Here are some albums I have enjoyed, which were released this year.
- Prelude To Ecstacy - The Last Dinner Party
- Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome - GNOME
- Lives Outgrown - Beth Gibbons
- Citrus Maximus - Pomelo Chess Society
- Wine On Venus - Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge
- HIT ME HARD AND SOFT - Billie Eilish
- Sanguivore - Creeper
The Last Dinner Party (TLDP) have been by far my favourite new band this year. I saw their Glastonbury set broadcast via BBC iplayer and thought they were quite good, but it was a few months later when I gave their full album a listen that it really hit. This is the most exciting band I've heard in years. Very theatrical, very focused on being a great live band, excellent guitar work, great vocals, great harmonies, doesn't sound all processed / auto-tuned as so much of modern music does. I was honestly despairing how much new music sounds so regular until they came along. They also have great artistic music videos, including a short film. You can hear influence from so much older material; glam rock, classic rock, prog, goth, classical, arthouse stuff... and of course, theatre, film... There are all these faint fingerprints. And they're kind of an odd band, having 5 members and yet no permanent drummer (they seem to have found several throughout their world tour). There's a little controversy where I often see comments on social media accusing them of being "industry plants" or "nepo babies", but I honestly tried looking into it and found no evidence to support that claim. I mean, some of them do raise a valid point that there is a problem in the UK music industry that fewer and fewer young working class are learning instruments, studying music, etc - but it's not a band's fault, that's national infrastructure and lack of investment in the arts. But if people are mad at UK bands whose members are middle class and met and formed in university, they should also get mad at Queen, Pink Floyd, Radiohead etc. Also, I get the feeling that many of these angry folks see: queer, feminist, art and think - they can't possibly have become popular on their own merit. Which is crazy to think nowadays when it can be said of so many other more established wildly popular musicians. But I think TLDP's popularity and are acclaim are just because they're are really, really good at what they do. Additionally to their album, I also recommend you check out their cover of Sparks' "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us".
GNOME are a band I only discovered through someone posting one of their music videos on a discord server and I wanted to watch these funny looking hat wearing people, but it turned out that I actually really like their music. They're a stoner rock / metal band from Antwerp in Belgium, and their songs are mostly instrumental with some vocals, some growling... but, BIG BUZZY GUITARS. BIG RIFFS. I like.
Beth Gibbons used to be the lead singer of Portishead, back in the 1990s. I did really like that group back then, especially the single of Glory Box with 4 different versions of the same song... I just to play that CD on loop for hours! And... if that's what you were expecting... well, sorry but this album only sounds really Portishead on one or two tracks, haha. There's a lot of acoustic instruments and big drums. She's got this power though... where she can make music that is both chill and yet... overwheming? At the same moment? But not in a bad way? I mean, that's always been the case with her. Maybe I had just forgotten. It's a really good album, though. It's.. some kind of journey. An exploratory, psychedelic, journey of reflection and emotion.
Pomelo Chess Society are actually a band I never heard of, and... probably you never heard of either, because they get... let's see... 77 monthly listeners. But a friend of mine said "my friends have a new album out" so I gave it a listen, and I really enjoyed it. It's apparently... Croatian checkmath rock? Well, I don't think I ever heard any of that before. I like it, though. It's all instrumental, and quite trippy. My one criticism of the album is that it's too short, lasting under 24 minutes in total. This kind of complex music must be really intense to try and memorise and rehearse though, so maybe 24 minutes is a lot!
Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge seems like a weirdly named band, because bands are normally lead by their lead singers, but Grace Bowers is lead guitarist. She's quite young (I think either 17 or 18 when the album was released) and apparently built up quite a following on social media for a few years before forming this band to lead and perform her songs. Barely any of the hype and marketing for this album even mentions the rest of the band, which strikes me as very odd, but I am sure that won't be the fault of either her or the band members, but management and marketing and the wider music press. Her lead vocalist is called Esi Okai-Tetteh and she really shines on the track Madame President. Fantastic old school funk / soul / blues from Nashville, TN., with a very clean, modern production. A lot of people compare them to Sly And The Family Stone, and I would agree with that. I hope this is the beginning of an incredible music career for Grace.
Billie Eilish... honestly I heard covers of her songs for years but never heard any of the original versions. So when this album dropped, I heard two things - one is that this album was good, and the other is that one of her middle names is Pirate and at that moment I decided she's automatically cool. So I listened to her entire back catalogue in one night, in chronological order from earliest to newest, and I think this new album is her best, and just a really good album. I also hope her life continues to go progressively better for her and her friends if it's anything like described in her lyrics.
Creeper decided to give into their urges and made Sanguivore, their vampire laden tribute to Jim Steinman. I don't know if I personally think their music sounds much like his work, but I sincerely love, love, love that they tried, and that their love is so deep and sincere. And it's honestly great it doesn't sound like it's trying to be a copy. No-one on this earth wants another "I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth)" Diane Warren abomination, you know? It's a great album standalone, though. It's got vision, it's got energy, it's got riffs on riffs, it's got 80s-style guitars out its ears and big chonky gothy synths and epic choirs. And vampires!
Special mentions:
After the Mercury Award, I decided to listen to a few of the nominee albums. TLDP and Beth Gibbons were both nominated, but beyond that - I did enjoy This Could Be Texas by English Teacher, and Black Rainbows by Corinne Bailey Rae very much, but after my initial listening, I haven't returned to them. Maybe that'll change, and they'll grow on me.
Telos by Zedd - I listened to the final track "1685" on repeat for... I dunno, maybe a whole day. It's Muse performing Ave Maria (Bach), with new lyrics and electronic music... Muse and arpeggios go together like coffee and milk for me - some people like coffee black, but I'm like... no, add more milk. No, more. No, an unwise amount. So, I love this. But I kind of... ignored the rest of the album.
When I was watching various acts performing at the Glastonbury festival this year, I decided to look up who was sampled on a song by Romy, and it's Beverley Glenn-Copeland. Then I discovered his song "Harbour (Song for Elizabeth)" which he wrote as a birthday present to his wife one year, and it's just one of the most disarmingly beautiful songs I ever heard. His whole album "The Ones Ahead" is too, it came out in 2023 and is a wonderful, powerful, haunting album... and was also an incredible comeback... but I mostly focused on that one track, listening to it over and over. I read earlier this week that he and his wife announced together that he has been diagnosed with dementia, which saddens me immensely. They are still hopeful and wish to challenge public perception of the condition, but... well, I hope the best for them both.
After listening to GNOME I decided to explore similar artists and discovered some good bands. There's an album Endless by Mount Salem, and I'm like... how dare you release one outstanding album in 2014 and nothing else? I also discovered Colour Haze, Psychedelic Witchcraft, GAUPA, SLIFT, and a Dune fanfic band called Sons Of Arrakis.
Best named band I discovered this year: Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
Best album artwork: Fanfare by Dorian Electra (I swear this is just Rose Of Versailles cosplay)
Best cover version: Kashmir by Steggy Music (orig. Led Zeppelin) - check this on YouTube.
Most welcome comeback: See Emily Play. Check out her song "YOKO ONO WAS SEVEN YEARS OLDER THAN JOHN".
Most comforting song: Wings by Joshua Woo
Revisits to my teenage listening habits: Skunk Anansie, Portishead
