Retirement is more and more a thing of the past whether we like it or not. In the case of rock and pop, that sometimes means nostalgia tours that hit state fairs in the summer, but there are a lot of artists who are still making vital music 30, 40, even 50 years into their career. This was a banner year for proof of that, and here’s 40 albums from the world of indie rock and alternative by artists who’ve been making music for at least 30 years, many of them for much longer. All of them are worth hearing and some of them are amongst their best ever work. A few of them were also on our Top 50 Albums of 2024 list. May we all age this gracefully.
This list is not defninitive and we probably forgot a few. Let us know what we missed! If we’d dropped the cutoff to 25 years there’d definitely be more. Check out our list, which is in alphabetical order, below.
A Certain Ratio – It All Comes Down to This (Mute)
A Certain Ratio have spent the last decade or so doing a lot of collaborations, but their 13th album has the Manchester / Factory Records greats going back to basics, with Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson stripping things down to the bone with help from producer Dan Carey (Wet Leg, Fontaines DC). It worked. ACR Loco and 1982, the band’s two previous records, are terrific but very much studio creations. It All Comes Down to This sounds like a band playing live, armed with a great batch of well-crafted songs. They haven’t done anything anywhere close to this since the ’80s Factory Records days, but they also aren’t just copying “Knife Slits Water” and “Shack Up,” either. You can feel 40 years of indie and dance running through these songs that are distinctly modern while distinctly ACR. There are indiepop earworms (“God Knows,” “Where you Coming From,” the wonderful title track) and dub-funk headtrips (“Estate Kings,” “Surfer Ticker,” “Bitten by a Lizard”) alongside a couple classic-style post-punk disco bangers (“Out from Under,” “Keep it Real”) that would’ve gone over well at the Hacienda in 1983. Carey’s production is smart and snappy and Kerr’s mellow gravel suits the vibe. It all comes down to this: teaching old dogs new tricks is debatable, but perfecting old tricks in new ways is better.
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Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown (Domino)
More than a decade after signing a solo deal with Domino, Portishead singer Beth Gibbons finally delivered her first album solely under her own name. It was worth the wait. Made with producer James Ford and longtime collaborator Lee Harris (Talk Talk), Lives Outgrown is a treatise on mortality and aging rendered in a darkly hued palette of string-laden windswept folk. There’s not a breakbeat to be found, but Gibbons is as ever delivering sorrow and beauty in equal measure with cinematic production, masterful, nuanced songwriting and that voice that can still wreck you with just an “ooh.”
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The Bevis Frond – Focus On Nature (Fire Records)
Not unlike Robert Pollard with Guided by Voices, Nick Saloman has been leading London’s The Bevis Frond since the mid-’80s, with dozens of albums and lineup changes in his wake. He’s got a signature sound too: a stormy brand of indie rock that’s steeped in folky ’70s British psychedelia, windswept melodies, and ragged guitar solos. Saloman is not quite as prolific as Pollard, but Bevis Frond records feel a little more fussed over. Depending on how you count, Focus on Nature lands somewhere around Album #26, and is a sprawling, 19-song, 75-minute double LP that is awesome in scope. Saloman just turned 71 but you’d never know it with songs like “Jacks Immortal,” a hooky ripper complete with a killer twin-lead riff. Every detail seems considered, even if Nick sometimes sounds like he just woke up. The basslines are fantastic, as are the minor key harmonies, and Saloman possesses a full house of choice guitar tones — see the wonderful, Big Star-ish “Maybe We Got it Wrong” as one of many pieces of evidence. Focus on Nature might benefit from some editing — save a few of these for an EP, perhaps? — but I’d be hard-pressed to tell him what to cut. Saloman has earned the right to indulgence, and his is the sweetest kind.
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Camera Obscura – Look to the East, Look to the West (Merge)
It is really good to have Camera Obscura back. Their previous album, Desire Lines, was released 11 years ago and in that time the band has gone through a lot. Keyboardist Carey Lander died in 2015, and Tracyanne Campbell lost her brother and also became a mother. (Plus: covid and everything else 2020 had to give the world.) The grief and joy are all present on Look to the East, Look to the West, the Glaswegian band’s wonderful sixth album which is a return to form in many ways. After two albums for 4AD they are back on Merge, home to their best albums (Underachievers Please Try Harder and Let’s Get Out of This Country), and they are reunited with producer of those, Jari Haapalainen. Recorded mostly live-to-tape at Rockfield Studios in Wales, there’s an energy to these songs, even the saddest, sparest of them, like the dreamy “Sleepwalking,” which is one of a few about Campbell’s brother. (The wonderful “Liberty Print,” which opens the album, is another.) As usual, Campbell brings empathy and that Scottish wit to her lyrics, cutting the bitter with the sweet, instinctually knowing when to lighten the mood with a sly joke. Camera Obscura have never lacked in tunes, but the melodies are especially memorable this time while taking some surprising turns with inspired arrangements, including well-deployed pedal steel that underlines the band’s long-present country tendencies. (The guitar playing is, across the board, understated yet spectacular on this album.) All these elements are present on instant-classic “We’re Going to Make it In a Man’s World,” where the melodies, arrangements, vocals and lyrics all come together in that winsome way that few do like Camera Obscura. “The birds and the bees, they’ve been so sweet to me,” Campbell coos, facing off against an insurance adjuster, as bells chime around her words, then adding, “Take your report, shove it right down your throat.” It’s heartening that this group, which is rapidly approaching their 30th anniversary are still making music, this good, this vital.
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Cast – Love Is The Call (Cast Recordings)
Cast, the Liverpool band led by onetime La’s bassist John Power, made one of the best albums of the peak Britpop era with their debut album, All Change, that was full of effortlessly catchy guitar pop. Most of the same lineup that made that album — Power (vocals/guitar), Liam ‘Skin’ Tyson (guitar) and Keith O’Neill (drums) — are behind Cast’s seventh that finds them reconfigured as a trio with Power back on bass for the first time since The La’s. I can’t say I’ve kept up with Cast’s output over the last 30 years, but Love is Call has that same pixie dust that gave All Change‘s songs such sparkle. If you’d told me that “Rain That Falls” was recorded in the ’90s, I’d believe you, as it’s got one of those classic power pop melodies with sunny harmonies and guitars that both ring and crunch. (Production by Killing Joke’s Youth is also spot-on.) What a nice surprise!
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The Cure – Songs of a Lost World (Lost Music / Universal)
After years of promises that there was a new Cure album on the way, maybe even three new Cure albums, Robert Smith actually made good on his word and dropped Songs of a Lost World on us, a mostly unsuspecting public. We had heard some of these songs live the year before on a tour that garnered lots of good will for The Cure, but hearing it front-to-back it still amazes that they delivered a record this good, this vital, this unrelentingly gloomy so deep into their career. Likewise, it seems like a miracle that Robert Smith’s voice sounds just like it did 34 years ago on Disintegration. Songs of a Lost World is their most cohesive since that one and their best since at least Bloodflowers (but maybe since Wish). Robert Smith keeps saying there’s another record soon on the way, and if so that’s exciting. But if Songs of a Lost World were to be The Cure’s final album, it’s hard to imagine a better, more fitting end to a nearly 50-year career.
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Fastbacks – For WHAT Reason! (No Threes)
Kurt Bloch, Kim Warnick, and Lulu Gargiulo formed Fastbacks in Seattle while in high school in 1979 and they’ve been constants in the band for the 45 years since, cranking out ultra-catchy punky power pop. Kurt Cobain was a fan, they put out records on Sub Pop in the ’90s, and their list of former drummers includes a pre-Guns N’ Roses Duff McKagan, Dan Peters of Mudhoney, John Moen of The Jicks and The Decemberists, and Tad Hutchison of the Young Fresh Fellows. Mike Musburger has been their most constant drummer throughout their history and is with them on this new album, which is their first in 25 years. As the band note, For WHAT Reason! features “no celebrity guest musicians, no ‘featuring’s, no change of direction,” just the fuzzy pop songs they’re so good at. Fastbacks pack their two-minute creations with an incredible amount of hooks, harmonies, twin-lead solos, key changes, and sing-a-long choruses. Fastbacks, it’s good to have you back.
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The Folk Implosion – Walk Thru Me (Joyful Noise)
They’ve been working on it for a few years, and following a 2022 single, Lou Barlow and John Davis have finally delivered the first new Folk Implosion album in 25 years. “It was the middle of the pandemic and we were old guy musicians commenting on a lot of the same things,” says Barlow of his reconnection with his “Natural One” collaborator. Adds Davis, “There was a moment when I was worried one of us might kick it, or never talk to each other again, so I decided we should pick it back up.” Walk Thru Me is a much more obviously collaborative Folk Implosion album than anything they released in the ’90s, with Davis taking lead vocals on a number of songs, as well as bringing his recent interest in Eastern rhythms and instrumentation to the production. (Davis almost sounds like Prince on a couple songs, “The Day You Died” in particular, thanks to an eerily similar vocal inflection and register. It’s a little uncanny.) Davis’ more pronounced input brings a freshness to their collaboration while keeping things with the danceable indie rock style you remember from Kids. Lou’s songs remain the strongest — “My Little Lamb,” “Moonlit Kind” and Walk Thru Me‘s title track are terrific – but this is a welcome return that still sounds like The Folk Implosion without ever being beholden to the past.
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Gruff Rhys – Sadness Sets Me Free (Rough Trade)
Sadness Sets Me Free is the 25th album that Gruff Rhys made, when counting solo works, records with Super Furry Animals, Neon Neon, soundtracks and more. For this one, Gruff and his band — Osian Gwynedd (piano), Huw V Williams (double bass) and Kliph Scurlock (drums) — recorded the majority of it in a three-day session in Paris in March 2022, with strings and backing vocals by This is the Kit‘s Kate Stables added later. “At this point I quite like working with serendipity,” Rhys says of the album. “Not in a cosmic way, [but] I try and leave things open to chance encounters and chance geography…I’m always looking for ways to make a different-sounding record.” Sadness Sets Me Free is one of Rhys’ prettiest, most melancholic records, heavy on acoustic guitar, piano and strings, with a strong element of both ’70s country and tropicalia. Gruff is one of those rare artists who consistently manages to do something new every time while only ever sounding like himself. The way he writes songs, the chords and melodies he favors, haven’t really changed over the years — this album’s “Celestial Candyfloss” could’ve fit, with a different arrangement, on SFA’s 1996 debut, and “Silver Linings (Lead Balloon)” could be a cousin to “Northern Lights” from 1999’s Guerilla. Yet both feel like they could really only be here, and his inquisitive, thoughtful, and empathetic lyrical style is as warm as the music, while embracing those darker thoughts. When Gruff sings “I left my dreams in a rental car” on “Silver Lining,” you know how he feels.
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Guided By Voices – Strut of Kings (Rockathon / GBV Inc)
First things first — what number album is this? Their last, Nowhere to Go But Up (released in December 2023) is listed as “their 39th overall” on Guided by Voices’ own Rockathon Records website, but press materials refer to this, their first since then, as #41. Did they secretly drop a record over the holidays that only Martin Shkreli has heard? Or did they do enough celebrating in 2023 with their 40th anniversary celebration and are now trying to skirt the pressure. It doesn’t really matter and I’m sure if I had as many releases as Bob Pollard, I’d have trouble remembering how many records I’d put out too. A title like Strut of Kings certainly befits such a landmark as 40. Perhaps even more astounding, Strut of Kings is GBV’s 18th album since 2016 (!!!) and one thing I’m sure of is it’s the latest fantastic LP from what is an incredible late inning hot streak. Pollard turns 67 later this year and he shows no signs of running out of steam, high kicks or indie rock earworms. All hail Guided by Voices, and here’s to the next 40 albums, which at this rate could all come by Bob’s 75 birthday.
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The Hard Quartet (Malkmus, Sweeney, White, Kelly) – The Hard Quartet (Matador)
“This is not a project—it’s a band,” Stephen Malkmus told GQ when announcing The Hard Quartet who are also a bit of an indie rock supergroup given the Pavement frontman’s bandmates are Matt Sweeney (Chavez), Jim White (Dirty Three) and Emmett Kelly (Ty Segall). But this really does seem like four artists on an equal plane where everyone contributes to the songwriting and everyone (except White) sings lead. A double album written in a week and recorded in not much more than that, The Hard Quartet’s self-titled debut is the sound of four people finding joy and inspiration in playing together and it’s loaded with great songs from everyone. Malkmus may have delivered the most songs, but Sweeney and Kelly provide the two biggest standouts, respectively, with the jammy “Rio’s Song” and the jangly, ultra-melodic “Our Hometown Boy.” The most exciting part is you can feel these four are just starting to cook.
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High Llamas – Hey Panda (Drag City)
Sean O’Hagan could’ve just continued down the same pristine path of perfect sounding, similar sounding High Llamas records — a lush mix of Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks, Ennio Morricone, Caetano Veloso and his collaborators Stereolab — for the rest of his life. Up until this year it seemed like he would, but O’Hagan had a pandemic epiphany thanks to his kids who exposed him to Tyler the Creator and Tierra Whack during lockdown. Those recordings’ forward-thinking production broke his brain in positive ways, giving us Hey Panda, the best High Llamas album since the ’90s. O’Hagan’s melodic style, the chords he uses, his distinctive vocal and string arrangements are still here but it’s now in service of glitchy R&B. He’s also discovered the joys of vocoder, autotune, and collaboration as Hey Panda features guest vocals from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Rae Morris who sings on the album’s most delightful creation, “Sisters Friends.” Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?
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The Innocence Mission – Midwinter Swimmers (Bella Union / Thérèse Records)
Karen Peris is in touch with an inner wonder that allows her to write achingly beautiful songs that feel like Polaroids, a perfect portrait of a moment in time that captures all the magic and memories as if they were happening now, without a whiff of “remember when.” The Innocence Mission’s real gift is that she and husband/bandmate Don Peris have the ability to unlock similar feelings in the listener through songs like “This Thread is a Green Street,” “Your Saturday Picture,” and “Orange of the Westering Song,” even when the specifics are not your own. Karen paints almost exclusively in wistful, happy/sad emotions and you don’t even have to pay attention to her lovely, impressionistic prose to be moved by it, while the baroque folk melodies hit similar pleasure centers as Jessica Pratt, The Clientele and Belle & Sebastian. Midwinter Swimmers, The Innocence Mission’s 13th album, is another marvel in miniature.
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J Mascis – What Do We Do Now? (Sub Pop)
J Mascis is synonymous with loud guitars; playing with his band Dinosaur Jr., on stage he’s cocooned in Marshall stacks which is as iconic an image as any in indie rock. The band are still making great records and are reliably solid live but, dare I say it, his solo records are more satisfying these days. His weary vocal style and melodic tendencies are not really different from what he did on You’re Living All Over Me back in 1986, but it all feels a little more at home against dusty acoustic guitars and piano. J had planned for his first solo album in five years to be totally acoustic but then he got the itch to play drums and add a few electric solos. Before long he was tapping his friends Ken Mauri to play piano and Matthew “Doc” Dunn for pedal steel. “I dunno why I did that exactly,” J admits, “but it’s just what happened. What Do We Do Now? sounds as much like a “band” record as any by Dinosaur Jr. but this is one J, Lou and Murph would never make. Whether they are or not, the arrangements make songs like “Can’t Believe We’re Here,” “Old Friends,” and “Set Me Down” seem more introspective and personal. More pop, too, in a rambling country rock way which, again, fits in so well with J’s sleepy delivery and sounds so good when he lets those signature ragged solos rip. I hope Dinosaur Jr. never break up again, but I’m glad Mascis gives us a record like this every few years.
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The Jesus and Mary Chain – Glasgow Eyes (Fuzz Club)
As The Jesus & Mary Chain, Jim and William Reid have never been ones to stretch their wings much, creatively. Ever since crystalizing a drum-machine-driven, bluesy Phil Spector-esque noise-pop style on their second album, 1986’s Darklands, they more or less stuck to that formula. Sure, they’ve gone poppier (Automatic), noisier (Honey’s Dead) and acoustic (Stoned and Dethroned) but have basically remained basically the same. Glasgow Eyes is only their second album since reforming the band in 2007 — the first was 2017’s Damage and Joy which was a piecemeal record — and whether you like it or not, it’s hard to say this is Jim and William Reid doing JAMC by the numbers. This is a weird record! They made it at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom studio, though it could also pass for something recorded using a 2005 copy of GarageBand. Many of these songs are as DIY as the Mary Chain have ever sounded, with junkshop keyboards sharing equal spotlight with the guitars. Another difference is William Reid takes lead vocals on more than half the record — his biggest percentage ever — and his decidedly more unhinged style adds to the “what are we listening to?” vibe. It’s also an album that examines the brothers’ tumultuous relationship (awkwardly titled “JAMCOD” details their 1998 onstage breakup at L.A.’s House of Blues) and the mythology of the band (“Girl 71,” “Second of June”) in addition to their usual favorite subjects, sex, drugs and rock n’ roll (“Mediterranean X Film,” “Venal Joy,” most of the other songs). With sneery lines like “I was kicking the caine cause the cane wasn’t able / Now I’m addicted to love so we can fuck on the table,” this is all still clearly the Mary Chain but Glasgow Eyes is the furthest William and Jim have traveled from their core sound since trading Bobby Gillespie for a drum machine. There are times on the album — like “The Eagles and The Beatles” which is part Joan Jett and part Primal Scream and has a chorus of “I’ve been rollin’ with the Stones” — where you may swing from “this is terrible!” to “this is brilliant!” and back over the course of a minute. Do we need a new JAMC album in 2024? At least it’s an interesting one.
The Jesus Lizard – Rack (Ipecac)
The massively influential noise rock legends reclaim their throne with their first album in 26 years
Leave it to The Jesus Lizard to come back after 26 years sounding even gnarlier than they left us. The Austin post-hardcore/noise rock legends have returned with their first album since the ’90s (and first with original drummer Mac McNeilly since their penultimate LP Shot), and it gives you everything you want from a Jesus Lizard record. With bands like IDLES, METZ, and Chat Pile carrying the torch, Rack‘s timing is perfect. If you didn’t know any better, you might mistake it for the work of a rising new band, and that’s kind of the ideal scenario for an album this long-awaited. It strengthens The Jesus Lizard’s already-rock-solid legacy, and if you’ve never indulged in the menacing delights of a Jesus Lizard record, it’d be a fine introduction. [Andrew Sacher]
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John Cale – POPtical Illusion (DoubleSix/Domino)
Now in his 80s, Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale is not slowing down. If anything, he’s speeding up. Coming just 16 months after 2023’s great MERCY, he’s already back with another album. Where that one was thick with notable collaborators (Weyes Blood, Panda Bear & Avey Tare, Sylvan Esso, Fat White Family), POPtical Illusion was made entirely by Cale with assistance from longtime producer Nita Scott. They’re not wildly different albums, either, but this one plays a little more pure and may be all the more impressive as you’re not straining to hear the what all these guests are bringing to the table. Cale has no trouble on his own, as his talents as a songwriter are still bearing fruit with words poetic, melodies memorable and production that is very modern yet stays within his world. Songs like “Davies and Wales,” “Edge of Reason,” “Shark-Shark” and “How We See The Light” have the wisdom of an artist who’s been a creative force since the ’50s and still has the ability to captivate now.
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Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More (4AD)
As far back as The Breeders’ Pod, Kim Deal was showing her true hand — the gentle, sweet love song. As great her bands’ raging rockers were, her voice had an angelic side that was custom built for acoustic guitars and string sections. Thirty-five years on from Pod, Kim released her debut solo album which is full of violins, cellos and heart-on-sleeve odes to loved ones. (Both records were recorded by Steve Albini, one of Kim’s best friends, who died in May.) When the strings kick in on Nobody Loves You More‘s title track, along with the rest of the orchestra, if you’re not at least a little verklempt do you even have a heart? (I’m sure you do.) Kim shows other sides as well, including ESG-style no-wave banger “Crystal Breath” and some comfort zone indie rock that would be a highlight on a Breeders album. But it’s the quiet ones, the heartbreakers, the ballads, that you’ll be singing years from now.
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Kim Gordon – The Collective (Matador)
I thought I wanted Kim Gordon to finally make another rock record, like she finally did with 2019’s No Home Record, a decade after Sonic Youth’s final album came out, but apparently I wanted her to make an industrial rap album. The Collective might just be the most innovative Sonic Youth-related album to come out since the band’s breakup, from Kim Gordon or otherwise. I’m stretching the truth a little bit by calling it a “rap album,” but the production from Kim’s current collaborator Justin Raisen explicitly pulls from industrial hip hop, trap, and rage-rap, and Kim tops it off with the same iconic speak-singing and striking lyricism that she brought to her best Sonic Youth songs. It’s a rare example of a rock veteran embracing modern hip hop without an ounce of cringe, and it makes sense that Kim Gordon is a person who can pull that off. It’s been decades since Sonic Youth started intermingling with the New York rap scene that surrounded them, and Kim and her former bandmates have always seemed more concerned with pushing culture forward than reliving glory days. The Collective might not have discordant guitars, but in a spiritual sense, it feels like exactly the kind of album that an artist like Kim Gordon has always stood for. [Andrew Sacher]
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Laetitia Sadier – Rooting for Love (Drag City)
While we will probably never get another Stereolab album, despite recent reunion tours, Laetitia Sadier’s fifth solo album comes pretty close to that band’s metronomic underground pleasure centers. You get drony organs, bloopy analog synths, groovy basslines, tropicalia and krautrock rhythms, flutes, strings, horns, vibraphone, zither, layer upon layer of billowy harmonies, and socialist lyrical subject matter (mostly in French). But Rooting for Love doesn’t feel like regurgitation of the past; this album is alive and Sadier is moving forward.
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Liam Gallagher & John Squire – Liam Gallagher John Squire (Warner Music)
“Here comes that feeling, here it comes again.” That is indeed the feeling you get listening to “Mars to Liverpool” by the Manchester superduo of former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and former Stone Roses guitarist John Squire. The swaying chorus is a mile high as Squire spits out swaggering riffs that pull you back to the height of Britpop. Let’s just get this out of the way: Liam Gallagher John Squire is the best thing either have done since the ’90s. That makes for good headline fodder but anyone who has followed their respective careers knows that’s not saying all that much. Still! This album is good, full-stop, no qualifiers. Squire, who gets sole writing credit on every song here, still has some tunes in his back pocket, and there are flashes of their old brilliance not to mention that cocky Northern attitude. The Oasis reunion seemed to put this record in the rearview just a few months after it was released but it’s definitely, not maybe, worth checking out.
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Mary Timony – Untame the Tiger (Merge)
While Mary Timony has stayed musically busy since the late-’00s with Wild Flag and Ex Hex (and as a guitar teacher for the likes of Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan and other DC-area residents), new album Untame the Tiger is her first record under her own name in nearly two decades. This is a pandemic work and Mary had an especially rough last four years, losing both parents (and being their sole caregiver), and going through a bad romantic breakup. The latter seems to have informed this album the most as Mary questions her decisions and her inability to get out of her own way. But it’s dealing with the former that seems to have inspired a new worldview where things are taken in stride. “The dead leaves are blowing around in my mind,” she sings on “No Thirds,” which opens the album. “We only know this one life at a time.” There’s a lot of well-traveled insight here, leavened just enough by well-placed dashes of cutting humor. Great music too. Mary is a skilled musician with a love of British folk and prog that can really be felt this time; Fairport Convention/Steeleye Span drummer Dave Mattacks plays on half the songs, and there’s a lot of chewy, interlocking guitar leads and modal drones that give things a very earthy feel. At the same time, these songs are still obviously coming from the same person who gave us ’90s classic, Dirt of Luck. Not unlike Steve Gunn, Mary flashes her guitar prowess in controlled doses, keeping things focused on the songs which are across-the-board great, topping it all with just a little tasteful jam. Ex Hex are a lot of fun but Untame the Tiger sticks to the ribs.
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Mercury Rev – Born Horses (Bella Union)
“When I opened my voice to sing on this record, this was the bird that sang: a lower, whiskery voice, which surprised me as much as it may others,” Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue says. “I don’t know where the bird came from, but it’s there now, and I don’t question it. It’s just the bird that wants to sing.” Jonathan Donahue whispers his way through the entirety of Born Horses, Mercury Rev’s first album in nine years, in a style that’s more emotive dramatic reading (shades of William Shatner’s Transformed Man) than the belt-it-out pipes he used on classic Rev songs like “Goddess on a Highway” and “Holes.” There are only a couple times where Donahue’s vocals even hint at melody and by the third song, when you realize the whole album is like this, it’s could be a dealbreaker for some fans. And yet, Born Horses succeeds thanks to Donahue’s moving prose which is heavy, cathartic and ever imbued with a sense of wonder, as well as the absolutely gorgeous orchestral arrangements of these songs. This is sweeping, cinematic stuff that is moving all on its own, easily Mercury Rev’s biggest, most ambitious record to date. The album also has the power to knock you back through sheer sonics, like on penultimate track “Everything I Thought I Had Lost” which builds and builds into a towering force of drum fills and swirling piano and horns as Donahue dreams of “old friends, twin flames… their faces, reaching me slowly now, like a bank of clouds that could only have come from far, far away.” It’s epic stuff and pure Mercury Rev. Settle in and give this one a shot.
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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild God (PIAS)
Wild God is the first Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album since the band concluded a masterful trilogy with 2019’s Ghosteen (and it also follows Nick Cave and his core Bad Seeds collaborator Warren Ellis’ 2021 duo album Carnage), but in a way, it feels like the Bad Seediest Bad Seeds album since 2013’s Push the Sky Away, the album that kicked off that aforementioned trilogy over a decade ago. Nick explained to NPR‘s Ann Powers that, after his son Arthur died during the making of 2016’s Skeleton Tree, the album started to feel like “too raw a thing [for the band] to be able to find their voices on,” and the impact that Arthur’s death had on Ghosteen made the album “so fragile that no one knew how to do anything on it either.” On Wild God, The Bad Seeds ride again. It’s all there: the groove of Martyn Casey’s basslines, the beating heart of Thomas Wydler’s drums and Jim Sclavunos’ percussion, the swirl of Warren’s orchestral arrangements and the piano/guitar patterns provided by Nick, Warren, and relatively newer Bad Seed George Vjestica. Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood provides some guest bass too, and Flaming Lips collaborator Dave Fridmann mixed. True to Wild God‘s religious nature, a gospel choir fleshes out multiple songs. Suspenseful climaxes are reached, like on the coda of “Conversion,” and more meditative moments exist too, like the textural arrangements of “Joy.” Throughout it all, Nick is a storyteller, a poet, a blues singer, exhibiting the kind of command that only Nick Cave can. There’s suspense, drama, love, pain, spirituality, and a callback to Jubilee Street. He’s a wild god, baby, a wild god!
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Paul Weller – 66 (Solid Bond / Universal)
Paul Weller rarely does the same thing twice. Twice in a row, at least. For his 17th album, which arrives one day shy of his 66th birthday, he’s created a lush and soulful world draped in swooning orchestration and featuring a wide range of cool friends and collaborators, not to mention a bunch of great new songs. That he manages to always find new places to go that fit within his amazing body of work — that includes The Jam and The Style Council — is arguably Weller’s biggest talent. Like 2021’s terrific Fat Pop (Vol 1), 66 isn’t entirely beholden to a single style. There are rock songs (“Jumble Queen,” written with Noel Gallagher), disco numbers (“Flying Fish”), and Jaques Brel-style baroque (“My Best Friend’s Coat,” a co-write with Le Superhomard) but the strings and horns and woodwinds — and Weller’s impeccable taste — tie it all together. That said it’s the wistful, soulful numbers that really soar. “Nothing,” one of a few songs written with Madness frontman Suggs McPherson, is an instant classic, sounding a bit like a modern update on what Weller did in The Style Council, with jazzy chords, brass and psychedelic synth solos, set against ruminations of a long-lasting relationship: “Nothing forged our love / Out of nothing / Because it was only by / Having nothing / We were able to realise / We needed nothing else / But each other.” Mellow maybe, but Paul continues to throw heater after heater.
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Pet Shop Boys – Nonetheless (Parlophone)
After 14 albums and nearly 40 years, we know what to expect from a Pet Shop Boys album: elegant synthpop with Neil Tennant’s thoughtful, well-read lyricism, a combination that drove some of the more unusual pop hits of the ’80s and ’90s. Add in the band’s impeccable style and you’ve got a formula designed to last. That said, Nonetheless is a bit of a return-to-form for Tennant and Chris Lowe, which finds them back on Parlophone Records after a decade off and, working with producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys / Depeche Mode), delivering one of their more lush-sounding records in recent years. That’s due in part to a string section that classes up nearly every song. The album also feels like a return to a decidedly ’80s palette, including orchestra hit samples, synth horns, electro handclaps, and other drum machine sounds that recall early-’80s Arthur Baker productions. There’s also “New London Boy,” that flashes back to the Reagan/Thatcher era with a rappy style right out of “West in Girls.” As usual Tennant’s got a lot on his mind — Brexit, mortality, sexuality — but his lyrics rarely take the obvious path. Pet Shop Boys continue to give us what we want, as well as what we need.
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Peter Perrett – The Cleansing (Domino)
The former Only Ones frontman has made his best album in decades with The Cleansing, but be warned: this is another universe from “Another Girl, Another Planet.” Lyrically this is darker than The Cure’s album: “It’s a losing battle, tryin’ to be sane / It leaves me tired and listless / If I’m gonna jump in front of a train / I’ll wait till after Christmas” is the album’s opening lines and it doesn’t exactly lighten up from there. But Perrett, who is 72, is clearly inspired and working through his problems with his art, and with a little help from Johnny Marr, Bobby Gillespie and Fontaines D.C.’s Carlos O’Connell. He’s still got that Only Ones romantic streak, too. Bleak? Yes, but brilliant.
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Pixies – The Night the Zombies Came (BMG)
Pixies have now made as many albums in the last 10 years as they did in their original six year run, and if none of the 2000s-on albums are as good as the ones on 4AD with Kim Deal, the band (Black Francis, Joey Santiago, and David Lovering) have settled into a comfortable style that recalls their heyday but reflects their age with a gentler style. The Night the Zombies Came is the Pixies 10th album and first with new bassist Emma Richardson (ex-Band of Skulls), and the change seems to have invigorated the band. Also changed them just a little. Richardson’s most obvious contribution to the record is not the bass but her backing vocals. She sings on nearly every song and is featured prominently, moreso than Kim Deal ever was, even if she never takes lead. Her voice sounds great with Black Francis’ and makes this album distinct in the band’s discography, though it makes it a little less Pixies-ish. (The difference between a Pixies album and a Frank Black solo album these days seems to be name only.) Still, we get the surfy, tremolo’d guitar, sci-fi lyrics and driving basslines we associate with the band, Black Francis sounds like he’s having fun this time, and the songs are pretty good — especially the album’s delightful, Phil Spector-esque title track. To further the zombie theme, an alternate title for this album might be Pixies: Back from the Dead.
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Primal Scream – Come Ahead (BMG)
Bobby Gillespie was unsure if he ever wanted to make another album after 2016’s Chaosmosis. The album-tour-album cycle the band had been on for the last 20+ years was wearing him thin and it was not one of their best efforts. He took a break, wrote a terrific, entertaining memoir and made an album with Savages’ Jehnny Beth. Then COVID and the civil protests of 2020 happened, and keyboardist Martin Duffy died in 2022 from a fall. Throughout it all, however, Gillespie was writing songs again, saying his book unlocked something in him. That’s when producer David Holmes, who worked on Primal Scream’s 2000 album XTRMNTR and 2013’s More Light, sent him a backing track that Gillespie realized fit with some lyrics he’d written. He laid down vocals and sent it back to Holmes who replied, “Congratulations. The new Primal Scream album has just begun.” Come Forward is Primal Scream’s 12th album and first in eight years. It’s easily their most focused, fiercely political album since XTRMNTR, yet they’ve never made an album that sounds quite like this before. While the ‘Scream have been fusing rock and dance music since landmark 1990 single “Loaded,” straight-up ’70s funk and disco, complete with swooping string sections, is new territory. Songs like “Ready to Go Home,” “Innocent Money” and “Love Insurrection” all approach Chic levels of suave sophistication while Gillespie sings of revolution against the ruling class, xenophobes, Brexitors, Trump, etc etc etc. Not all of it works, but most of it does and it’s inspiring that 40+ years into their career Primal Scream are still capable of something like Come Ahead.
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Redd Kross – Redd Kross (In the Red)
Has another band personified the teenage dream of rock n’ roll as well and for as long as Redd Kross? Jeff and Steven McDonald were actual teenagers when they started the band in the late ’70s, and they have outlasted most of their peers while still sounding and–for the most part–looking the same. Their self-titled eighth album is a great representation of their signature mix of ’60s British invasion, ’70s glam, bubblegum, power-pop, and punk. Redd Kross sounds like it could’ve come out at any moment during their 44-year history, but is well timed with the new documentary about the band, Born Innocent, which is making its way around the country. The McDonalds sound especially inspired and make the most of the double LP’s 18 songs and hour runtime. They sound a little angry too, which gives confections like “I’ll Take Your Word For It,” “Too Good to Be True,” and “Terrible Band,” real bite. “We grew up with industry gatekeepers telling us you’re only allowed to do what we do up to a certain age, that if you haven’t attained some certain status of success it’s time to hang up the dream,” says Steven. “But I’m still hungry and ambitious, trying to figure out what I want to say and how to say it. I give the correct amount of fucks. I’m ready to start our third act, and for it to be magnificent.” So far so good, guys!
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Richard Hawley – In This City They Call You Love (BMG)
“I’ve made three albums where I had the title before I’d even begun to record, where I had an agenda,” Richard Hawley says of his ninth album. “One was Truelove’s Gutter. Another was Standing At The Sky’s Edge when I wanted to turn everything up and make the music a lot more aggressive, and then this one.” Hawley adds he wanted this one “to be multi-coloured in a way…focusing on the voice and what voices can do together. I deliberately only played a handful of guitar solos to keep it focused on voices, the song and space.” That said, In This City They Call You Love is Richard Hawley doing what he does best and what he does better than almost anyone else currently in a well-traveled genre: vintage-style early rock n’ roll, heavy on the balladry, with just a little country and a whole lot of croon. The titular “This Town” is, of course, Sheffield, the UK industrial city where Hawley was born, raised and still lives and is a constant source of inspiration. (He turned many of his songs into the Sheffield-set musical, Standing at The Sky’s Edge.) He writes the kind of technicolor romantic songs, steeped in strings and vibrato guitar and featuring titles like “Here That Lonesome Whistle Blow” and “Tis Night” that are perfect for his well-worn baritone. There may be less solos, but his guitarwork remains as exquisite as does every other element on this album. Hawley is pure class, and In This City They Call You Love is another wonderful addition to his catalogue and his home town.
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Ride – Interplay (Wichita)
Along with their Oxford friends Slowdive, Ride are having one of the best second acts in recent memory. Their third album since reforming a decade ago, Interplay, is the sound of an older, wiser and more comfortable in their skin group who are no longer worrying about being part of a current scene and just making music for themselves. Really, really good music. Andy Bell, who leads the band alongside fellow singer/guitarist Mark Gardner, has intimated that this was not the easiest album to make, but Interplay sounds effortless, with some of their Ride-iest songs since the early ’90s and their best swerves away from their signature sound to date. As to the former, “Portland Rocks” is blissed-out shoegaze perfection and pure Ride, from the “ahhhhs” and harmonies to the roaring, soaring guitars and Loz Colbert’s ever-powerful drumming. Similarly, “Midnight Rider” is armed with a shuffling beat that dares you not to bob your head, and a rumbling low end via bassist Steve Queralt, as well as the band’s signature guitar swirl; “I Came to See the Wreck” lays out a slowly building, beautiful maelstrom. They’ve also got pop songs for days, from the joyous “Peace Sign” to “New Frontier” that owes more than a little to New Order (and The Lightning Seeds), and swaying ballad “Last Night I Went Somewhere to Dream” which is definitely new territory for Ride. Unlike the “Hey we’re Britpop now” move of 1994’s Carnival of Light or whatever was going on on 1996’s Tarantula, all of this sounds natural for Bell, Gardner, Queralt and Colbert, with styles that support a uniformly excellent batch of songs. I already proclaimed 2019’s This is Not a Safe Place their best album since Going Blank Again, which was true, but this one is even better. Interplay is the third great album of Ride’s career.
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Saint Etienne – ‘The Night’ (Heavenly)
The long-running London trio go ambient on their understated, suave 12th album
With the chaos of the last eight years, Saint Etienne have made a point to relax. Their 2021 album, I’ve Been Trying to Tell You, was made remotely in lockdown and took inspiration from liminal YouTube videos, using ’90s pop samples they slowed to a crawl and turned into hypnagogic dreamscapes. For its follow-up they’re in a similar mood, though this time they all went into the studio together with regular collaborator Augustin Bousfield, no samples allowed. Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell have long created cinematic vignettes of London life and with ‘The Night’ they imagine a pre-dawn world of tranquil ambience. “We were trying to find the state that’s between being awake and asleep,” says Bob Stanley, “that dream space, with half forgotten thoughts drifting in, bits of TV dialogue, place names, streets, or football grounds you’ve never even been to…It was designed to gently wash away the stuff in your head that keeps you awake at 2am.” ‘The Night’ feels more like a sequel to 2000’s Sound of Water than a continuation of I’ve Been Trying to Tell You; rain sounds run through the album and you can feel the neon glow reflected in the streets of these 14 atmospheric tracks. This is Saint Etienne at their most austere and elegant, and it’s more of a traditional record than the last too, with signature elements like harpsichord, melodica, “Bah Bah Bah” vocal hooks, and house-y keyboard patterns all present, just without the beats. Great melodies too: “Half Light,” “Nightingale” and “Gold” are absolutely gorgeous creations. ‘The Night’ is classic Saint Etienne, just presented in ways we’ve never quite heard before.
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Seefeel – Everything Squared (Warp)
Seefeel are one of those groups whose name is also very evocative of their sound; a hypnotic mix of post rock, dub, EDM, shoegaze and other high-minded subgenres you’d read about in Option or The Wire in the ’90s. Following an extensive reissue campaign a couple years ago, Seefeel are back with their first new record in 13 years. The group have morphed over the last three decades from a traditional rock band lineup into something almost purely electronic, but the feel is the same, vibey head music that still manages to pull emotions from you without words. And even though it’s “see” not “sea,” there is a floating, underwater sensory deprivation tank atmosphere to nearly everything they do. Made primarily by Mark Clifford with contributions from cofounder Sarah Peacock and bassist Shigeru Ishihara, Everything Squared finds Seefeel ever moving forward and diving deeper.
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The Softies – The Bed I Made (Father/Daughter)
Formed in 1994 by Rose Melberg (Tiger Trap) and Jen Sbragia (All Girl Summer Fun Band), The Softies aimed to be an antithesis to the rat in a cage rage that was going on at the time, by way of spare but sweet melodies with emotionally rich lyrics. Two voices, two guitars, that’s all they needed to charm. The duo released records on K and Slumberland throughout the ’90s before drifting apart as their lives took them different places, but Melberg and Sbragia remained friends and reunited for shows occasionally. When both lost their mothers, their friendship rekindled and deepened and so did their desire to write together again. The Bed I Made is their first album in 24 years and their voices and songs are as wistfully sweet as ever. It’s also a testament to their friendship. “All of the time that we wasted apart,” they sing on “Go Back in Time” in angelic harmony “wasn’t good for my heart, or anything.” Have kleenex nearby for this lovely album they could’ve titled Verklempt.
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The The – Ensoulment (Cineola / Earmusic)
The The’s first album in a quarter century arrives like magic; an eerie sound rises from the speakers like an unexpected plume of colored smoke and soon materializes, fully formed, like a genie from a bottle. But Matt Johnson is not here to grant us wishes. Ensoulment is more of a Monkey’s Paw situation, showing us how everything we wished for blindly has come true but at a tragic cost. “Truth stands on the gallows, lies sit on the Throne,” Johnson sings on “Cognitive Dissident,” which opens the album. “Something in the shadows communicates by code.” In this turbulent election year, it’s good to have The The back even if, as Johnson told us, “I wish we lived in a very different world.” Ensoulment is The The’s best album since Dusk and his most overtly political since the ’80s when he was delivering melodic warnings like “Heartland” and “The Beaten Generation,” songs that sadly, lyrically haven’t dated a bit. He’s a bit more subdued, musically, than the days of Infected and Mind Bomb, but no less astute and witty; working with Warne Livesay (who produced those albums) and the same band that accompanied him on The Big Comeback tour in 2018, Matt has crafted a “speak softly and carry a big stick” of an album, mixing post-covid fears and doom-scrolling with sublimely produced songs about loss, aging, and love, mixing cynicism and despair with hope and humor.
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Tindersticks – Soft Tissue (City Slang)
Stuart Staples has sounded weary since Tindersticks first got their start back in 1992 when he was just 27. His hangdog crooner style is essential to the band’s shabby chic charm and also what makes what they do so evergreen. Amazingly, the band find new ways to present their divey chamber pop cabaret with just about every record without altering the fit of their rumpled suits that much. Soft Tissue is Tindersticks’ 14th studio album which is injected with a high dosage of Memphis soul, complete with horns, strings, electric piano and soulful backing vocals. It would be a very different album, but you could imagine the late, great Charles Bradley singing on the whole thing, but Staples’ delivery makes Soft Tissue unmistakably a Tindersticks album, and one of their very best.
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The Wolfgang Press – A 2nd Shape (Downwards)
One of imperial era 4AD’s most underrated bands, The Wolfgang Press started in the ’80s as gothy post-punk and left in the mid-’90s as brightly colored, danceable alt-rock. For their first album in 29 years, A 2nd Shape finds them going back to the start of the band, recording on an ADAT multitrack (digital, but pre-ProTools tech), with most songs featuring only bass, keyboards, primitive drum machines and frontman Mick Allen’s unmistakable baritone that can go from a whisper to a wail. There are no attempts to write anything as immediate as original era singles “A Girl Like You” or “The Great Leveller,” but “Sad Surfer,” “This Garden of Eden,” “The Line” and eerie instrumental “The 1st” all have that compelling, low-key menace that is the hallmark of the great TWP records. The album’s centerpiece, though, is “Take it Backwards,” a classic, snarling Wolfgang Press banger that also serves as a statement of intent: “I’m not broke, I’m not a joke, I’m not thinking backwards.” This reunion has no interest in nostalgia.
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The Woodentops – Fruits of the Deep (Little People Big Music)
South London band The Woodentops have been around since the mid-’80s, having set their sound — anthemic melodies, sunshine positivity, acoustic guitars, clattering percussion, manic tempos — on their debut single “Plenty” which was released 40 years ago. (They were Rough Trade labelmates and contemporaries with The Smiths and also unexpectedly a piece of the ecstasy-fueled Second Summer of Love rave scene.) As someone who holds their 1986 debut Giant in very high regard (one of my all-time favorite albums) I’m happy to report that their first album ina decade is pretty wonderful and has all the signature Woodentops elements intact, and adds some new twists, too. McGinty’s voice sounds the same as it did in 1986, warm and inviting, and there’s just something magical that happens when it mixes with the acoustic guitars and driving rhythms. Like the best Woodentops records, Fruits of the Deep welcomes you with open arms but isn’t afraid to get a little weird, and Rolo and the rest of the band seem to be doing this for themselves (the album is self-released), a motivating factor that often results in the best art. Welcome back!
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Underworld – Strawberry Hotel (Smith Hyde Productions / Virgin Music)
“Please don’t shuffle” is the only note that comes with Strawberry Hotel, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith’s 11th album as Underworld. It’s funny but it also works as a statement of intent. After spending 2019 releasing a new song a week as part of their Drift series, Strawberry Hotel is a purposeful work, a double album that is meant to be listened to as a whole. Since the ’90s, when Smith and Hyde shed off the pop trappings of Underworld’s doggy synthpop early years in favor of serious rave dance music, they’ve excelled at stadium-sized techno. With Strawberry Hotel, they widen their scope with more emphasis on melody and choral-style vocal arrangements via Smith’s daughter, opera singer Esme Brownen-Smith, who also gets co-producer credit on much of the record. The album also has a deliberate flow, opening with the delicate hymn “Black Poppies” and its “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL” chorus, before dropping onto the dancefloor for a series of throbbing bangers. “Denver Luna” is cut from the same cloth as their mid-’90s Trainspotting techno smash “Born Slippy”; “Techno Shinkansen” pulsates with Giorgio Moroder-esque synth arpeggiations; and “And the Colour Red” (released as a single in 2023) is an undulating, unsettling beast. From there things start to mellow, and the second disc of this double LP seriously chills out. Esme provides spoken word vocals on the vibey “Ottavia,” and that is immediately followed by a choral a cappella version of “Denver Luna” (equally good as the dance version), and the euphoric and nearly 10-minute “Gene Pool.” The album comes to a close with “Iron Bones,” featuring Nina Nastasia, and finally, unexpectedly, a classical guitar piece, “Stick Test Man.” That Hyde and Smith are still going new places while delivering what we want from an Underworld album is impressive given these two have been making music together since 1982 with no signs of slowing down. Just don’t shuffle.
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X – Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum)
After 47 years together, John Doe, Exene Cervenka, DJ Bonebrake and Billy Zoom are hanging up their collective hats as X. What a way to go out, though, with the LA punk icons’ self-titled ninth album still bearing all the band’s earmarks and energy. From the Smoke & Fiction‘s cover art (the band’s stylized X filling up the image), to the songs, the way they’re performed, and the album’s 28-minute runtime, it all seems to nod back to their 1980 debut album, Los Angeles. They remember “A tiny little x on a white marquee,” on “Big Black X,” and when the Hollywood sign was in disrepair and “Errol Flynn’s abandoned mansion.” It’s all set against blazing guitars, indebted as ever to twangy early rock n’ roll, and the unmistakable harmonies of John Doe and Exene Cervenka. Their voices, together, is the real sound of X and they truly sound as good and revved up as ever, even on a record about things coming to an end. “Struggle,” “Flipside,” “Winding Up the Time,” and Smoke & Fiction‘s title track all rip in classic X style, with a couple contemplative numbers (“The Way it Is,” “Face in the Moon”) to let you catch your breath. “Sweet till the bitter end,” they declare on on the album’s best song, but X till the sweet end is more like it.
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Check out BrooklynVegan’s Top 50 Albums of 2024 and more year-end lists.