We’ve spent the last 11 months chronicling the best music of the year in some form or another, and now we have our official list, tabulated, ranked and ready for our stamp of approval. Every year it feels like it’ll finally be the year that we expand it from 50 to 60, 75… who knows. Maybe that day is on the horizon. But this year we stuck to tradition: The 50 best albums of the year, chosen from a longer list of hundreds. While there was a lot this year that wasn’t worth celebrating, these 50 records definitely are.
Written by Adam Blyweiss (AB), Adam P. Newton (APN), Casey Burke (CB), Colin Dempsey (CD), Elliot Burr (EB), Emily Reily (ER), Greg Hyde (GH), Gareth O’Malley (GO), John-Paul Shiver (JPS), Jeff Terich (JT), Jeff Yerger (JY), Konstantin Rega (KR), Liam Green (LG), Langdon Hickman (LH), Noah Sparkes (NS), Patrick Pilch (PP), Tyler Dunston (TD), Tom Morgan (TM), Virginia Croft (VC) and Wil Lewellyn (WL)
Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums included are chosen by our editors and contributors.
50. Wand – Vertigo
Wand’s ambition long ago eclipsed their pedalboards, evolving from garage-psych guitar slingers to a more atmospheric-minded art-rock band over the past decade. But Vertigo is less an expansion of that than a refinement, encapsulating the breadth of their exploratory sound through a more concise yet aesthetically boundless approach. In the mesmerizing slow burn of moments like “Hangman” and “Lifeboat,” the L.A. grow exercise a degree of grace their earlier releases scarcely hinted at; on rockers like “Smile” and “High Time,” they let their roots show, fuzz-drenched and revelatory as ever. Vertigo is as much about where Wand has been as where they’re going, but more than anything, it’s a reaffirmation of their unspoken commitment to never stop moving. – JT
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
49. glass beach – plastic death
Darker, heavier, so ambitious it makes a mockery of the well-worn cliché, the second album from Seattle transplants glass beach takes everything that defined the slow-burn success of their 2019 debut and supercharges it as they scale new creative peaks. The controlled chaos of “slip under the door,” potent hooks of “rare animal” and the staggering epic “commatose” don’t sound like they all belong on the same record, but the spirited genre-shifting is all held together by white-hot intensity and commitment that borders on terrifying. glass beach are all in, are you? – GO
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
48. Tyler, the Creator – Chromakopia
Tyler, the Creator’s most introspective album yet, Chromakopia often feels like a diary session, as he unflinchingly dives into his unknown future, namely, whether to have children and carry on a family or not. On the spoken word intro of “Tomorrow,” a voice acting as Tyler’s mother says “I need a grandchild, please,” while on “Hey Jane” which discusses Tyler’s feelings after an unplanned pregnancy, he sings, “I don’t wanna give my freedom up, or sanitize it.” Throughout Chromakopia, Tyler employs quieter, R&B rooted beats to drape onto his vocals, unafraid to emphasize the intensity of his lyrics. What Tyler is expressing this time around is direct and it may feel a bit overwhelming, but his honesty and openness is refreshing. – VC
Listen: Spotify
47. Liquid Mike – Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot
If you haven’t gotten on the Liquid Mike train by now, what the hell are you waiting for? You can lament all you want that rock is dead and indie music has been worth a shit since the Clinton administration. But guess what knucklehead? It ain’t gonna bring The Replacements back. Paul Westerberg doesn’t give a shit anymore. Time to embrace the future, and the future is Liquid Mike, whose excellent debut full-length Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot is the most thrilling and deliciously fun rock record of the year. Songs like “Town Ease “K2,” and “Pacer” are filled with the same Midwest restlessness Westerberg tirelessly tried to dig himself out of, and they make living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan sound like a blast. After a big 2024, Liquid Mike is poised to only get bigger from here. Get on board. – JY
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
46. ShrapKnel – Nobody Planning to Leave
Shrapknel have pared back some of the barbed-wire edges and caustic noise from their industrial-rap 2020 debut but their vision remains no less unsettling. Third album Nobody Planning to Leave finds PremRock and Curly Castro, with producer Controller 7, navigating harrowing dystopian spaces through surrealist imagery while offering reminders throughout of their deep love and appreciation for hip-hop’s past-generational greats, including Black Sheep, De La Soul and El-P. Equal parts dazzling and disorienting, Nobody Planning to Leave celebrates hip-hop by de- and reconstructing it. – JT
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
45. Fred Thomas – Window in the Rhythm
Fred Thomas has logged two decades in lo-fi indie, jangle pop, punk and reverb-drenched twee, all of which might have positioned Window in the Rhythm as a career summary. Instead, it’s something more like a life summary, a catalog of memories, regrets, break-ups and elegies to the departed. On some of the Detroit singer/songwriter’s longest and prettiest songs to date, he surveys the mistakes of a younger version of himself, the scars he’s cultivated and the wounds he missed the first time around, all presented with care and empathy and an understanding that only time can provide. These songs take time to unfold and leave their impact, not necessarily immediately gratifying but endlessly rewarding. – JT
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
44. Fabiana Palladino – Fabiana Palladino
Everything I wrote about this immaculate album six months ago remains true today. Fabiana Palladino’s remarkable debut blends the sensual moods of ‘90s R&B with the crisp grooves of ‘10s Italo-disco. Palladino’s expressive alto oozes maturity and strength even as the introspective lyrics bask in warmth and longing, especially on standouts like “Can You Look in the Mirror,” “I Can’t Dream Anymore,” and “Shoulda.” It helps that she’s surrounded by impeccable musicianship, from luxuriant keys, and sumptuous synths to crisp drumming and her legendary father’s rich bass performances. Seemingly out-of-time and modern in the same breath, this project stands firmly on the shoulders of Janet Jackson, Sade and Jessie Ware while also injecting some essential synth-pop nuance. – APN
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
43. Hurray for the Riff Raff – The Past Is Still Alive
In the aftermath of losing their father in 2023, Alynda Segarra penned a powerful, 10-song set of poignant ruminations on mistakes, memories, and the artist’s life. Direct yet dreamy, lovelorn yet realistic, they deliver artful music through world-weary vocals while showing that the best way to process your paid is to embrace it. Like sense memories come to life, tremendous tunes such as “Buffalo,” “Hawkmoon,” and “Snake Plant (The Past Is Still Alive)” feel specific and tactile while reflecting the moods of the Southwest instead of Nashville. A towering example of processing grief through creativity. – APN
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
42. Ka – The Thief Next to Jesus
His final word was a whimper. Not in terms of quality: The last few years of Ka’s life saw him release one brilliant record after another, like a lifetime of great work came to him all at once. But there is something gentle here, serene, who like the thief of the title finds succor before succumbing. His rhymes are, as always, meditative. If you miss some of the lyricism, that’s forgivable, given this is as much mood music as bars, the rap equivalent of Tibetan singing bowls in lotus position. Would that it wasn’t his last; given everything though, what a stunning way to end. – LH
Listen: Spotify
41. Cloud Nothings – Final Summer
Any long-distance runner will tell you, running a marathon isn’t necessarily about how fast you can go but how consistent and paced you can be. Cleveland’s Cloud Nothings have been doing this for a while now, and their latest Final Summer doesn’t sound final at all. Rather, it sounds like a band hitting their stride. “Can you believe how far I have come?” frontman and runner Dylan Baldi sings on album standout “Running Through the Campus,” which I can confidently say is the greatest song about enjoying some cardiovascular activity through the heart of UPenn (Baldi lives in Philadelphia with his girlfriend Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz). And to answer his question, no I can’t believe it, only because their 2012 classic Attack on Memory doesn’t feel like that long ago. A dozen-plus years is a long time for a band to stick around these days, but Cloud Nothings haven’t lost a single step on Final Summer. – JY
Read More: Cloud Nothings forge their own path
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
40. Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter
In the spirit of the Grand Ole Opry, Beyoncé gathers up the nation with a down-home, all-star salute to America’s music roots in Cowboy Carter. The message: Everything is country. By integrating bluegrass, country, retro pop, rap, soul and R&B into one album, Beyoncé is redefining rock music. Over 27 tracks on this raucous road trip, Ms. Knowles visits every musical hotspot since the ‘50s, honoring Elvis, Nancy Sinatra, Tina Turner, Linda Martell, The Beatles, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Stevie Wonder, and scores more, then weaves in fresher talents like Willie Jones, Miley Cyrus, Shaboozey and Reyna Roberts. Beyoncé breathes new life into country’s go-go swag with “Ya Ya”; shoots up genre conventions on “Spaghettii”; merges sexual expression and gun culture on “Desert Eagle”; rewrites the revenge narrative on “Tyrant”; and stomps on the idea that Black music isn’t inherently linked to all of it. – ER
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
39. Mdou Moctar – Funeral for Justice
It might feel a little inauthentic using the language of the colonizer to relay the message of the colonized. But if I were to describe to you, unheard and unseen, an album that managed to blend elements of prog, jazz, and post-rock into nitro-powered garage rock and protest music, how many of y’all would go for that? So runs the sixth studio album from Niger’s Mdou Moctar and his crack team of players, carried so far from his promising yet tech-reliant debut a decade ago that it feels like living in an alternate universe. With secret weapon Souleymane Ibrahim on drums, Funeral for Justice sounds impossibly big for the size of the band, for the use of a home studio, for the humble yet complex artistry of the Tuareg guitar music at its root. But like Jimi Hendrix before him, Moctar here is a bluesman first. As heard in the almost gentle closer “Modern Slaves”—“It’s a lie, we were never free/What they write is not what they do”—he uses the music of pain and faith to offer temporary relief and to inspire generational rebellion. – AB
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
38. Julia Holter – Something In the Room She Moves
Julia Holter albums are their own universes. Like Holter’s previous album Aviary, Something in the Room She Moves hews closer to abstraction than her comparatively accessible Have You in My Wilderness (and, like both of them, it’s excellent). The songs are spacious and buoyant, like underwater rooms in which the furniture floats, suspended. The melodies are winding and prismatic, with woodwinds and synths scattered throughout like flashes of light in the dimness. The songs are as complex and unpredictable as the movement of water—perhaps fitting as Holter said that Hayao Miyazaki’s aquatic film Ponyo inspired the “liquid production style” of “Evening Mood.” – TD
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
37. Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn – Quiet in a World Full of Noise
The songs on Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn’s first full-length collaboration, Pigments, were named for different colors, with up-and-down emotional stakes to match. The pair’s second project, Quiet in a World Full of Noise, moves more in ripples. True to its title, everything is reined in; most of these songs could pass for ambient. But as on the surface of a lake, patches of light pop up the longer you listen. Whether you tune out to Zahn’s dreamscapes, tune into Richard’s raw anecdotes, or simply let her cavernous singing floor you, there’s a different album to be heard every time. And the kicker—the testament to the strength of Richard and Zahn’s partnership—is that they make it sound effortless. – CB
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
36. Touché Amoré – Spiral in a Straight Line
Los Angeles quintet Touché Amoré are on an unstoppable hot streak, and their sixth album’s raw sound is paired with unflinching self-examination as they pull threads of inspiration from unexpected places, weaving new textures into their sound as Spiral in a Straight Line hits hard and fast; from the opening pair of “Nobody’s” and “Hal Ashby” to the outpouring of emotion that colors “The Glue” and “Goodbye For Now,” not to mention the knockout mid-album highlight “This Routine.” Still playing like their lives depend on it nearly two decades in—the only way is up. – GO
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
35. Mabe Fratti – Sentir que no sabes
It’s incredibly difficult to sound like nothing else. Every time I read a piece about Mabe Fratti’s work I’m struck by the comparisons made. Many reach for similarities with fellow cellist Arthur Russell or the art-rock of Talk Talk. Some gesture towards the jazz or pop mechanics beneath the surface. Some settle on avant-garde, a sufficiently broad label. In truth, Mabe Fratti—together with her ongoing collaborator Hector Tosta—doesn’t really sound like any of those comparisons on Sentir que no sabes. There are certainly granules of influence, but Fratti contorts and refracts those echoes into something genuinely incomparable. Texturally, compositionally, and emotionally, Mabe Fratti continues to operate entirely in her own lane. – NS
Read More: Talking about music with Mabe Fratti
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
34. Arooj Aftab – Night Reign
A spellbinding art pop/jazz fusion (there’s so much more to it than this genre description), Arooj Aftab’s Night Reign is a genuinely nocturnal album. So much music can be envisaged via a color palette, however this is music painted in endless shades of light and dark. Pakistani singer and composer Arooj Aftab has crafted a crepuscular journey through a cool, calm, slightly eerie nightscape; one whose focus on arty textural chill nonetheless encompasses welcome jazz traits like keyboard solos (“Autumn Leaves”) and cool double bass (“Last Night Reprise”). A range of great guest features from Moor Mother to (surprisingly) Elvis Costello all help make Night Reign one of 2024’s most enrapturing and otherworldly albums. – TM
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)
33. Caribou – Honey
Honey is the type of record that you can’t argue against. It’s too endearing, too basally satisfying, and too bright to ignore, like a golden retriever who wants to play fetch. That being said, Dan Snaith doesn’t coast on charm alone. There are enough idiosyncrasies on Honey that disrupt the euphoria, like the pounding bass on the title track’s drop and the momentary disintegration “August 20/24” battles against. Honey enters the third dimension by bouncing between styles like it’s time traveling and altering the past, turning synth-pop and disco into house subgenres. It’s sweet and healthy, just like its title implies. – CD
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
32. Geordie Greep – The New Sound
On his debut solo record, Geordie Greep feels freer than he ever did with black midi. Not that he was ever constrained with his former group, but The New Sound rejects would-be better judgment that says, “You shouldn’t make 12-minute songs about magicians.” And, sincerely, fuck that judgment. The New Sound is a record of niche influences filtered through Greep’s peculiarity and technical aptitude. Subtlety is overcome by swagger in the form of nerdy, boisterous music (that eludes being pinned down to one genre). The New Sound is the type of weird that, years from now, outcasts will herald as formative. – CD
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
31. The Smile – Wall of Eyes
While still a cut above most modern rock bands, The Smile are consistently pegged as a jolly jaunt that people pray Yorke and Greenwood will return from. The problem is that Yorke, Greenwood and drummer Tom Skinner are hedging their bets on this free-wheeling trimmed down side outfit. And by golly are they having fun with it. Their first of two records from 2024, Wall of Eyes, differs from its predecessor and Cutouts for it being the most streamlined summation of the trio’s sound: there are grooves moving in slow motion, tinkling guitar intricacies, walls of noise and warbling echoes, all sounding as intimate as a private movie screening. Controlled nuances and a stuck-to mantra of ‘patience is a virtue’ make the skittish “Read the Room” and powerhouse finale to “Bending Hectic” all the more satisfying, and it’s a refreshing reminder of how these masters-at-work operate. Whether The Radiohead Return will ever surface or not, its optimists may well have their knickers in a twist for a while longer yet. – EB
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
30. Jamie xx – In Waves
We writers can be a cynical lot. Ready to critique; and whitewash (I feel funny saying that) in looking for the trickery. Build scenarios of why this isn’t real or that situation where the artist doesn’t do all the things. We forget to receive. Take in. Feel the sun on our skin; crack a damn smile sometimes, Pedro. In Waves pulls the trigger that artists who get it do. Bypass the symphony of gloomy party pooper prophets of doom and wet blankets, and serve up joyful bangers, statements at the moment. Euphoric stretches of kodachromatic bliss. Tracks here are blippy, rubbery, and flexible with catchy hooks, steppy beats, and ocean-blue wafts of synth that never leave a listener cold. The heart of this feel-good nine-year return is in the back-to-back statements “Still Summer” and “Life” with Robyn. From the trancey, am-I-high-or-is-it-Memorex moon-stomper of the former’s all yesterday’s parties stay-gold vibe to the straight-up unhinged big-floor house moment “Life,” where the only way you are not moving something on your body (or somebody else’s) when you hear Robyn proclaim “You’re giving me Life” is that you have no pulse. Maybe ten years ago I might have called In Waves a big dumb box of EDM, but these days, I’m just looking for a win. Jamie xx, thanks for hooking me up. – JPS
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
29. Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
After previous forays into doom metal sleaze and gothic folk, She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She presents what feels like the start of a new chapter for Chelsea Wolfe. Largely trading the sounds of guitars for more atmospherically intoxicating synths and production from TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek, she descends into a more trip-hop-inspired form of darkwave. But crucially, that darkness remains at the center of her work, both through the album’s eerily sensual ambience and her explorations of trauma and navigating sobriety. It’s a more sophisticated permutation of her gothic rock, the beginning of what promises to be a bold and satisfying new path. – JT
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
28. Big|Brave – A Chaos of Flowers
Joyful returns. It felt perhaps certain Big|Brave would never surpass A Gaze Among Them but then, blessed spring, a surprise folk album with The Body gave birth to this new earthen era of the band. A Chaos of Flowers, whose title cleanly mirrors Gaze, combines the emotionalist heavy dreamscapes of that record with the country and folk flavored drones of nature morte, creating not just a great record but a new high water mark for an already brilliant band. – LH
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
27. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – Woodland
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ first co-credited album of original songs arrives 13 years after Welch’s last solo album—which, for all intents and purposes, was in fact a Welch and Rawlings album as well, the duo having worked together since the 1990s. The wait was worth it, as it always is, but also necessary, Welch and Rawlings having undergone a period of rebuilding after their studio was hit by tornados in 2020. Woodland is named for that studio, its songs reflecting both images of apocalypse and appreciation for what remains, while it finds the two troubadours offering some of the best songs of their career in the form of new spins on outlaw ballads (“Lawman”), baroque folk (“The Bells and the Birds”), and unusually warm-hearted endtimes narratives (“The Day the Mississippi Died”). Amid a world in chaos, Woodland provides a rare glimpse of perfect harmony. – JT
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
26. Drug Church – Prude
It’s probably a stretch to say that Drug Church have disassembled punk and reshaped it in their own image, but they’ve certainly molded it into something fresh and surprisingly accessible. Their fifth full-length Prude is gruff punk rock overlaid with glossy, effortless melodies; a singular, off-kilter attempt to chip away at the genre’s familiar boundaries. The key cog in their now well-oiled machine is frontman Patrick Kindlon, who strikes a fascinating impassioned/sardonic tone, positing provocative thought experiments (“Demolition Man,” “Business Ethics”) and endless brilliant one liners (“thin mustache and greasy hair/looks like half my high school friends”). Lean and impactful rock music whose tone feels genuinely unique. – TM
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
25. Johnny Blue Skies – Passage du Desir
On “Scooter Blues,” Sturgill Simpson writes the blueprint for making himself, figuring out a way to “move to an island and turn to vapor.” That’s not exactly what the iconoclastic country troubadour did; he moved from the U.S. to Paris and released a new album under a pseudonym, reinventing himself on a set of songs that nonetheless feel intimately personal, drawing from love, heartbreak and grief as he explores an increasingly diverse palette of progressive country, soul and the traces of psychedelia that have been part of his sound all along. Passage du Desir is one of his boldest statements to date, which given his body of work says a lot. It’s also one of his most deeply affecting, reminding us that the human element—the Sturgill Simpson of it all—never actually went anywhere. – JT
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)
24. Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja
Oranssi Pazuzu have delivered the smooth and the sinister over expansive suites of psyched-out electro black metal many times over. Somehow, they veer further from the sheer icy sound that once served them, and the concise, swampy Muuntautuja shows the band at its most unpredictably impish. If its initial title track single didn’t see enough stroked beards for its industrial trip-hop (complete with roomy real drums), listeners still had another thing coming. “Hautatuuli” is droning hip-hop with a poppy whispered incantation of “portii jonka takana” and slinky, haunting synths matching its lyrical ties to Alien. Likewise, clanking machinery, heart-pounding sonar beats and the feel of acid water dripping from ceilings sets up the wonderful crash-course of “Valotus,” while “Voitelu” is rampant caustic noise. With its name translating to “Shapeshifter,” you enter into this album’s black hole, emerging altered with no knowledge of what happened, only that it was one hell of a dark, dank ride. – EB
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
23. Gouge Away – Deep Sage
After a six-year gap, Gouge Away returned with the kind of angular and dissonant post-hardcore they built their name on, but with even more versatility on third album Deep Sage. Christina Michelle cries out with no less of an angry edge to her voice, yet her method of venting her anger expands to encompass more melodic ground. With each song, the group employs more nuance, as organically produced as a punk album should be, yet the songs still hold a sonic tapestry rather than being limited to just a raw outpouring of emotion. They have found a wonderful balance here, their sound matured to perfection. – WL
Read More: Gouge Away choose a new path
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
22. METZ – Up on Gravity Hill
Along with the dissolutions of Shellac and Oxbow, another major loss the international noise rock scene suffered in 2024 was the indefinite hiatus announced in October by Ontario’s METZ. Although the songs on the band’s fifth album, Up On Gravity Hill, weren’t as piledriving and intense as Atlas Vending standouts “Blind Youth Industrial Park” and “A Boat to Drown In,” the greater focus on melody in songs like “No Reservation / Love Comes Crashing” and “99” represented a fascinating, alluring new facet of METZ’s songwriting, for which we’ll (for now) have to vicariously live through this recording. – GH
Read More: Metz tap into a new energy
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
21. Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown
This one simmered for a while. Not just literally—Beth Gibbons indeed worked on these tracks incrementally for over a decade—the complex sonic palette of the album represents in itself a deep reflection on life and a culminating musical achievement. Opening track “Tell Me Who You Are Today” echoes the haunting acoustic style of her 2002 collaboration with Rustin Man and the acoustic guitar remains a star player throughout but haunted indeed. Reverberating percussion, cinematic strings, and intricate choral vocals further elaborate the mood of grief and wonder. Beth Gibbons herself, above all, commands attention with an undeniable combination of vulnerability and wisdom. – FJ
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
20. Denzel Curry – King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2
If anyone wanted the latest Denzel Curry release to continue on the eclectic, jazz- and funk-inflected path of Melt My Eyez See Your Future, this isn’t that. But I find it hard to believe any Curry fan—or anyone who appreciates hip-hop executed at its highest levels—is disappointed by King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2. A roster of producers including Oogie Mane, RicoRunDat, FnZ and Hollywood Cole provide a uniformly excellent backdrop of rich, eerie Southern beats, over which Curry alternates cool braggadocio, furious warnings and introspection (sometimes in the midst of the same song; e.g. “HOODLUMZ”). While the overarching atmosphere is Memphis horrorcore—hence the guest verses by Project Pat, Juicy J and the lesser-known but no less excellent Kingpin Skinny Pimp—Curry never gets too bogged down in reliving his past. KOTMSV2 is an endlessly compelling listen and easily one of the year’s best hip-hop albums. – LG
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
19. Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven
There’s an immense amount of ache and longing that lingers in between the lines on Mannequin Pussy’s I Got Heaven, the band’s fourth album. It’s cathartic and brimming with hardcore breakdowns, fueled by rage and a need to release. While the band’s past works have leaned more into themes of politics and love, I Got Heaven finds them opening up about religion, aging, and personal relationships. Marisa Dabice’s vocals feel as if they have unlocked a new level of emotion, especially on tracks like “Softly.” The collective thrash of Dabice and Colins Regisford’s vocals on “Loud Bark” is haunting and crushing, mixed with the brash energy of Kaleen Reading’s drums. On I Got Heaven, Mannequin Pussy know their power and never shy away from it. – VC
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
18. Mount Eerie – Night Palace
Emerging from a web of grief, and a trilogy of records as brilliant as they were impossibly pained, Phil Elverum was confronted with the equally impossible record of how to move forward. The answer: everything, all at once. Night Palace is The Glow, Pt. 3. This is Ocean Roar Pt. 2. This is Dawn and Wind’s Poem and, of course, Crow. This is not a development of his work as much as a summation, a record that could just as easily serve as a brilliant finale to a career as a coalescing before a new birth. It brims and bristles with that sense of the monumentum, de profundis in lo-fi. – LH
Read More: A Beginner’s Guide to Mount Eerie and the Microphones
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
17. Brittany Howard – What Now
Do you know Brittany Howard was once in a rock group called Thunderbitch and an alt-country adjacent band called Bermuda Triangle, simultaneously? So with the futuristic landscape of What Now, reaching back for the funk freedom found on some of her remixes from her first album, this 2024 release sees our hero pushing further than anyone expected. Generally, folks call it progress. With the 4/4 slapper “Prove It To You,” Howard is making gentle assurances to the blinking lights and fog machine on the dance floor. In other stretches here, she’s got those retro-soul chops working and even some allusions to late-stage Radiohead. What Now is the easy outline where Howard could be coming for your career next, with that crackling laugh and undeniable groove. We’ve only started to hear her potential. – JPS
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
16. Jessica Pratt – Here in the Pitch
Here in the Pitch is a complex exploration of nostalgia. On the one hand, this album, which critically explores the “Californian dream,” at times sounds like it came from an earlier era. And yet, there’s an awareness, a distance, and at times an irony to it, nonchalant lines and little production choices that eerily clue us in to the here and now. Such layers are what make this album not only beautiful but beautifully tangled, sometimes difficult to pin down. But the record never feels inaccessible. The opening lines of “Life Is” are vivid, immediate—classic in the best way. – TD
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
15. Thou – Umbilical
In the wake of Magus, that bright and brilliant culmination of the summer of Thou, we had supposed the discovered gestalt sound we so celebrated there would become the mainline of their main body of records. So joyful it was then to see that we were correct, that the group too felt how special and worthy that collection of ideas was. Umbilical is punk and it is heavy metal, it is sludge and it is grunge, it is alternative rock and it is doom. This is a similar breaking wave that Soundgarden once rode, Kyuss too, albeit coming at it from the other direction. – LH
Read More: The existential arc of Thou
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
14. Nala Sinephro – Endlessness
Some people ride genre-blending work as a series of ands, one thing piling into the next. Sinephro works in the inverse; the minute you want to call this album-length song suite, her second, a jazz record, it devolves in electronic burbles closer to kosmische. Just as quick, a rhythm develops that feels closer to minimal techno, before flowering into prog or space lounge or any of a number of things before coming home to jazz. Even better: it’s all fluid, perfectly natural, like no other part could have followed. Like the score to a dream. – LH
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
13. Kim Gordon – The Collective
The partnership between the erstwhile Sonic Youth bassist and hyperpop/rap producer Justin Raisen began wobbly and uneven, like a foal finding its first footing, on 2019’s No Home Record. Three years later, sophomore effort The Collective possesses a sense of learned focus and power—evidence of patience and promise fulfilled. Gordon’s hushed chants and contralto streams of consciousness (now, finally, once again) feel natural against the challenging sonic backgrounds here. This time, though, instead of oddball chord structures from manipulated instruments and music theories they’re almost exclusively crushing loops of industrial trap. Giving in to the future instead of trying to split the difference with the past, this at last feels like a true meeting of minds akin to Jamie xx remixing Gil-Scott Heron back in 2011, a grand underground poet placed in a context far afield from expectations. And it’s a recipe for making even a recitation of things to pack for a trip sound like the hardest, sexiest thing going. – AB
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
12. Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor
Nilüfer Yanya’s career thus far has been spent avoiding singer/songwriter cliches, her songs frequently built on full-band maximalism and vivid imagery poetic enough to be deeply personal but hazy enough to leave the rest of us enough room to fill in the blanks. My Method Actor feels looser, more effortless, but any move toward more personal songwriting happens by proxy; the title is a reference to how, as a performer and artist, you step into a role and play the part. But there’s a lived-in quality to songs like “Like I Say (I runaway)” as well as a subtly detailed approach to moments like “Mutations” that suggests nothing less than an acute mastery of her craft. Even at its thorniest or most uncomfortable, which is more often than not, My Method Actor exudes the kind of confidence that you have to fake until you make it. I think I know which side of that line Yanya’s on. – JT
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
11. MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks
You can put your clothes back on, but might as well keep the shirt off. Manning Fireworks, the followup to MJ Lenderman’s Boat Songs, doubles down on pathetic guys, an incredible victory lap for huge losers. It’s a record about former babies, present-day jerks, standing a little too close to the fire, flying a little too close to the sun. For Lenderman, Manning Fireworks is the ultimate put-back rebound, as the Asheville singer-songwriter follows his shot like a Harlem Globetrotter cracking a slapstick joke while having a cry. – PP
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
10. Jlin – Akoma
Akoma is a West African term that can mean “the heart” and symbolizes endurance and understanding. All of these descriptors perfectly match Jlin’s extraordinary album of the same name. This is music of the most immersive, exhilarating and nourishing quality. Nominally “post-footwork,” the skittish drums of “Iris,” atmospheric approach of “Eye Am” and IDM glitches of “Auset” add up to a relentlessly accomplished exercise. However, the final track “The Precision of Infinity” (a collaboration with Phillip Glass) is simply one of the best tracks of 2024; a work of emotive electronica so heavenly you feel like you’re beginning to levitate from your seat. – TM
Read More: Jlin revels in the mystery of creation
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
9. Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood
Tigers Blood is a career-defining tour de force. Katie Crutchfield took everything she accomplished with Saint Cloud and ramped it up to infinity. Delivering heart-worn country-folk with top-tier singer/songwriter acumen, she offers up unadorned love songs that are somehow immediate and lived-in. What makes these songs truly come alive is how she combines kitchen-sink aesthetics with paeans from life on the road to make her feelings known without reservation. On by powerful odes like “Evil Spawn,” “Right Back to It,” “Lone Star Lake” and “The Wolves,” she enhances her familiar yet fresh approach with poetic language about her career, her relationship, and the realities of making music for a living. Drawing deeply from the well of Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and Patty Griffin, she delivers one of the best albums of the year, and it’s worth every bit of the accolades it’s received. – APN
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
8. Sumac – The Healer
Despite Sumac’s punishingly heavy sound (and oblique but sometimes apocalyptically inclined lyrics), The Healer is in fact an apt title. It is a work in pursuit of transcendence, by artists who know suffering is inevitable on the path to such a state. Consider “World of Light,” which begins with visions of corpse-strewn landscapes and improvisatory noise-rock passages and climaxes about 25 minutes later with guitarist-vocalist Aaron Turner bellowing “Up! Up!/Ascend!” In fact, all four songs on The Healer seem to follow this cycle, though none as potently as “Yellow Dawn”: Easily one of the trio’s most ambitious songs and arguably Sumac’s most accessible work to date, “Dawn” spins you through melodic psychedelia-jazz, crawling sludge, pummeling post-hardcore and some of the most arresting guitar soloing I’ve heard all year until, somehow, bloodied though you be from the experience, you do feel as if part of you is healing. – LG
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
7. Fontaines D.C. – Romance
Smoothing out the sharp edges of a band’s sound doesn’t always lead to accusations of selling out. Where Fontaines D.C. once traded in maudlin post-punk, on Romance they embrace a sound fit for arenas, even daring to channel a strong Britpop sensibility. Where Grian Chatten’s snarling vocals once emerged from a gritty, anti-establishment, raw context, here they have more in common with the likes of Oasis or Blur. Remarkably, given the retrospective skepticism about that era, Fontaines D.C. pull it off with ease, pushing that popular ‘90s sound into something murkier. – NS
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
6. ELUCID – Revelator
ELUCID is no stranger to abrasive and uneasy sounds, much of his time spent running a gauntlet of surrealistic social commentary and haunted samples as one half of hip-hop duo Armand Hammer with fellow emcee billy woods. Revelator is more like a minefield, riven by moments of piercing noise and unrelenting intensity, a reflection of contemporary dystopia with ELUCID’s own lyrical instrument being delivered with a sharpened poignancy. From the moment “The World Is Dog” kicks off with live drums and a clipped, precise delivery, Revelator is a continuous sprint. But there’s purpose behind the surge, as reflections on family and fried fish on Fridays serve as lighter counterpoints to the darkness creeping over the horizon—a reminder that even when thing feel hopeless, there’s still a lot worth celebrating. – JT
Read More: ELUCID speaks the truth
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
5. Floating Points – Cascade
Sam Shepherd, aka Floating Points, plays the big rooms now. Those small, cozy, warm parties, his 6-hour mixes from the defunct party Plastic People, for the deep jazz dancefloor pieces he weaves in and out—those days are over. Cascade is a return to making dance music. The sound has grown, similar to his playing fee—I assume. If I sound salty, well, I am. FP turned into the opposite of what he once was. And he’s still very good at it. The sing-song melodies messing with tonality on “Del Oro” work his wonky magic, and the truly epic track in the pack “Affleck’s Paradise” sees Sam get into acid, freestyle, breakbeat intensity that calls on the interstellar color-coded systems that alien forms communicate with—it’s the most exciting thing Shepherd has written in years. This record works, even if it doesn’t fit into the smaller rooms anymore. – JPS
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
4. Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere
Inspect Absolute Elsewhere’s first four minutes; Blood Incantation unfurls a space opera’s opening into gravy-thick OSDM, then, at the drop of a dime, pivots to kosmische. That sequence is one of many examples of the momentum and technical excellence vital to Absolute Elsewhere. Think about it like this: metal’s underground is rife with genre-bending experiments, but few are as unlabored as Blood Incantation’s third record. The group sweeps you into their dimension, then overloads you with tempo changes until you forget what makes sense and can only concentrate on what feels right. Absolute Elsewhere’s triumph is that, in its realm, there is no distinction between its components—death metal, progressive rock, ambient, and everything else Blood Incantation conjures; it is all one whole. – CD
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
3. The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
It still feels like something of a miracle that Songs of a Lost World exists. Arriving a full 16 years after The Cure’s last album, it represents the long-delayed payoff for what promised to be not just one but several albums in various states of completion. That it not just lived up to the unbearable weight of a generation of expectations but actually represents one of the band’s finest hours speaks to the band’s unique ability to build elaborately unfolding gothic landscapes heavy with emotion and haunted beauty. Written in large part after leader Robert Smith’s own experience in grieving the loss of family and friends, Songs of a Lost World is very much a Cure album that could have arrived this far down the line, with the perspective that the singer of “Boys Don’t Cry” ever could have had at the time. And yet Smith and company still possess the ability to surprise and outdo themselves, to harness raw power in moments like “Warsong” before building one of their most stunningly ornate fortresses in “Endsong.” The album radiates finality, a necessary byproduct of grief, but its power and vision suggest a band newly energized. – JT
Read More: The Cure’s 2023 tour made up for a year of disappointments
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)
2. Charli XCX – Brat
Brat summer happened for a reason. Like Carly Rae Jepsen, like Robyn, like Kylie Minogue, Charli XCX has been a purveyor of the kind of maximalist pop-achieved artfulness not by reaching back to approved styles but by bursting at the seams with so much pure pop and club force that it demands an obsequious bent knee. Great pop defies words: this is not intellectual music but heart-music, body-music, bursting with color and geometry. Everything is so romantic. Hold fast, glowing heart, and sing. – LH
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
1. Chat Pile – Cool World
When I saw Chat Pile on tour for their debut album God’s Country, Raygun Busch bridged the gaps between their songs by talking about the movies that had been filmed in my city. Less than a year after that album’s arrival, they released a film soundtrack of their own and then, this fall, followed it up with Cool World, sharing the name of an early ’90s live action and animated hybrid starring Brad Pitt and Kim Basinger, with a notoriously terrible Rotten Tomatoes rating. But spoken in the context of Chat Pile’s astonishing sophomore album, it’s more like a sarcastic expression of exasperation; “cool world we got here, huh?” Then again what style of music is better fit for soundtracking acts of violence captured on film, capitalist predation, colonization and genocide than the kind of harsh and abrasive noise rock that the Oklahoma City group specialize in. Yet here’s the twist: Cool World is even more accessible and melodic than its predecessor, the band’s hooks sharpened and stretched out into moments of gothic gloom and anthemic grunge even as their core is one of intense pummeling. Chat Pile have raised the bar and created a powerful tour-de-force with Cool World, a catalog of horrors made cathartic and affecting—even at its most unflinching and raw, you can’t bring yourself to look away. – JT
Read More: Chat Pile stare deeper into the void
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
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