Top 5 Albums of the Year

I'm only posting a year in review of music because Jake did it first. Here it goes!

5. And So I Watch You From Afar, Heirs

I came across And So I Watch You From Afar on a random website which listed their 2009 self-titled release as the best album of that year. After listening to it myself, I was extremely hooked. Here was an instrumental band with energy, passion, and better yet, they were Irish and still relatively undiscovered in the States. After being somewhat underwhelmed by their 2013 release All Hail Bright Futures, I was hesitatingly anticipating Heirs. However, the album comes as a return-to-form for the band, eliminating the wacky reggae rhythms from their previous release in favor of hard-hitting, energetic jams. From the lightning guitar work of Animal Ghosts to the tribal drums and chants of Wasps, this is a raw, passionate album with little filler (A Beacon, A Compass, An Anchor is the albums low-light, a nifty tune that tends to drag too long for its 6:17 run time). The band is even more energetic live, which only adds to the brilliance of the album after seeing it in person.

4. The Velvet Teen, All is Illusory

I assumed the Velvet Teen may have been as good as dead after the release of 2010's EP No Star. After waiting patiently for 5 years, fans were finally satiated with All is Illusory, and the album didn't disappoint. A few missteps (Taken Over is about 9 minutes too long, All is Illusory is too boring) don't drag the album down for me. Pecos is a brilliant piece of work that highlights the band's unsung hero; bassist Josh Staples, GTRA is a retro-sounding throwback to arena rock, and the opening song Sonreo features a crazy-harpsichord sounding loop effect, benefiting from madman drummer Casey Dietz's slick, awe-inspiring fills. Dietz actually seems to be holding back on the album, which, after clearly being the star of 2006's Cum Laude! is probably a good thing for the band, as the entire lineup is showcased a lot better on All is Illusory than ever before.

3. You Blew It, Pioneer of Nothing

It seems stupid to put a 3-Song EP this high on my list, but when checking out my Last.FM charts for this year, I saw that the opening track on this EP, Lanai, was actually my highest played song of the year, and the second track, Bedside Manner, was my second most played.  Lanai is actually my most played song ever, a testament to how much I enjoyed this EP. I entered into You Blew It! fandom relatively late in the game, having thought emo/pop-punk was a dead genre to me. I have Jake to thank for my love of You Blew It!, and the three songs on this album are a solid testament that emo doesn't have to be whiny or simple. The songs here are complex, evocative and lovely. I haven't yet heard the band play any of the three live, but I did get to see them play a secret show in a garage in Chicago, which is a highlight in itself.

2. Chon, Grow

I'm not sure what it says about me that two of my five favorite albums of the year are instrumental - or that I'm in an instrumental band myself - but anyways, Chon created not just one of the best albums of the year, but probably of the best 10 years with Grow. The guitar tone particularly shines with an amazing clarity over some of the most complex and fascinating arrangements in modern rock to date. Grow is a music lover's dream, an album where you simply shake your head the entire way through, thinking, "How did they write this?" Musical complexity aside, Chon have created a wonderful, introspective album that never loses an overarching sense of joy.





1. Sufjan Stevens, Carrie and Lowell

I fell of the Sufjan bandwagon after Come on, Feel the Illinois! I love that album to death, and I appreciate 2010's The Age of Adz for what is is - an experimental electronic bit of work - but 2015's Carrie and Lowell is a near perfect album and has set me firmly in place back on the Sufjan train. In it, Sufjan bears his soul, opening up about his abandonment by and death of his mother, which was hinted at on other albums but never explored in depth until now. His mother's presence haunts the music here, which is low-key and deeply, agonizingly personal. Here is a man who's entire life has been shaped and molded by these events, and continues to struggle with them later in life (I imagine Freud would have a field day with this album).  Doubts and fears permeate the tracks, which touch on the human experience in all its forms; birth, love, anguish, illumination, self-doubt, kindness, tragedy, and death. This isn't an album you put on at a party, but its an important one nonetheless, as it deals with the human condition in a way that hasn't really been done before. In modern music.
Carrie and Lowell is poetic and prophetic, elaborate and spiritual, haunting and breathtaking.

[pete]