Albums // 2018

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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