The Most Petable Dogs In Music

Dogs. They’re everywhere, maybe even in your own home. You might know them as Man’s Best Friend, but I’d argue they’re even more than that–they’re art. 

I’ve always been a dog person. My family has had two dogs; Inca (rest in peace) and Miracle. They’re both Keeshonds and both very good girls. I’m just doing a ballpark estimation, but I’d guess that I’ve taken dozens of gigabytes worth of photos and videos of both of them over the last sixteen years. They’re cute, and I love them!

It only makes sense that musical artists have the same connections with their dogs, so it’s no surprise why many of them have immortalized their pets (or other people’s pets) on the covers of their albums. 

Go on, just think about it. You can probably name a few off the top of your gear right now without even trying. As far as album covers go, I’d like to make a bold and substanceless claim that no other creature within the album kingdom has been as well-represented as canines. Big guys, small guys, fluffy guys, feral guys, they’re all here in some form or another on various album covers from indie rock to experimental bullshit. 

In this article, I’d like to rank these famous pups by how much I’d like to pet them personally. I’d also like to give the clarifying asterisk that I think all of these dogs are good boys and girls. This ranking is no judgment on the dog’s looks or the artist’s music, purely how much I would personally like to curl up with the dog we see on the album art. 

Secondary asterisk: don’t you dare contact me and tell me that I “missed one.” This is all of them, every dog that’s ever existed on an album cover ever. There are no more… Just kidding, please add your favorite album cover dogs in the comments; I want to see them all.

---

Machine Girl - Wlfgrl

Given the title of this album, the animal captured on Machine Girl’s breakthrough album may very well be a wolf. Regardless, it does not look friendly and is not an animal I would want anywhere near me. 0/10

21 Savage, Offset & Metro Boomin - Without Warning

Not a happy dog, and I wouldn’t be happy to be around him. 1/10

Blur – Parklife

Here they come, barreling towards you, driven by some unknowable primordial force and the taste for victory. I think greyhounds are pretty cool, but any time you see a muzzle on a dog, that signals at least some level of un-cuddliness. Also, minus points for being British. 2/10

Joyce Manor - Cody

I wonder what the dietary information is on a mannequin head. 2/10

Rick Springfield - Working Class Dog

A prisoner of capitalism. One album later, the same dog can be seen riding in the back of a limousine flanked by two girl dogs. He may claim, as the title reads, “success hasn’t spoiled me yet,” but the smile on his face has noticeably faded. Money won’t bring you happiness, Rick Springfield dog, I can promise you that. 2/10

Weezer - Raditude

Sometimes a boy’s just gotta fly. He probably just heard “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” and got all hyped up. We’ve all been there, right? I would like to vacation in this home, but I don’t know if I could deal with the energy level of this particular dog. 3/10

Nouns - still bummed

Something about this dog has always unsettled me. Maybe it’s the underexposed flash film photography, the modest Christmas tree in the background, or the music itself, but I’ve never been a fan. Plus, huskies always remind me of this meme dog. 3/10

Rush – Signals

Not to go all “Cruella” on you guys, but I once heard that Dalmatians are bad with kids, and that turned me off of them forever. Not even a good Rush album. 4/10

Snoop Dogg - Bush

Look, I know there’s probably a more-famous Snoop Dogg cover you were expecting to see on this list, but Bush is a fun little funk record that’s worth checking out. This is also markedly less horny album cover than Doggystyle, and this is a WHOLESOME list, so I’m opting for Bush. The ideal listening (and dog petting) scenario is nearby a BBQ on a hot summer day with some beers in hand. 5/10

Mogwai - Travel is Dangerous

This is my baby Yoda. The live version of “We’re No Here” is crushingly heavy and one of my favorite songs of all time; please go listen. 5/10

---

SUB-CATEGORY: CARTOON GUYS

We’re roughly halfway through our countdown, so let’s take a break from the real dogs to look at some fake dogs. I’m putting all these illustrated guys into their own category because they’re still dogs but deserve to be analyzed with slightly different criteria. 

In terms of the physical action of petting, would I be petting a 2D approximation of these dogs? Would I myself be 2D? Would it be a Roger Rabbit-style cartoon-into-real-world logic? As you can see, we must look at these boys slightly differently and rank them accordingly. Still scored based on cuteness and overall petability. 

Mannequin Pussy - Perfect

I can see why Mannequin Pussy chose this dog as the cover for their awesome EP from last year. It’s a rager of a punk release, and this snarling German Shepard embodies the music well. This all said, cartoon or not, I’d like to keep this dog far away from me. 1/10

Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Freaky little dog with freaky little eyes. Honestly would probably put me to sleep just like this album. 2/10

Crywank - Tomorrow Is Nearly Yesterday And Everyday Is Stupid

Here we see a certified looooong boy having achieved Dog Nirvana. I’ll let him enjoy victory over his tail and not disrupt him with my pets or adoration. 3/10

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy

Long before I knew anything about Will Toledo’s life as a furry, I thought this album cover was just a veiled homage to Daniel Johnston. I’d offer to pet these dogs, but honestly, it seems like they’re comforting each other just fine. 4/10

Hovvdy - Easy/Turns Blue

Technically a single, so technically a dog 5/10

Newgrounds Death Rugby - Pictures of Your Pets

No idea where these guys are, what they’re wearing, or why they're posing for a picture, but I can only imagine they’re a good hang. I’d let them crash on my couch while backpacking across the country. 6/10

Mo Troper - Dilettante

A vibrant and multi-colored dog. Truth be told, I don’t know quite what’s going on here, but the abstractness kinda adds to the charm. If I owned this dog, I’d name him Schlorp. 7/10

TTNG  - Animals

A landmark math rock album in which a group of five British men attempt to replicate the energy of 13 various animals across as many tracks. While the dog only may be one small piece of this album and its art, it’s hard to deny how small and cute this guy is. Plus, if he can coexist alongside an alligator, elk, baboon, and more, you just know he’s a stone-cold chiller. 8/10

Various Artists - No Earbudz Vol. 1

Look, ain't no rules says a dog can't play basketball. There also aren’t any rules that a PR company can’t put out one of the best compilations of 2021. Assisting in album campaigns for the likes of Bartees Strange, Into It Over It, Future Teens, Caracara, and more, No Earbuds is a killer organization that’s home to some of the best and brightest minds in emotional indie rock. Having all these artists cover each other was a stroke of genius. Here’s hoping we get a Vol. 2 someday. Very petable, very good. 9/10

Advance Base - Animal Companionship

Regal, majestic, pure. These are just a few of the words that come to mind when I look at the dog on the cover of Animal Companionship. He might be a little cold, but I’d gladly let him inside and allow him to warm up by the fire. Also, possibly my favorite album on this list besides TTNG. 10/10

---

Okay, that about covers us for the two-dimensional dogs. Now, back to your regularly-scheduled dog ranking…

Alex G - Trick

Look at him go. He may have grown up in a religious environment, but you can just tell that this German Shepherd knows how to party. 6/10

Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger In The Alps

In Phoebe Bridgers’ first (and, in my opinion, best) album, we take in an image that, much like her music, is equal parts haunting and charming. Set on a pastoral farm scene, a scratched-out cartoon ghost obscures the humanoid figure beneath. A rainbow breaks through the sky, dog nearby, cautiously surveying the scene and looking damn cute while doing it. Phoebe has also posted a cool unedited version on Instagram, which is great for all your Deluxe Edition needs. 6/10

Hot Mulligan - you’ll be fine

Me? Depressed. Emotionless. Existing, but not feeling. My dog? Luckily my dog feels everything. We both take in the endless expanse of nature listening to the post-emo of you’ll be fine, and for 31 minutes, it seems like things might just turn out okay. 6/10

Pet Symmetry - Pets Hounds

Floppy-ass ears and big hangin’ tongues, what else could you want in an animal? I just know these dogs would be down for a couple of hours of fetch and a long rest on the front porch afterward. 7/10

Jimmy Mayo - Whoops

Boop. Oh, sorry, I didn’t see ya there. In what feels like the tonal inverse of the Nouns dog, here we have a warm but just-as-out-of-focus pic of a pup on the cover of one of the most underrated and under-the-radar emo EPs of the past few years. 7/10

See Through Person - Chariot

Another great emo dog. He’s chillin’, you’re chillin’, life is good, and the riffs are twinkly. 7/10

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

The Stranger Things lady? Cool! All kidding aside, I’m happy for Kate Bush and the legions of Gen Z fans she’s recently attained. I’m even happier to report that the titular hounds on Hounds of Love appear infinitely cuddle-able. In fact, the album cover acts as undeniable proof of that fact. 8/10

Pet Symmetry - Two Songs About Cars. Two Songs With Long Titles.

Whoa, boom, second entry from the same band on one list! Pet Symmetry is easily taking home the “most dog-friendly band” award. They must have been trying to make this a theme in the band’s early days, and how could you deny them when you look at a dog this cute? A wonderful boy that I would drive to the dog park any day of the week. 8/10

Little Big League - Tropical Jinx

Michelle Zauner, mustaches, and a singular fluffy pup snuggled in between them. What else could you possibly need? 9/10

Beck – Odelay

One of the types of dogs. I’ve always wanted to pet him. I’ve always wanted to see him on a windy day. I’ve always wanted to see him do everything. 10/10

Shelley FKA DRAM - Big Baby DRAM

Damn, look at DRAM. Look at that pup. This image radiates happiness in a way that few album covers ever do. A perfect composition. 10/10

Swim Into The Sound's 15 Favorite Albums of 2021

I hate to always start these with a gloomy intro paragraph, but I’ll be real; 2021 has been hard. In some ways, harder than 2020. While many of us spent last year hunkered down and reeling from a global pandemic, this year has been far more undefinable. We’re nearing a million dead from COVID here in the US, and the government response has essentially boiled down to a shrug. At least last year, it felt like we were all in this together. 

For me, 2021 has been a year of breakups, burnouts, and overall bummers. As we sit on the brink of another outbreak with collective “pandemic fatigue,” I’m beginning to think that we’re never getting out of this. It seems that, when faced with two options, most people will opt for the one that helps them and them alone. Either that or people are so far down their individualistic rabbit holes that they can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s been a debilitating and demoralizing season, but I’m still here, and so are you. 

As with most other years, music was a shining bright spot in my life that helped me through each and every day. Whether consoling, comforting, or just helping me forget about the outside world for a few minutes, there were plenty of albums this year that I found peace in. These albums have been my oasis. The safe space that allowed me to weather the storm and make sense of it all. They’ve soundtracked moments of joyous exhilaration and crushing loss. No matter what they sound like, these are the albums that have helped me through a very dark, very long, very hard year. 

Despite how dour I sound and how paralyzed I feel, I am thankful to be here and grateful that I get to experience works of art such as these. Here are my 15 favorite albums of the year. 

---

15 | Wild Pink - A Billion Little Lights

Royal Mountain Records

For the better part of the last decade, Wild Pink have been carefully fleshing out their own corner of the musical world with loving brushstrokes. Sometimes those brushstrokes would be long, vibrant streaks like 2018’s Yolk in the Fur, and other times they would be shorter dispatches like an EP here, or a random Taylor Swift cover there. Throughout 2021, the heartland indie rockers seemed hellbent on adding more onto their canvas than ever before. Released in February, A Billion Little Lights is a searching album that conjures the awe-inspiring feelings of a drive through America’s heartland. The sun shines down upon you as you feel the wind in your hair and take in the vast expanse before you. The amber-coated fields of grain contrast the cloudless blue skies, and you feel at home, even though you’re hundreds of miles away from everything you’ve ever known. That’s what listening to A Billion Little Lights is like. Supported throughout the year by a tour, an EP, some covers, a live album, and capped off by an excellent single, there has never been a better or more rewarding year to live within the world crafted by John Ross & co.

14 | The Antlers - Green To Gold

Anti-

Some albums capture the frigid landscape of winter. Others embody the celebratory warmth of summer. While I love those types of albums, I’ve never heard a record capture the transition between seasons quite like Green To Gold. With dreamy lounge piano, vibrant steel guitar, and expansive instrumental stretches, The Antlers’ sixth studio album (and first in seven years) sees the band at a transitionary period too. Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, the band’s latest is, as lead singer Peter Silberman puts it, “the first album I’ve made that has no eeriness in it.” He went on to elaborate, “I set out to make Sunday morning music.” Despite this aversion to darkness, everything about Green To Gold, from its title to the songs contained within it, is about the liminal spaces of life. And when you really think about it, aren’t those in-between moments are more compelling anyway? It’s easy to paint life with binaries, but the truth is more often somewhere in the middle. What’s really telling of who you are as a person is what you do to swing out of those periods and move between them. What do you do when you don’t know what to do? For The Antlers, the answer lies within this record. 

Just as Green To Gold soundtracked our world’s unthawing, the recently-released Losing Light captures our yearly withdrawal. Slower, darker, and released at the perfect time in the depths of November, the EP is a worthy addendum to the band’s latest record that makes it feel like a living, breathing piece of art. 

13 | Good Sleepy - everysinglelittlebit

No Sleep Records

everysinglelittlebit begins like a dream. As the album’s introductory track unfolds, it feels as if you’re making your way through a dense, moss-covered forest. Thick fog fills the air, carrying disembodied voices that swirl around the outer reaches of your perception, and suddenly everything drops out at once with “suffokate.” It’s like one of those trapping pits where hunters cover the opening in branches and leaves. You set foot onto it, shift your weight, and suddenly find yourself in a freefall. The song hits you like a punch to the gut, combining jittery guitarwork with a tight rhythm section and weighty shout-along vocals. Despite this bombastic sequencing, the tracklist does a good job of giving the listener a chance to catch their breath every once in a while, only to sap it away with the next track. Good Sleepy spend the duration of their debut album grappling with overwrought emotions, complicated relationships, and the idea of emotional self-sustainability. The instrumentals are tight and punchy, settling in at a middle ground somewhere between Stars Hollow and Ogbert The Nerd. The end result is an album with the nervous energy of speeding down the highway while chugging a Red Bull on your way to a basement gig. I know with everysinglelittlebit of myself that we’ll all be back there soon.

12 | Alien Boy - Don’t Know What I Am

Get Better Records

Don’t Know What I Am plays out like the soundtrack to a long-lost ​​mid-90s coming-of-age teen comedy. I’m not even talking about that made-for-TV trash, I’m talking top-of-the-line teen dramedies like Heathers and 10 Things I Hate About You. The kind of movies that culminate in a house party and always know when to bust out a peppy pop-punk tune. I suppose that would make “The Way I Feel” the scene-setting opening credits song that would play as we swoop into some bustling high school and meet our main characters. Throughout the record, the Portland rockers do an excellent job of introducing themselves to the audience, guiding them along this emotional journey, and pulling on our heartstrings with expertly-crafted hooks fit for 90s alt radio. The instrumentals are dripping in fuzzy shoegaze feedback that borrows equal parts from power pop and emo. Best listened to loud af, Don’t Know What I Am tackles topics of self-discovery, partnership, and queerness. More than anything, this record sounds like unrepentant love. It sounds like teenage adoration. It sounds like finding someone who loves you for who you are. This is the way things should have always been and should always be. It’s love the way you always wanted. 

11 | Lucy Dacus - Home Video

Matador Records

Home Video hurts to listen to. Not just because it’s a collection of raw feelings and confessional songs, but because it was released as my relationship was crumbling in real-time. I usually try to not inject too much of my personal life on here (much less in an AOTY countdown), but this album’s pain feels intertwined with my own. The songs of unfit pairings, longing, and heartbreak mirror the feelings I’ve experienced this year. Home Video is a hard album to listen to, but even still, I can’t deny its mastery. This record delivers everything I loved about 2018’s Historian and makes it even more approachable. There are still killer guitar solos, anthemic choruses, and aching balladry, but Dacus seems even more sure of herself. These pleasant qualities help dislodge these songs from the hurt. This record may still be hard for me to listen to, but a few years down the line, I can’t wait to revisit this release from a new perspective and ride alongside in Dacus’ passenger seat, taking in the world.

10 | Stars Hollow - I Want to Live My Life

Acrobat Unstable Records

Like most emo records, the debut album from Stars Hollow sees our narrator coming face to face with their faults. The key difference between I Want to Live My Life and most other emo records is that we actually accompany our hero on their journey towards self-betterment. While other releases of this genre lament not being able to get the girl or dig yourself out of a rut, I Want to Live My Life rolls up its sleeves and actually does the hard work. This means is that the listener experiences every phase of this journey as the band works their way from merely maintaining to striving to achieve something more. It’s a beautiful and true human experience captured in a compelling 25-minute run time.

Read our full review of I Want to Live my Life here.

9 | Fiddlehead - Between the Richness

Run For Cover Records

While Springtime & Blind was an album mired in death, Between the Richness is an album about life. Specifically, about the things that define a life. Inspired by lead singer Patrick Flynn’s experience as a recent father, the album uses his newfound perspective to unflinchingly capture the things that define us early on. Childhood friendships, mentors, conflicting emotions, growing apart, and academic expectations are all topics that inform the songs here. This all builds to an album-length collage that mirrors the building blocks most of us are comprised of.

After many, many, many repeated listens of Between the Richness, there’s one thing that always sticks in my mind. After all the dust has settled; after the EE Cummings poem, the Latin passages, and the obituary readings, one lyric always rattles around in my brain for hours on end; “How do I say goodbye?” Like many other lines on the album, it’s belted in a near-scream by Flynn, but is swaddled in a melody that can get stuck in your head for hours… and therein lies the beauty of Fiddlehead. Complicated articulations of even more complicated feelings delivered in a cathartic way that not only makes sense but makes you want to join in.

8 | Mannequin Pussy - Perfect

Epitaph

Punk music was never meant to be indulgent, and no release this year proved that more than Mannequin Pussy’s Perfect. A compact collection of five songs weighing in at a collective 14-minute runtime, this might be (pardon my pun) the perfect punk album… or at the very least, the best distillation of Mannequin Pussy’s range of sounds. “Control” is the ultra-relatable lead single, “Perfect” is the burn-it-all-down punk cut, and “To Lose You” is the soaring lovelorn middle child. Beyond that trifecta, “Pigs Is Pigs” is a bass-led hardcore sucker-punch with a vital message immediately contrasted with “Darling,” the EPs solitary closing ballad. Perfect is a full range of emotions captured in a rapid-fire montage of rage, love, injustice, hate, loneliness, and adoration. There’s simply nothing more you could ask for. 

7 | Cory Hanson - Pale Horse Rider

Drag City Inc

In my mind, Pale Horse Rider is a concept album. It’s a record about a cowboy riding an undead skeletal horse to the psychedelic depths of hell. The reason isn’t entirely clear, but odds are he’s going to rescue the girl from a hulking demonic behemoth. It’s like a Robert Rodriguez film, but way more laid back. Or maybe Evil Dead if the characters cracked a few less jokes. It’s Dante’s Inferno in a western setting. 

The title track is an early tent poll that plays out like the would-be movie’s title card. From there, we wind from the desert-like desolation of “Necklace” to the epic battle portrayed as a guitar solo on “Another Story From the Center of the Earth.” Even the celebratory moments like “Limited Hangout” are carried out after acknowledging how arduous the journey has been. “Sometimes it's so hard not to feel like a corpse Dragging a soul on two broken wheels / I have often felt the edges of my body trying to escape,” Hanson bemoans before picking up a drink. It’s a nice little moment of lightness that still acknowledges the dark reality we often find ourselves in.

With Hanson as our ferryman, he guides us through the voyage with crystalline pedal steel, rumbling cowboy drums, and jangly campfire acoustic guitar. Despite the macabre theme and overall mood, the release closes out with a sunny disposition on “Pigs,” which plays out like the final credits after we’ve clawed our way back to the surface of the earth. In true old west fashion, the album leaves you ready for another pulpy expedition, but not before celebrating with a stiff drink.

6 | Jail Socks - Coming Down

Counter Intuitive Records

When I listen to Coming Down, I hear Jail Socks, but I also hear my childhood. I hear my first collection of CDs like Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and Simple Plan. I hear candy-coated pop-rock with immaculate hooks and catchy choruses that mask a more profound layer of emotions lying just beneath the surface. Essentially an album about the comedown of youth, the band’s debut album builds off the foundation laid out in their 2019 EP and draws influence from 90s alt-rockers like Third Eye Blind and Jimmy Eat World. From outright rippers like “Peace of Mind” and “Point Point Pleasant” to more pensive moments found on “Pale Blue Light” and “More Than This,” the band explores a dazzling range of early-20-something lamentations on this record. Already my most-listened-to album of 2021, I know that Coming Down will be an album I’ll return to for many years to come. 

Read our full review of Coming Down here.

5 | The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Illusory Walls

Epitaph

An 80-minute post-emo, post-hardcore, post-rock album about the social, moral, and ideological rot of late-stage capitalism? AND it’s all passed through a conceptual Dark Souls filter? I am in. There’s simply no amount of hyperbole I could pack into this introduction that would do Illusory Walls justice, so I’ll just say that this was one of the most impactful first listens I’ve had with an album in years. The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die are perhaps best known for being forebears of the 2010s Emo Revival. Famous for their long name and even longer list of band members, everything about Illusory Walls seems counter to their previous work. It’s a darker, fiercer, and more focused album that was conceived amongst the group’s (now core) five members. 

While the singles range from a mixture of The Anniversary and Broken Social Scene on “Queen Sophie For President” and heavy metal riffage on “Invading the World of the Guilty as a Spirit of Vengeance,” the group rounds out distant corners of their universe on songs like “We Saw Birds Through the Hole in the Ceiling” and “Your Brain is a Rubbermaid.” The cherry on top of this album comes with the one-two punch of its closing tracks. Both the 16-minute “Infinite Josh” and the 20-minute “Fewer Afraid” are absolutely jaw-dropping tracks that are guaranteed to inflict goosebumps upon any listeners who might take them in with an open heart. While “Infinite Josh” is built around a post-rock build and steadfast bassline, “Fewer Afraid” is a career highlight manifesto complete with a spoken-word passage and philosophical sentiments. The latter of these two songs evoked an actual joy-filled scream from me upon first listen when the band broke out into an interpolation of my favorite song of theirs from nearly a decade earlier. 

Over the course of this album’s final 36 minutes, the group touches on topics like death, the passage of time, religion, and the desire to make the world a better place. It’s inspiring, cosmically-affirming, and downright staggering. In one of the record’s most profound lines, friend of the band Sarah Cowell sings,

You cry at the news, I just turn it off
They say there's nothing we can do and it never stops
You believe in a god watching over
I think the world's fucked up and brutal
Senseless violence with no guiding light
I can't live like this, but I'm not ready to die

Even if you aren’t a fan of this band or emo as a whole, Illusory Walls is a boundless work that shatters nearly every preconceived notion one might have about the possibilities of this genre—an extraordinary feat of the medium.

4 | Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee

Dead Oceans

Michelle Zauner has had a hard couple of years. After the dissolution of her previous band and the death of her mother, Zauner coped the best way musicians know how: by creating. She recoiled into grief over the series of several Bandcamp EPs, culminating in 2016’s phenomenal Psychopomp. She processed her loss in the outer reaches of space with 2017’s Soft Sounds From Another Planet and then took a few years to explore her creative whims. She recorded some covers, did some collabs, and even wrote a damn book. This is all to say that Zauner has kept busy, and after plumbing the depths of sorrow for nigh on five years, she has earned herself a bit of joy. Enter Jubilee. 

Japanese Breakfast’s aptly-titled third album finds Zauner basking in vibrant colors, biting into a sweet persimmon, and allowing herself a cautious bit of happiness. “Paprika” sifts through the rubble, eventually uncovering a triumphant parade of love. This leads directly into “Be Sweet,” which is a downright untouchable anthem that deserves nothing less than to be sung at the top of your lungs while bouncing around in pure revelry. This is not to say Jubilee is all good vibes; the album’s happiness is also tempered with plenty of realism and darkness found in songs like “Posing In Bondage” and “Savage Good Boy.” Just as there will always be loneliness and shitty men even in life’s best moments, Jubilee acknowledges the presence of good alongside the bad. It’s a complete spectrum of emotions that all cement in the epic six-minute slow-burn closer “Posing For Cars.” Michelle Zauner will not be defined by her grief nor her happiness. She is a complete human with a planet’s worth of emotions contained within. Jubilee is merely Zauner’s attempt at capturing that ever-shifting mix of feelings. It’s a rush.

3 | Turnstile - Glow On

Roadrunner Records Inc.

Before Turnstile even announced Glow On, the band’s four-song Turnstile Love Connection had already made its way onto my album of the year shortlist. On Turnstile’s third studio album, the band builds off their summer sample platter (and excellent visualization) into an expanded world of pink cloud hardcore punk. One spin of the album’s opening call to action, and it’s easy to see the appeal; muscular guitar riffs, exhilarating instrumentals, and catchy scream-along lyrics are all things the group has mastered now over a decade into their career. 

Months ago, I saw someone online describe the album as “pop-punk,” and I have become obsessed with that descriptor. Glow On isn’t pop-punk in the frosted tips Sum 41 sense of the term but in a much more literal interpretation of those two words. This is hardcore punk music made in a poppy, approachable way. This is radio rock that can deadlift hundreds of pounds and throw up a 6-minute mile no problem. If this album doesn’t want to make you take flight, then quite frankly, nothing will.

2 | Wednesday - Twin Plagues

Ordinal Records

How many of us have experienced Twin Plagues over the last year? The loss of a family member and the loss of a job. A life-threatening accident and a breakup. Bad news following already bad news. Sometimes these things just overlap, and when they do, they compound, making each feel worse in the process. Add a climate crisis, political regression, and a pandemic on top of it, and you’ll find that one section of your brain has been passively worrying for the last two years, if not longer.

Twin Plagues is an album full of these dual-wielding worries, contrasted against midwest mundanities. NFL teams, burned-down fast food buildings, high school acid trips, family photos, and dead pets are brought up and passed by like a roadside attraction that nobody wants to stop the car for. While nondescript on paper, these observations are rendered beautifully within the album, set to an instrumental backdrop that ranges from fuzzed-out shoegaze to wistful slide guitar.

This record captures these overlapping plagues and offers a surprising amount of compassion to the emotionally rung-out listener. It’s the sound of multiple major life events converging on you at once, all while the world outside continues to spin onward. It’s the sound of catastrophe happening while you find yourself caught in the eye of the storm. 

That said, there’s still escape and comfort to be found here. Twin Plagues may not offer a solution, but in a way, it offers something better; solidarity. It provides the knowledge that you are not alone. It quells your mind with the fact that there are other people out there experiencing the same thing, and, despite how it may seem, we are stronger together than anything the world can throw at us individually. And if you’ve made it this far? If you’ve weathered those Twin Plagues or you doubt that you have the strength to do so, then look no further than the affirmative first words of the album: you are fearless. 

1 | Home is Where - I Became Birds

Knifepunch Records

If I were to describe I Became Birds with one word, it would be electrifying. There are tons of things you can compare Home Is Where to: Neutral Milk Hotel, Bob Dylan, and your favorite local punk band, just to name a few. But simply put, this band is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. As a collection of songs, I Became Birds is all of those sounds and influences packed into a magnificent 19 minutes that strikes my soul like a bolt of lighting. With poetic and visceral lyrics that capture the trans experience, these songs tackle important and seldom-discussed topics like body dysmorphia and self-discovery in inventive and affirming ways. The band also touches on rustic backcountry sentiments, the desire to pet puppies, and presidential assassinations throughout the album’s blistering fast runtime. 

Back in March, I described the release as a rickety roller coaster, and I standby that. Every time I give this record a listen, I half expect it to collapse under the weight of itself. This is even reflected in the band’s live performances as lead singer Brandon Macdonald leaps, screams, shouts, wails, and collapses as the songs unfold. The guitars sway, tap, and shred with a fiery passion, floating just above the propulsive rhythm section, which alternates between gently guiding the songs forward and putting the pedal to the metal, forcing them into a careening full-tilt. Throw in some harmonica, synth, horns, violin, group chants, and a singing saw, and you have an honest, revelatory, and elating experience that also makes for the best album of 2021.

The Best of May 2021

Easily the most stacked month of 2021 thus far, May saw oodles of emo, heaping helpings of punk, and even a few fantastic folk releases. Of course, we also threw in some blues and metalcore for good measure, plus an actual grunge album to top it all off.

Stars Hollow - I Want to Live My Life

Acrobat Unstable

The Iowa emo trio moves from licking their wounds on Happy Again and arrested development on “Tadpole” to active progress on their debut album. Capturing equal parts self-discovery, self-destruction, and self-improvement, I Want to Live My Life is one person’s journey from passive complacency to active betterment. This story is soundtracked by tappy guitar licks, emotive screams, and killer drum fills. As the listener stitches together the threads connecting each song, putting the pieces together results in one of the most satisfying emo experiences this year. 

Read our full review of I Want to Life My Life here.

NATL PARK SRVC - The Dance

Self-released

The Dance sounds like mid-aughts “classic” indie rock in the best way possible. Seven members deep, complete with a horn section and occasional strings, NATL PARK SRVC sounds like they could have opened for Arcade Fire or Broken Social Scene at the peak of those band’s respective Pitchfork-fueled successes. The Dance feels like a hidden gem you’d stumble across in a record store circa-2003 and would obsess over for years. It sounds like the cassette you’d find in the car of your best friend’s cooler older brother and would have an immediate respect for based on that association alone. This is a high-flying, highly-polished indie rock album that arrives to us fully formed. While the record comes with familiar trappings, it feels like NATL PARK SRVC have already carved out their own corner of the world in just 48 minutes and 7 seconds. 

The Black Keys - Delta Kream

Nonesuch Records

I’ve been a fan of The Black Keys for as long as they’ve been around. In retrospect, picturing myself as a pre-teen listening to Junior Kimbrough covers and songs like “Grown So Ugly” is objectively hilarious but made all the sense in the world as an accompaniment to my rabid White Stripes fandom. Watching the band evolve from sleazy, sloppy garage rock into a poppier and poppier version of themselves has been one of the great displeasures of my music listening career. That said, I don’t begrudge the band for chasing success, even if it means becoming synonymous with car commercial music in the process. 

On Delta Kream, The Black Keys genuinely get back to their roots with 11 covers of blues greats ranging from R. L. Burnside to John Lee Hooker. This record captures my favorite version of the band; it’s the one that I first fell in love with and one that I never thought we’d see again. The guitar tone is muddy, the vocals are mumbled, and the songs feel like they have space to breathe. This album is a direct contrast to 2019’s “Let’s Rock”, which feels like a collection of blues-rock songs that were bitten by a radioactive Subaru Outback. Delta Kream may not get a sold-out tour or million-dollar placements in commercials, but I’m glad it exists, and I know I’m not alone. 

Smol Data - Inconvenience Store

Open Door Records

As explained by the band themselves on Twitter, Inconvenience Store is a collection of songs about the “insane little art community you made the center of your universe as a teenager.” More specifically, the album is about aging out of that community and trying to figure out where the hell you’re supposed to go next. That’s a pretty universal experience every music-adjacent creative feels growing up, and the songs reflect that universality whether it’s through the poppy hums of “Salaried (Bankruptcy Eve)” or the ska-flavored “Bitch Store.” The record stakes out a space that melds the personable, eccentric indie-pop of Illuminati Hotties with the wholistic world-building of Glass Beach, and that is a Venn diagram I can one-hundred percent get behind. 

Just Friends - JF Crew, Vol. 2

Pure Noise Records

Just Friends is serotonin in audio form. Just Friends is pure adrenaline packed with a punch of love, acceptance, and good vibes. Following an excellent three-pack of songs from earlier this year, the band is back with another stack of fun-loving funk-rock tunes. Opening track “Sizzle” is a 100-mile-per-hour banger that sees lead singers Sam Kless and Brianda "Brond" Goyos Leon vivaciously trading bars. As Brond delivers a series of spitfire boasts with Sam as her hypeman, the song eventually breaks down into a stank-face-inducing stoner rock riff. The grooviness doesn’t stop there because this opener gives way to a Lil B remix and a fantastic No Doubt cover in the proceeding tracks. Three songs, no misses. With this EP, Just Friends once again prove that they are a reliable supplier of feel-good ass-shakin’ tunes… as if there was ever any doubt.

The Devil Wears Prada - ZII

Solid State Records

Back in 2010, The Devil Wears Prada were riding high. They had just released (arguably) the best album of their career one year prior, then they dropped a zombie-themed EP at the undeniable height of the early-aughts zombie zeitgeist. Aside from being a collection of six fantastic songs, in retrospect, it’s impressive how well the band was able to strike while the iron was hot. The Walking Dead was just revving up on TV, the video game world was inundated with games like Left 4 Dead and Call Of Duty, and films like Zombieland were doing gangbusters at the box office. Over the next decade, the band became a little shakier. They got heavier and darker with Dead Throne in 2011, they lost a founding member in 2012, and then released the middling 8:18 in 2013. The group seemed to be righting the ship in 2015 with Space EP, a similarly committed concept EP about the dangers lurking in the sci-fi corners of space. One year later, they delivered the massively underrated Transit Blues in 2016, then released the somehow even more underrated The Act in 2019. With ZII, the band is signaling that they’ve finally returned to the heights they achieved over a decade ago. 

The Devil Wears Prada may have undergone lineup changes and indulged in new sounds that didn’t always pay off, but now they are venturing back into the zombie world they began to flesh out back in 2010, and this time it’s not a gimmick. The band is able to pick up right where they left off on the first Zombie EP as if the intervening years happened in the blink of an eye. The band sounds as sharp, and the screams sound as ferocious as they did a decade ago. The lyrics faithfully stick close to the horror theme but still leave room for compelling narratives and bits of songwriting to occur without being overshadowed by a sense of novelty. For those who have been “tuning out” of the metalcore scene for the last few years, this EP is an appeal directly to you. For most fans, it was clear that the band was achieving new artistic heights with their last full-length, but this EP is an affirmation. It’s a signal to grab your old metalcore tee out of the closet and break it out one last time for 2010’s sake. 

Mannequin Pussy - Perfect

Epitaph Records

Mannequin Pussy are masters of the punk craft, and with each release, the band’s skills have only sharpened. The group’s newest EP, Perfect, is a five-song master class in the punk genre. The emotions have become more fierce but also more controlled. The choruses have become catchier but don’t forfeit their deep-rooted rage. Every type of Mannequin Pussy song is represented here. “Control” hones in the poppier chorus-driven side of the band’s spectrum, “Perfect” is the fast, thrashy punk song, and “To Lose You” is the mid-tempo rocker that pulls at your heartstrings ever so slightly. While each track is fantastic in its own right, the two biggest surprises come at the tail end of the release.

“Pigs Is Pigs” sees Missy handing vocal duties over to bassist Colins "Bear" Regisford for a Turnstile-esque track that tackles police brutality. Based on Ellis Parker Butler’s short story of the same name, “Pigs Is Pigs” encapsulates an all-cops-are-bad-narrative by illustrating how bureaucratic, systematic violence by the cops will never truly end by weeding out the “bad apples” and calling it a day. Bear uses this short story as an analogy for the dire need to defund the police as well as the ideology and policy set during the days of slave patrolling which formed the force from the inside out. As policing has become more assertive, expansive, and militaristic, the techniques have become more violent, punitive, and discriminatory, leading to extreme cycles of violence and death. Furthermore, as the rules behind policing become more violent and fascist, the general public has continued to fear the cops and act within privileged safety nets. On this song, Bear reminds the listener that these rules ascribed to us are only disguised as “right” to hide the violence and injustice behind them. This challenges all of us to decide what is actually right. Is the pervasive narrative good for your community and humanity, or are you just listening to what you’re being told? Mannequin Pussy tells us to pick a side: fear or fight. 

Closing track “Darling” is a soft-spoken confessional ballad with an electronic beat, understated guitar, and even delicate bells which carry the release out. Over its 14 minutes, Perfect sees hardened punk perfection slowly unraveling to reveal a tender core. Closing out a rager of an EP with a muted love song follows the sentimental theme found on the closing track of 2019’s Patience, and it is as poignant as it is lovely. 

Fiddlehead - Between the Richness

Run For Cover Records

When Fiddlehead dropped their debut album back in 2018, I went in completely blind. I hadn’t heard the band’s ep from three years prior; I wasn’t even familiar with the member’s other projects, Have Heart or Basement. Nevertheless, I checked the record out solely because Springtime and Blind was being put out on Run For Cover, and that was a label I trusted implicitly. My trust paid off, and that album became my favorite of 2018. 

After a brief pitstop in 2019, Fiddlehead is back with another 25 minutes of careening and grief-ridden post-hardcore. While Springtime and Blind saw lead singer Patrick Flynn reckoning with his father’s death, Between the Richness is a markedly more optimistic record about centering yourself and finding peace in between the ambivalent chaos of life. While Between The Richness may be more uplifting, that doesn’t mean the band has made a complete sonic shift. Luckily, this record bears the same throat-shredding bellows as the group’s previous work. The choruses are sticky and primed for anthemic sing-alongs in a crowd full of sweaty strangers. Richness is life-affirming rock music that comes from a deep and genuine place. Being able to venture into this world for 25 minutes at a time is an absolute miracle. 

Bachelor - Doomin’ Sun

Polyvinyl Records

My first listen of Doomin’ Sun happened in a cabin on a farm tucked far up in the mountains of Colorado. This first listen came at the tail end of a long day spent hiking, taking in the natural world, and feeling appreciative of the love I’m able to share with my partner. It turns out that was the perfect way to first experience the collaborative album from the minds behind Jay Som and Palehound. Doomin’ Sun is an album made for porch beers and long drives through the mountains at sunset with the person that matters most to you. It’s laid-back, easy-going, and emotionally forthright. I look forward to this record soundtracking many more sun-drenched memories over the coming months and years. 

Downhaul - Proof

Refresh Records

Much like the debut album from Stars Hollow, Proof is a record about personal growth as measured through one person. Throughout its ten songs, we watch our narrator work his way from hollow connections to genuine betterment. However, unlike most albums centered around this topic, Proof recognizes that the most challenging part of personal progress isn’t always growth itself, but admitting you need it in the first place. Proof is an album about wrestling with the almost imperceptible seismic shift that happens once you fully own up to the weight of your existence in every form.

Read our full review of Proof here.

The Give & Take - Great Pause

Knifepunch Records

After a five-year hiatus, Expert Timing drummer Gibran Colbert revives The Give & Take to deliver a collection of five excellent songs about uncomfortably growing into the first real adult phase of your life. These songs focus in on physical manifestations of adulthood like a gifted briefcase that has fallen into disuse. They also pan out to address more universal issues like religion, isolation, and mental health. Colbert describes the band as “twinkle country” with inclusive, positive vibes, and the release reflects that, even in its moments of vulnerability. Songs like “Settled” possess an easy-breezy porch swing sway, despite the topic of not quite being where you want to be. The release finds peace in what might make others uncomfortable, all leading up to the last two tracks, which form an emotionally resonant one-two punch that gives this EP the heft of a full-length album. 

Gulfer, Charmer - Split

Topshelf Records, No Sleep Records, Royal Mountain Records

Ever since I heard the first chaotic yelps of Dog Bless, I knew there was something special about Gulfer. They were an emo band that knew how to mix humor and levity with the usual overwrought sentiments of the genre. Their instrumentation was tight, their vocals stuck, and they were on a legendary emo label to boot. Oppositely, Charmer’s self-titled record was a slow-burn that worked its way up from standard emo fare to an album I’d consider “perfect,” even if only within the bounds of the genre. Charmer had choruses for days, and the band’s songs never overstayed their welcome. Sprinkle both of these releases with well-placed instrumentals, short run times, and excellent production, and you have two modern emo classics. 

Last year, both bands released excellent follow-ups to their respective landmark albums that flew (relatively) under the radar in emo circles. Now, they’re back, and they’ve teamed up for a split of two songs that see each band indulging in the best aspects of their respective styles. Gulfer jolts the listener with a jagged instrumental barrage on “Look,” while Charmer croons over guitar tapping on “Diamond (Sprinkler).” This split may only be two tracks, but it’s a team-up that feels tailor-made to me and every other emo out there in need of six minutes and 35 seconds of deep human connection.

Jimmy Montague - Casual Use

Chillwavve Records

While the music world was focused on the middling new 70s-inspired St. Vincent album, Jimmy Montague surprise-released a 70s-indebted record of his own. While it’s easy to listen to Casual Use and hear the classic rock inspiration, it’s something that can sound great on paper but easily fail in execution. So how do I know that Casual Use is the real deal? Well, I sent it to my father, who came of age when this type of music was in its heyday. My dad’s review? “Very good tunes” that will “probably be a regular” on his playlists. That endorsement says more than I ever can. 

Palette Knife - Ponderosa Snake House and the Chamber Of Bullshit

Take This To Heart Records

Ponderosa Snake House and the Chamber Of Bullshit is an album whose DNA is composed of equal parts Studio Ghibli sentimentality and Vine-era internet humor. It’s a collection of 11 caring, cathartic, and catchy songs, all fueled by the satisfying effervescence of LaCroix. Ponderosa Snake is an exceptionally crafted emo release that ticks all the possible boxes that the genre offers. Tappy guitar parts? Check. Immaculate production? Check. Fun choruses punctuated by brutally honest verses? Double fucking check. 

Superbloom - Pollen

Self-released

A grunge album released in 2021? It’s more likely than you think! The first song on Superbloom’s Pollen is titled “1994,” which is either incredibly apt or incredibly on-the-nose, depending on who you ask. Regardless, “1994” serves an important purpose of setting the listener’s expectations before they even click play. Upon entering the album, you’re met with a wall of sludgy guitar tone, and raspy mumbled vocals that sound about as close to Kurt Cobain as that AI-created Nirvana song from earlier this year. Taking all the best lessons from the Stone Temple Pilots and the Soundgarden’s of the world, Superbloom effortlessly blends together a wide swath of 90s sounds into one throwback release that speaks directly to my inner 90s kid. There are hooks worthy of a Nirvana song, guitar tones akin to a Smashing Pumpkins track, and self-loathing only bested by the aforementioned Stone Temple Pilots. Lead singer Dave Hoon has a voice that sits somewhere between Cobain and the nu-metal bands who took up the mantle of grunge in the early 2000s. 

With Totally 90s™ song titles like “Whatever” and others that nod to influential acts of the time like Built to Spill, it can sometimes feel like the band is merely cosplaying this era of music à la Greta Van Fleet. Even if that’s true, the songs end up coming off as more admiration than emulation. Pollen feels like a release from a bunch of 20-somethings who grew up spending hours with their Smashing Pumpkins CDs, and I respect that because, hey, me too. Pollen sounds like an album lost to time and only recently uncovered. It sounds like time traveling back to Portland in the 90s. It sounds like grunge. 

Quick Hits

BUG MOMENT - BUG - The 100 gecs-ification of bedroom rock is here, and I adore it. 

Pearl Jam - Deep - A gargantuan, too-big-for-any-normal human 5504 song collection of bootleg live recordings taken from 186 shows across Pearl Jam’s decade-spanning career. 

Angel Olsen - Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories - Angel Olsen closes out her current era with a collection of her last two records capped off with new songs and remixes.

St. Vincent - Daddy’s Home - After an exhausting album cycle, Annie Clark finally drops her woozy 70s-indebted record that attempts to recapture the grit of New York at its most mystical and drugged-out.

Pet Fox - More Than Anything  - A three-pack of poppy and impeccably put-together shoegaze tracks via Exploding In Sound records.

Fiver - Fiver With the Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition - Spacious indie rock with a country tinge and Fiona Apple-like vocals.

Marble Teeth x Riddle - Split 7” - One of my favorite lyricists in the midwest teams up with a friend from his hometown in this lovely little four-track split. 

Weezer - Van Weezer - Initially intended to be released around the same time as last year’s ill-fated Hella Mega Tour, the newest LP from Weezer sees the band going full over-the-top 80s guitar-shredding in this album-length genre pastiche. 

SeeYouSpaceCowboy x If I Die First - A Sure Disaster - A short split (and fun video) from two of the bands bearing the torch of Rise Records-style Mallcore in 2021.

Skatune Network - Greetings from Ska Shores - The ever-prolific god of upstrokes drops a collection of Animal Crossing songs, all rendered in a sunny ska style.

Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR - If the plodding ballads from Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher traded LA-Brain for the suburbs and then went to go karaoke Lorde songs. 

Good Sleepy - everysinglelittlebit - 30 minutes of cleanly produced, emotionally messy tap-heavy emo. An impressive debut.

Babe Rainbow - Changing Colours  - Sunny vibe-filled music primed for beachside hangouts, midday beers, and watching summer sunsets from the comfort of a lakeborne boat.

Missing Life - DEMO - A shoegazy four-song demo from one of the minds behind Mover Shaker that sits somewhere at the intersection of Slowdive and Snow Patrol.

Boyish - We’re all gonna die, but here’s my contribution - Beautifully emotive and inward bedroom indie that cuts straight to the heart of relationships.

A.G. Cook - Apple vs. 7G - An album from the hyperpop head of PC Music collecting remixed tracks from last year’s fantastic Apple and the seven-disc-long 7G.

Pomegranate Tea - Life Is Getting So _____. - Six emo songs with the potential to come to life in small basements and sweaty bars. 

Beatricks - Razzle Frazzle - A series of compelling bleeps, bloops, screams, and strums that make you feel like you’re about to set the world on fire. 

Hot Mulligan - i won’t reach out to you - Emo stalwarts Hot Mulligan release a short addendum to last year’s fantastic sophomore album you’ll be fine. 

.michael. - Secret Handshake - 100 cute and surprisingly well-crafted songs all written in five minutes or less. 

Green-House - Music for Living Spaces - Relaxing synthy songs designed to “hit that part of the brain that’s affected by the emotional state that you’re in when you perceive something as cute.”

Swim Into The Sound's 20 Favorite Albums of 2019

Music moved too fast for me in 2019. Last year I listened to over 450 new releases and wrote reviews for nearly one-quarter of them. This year I listened to less, I wrote about less, and felt more out of the loop than ever before. I still managed to make it out to a ton of concerts, kept a long-running list of new albums, and discovered some cool stuff along the way, but I’ll be the first to admit there’s a lot that passed me by in 2019. 

In addition to my lack of exploratory listening, this was also a year of “good-to-great” for me. Not only did this year lack a unanimous critical darling (I refuse to acknowledge NFR), there wasn’t even one breakaway album that I heavily connected with until about halfway through the year.

For some reason, once summer rolled around, things really started to pop off, and an avalanche of new albums led to what honestly felt like a new phase of my life. This mountain of new music, combined with moving across the country (again) this time to Denver, really made 2019 feel like multiple years packed into one. 

I may have listened to less “new” music than ever before, but last year taught me that’s an exhausting endeavor to undertake. Instead, this year I found myself discovering albums that I loved and burrowing I to them like a security blanket. Most of the albums you’re about to read about connected with me immediately upon first listen, but also went on to become something that I could return to often. Instead of listening to a critical darling, thinking ‘this feels important,’ and returning to it very few times, this year I listened to what I wanted to, and I think this list reflects that. That means this list has a more narrow scope than any previous album of the year list I’ve ever published on this site, but it feels true to me and true to my experience this year.

These are the albums that soundtracked my year. Not only that, these are the albums that made my year. That made me feel welcome. That made me feel grounded. That made me feel at home, even when I was thousands of miles away from my friends and family. These are the records that I listened to and saw a piece of myself in. These are my favorite releases of 2019. 

---

20 | King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats’ Nest

As is the case with most people, my first foray into music was hyper-uncool. Aside from digging through my dad’s CD collection and mindlessly consuming whatever was served up to me on VH1, the first albums I ever spent my own money on were Motörhead’s Ace of Spades and Anthrax’s Attack of the Killer B’s. One of the first new records I ever purchased was Black Tide’s Light from Above, which retroactively, wasn’t particularly “cool,” but makes sense in the grand scheme of things. Given this early childhood brush with various forms of heavy metal, it’s easy to see why Infest the Rats’ Nest feels like an album tailor-made for me. 

I’ve never been a big King Gizzard guy, I respect the high-concept albums, the hustle of releasing five albums in one year, and the overall energy of the band’s live performances, but it wasn’t until this year that that band finally created the album I’ve been waiting for them to make. Featuring red-hot guitar licks, boisterous, driving rhythm sections, and snarling heavy metal vocals, this is Gizz’s heaviest album to date. It’s a mix of speed metal, stoner rock, whacky 80’s hair metal, and borderline-prog all rolled into one. It genuinely feels like the band took that first collection of CDs on my middle school iPod Mini and modernized it in the best way possible. It’s a goofy album, but that’s kind of the point. The band is at their best when they’re not taking themselves too seriously or trying too hard, and Rat’s Nest comes off as an effortless love letter to the albums that my entire musical taste is built off of. 

19 | Bon Iver - i,i

Three months before Justin Vernon began to tease Bon Iver’s newest album, I published a career retrospective that hypothesized the band’s discography had only gotten stranger and more removed from reality as it went on (in a good way). I’ve come to love it all, but this newest record proved that once you travel far out enough, the only direction to go is back. If 22, A Million was Justin Vernon as a glittering meteorite far off in space, then i,i is the sound of his soul returning to earth. Blending elements of all the band’s previous releases, i,i takes pieces from the group’s folk, baroque pop, and electronic phases and combines them all into something that ties a neat bow on the band. It’s holistic and fulfilling, the long-awaited conclusion to over one decade of heartbreak and growth. If this is where Bon Iver decides to call it quits, then it would be a satisfactory finale. 

18 | Charli XCX - Charli

There are few things more cliche than a music journalist invoking the phrase “future of pop” when talking about Charli XCX. The reason that phenomenon has become so widespread is because it’s hard to listen to Charli’s music and place it anywhere on the musical spectrum that currently exists. It sounds like pop; it’s approachable, singable, and incredibly-well produced, but it’s also glitchy, bassy, and laden with so many other genres that it genuinely feels like the near-future amalgamation of all pop culture. It’s the re-introduction to the monoculture, should we be so lucky. 

Charli finds our would-be pop princess of the future actualizing herself (and her music) in a way that she never has before. Charli XCX songs tend to be about one of two things: partying, or the comedown. Aided by a star-studded lineup of musicians, Charli makes some of her most poppy (“1999”), emotional (“Thoughts”), and hard-hitting (“Click”) music to date. There are choruses worthy of a Taylor Swift album alongside bars worthy of a Young Thug mixtape, and in that duality lies the raw power of Charli XCX.

17 | Heart Attack Man - Fake Blood

Earlier this year, Heart Attack Man’s guitarist, lead singer, and social media mastermind Eric Egan made headlines when he posted a (normal, average, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary) orange beanie on eBay and racked up a bid of nearly 100k dollars. This meme-worthy auctioneering move brought the band to the attention of traditional music publications and earned them swaths of new listeners (myself included). When they released their sophomore album Fake Blood several months later, it immediately became clear that the band is good at a lot more than generating headlines. 

Taking a guitar-first approach to pop-punk, the group crafted eleven immaculate tracks that are somehow catchy, moshable, touching, and personable, oftentimes all at once. Songs like “Fake Blood” and “Out For Blood” lean heavier into the catchy pop side of things sounding like they could have come straight off a late-90’s alt radio station. Meanwhile, deeper cuts like “Cut My Losses” and “Sugar Coated” find Egan bearing his teeth and spitting bile at whoever finds themselves unfortunate enough to fall within his crosshairs. Personal favorites “Rats In a Bucket” and “Crisis Actor” are riff-centered singalongs that feature addicting hooks, biting commentary, and even a reading of the Miranda Rights that manages to sound heavy as fuck. Fake Blood feels like the best example of what pop-punk can achieve in 2019; a perfect mix of studio polish, well-paced energy, stellar songwriting, and just the right amount of heaviness sprinkled throughout. It may be 17 on our list, but if there were an award for the most crowd-hyping, guitar-shredding, hard-hitting pop-punk record, then this would be number one.

16 | Field Medic - fade into the dawn

I first discovered Field Medic in a freak playlist accident, and have been deeply in love ever since. Combining Bob Dylan-esque deliveries, jaunty folk ditties, boombox-led bangers, alongside some of the most poetic love songs I’ve ever heard, Kevin Patrick Sullivan offers a hyper-modern take on folk music. fade into the dawn was on my radar from the moment it was announced and somehow did not disappoint my exceedingly-high expectations. Featuring a similar spread of folk to country to borderline-pop, Field Medic’s 2019 record offers an escape from the normal into the extraordinary. While some songs provide far-off musings of the future, most of the tracks simply offer unique perspectives of everyday events and relationships. Whether it’s the life of a touring musician, body art, or the unknowable other, Kevin Patrick Sullivan has once again proven himself adept at reflecting the human condition within the space of several beautiful minutes. On top of all this, album closer “helps me forget...” is one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard all year and was only narrowly edged out by The National and Slaughter Beach, Dog as my favorite song of the year. 

15 | Greet Death - New Hell

Listening to New Hell is like casting a spell upon yourself. From the moment you hit play on the record, its energy will pour from your speakers and will grow to permeate every corner of whatever room you find yourself in. The songs creak, rumble, and reverberate, bouncing around the walls of your brain and leaving you emotionally-drained in their wake. It’s not a fun listen by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s an emotional outpouring, and that can be rewarding in a different way. From the folksy (Sandy) Alex G-like “Let It Die” to the heavy-as-shit borderline-stoner-rock shoegaze found on “Strain,” the record is varied and masterfully-crafted. There’s an impressive range of moods on display here, each one a different shade of downbeat but also adorned with shimmering gold and silver accents that add some brightness to the otherwise overwhelming darkness. And while New Hell is one cohesive piece overall, each song also has special moments that make it feel unique from the others that surround it. There’s a molten guitar solo on “You’re Gonna Hate What you’ve Done,” there’s crushing fuzzed-out riffage on “Strange Days,” hypnotic lyricism on “Entertainment,” and the band caps it all off with an epic ten-minute closing track. New Hell is a dark, moody, and morose album with transitive properties so strong that it’s impossible to come out of your first listen the same person.

14 | Future Teens - Breakup Season

I’ll start this off by saying that I absolutely despise the fetishization of sadness. Even worse than that, the memeification of sadness (tweeting “listening to the new Mount Eerie and crying, brb” or something along those lines). If that’s how you get your sadness out, then go for it, but more often than not, it feels like people idolizing the wrong thing and emulating “sadness” for the sake of internet points… well, this got off track quickly. The point is that Future Teens’ sophomore album Breakup Season feels like real, genuine sadness in a way that isn’t overwrought, performative, or played-out. There were probably sadder releases to come out this year, but where Breakup Season excels is that it feels like a version of sadness that’s true to me. It’s not overtly sad (in fact, it’s often pretty catchy and upbeat), but the feelings are real, the experiences are shared, and that takes guts. 

“Happy New Year” is a dynamite slow-burn opener that allows for Amy Hoffman’s voice to shine like a diamond. “Born to Stay,” “Emotional Bachelor,” and “Frequent Crier” are all peppy sing-along emo tracks that zero in on specific elements of living with depression with hyper-realistic and confessional slice-of-life observations. By the back half of the album, the group has turned their gaze outward to their relationships with the people around them. “Swiped Out” tackles what an average relationship looks like in the era of smartphone dating, and “Heavy Petting” is a cleverly-written love song about the time when your pet feels like the only constant companion in your life. Breakup Season captures and articulates a specific brand of struggles for the mid-to-late-20-something, and that’s what makes it particularly affecting. The fact that it’s all catchy as hell is just a bonus.

13 | Mannequin Pussy - Patience

I once heard a theory: every band name is bad, it’s just a question of whether or not the band’s music makes up for it or not. Think about it. Mom Jeans is a bad name, but their music is good. DaBaby? Terrible name, but his songs bang. Even The Beatles, one of the most revered musical groups of all time, has a name that’s based on a terrible pun. While that observation was mostly a joke, I can’t think of a better example of this theory than the punk phenom Mannequin Pussy. The band has weighed in on their own name, even offering to write coworkers and moms letters explaining the meaning behind the name, but for those not easily swayed by “bad” words, the music more than speaks for itself. 

Patience is, at its core, a breakup album; 25 minutes of anger, resentment, and recovery that come in the wake of a major emotional turnover. My friend described lead single “Drunk II” as “a war crime,” and he couldn’t be more right. The song strikes a perfect balance of sneering punk anger, real-ass emotions, and a hook that’s catchy enough to climb the Billboard charts (if there were any justice in the world). Much like the band’s sophomore effort, Patience is a short burst of hooky, well-envisioned, and incredibly-polished punk music. There’s a perfect spread of fast-paced thrashy scream-along ragers alongside catchy and approachable love songs that your mom might even be able to tolerate. The record moves fast, hits hard, and leaves you wanting more, the way that all great music should. 

12 | 100 gecs - 1000 gecs

As is I’m sure was the case with most people I hit play on 1000 gecs not knowing what I was getting into. I think out of everything I’ve listened to this entire year, 1000 gecs was the only record to truly surprise me. And I mean shock me. Comprised of musicians Laura Les and Dylan Brady, 100 gecs is making music that needs to be heard to be believed. The two musicians have a ravenous appetite for (and adoration of) music, and 1000 gecs is a solidified effort to display it. 

On this record, you’ll hear PC music, dubstep, bubblegum pop, hip-hop, grindcore, pop-punk, house, ska, and dozens more. The most obvious connections to draw are artists like SOPHIE, Sleigh Bells, BROCKHAMPTON, Crystal Castles, and maybe even some Breathe Carolina… but even that long list of genres, artists, and influences fail to capture what 100 gecs sound like. The duo is deconstructing not only pop music, but pop culture. This is what Lil Aaron was doing when he combined leaned-out autotuned trap and pop-punk. This album is jittery, jumping between genres, sounds, phrases, and ideas within seconds. It’s blindingly-bright fun, and if you’re a fan of any one of those genres, you’ll likely find something to glom onto throughout the album’s 25-minute running time. 1000 gecs is a record in its own class and of its own world. 

11 | The National - I Am Easy To Find

The National have become masters of the pivot. Their discography is fluid; each album flows easily from one to the next with the band only making minor changes and gradual shifts. Over the course of decades, the band has managed to make each record sound just different enough that every new release feels refreshing yet familiar. They ease fans into each new era with strong singles, they know how to close a record, and they put on a hell of a good live show. There’s a reason they’ve become the de facto father figures of the indie rock circuit because they’re one of the most consistent bands in the industry. 

The pivot the band made on I Am Easy To Find sees the group shifting the spotlight away from lead singer Matt Beringer and his iconic voice towards a cast of female singers. Released alongside an accompanying 27-minute film by Mike Mills, I Am Easy To Find is part album part visual art piece. The film depicts one woman’s life from birth to death, all set to songs from the album. We see her first breath, first love, her first fight, her first child. Everything. It’s a gorgeous, goosebump-inducing black-and-white narrative that is nothing short of captivating. The album tells a similar narrative over the course of it’s one-hour running time, but its crowning achievement comes in the final three minutes with “Light Years.” The song is an achingly-gorgeous piano ballad that also happens to be my favorite song of the year. It’s a wonderful and meditative message that ties the record up with a neat little bow and sends the listener off into the night thinking about what they had just consumed. It’s beautiful, painful, and ever-changing, much like life. 

10 | Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride

While I do consider myself a fan of Vampire Weekend, I have what I like to call an “on-again, off-again” relationship with the band’s discography. I arrived at their self-titled record years after everyone else, and the only song I still find evergreen is the fast-paced (but admittedly basic) “A-Punk.” Meanwhile, I believe Contra is a near-perfect indie rock record, while Modern Vampires of the City is mostly over-cooked and only has one truly great song on it. When Rostam left the band in 2016, people (rightfully) thought Vampire Weekend might not be long for this world. His production and instrumentation had become so synonymous with the group’s sound that fans wondered how they would ever continue without one of its most pivotal founding members. Turns out the answer, after a six-year gap between albums, was to smoke a ton of weed, retreat into nature, and get really into the Grateful Dead.

Preceded by a perplexing album cover that broke the band’s longstanding visual aesthetic, lead single “Harmony Hall” set the tone (and expectations) for this album early on in its release cycle. Opening with an acoustic guitar, serene lyricism, and a melody that echoes The Grateful Dead’s “Touch of Grey,” this song let fans know early on whether they’d be into this new era of the Vampire Weekend or if they should tap out now. There’s something equal parts cringey and endearing about a bunch of ultra-white Ivy League graduates trading in their polo shirts and boat shoes for tye-dye t-shirts and Birkenstocks, but the music speaks for itself. “Bambina” is a bouncy auto-tuned Contra-level cut, “This Life” is a fast-paced ass-shaking track, and the Steve Lacy-assisted “Sunflower / Flower Moon” are as danceable as they are musical, offering a groovy late-album one-two punch. Meanwhile, closing track “Jerusalem, New York, Berlin” is a pensive Modern Vampires-esque send-off that’s lovingly-constructed and precious. And if you need any proof that the band can actually live up to the jammy-inspiration of The Dead, then look no further than any of this year’s Austin City Limit’s performances where the group shows they can skillfully take one of their base songs and blow it up to extraordinary and psychedelic proportions. Father of the Bride is proof that sometimes change is for the best, and sometimes your best is yet to come. 

9 | Charly Bliss - Young Enough

The innate power of Charly Bliss lies in how genuine each member of the band is. While they first made a name for themselves in indie/pop-punk/alt music circles with 2017’s Guppy, this year’s Young Enough is a step up in nearly every imaginable way. Still bearing Eva Hendricks’ piercing and unmistakable vocals, the band’s newest effort takes the power-pop found on Guppy and infuses it with a hearty helping of synth, resulting in a record that feels accessible and honest with just the right amount of bite.

The album walks a fascinating and addicting line between throwback synth-pop tendencies and hyper-modern rock songwriting. Electronic drums keep time in between distorted guitar stabs on “Capacity,” slow-building guitar and basslines build to an explosive finish on “Young Enough,” and “Hard to Believe” sounds downright Pixies-esque in its foundation. This album, combined with October’s follow-up EP Supermoon, paint the picture of a band with a fully fleshed-out vision and an unapologetic approach to their music. Young Enough is an album that radiates strength, even in its weakest moments, and that’s the kind of energy we could all use more of in 2019. 

8 |  Knocked Loose - A Different Shade of Blue

Confession time: I first listened to Knocked Loose in October of 2018. Partially because I had aged out of the hardcore phase of my high school years, but also because I had somehow confused them with Knuckle Puck for literal years. So imagine my surprise when I listened to Laugh Tracks and heard something as decidedly not-pup-punk as Knocked Loose. Needless to say, Laugh Tracks is a spectacular album that quickly became my go-to when I needed some angry hardcore music. While it’s a well-constructed release, Laugh Tracks it also very much feels like a “debut album,” so I was ravenously curious to see how they would follow that up on their sophomore release, especially now that the band had garnered a massive following.

A Different Shade of Blue is pure emotional catharsis. “Mistakes Like Fractures” is bone-crushing. “Forget Your Name” will rip your ribcage open like a shotgun blast. “A Serpent’s Touch” should come with a fucking warning label. The album is 38 minutes of nonstop, punishing riffage, violent breakdowns, and vitriolic lyricism. It’s moshpit-initiating, fight-instigating hardcore, and this record made it clear why Knocked Loose has become the gold standard for the genre.

7 | Prince Daddy & The Hyena - Cosmic Thrill Seekers

It’s easy to make a great first album; it’s the culmination of years of hard work, a lifetime of creativity, and countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears. For these reasons, the Sophomore Slump is a very real thing, yet Prince Daddy & The Hyena managed not only to subvert this phenomenon; they vaulted over it in style. It’s one thing to make a good sophomore album, but the decision to make the follow-up to your breakthrough album a three-act concept piece based on a bad acid trip filtered through the lens of The Wizard of Oz is next-level insanity. 

Cosmic Thrill Seekers is a 40-minute excavation of the soul, accompanied by all the fears, insecurities, and manias that come with it. Beginning with“I Lost My Life,” the album throws the listener headfirst into Kory Gregory’s raspy singing voice as he recounts the beginning of his acid-fueled tale over an acoustic guitar. Things really open up on “Lauren (Track 2),” where the band launches into a hard-charging riff that blends punk and emo into a finely-distilled fusion of the two genres. The songs flow together flawlessly, quickly guiding the listener along fast-paced crowd-churners, grungy pop meditations, and even upbeat dance tracks. Cosmic Thrill Seekers is an album packed with intricacies, scattered thoughts, and self-referential melodies. Songs fold in on themselves, pulling back language and chord progressions used on earlier songs. On top of all this, the closing track loops perfectly back to the beginning of the album, making this an endlessly-relistenable release that circles the listener right back to the start of the adventure. These elements all combine together for a rewarding and slightly-high-concept emo record that has its own dream logic and internal rhythms. It’s wandering and wonderous, charming, thrashy, and endearing. 

6 | Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties - Routine Maintenance

The first Aaron West album, We Don’t Have Each Other, was the story of a man blindsided by divorce. Grief-stricken and confused, Aaron fled south on an impromptu road trip to Georgia in order to find himself, or at least some answers. Bittersweet, the following 7” recounted the story of his return to New York, and found our hero facing the memories of the relationship that he had left behind. 2017’s Orchard Park was a one-off single that offered a brief update on Aaron’s life in the form of himself and his mom spreading his father’s ashes. This year, the newest update to the Aaron West saga arrived in the form of Routine Maintenance, and it’s one of the albums that made me feel most consistently this year.

It’s worth mentioning that this story, the downfall of Aaron West, is all a fabrication, a character study helmed by Dan Campbell, the frontman of The Wonder Years. Much like his main band, Campbell lends his poetic songwriting and emotional voice to Aaron, but the fact that he’s been able to create this character and relationships that feel so realized and lived-in is nothing short of an absolute artistic achievement.

While it would have been easy to make Routine Maintenance about Aaron meeting someone new, falling in love, and getting over his previous relationship, we all know that real life doesn’t work that way. Instead, the latest record finds Aaron at a crossroads. He takes his band on the road, finds some success, and then suddenly, his brother-in-law passes away. By the end of the record, Aaron is living with his mother, sister, and his nephew Colin under one roof in New Jersey. Aaron is helping out around the house, taking Colin to school, and doing the best he can to fill in the role of a makeshift father figure. It’s in the album’s final moments that it’s title Routine Maintenance makes sense. Because sometimes life isn’t about getting better, it’s about helping other people get better. It’s about doing what you can, carrying the weight, and doing minor upkeep in the name of making the world around you a little better.

5 | PUP - Morbid Stuff

Life isn’t miraculous. It’s not a movie, and it’s not a pop song, hell, it’s not even a commercial. There’s no justice, no resolution, and there’s definitely not a storybook ending… but that doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad. More often than not, life is just lots and lots of the same thing, and that’s a different kind of evil. Life’s not out to get you; it merely bides its time until you fall prey to it in one way or another. This unchanging and unflinching indifference of life often makes one fantasize about the end of it, if only because it’s the last significant change we have left in store for ourselves. Struggling with (and raging against) that monotony of everyday life is exactly what Morbid Stuff is about. 

Coming off their genre-elevating sophomore album The Dream is Over, Pup’s third album is filled to the brim with throat-shredding group chants, cutting lyrical honesty, and fist-balling riffage. The album opens with an anemic guitar lick that sounds like it’s being played from the top of a mountain for onlookers below. Lead singer Stefan Babcock quickly undercuts this propulsive energy as he enters the fray and snottily explains how he was “Bored as fuck / Sitting around and thinking all this morbid stuff / Like if anyone I’ve slept with is dead.” These morbid curiosities pave the way for full-throated group chants and rocket-like drum beats that eventually fizzle out into a defeated lullaby ending, a perfect crash course for the particular brand of unhappiness that PUP deals in. As a whole, Morbid Stuff feels like an incredibly democratic creation, with each member getting chances to shine from one song to the next. There’s cynical, biting songwriting on “Kids,” moshpit nu-metal breakdowns on “Full Blown Meltdown,” and even enough room for a one-line guest feature from Eva Hendricks of Charly Bliss on “Free At Last.”

Morbid Stuff lies at an odd intersection between pop-punk and full-on punk. The band has a knack for making these incredibly-catchy and energetic songs that are ripe for singing (screaming) along with, but there’s also enough of an edge to them that they’re rowdy, sweaty, and cathartic in a live setting. It’s like Speed; these are songs you can sing along to while in the car, but it feels detrimental to the artistic experience if you’re shouting along while going any slower than 50 miles per hour. Best consumed while flying down the highway or packed into a room with 500 other sweaty fans, Morbid Stuff is not for the faint of heart — it’s for the ones with the pissed-off, fed-up, raging hearts.

4| Oso Oso - Basking in the Glow

In the past few years, the lines between emo, pop-punk, and indie rock have become so blurred that we’ve almost looped back around to using the word “emo” as a slur. As artists continue to experiment with mixing these sounds into one big genre-fluid cocktail, nobody did it better this year than Jade Lilitri of Oso Oso. 2017’s Yunahon Mixtape was a near-perfect emo album, packed with more hooks than Nevermind and some of the best bridges in the game. Last year’s two-track single offered a tantalizing glimpse at where Lilitri was taking the group, and 2019’s Basking in the Glow represents the fully-realized potential of that emo/indie sound.

Songs like “the view” and “basking in the glow” are some of the sweetest and poppiest tracks I’ve heard all year with choruses that shimmer and lyrics that are ready for emo kids’ Instagram captions the world over. And as you would expect with any emo-adjacent record, there’s also an impressive range of emotions on display throughout. The thoughtful “dig” is a spacy and meditative track with a Smashing Pumpkins-like fuzzed-out buildup, meanwhile “wake up next to god” is a fast-paced air-drum-inspiring banger featuring tight palm-muted punctuation. Basking in the Glow is (fittingly) a bright, sunny, and warm record with a constant underlying layer of unhappiness. It’s like a spoonful of honey; sugary sweet, beautifully-golden, and sticky enough to stay with you long after you first consume it.

3| Macseal - Super Enthusiast

Simply put, I don’t think there was a better crafted, better written, or better-performed album this year than Super Enthusiast. While Macseal made a name for themselves with Always Sunny name-dropping and hyper-compelling shout-along emo rock, they gradually did what all of us do and mellowed out. Last year’s four-track Map It Out saw the band leaning away from those guitar-tapped riffs and screamed vocals of their early recordings and into something more poppy and polished. This year’s Super Enthusiast sees the band completing that transition swirling together a mix of mathy emo and hyper-polished indie rock.

Super Enthusiast is picture-perfect emo. It’s not particularly midwesty, it’s not really screamy, but the band was able to take the best elements of all those disparate subgenres and combine them into something remarkably holistic and pure. The songs sparkle with crystal-clear guitars, immaculate bass, and pristine drumming. Other than the band’s slight sonic shift, one of the most significant changes from Macseal’s early work is the noticeably better production. Even the most slow-paced song on Super Enthusiast is lovingly-crafted, adorned with reverb, crisp background vocals, and a slow build of distortion. There are also some remnants of the band’s early sound on songs like “Upside Down Again,” which bears a floaty, dreamlike riff that’s probably my favorite of the entire year.

Super Enthusiast feels like the album equivalent of one of a freshwater lake. It’s wondrous, natural, and almost too pure for this world. As you look down from the snow-capped mountains and gradiented blue sky, you see the reflective surface of the calm water and feel at peace. The band is no longer comprised of emotionally-turbulent teenagers, they’ve grown up, developed, and evolved into people with different coping mechanisms than whining and watching Always Sunny. They still have problems, frustrations, doubts, and fears, but they have developed new ways of dealing with whatever life throws at them. They have an unshakable lust for life.

2 | Origami Angel - Somewhere City

This year I turned 26. This means that Wonder Years lyrics hit different now, but it also means that I’m (arguably) more of an adult than I was before. This year I also moved across the country (again), got a place of my own (again), and started a new job in a new city (again). I packed everything I owned into the trunk of my car and drove my ass from Michigan to Colorado over the course of a few days in late November. I fought through fog, snow, and freezing rain, but I got there in one piece, settled in, and moved into a new apartment all my own with a new job right down the street.

I guess all of that is an achievement worth celebrating, but this year I also did something else I’m proud of: I bought Gushers at the grocery store. They weren’t that expensive (or as good as I remember), but that purchase felt symbolic: a snack from my childhood bought with my own money for the explicit purpose of taking myself on a trip down memory lane. Somewhere City is an album about that.

Half concept album, Somewhere City finds Origami Angel weaving a tale of a mythical land where the fast food is abundant, and the Dr. Pepper flows freely. It’s a place where your childhood cartoons are always on TV, and the only commercials are from those 2000’s youtube nostalgia compilations. It’s an album-length early-twenties realization that things will never be the same, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try your hardest to recapture a small fragment of your past.

Since the beginning of the year, Origami Angel have been on a roll. Between splits, EPs, energetic live shows, and out-of-the-box promotion, the DC-based duo has rightfully made a name for themselves as one of the faces of emo’s fifth wave. Their music is catchy, smart, and hooks into a level of nerdy specificity that connects directly with my brain. This is all to say the band seemingly has everything going for them, but you don’t have to take my word for it, you can watch any one of their music videos, and you’ll see the glowing, joyous, communal spirit of DIY emo.

Which brings us to the album.

Released at the tail end of the year, Somewhere City is Origami Angel’s first full-length record, and the band pulled out all the stops. From a “nice touch” technical level, the album pulls off all the cool conceptual things I love; it loops from beginning to end like Cosmic Thrill Seekers, and it ends with a medley of every previous song much like “I Just Want to Sell Out My Funeral.” Most importantly, every song stands on its own as a one-of-a-kind creation, and I mean every song. There’s catchy riffage on “24 Hr Drive Thru” and “Doctor Whomst,” speed-metal breakdowns on “666 Flags,” and bouncy power-slide emo on “The Title Track.” Most uncharacteristically for the genre, the biggest throughline of the album is a message of overwhelming positivity and reassurance on songs like “Skeleton Key” and “Find Your Throne.”

Somewhere City is an unapologetically bright and youthful album. Despite the album’s multiple layers of conceptuality and its ARG rollout, Somewhere City is, at its core, 30 minutes of tight riffs and feel-good nostalgia that will send long-lost memories rushing back like a pack of Gushers. This one of the best emo albums of the year, one of the best debuts of recent memory, and will likely go on to be a formative album for thousands of music fans à la to Home, Like Noplace Is There, or Whenever, If Ever.

Somewhere City spans childhoods, generations, and emotions. It’s lovingly-constructed and musically-correct. It’s filled to the brim with fast-tapping riffage and already-iconic group chants. If you haven’t yet memorized every beat of this record, there’s still time to grab a ticket to Somewhere City, all you need is an open mind and a hungry soul.

1 | Jail Socks - It’s Not Forever

The best and worst part about running a blog by yourself is trying to decide your album of the year. Do you pick the albums that made the most significant cultural impact? Do you pick the most financially successful albums that dominated the radio and defined the year? Do you pick the consensus albums that show up on every other blog? Honestly, those are all background factors, because ultimately your “album of the year” should come down to one of two things:

1) The album that you thought was the “best” this year
2) The album that connected with you the most

Sometimes the first one makes sense — albums like Blonde and To Pimp A Butterfly that are undeniably great and well-crafted. Sometimes the second one makes sense, an album that hit you at the right time, spoke to you in the right way, and put words to the emotions you couldn’t articulate. For me this year, that was Jail Socks. 

Within the space of a calendar year, I went from not knowing who Jail Socks were to being a die-hard fan. I go into greater detail in the full review for It’s Not Forever, but for the sake of a quick recap; after discovering the band through a video making the rounds on emo twitter, I downloaded the band’s four publicly-available songs which almost immediately worked their way into my daily rotation. 

It’s safe to say this EP was easily my most anticipated release of the year. For my first listen, I sat down, cranked my speakers as loud as I could stand, and freaked out to every note alone in my house like I was a goddamn youtube reaction channel. But I wasn’t performing for a camera; it was one-hundred-percent genuine.

It’s Not Forever is punctual, a lightweight six tracks clocking in at a collective 20 minutes. It contains two re-recordings of songs from the band’s first demo and four new tracks. Even with its abrupt running time, this group of riff-obsessed teenagers from North Carolina managed to do more with one side of a record than some artists did with 60+ minutes this year. 

The EP starts off like a firecracker with fast-paced emo guitar tapping on “Jake Halpin.” That song bleeds flawlessly into “Parting Words” as the band strings the listener along with a breadcrumb trail of bouncy basslines, crashing cymbals, and anthemic group chants. Lead single “Poplar Avenue” is an energetic feel-good breakup anthem, and “Steering Wheel” is an impactful song of personal growth set to a background of cascading guitarwork and emotional vocals. It’s instrumentally-precise but emotionally messy, and that’s a dynamic I find myself endlessly enamored with. 

Everything on this EP simply works. It may not be all that accessible to anyone outside of the midwest emo scene, but it connected with me in a way that I find absolutely astonishing. Not only is this EP great on a technical level, but it’s also hard to overstate how important a role this band has played in my 2019. Jail Socks have been the soundtrack to my year. They’ve been the soundtrack to my time in Detroit, and the words to everything I’ve felt this year. They’re emblematic of a greater movement in emo music and symbolic of everything that 2019 has meant to me. When I look back on my time in the Midwest ten years from now, these are the songs that will pop into my head. 

Very few times have I found a collection of music that seems so specifically wired to my brain. Every guitar tap, bass thump, drum hit, and shout-along vocal lands. I’ve memorized every molecule of this EP because it makes sense to me on a higher level. It’s like someone took a corner of my brain, threw it into the studio, and then performed it back at me. It’s miraculous, and I hope that everyone reading this is fortunate enough to find their equivalent at some point in their life.