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User
Reviews 26
Approval 99%
Soundoffs 237
News Articles 5
Band Edits + Tags 10
Album Edits 153
Album Ratings 2342
Objectivity 72%
Last Active 12-19-18 7:20 pm
Joined 06-11-12
Review Comments 2,730
| Best of: 2018 Albums
im banky. | | 25 |  | Lily Allen
No Shame
She’s still got that bite, and it’s accompanied by some raw and personal ballads to boot.
Best tracks: Apples, Three, Trigger Bang | | 24 |  | War On Women
Capture The Flag
Write a letter to your idol and then / CROSS OUT! THEIR NAME! AND WRITE! YOURS IN!
Best Tracks: YDTMHTL, Lone Wolves, The Chalice and The Blade | | 23 |  | SOPHIE
Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides
Ultra bubblegum pop - self indulgent and beautiful.
Best Tracks: Immaterial, Faceshopping, Whole New World/Pretend World | | 22 |  | Teyana Taylor
K.T.S.E.
Best thing Ye put out this summer (Daytona is very close!). When samples are used they’re done so efficiently. And no downplaying Taylor - her voice has passion, and it’s in every one of the 8 tracks of K.T.S.E. Just wish it was longer!
Best Tracks: Never Would Have Made It, WTP | | 21 |  | Black Thought
Streams of Thought, Vol. 1
A promising start as a solo act.
Best tracks: 9th vs. Thought, Making A Murderer | | 20 |  | Kacey Musgraves
Golden Hour
Kind-hearted country pop with a little bit of a psych haze.
Best Tracks: Oh What A World, Love Is A Wild Thing, Rainbow | | 19 |  | Brockhampton
Iridescence
MISUNDERSTOOD SINCE BIRTH / FUCK WHAT U THINK AND FUCK WHAT U HEARD/ I FEEL BETRAYED, YOU CAN KEEP THE PRAISE
Best Tracks: Tape, San Marcos, J’ouvert | | 18 |  | Kero Kero Bonito
Time 'n' Place
The playfulness is toned down (but still there) for an album about mental wellness.
Best Tracks: Swimming, Make Believe, Dear Future Self | | 17 |  | mewithoutYou
[Untitled]
A heavenly hurricane of sound and imagery.
Best Tracks: Julia, Wendy & Betsy, Winter Solstice | | 16 |  | George Clanton
Slide
If 100% Electronica was vageuly 80s new wave, Slide is vaguely 90s alternative R&B. Still chill. Still awesome.
Best Tracks: Livin Loose, Monster, Make It Forever | | 15 |  | Colin Stetson
Hereditary
Stetson scores what is the most genuinely unsettled I’ve ever been while watching a movie. It’s haunting. The sounds played a big part.
Best tracks: Reborn | | 14 |  | Florence and the Machine
High As Hope
High as Hope sees Florence focus more on herself, removing all of the symbolism and iconography from previous works to sing to us on a personal level. The instruments reflect this, playing more subdued so that we can easily appreciate Welch’s voice.
Best Tracks: South London Forever, Grace, The End Of Love | | 13 |  | Black Thought
Streams Of Thought, Vol. 2
Yup, he’s on here twice.
Best tracks: Get Outlined, Streets | | 12 |  | Denzel Curry
TA13OO
Maniacal, painful. Finish ‘em Zel.
Best tracks: Sumo, Switch It Up, Vengeance. | | 11 |  | Drug Church
Cheer
There’s a guy in a group chat with klansmen, telling you how to live! Just a matter of time till he’s the one twisting in the wind!
Best Tracks: Unlicensed Hall Monitor, Dollar Story, Strong References | | 10 |  | Janelle Monae
Dirty Computer
In-the-moment, the strife of politics in 2018 put to music as Monae rollicks her way through a lush and smooth pop album. Traces of Prince dot the album in cuts like Make Me Feel and Crazy, Classic, Life. Monae is unabashedly, unashamed to be herself, and instead of a Cindi Mayweather facade we hear from Janelle herself on tracks like So Afraid and Don’t Judge Me. A Free Ass Motherfucker, indeed.
Best Tracks: Make Me Feel, Don’t Judge Me, Take A Byte | | 9 |  | Busdriver
Electricity Is on Our Side
80 minutes of experimental jazz-rap that is huge and sprawling. Everything flows together amazingly, and there isn’t one weak track on the whole thing. Relatively chill and a handful of tracks with strong replay value make this a top 10.
Best Tracks: kiss around the notes, pull the sky closer, me vs me, the year i became a mutherfuckin’ G | | 8 |  | The Armed
Only Love
The rest are only ones and zeros / Shootings stars / Kill your heroes where they sleep
The idol threat / The lazy creep of double speak / Kill yours heroes where they sleep
Best Tracks: Parody Warning, Fortune’s Daughter, Role Models, On Jupiter | | 7 |  | Rolo Tomassi
Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It
I think what catches me the most about Time Will Die is how textures and energy can go from these soft, ambient sections to heavy ones, with howling and screaming dirty vocals. It’s a beautiful album with a lot of heavenly moments, both low and high energy.
Best Tracks: Alma Mater, Contretemps, A Flood Of Light | | 6 |  | Lupe Fiasco
DROGAS Wave
The concept of side 1, Wave, is tight and painfully woven together to tell a story of drowned African slaves who live underwater that pull other slave ships under so that they may travel back to Africa. Side 2, Drogas, is a little less cohesive but has more than enough thematic narrative, and Lupe is still a verbal contortionist with an ear for hooks.
Best tracks: WAV Files, Gold vs. the Right Thing To Do, Alan Forever, Stack That Cheese | | 5 |  | The Go! Team
Semicircle
They’ve still got it. Semicircle feels like the band going back to an earlier sound, but with a new, polished quality that goes a long way. Alt-pop, but a little hip-hop, a little rock, a little psych...you get the drill.
Best Tracks: Semicircle Song, All The Way Live, If There’s One Thing You Should Know, Hey | | 4 |  | Car Seat Headrest
Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)
A reimagining of his own seven year old album, Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) updates both sound and lyrics. Tracks like Nervous Young Inhumans, Bodys, and Cute Thing take on a whole other dimension - ‘Bodys’ in particular explodes when the chorus does come, making it so much more rewarding. Lyrics are updated in accordance with input from the subject of the album, which nets Toledo a huge amount of respect.
Best Tracks: Beach Life-In-Death, Bodys, Cute Thing, Famous Prophets (Stars) | | 3 |  | IDLES
Joy as an Act of Resistance
He thinks he's suave / You're not suave 'cause you watched Get Carter
You are a catalogue, plastic Sinatra / Hey tryhard, you should've tried harder
Me, oh me, oh my, Roy / You look like a walking thyroid
You're not a man, you're a gland / You're one big neck with sausage hands
You are a Topshop tyrant / Even your haircut's violent
You look like you're from Love Island / You stood and the room went silent
Best Tracks: Never Fight A Man With A Perm, Danny Nedelko, Samaritans, Television, Great | | 2 |  | Daughters
You Won't Get What You Want
Dark. Foreboding. Relentless. Unforgiving. You Won’t Get What You Want has the same wall-of-sound force that Daughters built their name on, but now it’s all launched into a very frightening space.
Best Tracks: Long Road No Turns, The Reason They Hate Me, Ocean Song, Guest House | | 1 |  | Brandi Carlile
By the Way, I Forgive You
Amazing songwriting and storytelling that touches the humanity in all of us. Songs range from personal anecdotes to grand and sweeping tracks with lessons at the forefront. Many of these songs are dedicated to the marginalized or those struggling, anyone who has experienced hardships - yeah, that’s a pretty wide brush to paint, but by touching on the issues experienced in America today (the political undercurrents in the album are not subtle, and it’s all the better for it), Carlile shows off her skill in songwriting, her vocal strength, and her ability to work a melody together with the help of the Hanseroth twins. An absolute pleasure to listen to.
Best Tracks: Whatever You Do, Hold Out Your Hand, The Mother, Sugartooth, Party of One | |
gryndstone
12.22.18 | will be updated dto 25. i'm dumbass | gryndstone
12.22.18 | Mission: Complete | Halfman
12.22.18 | glad to see drug church on here. they might be the best new band i've heard in the last five years and i don't think they get enough love. | gryndstone
12.22.18 | i gotta give their other stuff a listen. Cheer was amazing on all fronts | mynameischan
12.22.18 | aw yeah same no 1 as me | gryndstone
12.22.18 | she's so powerful. lesbians with guitars are always so powerful |
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