Top 15 Albums of 2015
2023 has seen my most concerted effort to seek out new music in many a year, and with a greater sample size, I’ve been able to observe a few trends. Country and Americana-tinged rock is in; talky post-punk is, mercifully, on its way out. My top 15 has been whittled down from almost 40 longlisted selections, and I’ve had to ditch some stuff I really liked, so honourable mentions early doors to Decisive Pink, Sufjan Stevens, Liv.e, Model/Actriz, and Caroline Polachek. None of this year’s hip hop has made it, either, but like most people I enjoyed the releases of J Hus, Billy Woods & Kenny Segal, and Danny Brown with and without JPEGMAFIA.
#15: Florry - The Holey Bible
The first of the Americana subset, this a lovely, loose, twanging collection of tracks that hasn’t seemed to get an enormous amount of coverage. It’s the closest on the list to full country (or alt-country, probably more accurately) and it wears those influences on its sleeve by way of two songs with “cowboy” in the title. The former, “Cowboy Giving”, is a highlight, a swaying barroom number complete with fiddle, harmonica, and slide guitar. Vocalist Francie Medosch is a treat, giving a charismatically languid performance.
#14: Co-Pilot - Rotate
Sometimes you read the description of an album and just know it’ll be for you. Harmonies, repetition, ‘60s throwbackery and textures that genuinely merit the overused “ethereal” tag are very much my bag, and Co-Pilot’s unsung debut ticks all those boxes and then some. “I Am 1” is the highlight (another of my sweet spots: songs with two very distinct parts to it). The airy closer “Cornerhouse” has a charming retro swing and “Swim To Sweden”, the affectless, gurgling opener, is one of the most slyly catchy tracks of the year.
#13: Water From Your Eyes - Everyone’s Crushed
2023 was a heavy year for the rather vague milieu of art-pop. Water From Your Eyes’ fifth record (first for indie supremos Matador) packs about as much variety as one could handle into thirty minutes and change. It’s a smart length for a record that demands attention and dissection: the duo of Rachel Brown and Nate Amos load every song with detail. The title track is a stand out, with its wandering bassline, stop-stark squawks of guitar, and puzzlebox lyrics which shift and turn in on themselves as the tune goes on.
#12: Youth Lagoon - Heaven Is A Junkyard
Trevor Powers’ return to his Youth Lagoon project comes eight years after his last release under the name and a bout of serious ill health. All that may well contribute to the sense of almost trepidation, the delicate touch that pervades this album. They’re beautifully restrained tracks profiling wayward characters, delivered in Powers’ unique voice, both waiflike and lived-in. “Prizefighter” is a standout, a piano-driven pop song with one of the year’s best melodies.
#11: Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
The third Fever Ray record sees Karin Dreijer reconnect with brother Olaf for the first time in a decade, and to be a little reductive, it’s the most Knife-like they’ve sounded to date. The fantastically lustful “Shiver” is their best beat in years, its wheedling Eastern influences making for an instant earworm. “Even It Out” explores their sinister side with its violent lyrics and super simple, low tech riff. Nigh-acapella “Bottom Of The Ocean” leaves things on a weird note for those who fear there are too many club bangers. Dreijer never disappoints.
#10: Boygenius - The Album
It’s no surprise that Boygenius’ first full length has been one of the most prominent albums of 2023, as they’re a band to which you can’t help form strong attachments. The lyricism on show is diverse, personal, funny and cool in equal measure, and the force of personality from Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus is infectious. They’re equally at home on the heartbreakers and stompers, “Emily I’m Sorry” and “Not Strong Enough” (probably my single of the year) being my faves in each category.
#9: Lankum - False Lankum
I’ve returned to this one a little less than some of the choices on this list, but that’s down to the weight and density of False Lankum rather than anything else. It’s an album you get lost in, from its dark traditional narratives to its doom-laden drones and sprawling songs. “The New York Trader” is the terrifying high point, a story-driven descent into hell which builds from energetic sea shanty to crashing waves of immovable organ. There’s room for beauty, too, on the likes of “Newcastle”; Radie Peat has a voice you could listen to all day.
#8: Kara Jackson - Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?
This debut from poet Kara Jackson was one of the year’s most refreshing listens: pastoral, often unusually structured, analogue-sounding compositions delivered with crystalline clarity and brilliant turns of phrase. “Pawnshop” is a sparkling piece of folk pop with warm, rolling guitars and a powerful vocal performance. The longer, weirder tracks are the ones that burrow the deepest, though, like the bleak character study of “Rat”, musically minimalistic but made cinematic but Jackson’s gripping performance.
#7: L’Rain - I Killed Your Dog
Another record that goes all around the houses in not much time, L’Rain’s third record is a real ride. It’s often a maximalist affair, with tunes like “Uncertainty Principle” piling up vocals, thunderous drums, and scratching. On the title track, by contrast, she slows things right down; it sounds like the song is being stretched to breaking point and we’re falling headlong into it. Best of all is the rhythmically unsteady “Knead Bee”, an R&B throwback with glittering keys and ‘70s sounding bass.
#6: Wednesday - Rat Saw God
More country-fried stuff here from the scarily-young-to-be-five-albums-deep Wednesday. The likes of Rat Saw God should be a sign for those who care that there’s hope for guitar rock yet. “Bath County” is some of the heaviest stuff the album has to offer, stacking up increasingly fuzzed out chords en route to a brief, flailing solo. Karly Hartzman’s lyrics are superb, vividly descriptive and lived in. “Quarry”, especially, is straight into the pantheon of dark tunes about fucked up small towns.
#5. Yaeji - With A Hammer
I know nothing of electronic music subgenres, but whatever Yaeji’s doing here, I really like. These are meticulously stacked songs, packed with ideas that unfold across multiple listens. The title track’s my favourite, a tune that falls into a niche category “songs that sounds like they’re taking place in factories,” with Yaeji’s vocals appropriately robotic. “Away x5” has ‘90s chart vibes, and the back half of “Passed Me By” is simultaneously unsettling and blissful.
#4: Home Is Where - The Whaler
The Whaler is at its core an emo record, but Home Is Where take us to strange places on this rollicking record, a bold move in a genre so beholden to form. Opener “Skin Meadow” alone burns through half a dozen ideas in five minutes, from the opening blast of noise to rousing chantalongs, a singing saw segment, and a spooky piano outro. The instrumentation is diverse and the playing all fantastic. There are tons of influences you can pick up across the record but The Whaler mashes all that together into something fresh and inspired.
#3. Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy
I didn’t find Heavy Heavy as immediate as Young Fathers’ previous, Cocoa Sugar, but after living with it a while I think it’s the better record. There’s not a wasted second on the Edinburgh trio’s fourth LP, and they’re branching out like never before. Single “I Saw” is pure energy, not to mention a welcome jolt of joy from a band accustomed to anger and darkness. The closing refrain is a pile up of euphoria. “Ululation” is also a standout, an African-inflected, mostly instrumental effort that sounds like the kind of thing Bowie might stick on the back half of a Berlin record.
#2. Ratboys - The Window
Even more good old fashioned Americana, this time in another subgenre I’m leaning towards all the more as I age: really sincere rock. Ratboys’ fifth record tackles heavy topics of love, life, and loss with big muscular guitars, overdrive and riffs. This can so easily be the recipe for the worst kind of music, but when the songs are this good, it can be fantastic. “Empty” is fantastically crunchy, and the timeless-sounding title track a genuinely moving tune about singer Julia Steiner’s grandad. Best of all are the two longest pieces, “No Way” and “Black Earth, WI”. The former shows that this young band already has the knack of knowing exactly how long to repeat the cool bit of a song for, while the latter is a shimmering chunk of classic rock in several acts.
#1. Cory Hanson - Western Cum
There are plenty of reasons this album shouldn’t work - it’s called Western Cum, for one, and the album art features a giant sperm piling through the desert. But for all its daftness, that imagery does set the scene well: this is a wildly indulgent, often ludicrous album that’s also my favourite of the year because it rips unbelievably hard. There are plenty of folk who dismiss guitar solos and six string histrionics; I used to be one of them. Not anymore.
Hanson’s guitar playing is some of the most gleeful I’ve ever heard. I’m not really a classic rock guy, but he echos the stuff I actually do like (namely Thin Lizzy) in the twin attack of his twisting but always melodic solos. The 10 minute long “Driving Through Heaven” is the high point of the album, a song about a killer hitchhiker that sprints through its verses so that we can get to the meat of the matter: long passages of crazy but tuneful playing.
The riffs are there on the pummelling “Housefly”, there’s harder edged material on “Persuasion Architecture”, which replaces the rootsy passages for something closer to metal. He even gets in a few pretty songs like “Ghost Ship” and “Motion Sickness”. And whenever he finds an excuse, he goes back to tearing up the axe, and it’s just so much fun.
