The Weeknd – “House Of Balloons / Glass Table Girls”

This is one party that I wish I wasn’t so late to. Hell, by the time I got there the party was over.

I discover The Weeknd when “Can’t Feel My Face” hits the airwaves in 2015, which I think is a catchy tune so I download it. I check out samples of few other songs and decide it’s not for me. Yep, I’ll just stick with that one song and add it to my upbeat party mix. Cool.

Then comes 2016’s “Starboy” – which I hear at a night club/bar as I’m halfway to my goal of not remembering a damn thing from the night – and I think to myself that it’s the greatest fucking song ever. Spoiler: it isn’t, but consuming copious amounts of alcohol helps.

Skip ahead four years and After Hours is receiving all kinds of acclaim on sputnikmusic dot com; I’m skeptical, but I dive in. As I’m clicking “play”, I peruse the album’s ratings and I see that Doof gave it a 2/5. I immediately raise one eyebrow and my expectations as well.

Fast-forward another two hours and I’m finding After Hours to scratch an itch that R&B rarely does for me. I slap an admittedly hasty 4/5 on it,but I still find myself more intrigued by everyone’s comparisons to this “Trilogy.” I press on, and download the whole thing on an impulse.

As House of Balloons begins, I’m immediately sucked into…

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10. Jenny Hval – Viscera

[Spotify] // [Review]

Can desire best be described as a train running into a tunnel? In popular culture, desire is rarely written with the nuance (or maybe, the trepidation) it deserves, reduced as it is to the slickest surface of its skin and hardly deeper. Sex is a commodity that enforces possession and hierarchy, something to receive or give depending on a narrative. In music production, we can find erotic platitudes that extend the length of an appendage environed by the digital squalor of diamond-studded algorithms. Pop music, great trains, running into tunnels: sex as a deliberate force acted upon us by the external forces we internalize and, by god, in turn, externalize. Art as submissive constructs to societal norms. If not trains, what then?

The answer Jenny Hval offers is immediate, though you’d be forgiven for thinking it the iconic opening gambit: “I arrived in town / with an electric toothbrush / pressed against my clitoris.” Rather, we are drawn inward by the quiet intensity of her arrangements, in the discordant ambiance that slowly envelops the stark percussive elements. There is a timeless quality to the mixture of industrial and folk music, in the glacial way the tracks erode and subside only to build into discomfiting calamity. The songs unspool with seeming spontaneity…

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30. Julien Baker – Sprained Ankle

[Spotify] // [Review]

It’s strange that a twenty-year-old has seemingly been through it all. Julien Baker sings and plays with such confidence and writes about such harrowing circumstances that it’s easy to forget she was barely out of her teens when recording Sprained Ankle. Eight guitar songs and one piano track are all it takes to convey Baker’s rock bottom. Sprained Ankle was recommended to me by a dear friend shortly after I had hit rock bottom in my life. It’s hard to even articulate what this album did for me emotionally. It’s like salt into wounds except that’s exactly what you need. Much of the subject matter here is Christian related which normally does nothing for me, but Baker’s blunt lyricism and blunt songwriting have me singing along like I’m in the pews at church. Julien Baker says what she means and says it loudly. Sparse arrangements and forthcoming lyrics allow Baker to get straight to the point and get you completely broken down in just over thirty-three minutes. She could offer an emotional cleansing service with this album. Go ahead and cry the next time you spin Sprained Ankle; it’s all right, everybody does. –Trebor.

29. The National – Trouble Will Find Me

[Spotify]…

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50. Fair to Midland – Arrows and Anchors

[Spotify] // [Review]

One of the graver losses of the 2010s, Fair to Midland outdid themselves with sophomore (and ultimately final) album Arrows and Anchors. While the band have straddled genres from alternative, metal, folk, and prog throughout debut Fables from a Mayfly, Arrows and Anchors managed to tighten up the band’s genre fusion, drive the sound into heavier territory, dial up the catchiness of nearly every track on the LP, and reinvent timeless children’s story Rikki Tikki Tavi into something you can headbang your brains out to. Need I say more?

Darroh Sudderth’s vocals remain as iconic as ever, warbling with passion as he projects clever twists of common sayings over fuzzed out guitars sparkled up by just enough keyboard to transform a dirt foundation into a more respectable pavement. Describing Arrows and Anchors can sound almost formulaic, but each and every track is just so much fun that it’s hard to care. While every track manipulates the ratio of keyboard twinkle to guitar crunch to similar spectacular results, the meat of each is seasoned just appropriately enough to feel freash and fun. There’s an undeniable menagerie of influence and expertise compiled into Arrows and Anchors, but ultimately it’s the the levity of the music and lyrics like “If…

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75. mewithoutYou – [Untitled]

[Spotify] // [Review]

Over the past two decades mewithoutYou have been ever present, but not necessarily in the foreground, in comparison to their peers. However, unlike many of the bands they have played alongside, mewithoutYou are more relevant than ever, even as they plan on disbanding. [Untitled] starts off unrelenting with “9:27a.m., 7/29” until “[Dormouse Sighs]” provides a brooding release from a three song barrage of chaotic harmony. Where mewithoutYou shine is found in their ability to balance emotion and volume. That balance blows past albums away with how seamlessly [Untitled] transitions from song to song. From “2,459 Miles” to “Wendy & Betsy” to “New Wine, New Skins” provide some of most graceful yet ferocious moments. [Untitled] provides a glimpse at how mewithoutYou have learned to adapt and evolve with time, especially coming off their landmark effort in Pale Horses. Look no further than the post-hardcore ballad in “Julia (or, ‘Holy to the LORD’ on the Bells of Horses),” where every element feels perfectly placed and timed. As mewithoutYou wind down, they leave a blueprint for the next decade of upstart alternative rock bands to follow. –IsItLuck?

74. Burial – Tunes 2011 to 2019

[Spotify] // [Review]

It’s all there in the name: far from…

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100. The Menzingers – On the Impossible Past

[Spotify] // [Review]

The urge to repost lyrics in lieu of a blurb? Strong. (In all caps, obviously.) Maybe italicised, maybe emboldened, undoubtedly justified. That’d require, though, some prior knowledge of the album, its melodies; and as much as I’d like it to be, this isn’t karaoke. (You might as well listen to the album; not a bad idea.) A case regardless:

Despite my unfortunate Australian identity, On the Impossible Past makes me feel American. A weird thing, I imagine; after all, I don’t feel Japanese driving my girlfrend’s Toyota, listening to Kero Kero Bonito. (Make a bounce playlist: start with Iggy, transition into KKB’s ‘Trampoline’. You won’t regret it, I promise.) It’s testament, though, to the impressive songwriting capacity of the band’s two frontmen, Greg Barnett and Tom May — their underwrought narratives, and the ease with which one relates to them. And though it’s far from the album’s best song (fans could debate this forever), nowhere is this better epitomised than on closer ‘Freedom Bridge’, a song that anthemises (with irony, of course) suicide, detailing in vignette-form the short lives of victims of the so-called American dream. It is, as far as I’m concerned, a perfect (pop) punk song, perfect in its capacity to make earnest and powerful a line that would…