songs I want to return to. The LPs below were extremely useful to me in 2014. I'm not trying to reduce them to some sort of service role, i.e., boiling down their value to how well they happened to integrate into my life; I'm just trying to drive home the idea that for me, directness, concision and memorability have become more and more focal, at least in terms of my recorded-music listening (a totally different phenomenon, I should stipulate, from the live-music experience). The following albums, crammed with great songs, already feel like old friends. Listen along via this 30-song Spotify playlist, drawn from the top 10 and honorable mentions below, and spiced up with a few of my favorite stand-alone 2014 singles.



10. White Lung Deep Fantasy (Domino)

This is simply a great, super-vigorous punk album that rocks like hell and features an extremely specific, consistent group dynamic. Anne-Marie Vassiliou's drums are a minimalist flattening force (kick-snare-kick-snare, ad infinitum), and Mish Way's vocals are a throaty rallying cry, somehow casual and urgent at the same time. The short songs are lousy with hooks. And guitarist Kenneth William is working out of a completely different playbook than any other rock guitarist I can think of: His lines sparkle rather than sear, spraying micro-detailed melodic glitter all over Deep Fantasy. William's lead line from roughly :48 through 1:05 in "Snake Jaw" is probably the most riotously awesome bit of musicianship I heard on an album released this year.

9. Run the Jewels Run the Jewels 2 (Mass Appeal)

As I indicated in my Run the Jewels 2 blurb for the aforementioned Time Out list, it was difficult to separate this record from its context, namely a year of race-centric tragedy, outrage and protest. And yes, that context does give the album, specifically Killer Mike's contributions, a special kind of added resonance. But Run the Jewels 2 is simply an excellent hip-hop LP, period, full of thoughtfulness, silliness, badassery, raunch and a general feeling of conscientious engagement. El-P's verses are outstanding, though the album really takes off when his harsh, dense, super-funky beats fuel Killer Mike's rhymes, as on "Lie, Cheat, Steal"; Mike's tongue-twisting "Like, who really run this? / Like, who really run that man that say he run this?" episode on that track is the apex of this brilliant—and, crucially, brilliantly entertaining—work of politicized art. P.S. I found the discussion surrounding Run the Jewels 2 to be nearly as crucial as the album itself; this NPR Microphone Check interview is essential, especially the section concerning the X-rated "Love Again."

8. Mark Turner Lathe of Heaven (ECM)

This is the album that topped my jazz-only 2014 albums list. Extensive thoughts here (scroll down to No. 1).

7. Mitski Bury Me at Makeout Creek (Double Double Whammy)

Mitski played what was maybe the single best live set I saw all year—a solo performance (loud, heavily distorted electric guitar and voice) at Brooklyn Night Bazaar on Halloween. She's excellent as the singer of Voice Coils (guitarist-composer Sam Garrett's fascinating, sui generis prog-pop sextet), but her solo material hit me in a more visceral way: The combination of sing-songy hooks and merciless severity, the latter of which came through not as much in lyrics and delivery as in weighty yet intangible presence, floored me. Bury Me, which features many of the songs Mitski performed in that live set, hits me just about as hard. It's not as harsh, concise or unrelenting as her live show—though the beginning of "I Don't Smoke" gives a good idea of what the set I caught sounded like—but it's just as assured and compositionally sound. There is so much fierce emotion packed into this record, emotion that's matched by the tightness and integrity of the actual songs. Any artist that could craft two alt-pop songs as simultaneously catchy and unsettling, and as different from one another, as "Townie" and "I Don't Smoke" is someone I'm going to pay serious attention to from now on. (Hear/buy on Bandcamp.)

6. Cloud Nothings Here and Nowhere Else (Carpark)

As I wrote of Here in the Time Out list, this is an album with simple, straightforward indie-rock appeal. Because it's so stylistically familiar, it's easy to mistake for something average. But it's no small feat to craft a record this structurally sound, executed with such genuine, unpolished feeling. Insanely catchy songs that rock like hell. Half the time, I have no idea what the term "indie rock" even refers to, but when I hear Here, I think I know: scrappy underdog passion and outpouring of heart, pop smarts mixed with punk abandon. Here and Nowhere Else is as about good as this kind of music gets. "I'm Not Part of Me," discussed here, is such a jam.

5. Juan Wauters N.A.P. North American Poetry (Captured Tracks)

Juan Wauters's set at Baby's All Right back in February, around the time this record came out, was another highlight of my showgoing year. I've been a Wauters fan since he and his old band the Beets stopped by Time Out to play unplugged in 2011. N.A.P. fulfills every promise of the Beets' best moments. In this brilliant 2011 Beets profile, my former colleague Jay Ruttenberg described Wauters as a "nutter with a Cheshire-cat grin." That grin has only grown subtler and deeper with time; Juan Wauters's deadpan is both inscrutable and absurdly charming. (N.A.P. opens with a sort of talk-sung Spanish-folk-sounding preamble, "Let Me Hip You to Something," which begins, stunningly, "I don't like you / You're a fool / Let me hip you to something.") Here, the Uruguay-born singer-songwriter channels his droll sense of humor into a stubbornly laid-back, almost meandering album of heavily accented folk-pop, the kind of music that reminds you that being punk means, simply, being yourself. Wauters is incredibly good at being himself, and as demonstrated here, at writing deceptively casual, ramshackle pop ditties like "Sanity or Not" and "Lost in Soup." But he goes further on N.A.P., accessing more tender and vulnerable emotional zones. The quiet yearning and plainspoken soul-searching in the song "Water" breaks my heart: "Woke up early, feel that itch / What am I doing now in this niche? / Do I belong? / Who is it that I am?" (You have to hear Wauters sing this, of course.) Not bad for a nutter!

4. La Dispute Rooms of the House (Better Living)

As I've written on DFSBP before, I have a thing for the brand of ’90s (or ’90s-inspired) post-hardcore that's sometimes referred to as emo. Emo is one of the most nerdily taxonomized subgenres I can think of; I can't keep up, honestly. But I know when I hear something that mashes on my emo pleasure buttons, like Cossack (scroll down to the bottom of this post) or On the Might of Princes (RIP Jason Rosenthal) or La Dispute. What a serious album this is—that is to say, it takes itself very seriously, and as well it should, because it's hugely moving and substantial. A novelistic narrative, expressed through Jordan Dreyer's sort of talk-yelped vocals and the band's expertly controlled post-hardcore mini epics. I'm not sure how well I follow the overall story, but the emotions—regret, bitterness, fear, nostalgia, fondness, hope—come through loud and clear. Such a fierce and sturdy piece of art, the kind that makes you feel like you're attending a church you can really believe in. Sad and harrowing and raucous and rocking—in a flailing and convulsing yet tightly drilled sort of way—and just brilliant. This was the best out-of-nowhere discovery I made in 2014, i.e., an album by a decently well-established band that I knew absolutely nothing about prior to this. If you like your post-hardcore—hell, your rock, period—weighty and dramatic, and convincingly so, you need to hear this.

3. Alvvays s/t (Polyvinyl)

Another album with a super-sturdy emotional character, though in a completely different way. As I wrote in the mixtape post, Alvvays zeroes in on the best of indie/twee culture and turns it into something profound. "Archie, Marry Me" is an absolutely extraordinary single, and the rest of this album just about lives up to that absurdly high standard. Heady fumes of bookish, post-adolescent emotion, distilled into songs that zip and skip along ("Adult Diversion," "Atop a Cake") or lope and mope in pensive bliss ("Ones Who Love You," the exquisite album closer "Red Planet"). If Here and Nowhere else is indie rock done simply, magically right, Alvvays is the same, but for indie pop. Yep, you've heard this sound before, and nope, you haven't heard it done this well. I must have listened to this full album something like 40 times straight through in 2014, and I'm still obsessed.

2. Antemasque s/t (Nadie Sound)

Another one that got endless spins. Played this damn thing over and over and over. Spilled a lot of ink on it too: see here. I'm so glad Omar and Cedric are back and tapping into the song vibe with renewed vigor.

1. Future Islands Singles (4AD)

They owned the year and, yep, they absolutely deserved it. Some thoughts here and here. An artful and moving piece of work. And so consistent! I love literally every song on this record, though "Spirit" and "A Song for Our Grandfathers" are megajams for the ages. Anyone who saw Future Islands on Letterman and wrote them off as a mere collection of quirks needs to sit with this album, get a whiff of its deep consistency, confidence and composure, honed via years of touring. Future Islands were ready for their close up.

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Honorable mentions:

FREEMAN s/t (Partisan)
Here, via Partisan Records, is the bio I wrote for Aaron Freeman, the former Gene Ween, in conjunction with FREEMAN, the self-titled debut by his new band. FREEMAN has its own character—resolutely chill, optimistic, ominous, trippy, tough—but in terms of the inevitable comparison, I honestly think this one ranks up there with the best of Ween. Also, in terms of the exorcising-personal-demons songwriting canon, "Covert Discretion" is a new masterpiece. That track is the standout, but the record feels sharp and inspired all the way through. Given that I worked on the promo campaign for FREEMAN, I don't feel right listing it in an official capacity, but if that hadn't been the case, it very likely would've appeared on the above list. P.S. FREEMAN, the band, is extraordinary live; see them if you can.

Cannibal Corpse A Skeletal Domain (Metal Blade)
Eyehategod s/t (Housecore)
Obituary Inked in Blood (Relapse)
In 2013, my metal consumption centered on new records by old bands. That trend continued this year. No need to make any grand proclamations about the current state of the scene; this pattern surely says more about my own personal tastes than it does metal at large. There's something about established b(r)ands, like those whose names you see above, that really moves and engages me.

These three albums all document bands simply being themselves. As discussed in a DFSBP post last week, for Cannibal Corpse, that means further refining their current Corpsegrinder-era style. These guys are besting themselves with every release, and that's inspiring to see/hear.

For Obituary, "refining" might be a misleading term. As I've written here before, this band's M.O. is decidedly anti-evolutionary; their mission is to obey their initial primal imperative, the adolescent root of their metal. From a recent interview with drummer Donald Tardy, one of the most hard-grooving, gloriously human drummers in all of metal: "It’s not like we worked for years on getting our sound; the sound came naturally because of the instruments that Trevor [Peres] plays, and just my style of drumming." (I also love this Tardy quote from Terrorizer: "Obituary isn't reinventing the wheel. We'll leave that to the other bands that play technical and crazy and try to go beyond themselves with every record. With us, we knew that fans needed Obituary to be Obituary. They don't need us to change; they just need some solid music.") So Obituary does what it does what it does, etc. The shifts between albums are miniscule—mainly matters of production style, or a difference in lead-guitar approach (while riffmaster Peres has been an Obituary fixture—and thank God for that—the band has featured several different lead players over the years).

In the case of Inked, the production was a bit of a sticking point for me at first. The band funded this album via Kickstarter—yes, I was a proud contributor; I got a shirt and a camouflage Obituary beer coozie for my troubles—and recorded it themselves. Overall, the sound is excellent: loud, mean and unfussy. But the drum production in particular took some getting used to. I almost wish the band had brought in an outside producer to help them capture Tardy's kit, because the sound is pretty confounding: super loud, uniform, seemingly synthetic kick drums, the kind that if they aren't triggered/hit-replaced—as Tardy insists in the Metal Underground interview linked above—they might as well be, paired with really rickety-sounding, near pitch-less toms. I'm nitpicking, sure, but the snare and cymbals sound so good, so live, that it really puzzles me that they couldn't achieve a natural, well-blended representation of the whole kit. But you know what? After I listened for a while, I basically stopped caring. This is another very, very good Obituary album. The riffs are memorable, Kenny Andrews's lead guitar is tastefully (read: minimally) integrated, John Tardy's throat sounds as raw and anguished as ever, and the band's patented Southern stomp is in full effect. The sense of groove on this album is straight-up monstrous, and since that's the main criteria by which I judge any Obituary release, I'll set aside my drum-nerd griping and state for the record that Inked in Blood flat-out rules.

Speaking of Southern stomp, the Eyehategod record is stunning. It's not as punishing as the band's masterpiece, 1993's Take as Needed for Pain (maybe the most disgustingly weighty album I've ever heard in my life), but as a portrait of what this band does, the elegance with which it juggles putridity with real wit and swagger, the way it greases each riff—and my God, are there a lot of good ones on here—with that special N'awlins spice rub, Eyehategod is an absolutely marvelous document. (Sorry, I know food metaphors are cheesy, but EHG's music just has a certain kind of rib-sticking appeal that's hard to convey in sonic terms alone.) Such a shame, then, that it doubles as a memorial for drummer Joey LaCaze, who died last summer. Thankfully, he appears on the entire record—and damn, does he ever appear, his inimitable dancing-through-the-muck groove enlivening every track; check that funky-as-hell LaCaze drum break, leading into a masterful lowdown shimmy, at 2:10 in "Worthless Rescue." But how sad that he isn't around to tour with his EHG brothers during a time in their career when they're getting more deserved acclaim (here's Ben Ratliff on the band's outstanding Brooklyn show from earlier this year) than ever before. Let's be thankful for what we have: Eyehategod is heaven for anyone who's ever loved this band. Incidentally, I'd highly recommend Noisey's admirably comprehensive, multipart NOLA-metal doc, Life, Death and Heavy Blues from the Bayou, to any fan of EHG or the scene that birthed them.

RVIVR Bicker and Breathe (Rumbletowne)
Erica Freas Tether (One Brick Today)
What's this? Another masterpiece from the band that made my favorite album of 2013, and an equally impressive solo dispatch from one of its key members? RVIVR's Bicker and Breathe EP embodies everything I loved about The Beauty Between. Erica Freas, represented here with "Goodbyes" and "The Sound," is one of the most galvanizing singer-songwriter-performers on earth today, and Bicker offers further proof. And as Tether, her wise, calmly heartbreaking latest solo EP, demonstrates, she's every bit as riveting in acoustic mode. (Hear/buy on Bandcamp: Bicker and Breathe / Tether.)

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More 2014 faves:

Shorties re: 14 other new LPs and 4 archival releases (jazz excluded; shouted out three of those at the bottom of this post) that I loved this year

Battle Trance Palace of Wind (New Amsterdam)
Battle Trance's Travis Laplante is a genuine contemporary NYC visionary. You might remember him from Little Women; Battle Trance, his four-tenor-saxes quartet, is equally extreme, but more about meditation than catharsis, or maybe the zone where meditation becomes catharsis, or vice versa. Experimental music as sustained, prayerful zone-out. Hear this album, and see Battle Trance live at all costs. (Hear/buy on Bandcamp.)

Lana Del Rey Ultraviolence (UMG)
A slow deluge of concentrated atmosphere, via a caricature that the artist born Elizabeth Grant has gradually fleshed out into a complex pop persona. Ultraviolence both lays on its doomed-starlet psychodrama super thick (the title track) and makes fun of its narrator's (or narrators'?) narcissistic self-mythology ("Brooklyn Baby").

Internal Bleeding Imperium (Unique Leader)
Another great new record by an old metal band, whose specialty is a vile, unrelenting and unmistakably New York–y sort of hardcore-infused death metal, where the slow/fast juxtaposition is key. Kudos to Bill Tolley for his idiosyncratic (splash cymbals! tambourine!), unpolished, super-groovesome drumming.

Kayo Dot Coffins on Io (The Flenser)
Depending on how you look at it, Kayo Dot either made the moodiest, most decadent pop album of 2014, or the sleekest, most listenable prog album of 2014. A profoundly weird band—led by Toby Driver; like Travis Laplante, another contemporary NYC visionary—that continues to grow ever more confident, and comfortable with its shapeshifting M.O. (Hear/buy on Bandcamp.)

Mastodon Once More ’Round the Sun (Reprise)
Mastodon furthers its pop metamorphosis—shorter songs, huger hooks—with outstanding results. This album is obviously a totally different animal than, say, Remission, but it's completely satisfying on its own terms. "The Motherload" is one of my favorite songs of 2014, and most of the others are catchy as hell too.

Bob Mould Beauty and Ruin (Merge)
"I Don't Know You Anymore" is another one of my favorite songs of the year; "The War" is almost as good. I've been moderately into Hüsker Dü for a while, but I didn't become a serious Mould nut until I heard 2012's Silver Age; this album is stylistically similar and maybe even better. More loud, masterfully melodic rock music from one of the contemporary masters of the form. P.S. I also read Mould's memoir this year, and I highly recommend it.

Karen O Crush Songs (Cult)
A sad, small, deliberately sketchy album with substantial heartbreaking potency. More on K.O. here.

Nude Beach 77 (Don Giovanni)
NYC's best straight-up rock/roll band trades hook-crazed immediacy for a more patient, lived-in sound on a good-all-the-way-through double LP. A rare example of "maturity" without tedium. God, these guys write classic-sounding songs.

Psalm Zero The Drain (Profound Lore)
Two more CNYCVs (see Battle Trance and Kayo Dot above), Charlie Looker (ex–Extra Life / Zs) and Andrew Hock (ex-Castevet) join forces, producing what is, to my ears, the most compact, listenable and gut-wrenchingly affecting album in their sizable joint discography. (Hear/buy on Bandcamp.)

Raspberry Bulbs Privacy (Blackest Ever Black)
Speaking of gut-wrenching. Maladjusted midtempo goth-noise-punk filth from yet another CNYCV: Bone Awl drummer turned Raspberry Bulbs mastermind Marco del Rio. P.S. This record grooves like hell. (Hear/buy on Bandcamp.)

Say Anything Hebrews (Equal Vision)
Max Bemis proves he's still the king of confessional emo-gone-Broadway brain-/heartspew.

Sia 1000 Forms of Fear (Monkey Puzzle) 
The triumph of the megawatt human voice—many writers, myself included, overuse the word "soar" when describing music, but Sia's vertiginous vocal leaps on tracks like "Chandelier" and "Eye of the Needle" actually seem worthy of the term—and an eccentric pop mind that refuses to let fame compromise her weirdness or vulnerability.

The War on Drugs Lost in the Dream (Secretly Canadian)
Pastel roots-pop bliss, with all the gloss and pathos of the best ’80s dad rock. "Red Eyes" in particular is an instant classic.

Yusuf Tell ’Em I'm Gone (Columbia/Legacy)
Still need to spend more time with this one, but have heard enough to know that Cat Stevens remains the archetypal pop/folk/soul troubadour.

*****

Reissues/archival:

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young CSNY 1974 (Rhino)
The real monsters of folk. Ragged roots-rock glory disguised as ego-/drug-fueled supergroup excess. More here.

Demilich 20th Adversary of Emptiness (Svart)
Inspired death-metal surrealism. More here.

Bob Dylan The Bootleg Series, Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete (Columbia/Legacy)
Finally, the Bootleg Series, after winding through Dylan's career in circuitous, Dylan-y fashion, gets around to the trove we've all been waiting for. Have barely scratched the surface of this, but I can tell that the vibes are thick, the camaraderie deep and the mood often refreshingly light.

Led Zeppelin reissues (Atlantic)
The best rock music, dusted off (but not scrubbed clean) and sounding huge and incredible. We're up through Houses of the Holy now—get on board if you're not already, okay?

2013 Top 10

TONY's "Best albums of 2013" feature is now live. That link will take you to a composite top 10 list, assembled via mathematics and compromise out of the individual top 10s chosen by myself and my colleagues Steve Smith and Sophie Harris. We all had totally different takes on the year in music, but there was enough overlap that we arrived at a decently representative selection.

My personal top 10 list, briefly annotated, is here. Some further thoughts:

More and more, my listening is compulsive, instinctual. I gravitate to records made up of songs I love. It's a simple process. The records I've singled out here are ones that I lived with, played in all sorts of different settings: at my desk at work, walking to/from the train or across town, in the car, at home. Alone, or with my wife, friends and family. They're records that may have at one point been objects of formal consideration—i.e., I wrote about them. But over time, that arm's-length engagement gave way to a happy, voluntary invitation—me choosing them and them choosing me. It's not until the end of the year that one goes about assembling a list like this, but the list is assembling itself throughout the year. Sometimes you've got that in mind—you have a moment with a record and you think, "This might be a top 10 candidate" and you make a note of it—but in retrospect, a list like this is, for me, more about transcribing than about calculation. It's just what happened to me. Since my immersion in music is so constant, I don't even have to qualify that. Of course, there was a soundtrack at all times, and these records were it, or a big part of it.

In terms of the statistics, the breakdown, what's here and what's not, I'd like to cite something Drew Millard—a fine writer with whom I briefly crossed paths at TONY; he's now kicking ass at Noisey—wrote in his own excellent and very funny best of 2013 round-up the other day: "I mostly put rap albums on this list because I like rap music the most…" I like the tautology, the self-justification of that. For me, the center of gravity this year wasn't rap but metal. Therefore, there's a lot of it on my list. There's no jazz. There was one near-miss on that front, which I chose as my No. 1 pick in the two jazz-only polls in which I participate. (My jazz-only list is here; I hope to annotate it on DFSBP soon.) As implied above, that's not meant as a slight; there simply weren't any 2013 jazz albums that captivated me, imprinted themselves on my world, as much as the 10 records I chose for my all-genres-in-play list. I will say, though, that some of favorite live-music experiences of the year were jazz/improv-oriented; I cited two of them on TONY's Best NYC concerts of 2013 list, assembled by myself, Steve, Sophie and various other colleagues. DFSBP readers probably won't be too surprised that my choices were the Paul Motian tribute (3.22.13) and the Graves/Lovano duet (12.6.13).

Re: what did make the cut:

1. RVIVR The Beauty Between
This is one of those "I feel like I've known you all my life" records. I don't know what it is about these consummately sincere, tough, vulnerable, searing punk albums—well, actually, I sort of do, since this style was a big part of my musical upbringing—but when they get me, they really get me. (See also: my 2009 No. 1, Propagandhi's Supporting Caste.) I fell hard for RVIVR this year. I saw them live three times, including two sets in one day back in April. I wrote about them a good deal. In terms of summing up what they mean to me, I'm happy with this TONY preview, which I expanded upon here. And then there's this quick, ecstatic follow-up. My 2013 is inextricable from this band, and the reasons are all right here in this record, which I think is basically perfect. My friend Joe summed it up best in a Tweet from one of the two RVIVR shows we attended together:

"RVIVR at Union Pool: this is a punk rock utopia. Every song an anthem, everyone here completely in the moment. This band will be famous"

Re: the "famous" part, who knows? I certainly do hope so. Re: the "punk rock utopia" part—hell, yes. There is such magic and idealism in these songs, such loving craft and raw sentiment. The Beauty Between is the sound of a brilliant young band exploding into its Moment. And whether RVIVR's politics/scene (reductively: radical, pro-queer punk in the hallowed Olympia, WA tradition) or their chosen idiom resonate with you, I'm confident that you'll hear what I mean if you give this record a chance.



Note 1: For some reason, the RVIVR Bandcamp player defaults to track 2. I highly recommend clicking back to track 1 and taking the full ride.

Note 2: Unlike the RVIVR, albums 2 through 10 are all on Spotify. To hear a sample track from each of these records, check out my TONY list above. In case you want to dive all the way in, here's a playlist featuring these nine LPs in full.]

2. Haim Days Are Gone
Unstoppable. You know that priceless line in Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open" that goes "Their A-and-R man said, 'I don't hear a single'"? Well, out of 11 tracks here, I hear roughly nine singles. Days Are Gone is a resurrection of the ’70s/’80s pop ideal: airtight, hook-hungry compositions matched with shit-hot playing. Except instead of a calculating producer, a stable of faceless songwriters and a bunch of cocky, well-powdered session cats, the responsible parties are a trio of badass L.A. sisters who grew up playing covers and studying popcraft with their parents' loving encouragement.

3. Carcass Surgical Steel
Stunning, and for any Carcass fan, so much fucking fun. Here's my full take.

4. Diarrhea Planet I'm Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams
Like the Haim record, this is a deliriously pleasurable LP. At first I found myself wishing that it were only that—I couldn't get with the obvious care that DP took in pacing the album. But I'm Rich really bloomed for me over time. There is the rock, yes, drenching you with its maximal awesomeness ("Lite Dream," "Babyhead"), but there is also the reflection ("Kids," "Skeleton Head") and this sort of soulful dopeyness ("White Girls [Student of the Blues, Pt. 1]": "I may not write a symphony but / I will always save the last slice just 4 U") that socks me right in the heart. This record is maybe a smidge long; I think it'd be a stronger statement without "Togano," for one thing. That said, I still think it's a triumph worthy of the joybomb that is the Diarrhea Planet live experience, which I experienced on two consecutive nights this past August. More on DP via TONY.


5. Queens of the Stone Age …Like Clockwork
This album is slow-burning and seductive as hell. I saw QOTSA perform a long, frequently thrilling show at Barclays Center last Saturday, and I've been re-immersing in …Like Clockwork ever since. If I were settling on a final order for my 2013 top 10 today, this could've been as high as No. 3. As with I'm Rich, there's some delayed gratification going on here: It's not as mercilessly ripping as Songs for the Deaf or as lean and impossibly cool as the self-titled debut, but I'm still comfortable pegging it as my favorite Queens album. …Like Clockwork isn't a particularly long record, but boy, does it take you on a journey. Further thoughts via TONY.

6. Suffocation Pinnacle of Bedlam
The Long Island enforcers return. If the production on this record were a hair punchier and less synthetic-sounding, I'd say it was one of the, say, five best death-metal records I'd ever heard. Hell, I might say that anyway. I cannot believe what a great set of songs this is, genre aside. So commanding, so memorable, so fucking pro. I already loved this band, but I think that with Pinnacle, they've made their definitive statement. More on the mighty Suffo here.

7. Black Sabbath 13
Speaking as serious Sabbath fan, I can say that despite its flaws—and its admittedly tragic Bill Ward–lessness—this record feels to me like a real gift. The generalized slagging it received in the press bummed me out. Kudos to Steve Smith, Phil Freeman and Rhys Williams for refusing to take this bit of heavy-metal manna for granted. Here's my review of 13 and some follow-up thoughts. (I should say that while I dig the bonus tracks, I think this record works best in its stripped-down eight-song incarnation.)

8. Daft Punk Random Access Memories
Until I heard this record, I felt like there was nothing in the realm of impossibly hip dance-pop that was really for me. I've never warmed up to, say, LCD Soundsystem, and I'm not even sure that pre–R.A.M, I could've even named a Daft Punk song. But the ultra-polished geekery of this record spoke to me immediately, probably because it recasts disco as an offshoot of prog. The supporting cast (Julian C., Panda Bear, Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder, etc.), and the integration thereof, are extraordinary. "Get Lucky" is, of course, a perfect single, but "Instant Crush"—with its mechanized melancholy that instantly puts me in a Drive or ’80s Michael Mann or "Eye in the Sky" mindset—is the track that best sums up why I'm so taken with this record.

9. The Men New Moon
I wrote about songs up above. This record has so many good ones. The Men throw a lot at you, stylistically. There are some strummy heartbreakers here ("I Saw Her Face," "Half Angel Half Light"), some raw, driving, unfettered rockers ("The Brass," "Without a Face") and plenty of ambling folkishness. At the same time, like the last, equally great Men record, Open Your Heart, New Moon isn't haphazard—all these tunes feel like they're coming from the same hive heart/mind. It all feels very free and elemental to me, i.e., exactly what you'd want from a band with such a balls-ily monolithic name. More on the Men, via TONY.

(I should say here that while my friend Ben Greenberg joined the Men a couple years back and made significant contributions to this record, I don't feel like I'm playing favorites in citing New Moon; I loved the band before he was a member, and I'm confident that I'd love what he brings to the band even if I didn't know him. Speaking of which, the new Hubble record is a killer as well.)

10. Gorguts Colored Sands
A majestic roar from the perennial phoenix that is Luc Lemay. A tech-metal opus filled with peaks and valleys that do justice to its (literally) lofty Himalayan subject matter. Also: an intergenerational bear-hug of the highest order. Here's my review.

Blood-brothers/sisters: Obituary + RVIVR live

I've caught a trio of incredible shows in the past week, surely some of my favorite live music of the year: a pair by Obituary at Saint Vitus, last Wednesday and Thursday, and one by RVIVR at Cake Shop, this past Monday. I've previously gushed at length about each of these bands (here and here), so I just want to make two quick points:

1) Thank God for the small show (club, loft, DIY space, what have you), the principal medium of my lifelong experience both as an audience member and as a performer. Yes, there's always the threat of a body check or a boot to the back of the head, but nothing can top the physical and spiritual sensation of being that close to the source.

2) Thank God for bands like Obituary and RVIVR (pictured above), and for their fans—each party in turn entering into a mutual pact that can only be described as blood-brotherly/sisterly. Obituary, who turn lead—riffs that groove then gallop, and groove then gallop some more—into gold, transforming roomfuls of willing diehards into ghoulish cavebeasts. And RVIVR, who project all their convictions—loves, hates, gripes, adorations, dreams, fears, prayers, spells and vows—as if from a confetti cannon, sowing a vibe that feels more like, yes, a revival meeting than a punk show.

Listening from both sides: fan vs. critic

Had some nice catch-up chats with other writers at the Jazz Journalists Association Awards this past Wednesday. (Shout-outs to David Adler, Nate Chinen, Patrick Jarenwattananon, Laurence Donohue-Greene, Ethan Iverson, Ted Panken and Howard Mandel.) My conversation with Nate got me thinking, as I often have been recently, about Black Sabbath and my changing relationship to their new album, 13, discussed in the last DFSBP post.

Nate, always good with a provocative inquiry, asked me what I thought of 13. He knew well that for a writer and fan of my disposition, that was no simple question. I told him that I really liked it and then I began rambling about, among other things, how I'd come to know and love the record as a fan (i.e., having moved far beyond the supposedly objective "critic" stage, in this case). I've been thinking about that concept as it pertains to my profession, and I wanted to share a few thoughts here.

I've written on DFSBP before about how a key moment for me in my daily/weekly process of music consumption is the point at which I load a record onto my iPod for outside-the-office use. For the vast majority of music I consume in a work capacity, I'm perfectly content to listen in a controlled environment—my desk at Time Out NY, say. I listen to the degree that I need to in order to complete the task at hand, and then I set the album aside. Sometimes I'll go back to the record in question; sometimes not. This isn't intended to be a cynical revelation; just an admission of the fact that there's often just not time or brain bandwidth available to devote to careful second, third, fourth, etc., listens to a given work. Obviously this varies according to the assignment. If I'm writing an extended review, I'll do everything I can to listen as many times I can, and in as many settings as I can, in the time allotted.

What I'm saying, though, is that when I'm "on assignment," I'm looking at music in a certain way. I'm making notes; I'm building an argument bit by painstaking bit. The process sometimes takes weeks, or even longer if I'm working toward a far-off deadline. If I'm lucky, I'm able to synthesize my scattered, sometimes cryptic notes into a coherent piece, one I feel I can stand behind, one that—and I guess this is key; it's a lot harder than it sounds—accurately sums up how I feel about the work at hand.

What I end up with when I write a review is a public record of my consumption of a given album. But it's important to note that in many cases, there's a whole other side to that consumption. Re-enter 13. I was fortunate to have the chance to review this record in a visible forum. I had a wonderful time working on that piece for Pitchfork, and I'm happy with the review as it was published. At the same time, it's important to note the sort of jettisoning that took place once the review went live. You blast off carrying a certain amount of cargo—the music, for one, and also the materials of your writer's preparation. Upon publication, you get rid of the latter, and you're left with the music itself. Sometimes you may choose to jettison that, too; as stated above, you might not go back to it.

Sometimes, though, in rare and beautiful cases, you jettison those writer's materials—and more abstractly the "responsibility" of having to form coherent, verbally expressed thoughts, of having to, in some respect, justify how you feel. At this point, you can just be a fan. You can rock out; you can engage with the music on the street, in the car, in the company of friends and loved ones. You're no longer playing the hermit's game. The music has, in a crucial sense, entered your life. You're coexisting with the music in question rather than dissecting it. You have begun to, as it were, let it be.

For me, this only happens a precious few times per year. Much of the music I consume in my free time is old music—just catching up on this or that. But sometimes, a new record just catches fire for whatever reason, leads you into that blessed fan zone described above, that place where you can take off your "person who's paid to coherently express their opinions about things" hat and just love unconditionally—or if not unconditionally, at least without concern for backing up your feelings with anything but other feelings. You feel how you feel, and that's that, and nothing anyone says or writes or Tweets or blogs can invalidate that.

All this is to say that for the past couple weeks, I've been right in that zone with 13. Do I still have some lingering critic-y "issues" with the record? Maybe. But that perspective means very little to me now. I'm in another place with it, hanging out on Planet Enjoyment, in a phase of "I'm just happy this exists and I don't want to think too much more about it." Do I think 13 is a great record, in the long run? Fortunately, in publishing my review, I've relieved myself of the obligation to further address that question or even pay it any mind. The album is working for me right now. I'm playing it practically on repeat in various settings. I'm grooving to it, singing along to it, air-drumming. In short, I'm doing what fans are supposed to do when confronted with worthy new music. (I had a similar experience at this year's Maryland Deathfest; as I wrote on this blog, to be there not on official assignment was thrilling; in the moment, it was about pure love instead of any kind of "processing.")

Does this mean that the reviewer perspective, the consideration of music in an "official" capacity is somehow less true? I really don't think so. I think there's something very valuable in having to gather up your thoughts and present them formally. It's a mental exercise—one that takes a lot of discipline—and it's fun to go through that process, to pay witness to others doing the same and to engage in whatever kinds of stimulating back-and-forth might arise from that discourse. At the same time, though, I think it's vital to make time to take off that thinking cap, as it were, to get to a place where feeling is all that matters. As I imply above, you can't force that; it's not every record that's really worth loving in that way—or rather, to get away from the idea of music's inherent worth, which is a bit bogus, it's not every record that strikes every writer/fan that way. Again, that transformation, that shift from head-focused, "person-on-assignment" consideration to heart-focused, "civilian" passion is a profound thing. It definitely entails a sense of relief—as though you've known someone only in the office and then you have a drink with them and realize you can just drop all the formality and hang with them like a friend.

While I think that critical, on-the-record consideration of an artwork is just as valid as deep-feeling fan consideration of same, I think the former is often incomplete without the latter. Especially in the case of a band like Black Sabbath, which has such a devoted following stretching back four decades, any view of the record that doesn't take into account what it feels like to be a fan, either passionately supporting or rejecting the music at hand, can't really be said to be complete. It's important to remember that just because it might be someone's profession to comment on something, that doesn't make the fan's perspective any less authoritative. On the contrary, it's us, the "media" who are on the outside, who have to justify why we're even here at all. The fans will always have their place at the table, just by virtue of their love for and support of the artists. When an artist looks out into the crowd at a packed show, by and large, he or she isn't staring into the faces of critics, you know? I think that's something everyone writing about music needs to keep in mind. You may a be a great writer and/or a great thinker, but if, when you get down to it, about 98% of this pursuit—the real "Why you do what you do" at the heart of it all—isn't coming from your fan's heart, I'm wary of your perspective.

Speaking for myself, I like to think of these two states of being as symbiotic. I love devising and expressing formal statements, and I also love just letting the words and the arguments and the reasoning go. People say that writing about music spoils music, and maybe in some isolated cases, that's true—I've felt that way when out on assignment at certain live shows, for example. But ideally, it's just a regimented prelude to more loose, organic relationship with an artwork. When you've gone through that process, listened from both sides, as it were—as I have this year with 13, with RVIVR's The Beauty Between and, in a slightly different way, since I didn't write about it in a formal setting, Suffocation's Pinnacle of Bedlam—you feel a deep closeness to that music. It's a complex feeling, and it's one that I love.

P.S. One sub-point to the one(s) I'm trying to make above: While we, as reviewers, might be obligated to couch our opinions in definitive, absolute language, it's pure fallacy that published reviews (esp. timely day-of-release ones) represent some sort of final word. If other music writers are anything like me, we second-guess ourselves constantly, and I think that's healthy. In other words, ideally, publishing one's thoughts on an album isn't the end point of one's relationship with that album; it's just a best-we-can-do ante-up, to be revised constantly—if only in one's own mind—in the days, weeks and even years to come.

Doing better: RVIVR's The Beauty Between

This coming week brings two NYC visits from Olympia's RVIVR, resulting in three shows: a free NYU gig on Tuesday, 4/9 and a pair on Saturday, 4/13—daytime at Saint Vitus and nighttime at Union Pool. Here, via TONY, is my preview of the shows.

Every year, there are a few records that attain a certain kind of escape velocity—a speed, momentum, prominence—which propels them out of the mundane realm of Records I'm Writing About into the realm of Records I Love. (Or put another way, it's Records I'm Listening To For/At Work vs. Records I Bother To Bring Home, Put On My IPod, etc.) I've learned to pay close attention to these transitions, in part because it makes year-end-list writing a whole lot easier. Ideally, my top 10 for a given year consists entirely of records like this—records that have, in a sense, chosen me, rather than the other way around. There are only a small handful of 2013 releases in the running so far, among them Voivod's Target Earth, Suffocation's Pinnacle of Bedlam and the new RVIVR record, The Beauty Between. I don't really think bands deserve pats on the back for cultivating specific kinds of nostalgia, for zeroing in on a given well-established sound, but in this case, I'm not sure that's what RVIVR is doing. I can only speak for myself, how their music strikes my ears, and when I hear them, I think of a certain strain of melodic punk that flourished right around 1994, i.e., the year where my sporadic interest in that style very likely peaked. I cited both Avail and Face to Face in the aforelinked preview, but to get really specific, I'm really talking about songs like this one:


RVIVR isn't necessarily going after the same thing, but I hear something similar in their music—a sense of conviction, of determination to, in some cosmic sense, do better, improving the self and in the process, improving your community. More so than Avail, RVIVR is very much a political band, cultivating a queer-friendly, anti-macho environment at their shows and speaking out against sectors of the punk scene where such inclusiveness isn't thriving. (Learn more via this interview with RVIVR coleader Matt Canino.) But like all the truly great political bands—Fugazi is foremost in my mind—RVIVR finds a way to say what they need to say while keeping it all about the music. Loving a band's message, in other words, doesn't guarantee that you'll love their songs. RVIVR knows that hooks, passion and smart, witty writing—the ingredients in any effective anthem—are just as important.

The Beauty Between is filled with such anthems, to a near-unbelievable extent. Often I accept an album as generally "good," when what I really mean is that I like three or four tracks on it very much. TBB is a totally different case. The entire thing feels sturdy, engaged; you never get the sense that RVIVR are taking their collective eye off the ball. There's just such a feeling of a band really getting it right, for itself and for its supporters, of positive, focused effort. For me, TBB epitomizes the kind of punk that's all about trying—and by that I mean thinking and feeling and doing and working to the best of one's ability. The band's dual-singer-guitarist set-up perfectly encapsulates that. As I say in the TONY piece, there's a sense throughout that Canino and Erica Freas are engaged in a friendly kind of duel—a competition to see who can throw down with the most passion, who can sing out in the rawest and most cathartic way. But, since it's music and not sport, everyone wins.

I'm tempted to recommend a few favorites ("LMD," "Wrong Way/One Way," "Ocean Song" and the track that first sucked me in, "Spider Song"), but to me, this record is a single piece. It doesn't give you the emotional space to want to skip tracks. To my ears, it's a near-perfect example of its style. If you're anything like me, you'll hear it as both familiar and highly unusual—i.e., you'll recognize its pedigree immediately, but you'll have a tougher time processing how it could sound so solid, so convincing, so natural. I cannot wait to hear these songs live.