Moroni's Top 15 Albums of 2021

 2021 may not have been so great in some respects (we lost Betty White on the last day), but in terms of music, it was a stellar year.  Here are my top picks:

15. Actors "Acts of Worship" - I discovered this band from their very active social media campaign, and I am glad I did.  Neatly packaged with a chic look and sound with awesome videos to boot.  Hailing out of Vancouver, BC, this band blends a danceable mix of darkwave, gothic rock, and post-punk. And it works. Very catchy music, plenty of hooks, and some very '80s sounding new wave grooves. Worth the listen.  My favorite picks are "Love U More" and "Like Suicide".

14. Various Artists "Bills & Aches & Blues (40 Years of 4AD) - My feelings about the prestigious 4AD label are mixed. They signed and produced some of the greatest artists of the last 40 years. It used to be a watermark for quality. Now, they seem to sign just about anybody - not all of them good.

On this album, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the label, they have current artists covering past songs of other 4AD artists. Some of it is excellent - US Girls covering The Birthday Party, Dry Cleaning covering Grimes, Sohn doing a version of "Song to the Siren", Breeders doing His Name Is Alive, and my favorite, Future Islands covering Colourbox. Some of it is annoying like a version of The Breeders' "Cannonball" by Tune-Yards. And some of it is just plain weird like an ambient piano version of Pixies' "Gigantic" by Bing and Ruth.

Whatever the case, it's a fitting tribute to what is arguably the greatest record label of all time.

13. Emma Ruth Rundle "Engine of Hell" - With her blend of folk, gothic rock, and sludge metal, Emma Ruth Rundle is one of my favorite artists of the last decade. She was on my end-of-the-year list for 2020 for her sizzling compliation with metal artists, Thou. For her fifth album, she unplugs and goes acoustic for a haunting and deeply confessional album. This will never be my favorite of her records, but it is still very good and a testament of what a good songwriter she is. The album's strong point is "Citadel" with its acoustic guitar and fiddle - very haunting. Can't wait to see what she does next.

12. Lost Horizons "In Quiet Moments" - In 1997, Cocteau Twins created their own record label, to release their own material - Bella Union. A year later, the band imploded, and creative control of the label fell solely to Simon Raymonde, Cocteau Twins' bassist and keyboardist. Over the course of more than two decades, he signed such prolific acts as Fleet Foxes, Explosions in the Sky, and Beach House.

For this project, Raymonde teams with Richie Thomas from legendary '80s proto-dreampop band Dif Juz to create an understated yet scintillating dreampop masterpiece. As I listened to this album this morning, my wife remarked that it sounded very Cocteau Twins-ish ("Every Beat That Passed"). And yet every song is different - from dark cabaret, '60s-influenced R&B, to subdued pop, because, like This Mortal Coil, every song is a different collaboration from Bella Union's roster of artists. Midlake's Tim Smith, Marissa Nadler, and Karen Peris of Innocence Mission (!!).

The result is a diversified yet dreamy album.

11. A Place To Bury Strangers "Hologram" - A Place To Bury Strangers - The Loudest Band in NYC - is back with a new EP with their trademark brand of psychotic and psychedelic melee of noise, fuzz, distortion, reverb, and feedback. They are the most original shoegaze band out there. This would have scored way higher on my list, except that it is only an EP and not a full album.

The selection down below - "Playing the Part" is one of their mellowest - sounds a bit like The Feelies.

10. Turnstile "GLOW ON" - I've been listening to the new Turnstile album. I'm not new to this band. I have their 2018 sophomore release, but the new album is being mentioned on several AOTY lists, so I decided to give it a listen.

Turnstile is to hardcore punk as Sturgill Simpson is to country music - hardcore punk, yes, but so much more. They blend in so many other different genres that it's hard to classify them - funk, R&B, post-punk, shoegaze, etc. Sometimes they sound like Jane's Addiction, sometimes like The Police. Every song is eclectic and wildly different.

You're either going to love them or hate them. I can't get past a statement my friend said: "Imagine Dragons for hardcore kids". LOL It's funny. because it's true! Someone once referred to them as "dreamcore". I really like it, though.

Not for hardcore purists...

9. Mogwai "As Love Continues" - In the first week of its release, the 10th album from Scottish post-rock pioneers, Mogwai, went #1 on the UK Album Charts. It surprised everyone that a post-rock album, mostly instrumental, would chart that high - surprising even the band. Swirling and expansive, this album is truly cinematic.

"Richie Sacramento" is the main single and standout track, one of the few songs that actually has vocals.

8. Kælan Milka "Undir Köldum Nordurljósum" - Iceland produces the best music, and darkwave trio, Kælan Mikla are no exception. They spent 2019 touring with French blackgaze group, Alcest, even though the bands are wildly different. On the new album, they collaborate on a song, and the result is haunting, although it is the only shoegaze song on here. There are talks of both bands touring in the new year.

Perfect for the Halloween season - dark and spooky. It's blend of synthwave and goth makes it a good choice for those who like Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, Clan of Xymox, or Drab Majesty.

7. King Woman "Celestial Blues" - Kristina Esfandiari is a diversified artist, involved in many musical projects and genres. From rap (Dalmatian), industrial drone (NIGHTCRWLR), shoegaze (Whirr, Miserable), and doom metal (King Woman). For her second album as King Woman, she goes dark and grinding - like Black Sabbath's little sister. Esfandiari is one of the new generation of female performers of dark and heavy music, along with Emma Ruth Rundle and Chelsea Wolfe. Heavy, sludgy, and doomy, but not quite metal. Dark and sinister, but not quite goth. Ambient and ethereal, but not quite shoegaze. But having qualities of all of these genres. She is so great! She is definitely in my top 10 artists. I can't believe she's not more well known!

6. Lingua Ignota "Sinner Get Ready" - There is certainly no way to describe this album, except to say that it is the most ambitious and artistic musical project in the last 10 years. It's like watching a Broadway musical, except by Bertolt Brecht or David Lynch. Languid, dreamy, nightmarish, disturbing. moving, unsettling. The album documents her love/hate with religion. Operatic and almost classical, this dark album is a masterpiece. She moves seamlessly from classical to goth to industrial. There is no way to classify this album.

It reminds me of the time when a friend tried to introduce me to the music of Diamanda Galas and I wasn't ready for it. This album is purely transcendent.

You may never hear of this artist again, but the level of artistry in this effort is frightening and almost perfect.

5. Slow Crush "Hush" - A journalist recently described shoegaze music as listening to a mermaid fall into a black hole. This description fits the music of Belgian band, Slow Crush, as does their name. They are at once feathery and diaphanous, like lace blowing in the wind, but also soul crushing and heavy. They are one of my favorite new bands of the new wave of shoegaze artists, like in the last 2 years.

I also had a friend describe shoegaze music as "ambient grunge", and there could be no better description for Slow Crush. You are on the verge of being buried under an avalanche of ethereal reverb and fuzz, and you are either dying happy or incredibly sad.

4. Beachy Head "Beachy Head" - During the lockdown, Christian Savill, the guitarist of Slowdive, recorded some rough demos at home of music he wrote. At the soonest opportunity, he got his friends to go into the studio and record with him. Rachel Goswell of Slowdive, Ryan Graveface of Casket Girls, Steve Clarke of The Soft Cavalry, and Matt Duckworth of Flaming Lips. The result was a shoegaze supergroup and an incredible album. Not many good things came out of the Covid lockdown, but this album was one of those.

3. Dinosaur Jr. "Sweep It Into Space" - After 37 years and 12 albums, J. Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph - the kings of noise rock - are still cranking out catchy, hard-hitting songs. This entire album rocks, guitar driven and full of hooks. May they be around another 37 years!

There is not a bad song on this album!

2. Deafheaven "Infinite Granite" - Deafheaven helped create the "blackgaze" genre - an unholy mix of black metal, shoegaze, and post-rock. For their newest album, they pulled the plug on the black metal part and went straight shoegaze, their first album with clean vocals. The result is completely heart-crushing, in a good way. Even diehard metal fans, even if they didn't completely agree with the change, thought this record was good.

I'm no stranger to death metal and its shrieked vocals. However, I have always thought that the lead singer's voice is a little much. Imagine the most haunting, diaphanous shoegaze music set to a guy screaming like two bobcats trapped in a trash can. So, the newer clean vocals are a pleasant change to me.

1. Low " Hey What" - I don't get exposed to a lot of hype, because I live off grid in the middle of nowhere. Even at that, I am kind of an indie music connoisseur. It's rare that bands pass under my radar, especially if they have released 13 albums over the course of almost four decades. And yet I had never heard of Low before this album.

Low are a married Mormon couple from Minnesota who make what is termed "slowcore", and yet it is impossible to describe their music. Ambient, abstract, hypnotic, it is amazing to find a group who has been around this long and still making such artistic music. Warning: some of their stroboscopic rhythms made my daughter feel carsick while listening to this in the car.

The fact that they are Mormon is significant to me, especially when several Mormon tropes are recognizable in their lyrics.

I need to explore their back catalog to see if their other albums are as intense. But for now, I can't get past this one.

Happy New Year 2022!

Better Late Than Never: Moroni's Favorite Albums of 2020

Yes, I know this is late... 2020 will go down in history as a pretty shitty year, considering pandemics, lockdowns, fires, riots, and farcical elections. But for music, it was a pretty stellar year. Yes, I know that concerts were shut down. But in terms of artists having to go into the studio and make fantastic albums - well, there couldn't be a better year. There were so many to choose from, but here are some of my favorites: 

1. Nothing "The Great Dismal" - Nothing is a shoegaze band from Philadelphia, and I have covered this band from their debut album.  This album was the quintessential record for the 2020 pandemic.  The title itself refers to the dark times of global lockdown. Domenic Palermo spent his months at home writing the grittiest shoegaze record of the year. There are crestfallen melancholic pieces like "A Fabricated Life", "In Blueberry Memories", and "Blue Mecca".  And then there are songs that show their Nirvana-style penchant for '90s grunge like "April Ha Ha" and "Bernie Sanders".  But then there are bangers like "Say Less" and "Just a Story" that blend all of these qualities to make this Nothing's best album so far.  From darkness and despair, comes beauty.

 

2. Primal Giants "Untethered" - A stellar debut album from jam band, Primal Giants.  They are an eclectic mix of blues, psychedelia, outlaw country, and Grateful Dead-style jam rock.  Last year, I did an exclusive interview with wild frontman (or front wildman) JR Hendry, just ahead of the release of the album on March 7, 2020.  This was before either of us was aware of the upcoming pandemic and lockdown.  Within a week of the release of the album, airports shut down and concerts were cancelled.  Along with countless other artists, Primal Giants had to cancel their upcoming tour to support their new album.  And it was our loss.  We missed seeing what was undoubtedly a phenomenal live experience.  (I have watched live online performances.) But at least we have this album and can groove to such smashing tunes like "Stand Up", "Junkie", and "Queen Bee".  There are also some deep and confessional songs like "Wasted Years" and "Needles" that will stir your soul.  This album is excellent from start to finish.  There are rumors of a forthcoming new album and new tour in the near future.  Luck us.  I plan on being in the audience.  Do ya hear me, JR Hendry?

3. The Strokes "The New Abnormal" - How New York is it to adorn your sixth album with a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat?  And to give your album a name that accurately describes this crazy time period that we live in?  The Strokes are back!  Back in form with their first album in seven years, and without a doubt, their best since their first two.  Darlings of the New York post-punk revival, they are known for their strong bass and percussion section, Albert Hammond Jr.'s hooky guitar riffs, and Julian Casablancas's distinctive voice.  So, Julian!  Julian is known to have quite the vocal range, and he is known to hold it in check.  But not here!  He unleashes it for this album.  The result is one of their strongest and most catchy albums.  When this album came out, I listened to it on repeat for weeks; every song is that good!  I can hardly pick my favorites, but I particularly like "The Adults Are Talking" and "Selfless" for Julian's voice, the '80s-inspired new wave hit "Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus", Hammond's Stones-tinged riffs on "Eternal Summer" as well as Casablancas's saucy emulation of Bowie or Jagger, the melancholy "At the Door"... This album is perfect.  I am deeply satisfied.  Oh, and all of my kids universally like this one as well.

4.  Sufjan Stevens "The Ascension" - This one came as a surprise to me.  Sufjan Stevens is an Emmy and Academy Award-winning avant garde composer known for making contemplative and morose forays into indie folk music.  For this, his eighth album, he made an electropop album, which I think surprised a lot of people.  His breathy voice also sounds freakishly similar to Justin Bieber.  However, unlike the Biebs, this album delves deeply into subconscious themes of life, death, happiness, depression, belief, religion, unbelief, society, and grief.  Beneath the glittering pop facade, this is a surprisingly complicated album.  And not just thematically, but sonically.  Beneath the danceable beats and electronic blips and beeps, their are subtle layers and counter-beats, making the arrangements much more complex and more like classical music.  This is much more than pop music usually is, although it can be occasionally this profound as Stevens proves.  The highlights of this album are the songs "Video Game" and "Sugar".  However, he gets to wax trippy and poetic with pieces like "Die Happy", "Ativan", and "Giglamesh".  The album ends with the sprawling, cinematic opus, "America". 

5. Johnny Goth "The Great Awakening" - My son who lives in New York recommended this artist to me last year in time to catch this, Johnny Goth's fourth album.  In spite of the name and the white makeup and black lipstick, Johnny Goth is not really goth - until now.  He usually performs indie folk with usually just his sweet angelic voice and guitar.  It almost has an acrid sense of irony.  (Check out his haunting and startlingly beautiful take on Britney Spears.)  Johnny Goth is part of the ubiquitous bedroom pop ethic - young artists who have bypassed A&R men and record labels and have recorded their music in their own bedrooms with their own equipment and have released and promoted their work through social media.  And Mr. Goth is prolific.  He releases new singles almost on a weekly basis on YouTube. With the new album, he lived up to his name and went totally goth- spooky, vampiric, scary, like a Tim Burton nightmare. But it works. He is best when his voice is muted and feminine like a dark angel.  My top picks are "Come Closer To Me", "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" and the angelic "Hit Me Right".

6. brdmm "Bedroom" - This is a brilliant debut album from a UK shoegaze band that I know next to nothing about, and yet I this album has been my personal soundtrack for the past year.  This is their first album, and yet they have released a new single on this day as I write.  On the new single, they are going for a new electronica, slowcore sound, but this album - called "Bedroom" because they recorded the whole album in their house - is definitely shoegaze, taking a page from artists like Beach Fossils or DIIV.  The whole album is dipped and coated in dreamy reverb and muted vocals.  Some songs have jangly, krautrock-inspired guitar licks and bouncy rhythms like "Gush" and "Happy".  Some songs are watery and shimmering like "Push/ Pull" and "Is That What You Wanted To Hear?".  And some songs are swelling and explosive like "A Reason To Celebrate" and "If....". This album is great, happy and sad at the same time in ways only a shoegaze record can be.  I look forward to whatever they do next.

7. Health "Disco 4: Part 1" - Okay, I can't even begin to describe this album!  First, let me prelude this by saying that I have yet to listen to any other album by this group yet, and they have five albums as well as five remix albums.  But this one is amazing!  They originally gained fame fourteen years ago when Crystal Castles remixed one of their songs.  They are considered noise rock, but they are an unholy conglomeration of industrial, darkwave, grindcore, hyperpop, and hip hop, the genre changing maddeningly with each song.  That is because this album is a series of collaborations with a variety of artists they love - like hip hop artists Ghostemane or JPEGMAFIA, or post-punk artist The Soft Moon, or synthwave artist Perturbator, or experimental indie artists Xiu Xiu, Soccer Mommy, or 100 gecs.  The result is an electrifying melange of odd combinations, all of it dark and terrifying.  My hot picks are "Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.", "Colors", "Mass Grave", "Delicious Ape", and "Hard To Be a God".  There are talks of a "Disco 4: Part 2" in collaboration with Nine Inch Nails very soon.

8. Grimes "Miss Anthropocene" - Of course, I have reviewed Grimes before.  Say what you will about her high profile marriage - as well as separation - with Elon Musk, Grimes is still a true artist.  She writes, engineers, mixes her own music, as well as oversees her videos, designs her own costumes and album covers.  She is an artist in every sense of the word.  On her fifth album - and her last under the 4AD record label - she creates her darkest and most dystopian record so far. Her music is a mix of synthpop, dream pop, and darkwave, all of it saturated in reverb.  My favorite selections are "Darkseid", a collaboration with Taiwanese rapper, Pan Wei-Ju, "4AEM" an ethereal song worthy of 4AD with a drum and bass chorus, and "My Name Is Dark" with its piercing shrieks.  The name of the song was originally titled "That's What the Drugs Are For", but her label made her change it.  Speaking of which, creative differences caused Grimes to say in some now-deleted tweets that she was done with her "shit label".  She was going to make one more fantastic album for them, and then move on her own without them.  Well, this album is fantastic.  I can't wait to see what she does next.

9. Deserta "Black Aura My Sun" - Generally, shoegaze music falls into two categories - either loud, bombastic, explosive, and grinding like My Bloody Valentine or Nothing. Or soft, ethereal, dreamy and wispy like Slowdive or Beach House.  Deserta falls into the second category.  Deserta, from Los Angeles, is the solo project of Matthew Doty (although he has since added two other musicians).  This album started out our year in 2020, being released in January of that year, and it was very well received by the shoegaze community, and with good reason.  This album is billowing like a huge thunderhead catching the last light of evening.  The keyboards, guitars and almost-whispered vocals all blend together into a tsunami of sound.  This album is mellow and soft, but it has a huge sound.  Okay, I'm going to say it - it sounds like Cocteau Twins.  My only possible complaint is that all of the songs sound kind of like the same song.  But what a beautiful song it is.  My favorites are "Paradiso", "Hide", "Monica", and "Be So Blue".  Hell, the whole album.  They just released a new single, so let's hope a new album is around the corner.

10. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou "May Our Chambers Be Full" -  A few years ago, I fell in love with the music of Emma Ruth Rundle. Emerging from experimental band, Marriages (whom I love also), Rundle began making a dark blend of goth rock, doom metal, and folk - much like her female companions Chelsea Wolfe and King Woman.  (What a movement!) Rundle's music is all of these genres, and none of them.  However, Rundle has always leaned heavier on the metal side in terms of her influences.  So, it came as no surprise when she collaborated with critically-acclaimed sludge metal group, Thou, for one album.  The result is two devils horns up!  This record is heavy, grinding, and carries forward as hot and inevitable as a pyroclastic flow.  The contrast between Bryan Funk's shredded vocals and Rundle's spooky voice is amazing.  My top picks are "Out of Existence", "Magickal Cost", and the lengthy "The Valley".  By the way, Rundle has a new album coming out next month, and I'm super excited about it.

Honorable Mentions

11. Holy Fawn "The Black Moon" - This would have scored a lot higher on my list, but it's not an album, but an EP.  A blackgaze group - a mix between shoegaze and black metal - from my home state of Arizona, this group is phenomenal.  Their music alternates between ambient electronic verses and volatile, incendiary choruses with screamed vocals.  Only three songs on here - "Candy", the instrumental "Tethered", and "Blood Pact", which made every playlist I made for others last year.  Their other albums (they have two) are excellent as well.  I think the best way to describe their music would be the Sigur Ros of black metal.  Please check them out if you have a chance.

12. Meg Myers "Thank U 4 Taking Me 2 the Disco" & "I'd Like 2 Go Home Now" - 2020 provided us with not just one, but 2 EPs from my favorite pop star, Meg Myers.  Enough for one album, but we have two EPs instead, and here she is on the Honorable Mention list.  The EPs are fantastic, though.  Those who have followed my blog know that I - and my music guru, Nikki - have followed Meg since her early EPs, her first album, and her second album.  She's great.  She is part Kate Bush and part Sinead O'Connor.  The strong points here are "Any Way You Wanna Love", "Grizzly", the heart-breaking " i hope u cry", a duet with morgxn, "True Liars", and a piano waltz called "Last Laugh".  What can I say?  I love Meg!

13.  Shimmerance "Shimmerance" - Russia has all of the good music coming out of it - bands like Human Tetris, Molchat Doma, and Parks, Squares, and Alleys.  There is a vibrant post-punk scene there, including goth, shoegaze, and dream pop.  Shimmerance is a shoegaze quintet from Moscow, and their debut album shimmers!  Having two vocalists - Maria Kondakova and Nik Babukhin - they take a different approach to shoegaze vocals by having clear and distinct vocal arrangements (in English) rather than burying the voices behind the instruments.  My top songs are "Look At Me Now", "Falling Down", "Altered Realm", and my favorite, "Nightcall". That one is a cover by Kavinsky from the soundtrack of "Drive", a song I always liked and one of my favorite movies.

14. Ringo Deathstarr "Ringo Deathstarr" - That's the sad thing about doing end-of-the-year lists - it's hard to exclude a band, especially when there was so much good music that came out.  The list would not be complete without including Ringo Deathstarr, a shoegaze band from Austin, Texas.  Ringo Deathstarr (awesome name) have been among the forerunners of the shoegaze revival (please don't use the term 'nugaze') for over a decade, taking a page from older acts like My Bloody Valentine and Lush.  And it works.  Very well.  Especially here, on their fifth album.  My preferred tracks are "Just Like You" with its Dinosaur Jr. vibe, "Once Upon a Freak", and the subdued (for them) "Cotton Candy Clouds"

15. L.A. Witch "Play With Fire" - And finally, we have L.A. Witch, an all-female rock band from, you guess it, Los Angeles.  They have such a great sound.  Originally just known as Witch, they had to change their name when another band already had that moniker. They have the savage impulse of '90s riot grrrls like L7 and the groovy '60s noise rock vibe of bands like Dum Dum Girls.  Whatever the case, these girls rock!  Thanks to my friend Ryan for recommending them.  My favorite songs are "Motorcycle Boy", "Dark Horse", "Gen-Z", and "I Wanna Lose".  I had this album on repeat for a while.

BEST OF 2021 COMING SOON!!!!