My Favorite Albums of 2014 (16-25)

My blog hasn't been quite so active lately since I've been busy with other things, but I've still been listening to plenty of music and working on my annual favorite albums of the year list. This year I've narrowed things down to my top 25 (although I may talk about some others that just missed the cut in a post later). Here are entries 16-25. I'm hoping to follow this up with 6-15 tomorrow and squeezing in 1-5 on the last day of the new year. I hope you find something you enjoy here. I'd love to hear what albums other people enjoyed that I missed.


25) The Antlers - Familiar

Familiars is the fourth album from the New York indie rock trio. It continues their tradition of making gorgeous music. My favorite tracks are "Palace" and "Intruders."

24) Benjamin Booker - Benjamin Booker

This album is Benjamin Booker's debut, and his high energy version of blues rock is instantly infectious. The album kicks off with the track "Violent Shiver," which is a great start to an album. I love the guitar work, and I can't wait to hear more from him in the future. In addition to "Violent Shiver," my other favorite tracks are "Wicked Waters" and "Have You Seen My Son?"

23) Cataldo - Gilded Oldies

Seattle-based Cataldo was new to me this year. I can't recall how I discovered them, but I've found myself returning to this album (released in March) quite a bit over the year. You can download the lead track for the price of an email address on their website. My favorite tracks are "Sinkhole" and album closer "Other Side."

22) Shovels & Rope - Swimmin' Time

Shovels & Rope is the stage name for married duo Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent. Swimmin' Time is their follow up to their excellent "O' Be Joyful" in 2012. Once again, Hearst's voice is the real star, but the charm and chemistry of both members is readily apparent in all of their music. I saw the them a couple years ago at Sasquatch Music Festival, and I highly recommend going to see them if you ever get a chance.

21) Courtney Barnett - The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas

Technically this is just a repackaging of two previously released EPs by the Australian Courtney Barnett. And technically it was first released last year. However, it got a US release this year, and this is my list, so I'm including it! Courtney Barnett's music is sort of wandering indie rock that reminds me a bit of Kurt Vile, who released one of my favorite albums last year. Her music is highlighted by her wonderfully witty lyrics. "Avant Gardner" and "History Eraser" are my two favorite tracks off the record.

20) Cold Specks - Neuroplasticity

In 2012, Cold Specks had my second favorite album of the year. While Neuroplasticity didn't quite grab me the way I Predict A Graceful Expulsion did, I will always listen to anything featuring Al Spx's incredibly voice. This album featured the addition of a trumpet, which added a nice new element. My favorite track is "Bodies At Bay."

19) Sallie Ford - Slap Back

Last year, Sallie Ford and The Sound Outside put out one of my favorite albums of the year as well as a really good EP. Thus, I was pretty disappointed to hear the band was splitting up, but I was intrigued by Sallie Ford's new venture (under her own name), which included three local women from other bands to round out her new group. Sallie Ford's energy is ever present as she blends sounds from the 60s-90s (venturing away from her 50s sound with The Sound Outside). Everything she does seems to work, and however she chooses to make music, I'll be there eagerly anticipating it. My favorite track from the new album is "Coulda Been".

18) Nick Waterhouse - Holly

Nick Waterhouse's second album proves that his solid debut was no a fluke. His sound is a really nice mix of rock 'n roll, old school R&B, and soul that sounds like it could have been at home in the 50s or 60s. My favorite tracks on the album are "This Is A Game" and "Dead Room."

17) Ex Hex - Rips

This Washington D.C. trio creates some rockin' tunes led by Mary Timony (formerly of Wild Flag). This album is my annual reminder that Merge Records is the best label around. I'm glad to have been introduced to another band by them. My favorite tracks are "Beast" and "Hot and Cold."

16) Collapsible Mountains - Ribs On Heart

Scotland's I Build Collapsible Mountains has been a blog favorite that I've written about several times. It appears that Luke G Joyce has added another member in Sophie Adams and dropped the "I Build" to become just Collapsible Mountains now though. While I happen to miss the old name a bit, I love the new sound. The vocals of the two beautifully pair with one another throughout the album. This is especially true on the lead track "Endings." This is a gorgeous album, and I highly recommend going to grab it for yourself over on their Bandcamp page and supporting an excellent independent artist in the process.


Below you can listen to a song from each album on the list. If you like something, go check out more and/or support the artist.



Check back tomorrow for albums 6-15.

My Top 50 Albums of 2012 (1-5)

We're finally down to my five favorite albums of 2012. As I mentioned in the first post, this was a great year for new music. If you missed my first three installments of the list here are the links: 31-50, 16-30, and 6-15. These five albums were ones that I just found myself listening to over and over again this year. Here are my top five of 2012:

5) M. Ward - A Wasteland Companion

I've probably written about M. Ward a dozen or so times since I started this blog. You can search his name in the upper left corner or look here if you want to verify that, but it has been a lot. On last.fm I listened to M. Ward more than twice as often as any other artist that year and that doesn't even take into account that this album was in my car CD player for about four straight months after it was released. That gives you the background for how I'm approaching this album. I was almost certainly going to love it as soon as the release was announced. Despite that, it took me a while to really warm up to the album. At first I liked it but didn't love it. However, the more I listened, the more it grew on me and now it is probably my second or third favorite of his records (with "Post-War" firmly entrenched as one of my 2 or 3 favorite records ever). If I had to pick a favorite track, it would probably be "The First Time I Ran Away", but unlike a lot of the albums ranked this high, there really isn't one or two tracks that stick out. The album flows from song to song with each step along the way a big part of what makes it so enjoyable.


4) Milo Greene - Milo Greene

Like Rilo Kiley, Milo Greene is a band masquerading as a person. I think I read somewhere that Milo Greene was a name they had invented as a fake PR person so that they seemed more professional before starting this band. Anyhow the band is a five member indie folk/indie pop group based out of Los Angeles. Four of the five members take turns sharing leading and backing vocal duties. In lesser hands that could harm the product, but as is you barely notice who is or isn't stepping forward at any one time. The harmonies present throughout each song are gorgeous. There are 13 tracks on the album, four of which are transitions between songs. Of the other 9, there isn't a dud in the bunch. "1957" is my favorite track, followed by "Cutty Love" and "Silent Way", but I'd be content recommending any of six other songs as well to someone wanting to hear what Milo Greene sounded like. This was the band's debut album and it kind of surprises me that the band hasn't gotten more notice from it.

3) Field Report - Field Report

Field Report is a band led by Chris Porterfield (an anagram of his last name). I wrote a good deal about Field Report when I first discovered them back in May. To rehash that a bit, back in 2006 Porterfield was in a band called DeYarmond Edison with Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver), and three members of what became Megafaun. DeYarmond Edison seems to be the rare pre-super group like Park Ave. Since then, Porterfield recorded some things under the name Conrad Plymouth too. However, I was unfamiliar with him until hearing the Field Report demos back in May and being absolutely floored by them. The closest genre is probably folk, but that's too simple. It's more like hushed rock with folk influences. Porterfield's lyrics are a large part of what takes these songs from really good to great. He tells stories with his lyrics while still managing to make them sound like they fit the song just perfectly. I remember reading that the first track "Fergus Falls" is about a pregnant woman he saw with a boyfriend who seemed like kind of a jerk. "Taking Alcatraz," my favorite track from the album is about Richard Oakes, a Native American activist who led a group that took control of Alcatraz from 1969-1971. Some albums just seem to be made for particular places or times. I've found this album is the perfect album for a long Fall walk, something I have put to use several times.

2) Cold Specks - I Predict A Graceful Expulsion

I've been wrestling with the positions of these top two albums for a while, not fully deciding on an order until right now. Last night I planned to have this album number one, so maybe this should be considered something more like 1b. Cold Specks is the project of Al Spx, a Canadian based out of London. She describes her music as doom-soul. Allmusic describes it as a mix of "Southern soul, Tom Waits/Jeff Buckley inspired blues, and goth-tinged indie folk." The songs are usually pretty sparse sounding with percussion playing a big part. A good deal of other instruments contribute over that. Her voice though is something else. There is so much feeling and emotion that pours out of it as she sings. "Blank Maps" still manages to basically stop me in my tracks any time I hear it, and it may be my favorite song released this year. "Holland" and "Elephant Head" are two other standout tracks, but her voice is enough to make every song on the album something to pay attention to. This is Cold Specks' debut album and even more so than some of the other debuts on here, it'll be really exciting to see how she follows this album up. Based on this one and that voice of hers, I've got a lot of confidence that there is a lot of great music still to come from her in the future.


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1) First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar

First Aid Kit are two Swedish sisters who make some of the best folk/country songs around at only 19 and 22 years old. Despite their age, through interviews and their songs you can tell that they have an immense appreciation for the artists that came before them. They first gained some attention back in 2008 when they posted a YouTube video of themselves covering Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" out in the woods. The video (here) now has almost 3.5 million views and led to a performance of the song with Fleet Foxes. Their song "Emmylou" pays tribute to Emmylou Harris, June Carter, Gram Parsons, and Johnny Cash in what is one of my favorite songs of the year. The song "Blue" shows off their lyric writing abilities with painful lines like "The only man you ever loved / you thought was gonna marry you / died in a car accident when he was only 22 / Then you just decided love wasn't for you / And every year since then has proved it to be true." The album was produced by Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes and features his fellow bandmate Conor Oberst on the last track, "King Of The World." The album was released in January, and I immediately fell in love with it. Sometimes having almost a year with new music coming out every week can make an album fade from consciousness a bit and lose some of its initial excitement, but I kept coming back to this one over and over and plan to continue doing so in the future.


It wouldn't be right to talk about all of these amazing albums without sharing them with you. Like the past three installments of my countdown, below is a way to stream songs from each of today's albums. And if you use Spotify, you can find a playlist with all of the albums I listed (minus I think two which weren't on there) in order for easy access by clicking here. I hope you enjoyed the countdown and possibly learned of a new band or two. I look forward to pouring over other best of lists in the next few days and taking a break from 2012 music to listen to some other things too.

Feel free to tell me what you think either in the comments or by email listed on the right hand side of the page. Which albums did I leave off that you would have included in your list? Does anybody else have a list of their favorites they'd like to share?

New Releases from April - June 2012

Back in April, I recapped my favorite releases from the first three months of 2012. At the time, I mentioned how much good music had already been released already. I had a ridiculously hard time narrowing down my list for the second quarter of the year. Combine that with an insanely long list of albums I'm looking forward to in the next few months, and 2012 shows no signs of slowing down. Onto the music though. In parentheses after the albums is a link to the Amazon page to download, with especially good prices listed.

My Favorite Albums released April – June 2012

1) M. Ward - A Wasteland Companion (only $5)

This album may not be at the top of everyone's list, but it's more of M. Ward doing what M. Ward is great at doing. This album didn't hook me immediately. However, after buying the CD, I popped it into my car stereo and left it there for a while. Apparently that did the trick because when I went back to listen to all of these albums before writing this blog post, I couldn't find any fault with this record. It is just a really solid listen from beginning to end.

2) Of Monsters and Men - My Head Is An Animal (Amazon)

This is another album that the more I listened to it, the more I realized I enjoyed the whole thing quite a bit. "Little Talks," which I wrote about back in February, is still probably my favorite song of the year, but basically every track from "Dirty Paws" to "Yellow Light" is really solid. I don't know what it is about Iceland that lends itself to such beautiful music, but Of Monsters and Men carry the torch well with their indie pop sound.

3) Father John Misty - Fear Fun (only $5.99)

Father John Misty is the new moniker of Joshua Tillman, former drummer of Fleet Foxes. He had previously recorded music under the name J. Tillman as well, but this project was enough of a departure from previous releases that he wanted a new name for it. I was first introduced to this new project by the video for the single "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings," which featured Aubrey Plaza of Parks and Recreation (and the awesome new movie Safety Not Guaranteed). I wasn't a huge fan of the song though, and I almost didn't bother listening to this album because of that. I'm glad I gave it a try though because the rest of the album has a pretty cool old school country type sound that is absent on that track and which I very much enjoy.

4) The Tallest Man On Earth - There's No Leaving Now (Amazon)

I've made my love of The Tallest Man On Earth well known. Before this album, I had remarked that I wasn't sure he was capable of writing a bad track because everything else he had released was so incredibly good. He received comparisons to Bob Dylan when he was first starting, but he's done a good job of crafting a sound that is his own. This album, which has seen him expanding his sound a bit beyond just guitar and vocals, hasn't immediately grabbed me. That being said, neither did "The Wild Hunt," which is one of my all time favorites now. Regardless, I've enjoyed this album more each time I listen to it, and it could still shoot up my end of the year list with some more time to listen to it.

5) Alabama Shakes - Boys and Girls (Amazon)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about seeing Alabama Shakes perform at Sasquatch. The band garnered a lot of buzz over the past year or so for their live show and the EP they released in 2011. Because of that, expectations for their full-length were sky high. Since "Boys and Girls" contains all the songs on the EP, it seems that people who had spent a lot of time listening to the EP were disappointed and rated the album lower than if it was new to them (although it still got pretty good reviews). That's understandable (and also just speculation on my part), but coming from someone who hadn't listened to them much, this was a phenomenal album. Lead singer Brittany Howard has a great voice backed by some strong bluesy-rocky-souly music. "Hold On" is another song of the year contender for me, and the whole album is worthy of many listens. Beyond that though, this is a band that is still young and their potential seems worthy of the massive internet buzz they created months ago.

6) The Lumineers - The Lumineers (Amazon)

You may recognize Denver based folk-rock group The Lumineers from a Bing commercial that used their song "Ho Hey." Amusingly, the top comment on the YouTube page for their music video is someone claiming they heard the song on the Bing commercial and looked up who it was with Google. Microsoft may have an uphill battle to get more people using Bing... While "Ho Hey" is a great song, fortunately the rest of the album is also filled out with great tracks. One of the other highlights is album opener "Flowers In Your Hair," which gets all of its goodness taken care of in less than two minutes. The short song seems to be a lost art, but they pull it off well there.

7) Joe Pug - The Great Despiser (Amazon)

Joe Pug is another favorite artist of mine who puts out excellent folk music that deserves to be heard by way more people. I've talked before how much I admire the way he goes about connecting with his fans and spreading his music, so I'll just direct you here if you're interested. This is another album that I haven't listened to as much as I'd like to (mostly due to being busy and being addicted to Diablo III in my spare time), so I could see it moving up in my rankings too with more time.

8) Cold Specks - I Predict A Graceful Expulsion (only $5.99)

Cold Specks is 24 year old Canadian born, London based, singer Al Spx. She is a bit of a wildcard here because I just heard her music about a week ago. I haven't had much time to process her album (just a couple listens), but I am in love with the song "Blank Maps," and the rest of the album seems pretty fantastic too. She describes her music as doom-soul. I read that she doesn't want to be compared to Adele, but because I just don't know much about the genre, that's the closest comparison I can make. While I find Adele enjoyable here and there, I never got too into her music. I've already listened to Cold Specks about as much as I ever listened to Adele, and I plan to sail way past that amount. I can only hope Cold Specks finds even a fraction of the success Adele has found because her music is certainly worthy of it. Since I haven't talked about her before, here's "Blank Maps" for you to check out:

9) Julia Stone - By The Horns (Amazon)

I wrote about Julia Stone just a couple weeks ago, so I won't rehash all of that here. However, since then I have also checked out some of her work with her brother in Angus & Julia Stone and found that to be really enjoyable too. It looks like her brother also has a solo album coming out July 17 called Broken Brights, so I'll have to check that out too. Based on what I've heard so far, there's no reason to think it won't be a good listen.

10) Walk The Moon - Walk The Moon (only $5)

This album sort of snuck on here at the end. I saw Walk The Moon at Sasquatch and they put on a really fun show, but I wasn't sure how that would translate to a full-length album. Well... I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that they released a really fun album as well. It's not really my typical fare, but the energy is just infectious and it's hard to just sit still while listening to it. It may not be something that I'll listen to all the time, but it does a great job fitting a need whenever I want something to get me energized. "Anna Sun" and "Tightrope" are two of my favorite tracks.

Albums that just missed the cut

Reptar - Body Faucet
JD McPherson - Signs & Signifiers
The Mynabirds - GENERALS
Rocky Votolato - Television of Saints
Nick Waterhouse - Time's All Gone
Marching Donald - Marching Donald


Albums that need more listens and could move up

Jack White - Blunderbuss
Beach House - Bloom
Port St. Willow - Holiday
Sigur Ros - Valtari
Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...


Upcoming Releases for July through September

7/10 - Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo, Magellan

7/16 - Meursault - Something For The Weakened

7/24 - Passion Pit - Gossamer

7/24 - Fang Island - Major

7/24 - The Antlers - Undersea EP

7/24 - The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten

8/21 - Yeasayer - Fragrant World

8/28 - A Thing Called The Divine Fits

9/4 - Animal Collective - Centipede Hz

9/4 - Stars - The North

9/4 - The Vaccines - The Vaccines Come Of Age

9/11 - The xx - Coexist

9/11 - Field Report - Field Report

9/11 - The Helio Sequence - Negotiations

9/11 - The Avett Brothers - The Carpenter

9/11 - The Raveonettes - Observator

9/18 - Grizzly Bear - TBD

9/?? - Band of Horses - TBD


April Through June Mixtapes!

As I've done before, there are two possible ways to listen to a mix of songs from the past three months. If you use Spotify, you can use the playlist below.



If you don't use Spotify, you can play a mix through 8tracks.com below. This mix is a bit shorter because they require you to upload tracks you have purchased, whereas Spotify allows you any tracks they have made available.

My favorite tracks from April to June 2012 from rynestonecowboy on 8tracks.