Games, Music, Movies, TV, Comics, Books
Where to start with this!? I genuinely think this is one of the most important records of our time as the Bristolians shine the spotlight on subjects such as toxic masculinity (in SAMARITANS) and immigration (Danny Nedelko) whilst assaulting your senses and making you listen. Just a brilliant, brilliant record that everyone should listen to.
My top ranking debut. Bride Dalle would approve of this trio’s vocals and assaulting guitars.
Slaves are one of my favourite bands right now and it feels like the duo can do very little wrong. I’ll admit i was worried by “Cut and Run” but I think that the band would appreciate the opinion that the track is a “grower not a shower”. Lead track “The lives they wish they had” is typical Slaves, mocking and pointing the finger at society and “Artificial Intelligence” is all distortion and feedback to anthemic lyrics.
“Temple” absolutely blew me away on this, as catchy as Taylor Swift, with a positive body image polical message and a voice like Paramores Hayley Williams, this is some excellent female led Pop Punk
This was reccomended in the “Best new music 2018” thread on RLLMUK and I loved it immediately. Sounding like if Iggy Pop collaborated with IDLES whilst also covering similar ground to said Bristol band and Slaves I was immediately hooked by the single “Sports” and the train like percussion on “Shrimp Shack”.
The first of the debuts. Taking its name from the BBC’s show covering choir music, Shame’s album is the polar opposite to what you’d hear via your TV. Brutal, punchy and introspective with the ability to acknowledge that they may not make it. But on the strength of their work here, they really should!
I absolutely adore 2014’s “The Weird and the Wonderful” and it had begun to feel like we were never going to get the follow up record. I think I maybe set it up to fail for myself as I was of the opinion that it would be much higher up this list than it ended up being. Don’t get me wrong, its an excellent record but it doesn’t quite hit the heights of that debut album.
This was actually my first experience of Deafhaven even though its their fourth album. I was blown away by the kaleidoscopic nature of the music and how the vocals became one with said music at times.
Unfortunately, as much as I loved Night Flight Orchestra’s “Sometimes the World Ain’t Enough” there was only enough room on this years list for one heavily 80’s cod piece, latex and white hi-top rock inspired album and that place goes to Audrey Horne – “Blackout”
Bar Harukiya 