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NME's Top 50 Albums of 2014
Clark’s readiness to be freakish and alone has translated into her songwriting, which is bolder than ever, and out to connect.
Sweet, soulful little man that he is, Mac knows better than to let his bellyaching get in the way of everyone else's good time — instead, he’s simply dialled down the quirk and written his best record yet.
2011’s ‘Slave Ambient’ may have been a cult success, but this follow-up is a fast-flowing gully to mainstream domination.
‘Syro’ is amazing: bug-eyed, banging rave that sounds quintessentially Aphex while not quite sounding like anything he’s done before. It makes zero concessions to the modern day.
This fourth Caribou record encapsulates his whole career. Unwrap its rainbow artwork and you’ll find the plush harmonics of 2007’s ‘Andorra’ (‘Second Chance’), ‘Swim’’s cold, oscillating synths (‘Dive’) and Daphni’s strict beats (‘Mars’).
It's been a tortuous half-decade that's found Jackson riven with anxiety in the aftermath of her debut, to the point where she couldn't even sing, but she comes out reborn.
‘Carry On The Grudge’ is an inspired modern breakdown album in the vein of such cathartic classics as the Manic Street Preachers' ‘The Holy Bible’. It’s London low-life viewed from the other end of the telescope, and the view is dejected but divine.
'Rips' draws skilfully from the twang of CBGB-era punk, glam's robust swagger and Go-Gos pop-punk, imbuing the likes of small-town howl 'New Kid' with the assurance that comes from two decades spent playing in bands
Get past the initial jolt of weirdness and you'll find in his delivery a soul-puncturing cry from the very frontlines of life, able to evoke both desperate tragedy and skyscraping joy all at once.
The 10-year break has obviously served DFA 1979 well. They have returned hungry and wired to shake us out of our digital comas.
The seductive music, with its Bon Iver found-sound creaks and crackles of static, its colliery laments, its gothic calypsos and its full-on Magnetic Fields alt-showtunes invite intimacy and the slow picking away of its layers. Albarn pulls you close and whispers the codes of his life into your ear.
Cranking the urgency and confrontation of last year's self-titled debut to neck-breaking levels of intensity, 'RTJ2' is an urgent, paranoid album for a violent, panicked time.
For all the ugliness that spills out of Eagulls, they’re never anything less than vital; these are anthems for a doomed youth determined to kick against the pricks rather than mope forlornly and fruitlessly.
This, then, is Iceage gleefully torching their legacy and dancing in the ashes. And expanding their horizons hasn’t mellowed them, but made them even more discomforting.
As a performance poet, Tempest is good, in a sort of ‘on before Robin Ince in the Latitude literary tent’ kind of way. As a rapper, though, she’s excellent, balancing deft flow and dense storytelling to the detriment of neither.
... a varied album that lacks any monster riffs like the ones White used to write for The White Stripes, but includes enough intrigue, originality and plain weirdness to delight and, in some places, appal.
This pervading sense of control and commitment to her art proves that Twigs is set on building the sound of the future all by herself.
'To Be Kind' is not easy or pleasant; it will probably repel and confuse as much as it inspires. It’s a Hieronymous Bosch painting come to life, impossible to tear your eyes away from despite the grotesque atrocities it depicts.
The cocky confidence that barrelled them into the big time might just be losing momentum - a band made of bold leaps have started dipping toes.
Its title is a biblically bold declaration accompanied by 11 songs that put the 27-year-old’s worldview in no uncertain terms: disinterested in the attentions of others and steadfastly committed to honouring her own intentions and experience.
The line between self-aware irony and tragically conforming to type is thin, though, her knowing winks getting stuck in a tangle of false eyelashes, and ultimately undermining what had the potential to be a powerful artistic statement.
‘Too Bright’ isn't quite as tough as Hadreas made it seem. Rather, it's a collection of enthralling confessionals where stabs of bleakness mean that heavy bleeding dominates.
‘Jungle’ is a record designed to seep from barbeques the breadth of 2014, an ultra-modern rewiring of funk for Generation Y.
Like Morrissey’s last grand return from hiatus, 2004’s ‘You Are The Quarry’, there’s that same undefeatable spirit, the sense that he thrives on being the fly in the ointment.
Nothing on this record fails to impress.
If ‘The Fool’ presented them as ethereal hippies with musical nous, ‘Warpaint’ drives them forward as masters of their talent, seriously loaded with ambition and prowess.
Although there is the occasional overwrought lyric, and nothing ground-breaking here in terms of song structure or instrumentation, the emotion in the delivery makes up for it.
The result is an LP that feels more in sync with contemporary music than ever before. There are notes here of Oneohtrix Point Never, Clams Casino, and Tim Hecker. Crucially, though, ‘Present Tense’ roams a landscape which couldn’t have been charted by anyone else.
Kozelek has a novelist’s eye for detail, and right from languid opener ‘Carissa’ – a song about his second cousin – he paints a vivid world and invites you to see it through his eyes.
'Sunbathing Animal' is not an immediate or cushy listen, but it is gripping; a considered and brutal reminder that Parquet Courts’ aren’t necessarily an accessible band.
Compared to its predecessor, the production is snappier and helps lift the veil on their righteous noise. What lies beneath is frequently glorious, especially in the second half
The hullaballoo over these guerrilla releases can often detract from the music itself, making it appear secondary to the circumstances of its release. ... ‘Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes’, thankfully, does not.
‘This Is All Yours’ engulfs you like a deep forest. Alt-J Mk II, then: an impressive expansion, with hugely improved connectivity.
After years of chopping and changing, Bombay Bicycle Club have finally found an iteration worth sticking with.
There is no showboating or ostentatiousness on ‘The Hum’; it’s a different record to ‘Pearl Mystic’, but also a logical continuation and, in some ways, a companion piece.
On record, though, Gibbs’ coarsely inventive flow works perfectly with Madlib’s imperfectly human beats.
Melodies are buried alive under a tonne of aural dirt, delivered in frequencies that hurt your organs.
The doomed relationship cycle in eternal motion or the sound of a heart that won’t stay mended, ‘Honeyblood’ is visceral pop music giving its prettiest snarl.
The model lovechild of Jim Morrison, Marc Bolan, John Hassall and Timothy Leary, singer James Edward Bagshaw is a true cosmic dancer, but he’s no fool either, with one keen eye on dragging the psych revival chartward.
It would be hard to argue that Interpol are as vital as they once were - even with such an accomplished new work under their belts - but, fifth time round, they're proving there's still plenty of value in their elegantly downtrodden aesthetic.
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