She's a train, suffering eyes, freezing rain
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2025.
#41 : Stardust - Danny Brown
The Detroit rapper’s first post-rehab record totally disproved his fears that sobriety makes artists boring. On Stardust, Brown is still hard-wired with cartoonish verve, coupled with a genuinely touching sense of gratitude: “Sleeping real good at night ’cos I’m proud of myself,” he raps on Book of Daniel. While you probably wouldn’t describe someone who ponders “going bonkers and knocking out your chompers” as a wise elder, his hunger for life, opportunity and unmediated sensation blares through in how evidently gagged he is to centre younger producers from the digicore and hyperpop undergrounds: his unruly kids 8485, Jane Remover, Underscores, Frost Children and more make Stardust trip with glitch, rave, squealing riffs and overdriven noise. The rare record that makes you want to riot and shed a smiling single tear emoji.
Our third visit with Danny and both were in The Guardian's Best of '23 list - one I was massively underwhelmed by and the other I didn't like in the slightest. I wonder which one we'll get here.
Well, fortunately for me, it's massively underwhelming. There's nothing wrong with it and it's pleasingly inoffensive, but I struggle to understand why anyone would declare this to be a work of brilliance. Maybe he's always been very nice to The Guardian when they speak to him?
It managed a very minor chart placing - #28 in the Album Download chart (I imagine the numbers are VERY low for that) but it's got quite a chunky Wikipedia entry, which tells us it's his sixth. It's got quite the list of guest artists as well with Quadeca, Jane Remover, Underscores, 8485, Frost Children, Zheani, Nnamdï, Johnnascus, Issbrokie, Femtanyl, Ta Ukraїnka, and Cynthoni all making appearances - I can just imagine the vicar saying "I hearby christen this child 8485".
#40 : 45 Pounds - YHWH Nailgun
In 21 minutes, the New York band’s debut chews you up and spits you out the other side in a tentacular whirr of rototoms, guitars that shriek and whine like neglected machinery, erratic tempos and frontman Zack Borzone’s choked-out vocals. The way the record lurches and reels brings to mind the classic horror film scene in which a human undergoes a violent, magnificent transformation into some sort of beast: much like Gilla Band’s Most Normal, 45 Pounds is a font of mutant rock pleasures.
Ooooh - I'm not going to like this, am I? At least it's only 21 minutes though...
Now - this is in no way enjoyable and it's certainly a challenging listen. But, I actually believe this is the sound they wanted to make and I also believe that a reasonable amount of skill went in to making it. So, whilst it is (and I'm not joking here) a bloody awful racket, there is something to admire about it and it certainly doesn't hang about with ten tracks, five of which are less than two minutes long.
This album was also lucky because it had the distinct advantage that I listened to it immediately after I'd listened to Kylie's Christmas album (and I'm REALLY not joking here) and I would rather listen to this on repeat than have to listen to a single track from Kylie's album (so you can totally look forward to that write-up very soon). I'm still not convinced I'd put this in my top 50 albums of the year, but I'm intrigued by that album cover.
To absolutely no-one's surprise, this album wasn't in any danger of troubling any charts - but it does have a decent sized Wikipedia entry. And it tells me it's their debut album, it was recorded at a goat farm in New York and (obviously) poets Paul Celan and Walt Whitman have inspired the lyrics. The critics LOVED it, but I was intrigued by Pitchfork's praise of their use of rototoms - because I'd no idea what a rototom is. And I was even more intrigued when I found out what one was - it's a tunable drum, which I can actually almost hear them using and I also suspect tales quite a bit of skill - so it's all somehow gone up in my estimation (whilst still being completely unlistenable).
#39 : The BPM - Sudan Archives
The title refers to the beats per minute of dance music, but for an album that is so totally alive, it surely also refers to a pounding heart. Sudan Archives (AKA Angeleno producer-singer-songwriter-violinist Brittney Parks) announces that “life’s a game and I got VR goggles” as she revels in the epicurean joys of sex, dancing, travel and music itself with an almost superhuman appetite: “The rest are cowards / They choose to eat and we devour.” It’s all done with breezy good humour but there’s something inspiring, even quietly political about this mindful rejection of the straight life. Her backings – full of pop-R&B and ethereal electro – also dart away from obvious mainstream paths.
Our second visit with Ms Archives - last time I found it interesting enough that I went to see her at Glastonbury and she put on quite the live show, I can tell you. So I'm interested enough to listen to this.
Well, I guess it's interesting enough - but only just. It's all perfectly fine, but it's really no more than that - my previous visits have been curiously intriguing but this is surprisingly conventional. It's fine but it's no #39 in my year-end list.
It hasn't exactly overly troubled the charts, but it did get to #94 in the Album Downloads chart (I suspect it must take at least one or two copies to manage that). It does have a Wikipedia entry though, telling us it's her third album, exploring "themes of technology, self-exploration and emotion" (but we all knew that, right?). Critically, it was well received (which is a bit of a theme here) but it's not really translated into commercial success (also a theme).
This is an interesting round because Ms Archives has easily presented the most listenable offering - but, particularly in comparison with what she's obviously capable of, it doesn't feel like she's really put an awful lot of effort into it. Whereas YHWH Nailgun have made something which is impressively unlistenable, but it really takes quite a bit of effort to do that - it's not easily dismissed as your average terrible album.
So - Danny Brown comes third because that really is an average album (I can see it has its fans, but it feels like there's loads of other albums out there like this) and I think on that basis I have to make Sudan Archives second because I just know she can do better than that. Which only leaves YHWH Nailgun as the winner - who saw that happening? And, I have to stress, I'm not suggesting you check it out - but I do think that maybe you might like to check it out more than the other two, particularly if you're a fan of the rototoms.
And if you think this post is all a bit negative, just wait until you see what I have to say about Kylie's Christmas album...
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