Tag: Alternative Rock

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 2022: Five honourable mentions

This year will mark the sixth time I’ve done one of these end of the year, best album countdowns. Last year, even lacking the energy and the real will to pull it off, I still managed to do a more toned-down, two-part series. This year I wanted to try and do my usual six part effort, even if the word counts for each post don’t get as lofty as usual*. My goal is to share my favourites out of all the great music released this year.

On any other year, this particular post wouldn’t even exist but for some reason, this year, I couldn’t get my list down to just ten albums, no matter how hard I tried. I just had to shout out a handful more. These five are not ranked but instead, listed in alphabetical order by artist name. (Don’t worry, I’ll get back to properly ranking with the next post.)

So you can consider this a taste of things to come and if you haven’t yet given these five albums a spin, hopefully my brief words and the sample Youtube link provided will get you on the right path. Cheers!

The Afghan Whigs “How do you burn”: I’d heard the name but never listened to the alternative band from Cincinnati, even in their first go-round in the 90s. If their intense ninth studio album (third since reuniting in 2011) is any indication, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
Check out: “A line of shots”

Andy Bell “Flicker”: For his second solo album, the founding member of Ride and former Oasis guitarist went full on double LP and it is full of swirling, ethereal, droning, and [continue to insert dream pop and psych rock adjectives here] beauty.
Check out: “Something like love”

King Hannah “I’m not sorry, I was just being me”: The debut album by this duo hailing from Liverpool, England is moody and atmospheric and cinematic, earning them favourable comparisons to Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, and maybe even Portishead.
Check out: “All being fine”

Dan Mangan “Being somewhere”: The Canadian indie folk troubadour has increased the atmospherics and production trickery on his seventh studio album but hasn’t dispensed with any of quiet but loud passion in the process.
Check out: “In your corner (for Scott Hutchison”

Sharon Van Etten “We’ve been going about this all wrong”: In my books, SVE has been one of the most consistent singer/songwriters on the indie scene in terms of producing excellent work on every outing and her sixth full-length studio might be favourite of the bunch to date.
Check out: “Mistakes”

*And even if I don’t manage to get all the posts in before the end of the year…

I’ll be back very soon with albums #10 through #6 for my Best albums of 2022 list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Stars “From Capelton Hill”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Stars
Album Title: From Capelton Hill
Year released: 2022
Details: Limited edition, gold foil

The skinny: In just a few short days, we should start to see some end of the year posts on these very pages, counting down my favourite albums of the year. And while (spoiler alert) the latest from Montreal-based indie pop quintet, Stars didn’t quite make the cut for 2022, it’s still a very fantastic record that is definitely worth your time. I’ve been following the group since they released the very fine “Set yourself on fire” back in 2004. Though that one is still considered by many to be the band’s high water mark, I am of the firm opinion that they have released many great albums over the years. Their 9th finds them doing exactly what they do best, literate and romantic indie pop, sometimes danceable and always immersible. I pre-ordered this gold foil, limited edition pressing off of the Last Gang Records’ (the group’s label) web store on the back of the title track and of course, the song below and have not been disappointed with the rest.

Standout track: “Pretenders”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #13 The Smashing Pumpkins “Disarm”

<< #14    |    #12 >>

For a while in the 1990s, I went off of American music, and to a lesser extent, Canadian music. For a newly minted music geek that felt he had just begun to experience the best that the alternate music world had to offer, Nirvana’s ascent on the scene and the life altering effect that had was like a death knell. And I don’t mean to get down on the Seattle-based trio here because it really was the fault of big music. The dollar signs shone bright green in their eyes and they followed their noses to the west coast, snapping up all the acts there, and when that was done, started sniffing out similar sounding acts the rest of the continent over and in some cases, tipping some more established acts into more consumer friendly territory.

Smashing Pumpkins predated the Seattle renaissance by a few months and their debut album, 1991’s “Gish”, already had prognosticators comparing them favourably to be the next Jane’s Addiction, who at that point were already on their way to implosion. The expectations were high with Virgin executives when the band went back to the studio with the now mystical producer Butch Vig to record their sophomore album. By all accounts, the sessions were fraught with difficulties – drugs and heartbreak and depression – but as we know, from adversity springs beauty and “Siamese dream” is widely considered one of the classic albums of the early 1990s.

I remember hearing them a lot on the radio and despite being initially turned off, given that they were being lumped in with the Seattle grunge heads, still found something palatable in their songs. Yeah, I knew they were from Chicago and wasn’t fooled by the hype machine, but I could also hear something different, an element in their sound that made me not want to turn off the radio. There was something theatrical there, owing more to the goths and noiserockers from the 80s. I went out and got a copy of “Siamese dream” on CD on the strength of these radio singles and quietly became a fan.

And now that I am spilling the beans here, I might as well admit that “Disarm” is the rod that reeled this music fan in. I mean, really… chugging acoustic strumming… haunting chimes… and dramatic intensity heightened by violin and cello strings. It is operatic in scope but not in sound. Billy Corgan spouts dangerous and strong words that got the song banned in some countries but in truth, this is just him dealing with the trauma and pain inflicted upon him by his parents during his youth.

“Disarm you with a smile
And cut you like you want me to
Cut that little child
Inside of me and such a part of you
Ooh, the years burn”

It’s a song that begs to be turned up loud and played on repeat and that I did, on both counts back in the day, often the volume knob easing slightly more clockwise with each listen. Great tune.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.