July is upon us, and while it’s not awards season yet, there have been some great releases in the first half of 2014. The BRAG has narrowed them down to ten candidates – plus a few honourable mentions – for the best albums of 2014 so far.
Angel Olsen: Burn Your Fire For No Witness
With Burn Your Fire For No Witness, Angel Olsen explores through solitude and exposes the transience of contentment. Olsen draws from subjective highs and lows to depict feelings that affect us all. Her songs’ tactile emotional force effectively provides a comforting ally to one’s own thoughts and fears. This record – Olsen’s third – has its fair share of acoustically strummed sombre moments, but it also shows off the songwriter’s perky, electrified side.
Sun Kil Moon: Benji
Benji is unlikely to surprise folks already acquainted with the work of shadowy San Francisco songwriter, Mark Kozelek (AKA Sun Kil Moon). As is his custom, Kozelek offers a buffet of figurative storytelling, sung in an emotive vocal drone and accompanied by finger-picked classical guitar. Nonetheless, it makes for an altogether gripping record – distinguished by Kozelek’s tangible narrative voice and forlorn melodic shapes.
Davidge: Slo Light
The debut solo record from former Massive Attack member Neil Davidge comprises vividly sensual electronics and lives up to the standard of his earlier career achievements. Each track on Slo Light features a guest vocalist, ranging from up-and-comers Stephonik Youth (Living Days), EMI Green and Cate Le Bon to a surprising cameo from ’60s pop singer Sandie Shaw. Not only is there a journey from one track to the next, every track is an engrossing journey in itself.
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard: Oddments
Australia’s most prolific seven-piece garage rock band King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard return with another successful costume change – Oddments. Thesongcraft is more concise and subdued than the jammy hypnosis of last year’s Float Along – Fill Your Lungs, but it’s still centred in psychedelic territory. This time around the band dons an absurdist and erratic demeanour, calling to mind everyone from Unknown Mortal Orchestra and White Fence to The Kinks and Herman’s Hermits.
Perfect Pussy: Say Yes To Love
Throughout Say Yes To Love Perfect Pussy frontwoman Meredith Graves screams at rapid pace, giving a Kim Gordon-like impression of disaffection, but she’s sure-as-shit fighting for something. Graves’ intensity is matched by an unrelenting guitar/bass/drums section, while one deviant guitar devotes its attention to disquieting feedback noise. At Say Yes To Love’s 23-minute conclusion you’re left feeling both physically and mentally confused, which means it’s time for constructive action.
My Sad Captains:Best Of Times
There’s no soaring peak on Best Of Times, nor is there an overwhelming emotional swell. Therecord’s strength lies in its subtleties.My Sad Captains use hushed vocals and unhurried instrumentation to generate a pleasant, sometimes hazy, sometimes melancholic sensation. The warmly textured record also possesses plenty of rhythmic ebb and flow, thus ensuring a forward pulse and easily prompting repeated listens.
Liam Finn: The Nihilist
The Nihilist suggests a more imaginative standard for the ‘pop song’. Finn’s third solo LP is an accomplished journey through playful, baroque psychedelics. Finn’s keen ear for melody is used to emphasise Magical Mystery Tour-like eccentricity, rather than dish out a batch of sing-alongs. While melodic effortlessness reigns supreme, intricate textural detail (never-ending layers of guitar, group backing vocals, discordant electronics) provides plenty of surprises on return listens.
Damon Albarn: Everyday Robots
The Blur frontman’s first official solo album is his most cohesive work in over a decade. This in itself isn’t a meritable feat, but Everyday Robots is also a work of consistent quality. The record’s more modest scope than the explicitly ambitious Gorillaz allows lucid sentiment and relatable melancholy to spill forth. Albarn is known for being a humdrum character, but Everyday Robots isn’t loaded with downcast details. What’s more, the moments of uplift are refreshingly free from artifice.
Parquet Courts: Sunbathing Animal
The follow-up to 2013’s Light Up Gold is loaded with more of the minimal punk drive, lyrical irreverence and immersive instrumentals, which made that record one of last year’s standouts. Sunbathing Animal’s increased breathing space and intellect shows that more patience went into its construction. Even though the songwriting still prompts comparisons to the likes of The Modern Lovers and The Feelies, this record is evidence of the NY four-piece confidently carving out its own sound.
Total Control: Typical System
Total Control’s influences might be easy to pick (Wire, Devo, Joy Division) but a tribute act they ain’t. On Typical System the Melbourne collective utilises a familiar voice to document its own maligned experience. At times a pointillistic colouring of synths, drum programming and horns fills the landscape. Yet amid all of the disciplined decoration, frontman Daniel Stewart unfurls a grim picture of truncated autonomy. His curt baritone precludes any new wave mawkishness, but he’s not averse to melody.
Notable mentions:
The War On Drugs – Lost In The Dream
Beck – Morning Phase
The Men – Tomorrow’s Hits
ScHoolboy Q – Oxymoron
St Vincent – St Vincent
Lykke Li – I Never Learn
Lower Plenty – Life/Thrills
Sharon Van Etten – Are We There
Thunderegg – C’Mon Thunder
Mac DeMarco – Salad Days
Cloud Nothings – Here And Nowhere Else
What’s your pick for the best album of 2014 so far? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
