Singles, songs, EPS, odds, sods, widows and orphans of the year.
As well as some cracking long players (top ten here) , there have been some terrific tunes, songs, eps and one-offs sent out to infiltrate, violate and seduce our ear holes this year. Here are 8 (no reason) of my particular favourites:
8: The Chronicles of Gnarnia - Gnarwolves
A kind of gnarly, fucked up anthology of gnarly, fucked up brilliance rather than a true album or ep but fuller than a well stoked bong packed with mind-altering, nihilistic, raw, catchy, grimy noise. Real 'pop' punk. Fuck it, just real.
7: Here We Go - Lower Than Atlantis
Down-tuned rifftastic first public offering from their brilliant eponymous fourth long player. A statement of intent and a life-affirming anthemic slug of raucous pop rock. Surely a staple for the sports channel music editors to accompany stirring, rallying victory montages.
6: Shaking In The Water - The Xcerts
Pop. With a huge throbbing cock. Catchy, radio-friendly and hummable but with heavy fish hook barbs stitched into its lapels. A stonking proper single from one of the most enduring, endearing and hardest working bands in the land. Culled from their amazing new album and set to become an absolute non-negotiable indelible inclusion in their sets to come as they rise to inevitable stadium and world domination.
5: Slipshod - Enter Shikari
This was going to be The Last Garrison from the forthcoming new long player, but then, those crazy cats from St Albans dropped this masterpiece. Armed with a Ren and Stimpy animator and a tale seeming inspired by frustrating sub optimal service, they go to places not even these most pioneering of mavens haven't dared to tread. Fresh, crazy, challenging, fucking hilarious (butchered chicken cunt). Lordy lordy.
4: Money Power Fame - Don Broco
A tantalising and majestic portent of more success to come? Oh yes. Having been squirrelled away writing, recording and perfecting a new long player set for release hopefully next spring, the lad core lovelies give us a taster of what's hopefully on its way with this riff-driven monster of a tune. Lyrically not their wittiest, cheekiest, driest or cleverest, but compensated by crushing guitar, slap bass and infectious melodic chicanery. Next year will be absolutely huge for these loveable rogues. Money. Power. Fame. Indeed.
3: Over & Over - Arcane Roots
Following up from Blood & Chemistry, their 2013 album masterpiece, a brilliant, heart-stopping, stadium-rocking and multi-layered single which hopefully indicates that Arcane Roots are well on the road to becoming even better and cementing themselves as one of the UK's very best proper rock bands.
2: It’s Hard to Be a Gentleman/All those things you hate about me, I hate them too - Jamie Lenman
I'm spent when it comes to superlatives and glowing, warm words when it comes to the UKs most brilliant and influential, challenging and charming genius. Suffice to say, this double headed Janus of a single is simply a masterpiece. (As an aside, anyone who hasn't checked out the amazing alchemy that happens when Muscle and Memory from last year's phenomenal album are played at the same time, find it online and listen to it immediately - as I say, Mr Lenman is just a bally genius.)
1: Drown - Bring Me The Horizon
I never truly know how I feel about BMTH. On paper, they're not my thing at all. But last year's Sempiternal was undeniably a work of considerable prowess. Bordering on genius. Well, this year, the shape has been cleverly shifted again and this single marries melodic pop sensibilities, electronica and shards of lingering metalcore to produce an undeniably catchy, memorable and bloody brilliant tune. And after all, that's what it's all about about.
Well, isn't it?
Oh, and here are my top 10 albums again:
Long Players of a long year.
A purely personal take on the best recorded music of the last year. Not trying to be clever, trendy, outré or affected; just what I consider to be bloody good records from what's been a pretty bloody good year.
10: The Narrator - The People The Poet.
Not totally sure this was officially released in 2014, but certainly one of my most listened to albums of the last 12 months. A truly co-created effort, taking stories from their fans and building a stunning, narrative, deeply touching and emotional anthology.
Veering between Springsteenesque blue collar coal dust imbued grit to polished stadium-friendly bangers with beautiful and clever harmonies from the angelic Greta Isaac throughout lending the perfect counterpoint and complement to Leon Stanford's gruff, Joe Cocker like growls and deep brown soulful seductions.
Wearing a bright, unashamed cloak of multi-influences from Counting Crows, through to Coldplay and The Allman Brothers. Beautiful stories. Beautifully told.
9: Rooms Of The House - La Dispute
A wonderful, illuminating and fascinating mash up of spoken word, US post hardcore, melodic jazzy reveries infused with a punky 'couldn't give a fuck' seam. Delicious, thought-provoking, melodic, off beam and truly original. A modernist masterpiece.
8: Groovehammer - THE HELL
SARDONIC AND KNOWING FUCKED UP WRY SHIT WITH A HUGE, HEAVY PAIR OF FURRY COMEDY BOLLOCKS.
MUSIC BY CUNTS. FOR CUNTS.
7: Fair Youth - Maybeshewill
As post rock goes (if it's actually a thing at all) it doesn't come any better than this. An emotionally charged tour de force of harmony, melody, texture and depth. Genuinely spine tingling at times and like a gorgeous warm hug at others. A record to get lost in. And to lose your shit to. A sublime, well-honed and hench semi-classical, moduar torso but with menacing rock gonads. A heady and intoxicating mix. Stunning.
6: Glory - Axes
A spectacular instrumental collection of futuristic, mathtacular, technically stunning, choppy, polyrhythmic ups and downs, swings and roundabouts, riffs and rants, light and shade, melody and dissonance, power and seduction. If you do nothing else next year, catch this space-aged, grinning, other-worldly quartet live. Seriously a breathtaking and life-changing experience. Glory is about as close as the mesmerising live side of the band gets on record. Amazing.
5: Old Bones - Yearbook
Ok, by today's crazy rules, not technically an album, but fuck that. It's a wonderful collection of off-kilter, off-beam and off its tits alt rock. Clever, heartfelt, beautifully and thoughtfully crafted and packed full of originality and quirkiness. Displaying a songwriting maturity that belies the bands' callow yoof. A truly superb debut effort that sets the bar ridiculously high for the subsequent bombs they're hopefully loading in their bomb bay as we speak. Delicious.
4: Lower Than Atlantis - Lower Than Atlantis
A somewhat controversial album. But a bloody triumphant one. Selling out? Softening up? Wimping out? Nah. Just a superb collection of killer pop songs with a rock and punk skirt on. A clever shift and an opening of hearts and minds. The band claim that they just let the music they like come out, regardless of expectation or genre. Well, what did come out is a true work of poptastic genius. Hum them. Sing them. Shake your arse to them. Whatever. It's nigh impossible to get them out of your head. So good.
3: There Is Only You - The Xcerts
An absolutely astonishing 4th album from the edgy alt power pop trio. Every song has a hook like Mike Tyson. But delivered with power, passion, integrity and hearts the size of cabbages. Murray Macleod's voice has never sounded better. Or more honest. There are heart-melting moments of tenderness and frailty married with massive riffs, stadium-friendly choruses and woo hoos. At least 5 of the songs are instant hit single material (if hit singles are still a thing!) If there's any justice in the world, this masterpiece should now catapult these loveable slackerpopsters to serious heights. Brulliant. Bluddy brulliant.
2: The Weird And Wonderful - Marmozets
Mashing up mathcore with grungy northern pop replete with astringent, thrilling, eviscerating riffs, spikes and hooks and rhythmic fuckery, this isn't just one of my favourite albums of the year, but has carved its antisocial yet beguiling way into my all time list. So unbelievably confident and competent for a band so young. Every tune reeks of scuzzy and punishing life on the road. It stinks of sweat. Shit. Passion. Brio. Beer. Jager. And love.
So much love. Colossal sing-a-longs juxtaposed with H-bomb destructive violence and almost a simmering malevolence. You wouldn't wan't to pick a fight with this record. It'll tear your fucking face off. But might kiss it better afterwards. Wonderfully weird. And weirdly fucking wonderful.
1: Lost Forever // Lost Together - Architects
In what has been a brilliant year for quality (if not quantity) it's just so hard to pick one album as the stand out. But, for me, even though I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool metal head and I abhor so much me-too metalcore, Lost Forever // Lost Together is quite simply a classic. Aside from the laudable and searingly acidic political and edgy subject matter of much of the content, the musicality, the braveness, the technicality and the middle finger in the air attitude set this astonishingly powerful and moving album apart from the chasing pack.
Aggression, pathos, anger, bewilderment, frustration and fuck you are all delivered almost concurrently; but it stays single-mindedly sharp. Clean. Pointed. Thought-provoking. And seriously fucking heavy. The drops, the sub bass, the bleuurghs (although maybe slightly overdone), the towering guitar work and crushing drumming all support Sam Carter's amazing talent for being able to scream like a Euro Fighter in a broom cupboard, but maintain melody, nuance and versatility. A huge, unapologetic explosion of a record that puts Architects in a place of there own. Genuinely stunning. In every sense of the word.
And that's about that for the year. There were other great albums, songs, singles, soundfiles, demos and tuneage that nearly made the cut. Others that showed moments of enormous potential and promise for the future. Some that fell on stony ground. Some that ticked boxes but didn't quite break hearts. Some that were total shit. But all recorded with belief and a love for music. Overall a pretty decent year for recorded music. With this selection being at the very top of my personal tree.
Here's to more next year.
Camden Rocks Festival
Straight Lines *****
Toseland **1/2**
Gnarwolves ***1/2**
Max Raptor *****
Dinosaur Pile Up ***1/2 *
The Hell *****
Get Cape Wear Cape Fly ****1/2*
All over Camden, Saturday 31st May 2014
Like any cocktail list, today's bill of fare is an object lesson in option paralysis; you want to taste all the delicious and heady brews on the list, but there's simply too much to choose from and so many intoxicating variations, flavours and ingredients to realistically get yourself outside.
So, after a lengthy session studying the amazing list, a plan is hatched and the mayhem begins with a drop of Welsh moonshine.
Straight Lines *****
A heavy and straightforward looking cocktail. But deceptively complex.
Take a classical rock base. Infuse it with Sabbath salt, spice and riff bombs.
Add in a good dash of contemporary sharpness and relevance. Then chuck it all into a hot and moist Barfly and shake the living shit out of it.
Delicious, heady, heavy but with a fresh aftertaste (even with the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath riff still on the tongue as a strong finish). Cracking start to a long, well-soused day.
Toseland **1/2**
Take the eighties. No, please take the eighties.
Where do I start? Take a bunch of very competent rent-a-rock band musos, throw in an impossibly hench ex world superbike racing dude, sprinkle with ridiculously clichéd, Jeremy Clarkson 20 driving rock classics collection CD from a petrol station lyrics and song titles like Renegade (seriously!), take a large slug of irony, but throw that away, chuck in some Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, Uriah Heep, Thunder, Bon Jovi and mix it up into a beige but annoyingly tasty frothy mixture. Liberally spice with epic guitar solos, piano intros and, to be fair, a pretty formidable voice and you've got the ultimate dad-friendly rocktail.
Anachronistic. Competent. Perfectly played. But Bourbon biscuits rather than rock and roll moonshine Bourbon snorted out of a rusty petrol can.
Gnarwolves ***1/2**
Take a glass. Stick it up your arse. Break the glass. Fill it full of quaaludes, hydroponically grown hyper grass, neat overproof rum, amyl nitrate and give it a fucked up spastic shake. Then drop the glass. Lick the contents off the sticky floor. And that's a Gnarwolvestini. Chaotic, full-on, fun, dirty, fucked up and addictive. Despite tuning and technical cock ups, normal disorder is resumed with typical mayhem-infused aplomb. Big riffs, über-pop punk melodies and sing-alongs. The complete antidote to Toseland's low alcohol lager. The crowd a bit bemused rather than totally intoxicated but it is impossibly early for something normally so spicy, punchy and messed up. Burp.
Max Raptor *****
Time to move to a distinctly classic part of the mixology list.Take some pointy fingers, a sharp, acidic shot of sardonic and knowing wit, throw in a dash of satire, a nod, a wink, some crystal clear, triple filtered extra strong cane spirit, cerebral fluid, a hint of Burton Ale, sweat, lube, a full bodied red, some needle-sharp shards of glass, industrial swarf, empty a bumper bag of Whoa Whoas and throw it all into a bath. Dive in. Frenziedly slurp the mind-blowing alchemic goo off the whiffy bridge and wobbly bits of a compliant bystander and lose your shit. A truly original, mind-melting, heart starting, knee bending, cock-grabbing, clever, proto-punk concoction that gets this NW1 party of all parties properly started. Brilliant.
Dinosaur Pile Up ***1/2 **
Take some grunge, add a dollop more grunge, mix in some, well grunge, throw in some big tunes, the odd white t-shirt, some jeans, a refreshing slice of piercing but surprisingly agreeable essence of vocal, serve on a base of solid riffs, butt-loosening bass and pour into a heaving Electric Ballroom. Sassy, bold, fruity an, of course grungy. Cheers.
The Hell *****
Take four cunts. Two lots of two strings. Some alarmingly aubergine hair dye. A huge sprinkle of irony. Mix it with lager, piss, bile, Courtney Love's poisonous fanny batter, the grease from a thousand kebab shop owners' aprons, more lager and shake it all up in a tiny hot room full of semi naked hardcore dancing cunts. Yup, it's that fucking horrible. Dicks.
Get Cape Wear Cape Fly ****1/2*
Take a small man. Some huge sing-a-long tunes. A massive dollop of distilled nostalgia, unbridled joy and some D&B wobs, beats and tst tst tsts. Heat it up to nearly boiling point. Pour in some der dub dub dub dubs. Spray over a flagging room full of singing soulmates to bring spirits, arses, brows, smiles, faces and dancing feet back to life. Enjoy.A wonderful sundowner to cap a full-on day suffused with variety, bizarreness and brilliance.
And so to bed.Camden Rocks has been an absolute triumph. 200 bands, 20 venues, 8,000 like-minded rock fans of every shape, size, taste and smell. A fantastic vibe throughout the whole day.
The only downside was missing such mesmerising and intoxicating acts like A Plastic Rose, Baby Godzilla and the return of The mighty Xcerts. Shame.
Brilliant organisation (even though the wristband exchange took up quite a lot of drinking, I mean rock and roll time. ) But all-in-all one of the very best one day festivals imaginable. Can't wait to get stuck in again next year.
Hic.
So, it's almost the end of what's been a stunning year for live and (mostly) loud music.
Here's a book-type thing I've scrambled together of some of my favourite pissed iPhone shots from just some of the shows I've been lucky enough to have been at.
They're shaky, sketchy and shambolic but from the hip and the heart. Have a look through and you may even regurgitate the taste of Jager, Sailor Jerry's or cider from a plastic glass.
Big love to all the bands. The pics are all free to steal, share make into chest piece tats or put on commemorative mugs.
The very best and truly most edifyingly scrumptious bits of 2013.
Top 10 Albums
So, it seems it's de rigeur for the world, his wife, significant other, lodger and gimp under the floorboards to thumb through the hamper of mouthwatering musical morsels and give everyone their opinion on what constitutes the very best. Not that anyone really gives a flying coffee bean-laden civet shit about what anyone really thinks. But here goes.
Now, I'm sure I've left some out. And forgotten some. But here's my tastebud tingling top ten. Rock tastic.
10. One Of Us Is The Killer - Dillinger Escape Plan
First in the hamper this year is DEP's latest firecracker pot of curious Gentleman's Relish. A whole heap of complex flavours, textures and piquant burning sensations. A terrific progression for New Jersey's mathmess magicians. There's familiar fare with feverish, febrile metallically-tinged mayhem but then a freshly tempered experimental lush jazz fusiony butteriness.
Tasting notes: Not for the basic palate. Sophisticated but enormously spicy, challenging and fiery. Will cause indigestion on an unsuspecting and empty stomach.
9. The Blackest Beautiful - Letlive
On opening the latest can of Letlive bisque, you kind of expect a rough and ready, heavy, huge but often indistinct flavoured melange. But this time there's a million different challenging and often bewildering reference points. Swinging wildly between high voltage metalcore/hardcore to hi-nrg dance-infused-auto-tuned, multi-layered-popcorny-pop-schlock. And even rappy/dubby bits.
It really shouldn't work. But it does. There are huge swathes of Fall Out Boy-esque harmonic complexity, infused with Glassjaw and Minor Threat then put into the blender with Enter Shikari and Whitechapel. But the most lingering aftertaste is honesty. Bollocks-out, peeled back transparency. A truly wonderful if not wholly unexpected experience.
Tasting notes: Like one of those crazy and wanky restaurants serving ragoux and ballotines of animals that you'd normally find in a zoo, on the face of it, potentially unpalatable and downright weird. But the result is an enormously raw, powerful and, at times, strangely beautiful dish.
8. Mother's Ruin - Max Raptor
Right, poncey bisques and relishes to one side, time to pop open a can of foaming punky pilsner. And what a kick. Intelligently brewed with the initial wife-beater headiness and numbing punky strength hiding a brooding and cynical sharpness and sophistication, this is world class brain damage.
Politically and satirically as impossibly sharp as those bastard carpet grippers, any superficial froth or head is soon blown off a deep and curious but heart-warming brew. Heavy in parts but fused with wonderfully familiar anthemic and chest-beating abandon. This Midlands ale gets you all Glaswegian and stripping down to the waist and yelling out of windows pointing fingers like bag ladies and grimacing like you've got yer nob caught in your zip.
Tasting notes: Powerful, lively, fun, surprisingly sophisticated with a real punch. The strongest, overproof rum-soused in yer face fuck off party punch. You looking at me pal?
7. Wild Light- 65DaysofStatic
After the heady brutal brew, it's time to mix grain with grape. Time to ease the cork out of the latest vintage offering from these most consumate of twiddlers, fiddlers, tweakers and soundscape seducers.
This is new world zinginess and cleverness mixed with a mind-expanding depth and beauty. Real beauty. There are so many swirling flavours, top notes, base notes and every hemi-demi-semi quaver in between. At times beyond description, smoothness mixed with erratic and jaggedy acidity and full-bodied, hairy-testicled grunt.
Tasting notes: Seriously heady and mind-altering potency underpinned with a delicious smooth, sophisticated but never clinical or synthetic sterility. Lose your head. Lose your inhibitions. But, whatever you do, don't lose your king sized rolling papers. Man.
6. Muscle Memory - Jamie Lenman
Where do you start? Where do you finish? Superficiality first; this is the most sumptuous and beautifully crafted packaging in this year's hamper by a mile. But once the packaging is peeled open, what a thing. What a two things.
The first layer of this delicious and dizzying cake is jam-packed with grenades, evil incendiary devices, trip wires, polonium, 7" stiletto blades, Bazooka shells, shit-tipped sharpened sticks and, well, tears. The emotionally saturated ingredients are blitzed with gravel, double-coil pick ups, drain cleaner and red fire ants and the results are outstanding. Challenging? Yes. Easy on the ear? Not always. Outré? You bet. But outstanding? Thoroughly.
Then we move onto the second layer of this Lewis Carol-like Hadean gateau. And it's buttery. Creamy. Delicious. Sumptuous. Clever. Heartfelt. Honest. Bizarre. But like the top layer, equally outstanding. Swing, bluegrass, George Formby, big band, Burlesque. All in the magimix with the accent on magi.
The former Reuben chef has outdone himself. Such brave and challenging cuisine deserves to be at the top table and Muscle Memory is without a doubt one of the bravest, cleverest and intriguing offerings of the year.
Tasting notes: A seemingly vile and incompatible marriage of nob-melting chilli and tongue mollifying buttery Victoria sponge. A brave and challenging triumph.
5. Letters Home - Defeater
Next in the hamper are an overseas delicacy from the Americas. And it's certainly not in an aerosol, a blister pack or smothered in syrup. A jagged rusty can filled to the brim with raw hardcore punk flavoured pork and beans with an haute cuisine twist.
Massachussetts may have given the world chocolate chip cookies and cranberries, but this is far more rarified and sophisticated fare. Ok, you can't dip it in your tea and it won't help with cystitis, but Letters Home should be in everyone's food and medicine cupboards. An unholy union of hardcore and concept album sounds like ship's biscuits smothered in finest caviar. But, it produces a wholly original and stunning sensation.
Moving stories from the Civil War are told through family letters and the effect is jaw-dropping. Whereas most lyrical ingredients in hardcore are sublimated to the effect of the overall visceral output, this masterpiece captivates from the first delicious mouthful to the last. And takes you on an historical, eye-opening journey on the way.
Tasting notes: savage and uncompromising delivery, mercifully short on foam and froth, a surprisingly deep and beautiful delicious heart wrapped in searing and acidic heat, meat and gristle. Bloody delicious. And thought-provoking.
4. You're Listening To The Hell - The Hell
Fried cunt. Cooked by cunts. For cunts. Shit. But addictive shit.
Tasting notes: Cunt.
3. Sempiternal - Bring Me The Horizon
After opening with care and, to be honest not much expectation, this assortment box of metal(core?) biscuits has to be the surprise taste sensation of the year.
To be honest, BMTH are a bit like sprouts to me. I've never been that keen. They don't taste great, make the living room stink and give you unpleasant grumblings in the gut. But loads of people swear by them and have seen something in them that, like sprouts, fail to get my tastebuds dripping.
Until Sempiternal, that is. What a pleasant and unexpected taste sensation. Brutal in parts. Obnoxious in others. But so skilfully blended into an almost perfect example the dream selection tin with sweetness, spice, crunch, layers and surprises. Metal may not be my personal thang, but this is as good as the dark art gets. A true masterpiece of its genre.
Tasting notes: Salty as a sailor's dick, as sweet as Rachel Riley's peachy butt cheeks, as heavy as a lead box full of weapon's grade uranium or Chris Moyle's lunch box and as hot as Dave Lee Travis's brow every time the doorbell rings.
2. 13.0.0.0.0 - TTNG
As we get to the very best stuff in this year's groaning hamper, it's time to get all truly sophisticated and reach for a seriously vintage, premier cru glass.
So, they changed their name as a sensitive fuck you to gun nuts, weirdos, NRA ignoramuses and AK47 toting survivalist rednecks, but what else did this most revered and classy producer bring the world this year?
From the first delicious drop to pass the lips from this wonderful magnum to the very last fading bubble, 13.0.0.0.0 delivers a sublime and almost orgasmic complexity and beauty. With new vocalist Henry 'Hank' Tremain joining the family, there was a slight nervousness that previous vintages couldn't be matched. We needn't have worried.
The technical wizardry and complexity that underpins this sublime deliciousness never gets in the way of its immediacy and breathtaking gorgeousness. There's light, shade, energy, seduction, pathos, spit and beautiful balance throughout. A truly world class and de luxe bottle of sparkling originality and genius.
Tasting notes: not for lager drinkers, Lambert and Butler smokers or ready meal eaters. This is sophisticated, frail, wonderful and sparkling nectar and should be drunk with absolute reverence and care. Cheers indeed.
1. Blood & Chemistry - Arcane Roots
So, here we are. The biggie. The last box in the hamper. And what a box. Of all the delicious goodies in this year's hamper, Blood & Chemistry is the one for me that stands out for so many reasons.
Not the least, because it has been purposely and meticulously prepares as an entire feast. Not a selection of nibbles, tapas or two or three big numbers surrounded by burger helper or lips and arseholes. This is premium mouth-watering fare throughout. And with all the trimmings.
The very way the album has recurring motifs (lyrically and musically with back references, arcs, repeating chord progressions and themes) sets it apart from so much of the vanilla and pot boilers rammed with prescribed numbers of tracks that so much output laboriously conforms to.
Marry that with the fact that it's been constructed as a single flowing listen with the tracks cleverly and beautifully merged and segued into each other with drones, decaying notes and clever transitions seamlessly leading one from course to course and, hallelujiah, we actually have an album. A complete multi-course considered and lip-smacking banquet.
In an age of playlist and mixtape dominated listening mores, it's such a beautiful and rare thing to find such a wonderfully conceived and concocted masterpiece. And that's what Blood & Chemistry truly is.
Veering from sheer power and mind melting riffs to lighter cadenzas and melodic reveries, this, for me is so clearly not only the best album of 2013, but the only true album. Of course the songs all stand alone (and there's not a slack track on it) but the total effect outweighs the individual brilliance and diversity.
Astonishing. Truly astonishing.
Tasting notes: An 11 (or 12 if you've got the deluxe version) course banquet of astonishing and unrelenting quality. Huge flavours, beautiful, more delicate moments and heady, mesmerising technical skill and flamboyance married with an earthy, raw power and strength that all comes together to produce a perfectly balanced and tantalising mix. Perfection. Bloody perfection.
Honourable mentions.
It's really tough putting together just 10. So, here are a few more world class albums that didn't quite make the hamper:
Siganals - Mallory Knox
A Dan Lancaster-produced slick pop rocky masterpiece with anthems and hooks aplenty. As near to a commercial version of Proceed as we'll ever get. God, I miss them.
Dreamoirs - Dave McPherson
A wonderful, heartfelt, dreamy (funny that) and personal anthology from rock and roll's hardest working and most likeable bloke, InMe front man Dave McPherson. All made possible by his dedication, ridiculous work ethic and dedication to the outstanding Pledge music scheme.
Asymmetry - Karnivool
The latest chapter in the Tool-inspired Aussie proggers' masterworks collection. All slick, big-boned, grown up serious stuff with the obligatory sing-a-long bits taking more of a back seat in this sophisticated and complex volume.
Great Lakes - John Smith
As good as folk gets. Just wonderful throughout. Plaintive, fragile, beautiful, joyous and uplifting stuff from the bastard living son of Jansch, Martyn and Drake. Spellbinding stuff.
Opposites - Biffy Clyro
A true epic from the Caledonian epic mongers. A lifetime of couch sessions with Mr Neil couldn't get anywhere as near as this window-opening, soul searching, organ and emotion-revealing journey into his oft tortured and unsettled psyche. Brilliant stuff.
Old Souls - Deaf Havana
My, haven't they grown up? A Ferrari-like acceleration into adulthood and all its travails both musically and personally see the erstwhile East Anglians produce a truly grown up and thoroughly well-crafted blue collar collection of angst-ridden emotionally charged splendour. And I didn't mention Springsteen once. Oops.
Nation - TRC
Nasty but brilliant and raw British hardcore (none of that whiney trans Atlantic shit to see here people!) at its very best. Much more sophisticated than initially meets the ear. A truly original and challenging album. One of the year's very best.
The Top 5 EPs and singles:
Right, time for the smaller stuff that's too tasty not to mention. You know, the widows and orphans of the hamper. The weird little sauces and tins of weirdness that don't fit in with the larger family packs - in short, the wonderful tunes and mini anthology EPs that didn't appear on full length albums.
5. #Spomb (Love Me) - Shockmaster
Skate punk, surf punk, pop punk, #spomb punk. Whatever it is, its lively, fun, aggressive and doesn't take itself too seriously. Well, with Mike Foster driving this bin wagon, what else is it going to be?
4. Glass Cutter - Polar
Guildford's scene has never been healthier and while bands like Palm Reader and Polar continue to mature and develop without losing even a whiff of their appealing ragged edge, things can only get even better. And if this brilliant and fierce track is a taster of what's to come of the much talked about new album, then we're in for a brilliant 2014.
Adam Woodford's growls and screams have been imbued with melody (you 'eard) and the effect is somewhere between While She Sleeps and TRC but retaining Polar's signature originality and appeal.
3. Funemployed - Gnarwolves
Brighton's bright young things of the skate punk/pop punk brotherhood produced a box bursting with bangers full of rawness, edge, fun and phlegm (and probably a bit of THC eh lads?). Real street music kept real. Wonderful.
3= Management - Delta Sleep
Three letters: BSM. Big Scary Monsters have helped to unearth yet another slice of complete genius. This was so close to being my no1because of its consistency. Every track on Management is a different colour, a different texture. Yes, its mathy. Yes it's complex and brilliantly, technically played. But it's also catchy, a bit dirty, even a bit punky. Whatever the fuck it is, it's original, brilliant and captivating. If you've not caught these chaps (and chapess) live yet, you have a donut hole in your middle. Fill it immediately.
2= I Could Be Anyone - Yearbook
Too little output from such an original, classy and wonderful young band. But we've had to make do with this single offering during 2013 (assuming the equally wonderful Art Student was 2012 - brain's a bit rubbish - if it was 2013, then make it joint 2nd with this absolute banger). A heavy chugger, all frenzy, puke and muck but glued together by the ever-tight and impressive rhythm section of Mssrs Dickinson and Martin while Brooker and Halloway do what they always do best: stretch, cajole and caress our organs, senses and squishy bits. Can't wait for the impending long player from these loveable tyros.
2= The Move. Shake. Hide. - Marmozets
Sheer brilliance from the mathy tykes. Guitars, huge choruses, melody, counterpoint, menace, grit, smiles and bowel-massaging power. As good as pop rock math mash ups will ever get. Bloody wonderful.
1. You Wanna Know - Don Broco
Slick, sexy, power pop rock imbued with a simmering sophistication that often goes unnoticed. Loveable ladcore loveliness from the clean-cut quartet who can do no wrong. Unashamedly catchier than Chlamydia and guaranteed to put a smile on even the grizzliest bearded hipster face. With the almost deified Mr Lancaster driving the desk again. Go on, I best you you can listen to it without smiling or joining in with the oo oos.
2013.
Well, that's it. Purely personal choice. And a year in which we've been pretty spoilt by the recorded output. UK rock in particular is certainly alive and kicking and with new music in the pipeline for next year from bands like Spycatcher, Polar, Yearbook, LTA, Don Broco, Trails, Maybeshewill and Hey Vanity among many, many others, then the future's looking seriously bright.
