Death, death, death, death, death, if George RR Martin picked up a guitar he would be more than likely to produce an album like ‘Benji’, where Mark Kozalek introduces and deeply maps out intriguing and likable characters before killing them off about 3 minutes in. Usually by an exploding spray paint can strangely enough, this whole album is almost a PSA announcement on the safety of pressurised gas cannisters. ‘Benji’ is definitely the record to go for if you really fancy a good hour of facing up to your own mortality and how life is essentially so dispensable and easily removable. If these tales are true, while being meaningless to the record’s essential power, it’s hard to think of any recent record so doused in personal tragedy other than Eels’ ‘Electro-Shock Blues’ Oh yeah, and it’s very, very good too. Brilliant in fact. Despite the record’s general moroseness it’s also frequently hilarious, almost counter-intuitively life-affirming and the fact that it’s almost 60 minutes of unstopped lyrics means there’s no other album this year that will possibly reward repeated listens. Sadly there’s nothing here that can quite match War On Drugs: Suck My Cock.

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This isn’t the real cover is it?

Nope, what I’ve done is made a joke there.

Not a very good one either…

1/5

Nobody likes the Wild Beasts, they don’t care. Actually that’s a ridiculous exaggeration, many people are now coming round to how Kendal’s Beasts are actually one of the country’s greatest bands and in a perfect World they’d be receiving the kind of adulation that far lesser bands like Kasabian bizarrely receive. There are little moments of frustration at Wild Beast’s position in the rock hierarchy on the band’s fourth, from Wanderlust‘s brilliant ‘Don’t confuse me with someone who gives a fuck/In your mother tongue what’s the verb ‘to suck’?’ to Nature Boy‘s assertion that country bumpkins Wild Beasts can teach the girlfriends of these city boys a thing or two (and yes, the title is a Rick Flair reference and the inclusion of the Jack ‘The Snake’ catchphrase ‘A little fun for me and none for you’ shows that the band don’t demand to always be taken completely seriously). From their beginnings as a type of sub-Coral bonkers indie-rockers Wild Beasts have since entered that sweet spot where their r’n’b meets funk meets 80s indie sound means they sound like nobody apart from themselves. Perhaps they’re actually Kate Bush’s closest modern aural relative, or perhaps I’m just saying that because it’s a rather timely reference. You know me- a good pop culture reference is worth far more than any decent content. Vaping! True Detective! Guardians of the Galaxy! Can I still get away with Miley Cyrus…?

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Boom! A Wild Beast explosion!

Suits the music about as much as a photo of goatse girl, but oooooh look at the colours!

Goatse girl isn’t a great pop culture reference is it?

4/5

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Now this.

Is what.

I’m talking.

About.

Prince’s solo 2014 release ‘Art Official Age’ was pretty much a damp squib, suggesting and threatening that Prince was going to fuck up this opportunity to get back in the game presented by the increased media attention. His record with his new band however is an almost unqualified (almost– there’s certainly one or two duff tracks) success, his best and most consistently excellent record since 2006’s brilliant ‘3121’ and perhaps his best album with a band since way back to 1991’s ‘Diamonds and Pearls’. In fact the stripped down nature of ‘Plectrumelectrum’ (maybe 2014’s most fun album title to say out loud- it simply dry humps the tongue it passes up from your voice box, go on try it) makes it almost unique in Prince’s behemoth back-catalogue- just bass, two guitars and drums, why hasn’t anyone thought of that before?– and you can only assume 3rdeyegirl (Princehasdevelopedadeephatredofthespacebar) have become some much needed muse (‘A girl with a guitar is twelve times better/Than another crazy band of boys’ Why ‘twelve’ specifically?). Even the tracks where one of 3rdeye take the mic- Whitecaps a particular highlight- work wonderfully. Believe the hype- this Prince fellow’s aaaaaaaaaaaaaalright.

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If Prince ever took you back to his place after a night out (we can but hope) then you’d dearly wish he would light a similar looking candle to ‘set the mood’.

3/5

Yes, another EP, but so what? This list isn’t a simple measure of how many minutes a record passes you know? And anyway as we all know it’s not how long it is but what you do with it that counts and a woman’s G-spot is only two inches inside her vagina (ah crumbs, I think I took that analogy a step too far). In fact the brilliant ‘Time of Dust becomes even shorter when you do the right thing and skip the drab and aimless first track Come Into My Dreamland. The remaining five tracks though are a near-enough perfect collection, a thrilling combination of Nick Cave and Jeff Buckley that’s darkly Gothic in parts but nearly always crescendos into grandiose wonderfulness. There’s also BIG brilliant choruses and hooks so pronounced Dustin Hoffman is portraying them in a 1991 film. Also on the 100^th anniversary of first World War the fabulous We All Went Down With the Ship couldn’t be more timely.

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‘Oooooooooooh, very evocative, yes very good Ed, can we all go home now?’

‘Just there… That’s where I dropped the body…’

‘Jesus… Anyone fancy a pint?’

3/5

I imagine Taylor Swift and Erika M Anderson hang out a lot, probably bestest friends. The only artist on this list who receives anything close to the amount of hatred weighed upon Taylor Swift is Lana Del Rey, there’s surely some link there but I’ll be damned if I can see it. Most people’s gripe about Taylor Swift is that she dates people and then writes songs about them, and I suppose that’s a fair complaint seeing as she completely created that idea and nobody has ever written about their boy or girlfriends before. Ah shit- think I just broke my computer’s sarcasm filter… All this hate is more than counteracted by just how impossibly big she is, so big that when the record company accidentally released six seconds of static onto iTunes under the Taylor Swift banner it actually went to number 1 in Canada (that’s not a joke). It all makes Damon Albarn’s 20 minute buttock slapping record look like very small beans in comparison. I honestly feel sorry for all the remaining people who have to expend so much effort into pretending they don’t like Swift, as they’re missing out on some absolutely masterful pop, especially now she’s thrown off any ridiculous pretensions that she’s a fucking country artist. Swift recently knocked her own Shake It Off (a serious contender for the year’s best single) off the top of the US charts with follow up Blank Space (a brilliant example of Taylor’s smart and witty way of deconstructing her own public image and showcasing her almost inhuman self-awareness. If only her detractors were quite as clever and as talented at tearing her apart) but you could honestly imagine Swift repeating the trick with each of these 13 tracks, they all sound like potential hits. Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate…

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A shitty Polaroid (and not the good kind) plus a rude reminder of how much younger she is than me.

Fuck you Taylor Swift

1/5

Here we go again- technology breeds isolation, are we really happy in this new digital age? We’re just everyday robots on our phones aren’t we? I’ll forgive EMA (which as I’m sure you know stands for Every Mousketeer Attacks) for replaying over these slightly tired old subjects because Erika M Anderson’s third album is simply so good- juggling the genres of punk and electronica while at the same time making classics in either genre or simply both. Plus it’s not always an ‘ain’t technology a STINKER!?’ sermon, and when it is the lyrics are only occasionally embarrassing. Plus there’s no song here about a fucking baby elephant. There may not be an album released in 2014 as wonderfully and skilfully diverse as ‘The Future’s Void’, capable of convulsing your bones with bangers like So Blonde or poking your soul holes with lilting beauty like When She Comes, without the record ever lacking cohesion. Anderson’s voice too is a thing of beauty- wonderfully evocative yet bare and untreated with it’s cracked flaws perfectly presenting the songs as deeply affecting naked emotion.

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I accept that just sitting here looking at that picture is the closest I’m ever going to get to an Oculus Rift.

‘Hmm, yeah, but isn’t modern life, like, already virtual reality, yeah?’

‘Jesus… anyone fancy a pint?’

3/5

There is certainly no artist working in 2014 less concerned with being cool than Norwegian Terje Olsen. In fact there are moments on Todd Terje’s debut that seemed designed to sound especially naff, almost wary of anyone ever having the temerity to consider this music somehow ‘hip’ or ‘groovy’ or ‘with it’ or ‘diddly-pop’ or ‘Mr Tembo’ or ‘that is one exemplary beat daddio’ (what is it the kids say these days?). Listeners of ‘It’s Album Time’ (even the title itself seems a knowing reference to some abhorrent cheap copied CD sold out of the boot of some lounge singer’s Volvo in the pub car park latest) of a certain age will think of nothing else but the Vegas levels of Sonic the Hedgehog. Terje wants this though, he wants music that’s as inclusive and desires that every listener possible enjoys this album so has attempted to be as widely likeable as possible, and true to his intention you can’t imagine anyone not loving ‘It’s Album Time’. Brian Ferry’s appearance on the Robert Palmer (naturally) cover Johnny and Mary really comes out of left field, but even though it stands out like a sore Martini it’s still a lovely addition.

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Absolutely banged on perfection, rarely can an album’s cover have better represented the sounds inside. And you just know whatever cocktails are on that piano are just the right ones too

5/5

If we were going to make a list of British music’s most underrated and undervalued artists, or simply to list down the ones that have simply and consistently been amongst the best then surely Gruff Rhys would be… I dunno… top 243? I’m not really into making lists, but you get the idea. It’s almost as if Rhys enjoys being quietly and secretly brilliant, quite happy with people simply writing him off as a bit of an oddball and getting on with releasing more fantastic albums while hiding behind the facade of being strange. Gruff’s fourth solo outing quite easily deserves to be lined up beside the very best of an extremely consistent back-catalogue. The Whether (Or Not) may be the 21^st century’s finest clap-a-long song, and Rhys’s voice is as similarly underrated as other facets of his ability but just try listening to the wordless chorus of Lost Tribes and not melting. A concept album of sorts built around the story of John Evans, who traversed the USA in search of mythical fellow Welsh speakers and ended up plotting the Missouri River, all of which I of course worked out on my own just listening to it.

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You have to admire Gruff Rhys, perhaps other artists would have based their record around John Evans’ story but few would show the dedication required to make their own little John Evans Muppet (sat to picture’s right) to complete the impression.

4/5

Christ, as if two Eno albums already wasn’t enough, Bournemouth’s William Doyle debut as East India Youth marks him out as a very obvious heir apparent. Doyle left his former band Doyle & The Fourfathers (who in a desperate bid to retain his signature obviously incorporated his name into the band’s own, akin to Arsenal offering Fabregas the captaincy in the hope that the act would dissuade him from joining Barcelona) in frustration at their slightly more limited guitar sound wasn’t giving his music the setting and space it deserved. ‘Total Strife Forever’ is a brilliant vindication of his decision, a fantastic clash between moody synths, hard electronica and simple beautiful melodies you’d expect from your local acoustic-tugging singer-songwriter (Heaven How Long being perhaps the best example), an amalgamation simply not conceivably possibly through his old band’s methods. There have been a lot of victories for electronics over traditional instruments this year haven’t there? Face it puny humans, you lose, the machines have won. This album doesn’t really work as well in individual parts (none of the title track four part symphony will be turning up on ‘Now 89’) but instead deserves to be completely lost inside, like the World’s greatest multi-story car park.

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I’m still pondering the significance of William Doyle choosing to present East India Youth’s debut by covering it with his As-Level art project.

I am not however pondering why it was he only got a C-

2/5

‘Black everything/Ask David/Black everything/You can ask David Cameron if we’re living in the dark ages’

Goodness, this list has got rather political all of a sudden hasn’t it? There was a fellow singing about an elephant not long ago wasn’t there? I miss those days. Ghetts’ debut studio album would be an absolute classic if he took a few tips from The Roots and trimmed off the fat a bit, as it is the 17 (!) tracks here end up just sounding bloated and excessive. The album fires out of the traps viciously and so raging with anger that you imagine the lyrics were originally written in capitals and posted as a YouTube comment, a sense refined by the fact Ghetts has a wonderfully caustic rapping style that frequently threatens to boil over into feral screaming. If the more introspective 10^th track What I’ve Done marked the album’s end you’d have a work of near perfect genius, yet unfortunately the album continues and as Ghetts lets us know how much he loves his beautiful girlfriend and starts eulogising about his kid and it all loses a lot of its righteous anger and therefore its main selling point. Still, only using Ghetts’ debut as a small example I can only assume the British hip hop scene is in rude health. Although obviously I’m now way near cool enough to really comment…

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Yes! That’s how you do an album cover! Young kid with a red bandanna hiding his face- Ghetts has obviously studied the classics and knows his aggressive little onions