2024 Album Highlights:
Written by Adam Peltier
Diamond Jubilee sounds unlike anything else that
came out in 2024. Part retro-futurist queer fantasy, part alien broadcast from
a David Lynch film, the album is less a collection of songs and more a bizarre
enveloping sonic landscape.
The seventh record by Patrick Flegel’s experimental drag
rock project Cindy Lee, this triple album came as a surprise release. Dropping
without fanfare or press back in March, it was released exclusively as a
continuous YouTube stream and on Flegel’s official Realistik Studios Web
1.0-style website. Diamond Jubilee quickly went on to draw a lot of attention
from online fans and the music press, racking up critical acclaim and a cult
following, despite the unassuming method of its release. The album was even
shortlisted for the 2024 Polaris Music Prize, the first time a record
without a physical release had been nominated for the award.
Its no wonder the record drummed up such acclaim; the
mishmash of girl group pop, psychedelica, and 90’s lo-fi indie was unlike
anything else released this year, a masterwork coming out from the duo of
Flegel and multi-instrumentalist Steven Lind, whose golden guitar tones and
grooving bass harkened back to the halcyon recordings of Mo-Town and Tamla.
Then there are the songs, each a pocket dimension, an indelible short narrative
fleshing out the mysteries of the Cindy Lee universe. “Stone Faces” propels forward
with its hypnotic rhythm. “Wild Rose” tramps ahead drunkenly on high-heeled
guitar picks, threatening but never teetering over into chaos. The longing
“Golden Microphone” might be the album’s most conventionally beautiful moment,
a rock and roll prayer for transcendent love.
It’s the rare triple record that never overstays its
welcome. Instead, the sheer quality and quantity of the music here is
astounding. Both sparkling and foggy, longing and acerbic, Diamond
Jubilee is an album quite unlike anything else.
Jessica Pratt - Here In the Pitch
There is something in the hypnogogic mood of Here in the Pitch that is both stirring and pensive. Much like the shadow drenched figure of Jessica Pratt on the album’s cover, there is something about these arrangements that feel veiled in darkness. A liminal sense of uncertainty permeates what could have easily been little more than a nostalgic tribute to the bygone hippie era of Pratt’s native California. Instead, the songs mutate and shift into something darker and more ominous. Marianne Faithful is too easy a comparison to make, especially when Pratt’s sensitive guitar work and pained vocals call to mind the melancholic records of Nick Drake, Karen Dalton, and Sibylle Baier.
Created alongside long-time collaborator Al Carlson, the
expanded instrumentation of Here in the Pitch fleshes out
Pratt’s sound, adding a newfound depth and diversity to her arrangements. Each
track on this humble nine-song set feel like a tiny mystery, a Mansfieldian
world of ambiguity and longing, twilight-tinged stories of desire and despair.
Easily Pratt’s most accomplished record, Here In the
Pitch is a spacious and dreamy experience and is well-worth falling
into its lush embrace.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor -
The cries of children. Bombardment rending families and bodies apart. Tears caked with grey dust billowing from the rubble. There is no ambiguity with this record. GY!BE are uncompromising in their direction, their warped guitars and visceral string arrangements evoking the horrors of the attacks on Gaza. Its an album that doesn't need words to have its message profoundly heard. This is urgent, brilliant, and utterly necessary music.
More 2024 Album Highlights:Written by Dave Konstantino
Packs – Melt The Honey
Toronto-based band Packs began around 2019 as a solo project for songwriter Madeline Link. A full band emerged shortly after featuring Dexter Nash (guitar), Noah O’Neil (bass) and Shane Hooper on drums. With a few singles released online, they drew the attention of Fire Talk records and then released their debut album Take The Cake in 2021 and Crispy Crunchy Nothing followed in 2023. The band’s sound has been described as lo-fi indie rock, garage rock, and drawing influences from acts such as Pavement, Guided By Voices, Sebadoh and others, Link’s lyrics often pull from a literary aesthetic, delivering character driven stories at times, or evoking meaning from the mundane moments in life by balancing wit with humour. Packs third full-length album Melt the Honey arrived in January 2024.
Recorded in Mexico over the course of 11 days by the band themselves, Melt
the Honey takes a more experimental approach to aspects of Packs
sound, often wandering into psych, shoe gaze and folk territory while still
staying true to the sounds of the band’s first two albums. “89 Days”
opens with a hazy more lethargic feel. Lyrically, Link sings “No
backups for 89 days/I click on close, but the thought still remains/And as I
fall asleep, I wish that I could change” touching on themes of
unresolved tasks, missed opportunities and the passage of time in a poignant
way. “Honey” is a more upbeat track. The album takes its title from this song.
With acoustic guitars, steady drums, bass and electric guitar that cuts in and
out with organ in the syrupy choruses, lyrics “Tar on the freeway marks
on the wall/This is where I fall/Figuring out it's seriously what I wanted all
this time” in the verses emphasize the complex layers and thrills of a
new relationship. “HFCS” is a more lo-fi garage-sounding track. With
lyrics “High fructose corn syrup” in the sugary sounding
choruses, Link and Packs tackle the addictiveness of artificial based sugars
over the real thing while also serving up a metaphor for authenticity. Throughout Melt
the Honey, the music is raw, unfiltered and unafraid to experiment.
Lyrically, the songs go deep into the complex layers of emotions with a new
sense of optimism, still evoking meaning from the mundane with an undeniable
wit and humour. Melt the Honey reverberates with lo-fi
confident honeyed rhythms, melodies and lyrics that will be hard to forget.
Apollo Ghosts - Amethyst
In 2022, Apollo Ghosts returned bringing back elements of their jangle-punk sound with something new. On the stunning double album Pink Tiger (released on You've Changed Records), Apollo Ghosts featured one album (Pink) that was primarily acoustic with lyrics of loss, illness, death and memory in eleven tracks, while the other album (Tiger) leans towards more jangle-punk, garage sounds and features the remaining songs in this 22-song epic collection. Lyrically, this side of the album celebrates friendship, music and hope. It was recorded primarily as a three-piece band featuring Teacher, Amanda P. and Robbie N. In 2023, ahead of a European tour they released the psych-tinged digital single Gave Up the Dream. And in February 2023, a surprise mini-album/EP arrived digitally ahead of a Japanese tour titled Amethyst, released on You've Changed Records.
A collection of jangly punk songs, the brief selection of songs packs a mighty punch pulling from influences of Built To Spill, Pavement and Yo La Tengo. Along with the combination of jangle pop, indie, garage and punk, when combined with the witty lyrics of Adrian Teacher, gives Amethyst extra weight. Musically, the ever-evolving sound of Apollo Ghosts in addition to the already mentioned influences, also adds elements of bands such as Go Betweens and The Bats. “Ripping Invasives” starts off Amethyst and is a hard-hitting punk and post punk track with lyrics contrasting lies, dishonesty to dangerous invasive plants that need to be ripped out and destroyed to protect nature. The theme of killing parts of nature in order protect it operates on many levels here. “Rave Heaven” features a locked in mid-tempo groove with crunchy distorted guitars as lyrics such as “I’ll be the sun/And you’ll be the moon/Wildfires start/They’re starting so soon,” and “I’ll be honest/That I felt the healing coming/But I’m not sure it is or if the sentiment is gone,” about environmental factors such as climate change in a sardonic way, contrasting them to stormy elements of a relationship. Throughout Amethyst, lyrics deal with near death experiences, struggling with a world with leaders unmotivated by change, gentrification, among other things. Musically, the album is their loudest to date. On this EP, Apollo Ghosts show us that sincerity exists in a world of dishonesty, contrasting the dark with the light in a way that only they can.
Bad Hoo - A Run-In With Worms
Described as surfy sultry garage scuzz from Victoria, BC, Bad Hoo’s 2024 album A Run-In with Worms is an off the wall, fresh sounding album that is focused, strong and raw. Their last release 2020’s Right As Rain, delved into more experimentation musically and lyrically, delivering a potent, haunting mixture of sonic sounds during the 2020 climate. A Run-In with Worms builds on Right As Rain’s strong moments, propelling Bad Hoo further.
“Patrick Raw,” brings deep cutting basslines, drums and sporadic guitar riffs, with thought provoking lyrics “There is no competition/I am their competition” that open A Run-In with Worms on powerful note, fuzzy garage and surf riffs deliver “Old Outch” as witty lyrics “I felt evil on a Sunday/Goodness knows you’re going to/Run run run double time,” “Eat your spuds/Whole and live/They’ll grow out of you when you die/Or try old outch but there’s no pain/The chips in bed in your brains,” balance the absurdity of Sunday’s, the work week, chips, death and the evilness, frustrations and mundaneness of the real world, “Withering Hides” is a hard hitting track with rolling guitar riffs that navigate and slither between Oswald’s vocals, that pull from a literary context here delivering a mix of passion, love and vengeance-related themes.2. U.S. Girls - Pearly Gates
3. Martha and the Muffins - Hide and Seek
4. Kate Fagan - 2 Good 2 Be True
5. Jessica Pratt - Get Your Head Out
6. The Clean - Anything Could Happen
7. The Saints - (I’m) Stranded (Original Mix)
8. Wire - Sand in My Joints (4th Demo Session)
9. The Undertones - True Confessions (Single Version)
10. The Libertines - Death on the Stairs
11. The White Stripes - Jumble, Jumble
12. The Hives - Missing Link
13. The Zombies - Tell Her No
14. The Zombies - It’s Alright with Me
15. The Zombies - Work N’ Play
16. The Beatles - No Reply
17. The Beatles - I’m A Loser
18. The Beatles - Baby’s in Black
19. Psychic Void - Denim Daddy
20. Cellos - Demagogue
21. James OL & The Villains - Late Night Drive
22. What Seas What Shores - Pave the Oceans
23. The Skeggs - Out of My Head
24. King Khan (Feat. Saba Lou & Bella the Bizarre) - Bring Them Home
25. Bella and the Bizarre - In Your Mind
26. The Discarded - Going to the Beach
27. Horse Chops - Ten Speed
28. The Bug Club - War Movies
29. Minor Threat - 12XU
30. Iceage - You’re Nothing
31. Metz - Get Off
32. Rites of Spring - Theme
33. Protomartyr - Devil in His Youth
2. The Surfrajettes - Instant Coffee (Easy As Pie - Hi-Tide Recordings - 2024)
3. The Routes - Atmosphere (Surfin' Pleasures - Topsy Turvy Records - 2024)
4. Tandoori Knights - 88 Keys (14 Hits That Don't Quit - Rad Girlfriend Records - 2024)
5. Wine Lips - Six Pack (Super Mega Ultra - Stomp Records - 2024)
6. Hot Garbage - You Snooze You Lose (Precious Dream - Mothland - 2024)
7. Amyl and the Sniffers - Do It Do It (Cartoon Darkness - B2B/Virgin Music Group - 2024)
8. MJ Lenderman - Joker Lips (Manning Fireworks - ANTI- 2024)
9. Mount Eerie - Non-Metaphorical Decolonization (Night Palace - P.W. Elverum & Sun - 2024)
10. Crack Cloud - Lack of Lack (Red Mile - Jagjaguwar - 2024)
11. Kim Deal - Crystal Breath (Nobody Loves You More - 4AD - 2024)
12. Motorists - Phone Booth in the Desert of the Mind (Touched By the Stuff - We Are Time - 2024)
13. Bad Hoo - Hot Dr. Pibbs (A Run-In with Worms - Cool Ranch - 2024)
14. Dog Day - Bordering (A T-Shirt with Writing On It - Fundog - 2024)
15. Dog Day - Wasn’t It Nice (Almost - Fundog - 2024)
16. The Smile - Zero Sum (Cutouts - XL Recordings - 2024)
17. Jon McKiel - Concrete Sea (Hex - You've Changed Records - 2024)
18. Jessica Pratt - Life Is (In the Pitch - Mexican Summer - 2024)
19. Adrienne Lenker - Vampire Empire (Bright Future - 4AD - 2024)
20. Beth Gibbons - Tell Me Who You Are Today (Lives Outgrown - Chamber Pop - 2024)
21. Dion Lunadon - Goodtimes (Memory Burn - Beast Records - 2024)
22. Osees - Pixelated Moon (SORCS 80 - Castle Face Records - 2024)
23. Sunglaciers - Kafka (Regular Nature - Mothland - 2024)
24. Apollo Ghosts - Ripping Invasives (Amethyst - You've Changed Records - 2024)
25. Daniel Romano’s Outfit - Chatter (Too Hot To Sleep - You've Changed Records - 2024)
26. Night Court - Captain Caveperson ($hit Machine - Recess Records - 2024)
27. Pypy - Poodle Wig (Sacred Music - Goner Records - 2024)
28. Packs - Missy (Melt the Honey - Fire Talk - 2024)
29. Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice (Funeral for Justice - Matador - 2024)
30. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Sun is a Hole in Vapors (No Title as of 13 February 2024 28340 Dead - Constellation Records - 2024)
31. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Frogs (Wild God - PIAS Recordings - 2024)
32. Cindy Lee - Golden Microphone (Diamond Jubilee - W.25TH - 2024)
2. Jack White - What’s the Rumpus (No Name - Third Man Records - 2024)
3. Being Dead - Love Machine (EELS - Bayonet - 2024)
4. Nap Eyes - Ice Grass Underpass (Neon Gate - Paradise of Bachelors - 2024)
5. Brainrust - Band Manager (Indistinct Chatter - 2024)
6. The Scenics - Garthuson (New Part in Tower - Dream Tower Records - 2024)
7. X - Sweet Till the Bitter End (Smoke & Fiction - Fat Possum Records - 2024)
8. Roswit - Dreamer’s Song (Eternal Living - Mono Tapes - 2024)
9. Retail Simps - Knotted Up (Strike Gold, Strike Back, Strike Out - Total Punk Records - 2024)
10. Ducks LTD. - Hollowed Out (Harm's Way - Carpark Records - 2024)
11. Knitting - Amy (Some Kind of Heaven - Mint Records - 2024)
12. Vampire Weekend - Classical (Only God was Above Us - Columbia - 2024)
13. Hurray For the Riff Raff - Buffalo (The Past is Still Alive - Nonesuch - 2024)
14. La Luz - Poppies (News of the Universe - Sub Pop -2024)
15. Ty Segall - My Room (Three Bells - Drag City - 2024)
16. Rick White and The Sadies - Spellbound (Rick White and The Sadies - Blue Fog - 2024)
17. Skinny Dyck - Out of Control (Easygoing - Victory Pool - 2024)
18. The Bobby Tenderloin Universe - Marigold (Satan is a Woman - 2024)
19. The Jesus Lizard - Is That Your Hand? (Rack - Ipecac Recordings - 2024)
20. Kim Gordon - I’m A Man (The Collective - Matador - 2024)
21. Fontaines D.C. - Bug (Romance - XL Recordings - 2024)
22. Shellac - Scabby the Rat (To All Trains - Touch and Going Records - 2024)
23. The Mystery Lights - Mighty Fine & All Mine (Purgatory - Wick Records - 2024)
24. Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds - Wicked World (That Delicious Vice - In the Red Recordings - 2024)
25. Richard Laviolette - I Was Saved By Rock and Roll (All Wild Things Are Shy - You've Changed Records - 2024)
26. Shadow Show - Vertigo (Fantasy Now! - Stolen Body Records - 2024)
2. The Spits - Electric Brain
3. The Spits - Up All Night
4. Motorhead - The Hammer
5. Visibly Choked - Third Time’s the Charm
6. Roye Trout - Contrition & Disclosure
7. Thin Lizzy - Southbound
8. Sugar - Changes
9. Kim Deal - A Good Time Pushed
10. Teenage Fanclub - Radio
11. Father John Misty - She Cleans Up
12. Mount Eerie - & Sun
13. Robyn Hitchcock - Insect Mother
14. Unrest - Make Out Club
15. Camper Van Beethoven - Take the Skinheads Bowling
16. The dbs - Black and White
17. Bad Egg - Breaking the Lease
18. Fifth Column - Hit the Roof
19. The Government - I’m Somebody
20. The Dave Howard Singers - Darren Stevens
21. Deja Voodoo - Big Scary Daddy
22. Roxy Music - All I Want is You
23. Roxy Music - Out of the Blue
24. Spun Out - Paranoia
25. Les Breastfeeders - Vivre et Exister
26. The Mystery Lights - In the Streets
27. The Minutemen - Cut
