One thing you may not know? I write this list effectively backwards - start with the entry on #1, and work my way back down to #10. So what you're about to read was written before what you read already. If you already read part one. Written after this part two. Alrighty? Do you read me? Right-o! Ahem.
Let's get back into my personal choices for Best Albums of 2018, counting down the Top 10...
5. The Record Company - All of This Life. Week to week, this album and Number Six, Kyle Craft's Full Circle Nightmare, traded spots on my personal playlist. List position was a toss-up between the two. I guess The Record Company wins for a couple of reasons. Saw them live more recently, so I still kind of have a show afterglow. And because "I'm Getting Better (And I'm Feeling It Right Now)" has become an anthem for me - one of my favorite songs this year! It just kicks ass:
I'm about the furthest thing from a blues purist. Know the chords, know the progressions, but the basic blues pretty much bores me. Sorry. I need you to do more with it. The Record Company plays pretty straight-ahead blues rock. And yet? They do something else with it - that I can't define! How cool is that? And, whatever that something is? Makes me excited. I wanna jump up and sing and dance and scream along! Even when it is something as traditional as "Roll Bones" - go figure.
4. Lo Moon - Lo Moon. This self-titled debut from the Los Angeles-based trio was a long time in coming. I'd been looking forward to its release since the first "single" - the 7-minute plus "Loveless" - appeared - in September 2016! This is finely-crafted art-pop with ethereal overtones and occasional wanderings into Prog Rock spaces, though I hesitate to mention that because of some people's Anti-Prog biases. Lo Moon owes something to the mid 80's sound of Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, Talk Talk and artists of their ilk, as you can hear on the album closer, a favorite, "All In":
Feel a little guilty including "Loveless" as the second representative track, I think because it's probably been in my lists 3 times, now! But it is that good. It hooked me and made me anticipate this album's release for almost a year-and-a-half!
3. Darlingside - Extralife. At the end of last year, when Don and Harris from Darlingside were driving up to deliver the first single "Eschaton" from this new album to radio, back when I was still with The Point, their GPS mis-led them to the station's transmitter site, on top of a mountain. Harris still tells that story live, as I discovered when I saw them this past Friday night! Great show, and for the first time in the larger room, the ballroom, at Higher Ground. It looked close to sold out! They invited me to the show and put me on their guest list, very cool. It's nice to be remembered personally, apart from my former radio station and employer.
So great to see their ever-growing crowds. Also great? They truly value the help I gave them along the way when I was with The Point, and acknowledge that support - it is nice to be embraced that way by a band. Does that bias me towards them? Yeah, probably. So what? They make amazing music. Listen to their amazing, tight and intricate 4-part harmonies on "Futures":
They demonstrate a playful intelligence in their lyrics, aptly demonstrated on the aforementioned "Eschaton" - which, though it recalled for me Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus Trilogy, they explained took it's name from the game in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. So there! And, curiously, given my earlier remark on A Perfect Circle's "So Long...", the word "eschaton" itself refers to the end of the world or God's apocalypse. Simply synchronicity, I assure you:
It's also a damn fine song, a piece of work that demonstrates the strong sense of harmony and melody possessed by Darlingside, while also showing off their quirky, experimental nature and their hybrid blending of the traditional and the futuristic. A fitting snapshot of both the band and this particular album.
We finish with a struggle! At least, an internal one - decisions, decisions... Can my Number One Album be a TIE? No. There are rules here, even if they are arbitrary and I'm imposing them on myself. That said? My Top Two albums are so close they're like those giant multi-ton stones in ancient megalithic rock walls where you can't even slide a slip of paper between them. So close.
2. The Moondoggies - A Love Sleeps Deep. Almost my album of the year. I've been watching this band since hearing the promise in their 2nd album, 2010's Tidelands. A Love Sleeps Deep fulfills that promise, and then some! Instantly loved the lead track "Easy Coming", our first taste of the album to come.
The Moondoggies have a powerful, traditional rock sound, their harmony vocals, organ, guitar, bass and drum driven mix occasionally echoing (heh) pre-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd, and even the majestic sounds of Cream or Leslie West's Mountain (so much more than "Mississippi Queen" - listen to "Theme for An Imaginary Western"! But I digress...).
I don't mean that the band sounds "retro". The Moondoggies sound is their own, however much I use those older bands as referential shortcuts. The mood they create is evocative, reminds me of walking through the forest after a rainstorm, the smell of woodsmoke in the air - maybe that's their native Pacific Northwest coming through, I don't know.
When I put on the album, as "Easy Coming" - also the album's opening track - led into "Cinders", which directly and beautifully segued into "Match", I knew we had an album here. There's a creativity and an ingenuity in their work, as we find in the unexpected fever dream in the middle of "Sick in Bed". They rock, too, as proven on "Soviet Barn Fire" and "My Mother".
The stunning album closer and nearly-title track "Underground (A Love Sleeps Deep)" manages to bring all of the above together into an amazing and powerful eight-and-a-half minute sonic voyage the like of which I've not heard in quite some time. You need to know bands still make music like this:
Some years, A Love Sleeps Deep would have easily earned the top spot on my list. It almost did this year. But then, Frank Turner came back with a strong return to form musically that also showed remarkable personal insight and growth on his part. Sorry, Moondoogies.
1. Frank Turner - Be More Kind. My album of the year. The title track came before the album, back in February, and never left my mental jukebox headspace. I'll give this away, since you've read this far - it's my favorite song of the year as well. Just listen to it:
With such a powerful title track, when the official first single "Blackout" came out it seemed a weaker choice. Didn't know what to expect from the album at that point. I'm a long-time fan of Frank's, and while I appreciate his glossier commercial songs, I love his more raw, more personal, less detached tunes. Sure, there's a value in those more universal, open, poppier songs, in that they're doorways that draw folks into Frank's world and music. But it's when we hear his heart in a melody and lyric that he really connects with us, as above. Or when he has a bit of fun, as in "Make America Great Again":
Luckily, as a whole, Be More Kind - the album - is a nice blend of FT's different styles - sometimes sincere, often playful, here somewhat punky, there verging on pop-y, and always, as ever, somewhat wry and cynical with a hint of optimism. And hope. That's the beauty, here - there is hope. There's a rather basic message behind the entire album: if things seem shitty, how's about doing your best not to make them shittier? And? Maybe, just maybe? Even try to do some good.
Be More Kind is a great musical response to the madness of the world circa 2018. If you love rock n' roll and you've not heard Frank Turner yet, do yourself a favor and pick this up. And then get his England Keep My Bones (2011) because it's a masterpiece. Just sayin'.
Thanks for reading through my Best Albums of 2018! I hope I've turned you on to some new music you might not have heard otherwise. As promised last time, here's a Spotify playlist with a bunch of songs from the Best Albums of 2018:
A reminder - I'm still on the radio! Internet radio, streaming radio, on WBKM! WBKM.org. You can go there and click twice on the player to listen, or just grab the App for iOs: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wbkm/id1408550221?mt=8.
And? My Glow-in-the-Dark Radio science fiction podcast is about to hit its 500th Episode! That happens Saturday - check it out at http://glowinthedarkradio.podomatic.com and join me Saturday for the Big Show!
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