Julia Holter's 'Aviary' is a stunning avant-garde epic that experiments with sounds from so many areas, but maintains a cohesive, emotional centre of gravity. The range on display here is staggering. The album opens with the (barely) organised chaos of 'Turn the Light On', where a powerful vocal performance fights against the mass of drums strings and other instruments that drive the track. It closes with 'Why Sad Song?', a quiet contemplative track with sparse instrumentation where the vocals are the core of the song. The rest of the album perfectly bridges the significant gap between these tracks, to make for an immensely varied album that never loses sight of what it is.
[First added to this chart: 10/29/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
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Rank Score:
1,366
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There are lots of records that can be described as angry or depressing, but there are very few that are as utterly nightmarish as 'You Won't Get What You Want'. The project carries a lot of different sound, but almost all of them are emotionally exhausting. 'City Song' introduces the album with a sense of dread, and it's not long into the album before 'Satan In the Wait' amps this up until it's almost unbearable. Towards the end of the record the dread is realised with tracks like 'The Reason They Hate Me' and 'Guest House' releasing the potential that the early sections of the record build up, to make for uniquely hopeless sounding music.
[First added to this chart: 10/29/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
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Rank Score:
3,193
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'Depression Cherry' and 'Thank Your Lucky Stars' were both very good albums, but it was beginning to feel like Beach House were approaching a creative dead end after the build up found across their first four albums. However, with '7', the duo's best album to date, all these fears are put to rest. Opener 'Dark Spring' has a shoegazey feel to it, with the drums that open the track being vaguely reminiscent of those that open the My Bloody Valentine track 'Only Shallow'. 'Black Car' begins sounding tiny in scope, but elements are carefully added over the course of the track until it becomes the highlight of the record. There's still a lot here that works on the successes of the last three albums, 'Drunk in LA' and 'L'inconnue' especially make for brilliant dream pop tracks.
[First added to this chart: 05/15/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
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Rank Score:
3,245
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I guess it's a re-recording and not a new album for this year, but 'Twin Fantasy: Face To Face' has a kind of different feel to the original. For me the cleaner sound improves a lot of the tracks significantly, since the cleaner sound makes it easier for the instruments to match the emotion of the vocals. 'Bodys' and 'Beach Life In Death' particularly benefit from this, with the latter being the best track this year. There are a few other changes across the album that have varying degrees of success, but the impact of the change in sound alone makes this album absolutely essential. It feels like the musical equivalent of a remaster and director's cut of one of your favourite films.
[First added to this chart: 03/07/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
6,347
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5. (8) 3
It's a good thing that 'Some Rap Songs' is brief album, since it takes a few listens to fully appreciate what Earl is trying to make here, and how well he achieves it. At first only a few of the 15 tracks will stick, but once the individual loops have got a hold of you, they provide a perfect background for the bleak introspective lyricism. This is Earl's most cohesive album, and whilst it's not as dark as the first half of 'IDLS' or any section of 'Solace', a lot of what's on here is coming from a negative space. It's yet again, a very personal project and this is helped by the rough sound of the recording. It feels almost as if these tracks were made in the spur of the moment, giving the emotions conveyed a greater intensity. The album closes with 'Peanut' and 'Riot', where the former is the darkest point of the album, where Earl reflects on the death of his dad earlier this year. 'Riot' reworks a track by his dad's late friend Hugh Masekala and has a triumphant feel to it, giving the final two tracks a balance of 'rest in peace' on one hand and 'rest in power' on the other.
[First added to this chart: 12/06/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
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Rank Score:
2,133
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6. (5) 1
'Taboo' is split into three parts: light, grey and dark. This immediately gives the structure of an album that gets darker and heavier as it goes, and the tracks on here completely achieve this. There are some issues with the light portion. The lyrical themes of 'Black Balloons' and 'Taboo' are certainly not light, but I guess they appear this way in comparison to the final, dark section. This is where the record is at it's best. 'The Blackest Balloon' really does feel like a horror movie; the rage on 'Percz' is justified and in your face; 'Vengeance' is perfect horrorcore, with some of the best feature of the year; and 'BMT' is the only way to top these tracks in terms of visceral horror.
[First added to this chart: 08/06/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,655
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7. (6) 1
'Now Only' shares some similarities with 2017's 'A Crow Looked At Me', but feels like it occupies a quite different space. It is still a uniquely sad and bleak album, but there is more going on musically, and the rawness of it's predecessor doesn't quite carry over completely. This is good for the record as it now has the freedom to be musically interesting without losing the emotional impact that make the last two Mount Eerie releases stand out in Phil's already deeply impactful discography.
[First added to this chart: 03/23/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
556
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8. (7) 1
[First added to this chart: 06/26/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
968
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On their fourth record, Deafheaven step away from the black metal that characterised 'New Bermuda' and firmly shift the balance of the genres they tackle in favour of post rock. The vocals are similar to other releases but the sounds they go over are much brighter than on any other Deafheaven album. This allows the album to express the similar emotions to before but in a fairly different way, for once on one of their releases there seems to be a path out of the negativity. As with previous releases the best tracks here are the longer ones, most notably 'Honeycomb' which carefully ties together several sections to create an expansive and cohesive piece. Chelsea Wolfe collaboration 'Night People' is the only real misstep here. There's nothing wrong with either artist, but there's just too big a gap in their styles for Deafheaven to not sound watered down on this track.
[First added to this chart: 08/01/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
679
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[First added to this chart: 09/29/2018]
Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
319
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Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
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