By Allston Pudding
5. Alvvays – Alvvays
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure to have a conversation with Nils Edenloff, frontman of The Rural Alberta Advantage, a band that I’ve followed and respected for years. During this conversation, he mentioned Alvvays’ new album as something’s he’s loved coming out of his home base of Toronto. And after listening to it myself, I have to agree with him.
On the surface, Alvvays feels like a basic amalgamation of feel-good, summer romance, twee, indie pop bands like Best Coast and Tennis. While there is nothing wrong with that, it makes it a little easier to dismiss for people unwilling to give it anything more than one listen. But, when you delve a little deeper, on the second or third listen, you start to pick up the heartbreaking details the band quietly but effectively puts down on this record.
-Reggie Woo
4. Torch Song – Radiator Hospital
You probably remember the first moment you fell in love with someone who didn’t love you back. You kept at it, letting your heart string down to their level, but they never took it. This is exactly what Torch Song feels like, but bludgeoned to death into a bloody pulp. Your bloody heart can’t beat anymore, because it worked too hard to keep this pointless relationship afloat. Sam Cook-Parrott captures the deepest of these emotions: heart break, falling in love, fucking everything up entirely, but with Torch Song, he makes you want to scream all these thoughts loudly and honestly. With more punch than Radiator Hospital’s debut Something Wild, this is an album for heartbroken punks looking to move on.
– Christine Varriale
3. RTJ2 – Run the Jewels
Sometimes the right artist makes the right album at the right time. This year, it was hip-hop journeymen Killer Mike and El-P who led the charge, and neither of them have time for your shit. This album, the second from the pulverizing team-up that is Run the Jewels, is brash and bombastic; songs are thrown at you like a flurry of punches that leave you little time to regain your balance before the next one. Speaking of punches, neither member is pulling them. Politicians, private prisons, and police all bear the brunt of a brutal cross-examination where we all play the part of the courtroom crowd. Their brand of subversive rap is one that each of them has independently charted out for years, but when their voices coalesced this fall, their timing was poignant – all this time making music and nothing had changed. While their mix of verbal flexing and humor would have resonated on its own, Run the Jewels have turned into a banner-bearing force, and we’re better for it.
– Andrew Stanko
2. Zentropy – Frankie Cosmos
You probably wouldn’t label Greta Kline a powerhouse, but you should.
From EPs as Ingrid Superstar, to work as simply Ingrid, to her evolution into Frankie Cosmos in this remarkable collaboration with Porches’ Aaron Maine, Zentropy is the pinnacle of Kline’s work as a songwriter. That is, for now at least.
In just a few years Kline has cranked out more tunes than some musicians do in a lifetime. These songs in particular stem from a very special place, one enchanted by young love, clever observation, and the slightest trace of melancholy. It’s hinted sadness that makes this album as touching as it is infectious, from the wide-eyed wonder of “Art School” to the pet-inspired grievances of “Sad 2.”
The self-consciousness of Greta’s work is adorable and significant, and can’t help but perfectly contrast the gangling directness of someone certain of their passion and maybe little else in the world. As a self-proclaimed child-adult to generation “eh,” this is truly music to my ears.
– Mo Kelly
1. More Than Any Other Day – Ought
Listening to Ought’s More Than and Other Day for the first time feels like a live improvised musical experiment. Equal parts chaotic and blissful, punk and progressive rock, the up-tempo and syncopated beats toy with your imagination and leave you speechless in your efforts to pinpoint all the eclectic influences that must have shaped the musical DNA of the quintet from Vancouver. Most importantly though, its lead singer/guitarists Tim Beeler’s stream-of-consciousness spoken word lyricism that dramatizes and elevates the band’s debut record into something not only worth listening to, but one 2014’s best LP’s.
– Andy Sears