your top albums of 2021

Favorite new record? Favorite old record? Got a band? Post it here.
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MechaBulletBill
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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by MechaBulletBill » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:07 am

the only one in the front of my brain is that ty segall harmonizer (which rules) but this thread did remind me that the low album is pretty good too.

it's been a bad year for critical listening due to ear issues on and off (currently have bad tinnitus in the left) so most of my new loves were soundtracks to other stuff, like the excellent NieR Replicant

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by FrankRay » Tue Jan 04, 2022 3:35 pm

No one's mentioned the fabulous New Long Leg by Dry Cleaning, so I'm going to.

Also the new Low album which everyone has mentioned, and Aldous Harding's last album which came out in 2019 but only reached me this year.

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by mediocreplayer » Tue Jan 04, 2022 4:56 pm

wingnutkj wrote:
Mon Jan 03, 2022 3:33 pm
Low - Hey What. I've been a fan for years, and they're probably ACTUALLY my favourite band and again, they've evolved their sound in unexpected ways, and that's great, but also for most of the year I just wanted to snuggle under a blanket drinking hot chocolate while Alan and Mimi sang a gentle song about making hot chocolate.
johnnysomersett wrote:
Mon Jan 03, 2022 10:13 pm
I came to a similar realisation with Low in recent years. As someone who tends to gravite towards punk/hardcore/heavier music my 'favourites' have often gravitated that way too but Low have been firmly there, without me even realising, for 20 years. I also think they may be ACTUALLY my favourite band as well. I've loved every direction they've taken over the years and never been disappointed with a shift.

Low are still there. And the new album, as the kids like to say, 'slaps hard'.
sal paradise wrote:
Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:40 pm
I love Low. Sometimes. Such clever musicians, but they push boundaries beyond where I can go. The only album I can fully get on with is C’mon 😞

Similar to Beach House. Every album, including the latest, has loads of highlights, but I’m too pop orientated to feel the more avant garde stuff.
I am fairly confident that I am one of Low's biggest fans on the planet, but I feel this BJ Burton phase has run its course. Hey What has some great songs but it sounds like it's trying too hard, especially because they already did all this shit on Double Negative.

In my opinion, this approach is maybe great for movies, but not music. The first couple of times I heard the last two records my mind was blown, especialy Hey What. It was too intense and beautiful. But this relentless intensity makes me dread putting it on -- it's exhausting. It's work. I need to be in a very specific frame of mind to put it on and actually enjoy it.

In addition, some tracks I find are fairly weak by Low standards. "Hey" is not great, "Don't Walk Away" is a big cloying meh, but then "White Horses", "More", and "The Price You Pay" make the whole thing worth it again.

I have tickets to see them in April. Let's see if that will happen.

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by dinosaurkale-> » Wed Jan 05, 2022 8:15 am

gotta check out this Low album
didnt even realize they released something newish

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by MattK » Wed Jan 05, 2022 10:37 pm

FrankRay wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 3:35 pm
No one's mentioned the fabulous New Long Leg by Dry Cleaning, so I'm going to.
Oh my god, just stumbled across this after missing its release, what a killer album. Like Trish Keenan fronting This Heat.

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by FrankRay » Fri Jan 07, 2022 11:33 am

"I've come here to make a ceramic shoe
And I've come to smash what you made"

Good, isn't it? I keep playing it over and over

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by JSett » Fri Jan 07, 2022 12:34 pm

mediocreplayer wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 4:56 pm
this relentless intensity makes me dread putting it on -- it's exhausting. It's work. I need to be in a very specific frame of mind to put it on and actually enjoy it.
For that reason alone I feel it perfectly encapsulates the way the world has felt in the last 24 months.

Jarring and exhausting.
Silly Rabbit, don't you know scooped mids are for kids?

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by fever606 » Fri Jan 07, 2022 6:53 pm

Beauty Pill - Instant Night - DC’s most interesting band continue to evolve…

FACS - Present Tense - Probably my most-listened-to album of 2021…

MY DISCO - Alter Schwede - Continuing the sonic mining that began on 2019’s Environment

Honourable mention:
Body Meta - The Work Is Slow - Came out in December 2020 but I didn’t discover it until some time early in 2021…

+1’s:
New Long Leg and Hey What also logged a bunch of air time here…
Last edited by fever606 on Sat Jan 08, 2022 5:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by burpgun » Fri Jan 07, 2022 7:06 pm

Lots of Low love here, and appropriately so. I've been an active fan of theirs for 20 years, have seen them live multiple times, and for this old timer, watching other oldies grow and remain vital is inspiring. Plus they seem like good folks.

The other record I went hard for was Deafheaven's Infinite Granite. They've pretty much completed the trip out of metal land and they made a great sounding shoe gazer, with just enough of the old edge to tie it all together. And good lord, while the singer is no virtuoso, I would never have expected him to make the transition from goblin howls to proper melodies. Don't know if he had help working out his parts, but he was a new man, which really helped the broader evolution. Other than that, I was more oriented to trying to learn up on 1970s German weirdness and old school country. My kids also made me listen to a lot of Taylor Swift, which is better than I would have thought.

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by ohm_mho » Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:25 pm

I didn’t get to check out as many new releases as I would have liked last year, but here’s four records I really enjoyed.

Deafheaven — Infinite Granite
King Buffalo — The Burden of Restlessness
Slift — Levitation Sessions
Turnstile — Glow On

Looks to be loads of good new music slated for 2022.

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by blacktiger » Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:09 pm

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises

https://floatingpoints.bandcamp.com/album/promises
Thread killer

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by windmill » Mon Jan 10, 2022 11:18 pm

Thanks to everyone for posting in this thread

Some interesting stuff in here.

:)

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by marqueemoon » Tue Jan 11, 2022 12:30 am

sal paradise wrote:
Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:40 pm
I love Low. Sometimes. Such clever musicians, but they push boundaries beyond where I can go. The only album I can fully get on with is C’mon 😞

Similar to Beach House. Every album, including the latest, has loads of highlights, but I’m too pop orientated to feel the more avant garde stuff.
I love weird/creepy Beach House. I definitely think I'm in the minority.

From what I've heard of bombastic Low it grates on me for the most part, but I should give it another chance I guess.

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by Telliot » Tue Jan 11, 2022 12:39 am

I absolutely love Meggie Lennon’s album Sounds From Your Lips. I’ve been listening to it regularly for the last 6 months and just bought the LP today.

Meggie Lennon - Sounds From Your Lips
The cool thing about fretless is you can hit a note...and then renegotiate.

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Re: your top albums of 2021

Post by Sauerkraut » Tue Jan 11, 2022 1:17 am

I haven't listened to much from 2021 yet. Have some catching up to do.

I agree on the already mentioned Bloodmoon 1 by Converge and Chelsea Wolfe. Fantastic album.
I also really enjoyed Asoma (Rises) by Clan Caimán (bandcamp link). Great instrumental album. Also, Petunia by Tonstartssbandht is great (bandcamp link)
I didn't care for the Low album at all, though I loved the one before it. This one just sounded uninspired... predictable, rehashing the same old. I dunno, maybe it's because I listened to that Converge & Chelsea Wolfe record right before, which sound so much more inspired. Not fair of course.

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