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[Music] Albums of the year 2018



scwiffy

Active member
Jun 24, 2011
210
Young Fathers, Neneh Cherry and Gruff Rhys have to be up there.

Are we still allowed to like the Hookworms album?

100% Young Fathers this year. They've been growing and growing as a band so that makes their latest particularly sweet.

Going to see them in Brixton on the 10th
 










Streetlight

Member
May 16, 2016
57
Long time listener, first time caller. Hiding in the shadows so to speak but always used the 'Albums' threads as a source of inspiration for playlist

Couple of my albums of the year, a bit off the beaten track but exceptional none the less

itoldyouiwouldeatyou - Oh Dearism Experimental emo, heavy on the social commentary. Almost overly complex at certain points but still feels delicate.


Serpentwithfeet - Soil Ethereal, almost gospel. Really powerful voice and exceptionally poetic. Real dreamy


Spanish Love Songs - Schmaltz Menzingers/Gaslight Anthem style angst. Voice takes a bit of getting used to but it pays off. So catchy
 




Whitechapel

Famous Last Words
Jul 19, 2014
4,074
Not in Whitechapel
Anybody who saw me earlier post in this thread will know I’m a hip-hop head, however when it comes to Song/Single OTY then there is only one choice for me.

Sam Fender - Dead Boys

It’s a song so absolutely perfect it’s hard to even describe. A song about Male suicide at a time where suicide is the biggest killer of men aged 20-49. It doesn’t pull any punches , it doesn’t glamoroise the issue. It doesn’t trivialise the issue. As a 24 year old male who has lost more than one friend this song hit me so hard. But even without that message it’s a brilliant, brilliant song.



A staggeringly perfect song. I haven’t done it justice.
 


Theatre of Trees

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
7,718
TQ2905
My top 20 albums of the year for anyone still interested
20. LIME CRUSH - SUB DIVIDE

Good old fashioned new wave pop from Austria where the band members rotate the playing of various instruments on each track. The addition of a saxophone on the long outro of ‘Never’ is wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZaBnNaIGjE

19. ORA ISO - IMAGE CERTIFIES

Lo-fi, scuzzy and morbid, this is an album that is angry at both themselves and the world around them. Bonus download track is a fine cover version of Chris Izaak’s ‘Wicked Game’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSjGkpyo0ok

18. TOMORROW SYNDICATE - FUTURE TENSE

Melodic space disco electronica with a hint of Can and a dollop of Wire that sounds like it could have been released any time between 1976 and 2026.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwNUF7_ytgY

17. MELODY’S ECHO CHAMBER - BON VOYAGE

Dense psyche-prog experimentation underscored with a pop sensibility. The weird and wonderful ‘Desert Horse’ encapsulates the entire album in one song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8uj7QUzCSA

16. LOLINA - THE SMOKE

Most accessible material to date, dinky keyboards, absurd lyrics, off kilter electronic soundscapes that require a number of listens before enveloping you into her world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO9nZGxJX6w
 


Theatre of Trees

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
7,718
TQ2905
15. BAS JAN - YES I JAN

A sci-fi Slits but more whimsical in nature based around the observations of harpist turned bassist Serafina Steer. A very English album of post punk gems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNWMX-RHV3Y

14.BIG JOANIE - SISTAHS

Part 60s girl group, part 80s DIY punk, part 90s Riot Girl, tied up with a fine ear for the two minute pop song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscB7YNpeKw

13.AGAR AGAR - THE DOG AND THE FUTURE

French electronic duo’s debut is idiosyncratic and hard to pin down, hopping from genre to genre without really concentrating on one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a53IkJv4Go

12.KAELAN MIKLA - NOTT EFTIR NOTT

The Icelandic trio’s third album has completely moved away from their earlier shouty punk compositions. The vocals are no longer screamed, the reliance on the bass to give the songs backbone has now been fleshed out with dark wave synths. Sung in their native Icelandic the album evokes long dark arctic nights and Nordic pagan traditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRgxo8JtTRA

11.GOAT GIRL - GOAT GIRL

An album about growing up in London that excels in its storytelling and is underscored with a sly humour. A successor to the Libertines without the need for that group’s glorification of wallowing in the depths of a mythical England.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSpzsO1RDTM
 




Theatre of Trees

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
7,718
TQ2905
10. LUCRECIA DALT - ANTICLINES

Originally trained as a geophysical engineer in her native Colombia, Dalt uses the metaphors of rock stratification to examine surfaces and interiors of human nature through a minimalist modular synth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1-NegXv9bI

9. LA LUZ - FLOATING FEATURES

Seattle foursome relocate to Los Angeles resulting in a cleaner more polished sound accompanying their narratives of being strangers in a big city. The surf guitar still underscores their songs, however, the minor shift in production has moved them forwards again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oETEFW1g-hs

8. THE MISTY’S - PREGNANT MANNEQUIN

Mutant, dream pop that buries singer Beth Roberts’ helium like vocals into a murky mix of melody and ambient sounds that is lost in its own little world.

https://soundcloud.com/beppu-tlo/the-mistys-womb

7. LET’S EAT GRANDMA - I’M ALL EARS

A piece of work that strides confidently into the adult world. Musically, the band has shifted away from the class music cupboard and embraced modern pop via producers Sophie and Horrors’ Faris Badwan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhdjzZacNeE

6. CUCINA POVERA - HILJA

To quote Boomkat: “Strung out somewhere between Julia Holter’s enigmatic early work, the possessed vibes of Ectoplasm Girls, and a deeply strange episode of the Moomins.” Avantgarde yet accessible, therapeutic yet deeply thoughtful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFs7y9N6ci8
 


Theatre of Trees

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
7,718
TQ2905
5. LAIBACH - THE SOUND OF MUSIC

It takes a band who grew up in a totalitarian society to understand how another one works in this age of invidious populism. The songs of the musical have been reimagined to tell the story of North Korea, the people who live there and the West’s inability to separate the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jqOSDq0Ssc

4. GAZELLE TWIN - PASTORAL

Brexit, nostalgia and the blinkered nationalism of middle England is satirised in Hogarthian style. The best state of nation album released this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1dJ14oOous

3. LE VASCO - FEU TEMPETE

“Cold, contorted R&B laced with sad android harmonies.” French melancholia with a sense of an impending end coming into sight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7fse-IYaEs

2. CONFIDENCE MAN - CONFIDENT MUSIC FOR CONFIDENT PEOPLE

A party album that evokes the late 90s hedonistic dance culture that is both playful and cynical. Pop itself is satirised via attitudes (‘Don’t You Know I’m in A Band’) and visuals (Two members remain covered at all times for being too ugly).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSCELqWCXe0

1. FLO & SPICEY - FLO & SPICEY’S TEA SET

Weirdest pop album of the year by far. A kind of retro collage of spoken film samples, day to day sounds, tape loops, instrumentation and deadpan vocals with a distinct Scandinavian accent. This is all built around a love story of sorts where a woman bored with her current predicament fantasies about an adventure which doesn’t turn out as it should. Distinctly oddball and inhabiting its own little musical universe.

https://soundcloud.com/floandspicey/sucking-in-the-sun
 






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