Sputnikmusic - Best New Music

Best New Music

staff picks, last year

	John K. Samson Provincial Weakerthans frontman reconstructs his own world a little more sparsely...
	Loma Prieta I.V. An immense and powerful record that Loma Prieta has had brewing for years...
	The Weeknd Echoes of Silence A completely brilliant beginning to what hopes to be a long and bright career..
	Nujabes Spiritual State The body may be gone, but the soul is eternal..
	Olafur Arnalds Living Room Songs In his introversion, Olafur Arnalds explores the farthest reaches of his beautiful and ever expanding sound...
	Sepalcure Sepalcure An unashamedly no nonsense garage release, Sepalcure's long awaited debut LP triumphs on just about every level..
	Kate Bush 50 Words for Snow Disappointing single aside, it's another frighteningly good album from one of England's all-time greats...
	Drake Take Care Drake cries us a river..
	Cynic Carbon-Based Anatomy From the deepest parts of the Amazon, to all corners of the universe, Cynic's Carbon-Based Anatomy is a beautiful and challenging journey that sees the band expand their sound further than ever before...
	Atlas Sound Parallax you're always down...
	Florence and the Machine Ceremonials Well now, if Lungs isn’t the perfect debut for Florence Welch and her machines, then I don’t know what is. Perfect, that is, because of its imperfections. To explain my seemingly circular argument, I would lik..
	ASAP Rocky Live.Love.A$AP. ASAP Rocky’s long-in-the-making LiveLoveA$AP is simply one of the best hip-hop records of the year...
	The Field Looping State of Mind The Field realize their full potential and craft their most immediate and memorable album to date..
	Coldplay Mylo Xyloto give Coldplay credit for their waterfalls...
	Insomnium One for Sorrow Insomnium have crafted their most diverse and complete album to date. Just about everything has been improved upon and the result is one of the best releases in their history...
	M83 Hurry Up, We're Dreaming Anthony Gonzalez may be a dreamer, but he's not the only one...
	Bjork Biophilia Far better than anybody had any right to expect...
	La Dispute Wildlife La Dispute are still screaming your name - in unison this time...
	Feist Metals Wear walking shoes...
	Youth Lagoon The Year of Hibernation Music for daydreamers. The ones paying attention, anyway...
	Wilco The Whole Love Something sad keeps moving, so I wandered around / I fell in love with the burden, holding me down...
	Andrew Jackson Jihad Knife Man I wanna give a shit again..
	The Jezabels Prisoner The rarity of a debut LP adding to an already superlative discography...
	St. Vincent Strange Mercy inevitably weird, by which I mean perfect...
	Das Racist Relax Relax is great, duh. More importantly, Relax brings new meaning to Das Racist's identity...
	Girls Father, Son, Holy Ghost The more cynical listeners out there might backhandedly describe Christopher Owens, the creative lynchpin behind Girls, as 'a great student of rock history' - in other words, somebody who knows the canon inside..
	The Horrible Crowes Elsie Brian Fallon and longtime friend/Gaslight guitar tech Ian Perkins collaborate on a record that flawlessly juxtaposes despair and sadness with resilience and hope...
	Thrice Major/Minor Thrice continue to walk the tightrope of perfection..
	Corrupted Garten Der Unbewusstheit Corrupted plant a garden of sorrow that blossoms beautifully into barren nothingness...
	The War on Drugs Slave Ambient Americana, broken into a hundred tiny pieces...
	Beirut The Rip Tide Beirut awaken from their European reverie and produce a startlingly mature third LP...
	Bomb the Music Industry! Vacation Some people might say this is pretty much the pet sounds of punk. I would suggest they learn to make sentences!..
	Trophy Scars Never Born, Never Dead The kind of record that can make you believe in music again..
	Fair To Midland Arrows and Anchors This is what listening to a bands magnum opus sounds like. Maybe..
	The Horrors Skying It remains somewhat confounding to me that shoegaze has been able to maintain popularity through all these years. The genre always seemed earmarked to become a mere footnote fad in the great colossus that is pop culture,..
	Shabazz Palaces Black Up Clear some space out, so we can space out...
	Bon Iver Bon Iver, Bon Iver Each song acts like a personal journal entry, documenting Justin Vernon’s experience back with the living...
	Patrick Wolf Lupercalia Growing up, growing older, with treasure to be told...
	The Dear Hunter The Color Spectrum (Complete Collection) It is difficult to find flaws damning enough to consider this anything other than one of 2011’s premier releases in alternative rock. The Dear Hunter present to us their crowning achievement to date; enjoy it...
	The Dear Hunter Red EP Why is it so damn hard to find anyone who can get behind such a simple plot?..
	The Dear Hunter Violet EP put centre stage: regret, remorse, regard..
	The Dear Hunter Green EP I never know just when and where to stop..
	WU LYF Go Tell Fire to the Mountain Now we are so happy, so happy to say/ Awh lawh tha keeshaw la woo laak thisay..
	Submotion Orchestra Finest Hour Because you'll surely need no one else when all you've got is me..
	Cults Cults Summer's here, and it's got bite...
	Touche Amore Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me There goes Touche Amore, bringing the windmills again..
	Givers In Light What better place to begin a trip around the musical world than Louisiana...
	Frank Turner England Keep My Bones Swap your confirmation for your dancing shoes..
	Loss Despond an unrelenting pillar of melancholy..
	Maybeshewill I Was Here For a Moment, Then I Was Gone Maybeshewill prove once more that they're worthy of the hyperbole that's been heaped on them over the years, for I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone is a beautiful and engrossing experience...
	SebastiAn Total You don't need subtlety if you're already awesome...
	Cave In White Silence While it's true that Cave In have made their triumphant return, White Silence feels as though they never left us to begin with.....
	Chad VanGaalen Diaper Island a dark and direct record from the guy who helped obscure Public Strain..
	Manchester Orchestra Simple Math I hope eventually you'll see what you've been turning me into; it's all for you...
	Gang Gang Dance Eye Contact Gang Gang Dance take no prisoners...
	The Antlers Burst Apart Winter's over...
	Balance And Composure Separation The sound of growing up...
	Matana Roberts Coin Coin Chapter One - Gens de couleur libres The jazz album of 2011...
	Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues There's nothing genuine in music anymore. Except, of course, when there is...
	Laura Stevenson and the Cans Sit Resist A definitive piece of Americana that is also a definitive piece of music in general...
	Thursday No Devolucion Stay true..
	TV on the Radio Nine Types of Light While good enough to appease the appetite of most fans, something here is definitely missing..
	Little Scream The Golden Record An album with a Midas touch - every idea, no matter how awkward, turns to gold...
	Pygmy Lush Old Friends Pygmy Lush continue their consistent history with another release...
	FaltyDL You Stand Uncertain And yet even surrounded in the shadows of skyscrapers comes something that dreams of open skies..
	Burial Street Halo Once upon a time it was you that I adore, but now you look different.....
	Swarms Old Raves End One of the most dynamic and beautiful debut albums to have ever been released, Old Raves End may just end up stealing 2011's heart..
	Yellowcard When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes The codification of a language we call Youth...
	The Weeknd House of Balloons This isn't a happy house...
	The Dodos No Color unless you're counting the colors of the rainbow, of course...
	Raekwon Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang To every soldier in the hood, go in...
	Eisley The Valley Not even the harsh realities of daily life can force this band to deliver anything other than another warm, comforting collection of songs...
	Colin Stetson New History Warfare, Vol 2: Judges An album that feels entirely without precedence...
	Radiohead The King of Limbs Radiohead revisit their weakest albums and sharpen them up to gold standard...
	Armistice Armistice In time you'll learn there's us and them...
	Yuck Yuck Sort of like why the 'Rugrats' and 'Hey Arnold' movies weren't quite as good as the shows that inspired them...
	Hey Rosetta! Seeds Jaw-dropping, gorgeous...
	PJ Harvey Let England Shake Gordon Brown just doesn't get it...
	Bright Eyes The People's Key And this is how it ends..
	Tim Hecker Ravedeath, 1972 Ambient music not for the faint of heart...
	Stateless Matilda The best debut album of 2007 gets an even better sequel...

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