June 30, 2022

The Best of Q2 2022

June 30, 2022/ Taylor Grimes

We’re halfway through the year, and, well, lots has happened. As always, music has been a guiding light in my life, offering both something to hold onto and something to look forward to. If you’re reading this, you probably feel the same way and have just as many albums that have helped keep you grounded over the last [insert number of bad months here].

What follows is a collection of ten albums released over the last three months that have connected with me. If you want to read about my favorite albums from the first three months of the year, click here. Other than that, read on for the tunes that have helped keep me sane throughout the spring and early summer of 2022.

Angel Olsen - Big Time

If I were to describe the new Angel Olsen album in one word, it would be “breathtaking.” I’ll be the first to admit that–aside from last year’s phenomenal one-off Sharon Van Etten collab– I haven’t been the biggest fan of Olsen’s output as of late. That waning interest is less about declining artistry and more because 2016’s My Woman is one of my favorite records of the entire decade, and that’s a tall order to surpass. This all said, Big Time has been a fast love and now feels like the closest she’s gotten to the sublime energy captured on that seminal record. The approach taken on her fifth album ends up fitting Olsen perfectly; twangy and honest country-light is a great backdrop that allows our heroine to unleash the full power of her voice and emotions. The instrumentals are aching and meticulously crafted, gently guiding the songs forward while also being beautiful in their own right. After making one of the best indie rock records of the decade, getting orchestral-gothic, and taking a vibrant 80s detour, Big Time proves the only place left to go is back home.

Ben Quad - I’m Scared That’s All There Is

I feel like every couple of months I extol the virtues of some emo band with a variation of “I love that tappy shit,” but it’s true, dammit. My desire for noodly riffs is insatiable, and luckily emo is a genre where bands can crank that shit out in abundance. Ben Quad, however, is better than all of those mid-ass midwest bands, as they prove throughout their debut full-length I’m Scared That’s All There Is. Evoking equally punctual emo greats like Oliver Houston, Ben Quad pack relatable lyrics, dizzying riffs, and hypnotic chants into a compact and fulfilling 23 minutes, resulting in what’s already one of the best emo albums of the year.

Heart To Gold - Tom

There he is, peering out at you, all freckled and wide-eyed. Who is that on the cover of the second full-length from Heart to Gold? Is it a member of the band? Is it the titular Tom? You’ll have to press play to find out. In one of my biggest surprises so far this year, Heart to Gold utilize an intoxicating mixture of emo, pop-punk, and just a dash of hardcore, bending the best (and least-embarrassing) aspects of these genres to their will. The songs on this record are boisterous, energetic, emphatic, and every other descriptor you’d want to hear while packed into a sweaty Minneapolis basement. There are hilarious samples, touches of tappy midwest emo instrumentation, cathartic group chants, and even some killer Title Fight-esque screams. As with most records of this genre, the theme of Tom seems to be a general sense of maturation. Whether they’re grappling with the weight of existence or riding the waves of tumultuous relationships, the band maintains an open-hearted approach that keeps the release grounded and relatable. Much like the first dude at the show who opens up the pit, Heart to Gold do an excellent job of inviting you into their world and encouraging you to scream along.

HTML - Righteousness Endures Forever

Death is real. That’s far from an original insight, but HTML manage to put a revelatory spin on loss throughout their sophomore record, Righteousness Endures Forever. Pitched by lead singer Travis Verbil as “a dad rock record about my dead dad (but chill though),” the release is heavily inspired by 70s singer-songwriter fare but also acts as a clear continuation of the dynamic indie rock sound found on 2018’s Topmost Grief. Just seven songs clocking in at a lightweight 20 minutes and 20 seconds, Righteousness explores what it means to lose someone, love someone, and honor their life through your own. A stunning and touching collection of songs that have spoken to me on an intimate level.

PUP - THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND

On some level, the fourth studio album from PUP just feels like “More PUP.” It’s not a massive departure from the music they’ve been making their whole career, but when you can crank out anthemic shout-along punk by the albumload, why not go back for another helping, right? A lightly conceptual album depicting the Toronto punks as a floundering business, THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND sees the band fraying at the seams attempting to turn their musical passions into a sustainable career. The group experiments with new elements like pianos, synths, trumpets, trombones, saxophones, guest features, and more. Perhaps most noticeably, the album is loud and not just in a thrashy punk way, but in a blown-out, bit-crushed way. It’s a stylistic choice that allows everything to hang together nicely and makes this album feel distinct from prior PUP releases.

Even with a relatively unique wholistic sound, there is some retreaded material here. As much as they shred, both “Robot Writes A Love Song” and “Matilda” are love songs projected onto non-human objects, a previously-winning formula for the band. Even my favorite song, “Waiting,” evokes the angry “Full Blown Meltdown” but differentiates itself by launching into a stellar two-syllable single-word chorus that is a marvel of songwriting and economy of words. At worst, these redundancies come across as a kind of steadfast artistic consistency that can only be achieved by a punk band who have somehow managed to claw their way to a decade-plus career. UNRAVELING is a stellar record that proves more PUP is never a bad thing.

Sadurn - Radiator

I will always give at least one listen to everything that Run For Cover puts out. After building up a decade of goodwill with releases that have become lifelong loves, this trustworthiness has paid off in spades, leading to some of my favorite records of recent years, like Springtime and Blind and Animal Companionship. When the Boston-based label announced they were signing Sadurn earlier this year, I did the same thing I always do and listened to the first single. Also doubling as the album opener, “Snake” hits a sweet spot between Ratboys-style indie rock twang and DIY heart-on-sleeve sensibilities. Perhaps most importantly, the track is topped off with a lovely dollop of slide guitar, an instrument that has become a light obsession for me over the last few years. After letting it marinate for about a month, Sadurn followed that first single up with “Golden Arm” and then “Icepick,” each song quickly cornering a different fold of my heart.

The full Radiator experience isn’t too far off from those singles. Defaulting to the pace of a lazy porch swing on a hot summer's day, these songs ache with longing, love, and adolescent confusion. The perfect record to throw on early morning with a cup of coffee, mid-afternoon with a beer, or late at night in the throes of yearning. Another in the long line of records that proves Run For Cover runs in my blood.

Short Fictions - Every Moment Of Every Day

What if an emo fell in love? And what if said emo fell in love while the world was falling apart? Oh, wait… that’s lots of us. And given the contents of Every Moment Of Every Day, it’s safe to say that Short Fictions vocalist/guitarist Sam Treber is among them. Throughout the phenomenal sophomore album from the Pittsburg emo revivalists, we hear beautiful, loving sentiments nestled between anxiety-riddled observations about the ever-crumbling world in which we live.

Both “Heather” and “You Will Never Be the Best at Anything You Try (Surely Not)” are adoring love songs that also acknowledge the realities of the failing capitalistic system most 20-somethings begrudgingly find ourselves in the middle of. What do you do when you feel the most powerful force on earth while the world around you is falling apart? When the climate crisis has already arrived, when your partner is 100 miles away, when everything is changing and it’s freaking you out? It’s a wildly conflicting feeling to hold such positive and negative things in your heart at once, but that space is where Short Fictions thrive.

Aside from these overarching throughlines of connection and distress, other highlights include when the group gives a realistic view of tour life on “Don’t Start a Band” and express their frustrations with capitalism on the hardcore rager “The Great Unwashed.” Album closer “Don’t Pinch Me I’m Dreaming” lands the record on a hopeful reminder that love can be a powerful motivator despite all the strife that precedes and surrounds it. Much like their phenomenal debut, Every Moment of Every Day is a 30-minute 8-track LP that proves the emo genre still has much more to give as long as you’re willing to listen.

The Smile - A Light For Attracting Attention

As an artist, sometimes all you need to do is give your audience a different angle–a simple reframing that can shift an ordinary object into an extraordinary new light. After being a band for nigh-on 40 years, it’s understandable why the members of Radiohead would find fulfillment in other artistic ventures that don’t carry the same pressure or expectations as a prestige-level alternative rock band. While The Smile counts two vital members of the English rock band amongst its ranks, the addition of jazz drummer Tom Skinner plus the name change forces the listener to conceive of this album as something aside from the Big Band whose shadow it can sometimes fall under.

There is the occasional moment, like a tappy Greenwood guitar solo or an arrant Yorke moan, which sound downright Radiohead, but those are more baked-in flourishes of their respective creators than anything intentional. Artistically, it feels as if this trio approached songwriting from a very different place than they usually do. Songs are wandering, loopy, and almost improvised at points. Lyrics are recursive and often see Yorke repeating the same thing over and over again to a hypnotic effect. A Light For Attracting Attention is a groovy big-budget alternative record packed with a surprising breadth of ideas for a bunch of dudes who are now solidly middle aged. If anything, The Smile proves that, even with a legendary history and larger-than-life expectations, sometimes all you need to innovate is a different perspective.

Soccer Mommy - Sometimes, Forever

Sophie Allison is a fantastic musician with terrible luck. I’ve been looking forward to Sometimes, Forever since it was unveiled back in March alongside the stellar lead single “Shotgun.” Not only was one of my favorite artists releasing a new album this year, but she was releasing it on my birthday. It felt like a little gift from Allison just to me. After a string of incredible singles, the album arrived on the same day the Supreme Court announced it was overturning Roe v Wade. I’m not trying to say this record was the worst casualty of the day, but it’s easy to see how the excitement of a new album can shrink infinitesimally in the shadow of such an appalling and upsetting decision. Much like 2020’s Color Theory which was released just weeks before the world went into shutdown for the COVID-19 pandemic, it felt like Soccer Mommy was once again releasing an album at the worst possible time. Still, I was grateful to have a collection of new music from an artist I’ve loved for years during an incredibly hard day.

Not only is Sometimes, Forever another fantastic album from Soccer Mommy, but it might also be one of her best. Aside from the aforementioned singles that make up the first half of the album, songs like “With U” and “Feel It All The Time” are downright stunners. My personal favorite, “Darkness Forever,” begins with a sinister Portishead-style trip-hop beat and mounts into a lumbering oppressive riff. That darkness is immediately contrasted with “Don’t Ask Me,” which drops the listener into a rip-roaring 90s-style shoegaze lick and builds to the most “fun” guitar solos Soccer Mommy has ever put to music. Allison caps the record off with “Still,” an excruciating closer in the vein of “Wildflowers” or “Gray Light,” where she rips your heart out, holds it up to your face, and leaves you utterly devastated in the album’s final moments. Sometimes, Forever may have arrived at a bad time in the world, but it’s coming at the perfect time for me.

Summerbruise - The View Never Changes

I listen to lots of “sad” music, but no band writes about sadness quite like Summerbruise. Outside of maybe Greet Death, I don’t think I’ve ever found a group with the ability to capture the particular brand of numbness and apathy that I identify with. Luckily, the members of Summerbruise recognize how heavy their lyrics are and expertly counter-balance these borderline-crushing song topics with peppy pop-punk instrumentals that are vivacious, musically diverse, and surprisingly danceable. A couple of choice lyric pulls include, “Well I know it’s not that easy, but I owe you all a try / I’m not that used to trying, but I think it might feel nice” and “so I’m sorry if I seem zoned out, it’s probably cause I am as fuck.” Whew. With song titles like “Kayfabing the Boys” and “Happy Hour 2,” it’s clear Summerbruise only take themselves so seriously–a relief that underscores the otherwise serious subject matter and help makes everything a little more bearable. Much like 2019’s Always Something, the latest from Summerbruise speaks to me on an almost-worrying level. At least the dope riffs make it easier to swallow.

December 31, 2019

Swim Into The Sound's 20 Favorite Albums of 2019

December 31, 2019/ Taylor Grimes

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.

December 08, 2018

The Second Annual Diamond Platters: Swim Into The Sound’s Ancillary End of the Year Awards

December 08, 2018/ Taylor Grimes

Most end of the year lists suck. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still in the process of putting together our own “best of” as you read this, but each December we see the exact same thing: dozens of publications all rushing to push out ten pages of clickbait listicles intentionally-ordered to cater debate (and clicks) while simultaneously falling in-line with the broadest most commonly-held opinion. There’s nothing technically wrong with “List Season,” but most of it just comes off as going through the motions, and I believe there’s a better way to reflect what happened over the previous year. That’s why I created The Diamond Platters.

As you can tell by their name, The Diamond Platters are the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an artist. They are an extravagant and one-of-a-kind accolade representative of artistic achievement and abject opulence… Just kidding, this isn’t anything that grandiose.

While the name is poking fun at the seriousness of List Season, The Diamond Platters do serve a purpose: they’re a way to circumvent publishing “just another” end of the year list. This is a look at the past 365 days in music through a unique (and sometimes hyper-specific) lens. These awards allow me to draw attention to releases that may not get discussed on a typical publication’s end of the year list. Most importantly, it’s a way to celebrate the year in music without pitting artists against each other. Unique categories for the unique music listener, because not everything fits into a list of 50.

Best Cover Song

Winner: The Regrettes - “Helpless”

2018 was a great year to be a fan of Hamilton. Not only did the show finally come to my city, but we also got a new one-off single, and to top it all off The Regrettes released their incredible cover of “Helpless.” Like a pop-punk counterpart to The Hamilton Mixtape, The Regrettes took an already goosebump-inducing song and transformed it into an empowering power-chord shred-fest that somehow works just as well as the original.

Runner-up: Phoebe Bridgers - “It’ll All Work Out”

Last year Tom Petty passed on October 2nd. Less than two weeks after his death I caught Phoebe Bridgers live and witnessed as she closed out her set with a heart-rending cover of “It’ll All Work Out.” It nearly broke me. One year later on October 2nd Bridgers re-opened that emotional wound when she released a deluxe edition of her debut album featuring a full-studio rendition of the same cover.

Remake/Rework of the Year

Winner: Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)

Remastering an album is one thing. Re-recording an album, amending it, and adding onto it is a different thing entirely. Indie darlings Car Seat Headrest did just that when they revisited their 2011 Bandcamp breakthrough earlier this year. Originally recorded entirely by Will Toledo in Garageband, the 2018 version of Twin Fantasy finds the songs backed by a full band, improved production, and an actual budget. The remake remains faithful its predecessor while simultaneously making just enough new additions to make it feel relevant and fresh, all while retaining the same core message that made the album resonate so deeply seven years ago.

Runner-up: TTNG - Animals Acoustic

Possibly one of the most seminal albums of the entire math rock genre, TTNG’s debut full-length has built quite a reputation for itself over the past ten years. When the band revisited their zoological release in a fully-realized acoustic style this fall, they did so in the most careful, reverent, and precious way possible.

Mini Wheats™Award For Hardest Shit I Experienced All Year

Winner: Denzel Curry - “Sumo”

Cursed with the mixed-blessing of a meme-adjacent hit, “Ultimate” became the standard Denzel Curry was held to for better or worse. While Imperial, 13, and TA13OO prove his artistic talent undeniably, “Sumo” is the sequel to “Ultimate” we’ve all been waiting for. Featuring yelled vocals, blown-out instrumentation, and hard-as-bricks lyrics, “Sumo” will be a staple of the gym playlist for many years to come.

Runner-up: Carnage x Lil Pump - “i Shyne”

Bolstered DJ Carnage’s destructive production, “i Shyne” finds Pump at his most ignorant, shouting boasts over an out-of-control hype-up beat for two and a half minutes.

Stone-Cold Chiller

Winner: Dylan Mattheisen of Tiny Moving Parts

Every once in a while you have someone that just makes your day on social media. Maybe it’s a friend, perhaps it’s a crush, but sometimes it’s a band. When he isn’t singing, shredding, or tapping on his guitar, the frontman of Tiny Moving Parts can be seen smiling across the world and enjoying life on social media. Aside from putting out a new record in 2018, this was also a year of personal progress for Dylan as he shared his weight loss journey with fans in between beaming selfies and adorable musings. Always happy to meet fans at the merch booth after shows, Dylan is a stand-up guy and the definition of a stone-cold chiller.

Runner-up: Caroline Rose of Caroline Rose

Caroline Rose is a special crystal angel full of rainbows and dreams. Whether she’s releasing one of the best sophomore records of 2018, charming viewers with her music videos, or uploading goofy goings-on in her downtime on tour, Caroline’s red-hued antics are a constant social media delight.

Holdin’ It Down: Award for Most-needed Genre Makeover

Winner: Bloodbather & Jesus Piece - Metalcore

While there were undoubtedly some early indicators like Knocked Loose, Code Orange, and END, the metalcore revival has never felt more real than it did in 2018. Between Jesus Piece’s Only Self and Bloodbather’s Pressure, it’s safe to say that the genre is back in safe hands and experiencing and refreshing second wind. May it never truly die.

Runner-up: Shame & Heavy Lungs - Post-punk

Forecasted by the arrival of IDLES’ Brutalism last year, genuine, angry, gray, UK-based Post-punk is back in full-force in 2018. Back in January, England-based Shame kicked off the year with a world-rocking debut album, and more recently the IDLES-adjacent Heavy Lungs released a banger of a single following an angry little EP of political tunes.

“Continental Breakfast” Award For Most Inoffensive Sunday Morning Easy Listen

Winner: Hovvdy - Cranberry

Named after 2017’s collaboration between Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett, sometimes you just need slow-moving hangover music. While Cranberry is definitively much more than that, their music certainly is easy on the ears.

Runner-up: Yo La Tengo - There’s a Riot Going On

Yo La Tengo’s fifteenth album is a half-ambient relaxing descent into utter bliss. More like a float tank than a collection of songs, There’s a Riot Going On is a wonderful record to throw on in the early hours of a crisp Sunday morning as you contemplate whether or not you want to make eggs.

Most Important Song Of The Year

Winner: Stella Donnelly - “Boys Will Be Boys”

“Boys Will Be Boys” is a song about the aftermath of sexual abuse. Specifically, it finds Donnelly talking to one of her close friends who, after confessing what had happened to her, explains why she’s to blame for her own rape. It’s an exorcism of pain — a condemning piece of art that’s more powerful than anything I’ve taken in this year, music or otherwise.

Runner-up: Field Medic - “Let Freedom Ring 2”

If you were to ask Field Medic why he recorded a sequel to “Let Freedom Ring” he may tell you he had to. He may tell you it was an exercise. He may tell you it was a way to air his grievances and get his thoughts out into the world. Whatever the case, “Let Freedom Ring 2” is a raw, honest, and transparent assessment of where America is in 2018. It’s a middle-finger-adorned callout as much as it is a plea for sensibility… and we’re at the point where even that would go a long way.

Most Fabulous Christmas Bop

Winner: Sufjan Stevens - “Lonely Man of Winter”

Having launched, organized, and ran a Sufjan Christmas blog this December, the back half of my year has been absolutely dominated by Sufjan’s Christmas music. While I gave his 100 Christmas tracks dozens of spins as I usually do, this season felt extra special when fans received a long-obscured loosie from the days of Christmases past. Crisp, cold, and frigid, “Lonely Man of Winter” is a realist Christmas song about feeling a distinct lack of jolliness during a season where that seems to be a requirement.

Runner-up: August Burns Red - “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year”

August Burns Red may have released a highly-influential metalcore album early in their career, but their vast body of Christmas work has always been a personal favorite of mine. Needless to say, when we got a six-song EP of holiday tunes earlier this season, it practically made my year. Hearing lead guitarist JB Brubaker shred out the melody to “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year” was exactly what I needed to ignite my Christmas spirit.

Best Cover Art

Winner: SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides

Shiny, soft, synthetic, glossy, reflective, and smooth are just a handful of the adjectives that come to mind when one finds themselves face to face with the cover to SOPHIE’s debut record. Turns out these words also accurately describe the futuristic dance music contained just behind this cover, all while taking the viewer by surprise and making them want to know more. In other words, it does everything an album cover is designed to do.

Runner-up: Nas - Nasir

An image of five black children lined up against a wall with their hands up in the air says more than I ever could, and almost says more than Nasir does in its 26-minute running time.

Best Gibberish

Winner: Kanye West - “Lift Yourself”

In the confusing lead-up to Kanye West’s eighth album, anything could have happened. While the aftermath left me and many other fans deeply-conflicted, pretty much every Kanye fan could agree on one thing: “Lift Yourself” was a masterstroke. Clocking in at two and a half minutes, the song was uploaded to Kanye’s site late on a late May evening. Like most fans, I clicked play, vibed out to the classic Kanye soul chop, and then proceeded to bust out laughing when he starts aggressively scatting. I can’t think of any other moment this year that evoked such a strong reaction from me, and for that, I must commend Mr. West.

Runner-up: Future - “King’s Dead”

Picture this: you’re listening to the newest Jay Rock song. It features Kendrick Lamar, Future, and James Blake. You’re taken aback by the song’s rapid-fire bars and powerful beat. Then halfway through, the instrumental pauses and Future busts out a raspy ode to Slick Rick and Juicy J’s with the line “La di da di da / slob on me knob.” You are shocked. You try to brush it off, but you keep coming back to it. What was once an off-putting and perplexing yelp soon becomes something so stupid it’s catchy. You can’t help but love it. That’s how I feel about “King’s Dead.”

Live Album of the Year

Winner: The National - Boxer Live in Brussels

Often cited as one of their best records, The National’s performance of their 2007 record is everything a live album should be. Bearing faithful renditions of their wine-drunk songs, the band also manages to inject some moments of surprise into this recording. Whether it’s a vibrant horn break on “Slow Show” or a series of distressed guitar solos leading up to a frantic yelp of a chorus on “Squalor Victoria,” the band was able to breathe new life into these classic indie songs. Plus, with engaging crowd responses throughout, and just the right amount of banter, Boxer Live in Brussels is proof that, much like a fine wine, The National are only getting better with age.

Runner-up: Mac Miller - Tiny Desk Concert

While it’s only three songs long, Mac Miller’s Tiny Desk Concert remains one of the most powerful performances I’ve seen all year. Released just one month before his passing, this video became one of Miller’s final moments in the public eye. Fortunately crystalized on film for the rest of time, the video is a 17-minute encapsulation of the type of soul, charm, and artistry he was possible of.

Porch Beer Album of the Year

Winner: Bonny Doon - Longwave

Sometimes you hear an album that jangles just in the right way. That kicks up just enough dust and casts just enough of an amber-coated summer breeze. A record where the drums are light, the vocals are relaxing, and the bass is played just in the pocket. The kind of music that you can close your eyes, sip your beer, nod along, and enjoy the absence of worry. That’s Longwave.

Runner-up: Nap Eyes - I’m Bad Now

Practically punk compared to Bonny Doon, Nap Eyes’ third record I’m Bad Now is a lovely and light-colored Lou Reed-esque jaunt that’s as pleasing and flavorful as it is relaxing.

One for the Streets

Winner: Young Dolph - Role Model

At the end of the day sometimes you just need to turn your brain off. There’s no need high-minded metaphors or far-reaching artistic goals, and luckily Young Dolph is striving for neither of those on Role Model. Featuring some of the most audacious, enigmatic, and hilarious bars I’ve heard all year, Dolph’s fifth studio album is 44-minutes of braggadocio, all delivered at a shockingly-consistent quality. Everything’s a banger, and we’re all better off for it.

Runner-up: Sheck Wes - MUDBOY

Outside of Playboi Carti, it’s hard to think of a single artist who pervaded the hyped-up online sphere more than Sheck Wes. While his popularity had been brewing up for some time now, a Travis Scott co-sign, Drake name-drop, and perfectly-timed album release all converged into the perfect storm of hype and success.

Best Album From Last Year That Took Until 2018 To Discover

Winner: Field Medic - Songs From the Sunroom

Earlier this year I discovered Field Medic through a stroke of Spotify luck and almost immediately turned around a short review gushing about his poetic folk music. The album has been a constant companion of mine throughout the year, and my discovery felt affirmed when I saved Field’s hat during a Remo Drive mosh pit over the summer. Clever, romantic, and emotionally-raw, Songs From The Sunroom is a lovely and personable release that’s as charming as it is inventive.

Round-up: Surf Curse - Nothing Yet

The modern surf rock scene walks an intoxicating mix of fast-paced aggression and laid-back good nature. While it may sound contradictory, this balancing act is a feat clearly mastered by Surf Curse on their sophomore album which also happened to be the soundtrack to my summer this year.

Best Music Video

Winner: Childish Gambino - “This Is America”

This is America, and it’s terrible. After producing a transformative funk album in 2016, Donald Glover returned to rap with one of this year’s most impactful singles. “This Is America” has a lot on its mind: gun violence, police abuse, and institutionalized racism are all tackled in the space of four minutes. Not only does Glover eloquently address all those topics, he also managed to deliver this message over a beat that bangs so hard the song’s both catchy and accessible. The music video itself is a striking, twisted, and hypnotic bit of long-shot cinematography that half a billion viewers found impossible to look away from… much like America.

Runner-up: Charli XCX - “1999”

We have to go back. Not to do anything different, but just to enjoy it all again. On this nostalgic bop, the underground pop queen teams up with Troye Sivan to recreate some of the 90’s most iconic moments. From Matrix dodges to Skechers advertisements, the mix of wistfulness, commitment, and innovation is simply too impressive to ignore.

“It Me” Award For Verbose And Awkward Lyrics That Most Closely Mirror My Internal Monologue

Winner: Retirement Party - Somewhat Literate

There’s something to be said for representation in music — representation not just in race, gender, religion, or culture, but in thought and personality. Even upon my first listen, I could tell that Somewhat Literate was the most I’d identified with a lyricist in some time. Opening and closing with the airing of her own hypochondriac-fuelled grievances, lead singer Avery Springer spends the rest of the record weaving nervous stream-of-conscious tales fraught with overthinking, awkwardness, and self-deprecation. In short, it feels like someone took my brain and transposed it onto jittery garage-filtered pop-punk.

Runner-up: Illuminati Hotties - Kiss Your Frenemies

Much like Retirement Party, Illuminati Hotties’ debut album represents a similar verbose and overwrought self-criticism. With songs about doughnut dates and searching for a fourth job to pay off her college debt, Sarah Tundzen was able to capture the average Millenial’s quarter-life-crisis with depressing accuracy.

Freestyle Maestro

Winner: Tyler, The Creator - Various Loosies

If nothing else, Tyler wins this one for the sheer amount of freestyles he gifted fans this year. Most of them under two minutes long, the ex-figurehead of Odd Future released somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen freestyles this calendar year alone. While not all of them wound up on the major streaming sites, tracks like “Okra” and “435” alone should prove Tyler’s proficiency as a freestyle titan.

Runner-up: Saba - “Nice For What Freestyle”

While I found myself extremely disappointed with Drake’s Scorpion, I was glad that someone took the time to salvage the album’s best beat and transform it into something with a little more substance.

Biggest Glo-Up

Winner: Tay Keith

I’m not going to pretend I was up on Tay Keith before “Look Alive,” but unless you’re big into Southern hip-hop, it’s likely that 2018 was the first time you heard his iconic producer tag. While some deride Tay Keith for making the same type of beat over and over again, he’s seemingly produced hundreds of songs this year alone, and there’s something to be said for respecting the hustle.

Runner-up: Kacey Musgraves

Kacey Musgraves has been making country music for over a decade at the time of writing, so it’s hard to call her an undiscovered force in the country scene, but Golden Hour sparked conversations across the music sphere when it became a certified crossover success. Balancing at the perfect intersection of country, pop, and indie, Musgraves proved that you don’t have to relegate yourself to one lane.

Song of the Year

Winner: Saba - “PROM / KING”

“PROM / KING” is a seven-and-a-half-minute two-part hip-hop epic that packs as much personality, story-telling, and raw honesty as the entirety of Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. The first half of the song finds a sixteen-year-old Saba reconnecting with his estranged cousin Walter back in high school. Saba recounts his traumatic prom night experience over a woozy Chicago jazz beat for three minutes until exactly halfway through the song when everything stops. There’s a brief moment of silence, and then the song explodes into a new pattern now propelled by a bombastic drum beat. From there, time flashes forward to 2017 as Saba paints a picture of his first successes as a musician and his growing bond with Walt. As the instrumental grows faster Saba’s flow increases and you get the feeling of an inescapable danger. Eventually the story unfolds, Walt is involved in a fatal stabbing, and Chicago claims another life. As the beat gets faster, so do Saba’s bars. He eventually raps until he’s out of breath, seemingly collapsing from exhaustion, but then making way for a posthumous outro sung by Walter himself. It’s harrowing, beautiful, and painful all at once. In a year where hip-hop was largely dominated by lyrics about money, women, and opulent flexes, it’s refreshing to hear a song with a message and a story. “PROM/KING” is an artistic achievement. A feat. A warning. A memorial.

Runner-up: Mac Miller - “2009”

For one month “2009” was a poignant reflection on nostalgia, addiction, and innocence lost. Then Mac Miller died, and all of those feelings became amplified ten-fold. With his passing, an already-great track became the penultimate swan song of an artist we lost just as he was reaching his prime. It makes you equal parts heartbroken and thankful to have shared the world with such an incredible artist.

Most Anticipated Project of 2019

Winner: Angel Olsen

Angel Olsen’s 2016 record My Woman opened up my world musically and philosophically. While last year’s b-sides collection temporarily satiated my hunger for more Olsen, I absolutely cannot wait to see what she’s been cooking up for us over the last two years.

Runner-up: PUP

The Dream Is Over was one of those rare records that was so good it crossed musical boundaries. From indieheads to emo boys to hardcore punks, there seemed to be nothing but praise for the Canadian group’s sophomore effort. With tracking finished back in May, we should be on the receiving end of some heart-rending thrashy punk rock any day now.

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