39.
Imperial Wax Solvent: pure surge and shudder, the heaviest, grimiest, most guttural Fall of all. Not just the best Fall record for three years, or five years, or eighteen years… IWS is powerful enough to pin you in the present, bellow in your face until all you understand is this, here, now – and what the hell are you doing with your life that it doesn’t match up to this? By the time you remember that it’s not the best record The Fall have ever made, it’s too late. It might as well be.The FallImperial Wax SolventCastle, 2008
38.
Over the course of several album-length collaborations with emcees established and new alike, L’Orange has been building rap’s version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: an imagined world where all the pieces interlock, but with each chapter digestible and relatable on its own. Arguably the best of an extravagantly wonderful bunch is this, a crime-themed team-up with Warp-affiliated rapper Jeremiah Jae, where the pair blend gangsta rap with film noir atmospherics to create something immediately accessible yet entirely unprecedented.LOrange and Jeremiah JaeThe Night Took Us In Like FamilyMello Music Group, 2015
37.
BBF is a rare example of an album that invites both arty introspection and head nodding. Much like Blunt himself, BBF is not always easy to love. But that makes the eventual rewards even more satisfying.Babyfather”BBF” Hosted By DJ EscrowHyperdub, 2016
36.
What Black Masses represents is another slight and intelligent side-stepping of the group’s now tried-and-tested formula, with the overall feel of the record being that it’s the sort of thing that Toni Iommi might have recorded were he the protagonist in a H.P Lovecraft novel, and you were listening to the results whilst being experimented on in an air pumpElectric WizardBlack MassesRise Above, 2010
35.
Slave Vows is a masterpiece, its black-hearted explosions and sordid vibes coming from a darker place than most of those pantomiming their way through rock & roll. But while there’s bleakness here, there’s also that sulphurous sound of resistance, of high drama at very real stakes.The Icarus LineSlave VowsAgitated, 2013
34.
Tinged with Suicide, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, sounds that hark back to their original meeting in Atlanta and which pay homage to their official formation in London, The Underside of Power is both the latest chapter in a long-running and universal story that seems to be nearing climax, and solid, sonic proof that Algiers are capable of not just acting with their hearts, but ripping them out and offering them up on record.AlgiersThe Underside Of PowerMatador, 2017
33.
While the album opens with the chiming of a 12 string, it slowly morphs into elektronische musik before sliding blissfully under layers of super heated sludge guitar and noise. By the time the ecstatic synths are met by necrotic black metal vocals, nothing about this album will surprise you, which is good thing, given that it shifts through sparse BM moves that remind one of Norwegian second wavers Thorns and through the arboreal drones of early Growing, before ending on a celestial cover of Nico’s ‘My Only Child’ with speaker destroying drone metal.Stara RzekaCień chmury nad ukrytym polemInstant Classic, 2013
32.
The album has its light and witty side, like on ‘Sigourney Weaver’ and ‘JC Hates Faggots’ where Grant uses a framework of popular culture reference points to act as a backdrop to the often-excruciating emotional upheaval. Otherwise, it feels like the whole 42 years of Grant’s life are crammed into just over fifty minutes, from his pain at his parents’ reaction to his sexuality through to moving paeans to the enigmatic lovers who have made up his romantic life, sung about most beautifully on ‘It’s Easier’ and ‘Where Dreams Go To Die’.John GrantQueen Of DenmarkBella Union, 2010
31.
Scott’s youthful nihilism may very well be a branded put-on, but with narcotized lifestyles now so very en vogue he speaks both to and for more people than his stubborn detractors realise. Tracks like ‘Beibs In The Trap’ and ‘Goosebumps’ immerse listeners into a virtual world populated by warped sonics and honeyed vocals. Simple yet effective, ‘SDP Interlude’ makes his ethos clear. On the referential and essential ‘Through The Late Night,’ fellow rap crooner Kid Cudi comes through with his blessing.Travis ScottBirds In The Trap Sing McKnightEpic, 2016
30.
’’The Hidden Door’ marries the slick propulsion of 80s Tangerine Dream with the 60s bohemia of the Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’. This last track in particular chimes well with Jupp’s concept of ‘eternalism’, where time is superimposed on itself and every sound and reference holds equal weight.Belbury PolyFrom An Ancient StarGhost Box, 2009
29.
Dragging rock ‘n’ roll from the rural and out into the true folk heartland where it belongs, this was plugged-in rock music at its most literate. When future historians want to dig deep into British life at the dawn of a new age, the answers will be found here in songs like ‘A Trip Out’, ‘No Lucifer’, ‘Waving Flags’ and ‘Atom’, soaring anthems one and all – songs to leave you dizzy and ruddy-cheeked like a skinny dip in a moon-lit fresh water stream, songs that blow away the cobwebs of ennui and cynicism like a blast of fresh air at the summit of HelvellynDo You Like Rock Music?Rough Trade, 2008
28.
When I discovered them, we went to Australia shortly after and I said ‘can we get these guys to open for us?’ I was quickly told, ‘no, they’re way bigger than you in Australia. Don’t be silly’. We haven’t played together. I got to see them once at the Cake Shop in New York. I don’t know what it is but this record kind of reminds me of the sort of rawest parts of AC/DC or the most loose parts of Pink Flag.Eddy Current Suppression RingPrimary ColoursAarght!, 2008
27.
Restless reinvention is to be admired, but reconsideration and striving for personal perfection is to be prized. While Frahm’s previous penchant for the former has given him a brilliant and varied book of songs from which to draw, it’s his intense performance and passionate adoption of the latter which makes Spaces a work of gentle genius.Nils FrahmSpacesErased Tapes, 2013
26.
This is a smart record whose textures become more powerful with each successive play. Most intriguing of all is the way in which two artists that have previously remained within the expectations of a certain stylised approach have drawn each other carefully out of their comfort zones. Surely, one senses, this is a triumph that exceeds their own hopes. Once you find yourself lost in these musical structures, it’s difficult to find a way out. That is fine by me.Jah Wobble & Julie CampbellPsychic LifeCherry Red, 2011
25.
Crucially for a UK producer making inroads into a region already saturated with copyists, though, Classical Curves is inventive. Rhythms are mutable, Latham’s ear for a melodic motif is appreciably off-kilter and, though house (as current UK dancefloor vogue) is rarely far away, it’s never explicitly referred to. These well-balanced assemblages of fine-sanded glass, rubber, faux-leather and greased pistons always sound like Jam City tracks, rather than cobbled together facsimiles of existing styles. They make for one of the most interesting album-length listens to come from a UK club producer in a while, and serve as a reminder that many sub-heavy dancefloors post-dubstep ought often to be demanding more for their money.Jam CityClassical CurvesNight Slugs, 2012
24.
With so much going on, it could lose its way, but instead Visions has a sort of timelessness to it. The purest, most beautiful moment is ‘Skin’, a bareboned Prince-via-Burial-via Julee Cruise ballad where Boucher’s breathes in her ether-light falsetto “you touch me within / And so I thought I could be human once again”, showing off a Carey-esque melismatic trill, offset by a chanted, pulsing chorus. It’s a heart-stopping moment, and testimony to the power of what you can do when you just please yourself. Is that pop music, then? Honestly, who bloody cares.GrimesVisions4AD, 2012
23.
Unlike the first two chapters, which dealt with more explicit stories delivered through more conventional musical structures, River Run Thee hones in on the tragedy and violence that lay at the core of the slave trade, coiled like murderous snakes. Matana Roberts’ music is similarly taut, bristling with angry textures and gasps of accusatory outbursts.Matana RobertsCOIN COIN Chapter Three: River Run TheeConstellation, 2015
22.
By rights no group should be peaking after 30 years of making music together, yet that is the situation in which Oxbow find themselves. Will they ever transcend Thin Black Duke? Such are the ideas and attention to detail on this record, only a fool would bet against them.OxbowThin Black DukeHydra Head, 2017
21.
This album is full of radical empathy – radical in the sense that it extends to everyone. In ‘Mekong Glitter’, it even extends to Gary Glitter, getting a blowjob from a child. “Why? Don’t you ever ask why?” chants the chorus, when it finally arrives two-thirds of the way through the song. By that point, we’ve already plunged into that forever-compelling motorik Glitter-Band beat along with sythesized gone-awry noodles, fuzz and feedback; it is glorious. It is glorious even as you hear the seedy and racist and clumsy innuendo, the boorish barking backing vocals. They are crossing a line here. But (to paraphrase EL Doctorow) if you’re not transgressing then what’s the point?Insecure MenInsecure MenFat Possum, 2018
20.
Of course, Journal For Plague Lovers will do nothing to convert the haters; for them, the Manics have always been a poor man’s Clash playing second-hand hair metal riffs. But that view does the band a disservice — their inner turmoil always elevated them above that status. For the majority of admirers who have been consistently disappointed by what followed Everything Must Go, this latest outing will be a cause for celebration: not only is Edwards providing his idiosyncratic words once again, but his bandmates have risen with grace to meet those lofty standards.
