Deaf Center — “Owl Splinters”
There’s a moment at the 4:52 mark of “Close Forever Watching”, the penultimate track on Owl Splinters, where Otto Totland and Erik Skodvin get as close as anyone has this year to making my heart stop. It’s at this interval that song’s rumbling crescendo of static and strings suddenly plummets, absorbed into the vacuum of a single piano note. Splinters, for all of its creeping dread and thick clouds of brimstone, is full of this sort of thing; subtle, carefully calculated touches that you can’t help but meet with an immediate jaw drop. While it’s been called “tame” or “hushed in comparison to the duo’s more outwardly cinematic debut, it’s unquestionably the work of two seasoned experts—ones that separte limp, navel-gazing ambient + drone from the kind with fangs. What are you waiting for? Step into the Black Lodge.
mp3 // Deaf Center - Divided
BOAT — “Dress Like Your Idols”
Not a day goes by where the melody of a Dress Like Your Idols track doesn’t get lodged in the back of my skull, prompting an immediate display of humming and/or air guitar (depending on my company). This would be irritating if the songs in question weren’t such perfectly carved slabs of pop, each one more anthemic and wildly infectious than the last. While the homage-filled cover art hat-tips everyone from Elliott Smith to the Velvets, this is undoubtedly a record for the disciples of 90’s indie—kid’s who’ve spent countless long afternoons staring at ceiling fans and spinning Alien Lanes and Crooked Rain on repeat. Whether it be through his Malkmus-channeling vocal quirks and Doug Martsch-y guitar on tracks like “Kinda Scared of Love Affairs”, D. Crane isn’t afraid to *literally* wear his influences on his sleeve, and the music’s all the better for it. This stuff may not be as cerebral or densely layered as the other choices on this list, but it’s raw, heartfelt, and catchy as all hell—ain’t that enough?
Bill Callahan — “Apocalypse”
Listening to Apocalypse, Callahan’s 3rd album proper since hanging up his tried-and-true Smog moniker, it becomes glaringly obvious that the guy who wrote “A Hit” is no longer with us. Like the protagonists who navigate the long, winding roads of his songs, he’s moved on to different horizons, settling down into a more comfortable, Americana-inflected sound. While this change means we might not get any more razor-edged guitar numbers like the kind peppering Dongs of Sevotion, it also makes for tracks like the magnificent “Riding for the Feeling”, which, for my money, is one of the best he’s ever penned. From the stomping, string-flecked opener “Drover” to the veritable mission statement of “One Fine Morning” (more on that here), this is a powerful, well-rounded statement—one that proves Callahan still has plenty to say.
Braids — “Native Speaker”
I don’t care how often you’ve heard it; it demands to be said again: Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s voice is not of this earth. Though Braids have many talents to their name—notably their ability to craft lush, achingly beautiful cathedrals of sound—this is undoubtedly the thing that makes them stick amidst the endless throngs of psych-leaning pop acts. It’s been 7 months since I first cracked this thing open and I still get shivers each time “Glass Deers” kicks into its mid-track vocal acrobatics; such is the nature of Native Speaker’s sorcery. This thing may not be the year’s most convention-smashing, groundbreaking debut (though I hardly think it’s a Feels rip-off), but it’s certainly among the finest—one rivaled only by Black Up and Past Life Martyred Saints in its ability to continually surprise and engross.
mp3 // Braids - Lammicken
