Anyway, there follows my top 20, most of which is in no particular order. As we reach the top five, some rankings will come into play. Outside of this list, there are dozens of excellent albums, with particularly honourable mentions to Triptykon, The Cosmic Dead, RM Hubbert, Prescott, Godflesh, Thin Privilege, Innercity Ensemble, Christina Vantzou, Swans, The Unsemble, Sound of Yell…
Obake
– Mutations
A
second outing and a new lineup for Obake, with Porcupine Tree/Metallic Taste of
Blood’s Colin Edwin taking over from now-departed Massimo Pupillo on bass.
There’s little change in the band’s aesthetic though – planet-smashing
mid-to-sloth-paced sludge, with occasional detours into pretty and/or eerie
ambience providing some tonal contrast. However, this is on the whole vastly
more focused and confident-sounding than its predecessor – bigger, tighter,
harder (to list but three sexually suggestive adjectives). Aside from one
weirdly aberrant bit of overly slick neo-psychedelic soft-prog/post-rock at the
mid-point, this is a relentless and aggressively assured collection. Whereas
the first album at times had the feel of experimental noise jams rooted in
doom-metal tropes and textures, Mutations finds Obake blossoming into a
sharp-fanged and gloriously brutal metallic unit with just enough experimental
leanings to keep things unpredictable.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
Nisennenmondai – N
Three tracks of extended, spiky, minimalist groove.
Super-lean and scarily efficient. Most thrilling of all, it sounds like they
took the choppy chukka-chukka guitar lick from ‘Bootylicious’ and constructed a
whole album out of it.
Tētēma – Geocidal
In his latest attempt to assuage a pathological fear of not making music, Mike Patton finds himself recruited by electroacoustic composer Anthony Pateras for this new duo. Seasoned Pattonites will hear elements of some of his more fringe projects here, from the unsettling swathes of Maldoror to the rude rhythms of General Patton and the brooding atmospheres of the soundtracks. But tētēma, largely conceived by Pateras, has a curiously moreish flavour all its own. Recorded in several different locations, it has the feel of a travelogue through a quasi-fictional land, rendered as bristling misinterpretations of traditional ritual, devotional music and forgotten noir cinema, taking in scenes of dystopian dread and modernist composers festering beneath mosquito nets. Pateras’ compositions span vast stylistic and emotional terrain, and Patton gleefully pushes his throat into painful new areas in response. Heavy on both beats and abstraction, it’s instantly accessible yet deeply strange and indefinable too.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
Deerhoof – La Isla
Bonita
Can it be that Deerhoof have really
been around for 20 years? Yes, it can. At first, their 13th album seems to
consist of typical examples of their slightly more restrained and hugely
welcoming, but still offbeat latterday aesthetic. But with ‘Doom’s mid-section
wall of bristly guitar and the discordant stomp of ‘Last Fad’, the band’s
wilder leanings begin to dominate. By the time we reach ‘Exit Only’s uber-fuzzy
into-the-red garage-punk and ‘Big House Waltz’s dubstep-meets-Afropop reprisal
of the riff from Sepultura’s ‘Roots Bloody Roots’, all rationality is lost in a
giddy whirl of good-natured but raucous possibilities. It’s a gluttonous feast
of beautiful and ridiculous and sweet and silly and outrageously clever ideas
packed into 31 all-too-swift minutes. Can it be that Deerhoof have really delivered
their best album 20 years into their existence? Well, just maybe.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
Earth – Primitive and
Deadly
Dylan Carlson and Adrienne Davies return with the eighth
Earth (that’s difficult to say) album, sounding beefier and more aggressive
than they have since the turning point of Hex.
Still full of space and contemplation, but with a rockier, more aggressive
edge. The vocal tracks (from Mark Lanegan and others) didn’t really work for
me, but the instrumentals are among Earth’s finest.
Olga Bell – Krai
An enticing and unique melding of electronica, Eastern
European/Russian folk music and post-rock, though far less precious and much
more immediate than that genre-mash description might imply. Singular, fun and
beautiful.
Slomatics – Estron
One of the best relentlessly heavy albums I’ve heard all
year. Ugly, brutal riffs, dripping with foul ichor, complemented by incongruously
spectral vocals. Gorgeous Moebius-style cover artwork, too.
Knifeworld – The
Unravelling
In the five years since the last Knifeworld full-length, Kavus Torabi has hardly been idle, releasing two Knifeworld EPs, playing with Gong, Guapo and the Medieval Baebes, orchestrating the Exquisite Corpse Game project, running his label Believers Roast and hosting a prog-rock radio show with snooker champ Steve Davis. Somehow, he found time to record these eight lavish tracks, brimming with imagination. More concise and focused than 2009’s Buried Alone, this finds Torabi exploring bold new areas – like ‘The Skulls We Buried Have Regrown their Eyes’ eerie manual imitation of electronica, or the eerie abstraction of ‘This Room Was Once Alive’. Yet, for all its forays into way-out psychedelic prog curiousness – and there are many – at the heart of The Unravelling is Torabi’s warm and welcoming pop sensibility, which eases the unsuspecting listener through a theoretically imposing world of intricate time changes, sputtering horns and spiralling riffs.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
Howie Reeve – We
Are in Repair
Since
the dissolution of his former outfit Tattie Toes, Howie Reeve has been
pioneering the use of acoustic bass as a solo instrument. Although he’s an
extraordinary player, this is no noodly, self-pleasuring wankfest. Rather, his
songs are snare-tight, startlingly original compositions, rooted in post-punk,
but much more exploratory and personal. A unique aesthetic, both nakedly
intimate and giddily visceral, with lyrics crammed full of everyday yet
profound observation.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
Bad Aura – Bad Aura
Superbly greasy and sleazy Glaswegian noise-rock quartet,
full of diseased groove and good-natured confrontation. One of the best live
bands I saw all year.
Melvins – Hold it In
Reviewed on The List: https://www.list.co.uk/article/64878-the-melvins-hold-it-in/
Old Man Gloom – The
Ape of God
Promotional gimmickry and false-leak shenanigans aside, this
is a superbly upsetting collection from OMG, with barbed sounds, bantha-sized
riffs and oppression to spare.
OOIOO – Gamel
As
these words spill forth, dear reader, the sun is doing its best to bake any and
all puny human flesh that falls beneath its gaze. And it turns out OOIOO’s Gamel,
their first in five years, is an absolutely perfect soundtrack for a scorcher
of a day. As you might guess from the album’s name, Yoshimi P-We and her
psychedelic ritual/post-punk/trance-rock ensemble have turned their attention
toward the traditional sounds of Bali for their fifth full-length release. Both
in terms of composition and instrumentation, these 11 tracks draw heavily on
the chiming, tinkling, rhythmically complex music of gamelan, and in doing so
create something that fair sparkles with uplifting energy. They make for a
gloriously bright and euphoric confection of glittering cross-rhythms, pulsing
krautrock-style thrust and giddy vocal chants, with occasional bursts of
splattershot guitar. The unmistakable citrusy fractal tang of Yoshimi’s day job
as Boredoms drummer can be detected at times, but this is less monolithically
pounding than their current incarnation, more protean, playful and fun. It’s
beautifully euphoric and joyous, with an appealing lightness of touch, even
fragile and delicate when it needs to be – the sound of liquid summer being
piped directly into your lugholes.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
Zeus! – Opera
Whether
it’s the packaging, the name or the two intense-looking bearded Italian blokes,
something about Zeus! suggests stoner sludge-doom. It is, then, a source of
extreme and giddy delight to find that this band are far weirder and more
interesting than all that. Theirs is a largely instrumental bass+ drums
hyper-prog, its manic energy, mischievous sensibility and super-intricate
composition most likely inspired by the Tatsuya Yoshida school of impossible
musics, but with added caustic metallicisms redolent of Fantômas or classic-era
Slayer. As an added treat, the titles are awash with delicious and terrible
puns (of which the best/worst is opener ‘Lucy in the Sky with King Diamond’).
As heavy as it is clever, as ridiculous as it is utterly, magnificently
brilliant.
Xylouris White
– Goats
Reviewed on The List: https://www.list.co.uk/article/66190-xylouris-white-goats/
5. Merkabah – Moloch
It only came to my attention via the Quietus’s end of year
list, but Merkabah’s third album was an instant hit. Stunning, visceral noise
rock with a heavy dose of King Crimson threading through its intricately
interwoven physicality.
4. Richard Pinhas & Oren Ambarchi –
Tikkun
Tikkun
[…] brings the fire. While Pinhas and Ambarchi get the spine credit, they’re
joined on these three tracks by Masami Akita, Duncan Pinhas, and twin drummers
Eric Borelva and Joe Talia. Driven by an unrelentingly sexy 6/8 bassline,
‘Washington DC’ sets the tone, piling on layers of lavish noise and savage
beats, while ‘Tokyo’ is steadier but more imposing. But closer ‘San Francisco’
is the peak, a torrent of drums and joyfully busy noise that achieves the kind
of irresistible, ecstatic cosmic-psych solar flares of 21st-century Boredoms.
3. Music Blues – Things Haven’t Gone Well
Anyone who’s seen Harvey Milk live will know that bassist Stephen Tanner seems
like the happiest man on Earth. Even through the sometimes overwhelming
darkness of their music, he remains a radiant transmitter of bonhomie and good
vibes. It’s therefore painful to hear that this an illusion. Recorded in the
wake of personal tragedy, Things Haven’t Gone Well is a reflective and
harrowing autobiography in instrumental form, the titles a timeline of his life
from difficult birth to adult depression. These 12 tracks were originally ideas
for a new Harvey Milk album, and it shows. It’s the sludgiest, dirgiest moments
of Courtesy and Goodwill or My Love…, minus Creston Spiers’
ursine howl, plus an ocean of despair. However, in true perverse Harvey Milk
fashion, there’s potent beauty in there too – as much as ‘It’s Not Going to Get
Better’ could crush tanks, it’s soulful, yearning and painfully human too. On
the face of it, Music Blues seems like a poor name for a project – so vague and
bland as to be meaningless. Yet in context, it makes perfect sense. This is not
blues as genre, but as simple, honest, direct statement. A stunning piece of
work, as viscerally invincible as it is emotionally vulnerable.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
2. Richard Dawson – Nothing Important
Reviewed on The Quietus: http://thequietus.com/articles/16757-richard-dawson-nothing-important-review
1. Babymetal
– Babymetal
They’ve been unavoidable in 2014, for good reasons or ill,
drawing equal amounts of adoration and ire, but I for one bloody love
Babymetal. Their debut has been, by some margin, my most-played album of 2014.
Like most people, I first encountered them via ‘Gimme
Choko!’. Given my fondness for brutal metal, cheesy pop and many aspects of
Japanese culture, they seemed to be tailor-made for me. However, had the fairly
silly ‘Gimme Choko’ been entirely representative of Babymetal, that might have
been the end of my affinity. Luckily, there’s a lot more to them than singing
about chocolate. They transcend novelty and gimmickry. Their debut album is a
whirlwind exploration of myriad metal styles, from death, thrash and punk to
power and prog, djent, industrial and nu-. And it’s all done with remarkable
conviction and intensity (as you’d expect, given that the backing
band/songwriting team includes Takeshi
Ueda of Mad Capsule Markets).
The juxtaposition of actually really-bloody-good and super-heavy metal tracks with ultra-sweet and poppy female vocals is supremely exciting. I generally prefer female voices over male, and the uber-macho vocals on ‘proper’ metal can be a bit wearing. So this is made for me. It has an element of extreme tonal contrast that’s really compelling and addictive – it’s the salted caramel of music. Aside from one track that’s a little too close for comfort to Limp Bizkit, the entire album is really solid. It’s surprisingly diverse too, each track with its own distinct identity. Highlights abound, but here are the top three: ‘Megitsune’, which combines more traditional Japanese music with face-booting riffs, and even includes a heavy breakdown based on the old tune ‘Sakura’ (also referenced by Martin Denny and Bon Jovi, as it happens); the arty, obtuse ‘Akumu No Rinbukyoku’, which sounds like the hybrid of Bjork and Meshuggah that has previously only existed in my dreams; and ‘Akatsuki’, an unbelievably sweet and gorgeous ballad offset by full-force metal assault. When Su-Metal sings that sublime chorus backed by all the heavy metal thunder you could ask for… goosebumps the size of golf balls. Pure bloody pop/metal genius.
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