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By staff
Thursday January 2, 2020
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25 – 11 | 10 – 1
10. Earth Tongue – Floating Being
Genre: Heavy Psych/Fuzz | [Bandcamp]
Marrying the sound of bands like Big|Brave or True Widow with the imagery of Dr. Who (the connection makes a lot of sense in my head somehow), this couple from New Zealand were one of my most precious discoveries this year. Heavy fuzz, with emphasis on heavy, splattered with psychedelia, prog rock, and vocal acrobatics. In just 30 minutes, Gussie Larkin (also of psyche pop act Mermaidens) and Ezra Simons will take you on a journey through microscopic worlds and galactic wonders unlike anything you’ve seen. –Dewinged
9. Rachael Roberts – Rachael Roberts
Genre: Country/Folk | [Official site]
I’ve barely spent enough time with this record to be repping it this much, but needless to say I was immediately captivated by this hidden gem. If you’re someone who can accept its instantaneous turns between forlorn indie folk, straight-up country, and expansive alternative rock (and sometimes all three at once), then look no further. Roberts manages to spin all these contradictory elements into something that might not be wholly cohesive, but sells each individual feeling as true and exciting from moment-to-moment. So let’s make a deal: I’ll give this a few more listens while I give y’all a chance to catch up and get on this! –neekafat
8. Polo
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By staff
Wednesday January 1, 2020
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25 – 11 | 10 – 1
25. Homeshake – Helium
Genre: Indie Pop/Psychedelic | [Bandcamp]
When I think ‘under the radar,’ the words “underrated” and “underappreciated” are obviously synonymous. Still though, this album is a pretty hard sell with that abysmal 2.6 average, but I find it hard to discern the clear drop in quality between Helium and, say, Fresh Air or Midnight Snack that is apparently worth a full Sputnik point. I digress, ratings can hardly shake my appreciation for this smooth, wistful journey into the trendy psychedelic-pop waters, abandoning most guitars and live instrumentation for chime-like synth leads and coalescing colorful harmonies. Sure, it sounds a bit bare and even incredibly easy to replicate, yet the simplistic melodies and Homeshake’s knack for toeing the line between whiny and airy vocal lines help solidify the very original “milkshake for your home” sound. There’s also a coldness found within tracks like “Other Than” and instrumental rap-fusion highlight “All Night Long”, yet the eerie atmosphere tends to entice me rather than shock. The best surprise, however, comes in the form of a “(secret track)”, finally bringing back the warm, fluttering guitar for a simple yet evocative riff destined to reverberate within those chill nights on the couch with Mary Jane. Although it’s nothing extremely spectacular, it’s truly an album that is getting a lot of quiet hate, making it my 2019’s most…
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By Sowing
Sunday December 22, 2019
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One decade down, another on deck.
It’s almost surreal to remember reading this site’s 2000-2009 decade list like it was yesterday, and now be a part of the new one that’s on-deck. And just as clearly, I remember turning the page to the 2010s, with the likes of Titus Andronicus’ The Monitor, The Tallest Man on Earth’s The Wild Hunt, Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and Deftones’ Diamond Eyes all – among others – making early splashes. It’s weird to think that we’re all on the precipice of repeating that. What will 2020 bring? Surely at least a few releases that we’ll still be talking about in December 2029.
Decade milestones are huge, especially for time spent on a website. I’ve been here going on 12 years and there are others who have been here even longer. It’s caused some reflecting on my part, and I’ve put some serious thought into how I want to approach the next decade. As such, I’m going to put out a few “new decade resolutions”:
-> Stricter Rating: I’ve had as much fun as anyone handing out 4.5’s and 5’s to everything I enjoy, but the time to put things in perspective is long overdue. I’m not sure how this will impact my historical ratings and reviews, but moving forward I plan to reestablish some credibility to my assessments. I take pride in my writing and now I want my scores to reflect that. Expect future reviews/ratings to adhere much more closely…
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By Willie
Friday December 20, 2019
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50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1
[Official Site] // [Spotify]
“A lot’s gonna change in your lifetime / try to leave it all behind / in your lifetime / let me change my words / show me where it hurts.” If there’s a thesis statement for Titanic Rising, this closing sentiment to opener “A Lot’s Gonna Change” is surely it. Or, wait: maybe it was “Waiting for the call from beyond / waiting for something with meaning / to come through soon”, the brutally searching coda of “Picture Me Better.” “Don’t cry, it’s a wild time to be alive?” “No one’s ever going to give you a trophy for all the pain and the things you’ve been through / no one knows but you?” That’s the problem with Natalie Mering’s fourth album as Weyes Blood; there’s a wealth of options to choose from in what represents a stunning crescendo for this steadily rising artist, a peculiarly out-of-time musical capsule that is still very much of 2019 in its anxieties and hopes. What I keep coming back to is something more fundamental, the crux of Titanic Rising‘s struggles with modernity and its dissection of all-American tropes then – “when no good thing could be taken away” – and now, where Natalie Mering’s crisis is so much more simpler: “I’m so scared of being alone, it’s true, it’s true.”
For its time, Titanic Rising is an…
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By Willie
Thursday December 19, 2019
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50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1
[Official Site] // [Spotify]
Drink it up. Blood is both healer and reaper in clipping.’s horrorcore art piece, a masterstroke which arranges stretched skin and body parts into fragments of stories, quickening our pulses with the adrenaline while never letting us off the hook for enjoying ourselves while human beings lose their lives. Daveed Diggs is the perfect rapper to walk this fine line. He intones like a robot in the second person, but writes like peak Stephen King, sinking into his characters completely and placing them in the context of their messy, insane, damaged lives. At its best, when clipping. combine ear-splitting harsh noise with banging rap, when Diggs marries existential and physical horror with unbelievable flows, There Existed an Addiction to Blood recalls, of all things, the fantastic digital age-anxiety attack of Childish Gambino’s “II. Zealots of Stockholm (Free Information)”.
So we end up with something like a concept album broken down into freeze-frame images, leaving the listener to fill in the blanks as clipping. love us to. Does the former student in “He Dead” buy silver bullets because he knows the werewolf of “Story 7”? Is the poor, doomed kid of the uncomfortably immersive “Run For Your Life” the one being displayed in a Deep Web red room in “The Show”? Is the suicidal meditation ritual outlined in “Attunement” a counterpoint to “All In Your…
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By Willie
Wednesday December 18, 2019
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50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1
50. Bon Iver – i,i
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Bon Iver decides to look outward now, a nice evolution from the introverted and elusive nature of 22, A Million. His latest is a bit more inviting and less fragmented, while maintaining the unique sounds of Million. More than ever, Justin Vernon sounds more open here, crooning of his belief in album highlight “Faith” and generally providing a brighter musical tone. The vulnerable nature of “Hey, Ma” and “Marion” recall the more traditional nature of Bon Iver’s earlier work, but like many other tracks, they end just as you become familiar with them. i,i feels like a series of vignettes from a certain point of view; a kaleidoscope of moments in time that capture feelings, important events, and revelations with his usual quirky lyrical style and fusing of musical styles and tones. –Benjamin Kuettel
[Official site] // [Spotify]
There’s never been anything particularly flashy about Kristian Matsson’s music. Simplicity and a raw earnestness have been the Swedish songwriter’s calling card for well over a decade, lightly touched up by sparse, elegant instrumentation and a seesaw wail of a voice that has, over the years, matured into an incisive, finely-honed blade. Nearly a decade after 2010’s seminal The Wild Hunt, I Love You. It’s a Fever Dream encapsulates everything that Matsson still does…
For all the claims of famine for important releases in November, it hasn’t stopped this month’s vote from being a ferocious bottleneck of runners reaching out for the top spot. So much so that the end result was a tie between Origami Angel’s debut album Somewhere City, and FKA Twigs’ Magdalene. The second round of votes between the two was as equally balanced as the first bout, but FKA Twigs just in so scrapped the win for November 2019’s Album of the Month. The experimental R&B pop sensation that is Magdalene was actually an album that slipped under my radar until this very vote, but after listening to it, I can certainly understand the appeal for its idiosyncratic ideals and unique aesthetics. For all the unpleasant emissions Magdalene’s artwork emits, the content of the album is juxtaposed with its candid beauty. If, like me, you initially missed this one, it’s well worth checking out. So with that, I’ll leave Dedex’s thoughts on why this is their favourite album from November.
NOVEMBER 2019 AOTM: FKA Twigs – Magdalene
“Magdalene, or human sexuality in music, as displayed by a Cheltenham girl. Contrary to her previous releases, where she displayed an almost animal fierceness in love, Twigs agrees here to show her vulnerability. This sensibility was always present in her art, however much more in the form (the music per se) than in the content (what she is saying to us). While she has not totally lost her violent…
George Michael – Songs From The Last Century
Monday December 6th, 1999. This day marks the release of George Michael’s surprising left-field covers album, Songs From the Last Century. As if there wasn’t enough evidence to support George’s case already, Songs From the Last Century marks as yet another clear-cut example of an artist being driven by their love of music – devoted to the craft – and not money. There was always a sense of satisfaction when George plotted his next move, as it always seemed to go against the grain on what people thought he should do next. You have to remember that Songs From the Last Century was a relatively ballsy move for George at the time, as it was succeeding his magnum opus, Older: a timeless classic that displayed a sophisticated new sound and image – a smooth, soulful and jazzy sound palette that was underpinned by macabre themes and a setup for his rawest personal-healing-lyric-writing to date. The thing is, while Songs From the Last Century sounds like an arbitrary left-turn on paper, the execution isn’t that far removed from its predecessor; the LP works as an extremely organic continuation on from Older, with the twist being that George is giving out renditions to some of his favourite songs. This project was clearly a “hobby album” – a reactionary response to getting over his 1996 classic, by making something that was fun and full of positivity. Older’s blueprint is…
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By Sowing
Tuesday December 3, 2019
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Here’s a list of major new releases for the month of December, 2019. As the year winds to a close, so typically to the quantity of releases. Inevitably, some albums will always fly under the radar – so feel free to make recommendations in the comments. Please be on the look out for the staff top 50 albums of 2019, as well as additional features by individual staff, contributors, and users. Also, the staff’s top albums of the decade is on-deck to be published sometime in the first half of 2020! Plenty to look forward to. Until then, the staff and administrative team at Sputnikmusic would like to wish all of you a happy and safe holiday season.
– List of Releases: December 6, 2019 –
Burial: Tunes 2011-2019
Genre: Dubstep/Garage/Electronic
Label: Hyperdub
Camila Cabello: Romance
Genre: Pop
Label: Epic
Fen: The Dead Light
Genre: Black Metal/Post-Rock/Folk
Label: Prophecy
![A Beautiful Thing: IDLES Live at Le Bataclan [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71dA0PwBPML._SS500_.jpg)
Idles: A Beautiful Thing: IDLES Live at Le Bataclan
Genre: Post-Punk/Post-Hardcore
Label: PTKF
Jim O’Rourke: To Magnetize Money and Catch a Roving Eye
Genre: Folk/Indie-Rock
Label: Sonoris
Nightwish: Decades: Live In Buenos Aires
Genre: Power Metal/Classical/Gothic
Label: Nuclear Blast
Pop. 1280: Way Station
Genre: Post-Punk/Industrial/Noise Rock
Label: Weyrd Son
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By Sowing
Sunday December 1, 2019
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One of my favorite musical sub-hobbies is re-imagining albums as they might have been. It’s not because I think the artist did wrong, it’s more just a way for me to bend the artist’s output to fit around my taste even better. I’ve re-done everything from Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool, which was originally tracklisted in alphabetical order, to Brand New’s Science Fiction. However, my favorite album restructuring has to be the one I did years ago for Viva La Vida and Prospekt’s March, which I happened upon while cleaning out some old files on my PC. The LP (VLV) and the bonus follow-up collection (PM) are each superb in their own right, but in blending the best of them, you get a truly special – dare I say perfect – pop/rock record. Chances are if you’re not a huge Coldplay nerd I’ve already lost your attention, so I’ll cut through all the fanfare and just get right down to my playlist and the reasoning as to why I structured it the way I did.
The album begins with “Life in Technicolor II” – I chose this version because it is more fully fleshed out than its instrumental counterpart. The band stripped away the vocals from the original version “Life in Technicolor” in 2008 because it sounded too much like “an obvious single”, but I much prefer the full bodied track with Chris Martin’s stunningly beautiful melodic arc. “Viva La Vida” fits in nicely early…
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By Willie
Wednesday November 27, 2019
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2019 and Growing Old
I’ve been doing this since 2007 and I’ve watched as members have come and gone (some departures way more welcome than others). I’ve also watched as my personal musical tastes have slowly separated from the Sputnik collective (they were never entirely in line to begin with), and that is no where more apparent than on this years’ list. As I created this list I noticed a lot of the albums I really enjoyed this year either garnered very little interest or were straight shit on by the Sput masses. It doesn’t really bother me because I’m always going to enjoy listening to what I’m going to enjoy listening to regardless of public opinion, but this list was just a confirmation that I’m rapidly aging out of the music scene. This was made more obvious by the fact that a vast majority of what did make the list was by bands and genres I grew up on, with only a handful of brand new artists.
In order to confirm this, I went back through previous lists and found an obvious trend where each passing year seemed to feature fewer and fewer new artists on my personal lists (a fact backed up by Last.fm listening statistics). Music was still interesting to me, but I was returning to familiar bands and familiar albums… so, I took a break. I didn’t actually participate on Sputnik Music for a majority of 2019 in any obvious way,…
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By Sowing
Monday November 25, 2019
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If you’re excited for the 5th annual SMA’s, you’re not alone.
It’s that time of year again when artists wait with baited breath to hear their name called for the most prestigious award in all of celebrated art. Sure, there are more mainstream ceremonies out there, but this is the one that artists – secretly – take vast pride in. In 2014, Low Roar won the Seriously Cool Shit AOTY trophy [pictured below], for their breathtaking sophomore LP 0. In 2015, it was Sufjan Stevens for his haunting classic folk record, Carrie and Lowell. 2016 yielded us Yellowcard’s tear-jerking finale. Manchester Orchestra swept away the competition in 2017 with A Black Mile to the Surface. 2018 rewarded mewithoutYou for finally topping Brother, Sister with their [Untitled] album. None of them have reached out to me requesting to make an acceptance speech – I find it surprising, if not even a little rude, but I suppose that they’re just so humbled emotionally and spiritually that they can’t muster the words.
The categories are largely the same as they’ve been in previous years, but also a little different. The only EP I enjoyed this year was Mree’s The Middle, so I did away with the EP category (but seriously, if you want to hear an angel sing ambient pop songs, look no further). Gone too is the “best under the radar” category, because it aligned almost precisely with my “best new artist”…
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By Sowing
Monday November 25, 2019
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Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of November 29, 2019. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 29, 2019 –
Anyway Gang: Anyway Gang
Genre: Alternative/Indie Rock
Label: Royal Mountain
![Live from Manchester [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81rklfL0V5L._SS500_.jpg)
Blue October: Live from Manchester
Genre: Alt-Rock
Label: Up Down
Bölzer: Lese Majesty
Genre: Death/Black Metal
Label: Lightning & Sons
![Death Atlas [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/817mMeOSvoL._SS500_.jpg)
Cattle Decapitation: Death Atlas
Genre: Grind/Death Metal
Label: Metal Blade
clipping.: The Deep
Genre: Hip-Hop/Industrial/Experimental
Label: Sub Pop
CZARFACE: The Odd Czar Against Us
Genre: Hip-Hop
Label: Silver Age
![Prestige Worldwide [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/711Qm8tDCKL._SS500_.jpg)
Curren$y & Smoke DZA: Prestige Worldwide
Genre: Hip-Hop
Label: RFC
Öxxö Xööx: Ÿ
Genre: Gothic/Doom Metal/Experimental
Label: Blood Music
Prong: Age Of Defiance
Genre: Thrash Metal/Industrial
Label: Steamhammer
Robbie Williams: The Christmas Present
Genre: Pop Rock
Label: Columbia
Susanne Sundfør: Music For People In Trouble: Live from the Barbican
Genre: Indie-Pop/Electronic
Label: Bella Union
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September’s vote was in almost unanimous agreement, having Cult of Luna’s seventh album, A Dawn to Fear, as your go-to album for the month. October was a much different kettle of fish, however, and saw a number of albums clawing their way up to the top spot. When the dust settled though, the winner was a well-deserved one. Leprous has always been a strong and creative band, and their shifts into various sonic territories over the years hasn’t gone unnoticed (or praised) within the Sputnik community. 2019’s Pitfalls is no exception. So with that, here’s a small blurb from Toondude, explaining why it’s an obvious winner.
OCTOBER 2019 AOTM: Leprous – Pitfalls
“Drastic change can take many forms, and in this case, it takes the form of Leprous’ Pitfalls – stripping back its heavy guitars and epic instrumentation in favor of an atmospheric production with pop-like songwriting, and vocalist Einar Solberg taking center stage. Einar has almost always been a terrific vocalist (granted his harsh vocals are somewhat of an Acquired Taste *wink*), but it’s easy to call Pitfalls his best performance to date. “Below”, “Observe the Train” and “Distant Bells” are just a few examples that showcase the man’s vocal capabilities. However, it wasn’t until “Alleviate” that I began to truly realize there’s still plenty of moments for the instrumentation – particularly from bassist Simen Børven and drummer Baard Kolstad – to shine through here. In the end, Pitfalls is just another masterpiece in the band’s near-perfect discography.” – Toondude.
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By Sowing
Tuesday November 19, 2019
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Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of November 22, 2019. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: November 22, 2019 –
Avatarium: The Fire I Long For
Genre: Doom Metal/Blues
Label: Nuclear Blast
Beck: Hyperspace
Genre: Folk/Experimental Rock
Label: Capitol
Ben Lee: Quarter Century Classix
Genre: Alternative Rock
Label: New West
Blood Incantation: Hidden History of the Human Race
Genre: Death/Black Metal
Label: Century Media
![Everyday Life [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1XimwGNe9L._SS500_.jpg)
Coldplay: Everyday Life
Genre: Pop Rock
Label: Parlophone UK
Coma: Voyage Voyage
Genre: Electronic
Label: City Slang
![Information [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1Iff1pC-4L._SS500_.jpg)
Galcher Lustwerk: Information
Genre: Electronic/House/Techno
Label: Ghostly International
Hannah Diamond: Reflections
Genre: Pop/Electronic
Label: PC Music
Harry Nilsson: Losst and Founnd
Genre: Folk/Pop
Label: Omnivore Recordings
Hypno5e: A Distant (Dark) Source
Genre: Progressive Metal/Metalcore/Ambient
Label: Pelagic
Leonard Cohen: Thanks For The Dance
Genre: Folk/Pop/Blues
Label: Legacy
Lindemann: F&M
Genre: Industrial Metal
Label: Craft Recordings
Lord Mantis: Universal Death Church
Genre: Sludge/Black/Doom Metal
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