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.
The Manic Street Preachers’ fifteenth album is one that is extremely easy to appreciate, so long as you’re ready to accept an entire trolley worth of caveats.
Firstly, this is the band’s 15th [FIFTEENTH] album. Few bands with any kind of success ever get this far, never mind a band that started out already preplanning their self-destruction, and coming 34 years after a debut-album the band promised would be their last. And, hey, for a group of three men in their mid fifties this ‘Critical Thinking’ is a great accomplishment. My colleague at work recently had her 50th birthday, and would she be able to produce an album of this quality? Highly unlikely.
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!
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.
Yeah, I was insanely sick the past couple of days. It started when a toothache started to really make itself very noticeable while I was writing my JPEGMAFIA piece on Thursday. I phoned up the emergency dentist and made an appointment for the next day, for the second time in the past ten days. “But Alex”, I hear you cry, “Why aren’t you registered to a regular dentist? Or why haven’t you even gone to the dentist in the previous decade??”. To which I reply: shut up, mum! Anyway, soon after I made that appointment, my toothache became unbearable. Paracetamols were no good, I’m apparently not supposed to take ibuprofen because of my ulcerative colitis, so I was running out of options. Until I remembered that I used to be prescribed codeine! I rooted through all my old medications until I found a pack, and then munched down about a thousand of them! This kinda sorted out my toothache, but at the same time fucked me over in every other sense. The next day, I could barely get out of bed, cancelled my Chinese class in the morning, and honestly tried to write this fucking post, but my head felt like all my brain synapses had been placed inside an oil drum that had been violently kicked off the top of the K2. The effort it took to exist yesterday was already unbearable, never mind write this dumb list that nobody reads.
Which is a shame, considering that this is the only album on the list so far that actually has a song on it written about me. No, honestly, it does. Yeah, I know that sounds crazy, but it’s not, don’t put in the paper that I got crazy.
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.
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.
Top twenty bitches! Ain’t no more fucking around now, we are – as a great poet once said – about to enter pound town, this list about to dick a bitch down. This list’s coochie pink but its bootyhole brown. And we enter the top twenty with another concept album!
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!”
As concepts go, it’s definitely more apparent than Dua Saleh’s vague allusions, but a lot less more batshit insane that Lupe Fiasco’s Amy Winehouse fanfic, so I can’t really place it higher than second in the list of 2024’s best concept albums at time of writing. At time of writing because there’s a shitload more of these things to come further down the list. I might seriously be able to do a top ten, and that’s without including borderline examples like ‘Cowboy Carter’ (CONCEPT: Billionaire Celebrity Makes a Quasi-Country Album to Impress People Nobody Else Cares About’), Danny Brown (CONCEPT: ‘Rapper Gets Old’) or Hinds (CONCEPT: ‘WE’RE MOTHERFUCKING HINDS!!!!!’). Moor Mother though? Yeah, might count that if I’m desperate. Break instead of emergency.
It’s more like pineapple-on-pizza metal… we shouldn’t connect with certain kinds of metal fans, but they still appreciate us. Could we call it ‘Thinking-man’s pineapple pizza?’ Is that a valid compromise? It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but some people will still agree that it’s a pizza even though there’s a little forbidden fruit on there
I know what you’re thinking: yes, Kerrang! is still going and yes that’s the typeface they’re going with for the logo now. In this piece I shall argue that Zeal and Ardor should not be blamed for either of those things.
Ok, are you sitting down? Are you paying attention? Are your ears perked and your soul open? Is your Mana marvelous and your Qi chunky? Then eyes front, attention please:
I’m going to tell you absolutely everything I know about Bella Technika:
They’re called ‘Bella Technika Yeah, you might have been wondering if I was going to count that as a thing I knew about them, but as you’ll soon see this is going to be quite slim pickings so I’ve got to take what I can get.
I’m, like, 90% sure they’re from Belgrade, Serbia Pretty sure. I’m about 99% sure they’re Eastern European, and I found one review that mentioned Belgrade so I was like “yeah”.
This is their second album Now, I wasn’t sure of this, because when I named their previous album ‘Section’ as the 33rd best album of 2019 I was even more beguiled by these mysterious Serbians than I am now. This year though? No, not getting fooled again, I’ve done my own motherfucking research, sometimes as far as the third or fourth page of Google results, and ‘Section’ was actually an outstanding debut record.
OK, reality nerds, I admit: this album was actually released first released in June 2023. I was first introduced to this art rock masterwork when rounding up Seth Manchester’s 2023 records, and was so blown away that I cheekily decided to consider it for the 2024 list. Or, to quote: “holy shit, the Big Beat impact of ‘Aki’ by The Bronzed Chorus on June 9th?? I love that shit, it’s also on NE2024″. I also decided to consider records by Asher White,Jaye Jayle, and Oxbow, which were all pretty great records but didn’t quite make this increasingly elite list. One other album… maybe did… No spoilers.
The Bronzed Chorus, Adam Joyce (L), Brennen O’Brien
But The Bronzed Chorus, man, they made a 2023 album so good that it’s the scientifically proven, objective thirtieth best album of 2024. That’s quite a flex.
The problem is… I have next to no idea who this band are…
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.
Necessary Evil 