good albums: 2024
To get back into the swing of writing I wanted to write about something easy: stuff I like. Here's a convenient list in.. a vague order of the music I had the most fun with which saw a release in 2024.
Honorable Mention 1: Julie Christmas' Ridiculous and Full of Blood
I love the visuals on this thing and Julie Christmas is the one of my absolute favorite metal vocalist/songwriters out there but in the shadow of the Cult of Luna collaboration Mariner which was astounding this one kinda falls flat. Still, real solid list of pop-sludge tunes.
Honorable Mention 2: Everything Sadness released in 2024
Some of the most cathartic and emotionally resonant not-quite black metal shoegaze lo-fi sad boy crysongs I've heard this year. Think Parannoul with blast beats. Hopefully he can get a girl to dump him every time he's ready to record an album in 2025.
Idaho's Lapse
I fell in love with this guy this year and this album eschews a lot of the piano music they utilized in their later career for a hairier return to form which I am sad about but it's still a banger of a sadcore album that captures the vibe of their nineties desperation without sacrificing what songwriter Jeff Martin has learned since Idaho started in '92.
Sumac's The Healer
An album on this list that I can say positively that not too much has changed between releases for these guys. Sumac feel completely self actualized with the Jazz-sludge sound they came out of the gate with perfected on The Healer, the main difference is that the music is a bit more atmospheric and a bit tonally different, but still just as crushing if not moreso than ever. Eleven years and eight albums all in absolute top form.
Nala Sinephro's Endlessness
Building off of her debut's abstract ambient jazz sound on Space 1.8, Endlessness is maybe 10% more conventional and 1000% more beautiful. This is absolutely the sound of snowflakes hitting the ground, positively radiant and ethereal jazz music.
Uboa's Impossible Light
Beautiful like how the bible describes angels, entirely otherworldly, feral sounds and a harrowing experience on par with her first album. In comparison, the lyricism is like a photonegative to Uboa's previous album in such a thought provoking way. Unsettling and gorgeous soundscapes that are the equivalent of staring into a starless night sky, looking forever into an unfathomable and familiar void and like the feeling of staring at the sun with eyes closed at the same time, warm and searingly bright industrial music.
Colin Stetson's The Love it Took to Leave You
I feel like a whiskey afficionado when I talk about how much I love Colin Stetson's largely impenetrable catalog. The best music surprises you, teaches you entirely new forms of expressing emotions. This is one of the most profound and surprising examples. Colin Stetson's music is a language that I've always felt fluent in but will never be able to properly translate.
The Neil Cowley Trio's Entity
I only learned about classically trained jazz pianist Neil Cowley this year and I am infinitely better for it. I ate up the solo piano crap he put out last year and admittedly this album is a little disappointing because the electronic treatments are the tiniest bit too subtle but this is an absolutely solid atmospheric piano trio jazz album that is pastoral, almost spiritual in tone and really benefits from Cowley's classical training. I was obsessed with this thing at the beginning of the year.
Xiu Xiu's 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips
Xiu Xiu have been on a divine streak since 2014 and this new one is no exception. Returning to a more accessible mental-breakdown-pop sound that is bigger and hotter than it ever was god this thing fucks so fuckin hard I love noisy screaming club jamz
Geordie Greep's The New Sound
An absolutely infectious blend of jazz rock and prog and a whole mess of other stuff with an angular pop sensibility that is so simple and makes me wanna DANCE! welcome to the greepshow
Godspeed You! Black Emperor's No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead
Godspeed write a eulogy for modern morality that is evocative and heartwrenching in its abstract drones and guitar swells, probably my new favorite album of theirs, this thing is like perfect. It really captures the dread at knowing how the world functions and how little one can do right now besides hope.
Free Palestine.
Beak>>>>
I love beak>. They're a great jazzy psych rock band but they're mostly instrumental. This album is a culmination of a flirtatious relationship with pop music that I think is stellar. This is probably the least objectively good album on this list for me, this is really a personal enjoyment. The production is fuzzy and though it matches with the rest of their discography, stands out in a way that reminds me very complimentarily of the next album on the list, though not quite as transformative. I am entranced by the fusion of the outlandish lyrics and the outstanding interplay which instead of working together for their own sake works towards a sharp, punchy series of licks that disappoints me to know this is their shortest release at ~43 minutes.
Cindy Lee's Diamond Jubilee
I love me a mysterious release.
Cindy Lee's enigmatic masterpiece is like an a traversal through mist the way that the production sort of unfolds and the music becomes more clear in sound but never in concept, painting a sun faded portrait that feels entirely out of time and alien despite its familiar feeling lyricism. It's huge and easy to get lost in as well and the flippant release on geocities and like nowhere else (at first, for most of the year I think) I hope has some exciting implications for the future of 'the album' as a concept.
Mount Eerie's Night Palace
Mount Eerie's existential monolith of an album feels like a culmination of all of his work to this point, as did most of the albums that came before it, but Night Palace is so candid and naturalistic in its writing, its songs so brief that the album comes off like a mosaic that its album art somehow perfectly captures: saying nothing but vague allusions to higher meaning all are groping for.
I was huge into this guy and used him to cope with a lot of strife I've had since 2017 but fell off in the last couple years. Listening to this album is like returning to a vine drenched old cabin and feeling the nostalgia in every sense of the word; these lyrics reach to my heart in the most profound way.