Archive for the ‘End Of Year Lists’ Category

Brian Cook’s Top 10 Albums of 2015

Thursday, December 17th, 2015

Brian Cook of Russian Circles and Sumac (among others) kicks off LIFE IS NOISE’s end-of-year countdown with some of his faves from 2015.

There was a lot of good stuff happening in 2015. But whenever I start making these year-end lists I gravitate towards the stuff made by friends and colleagues. My top ten albums for the year should probably include the excellent records made by Metz, Chelsea Wolfe, Deafheaven, Mutoid Man, Marriages and Coliseum, but I wanted to pick albums by artists that I hadn’t toured with, so here’s what I was left with (in no particular order…)

Alcest – Shelter
Alcest shed all vestiges of metal on this album and wound up with the kind of lush melodic record all these new shoegaze bands are trying to make. I know this record was kind of a tough sell for Alcest’s old school fans, but I would think that anyone that dug the Manchester sound of the late 80s/early 90s would eat this up.

Jackson C. Frank – Remastered & Unreleased
Life isn’t fair. And poor Jackson C. Frank was dealt a particularly bad hand. And while a few sad bastard audiophiles have long held his minor hit ‘Blues Run The Game’ close to their hearts, his recording career was pretty much forgotten by the time he passed away in 1999. Childhood trauma, schizophrenia, and poor health plagued his life and kept him from releasing any proper full-length following his debut. Ba Da Bing Records managed to cobble up 67 tracks from his career, from early traditional standards to a set of sparse demos for a comeback album that never materialised. For me, the most engaging songs are from those final demos, where Frank manages to craft a handful of songs out of the same few chords and one fingerpicking pattern. The guitar work across ‘Bull Men’, ‘Maria Spanish Rose’, ‘Singing Sailors’, and ‘(Tumble) In the Wind (Version 2)’ is almost identical, but Frank makes each song heartbreaking in its own way.

Mára – Surfacing
Over the course of several years, Faith Coloccia of Mamiffer recorded piano and vocal demos in her home on Vashon Island when winter storms would knock out all the power on her property. Maybe they were going to turn into Mamiffer songs. Maybe they were just little creative exercises. But after being tucked away for a couple of years, Coloccia dug up the songs and released them under the moniker Mára. Try and listen to ‘Love and Infinity’ and not tear up.

Mount Eerie – Sauna
Phil Elverum’s work has always been an exploration of music that operates on the periphery of pop culture. And yet these eclectic elements always somehow make sense within the context of his soft-spoken experimental folk music. Sauna is a particularly diverse record for Elverum, with nods to drone, black metal, and Terry Riley-esque arpeggios all sitting nicely together.

Napalm Death – Apex Predator – Easy Meat
I stopped following Napalm Death after their 1996 album Diatribes. But I checked out Apex Predator on a whim and was hooked right away. I guess I thought Napalm Death had settled into some fairly safe mid-tempo territory back in the mid-90s, but Apex Predator sounds like the kind of vicious, discordant stuff that could’ve found a home on Hydra Head. Brutal and smart.

Native North America (Volume 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985
Back when Myspace was still the primary way musicians were presenting themselves on the internet, I used to investigate bands based on their location. I remember wondering if there were bands in Greenland, and, sure enough, there were a handful of young’uns with electric guitars cranking out some really weird permutation of rock music out in the coastal towns with names I couldn’t pronounce. I’ve always been intrigued by bands that come out of remote or isolated regions. What kind of sound comes out of those cultural bubbles? So when I stumbled across this vinyl boxset compilation, I was intrigued. What exactly was going on in the northernmost inhabited areas of North America? Turns out, there was a lot of Neil Young and CCR worship. But there was also some gloriously sloppy garage rock by some Inuit kids in a band called Sugluk, some devastatingly sad protest music from Willie Dunn, some kitschy surf rock from The Chieftones, and a slew of other strange variants on pop culture. The opening track by Willie Dunn, ‘I Pity The Country’ is worth the cost of the collection alone.

Royal Headache – High
Good songs. No frills. These guys sound like someone else. Maybe it’s The Small Faces? I dunno. I’ve never really delved too deep into The Small Faces catalog, but whenever I hear High, I feel like I’m listening to a classic record from yesteryear. I feel like I should have a really perfect reference point for this band. But they’re not flashy enough for a Stones comparison. They’re more gritty than The Kinks. Maybe that’s what these guys were trying to do—they were trying to fill that gap in rock history, before punk slathered everything in distortion but after all those soulful garage bands started slashing up their speakers.

Thee Oh Sees – Mutilator Defeated At Last
I included this mainly because I think ‘Web’ is one of the best songs of 2015. I mean, the whole record is great, but they could’ve rocked that krautrock beat and psych guitar lead for an entire side of the LP and I would’ve been totally fine with it.


Turnstile – Nonstop Feeling
I should not like this record. Imagine a combination of Snapcase, 311, Gorilla Biscuits, maybe even a little gloomy western twang on ‘Love Lasso’, and filter it through 80s thrash metal production. Then slap some artwork that looks like a Spin Doctors demo on it. It’s so absurd that I kept listening to it. I couldn’t figure it out. What were these kids trying to do? What were they listening to and why did they think these sounds worked together? Granted, there are a few moments where it doesn’t work (I can’t handle the 311 moments in ‘Can’t Deny It’), but as a whole Nonstop Feeling sounds like a bunch of kids who didn’t care what was cool and made something genuinely interesting out of their disparate interests.

Xibalba – Tierra Y Libertad
It sounds like Covenant–era Morbid Angel decided to form a hardcore band. So good.

Wilco – Star Wars
When you’re a band that’s been around as long as Wilco, and you have those records that have entered into the canon of classics, it can be tricky to write a new album that can rival all the warm fuzzy feelings we’ve attached to Summerteeth or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or A Ghost Is Born. So forget that those records exist for a moment. Now put Star Wars on. Give it a few spins. See? It’s an amazing record. Stick with it long enough and you’ll get all those warm fuzzy feelings whenever you hear ‘Taste The Ceiling’ or ‘Where Do I Begin’ or ‘Magnetized’.

Matthew Tomich’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Saturday, December 27th, 2014

Life is Noise editor Matthew Tomich closes our best of 2014 series with his favourite records of the year.

10. DORVAL & DEVEREAUX – Dorval & Devereaux

Though the pulsating single ‘Heavy Hands’ is the standout track on this debut collaboration from White Ribbon and Samantha Glass, the 36 minutes of Dorval & Devereaux unfold like a painstakingly crafted hallucination. Ethereal in parts and unsettling others, these are synthetic textures for daydreams and night terrors. If the 90’s Playstation game LSD were to ever see a re-release, this record would make the perfect soundtrack.

9. TINARIWEN — Emmaar

Even though the songs are sung in their native tongue, Tinariwen’s epic desert blues transcends barriers of language and culture. It helps that the Malian band’s brand of rock — a label that does little justice to Tinariwen’s diverse and often spiritual aesthetic, but feels more appropriate than any other term in Western music criticism — bursts with flourishes of familiarity, from Hendrix to Dylan. Emmaar feels like a bridge between worlds, a fact best exemplified by its opening gambit ‘Toumast Tincha’, a riff-filled odyssey that’s equal parts intriguing and recognizable, grooving and introspective. Emmaar is the perfect soundtrack to journeys unknown.

8. ESBEN & THE WITCH — A New Nature

Esben & The Witch do not rush into things. While that leads to some meandering moment on the 14-minute ‘The Jungle’, it’s largely to the trio’s advantage, a record that feels equally consistent and diverse, as if each song is another side of the same story. It’s excellently paced, too, placing its longer, brooding numbers next to its more subdued meditations. The guitars shimmer and distress, while Rachel Davies delivers her most poignant performances on the penultimate ‘Blood Teachings’, where repetition morphs her utterances into mesmerising mantras of near-transcendent proportions.

7. EMMA RUTH RUNDLE — Some Heavy Ocean

Even at her own shows, I hear Emma Ruth Rundle’s fans compare her to Chelsea Wolfe. If they weren’t labelmates and the only two female frontwomen on Sargent House, maybe the conversation would be different. It certainly should be: beyond a fondness for reverb and a penchant for morose, film-noir vocal delivery, Some Heavy Ocean owes little to Wolfe’s recent output. Rundle – who also fronts shoegazing trio Marriages and played guitar in the now-defunct post-rock band Red Sparowes – is stripped bare on her debut solo record, the delayed guitars of her past exploits exchanged for a steel-stringed acoustic, occasional percussion and some synths to hint at the dark clouds ahead. Rundle’s voice strains as it soars in ‘Run Forever’ where the main refrain becomes more desperate and compelling with each repetition: “If we both get caught then we’ll run forever/if we both go down we’ll go down together.” But it’s on the closing track ‘Black Dog’ where Rundle shines, even if the song is brimming with darkness, one of the most lyrically and sonically compelling odes to depression.

6. HELMS ALEE — Sleepwalking Sailors

It’s hard to stand out with labelmates like Russian Circles and Chelsea Wolfe, but Helms Alee are perhaps the best representatives for the Sargent House aesthetic — punishing yet fragile, diverse yet distinct and relentlessly innovative. On Sleepwalking Sailors, the Seattle trio are forever oscillating between moods: ‘Tumuscence’ shifts in tone from boisterous to vulnerable to pensive over the course of a single verse, thanks in part to the shared duties that juxtaposes guitarist Ben Verellen’s animalistic call-to-arms with drummer Hozoji Matheson-Margullis introspective wail.

But it’s the riffs, rhythms and unexpected turns where Sleepwalking Sailors really shines. As good as this year has been for metal and its various offspring with standout releases from YOB, Earth, Pallbearer, Tombs and so many more, the highlight of this year in metal for me has to be the closing 60 seconds of ‘Heavy Worm Burden’ — a song that transforms from a sludge jam into heart-wrenching transcendence as the low end drops out in favour of wailing, bent guitar strings and sublime sermonizing. I challenge anyone to find a passage of recorded music from 2014 that’s more compelling.

5. DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 — The Physical World

It’s hard to think of The Physical World as a comeback album because DFA1979 never really went away. They disbanded, certainly, but their first run was too short to comfortably fit them into the Reuniters Club – in 2006 when the dissolution became official, they were only five years and one album in. The Physical World came 3 years after the duo returned to the touring circuit and the break has served them well: while 2004’s You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine flirted with the thankfully-defunct nu rock revolution, DFA1979 sound like a new band on this new record – confident, bombastic and aggressive. It’s middle-heavy – ‘Crystal Ball’, ‘White is Red’ and ‘Trainwreck 1979? might be the duo’s strongest three songs in their brief catalogue — a catalogue that’s sure to expand if the strength of this record is anything to go by.

4. ICEAGE — Plowing Into the Field of Love

Elias Bender Rønnenfelt has one of the most compelling voices in rock music today. Though he flirts with overwrought delivery from time to time, almost every moment in Plowing Into the Field of Love brims with sincerity and intensity, from the playfulness of ‘The Lord’s Favorite’ to the chaos of ‘How Many’ and the desperation of ‘Forever’. It helps that he’s backed by a trio of excellent musicians and superbly crafted songs — the instrumentation on Plowing … are seem permanently off-kilter in the most deliberate way possible, resulting in a record that’s eminently listenable yet always challenging.

3. SHELLAC — Dude Incredible

If there were ever a argument for a band taking their time, it’s Dude Incredible. After more than 20 years, Shellac have not mellowed, but on this record the trio feel more comfortable and assured than they have in years. Dude Incredible forgoes the short-burst punk rock and meandering 9-minute opuses of past release’s in favour of an approach that’s entirely focused, refined and strangely obsessed with surveyors. Easily the best release of their career.

2. YOUNG WIDOWS — Easy Pain

Young Widows’ fourth record marries the subtlety and texture of 2011’s In and Out of Youth and Lightness with the angular explosiveness of their earlier work to masterful effect, running the gamut of noise rock and post-punk without settling into either aesthetic. Few band straddles the line of nuanced tension and apocalyptic paranoia better than this one, and tension is the Louisville trio’s best weapon: songs like ‘King Sol’ bubble with an uncomfortable tension before climaxing in cathartic release at the precise moment they need to. These are songs for bad trips and trephinations.

1. SUN KIL MOON — Benji

Though Mark Kozelek’s year has been marked by petty feuds and pettier insult songs, he was also responsible for one of the most moving and honest records of the year in Benji, an ode to the minutiae of contemporary life that spans from San Francisco to Ohio to Newtown and back. There’s as much darkness as there is light in Benji, though it’s more poignant moments are the most heart-wrenching like opening track ‘Carissa’, where Kozelek uses his guitar and voice to make sense of the accidental death of his cousin in and give her life poetry. Rarely does an album feel like it’s being written and played right in front of you, the stories unfolding in real time as Kozelek seemingly finds the words as he goes to narrate the lives of those around him. Worth countless repeat listens.

Dave Cutbush’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Wednesday, December 24th, 2014

Life is Noise director and host of RTRFM’s Out to Lunch on Thursdays Dave Cutbush counts down his best releases of the year.

10. MAGIC MOUNTAIN BAND – Wilderman

Melbourne’s Magic Mountain band unveiled a gem of a debut earlier in 2014 and their polished release built on their strong live reputation. Sparse Hammond-laden instrumentals are captured beautifully on Wilderman. Aggressive and rhythmic in parts and serene and delicate in others, this is my favourite Australian release of 2014. Fans of Earth or Dirty Three will love this, but Magic Mountain Band have their own unique take on a widescreen Australian instrumental sound.

9. SUN KIL MOON – Benji

It is hard to mention Sun Kil Moon or indeed its driving force Mark Kozelek without mentioning the continued (and mostly one-sided) arguments with The War on Drugs and various commentaries on fans and critics. Sometimes it is difficult to work out whether he is genuinely having fun or is serious about his critiques. Either way it has got the music media a-talking and can’t have hurt his public profile. Any publicity…

But if you put aside all the trash-talking, Kozelek has been a songwriting powerhouse for 25 years. Through his solo work and his bands Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, Kozelek has consistently written some of the best bent Americana and, alongside the likes of Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) and Bill Callahan, has kept alive a quality and consistency of US country-folk that is at the forefront of songwriters on a global scale.

Benji is a thoughtful social commentary both on the level of the songwriter’s personal experience and those of US society as a whole. This is a great album, a personal album and an album that grows with further listening. Kozelek may have a questionable public persona, but through the vehicle of Sun Kil Moon he has stories to tell and beautiful music to make. Hopefully he will stick to what he is very good at and leave the stupid staging to the likes of Kanye.

8. PALLBEARER – Foundations of Burden

Ironically Pallbearer hail from Little Rock. Let’s just let that hang in the air for a moment…

The second album from these US metal merchants, like their incredible first effort Sorrow and Extinction, builds on the great breadth and diversity of the every burgeoning Sabbath-inspired doom scene.

Crushingly slow riffs build on a powerhouse rhythm section and Ozzy inspired vocals. It is sometimes pretty hard to fathom how this is a band with only two releases.

A top shelf heavy release for 2014. Who knows what they will do next.

7. APHEX TWIN – Syro

After a hell of a long wait, Richard D. James is back with another strange amalgam of electronics, noise, techno, jungle and noise. And whilst it isn’t a crazy splatter fest like previous albums, Syro should keep fans both old and new happy. Aphex Twin once again keeps a groove going where you think it is going to fall apart. Equal parts disturbing and delighting, this is my favourite electronic album of the year.

6. BECK – Morning Phase

Every time Beck puts out an album it seems to be in my top albums of the year. Morning Phase is just another in a long list of incredible albums from an American songwriter at the top of his game. Although it has been compared with Sea Change, I prefer this album. From the crisp production to the perfect instrumentation, Beck rarely puts out anything less than amazing. Let’s hope the phase continues on into the evening and beyond.

5. ELECTRIC WIZARD – Time to Die

The Wizard returns.

Undisputed leaders of UK doom, Electric Wizard are back and whilst they are not really breaking any new ground here, they have put out another great record with Time to Die. The big difference for me is the drumming. The return of Mark Greening makes a huge change.

But the old themes of drugs, death, Satan are still there and mark it typical of their craft.

Why change the formula when you have already killed it?

Praise!

4. TY SEGALL – Manipulator

The modern psych pop-rock master keeps pumping out the records. Will he ever stop?

Actually, it seems like Ty did take a little more time over Manipulator. But he really is frantically pumping out the psych rock pop wizardry.

For mine the track Feel is Ty Segall at his best: a great pop song, with just enough 60s sensibility without being totally deritative, catchy as hell and crunchy like a stale gingerbread biscuit. His falsetto vocals and monster lead breaks just add the perfect amount of icing.

Somehow I think that although this is a cracking listen, we have only just heard the beginning of a truly brilliant musical career. Here’s to next year’s top albums. He will surely resurface.

3. TINARIWEN – Emmaar

Tinariwen

Blues

Desert

Rhythms

War

Sublime

Unison

Emmaar

2. YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend

As Alan Watts says at the start of Clearing the Path to Ascend, it is indeed “time to wake up”. And I think much of the world has woken up to the incredible power and beauty of YOB.

This album is grand without being overblown, dark without being depressing, and powerful whilst still being beautiful.

I have really tried to punish myself to the point of getting sick of it, I simply cannot.

It contains the driving song of the year in ‘Nothing to Win’ which perfectly contrasts with the mournful closer ‘Marrow’.

In any other year this would have been my album of the year. This is a doom-laden slice of perfection. An album that should make this band very well known – even to those who would regularly not touch this kind of music on a regular basis.

I love it.

1. SWANS – To Be Kind

SWANS must have made the most spectacular return to music in recent history. Since reforming in 2009 they have released three incredible albums and the latest, To Be Kind, sees them at the very pinnacle of their existence as a band.

Once again like a cult they are lead by Michael Gira on a dark American Gothic journey, one that takes nothing without necessity.

To Be Kind is a wagon laden with essential provisions only. The repetition only disturbs us more… and more and more and more than we could possibly feel. It is psychosis, it is crushing, and on and more and then release…. only to be rolled over again and again until you mind and body and existence have been shattered and trodden on and obliterated. It is revolting and appealing and confronting and compelling. It is SWANS and they have destroyed you.

You are amazed… and alive.

Dave Cutbush is the director of Life is Noise and the host of RTRFM’s Out to Lunch on Thursdays from 12-3PM (+8 GMT).

Deryk Thomas’ Top 10 Albums of 2014

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

Deryk Thomas of RTRFM’s Critical Mass counts down the year’s best in the world of doom, death and thrash metal.

10. SCAR SYMMETRY — The Singularity: Phase I
SS have always released razor sharp futuristic melodic metal, but this is the next step up. It flows well, and cant wait to hear the other chapters.

9. DECAPITATED — Blood Mantra
A fair bit of the technical stuff has gone, in favour of more straight ahead fast paced modern death metal. Great album considering what they’ve been through in recent years.

8. VOYAGER — V
The best album they’ve done. A real coming of age for the band, like Scott Bishop has pointed out, they’ve figured out how to combine heavy metal sounds with the melodic stuff.

7. AT THE GATES — At War With Reality
At The Gates are back in the studio. Lots of anticipation for this one being one of the top picks for the year. Yeah, it probably is, but it’s a bit ho-hum in the back half of the album. Six other albums were better than it.

6. 1349 — Massive Cauldron of Chaos
A late comer for black metal release of the year. Better production and more adventurous elements to vocals have set this one apart from previous releases.

5. ELECTRIC WIZARD — Time To Die
Jus Osborn, tour Australia already damnit.

4. WORMWOOD — Wormwood
There was a glut of new releases that hit our inboxes recently on Critical Mass, this is one that stood out. It’s the guys out of Doomriders doing a visceral take on doom and sludge. This is an EP. Now this is the first time I’ve bent the rules a little to include a non-full length because A) it’s awesome and B) it’s not exactly a bumper year for heavy metal releases.

3. ANIMALS AS LEADERS — The Joy Of Motion
If you haven’t heard this one yet, reward yourself. Combines djent metal with jazz fusion instrumental stuff. Gets stuck more in your head with each listen and that’s the sign of a “top” album. Saw them at Amps a while back and have been a fan ever since.

2. MASTODON — Once More Round The Sun
Mastodon are the best at what they do. Never got sick of this album since its release. I reckon I listen to it every week or two.

1. TOMBS — Savage Gold
This was always gonna be a contender, and it just grabs you straight away. Primal post-metal riffs and pounding drums. Very basic in approach, every post is a winner on this album.

Alex Griffin’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Monday, December 22nd, 2014

Writer, musician, broadcaster and Renaissance man Alex Griffin counts down his 10 best records of the year.

2014 might be the year that the stream/feed model of perceiving the world became irremediably fixed as a part of human consciousness (and politics, and economics, and…), so less than having a list of things I’d want to tell someone else to listen to, these are some of the things I heard this year that went beyond the idea or desire to list or compare; they were the things I remembered and carried with me and learned; let other lists be a Wikipedia of shoulda-heards.

These records are like my mental map of my suburb. After all, I write this with a bruising hangover and a face like a cut of salmon after taking in Yardstock yesterday. Mitch stole a beach ball from somewhere, and we bought way too much booze from Grapeskin at 11pm after having already imbibed for seven or eight hours already. If there was a better time to write about how I approached music this year, I can’t think of it, because I barely listened to music at home – I was among music all year, not studying my own experience of it. A leaf instead of a microscope. At the same time, there isn’t a year where I’ve enjoyed music more. A lot of this maybe came from being in a different country and going to shows by myself on spec – music ceased to be something privately consumed but more communally brushed against, like a sprig of mistletoe or an office watercooler.

Really, though, a lot of the time, I just forgot. Forgot what I’d listened to, forgot what I was listening to, forgot what I wanted to hear. Adrift in feeds, in lists, in other people’s opinions, I forgot to get around to making my own up. Some I was pretty bloody certain on — Benji, for example, felt like transforming sharing into the ethic of a feed – half Lil B, half Buckley – and as such rang like a gesture towards the implausible – but many I have no idea about still, and now may never get around to.. Naturally, if you’re floating downstream, you’re likely to miss most of the driftwood, so I’m taking a swing and a miss at totality.

10. TOTAL CONTROL – Typical System
No touring? No problem. Even if the Total Control hiatus proves to be a permanent one, Typical System is the kind of shot that’ll reverberate for years to come, surpassing the still pretty amazing Henge Beat in almost every single way and maybe even being the best record to come out of the whole ECSR diaspora. ‘Flesh War’ is probably the best song of the year, marrying a shitkicking stomp to a chord progression that feels like being driven to a wake through heavy traffic, while in ‘Liberal Party’, they provide a searching portrait of the breakdown of the welfare society in about as many syllables as Abbott’s three-sentence electoral platform.

9. IAN CRAUSE — The Song of Phaethon
The Disco Inferno’s man Dude’s talent for using tumult to depict, well, tumult remains undimmed. When Crause’s gifts are in full flow, the impact is sort of like being every chime in a huge fuck-off wind chime at once, harassed and assailed by a storm. I think it’s about mythology, but I don’t care. Though Ian, if you’re reading this, give me a call; let’s talk about these cover art problems you’re having.

8. BLANCHE BLANCHE BLANCHE – Hints to Pilgrims
For a band that reveled in an almost perverse level of abstruse prodigiousness, the end was never going to come as simple as a Farnesy-style tour. Hints to Pilgrims is a terse, inflexible record, hammered out through gusts of angst, songs transmitted like the staccato of a miffed wireless operator. There’s a soft heart to unpeel, though; “when you release a lot of music/the only thing you keep is care.” Vale BBB!

7. PALBERTA — Shitheads in the Ditch
Getting your ass kicked in every possible direction but down.

6. INFINITY FREQUENCIES — Computer Decay/Computer Afterlife
Of all of the microgenres that have arisen (Pottercore?) none has more relevance than vaporwave to gaining an understanding of the present. Like, crackin’ jokes about pitching informercials down is like talking wise about Sonic Youth playing out of standard tuning – it’s not funny, and it misses the point entirely. PC Music may have come along and reified the amorphousness of into the branding logic of Planet Pop, but Infinity Frequencies drew the scared, pristine and impossibly far away anomie of the presentlessness of the internet into the clearest possible light. Computer Decay and Afterlife – parts deux and trois of an ostensible trilogy – make unfathomably depthless, affecting galaxies out of the disintegrating now in a way that no one else with Ableton and an anonymous Bandcamp has yet managed.

5. FATIMA AL QADIRI – Asiatisch
Asiatisch opens with ‘Shanzhai’, which is a woman singing the melody of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ in Mandarin over a queasy, heartbreaking bed of synthesized strings. Asiatisch only gets stranger, acting as a travelogue of travelogues, a reinterpretation of the myriad of fake, watered down and misdirected signals that flow between the West and East. On ‘Dragon Tattoo’, a voice veiled in vocoder implores one to “speak Chinese/if you please”, while a robotized synth melody coils like an 8-bit New Year’s Dragon buffering through the street. Here, Al Qadiri is sitting on both sides of the Great Wall, and it’s confusing both ways.

4. COUPLES COUNSELLING – Couples Counselling
When the sampler replaces the acoustic guitar once and for all, this record is going to feel like what Connie Converse was to 2018’s fuckin’ no-hoper Donovan.

3. THE SOFT PINK TRUTH – Why Do The Heathen Rage
Daniel Drew carries forward Arthur Russell’s instinctive acuity for the malleability of disco forms into a through post-structuralist critique of the homoeroticism/phobia inherent to black metal. Staggeringly wise, funny, strange and true, and never too serious to trump the absurdity of the project. Where my other Literature PhDs making music this clever? BLACK METAL/BLACK METAL BLACK METAL/BLACK METAL.

2. PLATYPUS FREAKS — Platypus Freaks EP
When this came out a few weeks ago online, I waited a few days before buying it. I had stuff to do, you know, and I knew that once I sat down to listen to it I probably wouldn’t move for a while. As a fundraiser (for a Crotch album), this sure as hell beats flogging Freddos at the office; Katherine Daly here (with a bit of singing from the lad) sings seven songs ranging from the Mayor of Vancouver (“nepotism! Nepotism!”) to Scott Morrison, and it’s just about the most fun you can have in twenty minutes short of watching Dr. Katz. “Fun” isn’t the best way to describe songs like ‘Uluru;, which moves from a reflection on parental tourism to a harrowing indictment of the impacts of the NT intervention/invasion in the blink of an eyelid, all sung a capella by Daly in a voice so tremulous, so disbelieving, that you want to flush your head down the toilet and start life all over again. You could knock me over just by saying the word feather. Beyond that, there’s ‘Holes’, which might be the most searching, tender, empathetic and pissed off ticking off of a philanderer ever written. Jesus it’s good. Even as just a taste of what one of Australia’s best songwriters can do, it’s a feast. Bloody oath.

1. PETER ESCOTT — The Long O
You know that beer ad about how when you drop something in the water in Tasmania it comes out a lot better? If you dropped The Long O in the Derwent a hundred times over, it would come back out the same.

Alex Griffin writes for Tiny Mix Tapes and plays in Ermine Coat.

Check back later in the week as our writers continue to count down their top 10 records of the year.

Scott Williams’ Top 10 Albums of 2014

Saturday, December 20th, 2014

Scott Williams of RTRFM’s Critical Mass breaks down the best 10 albums of the year.

Honourable mentions:
Entombed A.D. — Back to the Front
Exodus — Blood In, Blood Out
Opeth — Pale Communion
Abysmal Dawn – Obsolescence
Anaal Nathrakh — Desideratum

10. REVOCATION – Deathless
Deathless is another fine example of Revocation’s impressive talents, blending tech death, thrash and the occasional progressive interlude. Doesn’t quite top previous releases, but still a stupidly good album.

9. BEHEMOTH — The Satanist
After kind of losing their way since Demigod, the band has found a new focus and hit the nail on the head with this release. Crushing.

8. TOMBS — Savage Gold
Post-metal with more than a dash of black, Savage Gold is dissonant, haunting, extreme – and one of the surprise releases of the year. See also their excellent cover of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’.

7. VADER — Tibi Et Igni
Polish death metal veterans continue on the winning path with their brand of extreme thrash – consistently brutal with bangover-inducing riffs and beats.

6. INSOMNIUM — Shadows of the Dying Sun
Greater than or equal to 2011’s One For Sorrow, Shadows blends the melo-doom-death formula for a perfect result. The best band of this genre on the planet right now.

5. WOLF — Devil Seed
Heavy metal from Sweden in the vein of Iced Earth/Judas Priest/King Diamond etc. Razor sharp riffs, bombastic drums and one of the best vocalists of the genre. If they could drop a couple of the filler tracks, they could easily knock Iced Earth off their perch. Repeat after me: “SHAAAARK… ATTAAAAAAAAAACK!!”

4. ALCEST – Shelter
Taking listeners further into melodic, dreamy, atmospheric territory and leaving the black/post-metal to the past, this album is still on high rotation despite being one of the first releases of 2014. Neige has created yet another album full of beautiful sounds to add to his already impressive back catalogue.

3. TRAP THEM – Blissfucker
Holy SHIT. This album knocks you to the ground right from the get-go, leaving you breathless from start to finish. Skull-crushing riffs over pounding D-beats reminiscent of Converge/Napalm Death, yet mixing it up enough to stand on their own and deliver an album with enough variety for repeat listens.

2. THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT — Z2
Townsend has to be admired, not just for the great music on this album but for the projects he takes on in general, the majority of which are born from his bizarre and brilliant mind. Z2 is a double album (condensed down from 50 songs originally), the first part being a typical DTP “pop metal” album taking elements from Epicloud and Addicted, though it feels more mature. The second half is a War Of the Worlds-style rock opera featuring the return of Ziltoid (Devin’s alter ego, a coffee-loving alien hellbent on world domination) similar in musical style to the first Ziltoid album but with a bigger scope/budget. The Ziltoid tale will also be taken to the musical theatre stage next year at the Royal Albert Hall for a show that sold out within weeks.

1. NE OBLIVISCARIS – Citadel
Extreme progressive metal at its finest, Ne Obliviscaris have been impressing metal audiences for a few years now, and have delivered another fine feather in their cap with Citadel. Epic in terms of song length and musicianship, and a perfect blend of the light and dark sides of metal.

Scott Williams joins fellow Life is Noise contributors Scott Bishop and Deryk Thomas in hosting RTRFM’s Critical Mass on Wednesdays at 9PM Perth time (+8 GMT.)

Check back next week as we continue to count down our top records of the year.

Jack Payet’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Friday, December 19th, 2014

From the experimental to the ethereal, Antennas to Heaven columnist Jack Payet counts down his favourite releases of the year.

10. VESSEL — Punish, Honey

Punish, Honey is a weirdly chaotic journey reflected through human and robotic spheres. With the members of Vessel having produced and built many of the instruments on here, the whole affair wouldn’t be out of place on a freakish alien rave party on Mars, albeit one in which the partygoers are all under the influence of some hellish futuristic drug.

9. SHABAZZ PALACES — Lese Majesty
Easily some of the most ambitious music to come out this year, Shabazz Palaces deliver less of an experimental hip-hop album and more of an intergalactic journey via “songs” and tripped out vignettes of production wizardry. Combined with Ishmaels Butler’s smooth flow, they give the whole thing a feeling of zero gravity, taking Shabazz Palace’s medium and blasting it into the stratosphere.

8. CHRISTIAN FENNESZ — Becs
At times wholly crushing, Becs can bludgeon with the force of the most abrasive electronic music — see the drudging pistons of ‘The Liar’ a lobotomy via jackhammer. But just as soon as it’s likely to unsettle you, Becs will offer up the most perfectly sculptured waves of static noise that you’d swear you weren’t ten minutes earlier about to have a panic attack. Such is the nature of Fennesz’s latest offering; a duality that has the power to make you feel either very safe or very scared, but never nothing.

7. BATTLE TRANCE — Palace of Wind
Some of the most moving pieces of music likely to be released this year have come from an instrumental album – no less an album centred around saxophones – yet perhaps it’s unsurprising given the enormous mental and physical strain the members have invested. In the year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of jazz legend Sun Ra, it’s fitting a release such as Palace of Wind arrives to highlight the continued lifespan of one of music’s most human instruments.

6. TUNE-YARDS — Nikki Nack
Merril Grabus has that special ability to convey the ugly truth with the welcoming arms of great pop music, a wildly eccentric character whose vision rings true on Nikki Nack: a gloriously freewheeling ride of a multi-colored palette and a contrast to the black and white opaqueness of protest in modern pop.

5. PERFUME GENIUS — Too Bright
Mike Hadreas once crafted deeply personal tales portrayed with such stark frailty you almost expected him to collapse half way into a song. On Too Bright, we can remove all notions of the shy introvert and replace it with a bombastic troubadour who’s upended his sound and in turn elevated the quality of his work enormously.

Whether it’s on the electro crazed jig ‘Grid’ which features the most unsettlingly desperate howl you’ll hear in a long time, or the creeping truck stop blues of ‘My Body’. Hadreas is a man who knows what he wants to say how he wants to say it, even if that means making a few people uncomfortable along the way.

4. CYMBALS EAT GUITARS — LOSE
Lose is the moment everything clicked for Cymbal Eat Guitars, their noodling tapestry of ambitious indie rock was always enjoyable but at times a little scatterbrained. On LOSE, they’ve tightened things up considerably with the band producing a much more focused and enjoyable listen, combined with lyrics on par with a Pulitzer-winning novel, Cymbals Eat Guitars have produced their finest work to date.

3. PROTOMARTYR — Under Color of Official Right
Protomartyr’s second album struts with the brazen self-confidence of Bono but with about a hundred times more justification. Inspired by some less than savory characters from their hometown of Detroit, the band draw from a rich history of garage rock steeped in a strong admiration for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. A shot in the arm for all tepid garage rock pretenders.

2. OUGHT — More Than Any Other Day
These crazy Canadians make music that rises and falls with such gleeful enthusiasm that it’s impossible not to be swept away in the ride. By focusing on the banalities of human life and channeling king weirdos The Feelies and David Byrne, Ought capture a sound that for the most part goes unexplored in modern music. Making the choice between whole and two percent milk has never sounded so life affirming.

1. ICEAGE — Plowing Into the Field of Love
Plowing Into The Field of Love is everything people love about Iceage and a whole lot more, the songs still wallow the same bleak mirth Iceage bathe in, but dense, nihilistic moods are now littered with the sounds of folk and an undeniable country swagger, which might sound odd to some fans but by damn you wouldn’t have it any other way.

The whole album is like a punch in the guts, but it’s the sort of punch you’re grateful for, the one where once you’ve managed to start taking in oxygen again you reach out and gladly ask for another. It’s bold, aggressive, mangled and so perfectly enjoyable — an example of a band leering ten feet above their contemporaries.

Check back next week as our writers continue to count down the best records of the year.

Scott Bishop’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Thursday, December 18th, 2014

Scott Bishop of RTRFM’s Critical Mass counts down the best heavy releases of 2014.

2014 is nearly over. It’s been a great year for heavy music, including a reformation album many of us thought we would never hear (At The Gates). Ultimately on these lists there will be a few albums that didn’t make the grade due to various reasons and unfortunately we at Critical Mass can’t hear every metal album, as presenters though we do our best to dig a little deeper and present our personal top 10s (with 5 honourable mentions).

5 honourable mentions:
At The Gates — At War With Reality
Eyehategod — Eyehategod
Tryptikon — Melana Chasmata
Behemoth — The Satanist
Babymetal — Babymetal

10. EARTHROT — Follow The Black Smoke
From Perth. Gnarly, abrasive, crusty and everything in the red. Love it.

9. VALLENFYRE — Splinters
A surprise release, not being familiar with their back catalogue, the pedigree of members had me thinking of a different sound (slow doom death) but it got much better!

8. ELECTRIC WIZARD — Time To Die
Took me a while to come around to this, especially since vocally it sounds like Jus Oborn sounds like he’s singing down the corridor, but it’s the heavy/slow DOOMY riff fest that you want and desire from EW.

7. ENTOMBED A.D. — Back To The Front
Back indeed! Stripped back and with fire in their bellies the Swedish masters show the young’uns how its done.

6. GRIDLINK — Longhena
The final album from the grind perfectionists. Ravenous riffage and vocals shrieking all over the place. Some well placed violin and clean guitars make this a perfect end game for Jon Chang and co.

5. DYING OUT FLAME — Shiva Rudrastakam
Coming straight out of Nepal with their self-styled Hindu/Vedic death metal. Some brutal riffs mixed with chanting and traditional instrumentation. Best debut for sure!

4. THE AUSTERITY PROGRAM — Beyond Calculation
Noisy metal/punk with heavy chugging bass and angluar guitar. Justin Foley is part insane preacher and part Michael Douglas in ‘Falling Down’.

3. VOYAGER — V
Excellent songs and production. These guys have finally found a sound that bridges the melody and the heavy. Pop structures and anthems that deserve to shouted along too at massive European festivals.

2. THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT — Z2
Almost cheating with a double album here but it’s DEVIN TOWNSEND! All the crazy, layered, symphonic, bombastic sounds you could ask for! The pop metal of Sky Blue and the epic, heavy metal space opera of Dark Matters.

1. MORBUS CHRON — Sweven
Morbus Chron took death metal into all kinds of weird and surreal dimensions with Sweven. Weird instrumental passages, howling vocals that drift in and out, heavy headbanging riffs. It’s so wrong and so right, I just want to hear it again and again!

Scott Bishop is a host of Critical Mass on Perth’s RTRFM from 9pm-11pm Wednesdays (+8GMT). You can stream Critical Mass from RTRFM.com.au.

Check back this week and next as Life is Noise contributors continue unveiling their top 10 records of the year.

The Black Captain’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Wednesday, December 17th, 2014

10. HAIL SPIRIT NOIR – Oi Magoi
Oi Magoi is a strange and clever creature. The melding of black metal with early ‘70s psychedelia, prog rock, and touches of Hammer horror kitsch has a more natural and less forced quality than the debut. The result is something slippery that’s quite difficult to nail down, yet quite fun to try. The band has produced something distinctive from the bulk of heavy music around today, and certainly from the more typical sound of Greek heavy metal. With ironing out the odd kink, Hail Spirit Noir could go on to be a special cult favourite amongst heavy music fans. Not quite sure it’s worth the 666 Euros as listed on Bandcamp, but good on them for trying!

9. KAYO DOT – Coffins On Io
A tortured and thoughtful sci-fi noir hybrid of suave neuromanticism, 80s darkwave, and frenetic prog rock, Coffins on Io is an outstanding work by a daring and divisive musical treasure. It demands being listened to in its entirety, continuously revealing details and emotions within the densely packed compositions with each play. Even with their best record yet, it is simply too much to expect near unanimous love. Thankfully for those who are exhilarated by music that keeps the listener on their toes, it’s not in Kayo Dot’s nature to seek out those types of dreams. The ones they share with us are far, far superior.

8. OCCULTATION – Silence In the Ancestral House
The New York trio mixes apparent influences from Mercyful Fate, Black Sabbath, NWOBHM, and just an edge of goth on this theatrical gem released through Profound Lore. Nameless Void from Negative Plane supplies riffs that tick all the boxes for any heavy metallurgist, driven on by the solid drumming of Viveca Butler. Annu Lilja puts in an amazing vocal performance alongside her wonderful bass grooves, elevating the band’s sound into an epic haunting occult rock gem. Produced by Converge’s Kurt Ballou, Silence In the Ancestral House is is chock full of great moments for fans of old school metal with a few twists.

7. FVNERALS – The Light
Swoon at the brilliant production and elegant compositions of gloomy yet multi-faceted post-rock on this debut LP from Brighton’s Fvnerals. The expansive sound created by hypnotic synths, guitars that drift between deliberate dirge-like mantras and shimmering jangly strums, and down-tempo drumming is crowned spectacularly by the haunting, sensuous surrender to despair of vocalist Tiffany. Together, the three musicians have swept well beyond the suggested potential of their EP. Their capacity for deep, meditative mood of such moreish grimness is impressive. A bright future beckons for these souls calling from the shadows.

6. INTER ARMA – The Cavern
Is this the most metal thing that has ever happened? Just under 46 minutes of riffs, all from the top shelf and surpassing pretty much anything else Inter Arma have tried their hand at before (which is really saying something)… The Cavern is a masterpiece that never once feels tired and overdrawn at any point across its epic journey. Engaging from start to finish, the moment you start to make a sarcastic Spinal Tap dig you are slapped hard in the face mid-sentence by another mind-blowing progression, with the opus continuously evolving into something better as it blazes away. The musicianship is breathtaking, full of surprises and soaring melodies amidst the whirring savagery. If you’ve yet to explore this, plan to set the required time aside and be thoroughly rewarded.

5. PALLBEARER – Foundations of Burden
Wearing their hearts on their riffs, there is smoothness to Pallbearer’s doom that avoids the sense of pastiche that is so pervasive in metal. Whilst their debut was certainly a great effort,Foundations… sends Pallbearer hurtling into the echelon of heavy divinity. Pallbearer’s gift for crafting layers of melody to achieve their intensity on Foundations of Burden will leave you speechless. The songs are free from the staple production values of a heavy record. It’s not that it hasn’t been done before, just so rarely this well. “The Ghost I Used To Be” and ‘The Watcher In the Dark’ are magnificent highlights, showcasing the immensely pleasing irony of just how elevating doom metal can be for the spirit.

4. BEHEMOTH – The Satanist
It seems Behemoth are a love/hate proposition. For those who decry an independent music reviewer praising such polished, slick production and a record that took Satanic death metal into the upper regions of the American charts for the first time ever, I say nick off and have a pow-wow with the Poles who want to jail the band, the Russians who deported them, and all the other gatekeepers. The Satanist is pure excellence, driven by shameless ambition, total lack of self-consciousness, and intense tribulation Nergal has experienced over recent years. The pride taken in the band’s work shows clearly in its outstanding, bar-setting production for death metal. A landmark work in the genre, and one that will create even more expectation at their next step… which Behemoth will gladly meet head on.

3. YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend

And now, reaching the point where virtually nothing separates the albums on this list going forward, YOB’s Clearing the Path to Ascend was virtually undisputed amongst aficionados of independent heavy music as one of the best albums of the year. Crowned by a song bound for a timeless regard in the world of heavy music, “Marrow”, the rest of the album gradually emerges from the blinding supernova of the closer across multiple listens to burn slowly into the mind as one of the most outstanding albums made in heavy metal history. Scheidt can make it seem as though drawing upon an utterly deadly riff is as easy as breathing for him, and is quite happy to let you have it methodically and relentlessly over a period of time where other bands would have played twenty different ones. This is doom deep in a trance. YOB is meditative. YOB is introspective, and deeply moving in its sincerity. On this record, YOB is godlike.

2. MERKABAH – Moloch
Somewhere in the Abyss, there’s a room packed with the souls who lost their way searching for a volatile sound blended from the extremities and sanity-proofed experiments on the fringes of jazz, hardcore, post-rock, and psychedelia. They stand transfixed by a sense of imminent disintegration, engulfed by volatile transmissions of psychosis, spread outwards upon a incendiary command of sound and vision by the five demonic vectors that make up the perfection through chaos that is Merkabah. The band’s Moloch is a pitiless and unforgiving pleasure, provocative and asphyxiating in its brilliance. Within the tremendous invention and intensity of the songs, there is the deep sense that, at their peak performance, Merkabah must be an incredible live band. I have half the mind to travel all the way to the bristling cauldron of exceptional music these days that is Poland simply to find out. Without question, this release from way back in March was one of the most unique and captivating albums of 2014.

1. RAISON D’ETRE – Mise en Abyme
For those who know the man’s work, it’s pretty much a given that anything Peter Andersson releases under his project Raison d’Etreis going to be bloody brilliant. After a 5 year break between releases, Andersson produced not only the best album of 2014, but the best of Raison d’Etre’s catalogue across the 22 years of its recorded existence. Mise en Abyme is the singularity, effortlessly sucking you into the deepest recesses of your psyche. Four tracks, adding up to just a skerrick under an hour, provide the ideal soundtrack for witnessing the abandonment of reason that characterizes our times, the anthem for the stench of humanity as it wantonly destroys itself and everything it comes into contact with through ingrained hagiographic values of greed and self-importance. The drones and ambient frameworks are filled with incredible detail, transporting the listener inwards with the purpose of introspection and self-discovery. Whether it is peace or panic,Mise en Abyme will show you things about yourself you may never have known were inside you. This is a supreme soundtrack for being placed within the abyss (the translation of the album’s title), befitting a year when elements within humanity too often showed their bottomless capacity for sinking into decrepitude.

Check back later in the week as the rest of our writers’ count down the best releases of the year.

Jack Midalia’s Top 10 Albums of 2014

Tuesday, December 16th, 2014

10. YOB — Clearing the Path to Ascend
Clearing the Path to Ascend is not easy going. From just before the five minute mark of album opener ‘In Our Blood’, things really kick in as the Oregon band slow drip doom into our ears. With vocals that swing between the hauntingly beautiful and the brutal, coupled with merciless and punishing instrumentation, Clearing the Path to Ascend is a four-track, hour-long journey into dark territory. The record briefly picks up the pace a bit on the second track, ‘Nothing To Win’, before ‘Unmask The Spectre’ and ‘Marrow’ settle things back down to get the listener ready for more slow-pummelling. YOB throw enough diversity and moments of respite onto the record to keep your attention and stop things getting too monotonous, but Clearing the Path to Ascend is overwhelmingly a loud, brutal and brilliant ride.

9. REAL ESTATE — Atlas
Real Estate’s Atlas is a summer album that’s perfect for winter. There’s enough of everything you know and love from Real Estate to make this record a perfect companion to a sunny day (reverby, cutting lead guitars and playful, pretty instrumentation), but there’s enough of a hint of melancholy, both lyrically and musically, to make Atlas perfect for a winter night with a scotch by the fireplace. While not quite up there with Days, there’s no doubt that Atlas represents a maturation of Real Estate’s sound to something that, despite sounding simple and effortless, is a complex and dense work.

8. SILVER MT. ZION — Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything
In case you didn’t know what you were getting into with Silver Mt Zion, the band has helpfully named their latest record to remove any impressions this might have been a quiet folk release or something like that. Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything is a cacophonous and beautiful mess.

The album begins with a recording of Efrim Menuck and Jessica Moss’ child (“We live on the island called Montreal and we make a lot of noise, because we love each other”) that could be an introduction to Fuck Off Get Free… or, equally, a summation of the bands’ worldview. Musically at least, there’s a feeling of celebration and joy, albeit mixed in with heavy doses of the usual Silver Mt Zion protest and anger and depressing song titles. ‘What We Loved Was Not Enough’ forms the centre of the album, telling the story of apocalypse, self-destruction, riot, war and poverty. Nestled in all that mayhem, however, is a little sliver of optimism — the hope that our children will be strong and selfless enough to live like we couldn’t.

7. BILL CALLAHAN — Have Fun with God
I may be bending the rules ever so slightly in putting this record in here, in that Have Fun with God is a dub version of last year’s Dream River. However, as I somehow overlooked Dream River in 2013, I’m partly using this as an opportunity to make up for it.

On Have Fun with God, Callahan’s voice takes less of a front-seat to the instrumentation, augmented with buckets of echo and reverb. It’s an interesting experiment on Callahan’s part, and the songs on Dream River generally work well in this new format. Have Fun with God manages to be both bleak and uplifting at the same time, while maintaining the late-night-listening feel of its predecessor. Somehow sounding unrelentingly sparse, even with additional effects, Have Fun with God is a welcome addition to Callahan’s catalogue.

6. PIXIES — Indie Cindy
Terrible title and a lack of Kim Deal aside, the first Pixies’ record since 1991 is a welcome return. From the opening track, ‘What Goes Boom’, it’s clear that Indie Cindy might occasionally be a little bit Pixies-by-numbers, but after 13 years it’s just nice to have new Pixies material. Tracks like ‘Blue Eyed Hexe’ and ‘Bagboy’ are right up there with the band’s best work; Frank Black’s voice swings between nonchalant cool to piercing scream as well as ever, Dave Lovering remains one of my favourite understated drummers in rock, and Joey Santiago’s guitar still gives me goosebumps. The hooks are still there, the tunes are still there… what’s not to love?

5. THE WAR ON DRUGS — Lost in the Dream
Lost in the Dream is another effortlessly dreamy walk into Americana from The War on Drugs. The Philadelphia outfit stick to what they do best — pounding freight-train drums and conspicuous nods to Springsteen, mixed with liberal doses of reverb and psych meanderings. Tracks like ‘Under The Pressure’, ‘An Ocean In Between The Waves’ and ‘In Reverse’ continue the tradition of excellent War on Drugs road trip songs, while ‘Suffering’ and the title track give a taste of the band in ballad mode.

It’s heartening to see a band that has been slogging away for a while now start to get the traction that Lost in the Dream appears to have received. It’s certainly well deserved.

4. SWANS — To Be Kind
Michael Gira is a without a doubt the scariest human being on the planet. Swans at their loudest and heaviest are a terrifying beast, but it’s the quiet moments of To Be Kind in which Gira seems to be at his sneering, menacing worst. Boasting more than a hint of the industrialism of Einstürzende Neubauten, this is a record I would regularly put on as background music, only to find I’d that I’d either stopped whatever I was doing and that an hour had passed in the blink of the eye. There are certainly worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

Additional mention of the cover art, which is either the best or the worst album artwork of 2014.

3. SHELLAC — Dude Incredible
Dude Incredible simply gets the job done. Clocking in at just over half an hour, the record is Shellac stripped of anything that might be considered superfluous, leaving less a record and more a precise, surgical airstrike. From the prowling bass of ‘Riding Bikes’ to the snarl of ‘All the Surveyors’, Dude Incredible manages to pack real menace into an austere half hour. Nothing is overused and nothing is overdone (both in terms of songwriting or production), a fact that won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows Shellac and Albini’s form. Key tracks include: ‘Dude Incredible’, ‘All the Surveyors’, and ‘Gary’.

2. PARQUET COURTS — Sunbathing Animal
This record followed me around all year, whether it was the solid month where I basically listened to nothing else, the fact that most people in my life were obsessed by it, or seeing the cover art on a 10-metre-high mural — Sunbathing Animal was inescapable. It seemed to have wormed its way into all corners of my existence, so the high rating of Sunbathing Animal might be due to some kind of musical Stockholm Syndrome as well as the fact that it’s a brilliant record.

All the usual suspects are here in terms of a detached, super-hip influence: Modern Lovers, Pavement, Velvet Underground, etc, but there’s enough originality and personality on this record to make it more than the sum of its parts. The selling point of Parquet Courts is that perfect Malkmus-style “loose but still in total control” balance between technical ability and sloppy noise. Having said that, the quieter moments on Sunbathing Animal (‘Dear Ramona’, ‘Raw Milk’) are certainly worth a listen as well.

Highlights include: “What Color is Blood”, “Bodies Made Of”, “Black and White” and “Instant Disassembly”.

Note: They put out two records this year, but I haven’t spent enough time with Content Nausea to include it here so Sunbathing Animal it is for spot number two.

1. HARMONY — Carpetbombing
I knew this was my number one record of 2014 from the first time it entered my earholes. Combine ragged guitar with soaring crescendos and breathtaking harmonies, nuanced songwriting and stark-but-beautiful production, and you’ve got one hell of an album. It’s a distinctly Australian-sounding record, in the same difficult-to-explain way that The Drones sound Australian beyond merely the accents.

I could throw around adjectives all day, however to put it simply: Carpetbombing nails the balance between the beauty and trauma of being alive and condenses it into 43 minutes of music that demands to be played loud and with total attention.

Check out Life is Noise’s Top 10 Albums of 2014 and check back later this week for more of our writers’ best records of the year.