Music in 2014 - Best Of.

I haven't had the chance to listen to too many albums this year but here are the ones that have really stood out for me.
 

Grouper - Ruins

Grouper is the sole project of singer/songwriter Liz Harris. On a personal level, this is the most surprising addition to the list because I was never that keen on her previous material, in particular, the revered Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill. Despite the fact that it had been compared to classics from yesteryear that I do love, like the British artist Cocteau Twins, I couldn't get into its unusual style. This album could then be seen as a gateway for me to explore the rest of her extensive back catalog, including revisiting the aforementioned album. Whilst there are some similarities between this album and a couple of previous ones, this feels more personal to me. The combination of the lyrics and melancholic piano, the only instrument to feature on the entire album, are what really appeal to me. Lately I've been exploring a lot of ambient music which relies heavily on keys, so getting into Ruins was a much easier transition. That and I'm always on the look out for material to sleep to, something which I've found this album is great for because it's very gentle and tender. Liz's hushed vocals, which can be a little difficult to hear at times over the piano which has a tendency to drown her out, are generally perfect to sleep to.

Jakob - Sines

Eight years. That is how long it has taken for this album. Jakob's previous album, entitled Solace, is one of my favorites across any genre, let alone within post-rock. Potentially, this album could be every bit as good as Solace but, for now, I'd say Solace is still top dog. This album was actually due to come out earlier than 2014 but one of the bands guitarists sustained a hand injury which prevented them from completing it earlier and also from touring extensively. In fact, I bought a ticket for a gig they were supposed to be having in the UK but, of course, they had to postpone due to said injury. When I had first heard a preview of the title track, I had expected that this album would see a change in style since it's a fully ambient song with none of the usual trademarks of a Jakob song but that isn't the case. Sines is a continuation of Solace. Whilst the bands material has remained much the same throughout their career, which spans sixteen years, Jakob are so adept at what they do, that those crescendos still manage to sound so moving and profound to this day.

Ne Obliviscaris - Citadel

 Citadel is the Australian progressive/melodic death metal bands sophomore LP and it's causing as much of a storm as their debut did. There is talk that the bands album could chart in Australia and it would be the first truly underground metal album to do so in years. If you've heard the debut, entitled Portal of I, then you'll know what to expect from this album. Essentially, it's more of the same but I'm not complaining. If you're new to Australia's next big thing, then there are few outstanding features on the album you ought to be aware of. The album features harsh vocals in the form of screams. Usually they feature separately from the clean vocals but they occasionally double up to create a dynamic and fascinating atmosphere. The clean vocals, provided by Tim Charles, are truly exceptional. As is his use of the violin, a component of the music which features sparingly throughout, which is both beautiful and haunting. The album is complex and diverse. Once again, the perfect production maximises the components of the album and draws them together expertly.

Rome - A Passage to Rhodesia

 Rome are a band who opened the door to both martial industrial and neofolk for me. Masse Mensch Material was the first of their albums I heard and, since then, I've gone on to explore the rest of their discography, finding a lot of joy along the way. Rome are a band with many strengths, none more so than Jérôme Reuter's ability to turn potentially overpowering conceptual ideas into songs you care about. He's a fantastic storyteller and vocalist to boot. Long-time fans of Rome will not be strangers to Rome's fascination with conceptual albums, mostly dealing with conflict and war, but newcomers may be put off by how enveloped the album becomes in telling the story of Rhodesia. Not to fear, the musicianship is such that, even if you find the lyrics a little overbearing, the music itself will more than make up for it.

Sun Kil Moon - Benji

I'm a massive fan of Mark Kozelek. Whether it's a part of Red House Painters, a collaborative work or even his own solo material. I love his voice, his lyrics and his honesty. I considered his earliest works as Red House Painters frontman untouchable until I heard Sun Kil Moon's Ghosts of the Great Highway. This album is vastly different to that in its execution and particularly in relation to its lyrical style. Ghosts of the Great Highway felt like Red House Painters under a different name but not Benji. Mark is still nostalgic, still morbid and still singing about personal tragedies but I find the approach, in general, is a lot less serious. Whilst some of the songs hit key features in his usual repertoire, others highlight the mundane nature of life, the things he has done and seen throughout the course of a typical day. The songwriting is bare bones storytelling style but that's alright by me.

The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream

I really enjoyed Slave Ambient when I first heard it but I put it down for months and forgot it existed. I was looking through a list of albums that had recently come out when I noticed The War on Drugs had a new album out, Lost in the Dream. I decided to check it out and memories of the first time I had heard them came flooding back. Since hearing this album for the first time, I've been hooked on them in general. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. Whilst Slave Ambient is indeed a very good album, this effort has taken them onto a new level. I imagine there will be no issues with longevity when it comes to this album. It has since acted as a gateway for me to check out more heartland rock, including Bruce Springsteen who I had managed to ignore for 27 years. The album feels very personal. As I understand it, vocalist Adam Granduciel had some trouble readjusting to life after touring and went through a break-up. "Suffering" is a great example of the power of this album as Adam unburdens his soul to us.

The Veldt - Afrodisiac (1994) 4/5

Despite originating from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, The Veldt would probably have felt more at home in the heart of England during the early to mid 1990’s. Whilst bands from the British Isles and Ireland were gaining a lot of publicity for their shoegazing ways, The Veldt were sadly overlooked, despite being around during the height of the shoegaze movement. In spite of their obvious talents, The Veldt, one of the few predominantly black alternative bands, were disgracefully swept aside due to the colour of their skin. Thankfully, before their demise, The Veldt released one of the most underrated shoegaze albums of the entire movement, let alone during the 1990’s when bands like Slowdive were coming to prominence. Despite this, the band were actually a hit in the UK when they toured alongside Cocteau Twins. Their layered approach and emotive vocals were considered a real treat to shoegazers in the UK just as much then as they are now with me.

As you might be able to tell from the title of this dazzling full-length debut, “Afrodisiac”, is at times a startling and eye opening commentary on the troubles of the black community and women’s rights at the time of its release. Songs like “Revolutionary Sister”, in particular, are evidence of this with the lyrics presenting a anti-misogyny message. “Afrodisiac” is unlike any of shoegaze album for many reasons, not only because it deals with such hard-hitting concepts and themes. One of the main differences between The Veldt and your standard shoegaze band is co-creator Daniel Chavis, the bands brilliant vocalist. Whilst most shoegaze bands during this era would employ their vocalist to use indiscernible vocals, Daniel Chavis’ uniquely shaped words are clear and concise, a major factor which contributes to the success of the album.

Not only this, but The Veldt’s influences also play a huge role in the shaping of the bands psychedelic and soulful sound. Daniel himself is inspired by none other than Prince. His collaboration with the layered, spiralling guitars is a wonderful high point on the album, though there are many to speak of. Amongst their surprising influences are also the likes of the inspirational and supremely talented Jimi Hendrix. The band also have some more “standard” influences, such as their close friends A.R. Kane, one of England’s few predominantly black alternative bands of the 90’s, and the likes of Cocteau Twins and Echo and the Bunnymen, all of which spearheaded, at some stage or another, England’s pioneering alternative, post-punk and shoegaze genres and sub-genres. With influences such as these, it would easy to expect The Veldt not to be able to live up to such standards, but they most certainly do.

Whether it’s in the clean brand of vocals imposed on the listener by Daniel Chavis, or the psychedelic nature of the bands melodies, The Veldt ooze just as much class and talent as any of their influences. Although the band do adopt certain techniques from the aforementioned, they do impose their own on their style, particularly through the soulful passages, spearheaded by the vocals. Areas of the music, like the drums, can resemble that of other bands, like Cocteau Twins, during songs like the melodious “Daisy Chain” and some of the upbeat passages remind me of the infectious A.R. Kane style, which also incorporates some of the more interesting influences in the shoegaze movement, from dream pop, to trip-hop and funkier alternative dance. Unlike most bands, The Veldt also have a really crisp production to their songs, meaning that all elements are audible and aren’t buried under the glorious fuzz of the guitars, which still exists on this album. Ray Shulman, who worked closely with A.R. Kane helped out in that regard, offering his expertise to the project.

Unlike those two bands however, The Veldt are more aggressive, particularly in relation to their drumming. The bass drum, for example, is very prominent throughout the album and there is a raw quality to the drums which contrasts well with the beautiful vocals and sweet melodies of songs like “Dusty Blood”, a song which really hammers home the aggressive feel to the album in contrast to those from the likes of A.R. Kane and the like. Aside from the astounding amount of catchy songs, including “Soul in a Jar”, The Veldt’s main quality is certainly the vocals. Daniel has a great range, a really affecting, emotive voice. He’s able to easily capture the essence of the catchier songs, as well as embody the pained soul of songs like “Heather”, a really romantic song and a homage to A.R. Kane, apparently. This song also features a really unexpected introduction to the saxophone, which adds a really suave and sophistication feel to the atmosphere of the song, giving it a bluesy touch amidst the harsh environment of the guitar effects pedal produced shoegaze. Both blissful and calmingly soulful, “Afrodisiac” is one of shoegaze’s finest forgotten gems.

Red House Painters - Down Colorful Hill (1992) 5/5

Red House Painters - are a band who have greatly influenced my listening habits over the past year or however long it has been since I first discovered them. Since discovering this San Francisco, Californian based band, spearheaded by the industrious singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek, I have never managed to find a band within the same genre who managed to capture the same levels of emotion or move me as much. This, one of the most influential bands in the genre of slowcore, a truly horrible genre name, have, to some extent, shaped the way I listen to music, making me pay far more attention to lyrics than I have ever done in my life due to the fact that I find myself so often relating to the pained expressions of lost love and melancholy that Mark Kozelek so grippingly writes about. He himself has expressed in interviews the fact that he finds himself unable to listen to his earliest albums due to the painful memories they evoke.

Although obviously not to the same extent, each time I sit down to listen to Red House Painters’ debut, entitled ‘Down Colorful Hill’, I feel past feelings of anger, hurt and regret just as I did the day that took hold of my life. The lyrics to songs like ‘24’ I find particularly stressful to listen to (especially when coupled with the wonderful music video for the song), though this is what draws me back to Red House Painters time and again. I don’t know what it is about my nature but I love torturing myself through listening to the most depressed music, watching the darkest films and generally immersing myself in the most wicked forms of art. Listening to ‘Down Colorful Hill’ is like stabbing myself in the back as I betray my mind and put myself through the sheer torment of listening to those aching acoustics and that wonderfully dismal voice, expressing the most downtrodden of lyrics.

I find it rather amusing that, having taken a break from writing reviews for depressed metal musicians, I find myself sitting here writing reviews about depressed non-metal musicians and music. I’m drawn to it somehow. However, that isn’t to say that there isn’t any other emotion expressed via this groundbreaking record because there is. Despite the style of Kozelek’s voice, which is infiltrating due to its sombreness, there are some rather “upbeat” moments to the instrumentation, most noticeable I find on the self-titled track, ‘Down Colorful Hill’. Though the lyrics may express challenges ahead for the fragile human being in the story, there is an uplifting quality to the repetitive and rhythmic drumming, as well as the acoustics, which are normally so wrapped up in the dark and dense atmosphere that they can never usually get to that light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how hard they try. The atmosphere on this particular song signals a change in the albums direction and although ‘Japanese to English’ changes the momentum a bit, the strangely upbeat ‘Lord Kill the Pain’ swiftly moves back to that fragile state though this time through the lyrics and not the instrumentation.

The lyrics, in particular, are very striking to me. The song pinpoints things, albeit unintentionally, that have occurred in my own life once again, even to the point of getting the names in my own personal story right! I have a lot of respect for what Kozelek has done with this album, particularly when taking into consideration the ever impressive lyrics. He captures all those fears and desires I had as a mixed up teenager in a troubled relationship with seemingly mountainous problems that somehow dissolve over time. Though the lyrics may seem to suggest a rather irrational form of angst and despair as their main influence, one has to keep in mind that these seem totally justifiable at the time, so I always try to place myself in his youthful shoes, though it isn’t hard seeing as this album never fails to transport me back to a time when the emotions on display here are entirely applicable to my existence. Not only does he hit the nail on the head with the lyrics but his voice has a brilliantly juxtaposed warmth and cold texture to it. He expresses the delights with a burning passion and the downs with a cold, harsh reality. I adore Kozelek’s voice. It’s marvellous alongside the simplistic acoustic passages, gentle bass and probing percussion.

Whilst the first two songs, particularly ‘24’, were extremely emotive due to its intensity and emphasis on darker thoughts and feelings, are suppressed by their darker state of mind, the album switches to a more soft expression of emotion during the course of the self-titled tracks ten minutes plus (which also happens to be the longest song on the album, therefore dwelling on the lighter transitional period for a prolonged period of time before becoming more focused on the pain of life once again on the confused and hurt sounding, ‘Japanese to English’). As song like the aforementioned highlight, Kozelek was and always will be a brilliant lyricist. He captures so much in the short space of his songs. Each and every track of this album has at the very least one or two lines which are extremely quotable in reference to things that have occurred in my own life, making this one very special album to me. Whether he’s talking about how life dealt him a hand much different to the one he expected at a young age, or how he never realised his dreams, it isn’t difficult to at least empathise with what he’s getting at and therein lies the beauty of Red House Painters - they feel real. ‘Down Colorful Hill’ is a truly brilliant debut album consisting of remixed demos that fully deserved to see the light of day in this sort of format. Wonderful.