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Like a lot of rock writers, I’m asked to make top 10 lists every year. And every year I end up leaving a lot of excellent recordings on the cutting room floor. This is an attempt to call attention to albums I think deserve the end-of-year lists spotligh
10 GREAT NONE-OF-THE-ABOVE RECORDS: And when I say “none of the above,” what I mean is these are albums that don’t fit squarely or easily in the other categories I covered in my previous lists. Whether the artists are experimental, not a good fit (I’m sorry, Americana Music Association, the very British Richard Thompson is NOT AMERICANA) or simply transcend notion of category, they slipped out from under any obvious banners and found themselves on this list.
Richard Thompson – Electric (New West)
It’s almost too easy to call each new RT album the best he’s done in a long time. But Electric truly seems to be a superior effort in a catalog that rarely falters.
Steven Wilson – The Raven That Refused to Sing (K Scope)
Far too much progressive rock seems to just be an exercise in rehashing the sounds of the 70s. Not for Porcupine Tree leader Wilson, though – he’s long taken those aesthetics and molds them into his own distinct brand of noise, and his third solo album finds him at the peak of his powers.
Crime & the City Solution – American Twilight (Mute)
Bred in Australia and Berlin, now based in Detroit of all places, featuring a who’s who of boundary-pushing indie rockers in its revamped lineup, legendary art rock gang Crime & the City Solution makes a rousing comeback with its first LP in over two decades.
Beastmilk – Climax (Magic Bullet)
If a bunch of Finnish recovering metalheads bonded over a shared love of Killing Joke, early U2 and New Model Army, the result might sound, well, exactly like this.
Purple – (409) (Beverly Martel)
Straight outta Beaumont comes Purple, a power trio with chops, melodies, aggression and an irrepressible sense of humor.
Grails – Black Tar Prophecies 4, 5 & 6 (Temporary Residence)
This postmodern instrumental band incorporates everything from metal to jazz to classical to pop into a unique stew that flows like a river through a rainforest. Though a compilation, this record holds together better than a lot of concept albums.
Chelsea Wolfe – Pain is Beauty (Sargent House)
Strange, atmospheric psych/goth/pop/something from the mind of singer/composer Wolfe – reminiscent of the best of Projekt Records without sounding quite like anything that’s come before.
Deathfix – s/t (Dischord)
Brendan Canty, formerly of Fugazi, and Richard Morel, also of, um, Morel, met playing the backing band for Bob Mould. Their collaborative project puts its participants’ shared postpunk background through an art rock filter and buries it in heaps of melody.
Pinkish Black – Razed to the Ground (Century Media)
Denton’s Pinkish Black need nothing more than keyboards and drums to conjure a heavy sound that’s not metal but could only land on a metal label.
Ensemble Pearl – s/t (Drag City)
Members of Boris, Sunn 0))), Ghost (the Japanese acid folk Ghost, not the Swedish demi-metal act) and Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter comes together to make instrumental phantoms that give ethereality a good name.
