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90. Lionlimb - Domino
In some alternate universe, Elliott Smith never left us. In this otherworld, Smith took the next logical step in his music after
Figure 8, infusing more jazzy tendencies with his quiet croon. But it's not Smith here; it's Stewart Bronaugh and Joshua Jaeger, who credit (apart from Smith) Miles Davis for a good bit of their sound. And the groovy integration of rock and jazz here support this track as being the unorthodox marriage of Smith's emotive songwriting and Davis's groundbreaking jazz compositions, the B-side Smith himself never wrote but almost certainly could have.
89. Rooney - Washed Away
Rooney's 2003 self-titled album is one I very, very closely associate with the beach. The shore. The feeling of waves crashing nearby. Seagulls. Something about its vibe was "The Modern Age" Strokes-ish enough to keep that summer feeling alive in any season. Now, on the title track from this year's
Washed Away, I find a return to that feeling. Yeah, maybe Robert Schwartzman can't exactly replicate the youthful feeling that 2003's self-titled debut captured so wonderfully (the difference between 21 and 32 is pretty stark, honestly!), but "Washed Away" is the closest the band has felt to bringing the setting back to a sandy shore someplace. Schwartzman's "Weezer covering late-era Strokes" oeuvre is a good way to make that happen, and I'm not complaining about it a bit.
88. St. Lucia - Home
I was born in the 1980s, but I don't remember a damn thing about it. I get glimpses of the period every time I hear some Human League or Cure or Bon Jovi, but no group going now captures the sound and feeling of that time in music quite like St. Lucia. Their 2013 wonder,
When the Night, was a perfect marriage of '80s synth tendencies with tropical groove, creating a tiki-lit panorama of everything that could go right with synthpop. Now, with
Matter, they go a bit more concrete and big-city with their sound, and "Home" fills that wind-tunnel-blown-hair gap you didn't know you had in your life. The party of brass and synths and percussion is a wild one; a whirling, multi-directional wave of sensation that envelops and washes over you by the final wood block hits.
87. Amber Arcades - Fading Lines
"Can't tell the worst from the best in me," says Annelotte de Graaf through her Amber Arcades persona/nom de plume/stage name/what-have-you, speaking plain that all-too-true feeling we can all relate to from some point in our past or present. Maybe "identity crisis" is kind of a harsh description for this episode; the lyrics read like a breakup song, but without the acid and bite that would make you think it's a recent memory. It almost feels reflective - maybe a little regretful - but still grounded in reality and a present that's completely separated from this memory.
86. High Highs - Movement
Dreamy bedroom pop can sometimes feel a little too caught up in itself, swallowed up in layers of echo and synthesizer and distantly booming percussion. And while the first half of this song certainly floats, Jack Milas's voice seems to hover in that space between waking and sleeping, like when you're about to fall asleep for a nap but still have a fingertip on the ledge of staying conscious. And the final minute-plus brings everything into sharper focus when the booming snare drum joins the party. "Movement" never strays far from being slowly rhythmic and relaxed, and its beauty lies squarely within that simplicity.
85. Explosions in the Sky - Disintegration Anxiety
A churning, industrial bit of math rock from a group whose bread-and-butter sound more often could be found in tracks that looked to soar above anything and everything is...a bit of a left turn. The track starts off interestingly enough with an underwater synth fade-in, and the fade takes long enough that the entrance of those whirlpool drums after a subdued bass interlude almost takes you by surprise. The tempo picks up, the guitars go quicker and then, with about 30 seconds left, you hear the slow-played, moderately overdriven guitar you've heard from this band so many times before. Released as the lead single for
The Wilderness, "Disintegration Anxiety" was something of an announced departure from the norm for EitS, and puts on display the technical skill of a band that hasn't lost a step.
84. Your Friend - Come Back From It
It sounds like Beach House if they were piped in over the PA in a dungeon. I'm not really sure I can do a better job describing it than that, so I'm just gonna stop there.
83. Memoryhouse - Dream Shake
One quibble I had with Memoryhouse's 2012 debut
The Slideshow Effect was how it could sometimes feel too sweet, Denise Nouvion's voice a little
too smooth and the lyrics
too heartfelt that it didn't fully click with me. I mean, hey, if you're gonna get faulted, there are worse ways to lose points. None of that really seemed to be an issue on this year's follow-up,
Soft Hate, a far more immediate and...aggressive?...effort that registers quickly with most of its tracks. "Dream Shake," both a pulsing indie rocker and woozy dreampop song more in line with what the band cultivated on
Slideshow, is the band's best song to date.
82. Porches - Be Apart
Those who deal or have dealt with social anxiety may find some common ground in Aaron Maine's lyrics on "Be Apart," a sadly optimistic track built over rubber-ball rhythm synths about the uncertainty or disquiet about the sheer
volume of everything in the world. You know how your mind can wander sometimes, dancing from thought to thought, about anything at all, until the collective weight of your speculation finally dawns on you and, man, it just feels
heavy, right? Makes you feel like avoiding dealing with it sometimes, yeah? The wordplay in the chorus here is important, as the way it's written goes "I wanna be apart / I wanna be a part / I wanna be a part / Of it all," with "apart" and "a part" sounding exactly the same when sung. It's all about that conflict of anxiety and the coexisting desire for a fellow traveler when the weight of the world can feel like too much.
81. Ages and Ages - I'm Moving
The first (and still only) time I've seen Ages and Ages live, they took the stage in numbers that might make Arcade Fire and the Polyphonic Spree break a sweat. Or, at least, they seemed to fill the stage so completely both with their presence and sound that the six or seven people there made Union Transfer feel like your friend's basement, cozy and familiar. That group power pop aspect comes through wonderfully here, on the standout track from
Something to Ruin, the band's third studio album and follow-up to 2014 favorite
Divisionary. Like the band they opened for that night at UT, Lake Street Dive, everyone in Ages and Ages contributes to the joyful noise of their vocals, led by Tim Perry. The harmonies are gently layered to start, and soon enough, a vocal round builds to feature three distinct parts. The band's best songs often feature these techniques, and this is no exception.
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