Yes yes yes, the highlight of the social calendar for most of you I know, just please try to contain your excitement and attempt to avoid any social faux pas such as soiling yourself in joy/disgust. Before any of you hideous pedants (you know who you are) start complaining the famous ‘Palmers’ cover the period from 1st December 2013 to the 30th November 2014. Have any complaints about that album you love not being here? That’s because it’s shit mate, I mean really fucking awful. Sorry. It’s actually top eighty five this year, which is patently so ridiculous you should actually be so offended now you refuse to read any further…
Still here?
Ok let’s go:
85 Julian Casablancas + The Voids: Tyranny
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. This is just… awful… An absolutely horrible sounding experiment by The Strokes singer, his previous melodic tendencies forces me to speculate that perhaps there are some songs buried under the hideous fuzz pedal dirge that growls across the record. I actually applaud Casablancas’ thirst to at least attempt something so radically different to the kind of music he’s usually associated with, perhaps this turd of an album’s aggressive unlistenability is something of a success, but let’s just move on now and pretend this never happened, Ok?
What is the point of this? I mean really? No right thinking person would turn their noses up at one of the greatest and most influential rock bands of all time having large lumps of cash thrown at them touring their impeccable back catalogue in every venue that’d have them until the sun explodes, but why bother releasing this drudgen and depressingly uninspited acompanyment? It sounds like the kind of shite Weezer wouldn’t see fit to release as b-sides and muddies the perfection of their previously stainless back catalogue like some especially grievous dirty protest. The title track’s Ok I suppose, but as a whole it’s barely worth the effort to reach for the ‘play’ button.
A clear winner for the year’s worst name, I can’t think of a band name being as big a turn off since Rick Witter went solo and decided to name his backing singers ‘Necrophiliac Sodomy’. The Leeds group create a gentle and frequently overlong shimmer that is at best diverting and at worst simply a meandering distraction from whatever task you decide to put yourself to while attempting to listen to it.
82 Cage the Elephant: Melophobia
The opener Spiderland promises a decent and entertaining listen, a promise the record quickly and shamefully renegades on by descending into dull indie-rock by numbers. It very rarely rises above forgettable and frequently tumbles into the sheer horrid. The bizarre introduction of saxophones simply underlines the record’s general ugliness.
81 Benjamin Booker: Benjamin Booker
Absolutely the album of 2014 least concerned about the time it was released, you’d have to dig through your dead grandma’s loft to find a record less modern sounding. Benjamin Booker probably fashioned his guitar himself from wood broken off his old Mama’s loom, taught himself how to pluck the strings while working the salt mines down in ol’ Tennessee. Diverting enough blues pastiche that Jack White predictably loves.
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