Here are my favorite records of the past 12 or so crazy, messed-up, not very good months here in the good ol' USA. From the Top 10, Tirzah has been a slow-burner over the past few weeks and with more time might've found itself higher on this list. Parquet Courts is one of the best indie-rock bands of the decade and Wide Awake! is right there with their best albums. Daytona is just dizzying and has a few of my favorite songs of the year. Like Tirzah, Flasher was a grower as the year went along., and like Daytona, Snail Mail's Lush has some of the best singles of the year - nothing consistently moved me as much as the chorus of "Full Control".
My first listen to Amen Dunes soundtracked a drunken 2-mile stumble from the train to my front door some time last spring and was one of the most transcendent first listens I've ever had. I love that Low, a band I've known and followed forever, completely inverted themselves after 25 years and dropped an album that somehow tops Things We Lost In The Fire. Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is a huge leap for Deafheaven - still devastatingly heavy as fuck but so, so beautiful. And Iceage just keeps getting better as they draw from a larger and larger palette. But for me the most surprising, interesting, and un-categorizable record of the year was Cocoa Sugar by Young Fathers. Their disparate mix of hip-hop, soul, dub, experimental, club, and rock music somehow gels into a stunningly perfect pop album.
1. Young Fathers
/ Cocoa Sugar
2. Deafheaven / Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
3. Low / Double Negative
4. Earl Sweatshirt / Some Rap Songs
5. Amen Dunes / Freedom
6. Iceage / Beyondless
7. Snail Mail / Lush
8. Pusha T / Daytona
9. Flasher / Constant Image
10. Tirzah / Devotion
11. Beach House / 7
12. Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus / boygenius EP
13. Mitski / Be the Cowboy
14. Spiritualized
/ … And Nothing Hurt
15. Jeff Tweedy
/ WARM
16. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever / Hope Downs
17. Parquet Courts / Wide Awake!
18. Big Red Machine
19. Father John Misty / God’s Favourite Customer
20. John Prine / The Tree of Forgiveness
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