Tag: efficax

Necessary Evil 2025: The Ragin’ Climax

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

The stage curtains open, revealing 40 lovely ladies in bathing suits, wearing sashes that denote which of 2025’s greatest albums they represent, blinding the front row with quite how dazzlingly white their full toothed grins are, in danger of taking someone’s fucking eye out with quite how resplendently squeezed tight their open cleavages are.

I come out through the floor on an elevating platform, full suit and bow tie, hair slicked back and microphone in my hand:

“There she iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis, Miss Necessary Eviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil…!”

“…and I said ‘Lady, that ain’t no gear stick!!!’ Seriously though, if you don’t let me videotape me pissing on you then I’ll eject you from the competition

Considering this will be the seventeenth time that I’ve collated the Scientifically Proven Best Albums of the Year™, I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing by this point, yeah? I had only just graduated from university when I started writing this dumb list that nobody reads, and I’ll be freaking forty two when I finish the 2025 vintage! Considering my physical health (which, in 2025, has definitely started to take on a whole ‘end of days’ start of feel), it’s looking more and more likely that I will die before I ever retire this list. Mate, I would love to stop, this is a massive pain in the arse that ruins Christmas and my birthday for me every year. But if I go, then who seriously is there to take my place?? Pitchfork?? Give me a break. Fantano?? Bald fraud. Smash Hits??? Mate, I don’t like having to break this to you, but Smash Hits Magazine shut down in 2006. To quote a far less talented (but bizarrely more feted, which is often how it goes) personality who has been able to actually retire this year: I’m still here because you can’t do your job!

the last time ISN’T now

Staturday Night Fever: The Best Music of 2024 In Numbers

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Have I done that pun yet? Mate, I am struggling, honestly…

So here we are again, a round up of the hot stats of the best albums and songs of 2024, which I have bizarrely fallen into the habit of doing doing eleven fucking months after the Necessary Evil list of the best albums and songs of the year is actually published. Why do I always leave it this long? Because, quite simply, after writing 40+ blog posts and a gargantuan song list in little over a month, my brain seriously doesn’t want to even acknowledge the previous year’s music again for at least a thousand years.

I almost didn’t do it this year. But – but! – then I realised that 2025’s list might have some extremely notable points! So maybe I’ll retire this dumb fucking tradition once I get round to that in winter 2026. Until then? Yeah, we gotta do this.

I do like making these purdy pictures though…

Stats in the cradle and a silver spoon

Legit Bosses: The 143 Best Songs of 2024

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Hey, look, I’m getting better at this. Recently, I went on a massive cull of the 2024’s greatest songs to make this list as tight and as concise as possible, so that it would be sure to represent the absolute best of the best and would be as brief and easy to write as possible. And look! There are only one hundred and forty three tracks this year!! That’s a whole seventeen less tracks than last year! This post is going to be a breeze!

spoiler: this song is going top five. It INVENTED GAY POP, show some respect

OK, three weeks laternow, and I’m almost done! This post will be longer than most books you read, but to be fair most of the ‘books’ you read are Dr Who fanfic.

So, yeah, these songs are really good. And they get better as the list goes on. That’s how these lists work.

Here’s the YouTube playlist, which I know is the only thing most of you care about.

How much of an intro do you need, seriously?

A/79/232

“Driving Myself Mad With Mental Health and Gender Stuff” – Efficax Interview

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Elle Gilliam is always taking her art places.

Over the course of the last five years, it’s difficult to think of many other musical artists who have so consistently and animatedly pushed their sound and style to more expansive and challenging places. When she first came to the notice of Necessary Evil, it was with the gorgeous, lilting, acoustic near Americana of ‘Picture Perfect Depression‘ in 2019, back when she was still recording as Helltown*. Her music five years on bears little resemblance to those essentially standard guitar based records, and along the way she’s also dragged it into so many avenues and artistic tangents that it has been anything but a straight progression.

(*and also still… y’know… mostly identifying as male…)

You may remember me interviewing Elle last year, so it makes sense that I would reach out to her on the 12 month anniversary to get an update on her current status, both artistically and personally. Well, that would have been in February, so fuck me I guess. Wonderfully though, Efficax soon released their follow up album to last year’s ‘DESTROYER‘, so I could at least question Elle about the themes and inspirations behind their new album to coincide with its release date. Well, that was in April, so fuck me I guess.

However, only six months after this essential record was released, I managed to tie Elle down and ask for her to talk us through the record’s fourteen tracks. As far as you all know, we met in a dusty but quaintly adorable bookshop cum cafe in the back streets of Los Angeles. Elle was nursing a kumquat espresso and idly browsing through a Breanne Fahs book when I came in, blinded by the rays of the mid afternoon sun trickling through her long hair. I sat down and apologised for the smell – I thought I’d seen a tuna sandwich in the bins outside the shop that unfortunately turned out to be a dead raccoon – and we began:

guess i got my fucking answer

2024’s New Gold Star Artists

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

You know the rules by now: an entire album discography comprising of at least three albums, every single one of their albums featured on a Necessary Evil album of the year countdown on the Most Trusted Blog in Music. There were a few Legacy Gold Star Artists who added to their repertoire in 2023, but on this post I’m going to be concentrating on the five artists who earned their wings in 2023. Or rather, who were already glorious winged beasts of musical sapience, but got those motherfuckers gold plated in 2023.

Ah, Ms. Zauner! I see you have chosen to commemorate your achievement! As wee you should, my dear.

Oh, and these particular entrants will just be copied and pasted into the master post as well. I’ve just created this new post highlighting the new entries so you wouldn’t have to go back to the original entry every year to see who has earned promotion. So don’t come at me with that “You never think of us! You treat us so bad!” bullshit, alright? I treat you just fine. If anything, I treat you too well, so that might not be a string you want to pull too hard on. To see how new albums by Legacy artists like Wednesday and Janelle Monae did? Yeah, you’ll have to check the rankings on the master post. Like I say, I already treat you too well, so be careful what you ask for. And did you read what I thought about that Janelle album?? Probably not breaking into that top three, is it?

Anyway, without further ado:

all that glitters

28 Efficax: Dissent, Penance, & Destroy

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

I mentioned the epic road in my awakebutstillinbed post. One of the most notable things about the eight minute soul cleanser is now it acts as an early and definitive primer on the wider themes of the whole album, and would likely have been the title track had the band not come up with the far more metal album name ‘chaos take the wheel and i am a passenger’. It’s all there: the anxious combination of living the life you’ve always dreamed of while still being dragged down by dejection and doubt, all backdropped by a tour bus hauling itself up highways on the endless cycle of boredom/validation/loss/boredom/validation/loss/boredom/validation/loss…

On what I guess would be the 20th track on ‘Dissent, Penance & Destroy’, my mate Efficax lays out a similar mission statement:

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

You told me,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Find out find out,

You told me,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

You told me,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Find out, find out.

fvckaround

And around they fuck, with great discoveries being made. They also fuck as well, you know? You get me? Like the songs fuck? Like there are songs here that just law out vinyl sheets to protect the furnishings, squirt baby oil over every surface and just get down to it, yeah? Are you following me? Do I need to draw a diagram? Because you know I will.

JUST A HEART BROKE BITCH, HIGH HEELS, SIX INCH

“I Can’t Help the Whiny Emo in Me” – Efficax Interviewed

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Elle Gilliam has had ‘the feels’ mastered for a long time now. A proven guru of cerebral boo-hoo anthems. She was first mentioned on Necessary Evil when I declared the sublime song Novel by her previous project Helltown as one of the best songs of the first half of 2019 that you might not have heard. Dudes, it’s been more than three and a half years since then, if you still haven’t heard it, then I think you might be past saving, seriously. And the name of that surrounding Helltown album, ‘Picture Perfect Depression’ really describes the music that she absolutely perfected with the project: incisive and often devastating explorations of her own personal demons set to absolutely pristine (initially) acoustic gorgeousness.

Midway through 2022, Elle contacted me personally on twitter.com to inform me that she had retired the Helltown moniker and was now launching a new musical project under the ‘Efficax‘ alias. I made a really funny joke about this when the collection of Efficax singles/demos that I completely made up reached #39 on the best albums of 2022 list. I’m not going to repeat it, you had to be there. Oh, and that album kind of exists now? We’ll get into it. Of course, after I went to try trouble of making that album, she then released her actual debut album, ‘Destroyer‘, in late 2022, because she has no respect for what I do. Don’t worry, I’ve forgiven her now. I’ll never forget what she did to me, but I’ve forgiven her.

Changing musical projects wasn’t the only major adjustment that Elle had gone through recently. No spoilers, but check the pronouns on those Helltown reviews. I was, obviously, desperate to interview her, and said so in my Efficax review (“if you don’t see an interview with Efficax sometime early next year it means she hates me and by extension everyone reading this”). Luckily, Elle is obviously vulnerable to emotional blackmail, so agreed.

Fair warning, this interview goes to places. Remember how Elle is so good at articulating her emotional self through her lyrics and music? Yeah, turns out she’s really good at that in her normal voice as well.

wanna tell you all the things i’ve done