Best Albums of 2024

Its been another strong year for album releases, particularly those with an indie and alternative slant that we favour.

Being able to see a number of the acts, from both the US and British Isles, live at festivals and venues across the country has certainly helped our appreciation of their work.

It is our pleasure to present to you our best albums of 2024 list.

15. Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future

Adrianne Lenker with Big Thief, Glastonbury Festival 2022

Adrianne Lenker’s work, both with Big Thief and solo,  is timeless, featuring wonderful songs of sadness and life through a skilful blend of folk, alt-rock, country and more. Her voice is so heartbreakingly exposed  on opener Real House, while on Sadness As A Gift violins and guitars crash in, as if from a nearby mountain lodge to help out.

14. The Miserable Rich – Overcome

After a hiatus for a more than a decade Brighton’s The Miserable Rich are back with a punch and their fourth album Overcome. It’s as if they have never been away. James de Malplaquet’s pitch perfect vocals, backed with sumptuous indie folk and chamber pop is on full display.   If anything there is even more focus on ‘pop’ with this release, especially on Taken and Ballad of Young Finn. Their return is one of the highlights of the year.

13. The Hard Quartet – The Hard Quartet

We  love an indie rock supergroup full, especially when former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus is involved. Formed last year their debut album finally emerged this year and is as good as expected. Joining Malkmus is former Chavez frontman Matt Sweeny, Dirty Three’s Jim White and Cairo Gang’s Emmett Kelly. Our Hometown Boy and  Earth Hater are among our favourites on this must for fans of 90s indie rock.

 

12. The Lemon Twigs – A Dream is All We Know

The Lemon Twigs are so reliable when they bring their brand of shiny 60s pop to a new century. Their fifth album A Dream Is All We Know is like switching Radio One on at any point from 1967 to 1974. Or is it a lost Beach Boys album from this period? Perhaps, just perhaps.

 

11. Bug Club – On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System

Fuzzed up pop, cheeky lyrics and some smart pop mean the Bug Club once again grace our end of year album retrospective. And in Lonsdale Slipons they have one of the best tracks of the year. Fun, fun, fun.

10. Dehd – Poetry

Chicago three piece Dehd have sat and studied 90s alternative rock with the gusto of keen Lemonheadologists and Dinosaur Jnr scholars and transplanted it to the modern day. The result is this gem full of great tracks such as Dog Days, Mood Ring. Their best and most radio friendly album to date.

9. Fontaines DC – Romance

Fontaines DC may well be the best modern British Isles guitar rock band around and with each new album they get better and better. Live too they continue to excel. We’ve seen them numerous times, with the huge crowd at their headline show at the Park Stage at Glastonbury Festival this year the most recent. Here they showcased a number of tracks from this album, such as Here’s the Thing and Starbuster. Stadium sized tunes for a stadium sized band.

8. Sprints – Letter to Self

Another of our highlights from Glastonbury this year was Sprints set at the Leftfield stage. This Dublin four piece’s savvy take on punk impressed then and does too in their debut Letter to Self. Up and Comer is the standout single but there is so much more beside on this assured and consistently good collection.

7. Omni- Souvenir

Omni have always appealed to us with the choppy, intelligent post punk. But here on the US band’s fourth album they have earned a place in our end of year list. The songs are fast, fun and full of catchy hooks. By the end you want more. Plastic Pyramic, featuring Izzy Glaudini from Autmoatic, is one of many, many stand out tracks.

6. MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

Alt-country rock man MJ Lenderman, who is also part of the band Wednesday, is four albums deep into his solo work and this may well be the pick of the bunch. She’s Leaving You, which is among the rockier tracks, is one of several standouts. Meanwhile, the title track and Joker Lips are more on the country side. Its a wonderful listen.

5. English Teacher – This Could Be Texas

English Teacher, Glastonbury Festival 2024

It’s been quite the year for English Teacher, the Leeds band that were runner up in the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Contest two years ago and this year earned the prestigious Mercury Music Prize for their debut album This Could Be Texas. It’s a deserved accolade packed full or emotional post punk gems including RnB, Albatross, Broken Biscuits, Dffodils and The World’s Biggest Paving Slab. All now firmly fan favourites at gigs.

Read our full review here.

4. Field Music – Limits of Language

Another strong collection of two-to-three-minute slices of musical innovativeness and pop from the Sunderland act. Here all their influences are on hand  from Medications to Talking Heads, as well as acts they more accidentally sound like, especially XTC, Bowie’s Low and King Crimson.

There are certainly strong echoes of XTC’s Andy Partridge, with his mixture of jazz, pop and roll on The Guardian of Sleep, for example. The title track is perhaps the most ‘Field Music’ here, and would not have been out of place on any of their albums from 2010’s Measure onwards.

Read our full review here.

3. The Reds, Pinks and Purples – Unwishing Well

We are getting a bit obsessed with the tracks on this fourth album from The Reds, Pinks and Purples, which is largely the work of Glenn David Donaldson. Such lovely melodies all wrapped up in hazy, sunny indie-pop. Unwishing Well and opener What’s Going On With Ordinary  are among our highlights.

2. Kim Deal  – Nobody Loves You More

To be honest this solo album by Breeders star and former Pixie Kim Deal came as a surprise to us. Appearing towards the end of the year it is the album we never knew we needed, with Deal eschewing her indie rock credentials to have fun with a raft of genres. There are sweeping strings, such as on the title track, mixed with brassy horns (Coast) and hard electronica on (Big Ben Beat). Its ended up being very close to our album of the year. Perhaps it should even be top.

1.The Cure  – Songs of a Lost World

Another surprise for us was to love an album by The Cure since their mid 1980s chart bothering heyday. But here we are with the best album of the year. Yes the subject matter is sombre at times, but the music is so epic, as if each hook, thumping bass note and sweeping synth is being ripped straight from Robert Smith’s soul. The songs’ build up is a work of art,  with Smith’s raw vocals emerging after a full three minutes on opener Alone.  And on Endsong the band have created one of the all time greats for the best songs over 10 minutes collection we collect in our heads every now and again.

Compiled by Joe Lepper and Dorian Rogers. 

 

 

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