Nibbishment: Cymbals Eat Guitars

Friday, January 2, 2015

Oh, hai 2014 best albums list!

20. Todd Terje - It's Album Time - For a long time, I wasn't sure whether I even liked this album, much less whether its cheese was one of my favorites of the year. "Delorean Dynamite" kept bringing me back to it, and while there's nothing else quite that good on here, it's quirky and fun the whole way through.

19. Have a Nice Life - The Unnatural World - Pounding and unrelenting, as per usual from Have a Nice Life. "Defenestration Song" is my new favorite song of theirs.

18. St. Vincent - St. Vincent

17. Danger - July 2013 - Short little EP of something called "Synthwave". It's fun to play in the car, even if it gets me sideways glances from Linds.

16. Phantogram - Voices

15. Joyce Manor - Never Hungover Again - This reminded me of a version of stuff that I liked back in the early 2000's, without the constant dourness.

14. The Hold Steady - Teeth Dreams - It's definitely another step down from earlier stuff, but I would say that the highs ("Spinners", "The Only Thing", "Oaks") buoy the lagging middle ground.

13. Swans - To Be Kind - I didn't spend enough time with this one, I don't think. It's just so... MASSIVE. I'm sure that as I look back on this year, this one will gain ground.

12. Strand of Oaks - HEAL

11. Death From Above 1979 - The Physical World - Loud rock songs to play in the car.

10. Kairon; IRSE! - Ujubasajuba - From Finland. A sort of psych rock/dream pop/post-rock/spacey sort of hybrid. The band put the whole thing for a "pay what you want" on their Bandcamp page, so if that description interests you at all, you have no reason not to check them out.

9. Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2 - I don't actually like it quite as much as the first. I still like it a whole lot, but I still think their first is better.

8. Alcest - Shelter - The first album of 2014 that stuck with me, and one I kept coming back to throughout the year.

7. Sharon Van Etten - Are We There - She lays everything bare in this one. There are times where things get honestly uncomfortable to listen to, but things like that little descending melody in the chorus of "Tarifa" balance it out well. Rates right up there with Tramp, imo.

6. Kye Kye - Fantasize - I didn't listen to another album as much as this one this year. "Honest Affection" was one of my favorite pop-ish songs of the year, even if it didn't sound particularly like much on the rest of the album, which trends to the hazy and the moody, rather than a chipper-sounding CHVRCHES.

5. Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

4. Real Estate - Atlas - I love the guitar tones on this album. This should sound like every other blah indie pop act offering, but it doesn't.

3. Cymbals Eat Guitars - LOSE

2. Spoon - They Want My Soul - I've always liked Spoon, but this might just be my favorite album by them now. Not even the slightest wavering in the quality from song to song, but all the while taking their sound in different directions.

1. The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream - "Red Eyes" is my favorite song from 2014, and the album that it got placed on is head and shoulders above anything else I heard this year.