We're waving goodbye to spring and welcoming the summer period with a selection of some of the finest new tracks we've had the pleasure of listening to in the last few months. As we're reaching the mid-point of 2017, this playlist is also indicative of where we currently stand on the issue of the best releases of the year so far. Let's leave it to the music to do the talking:
With our summer vacation finally in sight, it's time to collect our favorite albums and tracks of the last couple of months and start packing!
Swans' thirteenth studio album "To Be Kind" is at the top of our album list, an epic two-hour listening experience that manages to take the band's sound even further, in their most satisfying release since their reformation four years ago.
Another, more recent, reformation has also delivered the goods and yielded one of our Top 3 albums of this summer. The Afghan Whigs started their reunion with some mind-blowing shows a couple of years ago, and now, with "Do To The Beast", they have proven they still have that special chemistry that gave us some of the best rock records of the '90s.
Parquet Courts are still quite a new band but their sound is channeling some of our favorite memories from the '80s and '90s. "Sunbathing Animal" brings together the influences of The Fall, Pavement, the Ramones and many others, but the blend they're creating has their own signature and proves to be quite addictive. Give it some time and you won't be able to shake it off.
Our Top 5 also includes the eccentric rhymes of Sleaford Mods in their punk-hop opus "Divide And Exit" as well as the third and perhaps the best full-length by Tune-Yards, "Nikki Nack", another unique patchwork where Merrill Garbus brings together exotic sounds and rhythms to create refreshingly original, soulful songs, unlike anything else you're going to hear in 2014.
And that's not all... check out below our 20 favorite records for the first half of the summer as well as a playlist with some of the best tunes from them. Enjoy the sound waves:
Top 20 Albums
1. To Be Kind - SWANS 2. Nikki Nack - TUNE-YARDS 3. Do To The Beast - THE AFGHAN WHIGS 4. Sunbathing Animal - PARQUET COURTS 5. Divide And Exit - SLEAFORD MODS 6. With Light And With Love - WOODS 7. Mess - LIARS 8. Lazaretto - JACK WHITE 9. Are We There - SHARON VAN ETTEN 10. Lost In The Dream - THE WAR ON DRUGS 11. Held In Splendor - QUILT 12. Days Of Abandon - THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART 13. Wild Crush - ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT 14. Indie Cindy - PIXIES 15. Darlings - KEVIN DREW 16. Diploid Love - BRODY DALLE 17. Turn Blue - THE BLACK KEYS 18. Teeth Dreams - THE HOLD STEADY 19. Love Letters - METRONOMY 20. Psychic 9 - 5 Club - HTRK
Top 20 Tracks
1. The Lottery - THE AFGHAN WHIGS 2. Screen Shot - SWANS 3. With Light And With Love - WOODS 4. Sunbathing Animal - PARQUET COURTS 5. Water Fountain - TUNE-YARDS 6. Pro Anti Anti - LIARS 7. Tied Up In Nottz - SLEAFORD MODS 8. Lazaretto - JACK WHITE 9. We Are Floating - ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT 10. Taking Chances - SHARON VAN ETTEN 11. Under The Pressure - THE WAR ON DRUGS 12. I Hope This Whole Thing Didn’t Frighten You - THE HOLD STEADY 13. Don’t Mess With Me - BRODY DALLE 14. Indie Cindy - PIXIES 15. Fever - THE BLACK KEYS 16. I’m Aquarius - METRONOMY 17. Eurydice - THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART 18. Good Sex - KEVIN DREW 19. Tired & Buttered - QUILT 20. Blue Sunshine - HTRK
Bonus track: Here's the latest Afghan Whigs video for another "Do To The Beast" highlight, the super funky "Metamoros":
Last but not least... The final ten albums in the list of our 40 favorite records of 2014 so far, featuring Temples, The Afghan Whigs, The Black Keys, The Hold Steady, The Men, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The War On Drugs, Tune-Yards and Warpaint. Have a listen below and also check out our Top 20 Tracks of the last six months - just a small sample of a quite long list:
The A-Z of the first half of 2014 (pt.4):
TEMPLES - Sun Structure
THE AFGHAN WHIGS - Do To The Beast
THE BLACK KEYS - Turn Blue
THE HOLD STEADY - Teeth Dreams
THE MEN - Tomorrow's Hits
THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART - Days Of Abandon
The last week of May turned out to be a major '90s flashback trip for me. It began by spending several hours listening to singles from 1993 for our latest ’90 Top 50 list and then The Afghan Whigs rolled into town for the fourth show of their reunion tour which kicked off in New York just a few days before. And then came the weekend with live streaming from Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival where The Afghan Whigs were once again among the protagonists, playing along several other legends of '90s indie rock including Mudhoney, Mazzy Star and Archers Of Loaf. Without a doubt, the '90s are back in a big way and The Afghan Whigs are leading the charge!
Although I’m not particularly fond of reunions and reliving the “good old days”, I think that if a band feels that it can still do justice to its old material and there is an audience out there willing to pay good money to see that, then they should definitely go ahead and give it one more try. And after seeing last Tuesday what The Afghan Whigs are still capable of doing, I must say that in their case it would have been criminal neglect not to reform. After all with such a stellar back catalog which boasts not just one or two but four of the greatest rock albums of the '90s, I think it would be very difficult to make a botch job of this reunion.
16 of the 19 tracks that Greg Dulli, John Curley and Rick McCollum presented along with Dave Rosser, Rick Nelson and Cully Symington who complete the 2012 version of The Afghan Whigs, came from those four albums released between 1992 and 1998, with "Black Love" and "Gentlemen" rightly having the lion’s share and "Congregation" along with "1965" contributing a few of their key tracks.
The three non-album tracks that completed the stunning 95-minute set were all soul and r’n’b covers - not surprising given Dulli’s love for these genres and the influence they have had on his work. The covers included The Supreme’s hit "Come See About Me", from the "Uptown Avondale" EP, as well as two new entries in the band’s repertoire, Marie "Queenie" Lyons’ "See And Don't See" (available as a free download here) and Frank Ocean’s "Love Crimes". These two covers along with "Fountain and Fairfax" and "Miles Iz Dead" made up the encore of a truly breathtaking performance from a band that proved that it can still perform with the same fire and passion as it did in its early '90s heyday. And given that Dulli’s songwriting still remains strong as proven by his recent work with The Twilight Singers and the one-off collaboration with Lanegan as The Gutter Twins, I think that they should seriously consider taking this reunion to the next level: into the recording studio to add another chapter to a most remarkable story that deserves much wider recognition and success than what it got the first time around.
Here’s the night’s complete set list - all killer no filler:
1. Crime Scene, Part One
2. I'm Her Slave
3. Uptown Again
4. What Jail Is Like
5. Blame, Etc.
6. When We Two Parted/Dead Body
7. Gentlemen
8. Come See About Me (Supremes cover)
9. Crazy
10. My Enemy
11. 66
12. Debonair
13. Bulletproof
14. Summer's Kiss
15. Faded
Encore:
16. See And Don't See (Marie "Queenie" Lyons cover)
17. Love Crimes (Frank Ocean cover)
18. Fountain and Fairfax
19. Miles Iz Ded / Into the Floor
The Afghan Whigs - My Enemy, live @ Vox (Athens, May 29, 2012)
Support came from one of the best Greek rock bands of the '90s, the also recently reunited Bokomolech, who have already taken that next step into the recording studio for the album "Mass Vulture". They successfully mixed their old classics with the new material adding even one or two brand new, so far unreleased tracks, proving that once you get the ball rolling again there is no stopping to the creative flow.
