How about a mid-year music update? And hell, while we’re at it, let’s just free advertise my personal best of the year so far. It’ll certainly help when I’m thinking of my favorites of 2024 in December.
I’ve been preoccupied and enjoying both environmental and sonic silence, so I haven’t heard as much new music as I’d generally like. Mean-to and will-do-eventually might come to fruition, might not, we’ll see… but here’s what I’ve heard more than a song or two from and found quality from 2024 so far.
The best of the best start-to-finish ALBUM albums, go on a ride:
Slift – Ilion
Iota – Pentasomnia
Haunted Plasma – I
Why not Iota? I’ve only been a fan since hearing “Shit Luck” going on 20 years ago now. At first I was like, well, this just sounds a lot like a heavier Dwellers, but then I remembered I like Dwellers, too, and keep returning. You might say I’m a returner… Anyway, the spacey heavy here is (chef’s kiss) and they made a cohesive album from it. Meanwhile, Slift took me on a journey. I’m now going to connect their music not only to memories of Myst (the song “Confluence” has Myst soundtrack vibes) but a bunch of life shit I don’t feel comfortable discussing on the internet today. Slift has gotten enough general praise in recent history that if you were going to hear them by now, you probably have, but I didn’t find their prior music as cohesively solid as this, so take this as your recommendation if you didn’t find their prior music worked for you. Haunted Plasma is a band I only knew of by association with other bands and their Internet Roadburn performance, with no evidence of record of said performance for me to chew on since. How can I trust a mid-pandemic brain to tell me what’s quality outside of that very moment? Turns out it was an insta-love thing after all. They’ve got ~aesthetic~ down, if pre-apocalypse sci-fi if-T2-was-a-vampire aesthetic. brb going to go generate some AI images because John Connor is dead in this timeline.
Yes please may I have some:
Allie X – Girl With No Face
High on Fire – Cometh the Storm
Bongripper – Empty
Bongripper was initially in the former category but I remembered how much mood and setting plays a part in “hearing” their music and knocked them down. It’s certainly meant to be digested as a whole album, but if you’re not prepared for 45 minutes of slow (black metal spasm on “Empty” aside), and I am often not, it doesn’t hit the same. At least they do what they do well. Is there anything for me to say about High on Fire that anyone who sees that name doesn’t already know for themselves? The album is a soul-embracing, heavy refresh in some ways, a speedy gonzales hey-‘member-Motorhead attack on the senses in others, taking me back to the first time I ever heard the band right when Death Is This Communion came out. That was goddamn 17 years ago?! Well long live daddy doom, then. Allie X is new to me this year, and certainly I was sleeping on her as the song suggests, but the album has song-by-song revealed itself as a favorite. Who knew my Depeche Mode-loving ass would appreciate some 80s-inspired gothic synth-pop? The videos (including the spinning) have been sehr wonderbar. More weird pls.
OK? OK? OK? OK! (the less digested, less heard, or singles collections):
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft
Black Pyramid – The Paths of Time Are Vast
Couch Slut – You Could Do It Tonight
Dua Lipa – Radical Optimism
Heavy Temple – Garden of Heathens
Idles – Tangk
Justice – Hyperdrama
Kim Gordon – The Collective
Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven
Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol – Big Dumb Riffs
St. Vincent – All Born Screaming
Ufomammut – Hidden
Whores – War
Zombi – Direct Inject
Much of these I’ve heard part of and enjoyed but didn’t like the whole thing. Others are generally favorites who haven’t been fully digested yet. Idles, for my taste, is half absolutely fucking fantastic. Justice led with some amazing songs then fell off a cliff for my musical preferences these days. Billie Eilish’s “Chihiro” is a current favorite song this past week or two but the album largely feels foreign to my ilk. I need more time with Ufomammut… but don’t we all.
If you’re counting, that’s 20 so far. Here’s a few more that either didn’t release this year or aren’t albums.
Not albums:
Conan – DIY Series, Issue 1
A Perfect Circle/Puscifer/Primus split
Gosh, an old Tool fan with an old APC username likes the 60 split, huh? Who’d a thunk. On the flip side, gosh, an aggressive doom fan likes Conan? Gee whiz, tell me less. If you know me at all, these were easy to guess additions to my listening habits. Both have at least one good song!
Not from this year but recent and OMFG:
Frankie and The Witch Fingers – Data Doom
Chappell Roan – The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess
Holy bah-geezus with the Chappell Roan this year. Seems like a whole subset of the population has gone stupid for her/them. If you’re a lady, a member of the rainbow spectrum, into pop music you can sing and dance and cry and play dress-up to… you should hear this. That Olivia Rodrigo tour was a good match. Back to what you straight men and straight nerds are here for: Frankie et al has made something just short of stoner rock for jazz fans. It’s so good and it pisses me off I didn’t hear it last year so I could throw it on some imaginary who-gives-a-shit winners list for 2023. I really need to hear their older music already.
And I’m presently looking forward to:
Fu Manchu
REZN
SUMAC
Greenleaf
Orange Goblin
Oranssi Pazuzu
Anciients
Ils
Omigawd new Anciients is coming! I already have.
If it’s not here, I haven’t heard it… or haven’t heard it enough to care. Isn’t it great I stopped listening to King Buffalo 24/7, finally? Shit I just triggered myself. MOAR SUNSETS! Hilariously, today was King Buffalo t-shirt day, so it’s not like there’s been any change in the weather at all.