I think Willowfine and Agrimonia are very sweet. They have a admiring and familial dynamic, I really hope nothing bad happens to the newest member of the party.
Agrimonia.
ㅤㅤ
“I am in awe of flowers. Not because of their colors, but because even though they have dirt in their roots, they still grow. They still bloom.”
A year of pissed-off, bummed-out music: Jonathan Shaw’s year in review
Photo of Agrimonia by Victor Sanchez
I’m not making any grandiose claims about the “greatness” or the “best-ness” of any of these records. But they’re the records I kept coming back to, throughout the year — the ones that refused to fall off the queue, that insisted that I listen, closely and attentively.
The list also gravitates toward the slow and really, really heavy. This year, if a record’s sounds weren’t loud and pissed off or bummed out, it didn’t have much chance of holding my attention. Heavy, pissed and bummed were my affective baselines, as U.S. politics and culture spiraled around an ethical nadir. Music has never been an escape for me. It’s life’s soundtrack. And life has a dire, desperate feel these days. The records respond accordingly.
Agrimonia’s Awaken is the record I played most often this year, and I played those by YOB and Thou almost as frequently. The others are in no particular order, but I spent a lot of time with all of them.
Agrimonia — Awaken (Southern Lord)
Awaken by Agrimonia
Awaken is a remarkably potent blend of crust’s politico-cultural ethos and metal’s volume and riff worship. The band’s roster combines decades of experience gigging in Gothenburg’s fecund metal and punk scenes, and their confidence and deftness shows. It’s a passionate, exciting record, egregiously underappreciated.
YOB — Our Raw Heart (Relapse)
Our Raw Heart by YOB
To call this LP “heartfelt” might be a bit too on the nose. Still, Mike Scheidt’s heavyweight bout with near-fatal illness has imbued YOB’s riffing with a nakedly emotional impact. The band still brings the heavy, but they do so with palpable humility and humanity, and that’s a real artistic accomplishment.
Thou — Magus (Sacred Bones)
Magus by Thou
An absolute knockout: all the scabrous, desolate noise you could want out of a sludge record, and an outsized load of smarts, too. Thou released a ridiculous amount of new music this year, but this record is the motherfucker. Unrelentingly intense and full of ideas.
Candy — Good to Feel (Triple B)
Good To Feel by CANDY
The remarkable hardcore record, Good to Feel finds a way to get to the other side of nihilism by taking it seriously. Careful with this one—it leaves a mark. And the band are among the best live acts in heavy rock right now.
Efrim Manuel Menuck — Pissing Stars (Constellation)
Pissing Stars by Efrim Manuel Menuck
Menuck is one of the founders of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and that band’s sonic grandiosity is occasionally registered on this solo LP. But most of the sounds are bleak, angry or emotionally tapped out. It’s pretty harrowing stuff. Menuck attempts to bring the record’s tone around to hope, and the title track almost gets there. Almost.
The Armed — Only Love (Self released)
ONLY LOVE by The Armed
An impossibly exciting hybrid of hardcore’s provocation, electro’s technical spazz-out and noise rock’s information overload. It’s hard to get a handle on exactly who these Detroit-based pranksters are, and what they intend by presenting the world with these sounds. But the sounds themselves are undeniable.
Material Support — Terror Prone Nation (Aklasan Records)
Terror Prone Nation by Material Support
The year’s sharpest political punk, Terror Prone Nation couples ideological clarity with memorable melody. Vocalist Jackie commands the songs with a voice that’s clear and compelling. She knows that the words are what matter, but she can shout with the best of them. “Tear it down and start again.” Right on.
Moloch — A Bad Place (Feast of Tentacles)
A BAD PLACE LP by MOLOCH
At once unendurably ugly and utterly transfixing, this is the sound of the earth ball rolling around the rim of a rusting, crumbling sewer pipe. Depending on how you’re situated, A Bad Place is either the worst record to play when you’re feeling shitty, or the only record to play.
Screaming Females — All at Once (Don Giovanni)
All At Once by Screaming Females
As on all Screaming Females records, Marissa Paternoster’s guitar-hero antics dominate. But All at Once also demonstrates the range of her gifts as a singer, and the record’s ongoing thematic interest in image (on the Internet, self-image and identity, and in visual arts) makes for a cohesive and stimulating set of inventively written songs. And the solos burn it down.
Primitive Man / Unearthly Trance — Split LP (Relapse)
Split w/ Unearthly Trance by Primitive Man
This is one of those rare split LPs that feels like a complete record, as both bands explore the relation between doom metal and harsh noise. Primitive Man’s tracks are much more oriented to experimentation with noise, while Unearthly Trance absolutely destroy their side of the record with four songs of soul-shattering metal. Among the heaviest records of the year, by whatever metric you want to use.
Also, a special shout-out to Philadelphia’s own Moor Mother, who threw down the loudest, smartest and most searing live show I saw this year, among a bunch of loud, smart and searing shows. If you haven’t seen Moor Mother do her thing, stop fucking around and go. Here’s a taste:
