The Top 50 Albums of 2016

30. Anna Meredith – Varmints
(Moshi Moshi)

Already a wildly accomplished classical musician, composer, and producer, Anna Meredith is no stranger to success. She’s written music for MRI scanners, collaborated with beatboxer Shlomo (not to be confused with producer Shlohmo), and has served as composer in residence with the BBC Scottish Symphony orchestra for several years. By adapting her prestigious musical education as a conduit to electronic music, the multifaceted creative has streamlined her success into the production of 2016’s Varmints. Meredith’s superhuman sense of rhythm recurs across the album, but most notably during the percussive breakdowns of tracks like “The Vapours” and “Shill.” A later-wave of Merriweather Post Pavillion influence gleams on cuts “Dowager” and “Scrimshaw,” with the latter’s concluding minute specifically evoking “Brother Sport.” All in all, Varmints is a neo-classical triumph transcending genre boundaries and sonic palates alike. – Patrick Pilch

29. Tim Hecker – Love Streams
(4AD)

Tim Hecker’s 2013 album Virgins was inspired by Abu Grahib and sounded like phantoms becoming horrifically corporeal. His follow-up, Love Streams, was inspired by “liturgical aesthetics after Yeezus” and sounds like a robot learning what it is to be human. Divorced from context, it might not be so obvious from which concepts either album was born, but in a sense, all Hecker albums ultimately feel a bit like that idea of a man-made creation becoming sentient and gaining the blessed curse of feeling. On Love Streams, the operative instrument is the human voice, but at no point does it ever feel human. These feel like broadcasts from outer dimensions—a serenade through a swirling vortex, via buzzing and distorted channels. Are these the messages of the divine? Or just the sublime aesthetics of a clever engineer of the ethereal, borrowing a verse from the book of Ye. – Jeff Terich

28. Big Ups – Before a Million Universes
(Exploding In Sound)

Jagged, angular, taut: like a modern Slint, caught somewhere between the micro-King Crimsonisms of Tweez and the longer post-rock/punk dirges of Spiderland. It may seem reductive to compare them to another band so directly, but with so many seeking to ape this sound, only Big Ups (and, at times, Bosse-de-Nage) have found themselves capable of replicating it, not just sonically but spiritually, updated for 21st century anxieties of self-becoming in a world of rising fascism and collapsing resistance. Sometimes it’s not so much about originating as it is executing, and Big Ups executes better than almost any other band this year. – Langdon Hickman

27. Oranssi Pazuzu – Värähtelijä
(20 Buck Spin/Svart)

The title of Oranssi Pazuzu’s fourth album roughly translates to “oscillator,” or “resonator”—or if you want to go there, “vibrator.” But as the band explained in an interview earlier this year, the resonance in the title track refers to an alien symbiosis growing inside of a human body, creating a horror both psychological and corporeal. That’s a pretty apt metaphor for what happens while experiencing the album. It definitely sounds alien, but once it gets its tentacles in, the experience becomes visceral rather than just a surface-level curiosity. It’s an hour spent exploring the vast expanses of metal’s farthest-out limits and at no point does it ever lose its sense of wonder or terror. It’s the most fun you’ll have with a metal album this year, or it might drive you to madness. Best case scenario: Both are true. – Jeff Terich

26. Inter Arma – Paradise Gallows
(Relapse)

It’s long past cliche to find revelation in the journey over the destination. It’s also usually bullshit—spend the better part of a 24-hour cycle packed into a coach airline seat and tell me you won’t be ready to put your feet back on the goddamn ground. And yet, Richmond doom metal innovators Inter Arma have proven on the second album in three years that the journey—a particularly slow and often unforgiving one—can be far more satisfying than racing straight toward the finish line. Three of the four best tracks on Paradise Gallows are the ones that surpass 10 minutes apiece, the longest and most triumphant being the gorgeous title track, which rises and falls along their most elegantly performed melody to date. So much about Paradise Gallows is about reveling in the moment and savoring the sumptuous atmosphere that it sometimes doesn’t even feel like a metal album—not until that pummeling blast beat starts up again. – Jeff Terich

25. Anderson .Paak – Malibu
(Steel Wool)

At least somebody’s having a good time. Anderson .Paak sounds positively exuberant on Malibu, his second solo album (and his first album of 2016, including NxWorries’ Yes Lawd!). For most of the record, .Paak is a cheeky seductor, self-assured in his abilities (“Your Heart Don’t Stand a Chance”). But he’s even more interested in connection—even “Silicon Valley,” a song which for some reason included the decision to use the term “tig-ol-bitties,” is about understanding the person on the other side of a hookup. There’s a little room for introspection on the record—examining his childhood on “The Bird,” and his newfound fame on “The Waters”—but mostly Malibu stays almost aggressively rooted in the moment. On the album’s best tracks—the sexy club cut “Am I Wrong,” or the carpe-diem anthem “Celebrate”—.Paak just seems happy to be here, which makes Malibu a refreshingly joyful listen.- Sam Prickett

24. Baroness – Purple
(Abraxan Hymns)

The fourth album by Baroness came out at the very end of December 2015, after Treble’s lists for that year had already been filed. But Purple is a monumental work, and it would’ve been silly of us, as a publication that takes some pride in our metal coverage, not to grant it the praise it deserves. It functions as a culmination of everything explored on the Savannah band’s first three records without ever sounding derivative of them. Considerably heavier than most of Yellow and Green, it nonetheless retains the deft faculty with melody the band added to their repertoire on that album.

As you might expect, the bus crash that Baroness survived while on a tour of England in 2012 hangs over Purple. First single “Chlorine & Wine” all but telegraphs this with its talk of doctors and pills, and the pain of recovery may well be a “surprise” that frontman John Baizley is cursing himself for wishing for on the terrific “Shock Me.” But as dark as the proceedings may get, as on the achingly beautiful “If I Had To Wake Up (Would You Stop The Rain?),” the drive to triumph over pain of the body and mind is ever-present. Few moments in rock music during the past few years are as thrilling and uplifting as the climactic riffs and harmony that closes out “Chlorine & Wine”—and Purple is absolutely packed with similar peaks. – Liam Green

23. Frankie Cosmos – Next Thing
(Bayonet)

Greta Kline’s simple songs are infectious. Frankie Cosmos’ finest talent is their ability to take the mundane and minute and make it speak volumes. Songs cycle from longing to subway rides, posting pics to loneliness, even seeing ghosts of relationships past in a C Town. Next Thing is certainly about moving on (its hand-drawn cover is that of a car driving into the sunset) but in its examination of the past, we are also brought into Kline’s present. These mostly short and seemingly simple songs offer snapshots of what it feels/felt like to make the move toward early adulthood, as society confronts you to cement your place in the world or to find purpose. Are you a listless early twenty-something, it asks. Are you experiencing symptoms of tiredness, chronic lost-feeling, general apathy, or laying in bed all day watching cartoons? Then you might need Next Thing, which doesn’t pretend to present answers but at the very least, you might find comfort in its solidarity. – Matt Perloff

22. Neurosis – Fires Within Fires
(Neurot)

Even within the fine art of musical devotion, is anything really objective? Is it? My interest in metal has been waning for years now, but my love for veteran Bay Area atmospheric sludge pioneers Neurosis has not. I don’t care to investigate why; this isn’t the place. My point is that this band has touched me. What more do I need to say? As a writer, I believe in what we do—that I can express some kind of sentiment, idea, purpose, with the right words. But, at the end of the day, they are just words. I love this album—certainly one of the best in their epic canon—and yeah, I’m pretty biased. Maybe you’ll love it, too. –  Ben Braunstein

21. Emma Ruth Rundle – Marked for Death
(Sargent House)

Emma Ruth Rundle’s made some powerful statements as a player in a greater whole, as a member of Marriages and Red Sparowes. Her third album as a solo artist is the one that carries the heaviest weight, however, its eight songs mired in both emotional devastation and ominous beauty. Recorded during the winter in the California desert, its chilling and often stark atmosphere reflects the surroundings in which it was made. Her songs evade easy categorization—gothic folk with a side of doom metal perhaps, as displayed in the haunted rise and fall of the title track or the skeletal ballad “Real Big Sky,” which closes the album on an emotional gut punch that leaves an even deeper and more painful mark than the album’s loudest songs—which are devastating in their own right. Marked For Death gains its power from hopelessness and transforms it into eerie, sometimes crushingly heavy beauty—wounded clarity in the eye of a storm of swirling guitars. – Jeff Terich