Albums
of the year
2014
Last year my goal was to shorten the reviews in my annual top albums post, but I failed miserably. This year, however, time was more limited – in a good way luckily (maybe because I interviewed two of my favorite bands: Lush, and Slowdive!) – and I’ve finally reached my goal. That’s even with 20 albums reviewed, up four from last year. I think I’ll keep this introductory shorter as well. As you can see, to the left is a playlist of a song from each of the albums that I think represents what makes each album great. Oh, and it’s Spotify, so you may need to have an account or something, not entirely sure how that works. Figure it out, or check out the song titles to find them somewhere else. Lastly, note these are in no particular order. They’re all great in their own individual ways, and thus albums at the bottom are JUST as important as those at the top. Enjoy, and feel free to comment if you want – and thanks for reading! Or not.
7
Ex Hex
Rips
The new project from Mary Timony, who fronted Boston’s brilliant Helium in the mid 90’s, then recently played guitar in the Wild Flag project with Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney and of late the ‘Portlandia’ TV show, is really, really, REALLY good. How’s that for an articulate review? The first single released in the summer, ‘Hot & Cold’, really had me intrigued as somehow it was better than Wild Flag, and I thought the end of that band’s brief outing would’ve soured thoughts of new music. However it’s an energy that feels like her former band was the beginning of a sort of emotional release for Ms. Timony. There was a beautiful, ethereal, sludgy anger in Helium, and her solo albums were pretty downbeat, sad affairs, as she has even said is the case. But this, THIS is the sound of a very, happy rejuvenated woman, and it’s evident throughout every one of this albums short and perfect 35 minutes. It sounds like the late 70s in all its sultry summer horny adolescence, with obvious nods to bands like The Runaways, a bit of The Ramones, some interesting dashes of Rhode island’s legendary Throwing Muses (see ‘You Fell Apart’), and as a friend noticed, some of the guitar riffs in ‘Hot & Cold’ are right out of The Knack’s ‘My Sharona’! This album is PERFECT.