Albums of 2014

The listmaking process in all of its intricacies.

This year, I laughed, I cried, I cursed (a lot). Much like the year before it, I’ve written this list to cast into light the bigger picture, as glorious as when the Dolby Digital thing starts in the cinema and you get sucked down into that crevice where 100 Moroccans spent six years carving each letter into the rockface. In terms of change, I finally got around to buying a new CD player this August, and it’s a joy to get home, shuffle into the slippers, and put on a album without worrying about iPod batteries, internet connections or getting electrocuted (that’ll teach me to take things apart). I’ve found this really does make a difference to how much I enjoy listening to music; maybe it was because I was playing MP3s (or AACs? Whatever) through a bass amp beforehand. But some things don’t change; I am still (fashionably?) late to the never–ending party that is the music world, with two out of twenty of my below choices being titles released this year, as I am still buying albums. I think part of my decision to continue ploughing this Luddite furrow is that without this financial boundary, I would probably end up downloading an album every day, and wouldn’t dig into each one the way I try to. To push this principle to its extreme, I think I’d rather listen to one album for the rest of my life than listen to thousand of albums only the one time each, but happily I don’t live in Room 101. On a final note, this list is in no particular order, so faakin’ shuttit.

Black Tusk, both Embrace The Madness and Tend No Wounds. Around once a month I put one of these on and remember how good they are/were. Fun and bare–toothed, lusting after life and blood at the same time with every instrument roaring.

Parkway Drive, Horizons. Generally speaking I don’t like this style of metal, as it tends to be adopted by bands attracted to its formulaic song structures and unimaginative riffs (I mean, Killswitch Engage have a best–of album in them from a 15 year career) but these guys write great riffs and songs. And metal on the beach? What an age we live in.

Megadeth, Rust In Peace. I had forgotten how fast and excellent their riffs are, how interesting their songwriting is, and the independence of the rhythm section. This album isn’t actually that heavy, but faster than a rat up a trouser leg. Pain Was The Cure? Goddamn, that’s a riff.

Slayer, South Of Heaven. Vicious, groovy, clattering, offensive.

YOB, Elaborations Of Carbon. New age doom, a brew of hippie’s thunder, all–seeing riffs in a world asunder.

Biffy Clyro, Live at T in The Park. This isn’t an official recording, I just saw a bit on TV, and watched it back on Youtube multiple times in the following weeks. Biffy Clyro have transitioned from being a bit weird to being a bit less weird, but still combine unusual touches with moments of euphoria. The video of the whole gig has been removed now, but the odd song is still listed, so faakin’ watch it.

Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures. I feel this is an unusual choice on my part, as it’s gloomy, not catchy and not heavy (OK, so two out of three are very usual), chilled out in a spare and withered way. See feature.

Ithaca, Narrow The Way. An excellent debut E.P mixing up metal, hardcore and dare I say it (feelin’ lucky, punk?) emo, of the Sikth and Weak Teeth variety. The songs smash along, helped by plenty of loud–to–quiet (and, of course, quiet–to–loud) moments, and an abundance of quality riffs, like 2.30 in Burial. Closing track Mercy is particularly propulsive, with some rather unexpected clean backing vocals bringing things to a climatic end; not bad for an EP only 18 minutes long. Download it here, and pay for it too, you thieving bastards.

 

The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God. And they certainly have. Excellent to get drunk and spoil parties to.

Rise Against, Appeal To Reason, Siren Song Of The Counter Culture and Endgame. Every time I hear a Rise Against album I am disappointed, and a week later I always wonder why. It takes a while for their quality to sink in, but I don’t know why; catchy riffs, engaging vocals and lyrics, excellent song writing, and a punk band that focus on principles over art.

Guns’n’Roses, Use Your Illusion II. A journey, through highs and lows, with swagger and sensitivity.

Death, both Individual Thought Patterns and The Sound Of Perseverance. Hearing Flesh and The Power It Holds for the first time was like One sighing out of the speakers for the first time again. I really enjoyed both of these on the train journey home after a day in front of a computer, because alongside being utterly vicious, the lyrics and songwriting are both deeply enlightened and enlightening.

Nails, Abandon All Life. Todd Jones is both insightful and controversial in everything he says (read the excellent Steel For Brains interview), and teeth–clenchingly hostile in his lyrics. Nails really do hate you, me, everyone else and quite possibly themselves. Take it personally.

Torche, Harmonicraft. Why do these guys not get played on the radio? Fun heavy metal, which, need I say it, is totally unique. Euphoric and pounding, this was another one I really enjoyed listening to on a packed train on the way home, when everyone defaults to being as miserable as possible. I am waiting for a suitably triumphant moment (or moments, I’m not adverse to that, so bring it on, life) to play Harmonicraft as loudly as possible.

Def Leppard, On Through The Night. I love a bit of NWOBHM, which is what this is; Leppard weren’t always so poppy. I mean, look at the front cover: that’s some cool space truckin. I love waking up to this, even at 6.45am in December!

Machine Head, Bloodstones & Diamonds. It is still sinking in, and I’m yet to grasp its nuances, the nuance of a broken neck, that is, but it’s good, I’ll tells yous that much.

2014 also bade farewell to the BBC Punk Show, Jay Adams and Jon Athon. It’s been emotional.

 

The Winter Of Our Content IV: Joy Division Know No Pleasure

I had planned to listen to Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures at dusk, and write about it in the lengthening shadows before it was completely dark. Sunset came and went, so I ended up listening to it as the long night started, the bursts of winds reduced to shaking trees, skittering leaves and a cold sensation on my hands and face as I pulled the headphones on.

Before buying this album, Love Will Tear Us Apart was the only song by Joy Division that I knew. Consequently, I assumed most of their material, and their cultish popularity, was based on simultaneously upbeat and afflicted music. Unknown Pleasures is not upbeat on any level. It is mostly slow and sparse, and overwhelmingly minor. If the vocals weren’t as clean and the drums and guitar heavier, it would be a depressive metal album. As it is, it isn’t heavy, it isn’t catchy, it can’t be danced to, and it sounds quite sparse. The guitar is spacious, scraping or chiming, the bass rumbles, and the drums are light, with minimal fills.

Ian Curtis’ vocals, at first listen, seem fairly flat; not as in at the wrong pitch, but as in being fairly unremarkable. Although the lyrics are vague, working heavily in imagery and metaphors, the mood is unambiguously disconsolate. Recurring lyrical themes are depression, isolation, guilt, selfishness, stasis, failing relationships, urban decay and suicide, and the all-round existential pain of being. The few times it sounds like it’s about to become upbeat, such as Insight, with its pulsing bass line and echoing synth, it always turns to reveal an equally sunless other side. Opening track Disorder embodies this characteristic, an almost calm riff accompanied by the bubbling panic of lines like ‘Could these sensations make me feel the pleasure of a normal man?/These sensations barely interest me for another day’. This panic creeps through into second track Day Of The Lords, Curtis dolefully asking ‘Where will it end?’ A song born of the darkness, it enters with a pulsing, lurking riff. A trait that soon becomes a defining characteristic of the entire album, the riffs steadily repeat, unconcerned with changing, the vocals giving way to frequent instrumental sections. It’s almost as though the neutrality and lack of energy – quite obviously, usually bad things in music – are what gives this album its character.

Given the dominant lyrical themes, this stasis is fitting. The mournful baritone vocals of Day Of The Lords are at first listen seemingly about a zombie apocalypse, but on closer inspection, although indefinitely remaining open to interpretation, are obviously about something much realer; suicide, the pain of life, or maybe even fascism. The track fades out into Candidate’s slow entrance, a chorus-heavy guitar like rusty metal echoing over from a mile away. Full of space, the unvarying nature of the songwriting creates a haunted mood. ‘I tried to get to you…’ repeats at the end, until it just peters out. Again, the lyrics are vague, but refer to the themes of corruption, loss of passion, guilt, the inevitability of failure and mental breakdown. This unconcerned repetition is a big part of the song writing throughout the album, with riffs plugging away for minutes at a time on New Dawn Fades, underpinned by a gritty bass guitar. As the title suggests, the lyrics document the chance of ‘hoping for something more’ and of a new beginning  in a relationship, before quickly losing direction in the face of mutual apathy. Likewise, riffs repeat in Shadowplay, unconcerned with changing, building up a morbid sense of momentum with its brooding bass intro and ringing cymbals, gathering a rich, raging guitar sound. Fast and minor, there is an apocalyptic nuance within lines like ‘To the centre of the city where all roads meet, waiting for you/ To the depths of the ocean where all hope sank, waiting for you’.

The album lumbers on, head in hands, on a downwards spiral, getting better each step of the way. In particular, She’s Lost Control builds up as it documents the unravelling of a relationship, and the narrator’s consequent slip into destruction. Interzone enters with a fast hi-hat beat, then an almost rocking bass and guitar take it away, searching for friends who can never be found amongst urban decay and manic depression. And then it’s out, at 2.15. I Remember Nothing enters slowly, with scraping echoes, lurching bass, and the sound of a bottle smashing. The riffs repeat, unchanging, whilst two layers of vocals talk over each other, until it fades out with a long instrumental section.

I don’t know much about Joy Division’s contemporaries and the Zeitgeist of post-punk music, so for me it’s really its own beast. First released in 1979, the album liner notes are minimal, with just a track listing, a few credits, and artwork evoking the contours of a mountain range in black and white. I wasn’t sold on Unknown Pleasures at first; I approached it with a lot of cultural baggage, having bought it on the basis of its legendary reputation, and found it to be gloomy, low on energy, sparse, and depressed as one of those fish that lives at the bottom of the sea. It is solitary, entrapped, non-communal music, and as such, I think this explains why it’s a winter album. The unknown pleasures of this album aren’t esoteric or exotic sensations; they’re feelings of happiness, and of everyday feelings. Although when I started listening to it, the night was already dark, when the music stopped and I looked up, it seemed as though it had grown a little darker.