| 5.0 classic |
| Alvvays Antisocialites |
| Alvvays Blue Rev |
| Artificial Brain Artificial Brain |
| At the Drive-In Relationship of Command |
| Ben Howard I Forget Where We Were |
| The musicianship is phenomenal, the songwriting is spectacular, and I find something new on every single listen. This might just be the most complete album I've heard this year, and it's getting closer to a 5 with every listen. |
| blink-182 Blink-182 |
| Bomb the Music Industry! Vacation |
| Brave Bird Maybe You, No One Else Worth It |
| Burden of Life The Makeshift Conqueror |
| Casey Love Is Not Enough |
| Casualties of Cool Casualties of Cool |
| Counterparts The Difference Between Hell and Home |
| Counterparts A Eulogy for Those Still Here |
| Default Genders main pop girl 2019 |
| Ethel Cain Preacher's Daughter |
| Fear Not Ourselves Alone DEAD DOG PARADISE (OR LIFE LIKE PARASITES?) |
This is such a huge, gorgeous, weird, unpredictable, joyous, and devastating mess of an
album. The best punk album I've heard in years and my AOTY. FFO TWIABP, Home Is Where,
Dismemberment Plan |
| For Those I Love For Those I Love |
| Frail Body A Brief Memoriam |
| Frail Body Artificial Bouquet |
| Glass Beach The First Glass Beach Album |
| Glassjaw Coloring Book |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada |
| Gorguts The Erosion of Sanity |
| Gorguts Colored Sands |
| Haley Heynderickx I Need to Start a Garden |
| Hop Along Get Disowned |
| Jeff Rosenstock NO DREAM |
| Julien Baker Sprained Ankle |
| Might be cuz I'm listening to Cocksure a lot currently, but this sounds a LOT like Sit Resist era Laura rStevenson, which is a fantastic thing. This is beautiful. |
| La Dispute Here, Hear. III |
| Laura Stevenson Sit Resist |
| Life demo two |
| Mastodon Crack the Skye |
| Oathbreaker Rheia |
| Palm Reader Sleepless |
| This completely shattered my expectations. This is the most well-crafted, air-tight album in any genre of rock released this year. By building on an already strong foundation, and focusing on and perfecting flow and atmosphere, Sleepless proves that by giving the little things their due, bigger CAN be better. I count this as metalcore's Vheissu moment: an already accomplished band leveling up to a higher understanding and evolution of their genre of choice. |
| Panopticon The Rime of Memory |
| Pianos Become the Teeth The Lack Long After |
| Pianos Become the Teeth Keep You |
| First pre-release 5 I've ever given but my faith in this band is unwavering and TLLA is one of the most emotional, pivotal musical experiences of my life. Hiding and Repine are both phenomenal and this has been my most anticipated release of 2014 since December. |
| pizzamachine HELLISH DEVICES |
| Proper. The Great American Novel |
| PUP Morbid Stuff |
| Without a single doubt in my mind the best pop-punk album I've ever heard, this is a glorious avalanche of pummeling riffs and unwavering passion that frequently turns to moments of genuinely unexpected beauty. Whether it's the Bohemian Rhapsody-esque Scorpion Hill, the straightforward thrills of shredfest Free At Last, or the honestly unbelievable City which I dare not spoil here, Morbid Stuff is a special, shocking achievement. |
| Radiohead In Rainbows |
| Seiko Oomori Kintsugi |
| Spaceships Ruins |
| State Faults Clairvoyant |
| A ritual of blood and fire, Clairvoyant truly feels like a torturous journey through some kind of afterlife. Denser, grander, angrier, more ambitious and more beautiful than anything the band have done before, State Faults has returned stronger than ever. |
| Straylight Run Straylight Run |
| Stuck Out Here Until We're Each Someone Else |
| Sudan Archives Natural Brown Prom Queen |
| Alternately probing, euphoric, defiant, lush, abstract; all of the temperamental virtuosity sticks because it's rooted in complex and relatable themes that keep the listener invested in something more than the whiplash musical twists and turns. This sounds groundbreaking yet achingly human, like an R&B Age of Adz. AOTY easily |
| Sufjan Stevens The Age of Adz |
| Sunny Day Real Estate How It Feels To Be Something On |
| The Armed Only Love |
| The Armed Ultrapop |
| Willing to bet the pitiable amount of money I have in this world that this is going to be looked back on as a landmark album in all spheres of heavy music |
| The Avalanches We Will Always Love You |
| The Hotelier Home, Like NoPlace Is There |
| The Receiving End of Sirens Between the Heart and the Synapse |
| The Receiving End of Sirens The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi |
| The Weakerthans Left and Leaving |
| The World Is a Beautiful Place... Harmlessness |
| The Wrens The Meadowlands |
| There Will Be Fireworks The Dark, Dark Bright |
| There Will Be Fireworks Summer Moon |
| Thursday War All the Time |
| Thursday No Devolucion |
| Touche Amore Is Survived By |
| The pacing of this album is just absolutely perfect. |
| Trophy Scars Never Born, Never Dead |
| Trophy Scars Holy Vacants |
| Wow. Just wow. A truly special album that continuously doles out jaw-dropping moments. This is one for the ages. |
| Trophy Scars Astral Pariah |
| Astral Pariah finds Trophy Scars at their most ferociously focused and dementedly dense, delivering a fleeting and audacious distillation of everything the band have worked towards in their storied career. Where Holy Vacants was a diffuse blockbuster of epic proportions, here, the band has burrowed inward and found a nasty and unblinking center that is more meticulous and uncompromising than usual. Something wicked this way comes, indeed. |
| Wicca Phase Springs Eternal Suffer On |
| WRVTH No Rising Sun |
| Yeule Glitch Princess |
| Deeply bruised and sinister pop album, this is a 5 star alarm instant classic, rearranges the board, all of that, AOTY [2] |
| 4.0 excellent |
| Adele 21 |
| Adrianne Lenker Bright Future |
| Alex G We're All Going to the World's Fair (OMPS) |
| Alex G God Save The Animals |
| Alvvays Alvvays |
| Anthony Green Boom. Done. |
| Ashley McBryde Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville |
| Backxwash God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of I |
| Birds in Row Gris Klein |
| Black Sheep Wall Songs for the Enamel Queen |
| blink-182 Enema Of The State |
| blink-182 Neighborhoods |
| Brutus (BE) Unison Life |
| Cassandra Jenkins An Overview on Phenomenal Nature |
| Chelsea Wolfe She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She |
| Cindy Lee What's Tonight to Eternity |
| Dispirited Spirits The Redshift Blues |
| Dreamwell In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You |
| Empty Country Empty Country II |
| Finch Say Hello to Sunshine |
| Fireworks Higher Lonely Power |
| FKA Twigs EP2 |
| FKA Twigs Caprisongs |
| Fontaines D.C. Skinty Fia |
| Gorguts Considered Dead |
| Great Grandpa Four of Arrows |
| Beautiful, wonderfully varied, and catchy as all get out with the substance and songwriting chops to back it up-a total winner, this one. |
| Heavenly Blue We Have The Answer |
| Honey Harper Starmaker |
| Hop Along Bark Your Head Off, Dog |
| Infant Island Obsidian Wreath |
| Jockey Bleak and Colorful |
| KEN mode Null |
| La Dispute Rooms of the House |
| La Dispute Panorama |
| Life In Vacuum Lost |
| Lorna Shore Pain Remains |
| Misthyrming Með hamri |
| Narrow Head Moments of Clarity |
| New Buffalo The Last Beautiful Day |
| No Devotion No Oblivion |
| nouns While of Unsound Mind |
| Origami Angel Gami Gang |
| Parannoul After The Magic |
| Proper. Part-Timer |
| Really From Really From |
| These low ratings are insane, this is an intriguing new sound for the entire genre of emo done stunningly well |
| Saba Few Good Things |
| Sampha LAHAI |
| Shame (UK) Drunk Tank Pink |
| Shannen Moser I'll Sing |
| Ingenuity trumps innovation on a collection of songs endlessly charming and deeply felt. Beautiful stuff. |
| Sign Language (USA-OH) Madison and Floral |
| Smidley Here Comes The Devil |
| Somewhere South of Here Leave Me for the Crows |
| Sorry Anywhere But Here |
| Spaceships Tiny Fires |
| Spaceships Son of Man |
| Spaceships I Am A Storm At Sea!!! |
| Sprints Letter to Self |
| Static Dress Rouge Carpet Disaster |
| Sufjan Stevens Javelin |
| Svalbard The Weight of the Mask |
| The Afghan Whigs How Do You Burn? |
| The slightly ineffective red herring opener aside, How Do You Burn? is a dense, textured and dynamic experience that also finds the Whigs writing the biggest hooks of their career. There's a little bit of everything here: the dusky and dramatic cinematics of the best Twilight Singers material, noisy and meticulous semi-ballads like those found on Dulli's latest solo outing, and a surprising amount of straightforwardly beautiful 90's alternative country/rock (A Line of Shots in particular sounds like a lost Counting Crows hit filtered through the distinctly confrontational Dulli's musical language). This is an exciting and unexpected melting pot of influences and songwriting styles that holds together as a (perhaps too) slick, catchy and enigmatic album of intricate and versatile rock and roll music. |
| The Beths Expert in a Dying Field |
| The Callous Daoboys Celebrity Therapist |
| The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir Slow Murder |
| The Murder Capital Gigi's Recovery |
| The Smith Street Band Life After Football |
| The Weakerthans Reconstruction Site |
| Tierra Whack World Wide Whack |
| Tiny Moving Parts Pleasant Living |
| think this will probably grow on me. Van Beers is fucking phenomenal, too. |
| Torres Torres |
| Touche Amore ...To the Beat of a Dead Horse |
| Touche Amore Stage Four |
| Valleyheart Heal My Head |
| Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City |
| Villain of the War Oxen |
| Wednesday Twin Plagues |
| Yellow Eyes Master’s Murmur |
