1 |
HKE |
"Scorpion Queen" |
Omnia |
Chattering post-vaporwave abstractro. |
2 |
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis |
"Light Tunnels (feat. Mike Slap)" |
This Unruly Mess I've Made |
This album is out now. |
3 |
Tritonal |
"This Is Love" |
single |
Triumphantly elephantine trance stomp. |
4 |
The Qemists |
"Anger" |
single |
Drum-and-bass + electronicore guest vocal turns out to kind of equal Rock. |
5 |
King Melodies |
"The Joker" |
single |
Frilly Swedish lo-fi big-hook orch-pop. |
6 |
Pinkshinyultrablast |
"Initial" |
Grandfeathered |
Russian nu gaze band goes electro-blur. |
7 |
School Of Seven Bells |
"A Thousand Times More" |
SVIIB |
I neither expect nor need a sadder or more redemptive album this year, so please nobody else die. |
8 |
Tsjuder |
"The Daemon Gate" |
Kill for Satan |
Serious Black Metal knows that what Satan really hates is proper production and mastering. |
9 |
Ektomorf |
"Brotherhood of Man" |
single |
Viciously desiccated death-metal rattle. |
10 |
Pvris |
"You and I" |
single |
Airy, springy indietronic synthpop. |
11 |
Up for Nothing |
"Dignity" |
Swindled |
Fast melodic neo-90s pop-punk. |
12 |
Louna |
"Сердца из стали" |
18+ 3 |
Russian alt-hard-rock somewhere between Paramore and Madder Mortem. |
13 |
Bendik |
"Kriger" |
Fortid |
Perhaps Bendik is the Norwegian Max Martin, and soon our chain stores will pulse austerely to obliquely luminous and circuitously menacing electro-ice-pop. |
14 |
Río Roma |
"Amigos No" |
Eres la Persona Correcta en el Momento Equivocado |
Sweeping Latin-duo romantic-melancholy. |
15 |
Dulce María |
"Dejarte De Amar" |
single |
RBD alumna is one of my favorite Latin arena-pop doyennes. |
16 |
Holy Esque |
"Prism" |
At Hope's Ravine |
Bleating, sawing Scottish desperation. |
17 |
Magnum |
"Sacred Blood, Divine Lies" |
Sacred Blood "Divine" Lies |
19th album by the apparently indestructible and relentlessly definitive masters of British-style hard rock. |
18 |
Martina McBride |
"Reckless" |
single |
The void Taylor left in pop-country has been turned into a magical space for more or less any kind of redemptive pop willing to trade Max Martin sheen for a faint twang. |
19 |
Chuck Wicks |
"She's Gone" |
Turning Point |
Basically, you can take an old John Cougar album, add more reverb and a little banjo and enough belief, and get a pretty credible and rousing country record. |
20 |
Omnium Gatherum |
"The Pit" |
Grey Heavens |
Blistering, raspy, anthemic Finnish progressive melodic death metal. |
21 |
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith |
"Existence in the Unfurling" |
single |
Fluttering, composerly electronica. |
22 |
Epic North |
"Exosuit" |
Mammoth |
Stentorian epicore bombast. |
23 |
Project Pitchfork |
"What Have We Done - Exclusive Song" |
Second Anthology |
Hoarse, methodical compilation-bonus new song by German electro-goths. |
24 |
Niña |
"Willie Nelson" |
Versus |
Compilation of charming twee Mexican electro-indie-pop from Niña's 3 stray EPs. |
25 |
I Love Your Lifestyle |
"Nice Jacket. Not." |
We Go Way Back |
Cathartic, straining Swedish math-emo. |
26 |
Tut Tut Child |
"Fell Down (feat. Holly Drummond)" |
Come to the End; Then Stop |
Like the Monstercat imagining of a Michael Jackson album produced by Nero, but where the confrontational brilliance is the application of pop ambition to catstep urgency, not the other way around. |
27 |
Silvana Imam |
"Varma Gator" |
single |
Atmospheric, snare-lashed, violin-laced alternative hip hop from a Syrian/Lithuanian female Swedish rapper. |
28 |
The Sun Days |
"Don't Need to Be Them" |
single |
Jangly Gothenburg indie-pop with a naming deathwish. |
29 |
Meridian Dan |
"Couple Killers" |
single |
Buzzy, thickly-accented twitch-beat grime. |
30 |
HEARTWATCH |
"Faultlines" |
Heartwatch 6 |
Chiming, faintly Lone Justice-ish San Francisco indie dance-rock. (And, FKA "The Tropics", an object-lesson to other bands unwilling to change their unsearchable names.) |
31 |
NateWantsToBattle |
"Love Yourself" |
single |
Pop-punk Bieber covers are a growth industry. |
32 |
Santigold |
"Can't Get Enough Of Myself (feat. BC Unidos)" |
99 Cents |
How to cloudbust out of a trap. |
33 |
Eagulls |
"My Life in Rewind" |
single |
Bleary, distended anti-Cure. |
34 |
Paws |
"No Grace" |
single |
Scottish indie guitar-rock power-trio. |
35 |
Car Seat Headrest |
"Vincent" |
single |
Scottish indie guitar-rock power-trio, except there are four of them and they're American. |
36 |
Charli XCX |
"Vroom Vroom" |
Vroom Vroom EP 4 |
Pop-as-punk goes post-PC-Music electroid. |
37 |
Yuck |
"Hold Me Closer" |
Stranger Things |
Trash-compacted elegies exhumed and partly uncrumpled. |
38 |
Circus Maximus |
"Pages" |
single |
Pop-djent prog-metal. |
39 |
BABYMETAL |
"KARATE" |
single |
If you were waiting for BABYMETAL to get 15% less cutesy, it's your time now. |
40 |
Savoir Adore |
"Giants" |
single |
Archetypal indietronic-arena-pop, like fun. without the celebrity flash-glare. |
41 |
Little Green Cars |
"Easier Day" |
single |
Irish folk-pop channeling In Tua Nua expansiveness. |
42 |
Hailee Steinfeld |
"Love Myself" |
HAIZ 5 |
Pitch Perfect-instigated, jubillantly confident ambi-pop. |
43 |
Besatt |
"Sorcery" |
Nine Sins |
Seething Polish pagan black blast-metal. |
44 |
Ula Ruth |
"Misery" |
single |
Brooklyn indie guitar-rock. |
45 |
Coffins |
"Tyrant" |
Split E.P. 2 |
Split and crushing Coffins/Ilsa noise-metal song-pairing. Split singles actually make a new kind of sense in the streaming age. |
46 |
Red 7 |
"Murder Sound" |
Silence Hotel 4 |
Gary Numan as pop metalcore. |
47 |
Voivod |
"Post Society" |
Post Society - EP |
The sonic evocation of ruined and possibly zombie-encamped Frank Gehry buildings. |
48 |
Johndoe |
"Sov i ro" |
single |
Bounding Trondheim indie-rock. |
49 |
Miss Caffeina |
"Detroit" |
Detroit |
Sunny, surging, faintly post-punk Spanish synth-rock. |
50 |
INHEAVEN |
"Baby's Alright" |
single |
Cheap Trick via The Three Johns. |
51 |
Joey Hyde |
"Losing It" |
Joey Hyde - EP 5 |
In another universe, Elliott Smith is a high-school band-geek who escapes to Nashville instead of Portland. I'm not saying it's a better universe, but it's definitely lighter. |
52 |
Elizabeth Lyons |
"Southern Gentleman" |
I've Never 6 |
And smilier. |
53 |
Natalie Stovall and The Drive |
"We Are" |
Heartbreak - EP 6 |
And violinear. |
54 |
Divine Realm |
"Tritos" |
Tectum Argenti |
Magisterial Canadian instrumental prog-djent. |
55 |
Rotersand |
"Torn Realities" |
Torn Realities |
German electro-industrial circuit-stomp. |
56 |
Can't Swim |
"Your Clothes" |
Death Deserves a Name 5 |
Shouty NJ pop emocore. |
57 |
The Rocket Summer |
"Same Air" |
Zoetic |
Frenetic, technically overwhelming, style-devouring DFW one-man-band power-pop-rock. |
58 |
The Downtown Fiction |
"Let's Fade Away" |
Alligator Tears |
Like the Goo Goo Dolls starting over. |
59 |
Femme |
"Light Me Up" |
single |
Kaleidoscopic dance-shimmer. |
60 |
4TEN |
"Tornado" |
Jack of All Trades 5 |
Fourth (Korean) Harmony. |
61 |
DaVinChe |
"The Dominion" |
The VinchOnacci Instrumental Project |
Trap grime trap epicore. |
62 |
Lonely The Brave |
"What If You Fall In" |
single |
NWOBIndieGuitarRock. |
63 |
Gates |
"Captive" |
single |
Dense, heroic NJ post-rock. |
64 |
The Unguided |
"Enraged" |
Lust And Loathing |
Roaring Swedish melodic electronic death metal. |
65 |
Massendefekt |
"Mauern" |
Echos |
German punk-pop-hard-rock arena shoutalong. |
66 |
Madeline Juno |
"Into the Night" |
Salvation |
German Nordic art-synth-pop. |
67 |
Estiva |
"Spark" |
single |
Swooping pop trance. |
68 |
Daniel Kandi |
"Number One" |
single |
More Vangelis/Tangerine-Dream/Jean-Michel-Jarre esque retro-melodic trance. |
69 |
Daniel Haaksman |
"Akabongi" |
African Fabrics |
Literal, liberal, literally-electrifying pan-African appropriation into German technostructure. |
70 |
A Cámara Lenta |
"De Ocho y Cuarto Hasta las Diez" |
single |
Barcelona ragged-glory punk-pop-rock. |
71 |
Naela |
"Al Despertar" |
single |
It's worth knowing more than one Colombian Latin-pop singer. |
72 |
Husman |
"Atmosphere - Extended Mix" |
Atmosphere 4 |
Formula trance-pop, but it's a formula I personally like, particularly the moments when the beat drops out and everything goes time-smeared and heart-opening. |
73 |
Titan Slayer |
"Jupiter" |
single |
Concise, punchy, Siberian-laptop epicore. |
74 |
Algodón Egipcio |
"El Calor Específico" |
La Confianza Ciega |
And my album of the week in an already-amazing week: Virtuoso, omnichromatic experimental post-world Venezuelan electronic everything-pop towards which I can easily and happily drift into imagining all world trophies helplessly tractor-beaming. |