Cavalcade through antemortem, terminal suburban boredom

Yes - it's that's time of year again!

I've done The Guardian's list of the top 50 albums of the year for the last four years and it's an interesting combination of hidden gems and absolute horrors, so here we go again with this year's list.  Last year I'd previously met thirteen of the list - it will be interesting to see whether the upward trend is continued.  

#50 : Love Is A Flame In The Dark - Karl d'Silva

You expected Charli XCX to drop one of the British pop albums of the year – rather less so a bloke from Rotherham, known only in the deep underground, playing and recording everything himself at home. And yet D’Silva’s debut album has the huge scope of those from pop’s A-list, decked out with saxophones, massive drums, fret-scurrying guitar solos, Chicago house basslines and classic vocal melodies, resulting in industrial-leaning epics about the very biggest themes: love and existence. Don’t wait for the inevitable cult reappraisal and deluxe reissue in 30 years’ time – get on this masterpiece now.

The Guardian has a history of dropping pretty decent albums at #50 (probably hoping not to scare people off) so I actually have reasonable hopes for this - much more so that you'd expect for a home-recorded album from a bloke from Rotherham.

You know what - it's a pretty decent album. I've absolutely no idea why The Guardian mentioned Charli XCX because I don't hear her at all - I was reminded of Tom Vek, which is possibly a somewhat obscure reference, so maybe LCD Soundsystem is a better choice. I assume it didn't have the hugest budget, but it all sounds very well put together and, amusingly, on "Entropy", it really sounds like he's singing about anchovies. 

Wikipedia has nothing on him or the album - The Yorkshire Post tells me he started out as a saxophonist before branching out into singer-songwriting, but it's fair to say he has not overly troubled the internet so far. Or, unsurprisingly, the charts.

"Customers also listened to" "no similar recommendations" which doesn't surprise me. However, there are going to be far worse albums I get to listen to as I progress up this list - and what higher praise can the man expect than that?

#49 : Cool World - Chat Pile

The Oklahoman noise-rockers’ second album was one of the few releases in 2024 that reflected the horror and disbelief of witnessing Gaza and its people being destroyed. It is also about hard-wired failure across history – the album title is a savagely sarcastic dismissal of a planet whose human inhabitants are so wretchedly self-interested and easily given to violence. Vocalist Raygun Busch often takes the persona of a baffled functionary, operating on orders that have no reason, while his band squall and thunder through their groove-metal rhythms.

An album about the situation in Gaza from a bunch of "noise-rockers" led by someone called Raygun, you say? Count me in, buddy!

Oh dear. Yup, they're "noise-rockers" - and the use of quotes is not in the slightest bit ironic. I guess if I squinted my ears I could say they sounded a bit like a very shouty Joy Division, but tbh you're either going to be intrigued or terrified by it - personally, I'd run a mile but it's absolutely your choice!

Wikipedia has a surprising amount on the album - apparently it's named after the '92 live action/animated hybrid film starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne and Brad Pitt. Obviously. Although, Raygun says the album is best explained by the Voltaire quote in that it "is about the price at which we eat sugar in America" - I do hope you're keeping up with all of this! The critics were all very keen on it, with Exclaim! declaring it #7 in their year-end list and, to my astonishment, we have some commercial success to declare with it having reached the dizzy heights of #153 in Belgium. My main take-away though is that the other members of the band are called Luther Manhole, Stin and Cap'n Ron.

"Customers also listened to" Portrayal Of Guilt, Mamaleek, Daughters and Blood Incantation - if I had to guess, I'd go for a wild stab in the dark that I'd hate the lot of them. I appreciate that different music speaks to different people in different ways, but I really struggle to imagine why anyone would want this in their life.

#48 : All Hell - Los Campesinos!

A triumph of tenacity and independence, Los Campesinos! self-released their seventh album – and first in seven years – and scored their first UK Top 20 hit. Their earlier twee-pop leanings have matured into bitter, morose yet spirited emo, lashing out at fascists while castigating apathy from their peers (Idles must have winced at “punks on the playlist crooning for kindness”.) But it’s not all politics: they lust in hyper-literate poetry, and hop from Bundesliga one moment to bildungsroman the next. That mix of high and lowbrow can be found throughout but most potently of all on Feast of Tongues, an anthem Coldplay could have made were it not for the savage declaration in the chorus: “We will feast on the tongues of the last bootlickers”.

I'm sure I've come across Los Campesinos! a few times over the years but I don't remember them, so I've got no idea what to expect.

Yeah - I really quite liked this. They're like a slightly more rough-and-ready The National, with some nicely constructed songs with some pointed lyrics (and often quite complex, as you may guess from the post title) and decent guitar work - I particularly liked "0898 HEARTACHE" which builds nicely (in a Coldplayesque style, as The Guardian has already suggested). There are some great track titles as well - "The Coin-op Guillotine", "I. Spit; or, a Bite Mark in the Shape of the Sunflower State", " To Hell In A Handjob" and "Clown Blood/Orpheus' Bobbing Head" are all fine examples! I'd certainly listen to this again and I'd expect it to grow on me - it's well worth checking out imho.

Wikipedia surprises me by telling me they're Welsh - I just assumed they were from the US. This is their seventh album and their first since '17 (their debut came out in '08). The critics were very nice about it and, as The Guardian has already told us, it charted over here getting to #14 - this is actually their fourth charting album, but far and away their most successful.

"Customers also listened to" Crywank (I do NOT want to listen to this lot), James Marriott, Ricky Jamaraz and Wilbur Scott - never heard of any of them! But if they sound like Los Campesinos! then there's hope for them yet - I really quite liked this. 

Considering we're at the bottom of the chart, this is a pretty decent selection - well, in the words of Meat Loaf, "two out of three ain't bad (the other one, however, was pretty bad). Los Campesinos! take the round for me but Karl did a pretty good job from his bedroom.

2023 - Another year over!

#47-45 - A somewhat eclectic mix