The Year In Music: 2021 Month By Month

/

Back in 2018, I fell ass-backward into monthly new release roundups. This was spurred by a better-than-normal crop of January albums and soon evolved into a self-issued challenge. Could I write interesting and insightful descriptions about eight albums each month? It turns out the answer was yes, I could! It proved to be a fruitful experiment that allowed me to write candidly in short-form about everything I loved as I was enjoying it. From brand-new discoveries to the latest records from bands I was already following, I loved being “up” on new music throughout 2018 and documenting my excitement somewhere concrete. Those posts now read like a time capsule for where I was and who I was each of those months. While it was freeing to break the bounds of this site’s typical review format, it was also tiring, and I had no desire to do it again… until this year.

In January of 2021, we received a great crop of releases, including but not limited to Beach Bunny, Shame, and Cheekface. January is also a time where the music industry is in a (relative) lull as musicians and journalists alike are recuperating from the holidays and getting back into the swing of things. It felt like nobody was really talking about or celebrating these records, so I went ahead and filled the gap. Thus, another monthly tradition was born. 

After two years off from these types of single-paragraph reviews, it was refreshing to jump back into this monthly tradition. I don’t think I’ll do it again next year, but it was fun (and often challenging) to try to get these roundups out in a timely and relevant manner each month. This post is simply a compendium of every monthly review roundup from 2021 so you can look back and see what I was excited about each month. Here’s hoping there’s something new here that you haven’t heard of or seen a million times on every publication’s album of the year list. Cheers and thanks for reading along this year.

January Roundup

Featuring Camp Trash, Beach Bunny, Abe Anderson, Cicala, Cheekface, Cathedral Bells, Mikau, Ps.You’redead, and Shame.

February Roundup

Featuring Foo Fighters, Vampire Weekend, Black Country New Road, Wild Pink, Katy Kirby, Mister Goblin, Miss Grit, and Mogwai.

March Roundup

Featuring Tigers Jaw, Biitchseat, Home Is Where, Glass Beach, Riley!, Harmony Woods, Future Teens, Bicycle Inn, and Brown Maple.

April Roundup

Featuring Ratboys, Wild Pink, Jeff Rosenstock, Remember Sports, Spirit Of The Beehive, PONY, BROCKHAMPTON, Hey Ily, and Godspeed You Black Emperor!

May Roundup

Featuring Stars Hollow, NATL PARK SRVC, The Black Keys, Smol Data, Just Friends, The Devil Wears Prada, Mannequin Pussy, Fiddlehead, Bachelor, Downhaul, The Give & Take, Gulfer, Charmer, Jimmy Montague, Palette Knife, and Superbloom.

June Roundup

Featuring Japanese Breakfast, We Are The Union, ME REX, Parting, Lucy Dacus, Newgrounds Death Rugby, Iceburn, and Pom Pom Squad.

July Roundup

Featuring Jodi, Runner, Gang Of Youths, Gnawing, Skirts, Lakes, Bad Luck, and Midwife.

August Roundup

Featuring Mud Whale, Kississippi, Ty Segall, Snow Ellet, Indigo De Souza, Farseek, Wednesday, A Great Big Pile Of Leaves, Big Red Machine, Bon Iver, The National, See Through Person, Telethon, and Pink Navel.

September Roundup

Featuring Injury Reserve, Eichlers, Dormer, Sincere Engineer, 5ever, Common Sage, Sufjan Stevens, Angelo De Augustine, and Shortly.

October Roundup Part 1

Featuring Hovvdy, Roseville, The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, Gollylagging, Knocked Loose, Ship & Sail, Mo Troper, and Superdestroyer.

October Roundup Part 2

Featuring Trace Mountains, Virginity, Angel Du$T, Spirit Was, Boyfrienders, The War On Drugs, Swim Camp, Every Time I Die, Super American, Save Face, and Minus The Bear. 

November Roundup

Featuring Greet Death, Glass Beach, Caracara, The Wonder Years, Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly, Floating Room, Carly Cosgrove, and Wild Pink.

Swim Into The Sound's 15 Favorite Albums of 2021

/

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

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

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

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

15 | Wild Pink - A Billion Little Lights

Royal Mountain Records

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


14 | The Antlers - Green To Gold

Anti-

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

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


13 | Good Sleepy - everysinglelittlebit

No Sleep Records

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


12 | Alien Boy - Don’t Know What I Am

Get Better Records

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


11 | Lucy Dacus - Home Video

Matador Records

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


10 | Stars Hollow - I Want to Live My Life

Acrobat Unstable Records

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

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


9 | Fiddlehead - Between the Richness

Run For Cover Records

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

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


8 | Mannequin Pussy - Perfect

Epitaph

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


7 | Cory Hanson - Pale Horse Rider

Drag City Inc

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

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

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


6 | Jail Socks - Coming Down

Counter Intuitive Records

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

Read our full review of Coming Down here.


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

Epitaph

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

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

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

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

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


4 | Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee

Dead Oceans

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

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


3 | Turnstile - Glow On

Roadrunner Records Inc.

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

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


2 | Wednesday - Twin Plagues

Ordinal Records

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

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

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

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


1 | Home is Where - I Became Birds

Knifepunch Records

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

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

Swim Into The Sound's Staff Favorites of 2021

/

Back in the early days of this site, I would feel a strange sense of accomplishment whenever someone would talk about Swim Into The Sound as if it were run by multiple people. I suppose sometimes it’s just common practice to refer to a website with plural terms like “you guys” or “the team,” but it always made me proud that I alone was making something that could possibly be mistaken for the work of multiple people. 

And sure, we’ve had guest writers before 2021, but they were usually few and far between. Previously, guest posts were typically just one-off articles, published once or twice per year. All of that changed in 2021 as a lineup of a half-dozen or so writers solidified into regular contributors over the course of the year.

At the beginning of 2021, I made a resolution to myself to post one article here every week. I’m proud to say that we surpassed that goal and then some, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the help of these talented writers. In total, we had 22 guest posts throughout the year (23, if you count this one), and I could not be more appreciative of that fact. Without these writer’s talent and hard work, this site would have had long gaps between posts at multiple points throughout the year. Simply put, they helped this site immensely throughout 2021 and really helped Swim Into The Sound feel like a legitimate music blog. 

Another cool thing about bringing in this wealth of outside talent and perspectives is that I can connect the dots a little bit more. On any given week, I receive a number of emails and DMs that I consider “suffocating.” Whether they’re for an upcoming song, music video, or album, these things pile up in my inboxes and bury me alive. Even if these solicitations come from bands or labels that I love, I don’t have the time to personally write about every release that I want to. Now that I have something resembling a staff, I can send these upcoming releases to a group chat and quickly find someone who’s eager to write about this music with the love and care that it deserves. 

Connecting those dots has led to some cool opportunities and extraordinary pieces of writing this year. Amongst other things, our staff wrote awesome album reviews, single write-ups, multiple incredible interviews, premieres, concert reviews, and more. I’m immensely proud of everything that’s been published on the site this year, and I’m excited to see what 2022 has in store for us. For now though, let’s take one last look through 2021 as I turn the site over to our staff to hear about their favorite records of the year.

Cailen Pygott | Weakened Friends - Quitter

It was October 28th when Taylor initially proposed this collection of album of the year reviews. At the time, two albums were neck and neck for my personal first place. As I was busy prepping for multiple re-listens, massive pro and con lists, and an east coast west coast style song bracket to determine who would reign supreme, a thought occurred to me: ‘I should probably wait for the three weeks until Weakened Friends release Quitter.’ This is an album I’ve been expecting to top my year-end list ever since the single “What You Like” came out (holy shit) two years ago. Sonia Sturino is one of a handful of songwriters whose lyrics feel could have been ripped straight from my daily journaling practice if I had kept at it for longer than two days. The way Sturino’s songs express feelings of isolation, heartbreak, and the fear that you, yes you specifically, are fucking everything up is a pure reflection of my inner monologue on my worst days. Am I just projecting? Survey says probably, but this album friggin’ rips all the same. I graduated from a two-year community college music program, and the technical term for these guitars is “frickin’ thick dude.” I’ve believed for years that we as a society don’t talk about Annie Hoffman the bass player enough, but Quitter is also a brilliant showcase of her work as a producer. There’s an ever-rising level of intensity throughout that hits its climax in “Haunted House” and carries through the final two tracks showing off a mastery of compositional arrangement. All of the songs on Quitter stand on their own, but it’s this care and attention paid to the album as a singular work of art that makes it my AOTY. 

Fun fact: My band No, It’s Fine. included a version of “Early” on our 2021 cover album (It’s Nice To Pretend) We Wrote These Songs. Now here are some made-up superlatives to highlight most of the music that shaped my year. Some of these are older, but they’re still important to me, dang it!

  • Best Guitar Solo - Cheekface “Next to Me”

  • Best New song by a Twitter mutual I’ve never met - Pictoria Vark “I Can’t Bike”

  • Band I’d most like to be friends with - Year Twins

  • Favourite band I discovered due to mutual barista rage - Puppy Angst

  • Favorite Rediscovery - The Drew Thomson Foundation - Self Titled

  • Song that made me cry the most times - Rosie Tucker “Ambrosia” and “Habanero”

  • Best podcast soundtrack - Planet Arcana

  • Best band I got into this year only to realize they already broke up - Lonely Parade

  • Album that got me through running 5ks when I still had the motivation to run 5ks - Gregory Pepper & His Problems - I Know Now Why You Cry

  • Song that made me feel better about my body for but one fleeting moment - Durry “Who’s Laughing Now”

Connor Fitzpatrick | Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime

Mdou Moctar is the most important guitarist in the game right now, and 2021 has been his year. I’ve been a fan of his for a few years now, so it’s been rewarding to see him and his band get their shine. Afrique Victime is Moctar’s best work yet. It’s not much of a departure from Ilana: The Creator, but a refinement of what makes their music so special. The album’s got loud shredding (“Chismiten”), hypnotic grooves (“Ya Habibiti”), and heartfelt balladry (“Tala Tannam”). What sets the virtuosic Tuareg guitar player apart from the pack is just how expressive and unpredictable his phrasing is. On the title track, the band spends four minutes developing an entrancing rhythm before Moctar’s guitar drops off only to come back, detached from the rest of the band, in a firestorm of noise and anger while the band continues to play faster and faster. It’s a breathtaking moment that mirrors Mdou’s lyrics of colonial destruction in Western Africa. One of the most frustrating things for me in the coverage of Mdou Moctar has been the knee-jerk reaction to compare him to guitar gods of the past. It’s an attempt to display his prowess as a musician, but ultimately it takes the spotlight away from how singular he is. There is only one Mdou Moctar, and Afrique Victime is his crowning achievement. 


My 10 favorite Bandcamp purchases of 2021:

Joe Wasserman | Mo Troper - Dilettante

I am a sucker for hearing the warm buzz of a tube amp. “My Parrot,” a song about an avian existential crisis, is what sold me on Dilettante despite my already being totally sold on Mo Troper. “Wet T-Shirt Contest” has a rumbling, buoyant bass line while the listener yearns to discern just why the speaker “never [wants] to see those nipples again.” These are just two tracks off Dilettante’s 28-song playlist-as-album/data dump. Troper is masterful in crafting infectious songs that can withstand the test of time, much like The Beatles.


Runner-up: Dazy - MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD: The First 24 Songs
To some, I might be cheating with this one. Only the first 16 songs are from 2021; the rest are off 2020 EPs. Regardless, Dazy’s MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD: The First 24 Songs is another masterclass in to-the-point, effective, worming power pop that is not too sugary. After discovering Dazy while reading an interview with David Anthony, I listened to the album while playing Call of Duty, exercising, doing the dishes, walking the dogs, and pretty much anything else in my life. MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD is upbeat, frenetic, and makes me feel happy, which speaks droves given how the last few years have gone on both the grand and granular levels.


Albums/EPs That Deserve More Attention (in no specific order):

Grace Robins-Somerville | black midi - Cavalcade

Likes: the abundance of exciting new bands coming out of the Windmill Brixton scene. Dislikes: nearly everything that’s been written about them. 

I’ll sit down to read almost any piece about a group like black midi, and here come the critic’s thoughts on Squid, Shame, Dry Cleaning, Black Country New Road, Goat Girl– as though they can’t help but lump all these groups together. Sure, there are some surface-level similarities between the heavy hitters– they’re British, they all make guitar-led post-rock adjacent music that often includes talk-singing, many have worked with producer Dan Carey, and 2021 was a big year for all of them. But in reality, these bands don’t have much else in common, and the tendency to hyperfocus on one band’s niche in a particular scene often overlooks what makes them unique. 

Anyway, now that I’ve hypocritically discussed black midi solely in the context of their contemporaries, let’s dive into my AOTY: the decadent kaleidoscope of controlled chaos that is their sophomore album Cavalcade. My love for black midi is well-documented. Their music often feels like the audio equivalent of this picture in the best possible way. They have a penchant for sequencing their albums in a way that shouldn’t work but somehow does: How better to follow up a satirical prog-rock cautionary tale about a cult leader who gets overthrown by his once-loyal followers (complete with a helicopter feature), than with a bossa nova ballad for German-American film-and-cabaret star Marlene Dietrich? An abrasive punk track about two runaway thieves (who may or may not be chickens?) somehow segues perfectly into a 10-minute pun-based Scott Walker-esque closer about a musician interrogating the integrity of his art. And yeah, the middle of an album is totally the best place for a delicately droning slow-burner inspired by an Isabel Waidner novel. This all might paint an unfairly pretentious picture of black midi, but the real magic of their music is that it never gets quite so esoteric or technical that it stops being fun. If I haven’t convinced you of that, perhaps this Britney Spears cover will.


Runners-Up: 

Jack Hansen-Reed | Home Is Where – I Became Birds

2021 was a great year, and this was shaping up to be a tough decision for me until I Became Birds blew me away. In only an 18 minute “album,” Home Is Where deliver a release that can only be described as an enigma. The record has been (frequently) likened to Neutral Milk Hotel due to its folk influence/instrumentation and unique vocal deliveries, but it would be an injustice to say that I Became Birds is truly following in anyone’s footsteps. This record weaves capriciously between genres, transporting you from insanely cathartic rushes of power and emotion to serene moments of haunting beauty. If you’re a first-time listener, get ready for some goosebumps, because they’re coming.

With a release like this that so boisterously defies singular categorization, you’re forced to describe it by no one else’s labels or descriptors, only through your own experience. First, I have to say that vocally this is a powerhouse performance that continues to impress me every time I go back to it. Somehow, vocalist Brandon MacDonald is able to match the furious range of the instrumentals showcased here and add endlessly to their intensity. More than anything else, to me, this release is a powerful and kinetic journey that would be impossible to achieve without its mix of jarring yet apt lyrics, incredibly expressive tone, and just in general great instrumental performances. I Became Birds stands above the rest as my release of 2021 because it excites me like nothing else this year. It sparks me to go wild at shows, plumb the darkest corners of my mind, and of course, to hear what incredible material Home Is Where is cooking up next.


Runners-up:

  • Like a Stone – Remember Sports

  • Future Suits – Pet Symmetry

  • Pono - A Great Big Pile of Leaves

Some Final Thoughts on 2020

/
comedy bang bang

I write this at the end of an indescribable year. In about a decade or so, I’ll probably have the perspective and the vocabulary to properly articulate the effects that this year had on me and our collective psyche, but for now, I can’t see the forest for the trees. Aside from that, I think those types of conclusions will take a long time to unravel, and the effects haven’t even been fully-experienced yet. 

I write this at the end of a year of panic, death, and worldwide misery. Things happened this year that were universal and affected us all. Things happened this year that touched all of our lives. Things happened this year that have changed the course of history. Whether you were rich or poor, you were impacted by 2020. Whether you lived down the hall from me or across the world, you were impacted by the events of this year. Whether you are adolescent or elderly, your life was touched by the events of the last 365 days. No matter who you were, where you live, or what you do, you will look back on this year and never. be able. to forget. 

If it weren’t for the love of my partner, the support of my family, or the help of my friends, I would not have made it through this year. A secondary yet even more consistent form of support throughout this year was music. After all, I run this blog on top of a seasonal Sufjan Christmas music blog. I have music playing from virtually the moment I wake up to the minute I fall asleep. I am insane. But my point is that music has helped me make it through the year. Music has helped me escape reality, amplify love, and affirm my existence. 

Aside from music, which is obviously a vastly important part of my day to day life, my other escape is podcasts. I’m not a big “podcast guy,” I used to be (back when I had the time in high school and college), but now I just listen to one podcast: Comedy Bang Bang. This show’s abject absurdity proves to be the farthest escape from reality I can possibly achieve through the medium, and that is what I go to podcasts for; to distract my mind entirely from the world around me. No podcast does that better than Comedy Bang Bang, where Scott Aukerman’s deadpan interviews and pop culture dad jokes bounce off characters like a cowboy poet Laureate, a put-upon carpet saleswoman, a perilously thin intern, and Santa Claus himself. It’s the furthest thing from reality, and that has never been more of a blessing than this year. 

As much as I love it, I was also a year or two behind on Comedy Bang Bang (as I said, I don’t have a ton of time). Despite how far behind I was, Comedy Bang Bang has proved to be a much-needed escape this year. As I listened nervously throughout 2020, I realized I was getting closer, week by week, to the outbreak of the Coronavirus. Being a year behind meant I had a few dozen hours of comforting pre-Corona comfort at my disposal. Yet the paradox was each time I ventured to this well of distraction, I was also using up a finite supply of entertainment before the sharp pain of reality injected itself into my sacred space.

Sure enough, I made it to an episode in March, and the reality of the podcast was broken. Even the shroud of improv couldn’t keep out the harsh, deadly reality of the world outside. The pandemic struck, and suddenly, without warning, my favorite podcast was in March of 2020, just like everyone else. Suddenly the members of my one artificial safe space were all trying their best to adapt to this new life of home recordings and deadly viruses. It felt, in a word, violating. Not necessarily the show’s fault, but it felt weird to see reality so wholly inflict itself upon my mental playspace. 

It became symbolic, a microcosm of the year that I got to re-experience months after the fact while catching up on the podcast this fall. I got to hear them joke about Tiger King for the first time. I got to listen to all sorts of (now trite) Zoom jokes. I got to experience both the host and guests struggle with the change a deadly pandemic brings in real-time. I got to hear insight from these people I’d been listening to for years as I watched them face their own mortality and possible death as we all did at some point in the early weeks of quarantine. Not only that, I got to see them struggle with all the same things we collectively did back in March and April. 

Some of those early episodes were… rough. There were technological issues galore, unfunny moments, and awkward interruptions of every size. It made me realize how much this year was unshakably universal.

Then the end of the year rolled around. The cold weather swept in, the snow started falling, and my Christmas spirit started to emerge. As my hectic year at work wrapped up, I decided to skip ahead in the CBB timeline to the annual Christmas episode. Listening to this episode and playing video games has become a time-honored tradition that I look forward to every holiday break. I fired my console up, threw the episode on, and, much to my surprise… it sounded like a classic episode of Comedy Bang Bang. The audio quality had gotten better, and the guests weren’t wrestling with Zoom anymore. It sounded like the episode could have been recorded in a studio last year. It sounded like good ol’ CBB.

To skip from these episodes in April that took me back to such a dark place in the quarantine timeline to the present day where they’ve ironed out nearly every conceivable aspect of remote recording was affirming. Aside from meaning I had good episodes to look forward to, it also meant that this podcast, like the rest of us, was able to adjust over time. It meant there was hope. I only had that perspective because I made such a drastic jump forward in the podcast’s timeline, but now looking back on my own year, I realize how much I’ve adapted to change as well. I look back at where I was back in March and where I am now. I’m a little bit heavier, but I also feel like I’ve adjusted to this frightening time quite nicely. I feel fulfilled at work, I feel fulfilled creatively, and I feel fulfilled in my relationships. I am making it work. And sometimes, just “making it work” is the best you can do.

I’m not going to pretend we are in a better spot right now. I’m not going to pretend Joe Biden’s win is a good thing… but it was at least the better thing. I’m not going to expect the COVID vaccine to solve every problem we’re currently facing… but that’s at least better than another nine months of this. I’m not going to pretend that all of our issues are solved because a few good things happened at the end of the year… but that’s better than how things have been going for a long time. 

The word is still deeply fucked, and we are still deeply fucked with it if we don’t do something. People need your help. Your friends, neighbors, brothers, and sisters need your help. If you have the ability, the time, and the resources, it’s time to do something. We need to use what little momentum we have to change things for the better. Our current path is unsustainable, and, if nothing else, 2020 has made that abundantly clear.

I’m not going to pretend that we’re in a better place than we were one year ago, but we have to imagine that ideal world and work towards it actively. Right now, it feels like things might be changing for the better, so let’s use our voices and make sure of it. 

Thanks for reading along this year. I’ll see you all in 2021.