So far, 2014 has been somewhat underwhelming as far as new music goes. Maybe last year spoiled us: by this time then, we had stand-out albums from long-loved acts like Daft Punk and Vampire Weekend to fawn over. This year, we’ve had an album from Beck and the Black Keys as well as a few releases from up-and-coming bands like Mac DeMarco and Real Estate, but it’s a far cry from last year.
That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been music released that’s worth your ears this year. The top three albums here would fit seamlessly into the top ten of 2013, no problem. The rest were harder to parse out. But we’re only in June; looking forward, we might still get albums from Kanye West, Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar—all much needed in what’s been a lackluster year for hip-hop so far.
Until our end of the year wrap-up, check out Reverb’s favorite albums of 2014 (so far), and as always, let us know what you think in the comments.
10. Temples, “Sun Structures”
Temples are classic psychedelic revivalists, and that’s exactly what we get from “Sun Shrines.” Comparisons are inevitable with this sort of homage music, so let’s get the two big ones out of the way: Thirteenth Floor Elevators and Buffalo Springfield. But the fruit of “Sun Shrines” is more than the sum of its influences. “Shelter Song” is as good as any psych rock song in the last six months, and worth checking out even if you have a weak stomach for lysergic-laced riffs and circular logic: “A question isn’t answered if an answer isn’t questioned / an answer has a meaning when a meaning has a truth.” Totally!
9. Mac DeMarco, “Salad Days”
is in his “Salad Days” and he knows it. For his new album, the slack-rocker sings a darker tune than listeners expect from him. DeMarco warbles about depression in “Blue Boy,” nihilist tendencies in and love lost all over in his unabashedly cheesy way. Only 24, the singer/songwriter has run suicides across the mile between mature and goof-off since his last album, but “Salad Days” suggests he’s getting close to settling. That’s bad news for fans of DeMarconian antics on display in his earlier work. But his music has always been more mature than his on-stage persona let on.
8. Nathaniel Rateliff, “Falling Faster Than You Can Run”
After setting the acoustic guitar down for a run of soul with his Night Sweats band, f returned to his singer-songwriter roots for “Running Faster,” an album both immeasurably well-written and criminally underrated. sounds unstable throughout the record, liable to breakdown and scream at any point, and he does several times. As is the case with this sort of music, his anguish makes for harrowing music, and translates into some truly indelible songs. Check out “Nothing To Show For” and “Don’t Get Too Close” at minimum.
7. Parquet Courts, “Sunbathing Animal”
Call it slacker-punk or just a retread, but is the slobbering beast of a record we needed in the first half of 2014. While most of the releases mentioned here are meticulously squared away, there are air pockets in “Sunbathing Animal.” For all of its imperfections, it’s a living thing.
While cut their last album, “Light Up Gold,” in a matter of days, “Sunbathing Animal” got a little more time in the studio, and the album sounds spit-shined as a result: there’s a level of unprecedented care in the proceedings, with a handful more single-worthy tracks than expected (“Black and White,” “Dear Ramona,” “Always Back In Town”). But it’s not refined, and as the sprawling “Instant Disassembly” suggests, these garage punks aren’t tied down by expectations.
6. St. Vincent, “St. Vincent”
It’s fitting that St. Vincent used her self-titled album (you only get one) to make the artiest, rockiest art-rock record of the year so far. Statement pieces like “Digital Witness” stand shoulder-to-shoulder with quotidian slice-of-life ballads (“Birth In Reverse”) and other much less easily-summarized songs (“Huey Newton” in particular) for the album that Annie Lennox has dreamed of making since she was in high school. Let’s not forget the “rock” part of the equation, either: few records this year have warranted a full-scale tour assault like “St. Vincent.” Kudos to Lennox for bringing it on-stage as well as in-ear.
5. The Black Keys, “Turn Blue”
The complaints lodged against are predictable: it’s not edgy enough; producer Danger Mouse’s paw prints are too visible; The Black Keys suck now. That last one is hardly valid, but it might explain why their new album has been knocked as much as it has. The band officially went pop radio-huge with their last album, “El Camino,” and for fans and non-music fans alike, the Black Keys cat was out of the bag. Perception changes after a hit like that, and anything that wasn’t a return to the band’s grimy blues-rock roots was bound to garner an unprecedented level of scrutiny.
Instead, “Turn Blue” marks one of the biggest changes in sound the band has ever covered between albums. The other contender? “Attack and Release,” the band’s first stint with Danger Mouse, and the Black Keys’ most striking until that point—certainly their most original. Change is scary, and we get it in spades on “Turn Blue”: samples, extended guitar solos, whirling clavichords. If they were an early 60s blues-rock outfit before, “Turn Blue” plunges the band into the weirdness of the summer of love. Still, their core isn’t hard to tease out, and guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach’s songwriting remains sharp.
4. Real Estate, “Atlas”
Real Estate matured considerably in the time between 2011’s “Easy” and their latest and greatest, “Atlas.” Through its ten well-curated tracks, the band never sounds rushed in relating what they’ve been up to, mostly moving on and changing towns. In the process, we get songs like “Had To Hear,” the striking-out song that sets the tone for the record, and the sweetly nostalgic “Talking Backwards,” their catchiest to date. “Atlas” has the band making lemonade out of their rough patches, and leaves you feeling settled about your own.
3. War On Drugs, “Lost In The Dream”
“Lost in the dream / or just the silence of a moment.”
So begins the title track off of the follow-up to ‘ break out album, “Slave Ambient.” is rich with ellipsis-laded lines like this, products of lead singer/songwriter Adam Granduciel’s darkly meditative mind. Granduciel’s influences from Dylan, Springsteen and Petty come through in near every lick, but the result is less rock than you might expect. As it stands, The War On Drugs’ latest is nothing less than an essential listen for 2014, even if it sounds like a classic out of the late 70s.
2. Future Islands, “Singles”
Along with the feel-good album of the year, gave us the feel-good story of 2014: fringe indie band from Baltimore turns television debut on Letterman into best late-night performance of the year; starts dance craze. But back to the album: is, as advertised, almost all single-worthy electro-dance music. Of all the great numbers here—”Spirit,” “Sun In The Morning,” “Back In The Tall Grass”—“Seasons (Waiting On You)” is the real triumph, maybe the first radio-worthy disco track since the late eighties. And as a lucky handful of cities can already attest, the album makes for one hell of a dance party.
Denver will find out for themselves when the band takes the stage at the Gothic Theatre on .
1. Beck, “Morning Phase”
Considering his form for most of the aughts, it was a surprise to hear that first album since 2008’s “Modern Guilt” would be a return to the form he assumed in “Sea Change.” Almost completely devoid of electronics and, even more out of character, sarcasm, the aptly named “Sea Change” revealed that Beck Hansen was capable of beautiful, even heartfelt music.
The similarities between “Sea Change” and are many—the acoustic gloom, heartache, even the first few chords—but “Morning Phase” shines where it distinguishes itself from its predecessor. There are moments of optimism, outside-the-box instrumentation and just-so production scattered evenly throughout the record, most of which are hard to pick up on initial listens. Fortunately, few albums this year have merited repeat spins like “Morning Phase.” It doesn’t quite reach the heights of “Sea Change,” but ’s first strike since 2008—and maybe just —is as complete an album as any we’ve heard this year.
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Dylan Owens is Reverb’s all-purpose news blogger and album reviewer. You can read more from him in Relix magazine and the comment sections of WORLDSTARHIPHOP.
