EBE Best of 2015 | Part IIEmpty Bottle Evenings

Jan052016January 5, 2016January 5, 2016No Commentby Bake

EBE Best of 2015 | Part II

Posted in Music

Here we go. My favorite 25 Albums of 2015. In case you missed Part I where I ponder Kendrick Lamar and go through my honorable mentions, click HERE.

25) Justin Townes Earle | Absent Fathers – JTE’s bluesy country musings on being ditched by his dad, romantic heartbreak, and trying to sort out your shit as an adult is my favorite morning album of the year. Not just because I revel in depression every time that I wake up, but because his soft and slow delivery matches my waking pace and I like the sound of pedal steel with my pancakes. Hey, don’t knock it until you try it. And if you want to start somewhere where this album, try the standout track “Call Ya Momma”.

24) Modest Mouse | Strangers to Ourselves – This album won’t win over too many new fans and it probably won’t bring back too many of those that left after The Moon & Antarctica but Strangers to Ourselves actually has a lot of the trademark Modest Mouse weirdness on here. There are a few misses but between heavy distorted jams and Isaac Brock’s nutty upbeat creations like “Lampshades on Fire”, “Sugar Boats”, and “The Best Room” there is more than enough here to enjoy.

23) Sufjan Stevens| Carrie & Lowell – The delicate folks songs are back and the bizarre electronica completely erased on this Sufjan album. It’s an extremely personal work about the death of his mostly estranged mother including details about his not so rosy childhood. I understand that he wasn’t going to write a 20 minute dance jam about that material but a more varied album with some of the upbeat songs like those on Illinois would have made this album more attractive to me. But it seems everyone else is thrilled with the sparse sounds centered on Stevens voice, and I can’t argue that it’s not beautiful even if just too sad to deal with at times.

22) Belle & Sebastian | Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance – More of the same indie-pop from my the only Scottish band any of us care about (probably). They also throw in a few disco-ish dance songs like “Party Line” and “Enter Sylvia Plath” which are actually prettay, prettay, prettay, pretty good. And then there’s “Perfect Couples” which I swear is a Talking Heads cover even though I can find no evidence of this.

21) John Moreland |High On Tulsa Heat – If you are going to listen to only one sad cowboy album this year, High on Tulsa Heat is that album. Try listening to “Cherokee” and you’ll get the feel for his sound. Moreland’s gravelly but steady voice is the main attraction but it’s not all vocals like early William Elliot Whitmore, there are solidly fleshed out alt country jams here too. And you people said nothing good ever came out of Tulsa, OK. (Note: “you people” in this instance means me. I’m the Tulsa hater.)

20) Florence & Machine | How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful – Unless Florence Welch’s voice has a Steven Tyler-esque decline any album that she puts out is likely going to end up on a list of my personal favorites. Like the previous two albums there are few tracks on here that I could live without, but the good songs here make this album worthy of repeat listening. If you’ve heard any of the four singles from this record (“What Kind of Man”, “Ship to Wreck”, “Queen of Peace”, “Delilah”) you should have a pretty good idea of what this sounds like. Coincidentally, those are probably my 4 favorite tracks.

19) Heartless Bastards | Restless Ones – I feel like I should have heard of this band before as this is their 5^th album but, eh, who gives a shit. I’m still digesting this record before diving into their previous work, but so far I’m a fan. A few songs drag but for the most part this album won’t make you restless. Wink. I’ve seen a few different ways to describe this band from garage rock to arena rock (don’t they seem like opposites?), from blues to indie, and from country to psychedlic. I guess all of those descriptors are true to a point, but that’s mostly irrelevant. It’s just a rock album and it sounds good. That’s all that matters, right?

18) Chvrches | Every Open Eye – This is the kind of ’80s reminiscent electronic pop music that the inner curmudgeon in me would rally against demanding to know where the hell the guitar is. But… I just find this album enjoyable for some reason. I fully acknowledge this is the kind of music I might hear either at the kind of bar/club that I would not fit in at or in a movie from my childhood, possibly staring Fred Savage or Madonna. It’s still good pop music.

17) Hop Along | Painted Shut – I also had not heard of this band but it looks like they haven’t been around too long so maybe I should be forgiven. On the other hand, they are from Philadelphia so where the hell were we on the Philly Concert Picks for this band. Maybe Beef Wellington isn’t a fan. But he should give them a chance and so should you. They’re sort of a blend of today’s indie bands and the 90s grunge bands like Hole or L7. So today’s indie rock with a few cooler guitar riffs and more balls. And yes, their singer, Frances Quinlan, is female. And yes, she can sing. Sexist.

16) Keith Richards| Crosseyed Heart – The most impressive thing that his old bastard did in 2015 was out live Lemmy. The 2^nd most impressive is how fucking good his solo album is. There is a lot of of blues and the kind of classical guitar mixed with rock that Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) is known for. My dad would love this album. I tried to buy it for him for Christmas but the store was actually sold out. This is the old man album of the year.

15) Desaparecidos | Payola – Starting off the new album after a 13 year hiatus with an anthemic blast of Springsteen-ian proportions was a strange but satisfying choice. The rest of the album, although closer to the punk and synth tracks of their long ago debut, are also good. Most of all I’m just happy to hear more overtly political lyrics from people who seem to hate all the bullshit going on in America as much as me. It doesn’t really change anything but it feels good to not be alone.

14) Bop English | Constant Bop – This album is for the rare moments when you wake up fully rested and feel fantastic. It’s a fun record that sounds like M. Ward drank a ton of caffeine, listened to Dear Catastrophe Waitress, and decided to record a pop album. There’s all sorts of things going on here so if I call Constant Bop “fun” or “sunny”, it feels like an insult. There is depth here musically and in the production, and of all the albums on here this may be the one that continues to grow on me into 2016. I didn’t find out about this album until late into the year, but if I knew about it in April when it was released it would probably be even higher on the list.

13) Lucero | All a Man Should Do – This a well-crafted, enjoyable album but as I wrote about before it feels more like a Ben Nichols solo indulgence. I, like most Lucero fans I imagine, like their albums with a little more spirit and “gruffness”. I’m not saying they need to record bar band rockers like they were putting out in the early 2000s and I love the fuller horn-centric arrangements that have been present for the last few records, but this album is a little too soft. Having said that, I enjoy a lot of the songs where Nichols is emulating Van Morrison instead of Joe Cocker if he was a drunk punk country singer. If that didn’t make sense to you then you probably need more whiskey. Or I need less.

12) Ryan Adams | 1989 – I love this album. I love it so much that sometimes I try to go back and listen to the originals before realizing that I still can’t stand Taylor Swift. But I can understand why these songs are universally relatable. Still, for me there is no comparison in her versions to Adam’s at least when it comes to “Blank Space”, “Bad Blood”, and “Wildest Dreams”. If I didn’t know that Adam’s didn’t write these songs I might rank this album higher but even if this album sounds great I’m still assessing him a penalty for having to rip off Tay fucking Sway.

11) Josh Ritter| Sermon on the Rocks – Ritter bounces back here from his break up and subsequent break up album (The Beast in Its Tracks) by turning things up and having fun again. Yes, he’s a great songwriter, but every song writer doesn’t need to limit themselves to a sad story and an acoustic guitar. Upbeat pop-rock tracks like “Young Moses” and “Getting Ready to Get Down” show the fun side of Ritter not seen since 2007’s The Historical Conquests… while more subdued tracks like “Henrietta, Indiana” and “The Stone” are equally solid and are the real payoff off for his fans favoring the more introspective side of his music. Although on the plus side, these include other non-acoustic instruments too.

10) JD McPherson | Let the Good Times Roll – I’m a sucker for the music of the 50s and early 60s. Apparently so is McPherson. His blend of old timey rock n roll, motown, blues, soul, and any of the other lost but not forgotten genres was one of my favorite albums that no one else seemed to really give a shit about this year. Sure, its nothing you (or your grandparents) haven’t heard before but it’s a change of pace from most of the stuff out there today. And most of the sounds imitated on Let The Good Times Roll haven’t been explored much in years with the exception of “Bossy” which seems to steal a riff from the Black Keys “Stack Shot Billy” which sounds a lot like Moby’s “Natural Blues”, which of course sampled Vera Hall’s “Trouble so Hard”. Sooo basically it’s a good thing to rip off the past.

9) Rocky Votolato | Hospital Handshakes – Votolato is typically at his best when he’s singing strained and depressing songs over his acoustic but on Hospital Handshakes he does a better than expected job at creating a pretty standard alt-rock album. I know that sounds like a negative thing, but some of these full band tracks like “The Hereafter” and “White-Knuckles” are now some of my favorite Rocky songs. I would be disappointed if every album he made going forward was like this but I’m impressed that he tried something this different and it worked out so well. And just to make sure that everyone knew he didn’t forget how to write a melancholic musical folk tale, the final track “The Finish Line” delivers a satisfying final note.

8) My Morning Jacket | The Waterfall – I don’t think that I’m going out on much of a limb to say that MMJ’s peak was their middle two albums. Yes, there are good songs on the two albums before & after this peak, but It Still Moves and Z is the heart of this band that keeps bringing people back. Once you get past the fact they will probably never make another album like that it’s a whole lot easier to appreciate their other work. The Waterfall doesn’t have any epic guitar solos like “One Big Holiday” but it has this all-encompassing, mellow, big spacey feel that is great if you let yourself relax enough to enjoy it. I didn’t really get into it when it first came out and Cam didn’t either, but once you stop comparing it to their best work and just take in the whole atmospheric, psychedelic, world-music-like sounds and get high, you’ll be listening to this album while you watch videos of nature’s greatest waterfalls in no time.

7) Mumford & Sons| Wilder Mind – You’re all a bunch of traitors. They drop the banjo and everyone pretends that they were loving banjo in their music before 2007. Now the band is DEAD to them. Even with the folk and bluegrass furnishings Mumford & Sons was a pop rock band. That said I still liked their banjo heavy pop-rock songs, and I like their now The National-influenced pop-rock songs. In fact, the album opener “Tompkins Square Park” screams The National more than any other song and it was probably my most listened song of 2015. I guess it’s possible that people just don’t like that brooding sound, but songs like “Believe”, “Snake Eyes”, and “Ditmas” sound downright uplifting.

6) Of Monsters & Men | Beneath the Skin – Knocked or ignored because it’s not as poppy and catchy as their debut, this is still a highly enjoyable album. It might take a few more listens to get attached but once you do you’ll notice more things you like about it. Plus the dueling m/f vocals are still there and strong as ever so what else could you ask for? Ok, sure you could ask for a lot, but it’s not my fault that you’re greedy. They’re still talking about wolves and all the things people worry about in Iceland (probably?) so that hasn’t changed, it’s just the rare sequel that has more depth. Between Nanna and Raggi’s voices and the arena style drumming this album sounds fucking huge, so crank it up and scare the crap out of your cat. What, just me?

5) Kurt Vile | B’lieve I’m Goin Down – This is the album that I figured Vile had made last time around when everyone lost their underpants, even if it’s a few years later I’m happy that I can truly enjoy something that he created. While I saw appeal in his earlier work, B’lieve I’m Goin Down has enough variation from his signature spaced-out jams on songs like “Pretty Pimpin” and “I’m An Outlaw” that the whole thing works for me. Who knew what a few banjo licks and a dash of jazz could do? Still the majority of this album is Vile’s almost spoken-word vocals and his distortion heavy jams so it won’t hit everyone the same. But everyone can go screw, I’m going to put this on again now and watch Planet Earth on mute.

4) Dawes | All Your Favorite Bands – Guitar solos. This is the reason why this album ranks so high for me. As discussed ad nauseum, a lot of music put out today has no guitar at all, let alone solos. In the genres of rock that still believe in guitar its often the fast paced, 3-chord variety (punk), the jangly and limited (indie), and the talented but overly aggressive (metal). Dawes have always been known to be talented but it’s on this album that they finally show a willingness to jam out a little and display that talent. With guitar solos several tracks throughout the record it stands out from everything else that I listened to in 2015. It’s still not hard rocking, but it’s tight and beautiful, reminiscent of ’70s root rock. They’re not fast, loud, or jangly, instead they’re filling a hole that similar sounding bands are either are not interested or not talented enough to try.

3) Nathaniel Rateliff & the Nights Sweats| Self-Titled – My 2^nd album on this list that glorifies the music of the past and the genres I’ve so wisely dubbed “the music of The Blues Brothers”. I know I’m a professional critic here, a real musical scholar. But seriously, did it not bother anyone else that “The Blues Brothers” was a film that focused more on Soul? I guess not. And really, it shouldn’t, because you can sometimes bring together soul and old school blues, and music you might call “Rhythm & Blues”, and rock n’ roll, and it will sound delicious. Rateliff and the Nights Sweats went for this combination on their debut disc and I couldn’t listen to it enough. The only downside was the music rabbit-hole that it often would send me spiraling down into to get a greater feel for the music of decades past that inspired it.

2) Frank Turner | Positive Songs for Negative People – Sometimes you just want something to rock out to and be happy with. This album isn’t making a grand statement musically or lyrically, it’s just a handful of poppy punk songs and a few acoustic tracks that make you feel good about music and life in general. I’ve heard criticism from some that this is album is sort of a dumbing down of Turner’s previous work, but sometimes life feels weighty enough. As a self described negative person I’m more than content with these “positive songs”.

1) The Decemberists| What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World – I don’t want to write too much on this album because this post is already extremely long and because last February I wrote over a thousand words on this band/album so all I can say is that I throughout 2015 I never got sick of this album. It’s the best combination of talent, creativity, and usage of the genres (indie, rock, pop, alt-country) that I favor most. Some songs are influenced by older sounds like many of the other albums I liked this year, while other songs are modern, but all of them are penned with solid lyrics. I don’t know how I’ll feel about this album 10 years from now, but at this moment it’s the best.