Swim Into The Sound's Staff Favorites of 2024

Early on in 2024, I put out a call for new writers thinking that a small handful of people might want to join our team to write about emo music and under-the-radar indie rock. What actually happened is roughly 60 people applied, and I was overwhelmed for weeks sifting through all of these super thoughtful responses from incredibly talented people who wanted to be a part of Swim Into The Sound.

Over the course of the year, some of those people naturally dropped off or had other obligations come up, but a majority of them stayed on to write reviews, retrospectives, premieres, and interviews. This year more than any other, I felt a sense of community form around this silly little website as the self-dubbed Swim Team spent 2024 turning out one fantastic piece after another, lifting each other up, and shooting the shit in our Discord. It’s really amazing. 

I’m just some guy who writes about music online; all of these people who make up our team (including all the older writers who were on board before 2024) have set the tone, pace, and tenor for what Swim Into The Sound actually is, and that’s an incredible thing to find myself at the helm of. 

With all of these new people jumping on board, I had to be more of an editor than ever before, but it was all in service of sharing music we love. Over the past twelve months, we’ve published 128 articles containing a collective 170k words. That’s staggering to me. There were some stretches where we published an article every day for a week, and while that wasn’t entirely sustainable for me as an editor, it was thrilling to feel like a cutting-edge publication for a little bit. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m incredibly proud of these people and all their work. They’ve helped shape Swim into something far grander than I ever could have conceived, and it’s an honor to write alongside them, to edit their work, and to share it with the world. This has been a banner year for Swim Into The Sound, and I’m already excited to see where we collectively take things in 2025. 

Without any further blabbering or maudlin reflecting, I’d like to turn things over to the Swim Team to allow each writer to talk about their favorite album of 2024, plus any other secondary favorites they might have. Below, you’ll find 36 recommendations from 36 different people, an eclectic snapshot of what 2024 had to offer. You can also access every one of these albums in this Spotify playlist if you’d like to listen as you read or save them for later. As usual, I hope you discover something new and exciting here to love; I definitely have. 


Britta Joseph | Touché Amoré – Spiral In A Straight Line

Rise Records

Touché Amoré creates albums that feel like diary entries - entries that we, as listeners, are unsure we should even be privy to. The melodic hardcore giants’ sixth album, Spiral In A Straight Line, chronicles the grief and shock that accompany devastating change. The first time I listened to this album, I was sitting in my living room, tears silently streaming down my cheeks as each pain-laced line of poetry pierced me through the heart. Jeremy Bolm hands us a record capturing a new chapter in his life, allowing a moment of connection and humanity, though it comes at a great personal cost. Heavily referential, brutally emotive, and sonically challenging, Spiral In A Straight Line is a beautiful tribute to heartbreak.

Other stand-outs for 2024:

  • EP of the year goes to FlyOverStates’ Ghosts (a brilliant post-hardcore release that feels like it’s straight out of the early aughts)

  • Cover of the year goes to Anthony Green’s rendition of “Numb, But I Still Feel It (Live at Nomad)” by Title Fight (bittersweet and simple; I was lucky enough to hear this on his spring tour this year)

  • Song of the year goes to Truman Finnell for the haunting single “Palm of Thorns” (visceral, atmospheric, brilliant; an incredible piece of art)


Caro Alt
| Johnny Blue Skies – Passage Du Desir 

High Top Mountain Records

As I write this, I am standing in a sprawling crowd to see Johnny Blue Skies, a.k.a. Sturgill Simpson. People are craning their necks just to get a better view of the stage setup; everyone seems to be in flannel, and I waited in line for 10 minutes to get a beer. That’s how excited everyone is to hear his latest record and my album of the year, Passage Du Desir, live. It’s clear to everyone in this room that Sturgill Simpson is the closest thing current country music has to a legend. For five albums, Simpson has become a larger-than-life musician who blends the more traditional sounds with metamodern tricks, produces contemporary country staples, plays in other artists’ bands, and even starred in a Scorsese movie. For these reasons, Simpson had to kill Sturgill. 

Under the guise of an altar ego, Simpson created a new, stripped-down world for his latest album. Compiled during his time in Paris and recorded with essentially just a guitar and an amp, the record grapples with private love, mundane misery, and suffocating grief. One of Simpson’s strengths as an artist has always been making his guitar speak for him, and in just eight songs, Simpson’s musical compositions create his most heart-aching stories yet. I still lose myself in the depth of “Jupiter’s Faerie” and “Right Kind of Dream.” I’m finishing this write-up after the concert and was reminded how, in an interview about the new name, Simpson suggested that it’s easier to release vulnerable albums under a pseudonym. After hearing the crowd sing those same lyrics with him, it’s hard not to be moved by the window of vulnerability this album created for not only himself but all of us, too.

Other Stuff I Liked:
- Compilation Album: Cardinals at the Window: A Benefit for Flood Relief in Western North Carolina ft. Various Artists
- Live Album: Live at the Rio Market by Horse Rider
- EP: I’d Think I Know by Oldstar
- Song: “Favourite” by Fontaines DC


Rob Moura
| Haley Heynderickx – Seed of a Seed

Mama Bird Recording Co.

When I first acquired my Apple Watch, I spent almost a week in its possession. I only ever took it off to charge it. In between, I took remote pictures of myself like James Bond, downloaded more notes apps than I had words to fill them, and pulled the compass out to let it direct me north, which at the time was toward a billboard advertising airplane food. In the summer, my skin paled underneath the band, a pallid ring of flesh revealing itself upon every removal. One day, in the forest, a dime-sized hive blossomed under the aluminum carapace, and though the welt grew so itchy it seemed made of electricity, I still refused to take it off. Greater was my desire to have my steps tracked, proof I had taken them.

Haley Heynderickx’s Seed of a Seed is perhaps not the greatest album I’ve heard this year, but it is the one that has impacted my life the most. It is the one that offers the most kindness. Too many invisible voices insist on music - that which has been absorbed into a gummy hypnotizing media amalgamation shorthanded as “content” - as a distraction or a tool for someone’s avaricious intentions. Seed of a Seed is of a different breed. The guitar is gentle and hearty, and Heynderickx’s voice soothes like a poultice. It reminds me “to pull the fuck over, just to stare at purple clover off the highway.” Maybe it’s not a coincidence that my watch sits on its charger, dormant for over a week now: a parasite successfully pulled from the fold.

Bits and Bites, Faves and Craves:
- Jessica Pratt - Here in the Pitch (transcendental folk transmission)
- DoNormaal & Welp Disney - PALMSPRINGA (hip-hop from the chaos rift)
- Zookraught - VIDA VIOLET (clamorous queer dance-punk)
- Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven (heavier than heaven?)
- The Lemon Twigs - A Dream Is All We Know (scraping the ceiling of pop-rock pastiche)


Nick Miller
| Mount Eerie – Night Palace

P. W. Elverum & Sun

I don’t remember where or how old I was when I first heard one of Phil Elverum’s songs, but if I had to venture a guess, I would say that I was probably about 16, sitting at the desktop computer in my childhood bedroom. Since then, his projects Mount Eerie and The Microphones have become a recurring presence in my life, not exactly on repeat, but always around. Night Palace is the first new Mount Eerie album in five years, and while it was just released in November, it has instantly cemented itself in my mind as one of Elverum’s best releases.

Across the album’s 81 minutes and 26 tracks, Elverum covers familiar ground and explores new genres, including screamo on “Swallowed Alive” and straightforward rock on “Empty Paper Towel Roll.” The album’s lyrics cross equally vast territory, with standouts like Elverum’s imagined conversation with a fish on the aptly-named “I Spoke With A Fish” and a touching meditation on depression with “Wind & Fog, Pt. 2.” There are noticeable callbacks to his previous work, but none of it feels forced or corny. Instead, Night Palace feels more like a culmination of everything that came before it.

Other Favorite Albums of 2024:
- Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman
- YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING by SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
- Tigers Blood by Waxahatchee
- GNX by Kendrick Lamar
- Lived Here For A While by Good Looks


Russ Finn
| Callahan & Witscher – Think Differently

Post Present Medium

Throughout their careers, Jack Callahan and Jeff Witscher have released experimental electronic music under their own names or monikers, like Die Reihe and Rene Hell. On Think Differently, their debut album as the duo Callahan & Witscher, the two avant-garde musicians execute their ultimate musical experiment—pop accessibility. 

Think Differently is an experimental concept album about making experimental music. Callahan & Witscher duet on every song with back-and-forth auto-tuned choruses and dry, spoken-word tales about the struggles of being touring experimental musicians who share deeply personal art to an indifferent world. In “Boiler Room,” for example, Witscher tells the tragicomic story of the time he played his music at a Boiler Room set where everyone was expecting “techno DJs.” On “Columbus,” Callahan “bares his soul to thirteen people who he’ll never meet” at a show in a laundromat.

Callahan & Witscher couple their self-deprecation and ennui with late 90s and early 2000s pop-rock stylings. Sugar Ray, Beck, Linkin Park–it’s all there, mashed together with samples of Taco Bell bongs, dueling banjos, and a calculated use of “listen to this track, bitch.” Though the jokes never stop, it would be a disservice to call this a comedy album. Think Differently is funny in the same way hanging out with your best friends is funny–you’ll crack jokes but still make room to lift each other up and have serious discussions.

The album is loaded with humor and a persistent jadedness toward the music industry, but the album isn’t a bitter, irony-poisoned piece of juvenilia. Think Differently is a sweet album that challenges musicians and artists to never give up on doing what they love, and it’s the most fun I’ve had listening to an album in a long time.

2024 releases deserving more attention:
- Tinker Bell’s Cough by F.G.S.
- Twisted Teens by Twisted Teens
- The Circus Egotistica by Floral Tattoo
- Hope and Fear by Stella


Caleb Doyle
| Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood

ANTI-

Katie Crutchfield’s arc as a musician is well familiar to middle-of-the-country people like me who grew up on Martina McBride and Montgomery Gentry; we rejected country radio as teens by turning to indie rock and then let the hometown twang seep back in as we got older. Waxahatchee is bona fide 2010s indie rock royalty, and yet Crutchfield has had the bravery and curiosity to follow what’s felt good down the Americana dirt road. 

Tigers Blood is both an improvement on Saint Cloud from a song-writing standpoint and an evolution of her sound. Perhaps “evolution” isn’t the proper term; maybe we’ll call it a “leaning-in.” Sonically, Tigers Blood is full-bore alt-country rock. Crutchfield channels Patsy Cline and her beloved Lucinda Williams in her vocal performance and does not hesitate to dial up the twang. As for the rest of the gang: Brad and Phil Cook, Spencer Tweedy, and MJ Lenderman lay down backing tracks as strong as anything Buck Owens’s Buckaroos ever played.

Lyrically, Crutchfield’s themes feel warmly familiar with an added wisdom and an un-clenching that comes with the freedom of playing music she is comfortable with. This is still the Waxahatchee from Cerulean Salt, just with a glass of sweet tea on a screened-in front porch. It is fascinating to hear words like “didactic,” “reticent,” and “a paradox poetic” through the lens of Crutchfield’s Alabama-raised, Kansas City-steeped twang. The warm country tones are a deep comfort amid nakedly human lyrics about grief, self-consciousness, and trying to make love work.

Each track is a meal. From hopeful lover’s ballad “Right Back To It” (my front-runner for Song of the Year) to acidic lovers’ quarrel over a Byrds riff “Crowbar,” each song on Tigers Blood feels immediately familiar upon first listen. The sounds are timeless, and we can only hope this is just the beginning of the alt-country Renaissance.

The rest of my Top 5:
2. Rosali - Bite Down
3. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks
4. Jessica Pratt - Here in the Pitch
5. Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee


Elias Amini
| girlsnails – california kickball

Self-released

Of all the records that came out this year, from sumptuous screamo delights to achingly delicious alt-country jawns, I never thought that girlsnails’ six-song mathy emo album-length EP would have the unshakeable grip on me that it does. I first broadly gestured towards my favoritism for the band earlier on in our Q1 Roundup, where I could certainly say I was excitedly picking up what they were putting down. Then, this year happened. I buried friends and family alike, I struggled with my own mental health, I lent what strength I could to my comrades and loved ones. Through all this, california kickball did something miraculous for me: it just made more and more sense. The grappling with oneself, your shortcomings, your longing, your aches and scrapes and bruises and fractures. Every warble of pain felt reflective of something in my life; each pining for release I saw as flickering images of passed-on loved ones. And as powerful or elated, or melancholy or crazy as so many other projects from this year made me feel, none made me feel as seen as girlsnails did. It’s wild how an album about struggling through love and bad breakups became my philosopher's stone for digesting and metabolizing a huge amount of grief. But I suppose that is the most remarkable thing about music, isn’t it? This alchemical quality to become what you may need at a given moment in time and have it basically change a piece of you in the process. How wonderful that a batch of songs about clunky, dissolving connections and abstract longing could give me such peace. I don't know what girlsnails has up their sleeve next, but I can only hope whatever wondrous form it takes that it makes itself a home for anyone willing to listen. 

Other releases I loved from this year:
- Obsidian Wreath by Infant Island
- We Have the Answer by Heavenly Blue
- Quarto Vientos Cinco Soles by Massa Nera and Quiet Fear
- Sweethearts, a split by Aren't We Amphibians and Just Let Me Go


Josh Ejnes
| Sinai Vessel – I SING

Keeled Scales

One reason that Sinai Vessel’s I SING hit so hard for me is that, at its heart, it is an incredibly angry record. Though it doesn’t display many of the sonic hallmarks you might expect from angry music (it’s not particularly loud, not particularly fast, not particularly explosive), the simmering undercurrent that drives things throughout is the kind only born from a battle between rage and resignation. It carries the anger of the overthinking and over-observant, a brand of emotion that hits close to home for me, especially this year. On first listen, I remember being particularly struck by the opening of “Challenger,” which starts: “Loved snow til you realized it’s / Rain that sticks to the ground / The weight prix fixe of consciousness / Does not fuck around.” There are so many lyrics like this where I felt equally seen and punched in the gut, always sung beautifully over masterful arrangements ranging in style from alt-country to bossa nova and heartland rock. There’s just so much that works here. It’s an amazing record that came right when I needed it, and to me, it’s the best of the year.

Other Releases I loved:
- Flesh Tape - Flesh Tape
-
bonus - was a dog
-
Bad Moves - Wearing Out The Refrain
-
bedbug - pack your bags the sun is growing
-
Ekko Astral - Pink Balloons


John Dietz
| Lucy (Cooper B. Handy) – 100% PROD I.V.

Ulyssa

If you listen to only one Lucy project from this year, make it this one. It’s a collaborative effort with producer i.v., who’s worked with a remarkable assortment of artists ranging from Shed Theory’s Tek lintowe to ambient folk musician Kaho Matsui. It’s hard to make any generalizations about the sound of Lucy’s work, mostly because he’s explored so many different styles and worked with so many producers, but 100% PROD I.V. feels truly unique. I’m struck by the sparseness of the songs, the fragility of the interlocking synth melodies, the way the MIDI guitar riffs and hi-hats complement Lucy’s double-tracked vocals.

One highlight for me is album opener, “Make My Bed,” kicking off with a bright MIDI guitar sound that features prominently throughout the project. Accompanied by an understated, smooth bassline, his lyrics flow back and forth between inscrutable couplets like “I used to think I would fall off / But the dog’s fur is so soft” and utterly sincere confessions: “I heard when you said / That things are gonna get better / That's why I wake up in the morning, and I make my bed.” Lucy’s writing and persona feel especially welcome now when a lot of songwriting seems to feel increasingly wry, tongue-in-cheek, or despondent. His Instagram features lots of little aphorisms like “If you’re reading this ur smart+lucky+loved” and “TurnUp - Tune Out - Drop In.” He ends many of his posts with “HMU ILY.”

As I continue to explore his massive discography, I’ve realized that maybe what I love most about Lucy is his long-running habit of interpreting pop songs, refracting tunes like “Beauty and the Beast” and “All You Need Is Love” through his unique brand of off-kilter pop. 100% PROD I.V. includes maybe my favorite example of this to date, a cover of 2000 chart-topper “Breathe” titled “Faith Hill.” A lesser, more cynical artist might use this as a chance to jab, poke fun, mock — but Lucy and i.v.’s stripped-down version of the pop country hit feels entirely earnest. MIDI guitar riffs and glittering synth lines give way to a sparse, trap-inflected drum pattern and Lucy’s double-tracked vocals as he croons, “I can feel the magic floating in the air / Being with you gets me that way.” 

Here are some other albums I really enjoyed this year:
- Endlessness by Nala Sinephro
- Here in the Pitch by Jessica Pratt
- The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble by Cime
- Cold Visions by Bladee
- Real Home by Kiran Leonard


Ben Sooy
| Pedro the Lion – Santa Cruz

Polyvinyl Record Co.

I’ve been tracking David Bazan’s music since the year of our Lord 2002, and his most recent record is, in my opinion, his best work. Santa Cruz is part three of five planned albums, each chronicling an era of Bazan’s childhood and adolescence. Bazan is kind and tender to his past self, his family, and all the complicated and heartbreaking things that happened to him. The magic thing about this record is how much of myself I see in Bazan’s story. Our childhoods certainly have parallels, but it’s not just the stuff we have in common. Like all great autobiographical storytelling, the more specific the story gets, the more universal it feels. 

On paper, a musical autobiography could have had self-indulgent, cringeworthy music-theater-bullshit energy, but instead, these albums feel like the rock music equivalent of East of Eden. In the same way Steinbeck’s book was tied to place and family history and the implications of how faith gets inherited, these records feel like that sort of literature. And the songs are well-crafted rock songs. Simply amazing.

Other albums that are very good: 
- Stay Inside - Ferried Away
- Elliott Green - Kintsugi 
- mealworm - mealworm 
- Sinai Vessel - I SING
-
Flight Mode - The Three Times


Lillian Weber
| Punitive Damage – Hate Training

Convulse Records 

When confronted with genocide, how close to your conditions does the other need to be for you to start caring? How close to you does it need to be before you do something? Will it take until there is literally blood on your hands? 

Punitive Damage’s new EP, Hate Training, grapples explicitly with these questions as they relate to the ongoing genocide in Palestine (“raze the strip, cleanse them / accept their fate, it’s how it is”), those with power who try and convince you what is happening before your eyes is fine (“my word is truth / so swallow the shit”), and those who willfully buy into the lie that their comfort doesn’t come on the backs of the oppressed (“find comfort in their chains / basic needs- a cause of shame”). 

Hate Training also serves as a rallying cry. The gang vocals shouting “I won’t beg” on the highlight “Humanity Upon Request” remind us that asking nicely of those who hate us to please, treat us with respect, will never work. In the face of genocide, we will not prostrate ourselves, we will not be told how brave we are for speaking up, we will make our own world possible. 

OTHER NOTABLES:
- Gouge Away’s excellent comeback LP, Deep Sage, is a comfort blanket.
- Black Button’s Internal Life is what my panic attacks sound like.
- Crush Fund’s New Fixation x100.


Cassidy Sollazzo
| Coco & Clair Clair – Girl

Nice Girl World

What other 2024 album has lines like “Write a hit song then I read a big book / I’m all about the lovin’ you can call me bell hooks” and “You’re a wannabe heartthrob, broke ass with no job / Grown ass Thingamabob, no TP at his spot”???? The answer is none of them. Only Coco & Clair Clair’s Girl, the follow-up to their 2022 breakout, Sexy. The term “sophomore slump” doesn’t even exist in the Atlanta duo’s vocabulary, with their lyricism wittier and nastier than ever, dripping in confidence and begging for confrontation. This album has lifted me from the depths of various breakdowns and depression pits like no other. When I hear the opening synths of “Martini,” I can literally feel my soul transcend to a different plane, and “My Girl” is the perfect song to strut (commute) to. Who else would have the sheer gall to make a synth-trap cover of CSNY’s “Our House”?? Two girls who do not give two fucks. 

Girl also gets points for being the only album I’ve ever sent in my group chat that actually ended up in everyone’s rotation. Now we’re all obsessed. My best friend crashed her car while blasting “Kate Spade” (the song the pair calls their ‘magnum opus’), having the type of listening experience God (Coco & Clair Clair) intended. I got to see the duo at Irving Plaza with said friends at the beginning of November, and it was the most I screamed, danced, and sweated at a show since my days riding the rails at One Direction concerts. This album is cunty, hot, brain-scratchingly synthy, and the best mood booster I’ve ever encountered. It’s helped me push past insecurities and quiet feelings of existential dread, it’s soundtracked pregames and girls nights, it’s the most likely thing to be playing through my headphones at any given moment, and it is my absolute favorite album of 2024.

Some other albums I’ve loved this year:
- Liana Flores, Flower of the soul
-
Doechii, Alligator Bites Never Heal
-
Shaina Hayes, Kindergarten Heart
-
Brittany Howard, What Now
-
Rosali, Bite Down


David Gay
| Water Damage – In E  

12XU

On one of their shirts, the band Water Damage describes themselves with the following mantra: “Maximal Repetition, Minimal Deviation.” In 2024, when there were so many things to be stressed out about, In E, an album that features “volume, repetition, volume, repetition,” became a refuge for me from the day-to-day pressures and an antidote to life’s complexities. 

Getting lost in a piece of art is a special experience. Whether moving as one with a crowd at a live concert or being completely enthralled by a character’s story in a movie theater - it’s rare when I get to turn my brain off and truly let go for a period of time. Each time I listen to this band, and this album in particular, it provides that escape. No matter what circumstance I am in at a place and time, I could always rely on “maximal repetition” and “minimal deviation” to at least get me through 82 minutes. I’m thankful and grateful for that, and that’s why it’s one of my favorite albums of 2024.

Some of my other favorites: 
- Stay Golden by Combat
- Dulling The Horns by Wild Pink
- Sentiment by Claire Rousay
- Pink Balloons by Ekko Astral 
- “Ghost” and “Soul Planet” from the 8/4/24 Phish show in Noblesville, Indiana


Logan Archer Mounts
| Mary Spender – Super. Sexy. Heartbreak.

Self-Released

At this time of writing, I have yet to finalize any placements for my favorite albums of the year, so I’m using this space to talk about what I believe will be the least-talked-about album that will likely land in my top 10. Mary Spender is a singer-songwriter from Bristol who I’ve been following for a number of years via her YouTube channel. She’s put out a handful of gorgeous singles like “The Great Wave” and “Primrose,” and last year saw the release of her double album Songbook, which she doesn’t technically consider to be her debut as all of those songs are strictly acoustic recordings. Turns out that it was a bit of an intentional teaser to Super. Sexy. Heartbreak. as almost all of the songs were originally included on Songbook

Her full band renditions of songs like “Getaway Sun” and “I’ll Stay Quiet” were absolutely worth the wait, acting as the culmination of years of growth as a musician and online personality. I still can’t quite nail down a particular style or subgenre to describe Spender’s music, which is part of the reason I love it. She’s cited artists like John Mayer and Suzanne Vega as influences, and there are certainly notes of what used to be called “adult alternative,” but her proficient guitar work puts her in an instrumental class adjacent to math rock and progressive-emo artists like Closure In Moscow, Delta Sleep, or The Reign Of Kindo. Her music is profoundly British, which is just another one of the many things I love about this album while having plenty of lyrical references to her time spent in Chicago and Los Angeles. All of that is accented by Spender’s beautiful, soulful voice, which she shows off strongest in songs like  “Church Bell” and “I Blame Myself.” Super. Sexy. Heartbreak. is one of the year’s most distinct singer-songwriter albums that everyone should be giving a chance.

  • The real AOTY was the friends we made along the way


Ben Parker
| A Place For Owls – how we dig in the earth

Broom of Destruction 

Once I learned of its existence, I knew that once how we dig in the earth was released, it would be my album of the year. What I didn’t know, however, is that this album would be something that would carry me through potentially the heaviest grief of my life. I have never felt more hope than when I listen to this album on repeat, and I have sadly had to come back to it far too many times this year. Each time the final notes of “help me let the right ones in” play, I am left sitting in the dark, listening to my own breathing and understanding that hope truly is a weapon. A Place For Owls have crafted an album that is full of heart. This record comes to you as a warm hug from a lost friend that, as soon as you touch, the memories flood back into your brain. 

Other Important Releases:
- Garden Home - S/T
-
Combat - Stay Golden
-
Excuse Me, Who Are You? - Double Bind
-
Barely Civil - I’d Say I’m Not Fine
-
Leisure Hour - The Sunny Side


Alex Couts
| Lifecrusher – In Death, We All Rot the Same

Side 2 Side Records / Inhumano Records

Blistering, relentless, and unforgiving. Lifecrusher’s 2024 effort In Death, We All Rot the Same is a 23-minute celebration of decades-old hardcore tradition, adored and interpreted with a fresh cultural lens. With the incoming tsunami of Sunami-style-rip-off-acts popping up around the globe, it can feel easy to put young hardcore bands in a box, but Lifecrusher is demolishing borders across Europe with friends at their side. The band conjures frenetic and participatory live shows with the likes of Deconvolution, XOXO., Wonderful World, and SLOPE, delivering 8KHC across Europe and next: the globe. If you desire the kinesis of formative acts like Cross Me, Soul Search, and Mindforce tied together with deep vocal incisions of Amygdala and Code Orange Kids, you should tune into Lifecrusher before they become the coolest band on the planet. In Death, We All Rot the Same is simply another stepping stone on that journey for Lifecrusher. 

Other notable releases: 
- State Power – Year of the Harvest
-
Wonderful World – Universal Tension 
-
Big Ass Truck – Big Ass Demo
-
Logic1000 – Mother
-
No Cure – I Hope I Die Here


Samuel Leon
| Knocked Loose – You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To

Pure Noise Records

With regards to having a metal album as your AOTY in 2024, is this a “basic” choice? Sure, but there is a reason Knocked Loose has gotten so much praise and sold out larger headlining shows than their contemporaries. Every second of You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To feels like a wrestling match between your listening device and the Oldham County quintet to see if they can successfully break your speakers. Songs like “Piece By Piece” and “Don’t Reach For Me” prove Knocked Loose is at the top of their game right now, and they have no plans of slowing down.

Honorable Mentions Include:
- Songs of a Lost World: The Cure
- Imaginal Disk: Magdalena Bay
- Glimmer of God: Jean Dawson
- All You Embrace: One Step Closer
- Self-Titled: Foxing


Kirby Kluth
| Memorial – Redsetter

Real Kind Records

Could you do me a favor? The next time I think about getting off social media, I need you to stop me and read aloud from Swim Into The Sound’s Staff Favorites of 2024. All of the potentially harmful effects of exorbitant screen time and my declining attention span have been completely outweighed by the time Lomelda’s Instagram Story told me she and her brother helped produce Memorial’s sophomore album, Redsetter, and that I should listen to it. My year has been one of deep grief and tremendous joy, and during all of the in-between times where the growth comes, Redsetter offered comfort and a leg for me to stand on. The whole album is coated in warmth. Jack Watts almost always sounds to me as if he is smiling while he sings. It's drums and finger picking provide a pattern to nod my head along to, and there are moments scattered throughout that give me chills and well up a momentum within me. Hannah and Tommy Reed’s fingerprints are all over this record, making Redsetter feel like a home from the first listen. They lent Memorial their sound in ways that work to deepen the record. Redsetter is full-bodied, endlessly kind, and my favorite album of 2024.

2024, according to Kirby:
- NTS Radio
- A slew of new-to-streaming The Sundays singles
- Big Nick - DOPE MUSIC
-
Hovvdy - Hovvdy
-
Nourished by Time - “Hell of a Ride”
- Faye Webster’s discography

Braden Allmond | Charly Bliss – Forever

Lucky Number Music

For reasons known only to my unconscious mind, hearing good power pop makes me philosophical and thankful for this century of human history. The third album from Charly Bliss is a good reminder to participate in your life–not to just wake up and shuffle to work, but to open windows and breathe with the world, to make time to watch the sunset, to learn constellations with someone you love, to ask your coworker how their kids are. This album is a reminder that the news cannot stop you from living your life. Fireworks in March, cowbells in an unsuspecting field, an indescribable cappuccino at 3 PM, a welcome-back-to-the-continent kiss, whatever makes your heart beat, you have to find and deliver yourself those experiences. I spent most of my year searching for comfort and found an infinite source here. Enduring brightness, childlike hope, teeth-hurting sweetness, teenaged desire, and unabashed happiness, Forever by Charly Bliss delivers all of this on every front.

Other 2024 releases I particularly enjoyed and think you should listen to:
- Ogbert The Nerd — What You Want (The only emo band from New Jersey)
- Knifeplay — Pearlty (2024 Remaster)
-
I Love Your Lifestyle — Summerland (Torpa or Nothing)
-
ANORAK! — Self-actualization and the ignorance and hesitation towards it
-
Lobby Boxer —Head Shoulders Knuckles Floor


Nickolas Sackett
| Sam Wilkes – iiyo iiyo iiyo

Self-released 

2024 has been a weird year for me, one awash with hues of pain, financial hardship, health scares, travel, and love. Since the day I chanced upon its serene shade of blue, iiyo iiyo iiyohas been a constant source of comfort that has soundtracked countless cooking sessions, sleepy drives home from my girlfriend’s apartment, and late-night Balatro sessions in bed. It’s strange that a live-jazz album I chanced upon flicking through Instagram Stories would eventually become so prevalent in my life- but then again, is anything so strange? If I asked a certain person, they might even tell me that the universe wanted me to find the album, that it was all preordained, and that there was no way I wouldn’t find it. Someone else might tell me I’m on that damn phone too much. Whatever your take is, iiyo iiyo iiyo is a wonderful recording of a brilliant show. It’s hard not to marvel at it all with music like this.


Brandon Cortez
| Macseal – Permanent Repeat

Counter Intuitive Records

The Long Island indie-emo quartet drops listeners into snapshots of nostalgia on their second LP, Permanent Repeat. Having built their success off of their 4th/5th-wave emo hits such as “Cats” and “Next to You,” Macseal lean into their hook-infested indie soundscape this time around. Even with a five-year gap between albums, they manage to pick up exactly where they left off, plus some. Track two, “Golden Harbor,” sets the stage for reminiscing as the listener is heaved through memories of the group's early days–all set to the backdrop of Golden Harbor Authentic Chinese Cuisine, nestled in Champaign-Urbana. I could write indefinitely about this album, however, I’d be remiss not to focus on the album’s titular track, “Permanent Repeat.” In my humble opinion, this song should be crowned as the group's magnum opus. Coming in at a just-right three and a half minutes, the song hits everything we’ve come to know and love from Macseal. Soft, emotional lyrics that all lead up to an unbelievably catchy chorus which is preceded by a jarring guitar solo to yoink the listener out of their perpetual yearning. Permanent Repeat has been just that; on an endless loop whenever I find the time. Even when the album is not sonically present, it’s the never-ending soundtrack to my daydreaming. A love letter to the way things used to, and could be, Permanent Repeat leaves listeners nostalgic for moments that haven't yet happened. 

Other 2024 favorites:
- Kerosene Heights - Leaving
-
Mini Trees - Burn Out 
- Ben Quad - Ephemera
- Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties - In Lieu of Flowers


Noëlle Midnight
| Better Lovers – Highly Irresponsible

Sharptone

Formed by three members of the now defunct metalcore outfit Every Time I Die, plus vocalist Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan) and Will Putney (Fit For An Autopsy), Better Lovers’ debut LP comes out swinging, ensuring listeners know that nobody here is wasting time merely trying to recapture the past.

With Highly Irresponsible, Better Lovers deliver Southern-tinged metalcore that’s bursting at the seams with anger and accusations. It’s hard to listen to this record without thinking about how the end of ETID transpired, with vocalist Keith Buckley being abruptly removed from the band, ultimately resulting in a full collapse. From that context, we see Puciato screaming, “Can you believe you thought yourself sophisticated,” the alternating lyrics of “We all look blameless” and “We all look guilty,” followed a few songs later with “You want your flowers, but you threw out the seeds.” A narrative, whether intended or not, begins to form as we see what appears to be the pain of a bad breakup.

Musically, if you liked the Southern riffs that defined much of ETID’s sound, you’ll find yourself delighted by tracks like “Drowning In A Burning World.” Pair that with choruses brought to life by Puciato’s incredible alternation between a variety of vocal techniques to create texture that is all too often missing from mainstream metalcore releases. It’s hard to listen to this record without singing along to the impeccably written choruses and repeated vocal themes and frankly? I wouldn’t want to.

Some of my other favorites: 
- Santa Cruz by Pedro The Lion
- Leap of Death by Left to Suffer
- empathogen by WILLOW
- Winter by Strelitzia
- Prelude to Ecstasy by The Last Dinner Party


Aly Eleanor
| Kali Malone – All Life Long

Ideologic Organ

All Life Long is Kali Malone’s fifth “record,” roughly speaking both in terms of number and what defines a body of work. If you only focus on the big stuff, that could entail over 100 minutes of pipe organ drones, Éliane Radigue homage, three hours of sine waves, or even shoegaze. Her latest unfolds across a suite of melancholy, arranged for brass, organ, and voice — it’s a dense, dynamic chunk of liturgy that nevertheless holds a glacier’s worth of beauty within. As I revisit “No Sun To Burn” and “Fastened Maze,” once again greeted by the biting grasp of winter winds, it is easy to be struck by how heavy they sound. Malone’s compositions are weighed down by their stellar core, a glowing resolve frozen underneath the icy surface. All Life Long leans into the furrows of her electroacoustic eclecticism and produces the closest thing to what a minimalist could call a “crossover hit.” It holds the odd distinction of being my fourth favorite Kali Malone record while still being my favorite record of the year. Set aside some time to immerse yourself.


Nick Webber
| Apples with Moya – A Heave of Lightness on the Ground

Den Tapes

Apples with Moya found me nestled in the covers of a guest bed during the Minnesota springtime, slowly returning from dreamland. As I pressed play, I was casually familiar with the band as part of the Great Grandpa extended universe, but I wasn’t at all prepared to be swept away so dramatically in those 32 minutes laying next to my sleeping wife in the early morning light. 

A lot of what makes this record (and Great Grandpa) special to me has to do with the melodic sensibility; it feels rare to hear folks really going for it when it comes to writing compelling and catchy tunes, especially when “vibe” often seems to get more shine than songcraft in buzzy music as of late. LaFlam’s vivid and often mercurial lyrics land in captivating ways, oscillating between the impressionistic and the earthly, nestled in unabashedly gorgeous arrangements. Sometimes Sufjanesque, sometimes power poppy, always memorable, A Heave of Lightness on the Ground is an album shot through with humor, movement, bracing specificity, and revelation. It feels like the sort of music that can only come out of the Pacific Northwest, and it’s the only album I know of that name-checks both Pedro the Lion and Montucky Cold Snacks. To a guy like me, this stuff is magic.


Wes Cochran
| Foxing – Foxing

Grand Paradise 

Many 2024 albums have inspired me or brought me comfort, but none have lit a fire under my ass like Foxing. In the decade-plus since the release of their modern emo classic The Albatross, the indie rock quartet have amassed a cult following for frontman Conor Murphy’s expressive vocals and the band’s restless evolution. From the sounds of it though, all that hard work has left them exhausted and without much in the way of material gains to show for it. After one last swing for the rafters with their previous full-length, any and all guardrails came off on their self-funded, self-produced, self-titled, and self-released fifth album. The band makes hairpin turns between everything from disaffected dream pop to vicious hardcore, sometimes within the same song. The mix can go from perfectly balanced to completely blown out (I’ve probably done permanent damage to my ears listening to “Gratitude”), and each member has several moments across the record where it sounds as if they might lose control at any given moment. 

As someone “liked-but-didn’t-love” the band going in, I spent my entire first listen feeling like I had been sucker-punched. Not just at the sonic mayhem I was subjecting myself to, but the emotional intensity of Foxing. If I had to summarize the thematic crux of the album, it would be a crisis of faith - in music, love, your country, God, or anything else you’ve devoted a significant portion of your life to, only to realize you may not believe in it anymore. You’re forced to search for purpose again in an endless cultural vacuum of regurgitated ideas, view and sales counts, and just general suffering. It may sound like I’m describing the “feel-bad Album of the Year,” and on some level, I am, but no amount of words can describe how awe-inspiring and thrilling it is to actually hear that search on Foxing. After all, how many albums will I ever be able to say started a chain reaction that led to me picking up my guitar for the first time in more than a year and trying to create things again? 

Throughout a stressful final quarter of the year that included but was not limited to: my car being totaled, death and illness within my family, and the American presidential election, I caught myself repeating the refrain of “CONSTANT FATIGUE!” from “Hell 99,” but recently I’ve decided to literally change my tune. I’ve spent far too much of my life wallowing and waiting, and it’s gotten pretty old - it’s time to rally. To put it in Foxing’s own words: “Make your mother proud, you’ve got to sharpen those dead dreams.” 

Here’s some more music that made my 2024 that much more fulfilling: 
- Everything Everything - Mountainhead
-
Father John Misty - Mahashmashana
-
Haley Heynderickx - Seed of a Seed
-
Los Campesinos!, just Los Campesinos! as a band
- Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk
-
Mount Eerie - Night Palace
-
Vince Staples - Dark Times


David Williams
| Wishy – Triple Seven

Winspear

The Indianapolis five-piece cinched the title “Rookies of the Year” with their debut record, Triple Seven. The music is a love letter to their indie rock predecessors, creating a well-thought-out alternative rock experience delivered with the confidence of Larry Bird shooting jump shots in his backyard. The melodies are intoxicatingly addicting and will be swirling in your head for hours, days, months, maybe even years after first hearing them. “Love On The Outside” will have you in a Ving Rhames-like chokehold, packing a wallop of a chorus that somehow rises to match the stadium-level guitar riffs. If you’re not blasting the record at maximum volume that could potentially result in hearing loss or a surly neighbor, you’re not listening to it properly. 

Other albums that restored that feeling:
- MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks
-
Kendrick Lamar - GNX
-
Wild Pink - Dulling The Horns
-
Charli XCX - Brat
-
Ducks LTD. - Harm’s Way


Lindsay Fickas
| Hovvdy – Hovvdy

Arts & Crafts 

2024 was an odd year where I was constantly clinging to any glimpse of nostalgia I could find. I needed a reminder of a time when things didn’t feel as though they were marching steadily into darkness. I found it in Hovvdy’s self-titled release. The album brings a fresh take on an older sound, delivering songs that could have fit in comfortably on a 2011 indie folk album sandwiched between Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes. At times, the songs feel new and electric, utilizing effects and jaunty hooks to pull you in. Other times, they’re stripped-down and bare. If a John Steinbeck character pulled out a guitar around a campfire and played “Song for Pete,” I wouldn’t dare question the authenticity. And while many of the songs feel as though they’ve emerged straight from a Pitchfork Editor’s Pick 15 years ago, they never veer toward pretension, opting instead for full-throated sincerity with off-the-cuff lines like “Goddamn, I swear I will always love you.” It’s a warm and gorgeous record at a time I need it most. 

A few other favorites: 
- Foxing - Foxing
-
Ekko Astral - Pink Balloons
-
Friko - Where we’ve been, Where we go from here
-
Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood
-
A Place for Owls - how we dig in the earth


Ciara Rhiannon
| With Sails Ahead – Infinite Void

Self-released

Prior to this year, With Sails Ahead's discography had been a concise collection of singles and EPs that have each operated as a window into the influences and ambitions of the band, but we haven't seen the full magnitude of what they have been building towards – until now. Infinite Void is not only the first full-length album by With Sails Ahead; it is a testament to everything they have learned so far and the effort they’ve put in as a band. The work that goes into creating an album is intense, especially an album that accomplishes as much as Infinite Void – from its staggering instrumental range to its subtle references – all imprinted onto this record by each individual member. It’s difficult to think of many debut albums that are this technically impressive and ambitious straight out of the gate. You can genuinely feel the way this band collaborates and informs each other’s abilities across every single track on Infinite Void, and the result is one of the most staggeringly cohesive records I have ever heard.

Honorable Mentions:
- CLIFFDIVER - birdwatching
-
Zach Benson - Music For You And Your Friends
-
stop.drop.rewind - stop.drop.rewind
-
Hey, ily! - Hey, I Loathe You!
-
Eichlers - IKE WORLD
-
Ekko Astral - Pink Balloons


Joshua Sullivan
| MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

ANTI-

Two weeks before the diluvian Helene radically transformed the town, I was visiting friends in Asheville, North Carolina. Manning Fireworks had just come out, and as we drove the Blue Ridge Parkway listening to “Joker Lips,” I found myself in deep gratitude – here is a record that feels like it was always with me and always will be. As I spent the ensuing weeks in horror of what close friends and family experienced during and after Hurricane Helene, the album became a balm – which might be surprising, given the content of the record. 

The fractured, predatory world of modern masculinity runs deep throughout MJ Lenderman’s understated, assured, and altogether brilliant album. The stories of cocksure failsons or manosphere marks update the cadre of fools found in Steely Dan songs for a new world. It’s a world that sets us up to fail, that dunks on us when we’re down – but was it the strong headwinds or the shorts full of sand that sank the bird in the end? This downtempo collection of double entendres, ending in a blissful seven minutes of meditative feedback, is a sanctuary for the soul, stuffed full of dumbasses and cowards. We laugh at them, but it can often feel like self-defense. Because, as Lenderman tosses off in the great “She’s Leaving You”: “We all got work to do.” The roads in Asheville are crumbled while the failsons continue to ascend. We all got work to do. 

Honorable Mentions:
Magdelena Bay – Imaginal Disk | Jimmy Montague – Tomorrow’s Coffee | Carpool – My Life In Subtitles | Color Temperature – Here For It | Mach-Hommy — #RICHAXXHAITIAN


Jason Sloan
| Climax Landers – Zenith No Effects

Gentle Reminder

Will Moloney has spent the better part of the 21st century as one of the New York underground’s most quietly influential figures; Bandcamp once crowned him “the Best Indie Rock Songwriter You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of.” Now, after twenty years and almost as many monikers, he’s perfected his blend of wry non-sequitur and shaggy grooves with the apotheotic Zenith No Effects. “Play It Cool” weaves defunct Brooklyn venues, superhero pornography, and Styx into an anthem for all those too weird to ever work a room. And I’m not sure there’s a better thesis for Moloney’s whole oeuvre than “Blessed by health and love and weed / Find the truth dialectically” from “Ad Hominem.” But the dual parenthetical bookend tracks are Zenith’s crowning achievements: a two-part tale of the Climax Landers literally riding in to save an oppressed city-state through the power of collective unity and rock and roll. In lesser hands, it would prove unbearable, but the winking delivery and Charlie Dore-Young’s buoyant bassline are too infectious to scoff at. By the time the album’s triumphant saxophone outro comes around, you’re right there with them, liberated and ready to seize your one chance to dance.


Joe Wasserman
| Young Jesus – The Fool

Saddle Creek

Young Jesus himself, John Rossiter sings like I’m the only one listening. His voice almost replaces the one that narrates my thoughts thanks to the intimate production on The Fool. With songwriting full of parables, I often feel like I’m sitting at the bar hearing an old-timer drop nuggets of wisdom that I have to parse through. All the while, though, I’m enraptured in their story. There is a yearning and mourning in Rossiter’s voice (e.g., “Rabbit,” “MOTY,” “Dancer”) that is hyper-specific in description, but universal in emotion. In addition to the impeccable arrangement, The Fool is sonically textured and layered. Despite an emphasis on naturalistic vocal deliveries, there are digital glitches, noise-gated distortions, and delays galore here. Somehow, it all fits together. Sure, you can name a few songs as singles with their hooks and accessibility, yet it’s the album as a whole that overwhelms me every time I hit play on “Brenda & Diane.” Thematically, The Fool offers a compelling, progressive look at masculinity in 2024. Rossiter laments love and family; you can hear his heart breaking and fighting to stay in one piece on every track. This is an album that is as fun as it is incisive and insightful. The Fool is ultimately just fascinating in its depth and rewards repeated listening.


Connor Fitzpatrick
| Christopher Owens – I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair

True Panther Records

I used to be neighbors with Christopher Owens when we both lived in San Francisco. After Girls disbanded and his solo career seemed to dissipate, I’d see him around from time to time. Sometimes he’d be playing his guitar, but more often than not, he was just another dude in the neighborhood. I wondered occasionally if he’d ever make more music, but eventually, it seemed as though things had moved on. But now he’s back after nine years with a new solo album, the breathtaking I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair. In many ways, this feels like a long-lost Girls album with its deep yearning, gorgeous melodies, and background gospel vocals. It’s a massive triumph from Owens as he sings about heartache, loss, and loneliness, but also about the beauty in life and that, through all of the hardships we face as humans, life moves on and is worth living. Owens is at the top of his game on the album, and his guitar solos have never been lovelier. The album ends with what might be the best song he’s ever written, “Do You Need A Friend,” a seven-minute colossus that climaxes with Owens lamenting how he’s “barely making it through the days” and “the loneliness is always the same.” It’s a harrowing listen, but his vulnerability is so powerful and defiant because, despite all of it, he’s still here with a song to sing.

Dishonorable Mentions:
- Fontaines D.C. - Romance
-
Rosali - Bite Down
-
Schoolboy Q - Blue Lips
-
Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Past Is Still The Same
-
Nap Eyes - The Neon Gate

Water Damage – In E | Album Review

12XU

Water Damage make music that feels like it was concocted in a tonal laboratory exclusively for me. Their core discography up to this point has spanned five songs between two albums, 2022’s self-descriptive Repeater and 2023’s quantifiably titled 2 Songs. Their mantra is simple: “Maximal repetition. Minimal deviation.” The ever-rotating collective creates murky, album-side-length tracks that zone in on a singular riff or groove and ride it until it mutates or decays. They employ tactics that draw me so heavily to bands like Seattle’s drone-country legends Earth or Japan’s “underground freak out” collective Acid Mothers Temple. I’m no geography expert, but somewhere between Seattle and Japan must lie Austin, Texas, the home base for the members of Water Damage. The band appears to be the next installment of an already-incestuous scene of musicians, some of whom are already spread across fellow 12XU artists like Spray Paint and USA/Mexico. Most notably, Water Damage features multi-instrumentalist Thor Harris, who has played with Shearwater, Swans, and Xiu Xiu, among many others. The band’s first two albums were made in a seven-piece permutation, but they’ve now grown to ten members strong for their latest release, the massive double album In E.

Other than the semi-eponymous track titles (“Reel E,” “Reel EE,” and “Reel EEE”), the album title is a nod to Terry Riley’s 1964 landmark composition In C, one of the most celebrated works in experimental music. Unreleased until 1968, the initial In C performance and recording is a hypnotic, minimalist piece of neo-classical layers and rhythms. In C's first cut was made up of eleven players, with Riley’s orchestra featuring such avant-garde pioneers as Pauline Oliveros and Steve Reich, though Riley is quoted as suggesting, “a group of about 35 musicians is desired if possible.” In C has been re-interpreted by many experimental artists, from the aforementioned Acid Mothers Temple to the Swiss industrial cult group The Young Gods. It’s precisely the type of root that a band like Water Damage is well suited to pull from, being a relatively large band obsessed with long-winded, single-key grooves.

The only composition named differently is the closer “Ladybird,” which has featured performance and writing credits by Water Damage-associated band Shit & Shine. It actually is a minor break from the rest of the album’s mold, with the grounding riff being an E to F bent repetition. It’s also Water Damage’s first song to feature vocals, as garbled and affected as they are, but it was refreshing to hear them throw some new sounds at the listener after listening to an hour’s worth of intentionally consistent music.

It’s amusing to think about there being a “single” from this album; I suppose a better term may be “teaser,” although if The Decemberists can kick off their album rollout with a 19-minute, Wilco-aping prog-folk number, then Water Damage certainly has the capability and freedom to let “Reel E” be the “hit” off of this record. There’s a rich history of opening tracks on leftfield albums becoming genre staples: “Hallogallo” from the self-titled NEU! debut comes to mind, or more recently, “John L” by black midi off Cavalcade. “Reel E” isn’t too far from standard Water Damage fare, and is exactly what I come to the band to get: a swirling lo-fi jam with subtle progressions until its finish. The main noticeable change from last year’s 2 Songs is that the violin is featured much more prominently, almost like a lead instrument, whereas their previous recordings seemed to use it as an accent. Additionally, the presence of three extra members is clearly identifiable. These tracks have just that extra ounce of big room collaboration to them that round out the band’s sound even more than the first two albums.

The second song, “Reel EE,” anchors itself to a steady bass riff before angry beehive-sounding guitars explode around the three-and-a-half-minute mark. Their thick tone allows for lots of screeching feedback to compliment the track. From that point on, it’s non-stop, head-bobbing, heavy psych. It’s almost like a slightly friendlier version of The Dead C, another pioneering noise rock outfit known for their elongated recordings.

Finally, there's “Reel EEE,” and at this point, I could see some listeners considering tapping out. Water Damage does not make conventional music for conventional people, it’s one of the things that makes them one of my favorite bands of the decade. But even I’ll admit that is a lot of the key of E to handle in one sitting. I remember the only time I saw Sleep in concert and thinking, “Man, I love drop C tuning, but these motherfuckers REALLY love drop C tuning.” Despite the common anti-melodic structure between each track on In E, Water Damage serves identifiable flavors per reel. “Reel EEE” lives in ¾ time and relies more on that entrancing rhythm than it does squealingly heavy guitars or tons of feedback.

In E is a welcome addition to the Water Damage catalog, as it retains the energy of their first two albums while still trying a new challenge, aiming for an over 80-minute runtime. It may not be particularly exciting to those with short attention spans, but if you’re willing to be roped into their singularly notated world, it’s a high-rewarding listening experience. Here’s to hoping their next record is three LPs worth of entirely noteless instruments.


Logan Archer Mounts once almost got kicked out of Warped Tour for doing the Disturbed scream during a band’s acoustic set. He currently lives in Rolling Meadows, IL, but tells everyone he lives in Palatine.

The Best of Q2 2023

Even though we’re halfway through, 2023 has been a hard year to define. As news cycles speed up, discourse spins out, and “content” mounts faster than anyone can realistically engage with it, staying up-to-date on new music can feel overwhelming. That’s where we come in. 

Our team of passionate freaks writers are the types of people to comb through new releases every Friday in search of their next obsession. We have playlists and last.fm charts and Topsters and rankings. We have albums we love that we want you to love too, and that’s what this article is for. Just as we did back in April, we will round up our favorite albums and EPs of the last few months so you can see what we’ve been obsessing over lately. Hope you find something new to obsess over.


billy woods, Kenny Segal - Maps

Backwoodz Studioz

To describe billy woods’s quasi-concept album as “all over the place” might initially come off as an insult, but I mean it in the most complimentary and, on some levels, literal way possible. Part-travel diary, part-anthropological exploration, Maps just might be woods’s most accessible yet ambitious work to date. “No Reservations, walked in like Bourdain,” he boasts on “The Layover,” shouting out the late celebrity chef and documentarian and nodding to how both Bourdain and woods himself view travel as an immersive practice. In the same track, woods’ trip to California isn’t a vacation– it’s a chance to convene with the past, complete with lyrical dues paid to both LL Cool J and the Black Panther Party. “Babylon By Bus” rolls out personal and world history on one long, non-linear timeline, deftly hopping from the 2011 NBA Championship to the Russian Revolution to 9/11 to the passing of woods’ grandmother. “Year Zero” pulls back the spatial and temporal lens even further, chronicling the dawn of man to the decay of the present in just a few bars (“Apes stood and walked into the future / March of progress end hunchbacked in front the computer / Sooner or later it’s gon’ be two unrelated active shooters / Same place, same time, great minds”). While the vastness of woods’ pen game on Maps is pretty sublime, some of his most striking moments are when he gets down to the small-scale specificities, particularly on the record’s back half– “NYC Tapwater” is the bittersweet comedown from life on tour, the comforts of his home city are inextricable from the past traumas it bears witness to and constantly under the threat of being paved over by the continuous march of gentrification; on “As The Crow Flies,” the homecoming narrative concludes with a scene of woods and his son, a reckoning with the responsibilities of fatherhood and the tandem joys and fears that come with it (“I’m at the park with the baby on the swings / When it hits me crazy, anything at all could happen to him”). billy woods can fit a whole world into a record, and it’s a blessing that we get to watch it spin.

– Grace Robins-Somerville


Bully – Lucky For You

Sub Pop Records

Based solely on 2020’s SUGAREGG, I already knew I’d love whatever Bully did next. What I didn’t expect was a raucous half-hour of pitch-perfect 2000s alt-rock featuring some of the most energetic hooks I’ve heard all year. First, she reeled me in with a Soccer Mommy-assisted lead single, then she hit us with the sunny “Days Move Slow” and followed that with the fuckup anthem “Hard to Love.” One by one, each single surpassed the previous, all culminating in Lucky For You, an album that captures the boundless exuberance of the last day of school. Much like Momma, PONY, or Charly Bliss, Bully’s Alicia Bognanno doesn’t shy away from a realistic portrayal of herself. She’s kind of a loser, she has fucked up, and she owns all that. Turns out putting that kind of honesty to fuzzy power chords and raspy choruses makes them feel all the more triumphant. 

– Taylor Grimes


Clearbody – Bend Into a Blur

Self-Released

If you were to distill my love for shoegaze into just a handful of styles, you’d likely wind up with the collection of five songs that make up Bend Into a Blur. You’ve got clear love for giants of the genre like Hum and Nothing alongside screamy doom shit and high-energy bops, all of which work into the genre from different angles for a release that’s succinct and singular. Tracks like “This Can’t Leave Us” sink their hooks into you by building up to their title in the most anguishing but beautiful ways; meanwhile, “Cordelia” feels tailor-made for windows-down summer drives and late-nite smoke sessions alike. For a genre that can so easily feel stale and repetitious, Clearbody manage to make the “gaze” suffix feel exciting, diverse, and exploratory. 

– Taylor Grimes

Read our review of “Cordelia” here.


Cory Hanson – Western Cum

Drag City Inc.

Let’s get it out of the way up top: Western Cum is a very funny name. The title for Cory Hanson’s third album is a signal flare that he doesn’t take this too seriously, but the music tells a different story. Hanson’s latest record follows a similar format to 2021’s Pale Horse Rider (one of our favorites of that year), featuring a batch of a half-dozen barn burners and one 10-minute psychedelic expedition placed at the penultimate spot on the tracklist. Western Cum also sees Hanson cranking up the Zeppelin worship tenfold for classic rock songs that range in scale from that of a housefly to a haunted ghost ship. As these desert mirages materialize and pass by the listener, it’s hard not to get swept up in the majesty of it all.

– Taylor Grimes


Easy Beach – Easy Beach

We’re Trying Records & Sleepy Clown Records

To some degree, people are right to groan about emo music. You’re right to roll your eyes at silly song titles, formulaic tapping, and uninspired singing, but at the same time, you gotta hand it to ‘em when people in this genre do something right, and Easy Beach’s self-titled record is emo done right. For an album that dropped on 4/20 and has song titles like “Elliott Spliff” and “Everbong,” it might seem easy to assume Easy Beach is “weedmo,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Easy Beach may be an emo band, and they may even smoke weed, but their music is actually closer to groups like Ovlov, LVL UP, or Truth Club than Mom Jeans and Prince Daddy. In just 23 minutes, this band constructs a thrashy style of punk rock that pummels you like a brick to the face… if being pummelled by a brick to the face was somehow catchy. There’s still a little bit of emo guitar tapping, but overall, this band seems much more concerned with making shreddy punk music fit for diving headfirst into the pit. Easy Beach is jam-packed with rambunctious energy and shout-along bangers with a well-placed interlude or two to help you catch your breath. If sweat isn’t dripping from your pores by the time the rapturous horns of “Sleep” roll around, then you’re listening wrong. 

– Taylor Grimes


EXIT ELECTRONICS – BELIEVE ANYTHING, BELIEVE EVERYTHING

Avalanche

Okay, so teeeeechnically, this album was released about a week before our Q1 list went up. But I didn’t hear it until the beginning of June, so I’m including it here. I wanted to give a full-length review on the new Godflesh album PURGE (which rips), but the time didn’t work in my favor. Instead, I’m here to shout out the new EXIT ELECTRONICS album, one of the many monikers and side projects of Godflesh mastermind Justin K. Broadrick. BELIEVE ANYTHING is 45 minutes of obnoxious, distorted, bass-heavy music that is so in my lane, it’s surprising I didn’t hear it until after I recorded my last album of similar material. Broadrick has been an electronic and industrial maestro since the late ‘80s between Godflesh, Techno Animal, and Jesu, just to name a few. This is easily some of the most advanced and intense music he’s ever done; it’s like a burned CD of 128kbps Limewire MP3s skipping in the player of a 2003 Pontiac Sunfire. I assure you that’s a compliment.

— Logan Archer Mounts


Feeble Little Horse – Girl with Fish

Saddle Creek

The first time I listened to Girl with Fish was idyllic… not necessarily befitting to the music, but memorable nonetheless. It had been a bright summer day here in Portland, but by the evening, a batch of clouds had rolled in, making for a broody, overcast mood that marked the end to a weeks-long period of perfectly sunny weather. It was about 8:30 and still bright out despite the grey clouds now populating the sky. I decided to go for a walk to expend the rest of my energy and enjoy the last little bit of light we had left. By the time I had reached a nearby park, the clouds had started to spit ever so lightly, raining just enough to feel a cooling droplet every few seconds but not enough to need a jacket or an umbrella. I looked at my phone and realized it was just past 9 pm, meaning all the Friday new releases were now available to listen to here on the west coast. I navigated straight to Feeble Little Horse’s artist page and pressed play on their sophomore LP, which I had been anticipating for the better part of the year. As I walked around this park and nearby neighborhoods soundtracked by the off-kilter rock tunes, I inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of rain on hot pavement, a sense I hadn’t experienced much in my previous home of Denver. As the freaky, horny, warbly songs played out, I found myself firmly in the present. I didn’t know what was coming next in this album or my life, and for 26 minutes and 6 seconds, I found that incredibly freeing.

– Taylor Grimes


Frog Legs – It’s Been a Hard Year

Rabbit Snail Records

I’ve been listening to punk rock for a really, really, really long time. So long, in fact, that I have kind of a complex relationship to it– although punk is great, I often can’t find myself reaching for my Misfits records when it comes time to kick back with a beer and decompress. It’s just too… one-note these days. The novelty of sonic rebellion has long worn off, and only the truly time-tested punk music can make it through to my daily rotation of knotty emo-core, crusty d-beat and hardcore, stripped-back folk music, densely arranged power pop, and soaring jam-band indebted indie rock. All that changed two years ago when I was introduced to Frog Legs, a band of folk-punk rookies with bright eyes and big attitudes led by singer/bassist/songwriter Nano Siegert-Wilkinson. 

Their first EP was straight-up folk punk in the best way– sugary sweet punk rippers played with acoustic instruments at blistering tempos. On It’s Been a Hard Year, though, her ambitions spread beyond the realm of traditional folk-punk and bloom into enormous Springsteen singalong C-sections (“Motorcycle!”), lackadaisical power pop jams (“The Worst McDonalds Ever (Pts. 1 & 2)”), propulsive and neurotic rock (“Fear and Loathing in South Oakland”), and even tender bluegrass ballads (“Livestock” and “Moth Song”). Despite these musical departures from the raspy acoustic punk we’ve all come to know and meme, it’s impossible to forget that this is a Folk Punk Album. Every song oozes directionless rage and exhaustion via grisly and misanthropic metaphor (“It will bleed me til I'm dry / make a leather coach bag out of my hide”) or an unflinching, almost impolite directness (“Sometimes bad things happen just because”). It’s an emotionally arresting piece of art that will define the genre for years and might even succeed at Siegert-Wilkinson’s oft-stated goal of “bringing folk punk back to Pittsburgh, baby.” 

– Mikey Montoni


Frozen Soul – Glacial Domination

Century Media

Remember that one time Texas got too cold? Fort Worth’s iciest band, Frozen Soul, makes sure you’ll never forget. Glacial Domination is an avalanche-caliber crushing death metal LP that stays frozen on repeat. With features from Dying Fetus’ John Gallagher, Trivium’s Matt Heafy, and electro-metal duo GosT, the band delivers one anthemic, bicep-flexing, frost-biting track after another. This group may as well have called themselves something like Cold Thrower or Snowbituary.

— Logan Archer Mounts


Greg Mendez – Greg Mendez

For about a month, I listened to Greg Mendez’s self-titled record and couldn’t shake the phrase “Diet Alex G.” That’s a misnomer for a couple of reasons, sure Mendez’s voice sounds shockingly similar at times, but “diet” implies that it’s somehow lesser. In reality, Greg Mendez is a precious and careful folk album that weaves together nine deeply intricate tales into a compact 23-minute package. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the new albums from Ther and Infinity Crush, Mendez has created an honest and truly beautiful album that has rightfully placed him at the forefront of an already bustling Philadelphia music scene. With songs as brilliant as “Maria” in his holster, it’s only a matter of time before he ascends the rungs of the indie rock world into a strata all his own.

– Taylor Grimes


HMLTD – The Worm

Lucky Number

England hits another post-punk home run with the latest album from HMLTD (fka Happy Meal Ltd., ceased and desisted for obvious reasons). The Worm is an experimental, imperialistic, sci-fi concept record that begs one question: “Would you still love me if I was a worm?” At least, in this case, the worm is taking over an apocalyptic London like the plague, and the album tells the story of the townspeople’s experiences. It’s a danceable, oddball record that showcases the band at their strongest. Fans of Black Country New Road, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, or Squid should be sure to take note of this one. And not just because lizards and squids are in the worm family (follow-up: I do not know this to be true).

— Logan Archer Mounts


Home Is Where – the whaler

There are a ton of dumb, memey ways one could talk about the whaler. From the 9/11 song to the Neutral Milk Hotel worship and possible Weezer homage, this record sometimes feels tailor-made to set up RYM weirdos to craft their most pithy one-liners, and yet… the whaler persists. The sophomore album from fifth-wave emo’s resident folk punk freaks is wildly inventive, sprawling, and probing in a way that makes it impossible to summarize in a single paragraph. Essentially a loose concept album about “getting used to things getting worse,” each song flows into the next while still retaining a circular life of its own. Each song is staggeringly diverse in instrumentation and inspiration, seamlessly incorporating sounds from midwest emo and folk to alt-country and post-hardcore. The lyrics are both urgent and poetic, begging the listener not just to scream along, but to really listen and understand. Even as things get worse, we can thank Home Is Where for being here and creating art that makes things just a little better. 

– Taylor Grimes


Hot Mulligan – Why Would I Watch

Wax Bodega

Yes, Hot Mulligan are yelpy, yes, they’re emo as fuck, and yes, they have songs with names like “Cock Party 2 (Better Than The First).” It’s almost like they’re challenging you not to take them seriously. Despite the seemingly infinite number of marks against them, the Michigan-based Post-Emo band makes music that exceeds any surface-level turn-offs. Following an excellent 2020 release that deflated like so many of the albums from that year, they kept the momentum (and spirits) up with a series of acoustic releases, EPs, covers, and one-off singles, but Why Would I Watch is the first proper full-length from the band in three years, and it’s a front-to-back ripper. I’ll save you any more song titles, but the band’s fourth LP is song after song of frantic outpourings, complete with intricate guitar work, group singalongs, and relatable lamentations. 

– Taylor Grimes


Indigo De Souza – All of This Will End

Saddle Creek

Indigo De Souza is a force of nature. The Asheville-based singer-songwriter is a confluence of immensely relatable sentiments, catchy choruses, and feelings that sweep through each song like a hurricane. Whether she’s reinforcing the importance of nature, venting about a shitty partner, or reflecting on the knowledge that comes with age, Indigo De Souza manages to make it all fit seamlessly within her vibrant, technicolor umbrella. There are crunchy shoegaze riffs, boppy dance numbers, and touches of twang that make each song feel distinct from the others surrounding it. One of those albums where any track feels like it could have served as a single, and I’m left to marvel at how many great ideas can be packed into one LP. 

– Taylor Grimes

Read our review of All of This Will End here


Innerlove. – Roscoe

Refresh Records

While everyone else was listening to, thinking about, commentating on, and participating in the “Pinegrove Shuffle,” I was listening to Roscoe. Much like Quinn Cicala and Ground Swell, Innerlove is a band directly descended from the Emo Kid to Alt-Country Pipeline. Underneath the twang and scent of alcohol, There’s an apparent reverence for the lineage of country music built atop a sturdy understanding of indie rock fundamentals. Every once in a while, a little bit of emo sensibility peeks through, and in that way, it’s a beautiful intersection of where I find my tastes midway through 2023.  

– Taylor Grimes


Jess Williamson – Time Ain’t Accidental

Mexican Summer

If you’ve ever been to Far West Texas, you’ll get why Time Ain’t Accidental is Marfa-coded: steel guitar and highway motifs scream “Wild West,” while Williamson’s coy voice and eclectic percussion choices keep these songs distinctly artsy. However, unlike many Angelenos who descend upon the quintessential artsy Wild West town, Williamson is originally from Texas, and she successfully cashes in on that authenticity in her most country-tinged offering to date. In Time Ain’t Accidental, she documents her extensive time living and loving in Marfa, telling the concurrent stories of an old love (like in “Stampede”) and a new one (like in the title track). Alongside thrilling tales of a poolside rendezvous and driving through a desert storm, she lays lyrical flowers on the grave of a former longtime love. It’s quite the feat, paying tribute to both relationships without one discrediting the other, but Williamson accomplishes it with grace. She reckons with the ruthless fallout of modern dating without ever losing her grip on love’s timeless potential, wide as the Texas sky. Out in Marfa, everything—the brutal and the beautiful—comes to light if you linger long enough.

– Katie Wojciechowski


Kara Jackson – Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?

September

Kara Jackson may or may not be the singer-songwriter that the world asked for in the year of our Lord 2023, but there’s no doubt she’s the one we need. Her earthy contralto voice weaves a spell over meandering chords until all of a sudden, the whole thing is basically jazz, and you’d hardly noticed—like the album’s second track, “no fun/party.” While I’d never say her music “sounds like” Joni Mitchell, Mitchell is the only fair, clear comparison I can think to make in terms of a jazz influence on what are essentially folk songs. Why Does The Earth… doesn’t waste a note, from the spare, unnerving “curtains” to the orchestral, heartbreaking title track that wrestles with the impossible question of loss. Some of Jackson’s songs, like “dickhead blues,” move a little slow, but stay with them; every track on this album offers unexpected gems in the form of vocal feats, twisting melodies, and razor-sharp wit. I honestly cannot believe this is her debut album!

– Katie Wojciechowski


Kerosene Heights – ​​Southeast of Somewhere

No Sleep Records

On paper, there’s nothing extravagant about the debut album from Kerosene Heights; there’s no deep theme, intricate concept, or overarching message. Instead, what you get is a collection of 11 rippers that gnash, gnarl, and shred through waves of emo insecurities with a propulsive pop-punk energy. The record starts off with a half-speed crabcore bob, but ignites when lead singer Chance Smith barks, “1, 2, 3, GO!” in a moment that’s sure to summon a pit at every Kerosene Heights show until the end of time. Over the course of the record’s 35-minute runtime, we come to learn that Smith is their own worst enemy as they recount previous instances where they jumped too fast into romance, ruined someone’s birthday, or generally acted like a selfish dick. As the lyrics so eloquently put it on the second song, “I am the worst thing to happen to me.” While that all might sound like a bummer, what’s remarkable is how catchy Kerosene Heights manages to make these confessionals sound. The band’s peppy instrumentals keep the energy level from ever dipping below that of a sugar-free Red Bull. A fast, fun, and boisterous release that I keep coming back to like a bowl of candy.

– Taylor Grimes


Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd?

Interscope

Lana Del Rey seemingly has no interest in normalcy, subtlety, or doing anything in a way that isn’t larger-than-life. Because of that, artists like her are a dying breed (as she puts it herself on “Sweet”: “I’m a different kind of woman / if you want some basic bitch, go to the Beverly Center and find her”). The sprawl, the filler tracks, the seemingly out-of-place lyrics that already feel dated by the time the record comes out– these are all things that you come to expect with each Lana album release cycle (and that’s not even mentioning the decade-plus fixation on her controversial career arc that has a nasty habit of overshadowing coverage of her actual music). Sometimes she’ll swing and miss, but the swings are always big. On Ocean Blvd., she’s knocked it out of the park. It’s her best work since 2019’s Normal Fucking Rockwell!, perhaps her best work, period. “A&W” alone feels like a monumental feat, an artist staring herself down and confronting her persona and the woman behind it– Where do tragic rock stars go when (thankfully) the 27 Club won’t have them? What happens to the Lolitas who get to live past thirty? Musically, “A&W” feels like the lovechild of “Hard Feelings/Loveless” by Lorde, “Nights” by Frank Ocean, and “Poor Places” by Wilco. Over its six-minute runtime, the slow-building piano ballad that time-lapses through the Three Faces of Eve culminates in a beat switch that transforms the track into a trap banger with a bratty, double-dutch hook and a mic drop-worthy kiss-off: “Your mom called, I told her you’re fucking up big time.” Grand, communal singalongs like “The Grants,” “Let The Light In,” and “Margaret” invite those nearest and dearest to Lana to sing about love in all its forms– romantic, platonic, familial –while whispery, introspective cuts like “Candy Necklace,” “Kintsugi,” and “Fishtail” show her at her most vulnerable and intimate. My personal pick for song of the summer, “Peppers,” is a stock “the sun is out, my man and I are hot as fuck, and we can’t keep our hands off each other” Lana song, and the way it seamlessly merges a trip-hoppy Tommy Genesis hook into a sample from “Wipeout” (over fourth-wall-breaking studio chatter that introduces said sample) is a stroke of genius. In short: the bitch is back and better than ever. 

– Grace Robins-Somerville


Militarie Gun – Life Under the Gun

Loma Vista Recordings

Ooh ooh! (There’s no other way I could have started this write-up.) I am so happy Life Under the Gun clocks in at just over 27 minutes; I was able to listen to the album on repeat enough times to identify it as one of my favorite releases of 2023 so far. Ian Shelton (of Regional Justice Center and the podcast I Don’t Care If This Ruins My Life with Drug Church’s/Self-Defense Family’s Patrick Kindlon) grazes hardcore like a poorly aimed bullet knicks the skin. Despite Life Under the Gun’s sonic lightness, its heavy themes of honesty, lethargy, and pressure are explored through the lens of hook-ridden guitar pop. After a few mix EPs (and the perennial banger “Pressure Cooker” with co-conspirator DAZY) under the Militarie Gun moniker, Shelton reveals his knack for songwriting extends to crafting a tight album that contains depth beyond catchy songs.

– Joe Wasserman


Miya Folick – ROACH

Nettwerk Records

I fell in love with Folick’s songwriting a couple of years ago when I first paid close attention to her lyrics on the 2015 track “Talking With Strangers” in reference to a potential friendship:

And half of my brain was totally afraid
That she’d hate me, never want to see me again
And half of my brain was equally afraid
That she’d like me, wanna be my friend

It felt, and still feels, so resonant with my own experience of trying to figure out myself and other people. Her introspections on ROACH pull at the same old threads of identity, meaning, and love, but now we find her an even more whole, interesting human with almost a decade more life experience backing her musings. On most of the album’s songs, Folick’s delicate, yearning voice takes center stage in layered harmonies over feather-light beats and eclectic synths. On “Get Out of My House” and “Shortstop,” she explores the optimistic side of leaving love that no longer serves her, while “Nothing To See” and “Cockroach” alchemize angst into catharsis. My favorite moments, though, are still the ones where she tackles something big. My two favorite tracks, “Oh God” and “Cartoon Clouds,” seem diametrically opposed, but I see them as a bit of a call-and-response—the former asking, only semi-ironically, if perhaps God could provide the meaning her chaotic life needs. The latter answers that same inner void with the simple, grounded conclusion, “Doesn’t it feel good to feel good?”

– Katie Wojciechowski


Nourished by Time – Erotic Probiotic 2

Scenic Route Records

Did you hear? Disco is back, regarded more highly than ever. Unfortunately, it’s also been sanded down at the edges, a mere shell of its former bombast. Elsewhere, shards of the most recalcitrant strands of tasteless late-aughts radio rock are being fashioned into a Frankenstein’s monster of futuristic pop (your mileage may vary). The re-evaluation will not be televised; it will be served up on your Discover Weekly or your For You page. For those seeking a third way, a retro-futurist middle ground between the mawkishly tasteful and pure abrasion, look no further than Erotic Probiotic 2, a sleek dance-pop album with the melodic sensibility of Houston rap’s warbling hooks at the turn of the century. “Daddy” is a winking inversion of heartbreak and “grindset” mentality, while “Rain Water Promise” marries vaporous synths and skittering 80s drums. This is club music for the introverts, emo for the club kids. It’s vulnerable, funky, lush, and, above all, too weird to fade entirely into the background.

– Jason Sloan


Superviolet – Infinite Spring

Lame-O Records

Confession time: I was never a Sidekicks Guy. Maybe I was just a few years too young, maybe if I’d listened to more Iron Chic in high school I would have gotten there, but regardless, I showed up late to the party. Luckily through a string of excellent singles, Lame-O co-sign, and persistent Orgcore gf, I found myself eagerly anticipating Steve Ciolek’s new project Superviolet. Slightly folksier, a little prettier, and much more mature, Infinite Spring feels like a best-case scenario for what happens when you age out of a certain music scene. These songs are loving and naturalistic, concerned with memories, feelings, and human connection above all else. Songs like “Overrater” and “Blue Bower” bring the power pop energy, while tracks like “Good Ghost” and “Wave Back” manage to be some of the most touching and life-affirming pieces of music I’ve heard all year. A beautiful album that showcases an effortless artistic evolution into something entirely its own.

— Taylor Grimes


ther – a horrid whisper echoes in a palace of endless joy

Self-Released

A quietly familiar feeling bubbles up after spending just under 30 minutes listening to a horrid whisper echoes in a palace of endless joy, the second album from Philadelphia’s Heather Jones, a.k.a. ther. Perhaps an emboldened hope, a bit of dread, mixed in with the terrifying wonder of each passing day. Jones writes elegantly and broadly about the mundane, the personal, and the ethereal, shaping into an approximation of life itself. Album opener “1 kid” sets the stage for the diorama of memories and music that ensues. A lyric like “How strange to be born in a time like now / When everybody’s freaking out” grasps at a perpetual absurdity, stretched over every decade and sinking in whenever you find yourself listening. Jones’ questioning lies unanswered; silence is left to speak. There’s no way to wrap your head around the strangeness — it simply always is. a horrid whisper is reminiscent of the various works of Phil Elverum while approaching similar themes in wholly distinct ways. “big papi lassos the moon” sifts through the uncertainty of passing days and the relentless forward motion of time. It starts with David Ortiz and lands on the ambient hope of finding peace within the cosmic complications of life. Pedal steel, cello, and baritone saxophone swirl around pensive guitar melodies yet never swallow the central focus on Jones’ vocals and lyrics. ther has found a place of spectral, overwhelming beauty on a horrid whisper; a place that can’t be understood but still feels like home.

– Wes Muilenburg


Water Damage - 2 Songs 

12XU

Water Damage kind of feels like the perfect name for a band that employs a lot of warped and warbly sounds in their recordings. Austin’s self-proclaimed “drone supergroup” returns for their second album, 2 Songs, and it’s not just a clever name. We’re given two album-side-length bangers that sit between kraut-, noise-, and psych-rock in their near-20-minute runtimes. Comprised of members from Black Eyes, Shit And Shine, and Swans, the band’s lo-fi journeys are as hypnotic as they are haunting, immersive as they are antagonistic, with the two “reels” being titled ‘Fuck This’ and ‘Fuck That.’ Easily one of the most exciting newer bands I’ve discovered this year.

— Logan Archer Mounts


Wednesday – Rat Saw God

Part of me feels like I barely need to sing the praises of Wednesday. The North Carolina band has spent the past few years rapidly climbing the ranks of indie rock with increasingly prolific interviews, reviews, and sold-out shows, gaining an army of fans along the way. Part of me also feels like I already said my piece on this band’s body of work with my massive Countrygaze essay from last November. Despite how much has been written about this band and their latest album, Rat Saw God is a five-star knockout of shoegaze epics, dirtbag love songs, and deep south morality tales that all coalesce into a hot and hazy collection of songs that sound unlike any other band. 

– Taylor Grimes


Worry Club – All Frogs Go To Heaven

Self-released

For the longest time, I kept spinning All Frogs Go To Heaven just trying to figure out how I would even define this music. Emo? Dance? Surf? There’s a little bit of screaming on some songs, while others lean into a boppy HUNNY style of music that would have popped off on Tumblr in 2017. No matter the case, this release grabs you right out of the gate with a two-note riff that gets you in the groove and keeps you (willingly) suspended there for the remaining five tracks. Eventually, I realized the closest thing I could compare Worry Club to is Oso Oso: sunny and lightweight indie rock songs with the occasional drop of emo. Where Worry Club differs is how quickly they rev up to a full-speed throttle and how well they pair a melody with the rapid, robotic guitarwork. Ultimately, Worry Club are in a lane all their own where allowing yourself to be emotional is just as important as dancing through the pain.

– Taylor Grimes