Tag: new-music

#1 Anna von Hausswolff: ICONOCLASTS (Best Album of 2025)

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

A lot of these songs are about love, in various ways, but I wanted the album to feel like a battle cry. It felt urgent to me to express a sense of wanting things to change and actually taking steps towards that change. 

Anna von Hausswolff to The Line of Best Fit 2025/10/27

The foolish hope of great eternal beauty
This shit breaks my heart

Facing Atlas

Of course, this is Anna von Hausswolff we’re talking about, so that line in Facing Atlas comes attached with that voice, that incredibly powerful and borderline counter-musical battering ram of an instrument, perhaps one of the only human talents on Earth that could ever hope to position itself among the maximalist sturm und drang of Von Hausswolf’s music and not be immediately crushed to pieces by the musical waves crashing all around it: “This shit breeeeea-a-ye-aaaaaaaaaayks ma heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar…!!”

I’m scaring my sister and my mom

33 Danny Brown: Stardust

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

There are few artists as unduly unappreciated, with a back catalogue that’s so ridiculously unappreciated for its consistent experimentation, than Mr Daniel Dewan Sewell. Better known as… yeah, OK, you probably got that…

“Dad, you said we’d go to Alton Towers this weekend…”

His career has been pretty spectacular, even simply going off his entries onto Necessary Evil. 2011’s ‘XXX’ was an intensely arresting bloc party that wittily both celebrated immense substance abuse while nudging the person beside it and joking with a wink “Lol, we’ll be regretting this in the morning! And for the rest of our lives! YOLO!!” It was 2011, ‘YOLO’ was still a thing, don’t blame Danny Brown for that. His hair happened to be on fleek at the time. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. 2016’s ‘Atrocity Exhibition‘, though, delved deeper into the morning afters and came up gasping for air with one of the greatest albums in Necessary Evil’s history (that was unlucky enough to be released in the greatest year in Necessary Evil’s history so didn’t even make the top 5). An absolutely jaw-dropping achievement, incredibly evocative yet bumping music set to perhaps the funniest yet darkly poignant lyrics exposing the slow suicide of substance abuse since peak Shaun Ryder…

I’ma just do what I have to do

2025’s New Gold Star Artists (and a couple of RIPs)

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Sigh, I guess I should explain the rules again? To be honest, if this is one of your first times reading The Most Trusted Voice in Music then you really should start with the first post from December 1st 2014 and then read through the next 791 entries (or “chapters”, as I like to think of them) until you’re ready to read this post. Necessary Evil might be oversimply referred to as a ‘Blog’, but it’s actually more of an epic tale – a poem, really – that only sampling parts of risks lessoning its artistic impact. What’s happened to this generation’s attention spans?

OK, the criteria for qualifying for the Necessary Hall of Fame as a Gold Star Artist:

  • At least three albums
  • All albums featured on the Necessary Evil best of year countdown since 2007

There were three new Legit Bosses crowned on the the 2024 list, and here’s my ranking of their three albums so far, which will soon be added to the ongoing Hall of Fame.

And, excitingly, for the first time this year we have two artists that have brought great shame on their careers, their legacies, and their entire families by dropping out of the Gold Star Artist Hall of Fame. Both (predictably) Soccer Mommy and (perhaps surprisingly) Illuminati Hotties released records in 2024 that weren’t considered good enough for the end of year lists, so they are forever banished to the dreaded Ex-Gold Star Graveyard. There, they are both feted to rot for eternity. A ridiculously harsh ‘punishment’ for the supposed crime of releasing a record that I didn’t think was quite as good as their previous three+? Especially tough considering Soccer Mommy’s previous three albums were all released before the list shortened to 40 albums and all finished outside the top 40, so could arguably be being punished for remaining as good as they ever were?

Yes.

Sorry, SJW cuck snowflakes, take your woke ideas of fairness and ‘not treating people like shit’ back to Libtardia. This is Necessary Evil. We hit harder here.

KAPOW! CRRAACK! ZGRUPPP!

Is Spellling Just Trollling on ‘Portrait of My Heart’?

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Seriously though, what the fuck even is this?

You can call this an emergency review. Generally, I would wait until the end of year Necessary Evil countdown to air all my bigoted grievances and problematic thoughts (I got a lot of problems with you people), but right now I can’t see this record making the top 40 and if I don’t air my bewilderment I will literally die. I don’t know what this album is. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be. I’m not even convinced how seriously we’re supposed to receive this record and if it’s all just a giant pissstake by Spellling.

Continue reading “Is Spellling Just Trollling on ‘Portrait of My Heart’?” →

#14 Les Savy Fav: OUI, LSF

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

I’m turning 50 soon. The last time we recorded something as Les Savy Fav, I was about 40. Around that time, I had a serious mental health crisis – I got diagnosed with bipolar and had been manic for a long time, then went very depressed. Getting out of that took a couple of years and was really dramatic for me and my family. I’ve always identified with a Peter Pan type universe, so I was trying to figure out how to square the person you see on stage, which is core to who I am, with the person that wants to be able to afford pants…

I then got laid off from my job and that was super stressful. Turns out I hated that job. I hadn’t really thought about it, but all of a sudden I realised I had spent so much energy annoyed by this thing, that when it went away, it was like clarity. I was writing music, I was writing lyrics, and it wasn’t just because I had more free time. It was about mental space and realising how much energy it takes to grind an axe. I think that’s where so many people get stuck.

Frontman Tim Harrington briefly lets Crack Magazine what he’s been up to for the past 14 years, 24.02.16

Les Savy motherfucking Sav, bitches!

Les Savy Fav last made this list when they were ranked number seven in 2007, on the oldest of these lists that I’ve ever been able to track down and post online. Anthony Kliedis’s girlfriend wasn’t even born when this band last (and first) made the Necessary Evil countdown. And even seventeen years ago, I was laughably late to the party. Gimme a break though: I was a married, fuckable 23 year old with a social life, easy access to drugs, and functioning alcoholism, so I was kinda busy, yeah?? LSF had been a going concern since 1995 and had released their debut single in 1997. Those who knew about them were instant converts – here’s a Pitchfork piece from 1998 describing the band playing to a one person crowd and the writer still being won over – but for the first decade or so of their career despite inspiring devotion from those lucky enough to experience them, even freaking Jesus had more disciples than these guys. Yeah, I realise that Jesus is a pretty big deal these days, but to have only twelve disciples in his own lifetime is pretty pathetic, guy just wasn’t a draw. I’m not denying Jesus’s influence! Just that he was more like the Velvet Underground: only twelve people followed him at the time but each one wrote a book about him.

Baraa Mohamed Fawzi Shaldan

#38 Waxahatchee: Tigers Blood

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

What even is Waxahatchee now?

Katie Crutchfield is extraordinarily talented, don’t get me wrong. Whatever I ever say about them or the music they make, I never want the fact that they are ridiculously good at their job to be forgotten. Their songwriting skill is absolutely impeachable, I don’t think they’ve ever put their name to a song you’d rank below 6/10, they’re an obvious mentality monster whose mastery of their craft now has eight albums (plus other stuff. It’s hard to work out what counts) worth of hard evidence. She’s very good.

But what are they?

Bayan Muhammad Kamel Abu Khamash

#1 Fever Ray: Radical Romantics (Greatest Album of 2023)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

This is for our careers

Putting my kid in high school

Even it Out… sort of

All year I adored the opening lines from ‘Radical Romantics’ fifth track. I loved the angry, vicious attack of the commodified work of an artist. How the work is no longer about inspiration or true artistic integrity, but just a career. Under capitalism it has become just another desperate attempt to ensure safety, housing, food and education for your family. And what does such a system force you to do with your artistic inclinations? Or maybe the social safety nets?? “And then we cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut/Cut, cut, cut, cut”. Comrade Karin Dreijer! Give those capitalist pigdogs what they deserve!

There’s no room for you
And we know where you live
One day we might come after you
Taking back what’s ours

Workers of the World unite!!

SUNSET IN THE MAZE (YOU’RE ASKING ME MY SYMPTONS, DOCTOR, I DON’T WANNA FEEL)

2 Blondshell: Blondshell

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck a big part of me wanted to put this at #1.

Did I enjoy any other record in 2023 as much as ‘Blondshell’? Probably not. Did I listen to any other album in 2023 more than I did Sabrina Teitelbaum’s debut? I’m guessing ‘no’. Can I sing any other 2023 record back to back like I can this one? Absolutely not. Do I sometimes catch myself wandering around the house and muttering killer lines like “I think my kink is when you tell me that you think I’m pretty” under my breath? You can’t prove that, but yes. Does Teitalbaum simply rock harder than any other rock rocks in 2023? In years? Affirmative. Is it my favourite album of 2023?? Mate, probably…

SO YOU’LL RUN, YEAH, BUT YOU’ll NEVER ESCAPE

Seth Manchester’s 2023

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Aw man, it has not been easy to keep up with Seth Manchester this year. It’s been more than five years since Seth’s otherworldly production on ‘Goodness‘ convinced me to buy every single album that Mr Manchester produced from that point onward. This has lead to around 15 further entries on this list. And a lot of death metal. Well, it stops here.

Well, kinda stops. I use Discogs to keep up with Seth, and going off that they’ve been involved in a total of forty records in 2023 (!), though that is including some rereleases and a handful of albums I can just find no other information on anywhere else. This is obviously unsustainable, especially when you consider that Manchester works on quite a few records that I do not enjoy listening to at all. But there is also some very interesting stuff that I missed out on this year that might have made the list. were I not wasting money on more instrumental noise rock.

So the Seth Manchester run will continue. I still think they’re the greatest rock producer working and they introduce me to music that I’d overwise have no chance of coming into contact with. Already on NE2023 we’ve seen the Manchester produced Lingua Ignota project, who I only know in the first place because of the Seth ties. Only, in the future I’m going to listen to an album first and then decide if it’s likely to be worth me spending money on and adding it to the Necessary Evil rotation. Yeah, I know, you probably thought I did as much already, right? Nope. I’m a fucking idiot. Anyway, I’m going to run down some of the more notable 2023 Seth credits.

BEEN SOME DARK DAYS LATELY AND I’M FINDING IT CRIPPLING