Global Garage’s Favorite Records of 2018

Every year brings incredible music and 2018 was no exception. Here at Global Garage we’re not big fans of “best of” or “top” lists because it has some underlying implication that the publication’s picks are better than yours (unless your list matches) or anyone else’s. Rather we’re offering a list of our favorite “Global Garage” records from this year. We, show hosts Paul & Ryan, along with our heavy music contributor Bryan, each put together a list of our fifteen favorite records of 2018. We’re also bad at picking favorites so we included a list of another 100 records from 2018 that we really dug.

Ryan’s Favorite Records of 2018

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Courtney Barnett — Tell Me How You really Feel (Australia)

I enjoyed Courtney Barnett’s 2015 debut record, Sometimes I Sit And Think, Sometimes I Just Sit, but this follow-up really stayed with me in a way its predecessor never did. It’s a confident, thoughtful, and urgent offering reminiscent of The Breeders, so I wasn’t surprised to find out that Kim & Kelley Deal provided backup vocals on several tracks. When Barnett breaks out into a fuzzed out guitar solo, as she often does, it reminds me of Neil Young and Crazy Horse at their best. “Nameless, Faceless” is one of the record’s stand-out tracks, tackling fragile male egos, misogyny, and associated violence. The songs are anthemic and well-composed and, as such, the record from this deeply-talented songwriter stuck with me.

Begravningsentreprenörerna — Jämna Plågor (Finland)

You know that really annoying friend who always says, “The best music was made in the ’70s and everything made since then is shit!”? Undoubtedly, they’ve got their ears stuck in classic rock radio Hell, where Led Zeppelin, Guns & Roses, AC/DC, and so on still reign supreme. Granted, I feel like our show exists in pure opposition to that sentiment, but maybe we can find some common ground, after all. Play this record for them and they might just shut up for once. Though it could easily pass as a long-forgotten, unreleased record from the late-’70s, Begravningsentreprenörerna’s debut full-length is a modern powerhouse. Listening to this record is like hearing all of those classic bands for the first time; like listening to “Don’t Fear The Reaper” without knowing that [Generic Classic Rock Radio Station] would ruin it for the rest of your life by playing it every five minutes. Every single track is a high-octane rock ’n’ roll powerhouse which makes for an incredibly fun listening experience. Or, to put it plainly, like a company guilty of white collar crimes, this record shreds.

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Cold Cream — S/T (North Carolina, USA)

This debut record from a band of North Carolina scene veterans is a memorable blitz of fuzzy hardcore, dabbling in psych-punk. As I said in our “Album of the Week” feature, “the band fuses sharp wit and smart references to expertly carry out the soundtrack to revolution.” While the record might be a timely soundtrack for revolution, its relevance will not fade with age.
 

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Familia de Lobos — S/T (Argentina)

Riot Season Records released this debut at the beginning of the year, but it wasn’t until we featured the band in our “Five Questions With…” series that the record really sucked me in. What really grabbed me was how the band seamlessly weaves aboriginal instrumentation with heavy psych to form an immersive and musically meditative listening experience. The smoky guitar riffs pair beautifully with the heartbeat of percussion, droning bass, and chant-like vocals. For me, something about listening to this record is so rejuvenating. After the final note, I feel as if I just woke up from a good nap. One of those elusive naps where you’re falling asleep in a meeting, but you know you can’t fall asleep because, well, you’re in a meeting, but you know that if you did fall asleep it would be the best sleep you’ve ever had? That kind of nap.

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Have You Ever Seen the Jane Fonda Aerobic VHS? — Jazzbelle 1984 / 1988 (Finland)

Dashes of pop punk and whatever the musical equivalent of 80’s neon spandex is makes for one hell of a fun listen. I’m not sure what to say about this record, other than the fact it’s just a straight shot of sugar right to the ear drums. Until now there has only been one band, Moneybrother, where if I’m in a bad mood and I listen to a record it immediately makes me happy. After some significant testing, H.Y.E.S.T.J.F.A.V? seems to have the same effect. I’m not sure what’s going on in Finland right now, but I love it. Also, I haven’t seen the Jane Fonda aerobic VHS, but if this band provided the soundtrack I just might seek it out.

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IDLES — Joy as an Act of Resistance (UK)

Since I listed ‘Brutalism’ as a favorite record in 2017, I thought about leaving IDLES off the list this year, especially since they’ve been getting a LOT of coverage across a variety of year-end lists. But, given the sheer number of times I listened to the band this year, I feel that excluding Joy as an Act of Resistance from my list would be entirely disingenuous. What I said about the band last year stands, though the band has replaced a lot of the anger with optimism. When I interviewed them earlier this year, singer Joe Talbot talked about trying to write songs from a childlike perspective, an angle I found incredibly refreshing. “Danny Nedelko” and “Great” are easily two of my favorite songs of the year. Both are very English in topic, especially “Great,” though they’re equally relevant to the global climate as countries around the world experience rises in nationalism. The record offers a refreshing combative tool to the surrounding bombardment of negativity. In other words, the album more than lives up to its title.

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Kikagaku Moyo — Masana Temples (Japan)

Paul and I saw Kikagaku Moyo live this year and I’m convinced that I left my consciousness on the floor of the venue. I’ve said previously that the best psychedelic music makes you feel stoned while the worst makes you wish you were. Kikagaku Moyo are the former. Masana Temples is beautifully transcendental. Every time I listened to this record I’d get swept away, somewhere between the krauty riffs and the burning sitar solos.

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La Iglesia Atomica — Gran Muro de Coma (Puerto Rico, USA)

Earlier this year, in our “Five Questions With…” series, La Iglesia Atomica talked to us about the stoner/doom scene currently thriving in Latin America. Gran Muro de Coma is a shining example of that thriving scene. Each song is practically a 10-minute-long guitar solo over a punchy rhythm section. After every listen I start to search for a plastic surgeon because my face is so badly melted. With the big sound they’re able to achieve, it’s hard to believe this band is no larger than three people. Perhaps the reason it sounds so cosmic is because the band was successful at achieving their goal of developing a “sonic interpretation of the interstellar journey of the Voyager probe.”

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Murder by Death — The Other Shore (Kentucky, USA)

When I hear the words “Western space opera,” The Other Shore is exactly what comes to mind. Murder by Death has made some fantastic records over almost two decades they’ve been playing, but this year’s release took the band to an entirely different level. It contains some of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard all year. As such, I ended up listening to this record a LOT this year. And sung along. Very loudly. It does such a great job at capturing the mood of the story, a couple divided as one person stays on a dying Earth while the other sets off into the unknown of space looking for a new place to settle. A lot of “rock operas” tend to just be musicals with guitar solos, but to me, The Other Shore is more like a good movie or book in the way it evokes images through both lyrical narrative and instrumentation. Narrative aside, one song stood out to me in particular, “I Have Arrived,” my love for which i addressed in a recorded interview with guitarist and singer Adam Turla earlier this year. There’s something so manic about it, offering a form of sonic escapism from the news of the day’s depressive tone. In some weird, metaphorical way listening to that song is almost like the narrative itself. Moments like that are what made this record really stick with me through the year.

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The Muslims — S/T (North Carolina, USA)

I fell in love with this record for its social and political satire which offers absolutely no mercy or sympathy for white tears. For a record that tackles issues such as the turd-bucket of a person(?) named Trump, immigration, racism, homophobia, and Islamophobia with a justifiable angry directness, the band strikes an incredibly playful tone. It’s an urgent, raw, and crucial record that inspires reflection and action. It blends hardcore, rap, and pop punk into something that sounds exactly like it should. It’s punk as fuck.
 

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Mythic Sunship — Another Shape of Psychedelic Music (Denmark)

I’m not sure I can say anything about this record beyond what I already said in our “Album of the Week” feature:
“If you locked Coltrane in a room with nothing but the entire Sleep discography and a literal ton of weed, you still probably wouldn’t come close to the musical experience that is as crisp and engulfing as this record. Ultimately, Mythic Sunship delivered exactly what it promised to the doorsteps of our ears: Another Shape of Psychedelic Music.” This record won’t leave me alone, and I’m more than okay with that.

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L.A. Salami — The City of Bootmakers (UK)

L.A. Salami is proof that the troubadour is far from dead. “Terrorism”, off the new record, was my introduction to this English songwriter; an introduction which left me speechless and coated in goosebumps. From there I dove into The City of Bootmakers as well as Salami’s entire back catalog. His lyrics can be both playful and poignant in the same verse with a backing band that often resembles, well, The Band. I’m hesitant to make a full-blown comparison to Bob Dylan because, unlike Dylan, it seems L.A. Salami actually has something say. So, in that vein, maybe Phil Ochs is a more-apt comparison, with touches of Tom Waits and a little bit of punk rock grit at times. I lost track of the number of times I listened to this record, as well as the number of times I caught myself singing along.

 
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Tal National — Tantabara (Niger)

This record feels incredibly celebratory. I’m not sure if it’s the cheerful tone in which the vocalists deliver their performance, the funky grooves the record builds itself around, or the culmination of the two. I also love how Tal National harnesses the energy and life of Afrobeat and pairs it with fuzzy desert blues guitar riffing.
 
 

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X-Wife — S/T (Portugal)

Loyal listeners will know I’m a sucker for saxophone, especially in a punk context. X-Wife’s first record in seven years offers a polished dance-punk edge laced with wailing sax and bouncy synth, supported by dub-like bass riffs. If the Talking Heads made disco, it might not sound too far-off from what X-Wife achieved with this record. I frequently listen to this record while driving and, each time, find it incredibly hard to sit still, fighting the urge to accelerate. It’s been hard to get this record out of my head, but then again I’m not really sure I want to.
 

 
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Zeal & Ardor — Stranger Fruit (Switzerland)

If the Devil is Fine, Zeal & Ardor’s 2016 debut, was a proof of concept, Stranger Fruit is the full realization of the project. Fusing black metal and African-American spirituals into an entirely new genre experience, the record continues to imagine a timeline in which slaves embraced Satan instead of Christianity as a form of rebellion. In a world where the KKK is publicly marching, Nazis are being normalized, and women’s reproductive rights are being attacked by the Christian right, Stranger Fruit is an essential piece of counterculture. The addition of two backup vocalists on this record adds an incredible depth of immersive sound. I found it to be equal parts haunting and soothing. It’s a dark, beautiful work of music and I cannot wait to hear what the band has in store for the future.

Paul’s Favorite Records of 2018

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Altın Gün — On (Netherlands)

The spate of [insert genre here]-revival acts in recent years have shown that inspiration can be a tricky thing. Try to defy expectations too intensely and you risk losing what made those original artists so beloved, but lift too heavily from the past and you’re bound to end up with a soulless carbon copy of the original. Amsterdam-based Turkish psych revivalists Altın Gün walk the line so deftly that you’d be forgiven for not believing this is their first full-length record. The project was spawned from a fascination with 1970s artists such as Baris Manço, Selda Bağcan, and Erkin Koray, who incorporated Western rock stylings into their renditions of traditional Turkish folk songs. Attempting to add yet another degree of separation to this singular songwriting style 40 years later could easily have been disastrous, but this disc is a sublimely funky affair that manages to honor the past without being beholden to it – no easy task indeed.

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BCUC (Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness) — Emakhosini (South Africa)

Better block off some time on your calendar before diving into this record. Of the three tracks that comprise the Afro-psych group’s second album, two clock in at over 15 minutes. Even more than that, though, the group’s experimental take on traditional ritual music – infused with the spirit of punk, hip-hop, and funk – invites, or rather demands, a more active listening experience than most. In the absence of conventional melodies or catchy riffs, the music seems to take on a life of its own while blurring the lines between listener and participant, growing in strength and power as chants and psychedelic strains weave in and out. This communal experience echoes and reinforces the band’s positive political vision, a direct response to the massive wealth disparity between rich and poor in post-apartheid South Africa as well as the challenges of building a collective movement in a country where 11 different languages are spoken. Unlike many of its peers, the band often shares the stage with white South African bands and uses its shows as a platform to build a true workers’ movement. This is unabashedly political music at a time when it’s needed more than ever.

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Bichkraft — 800 (Ukraine)

For their first release on the esteemed Wharf Cat Records, Ukrainian group Bichkraft entered a proper studio for the first time to record with Merchandise’s Carson Cox. However, the increased production values can’t hide the band’s lo-fi roots — their first release was recorded in a basement in Kiev — and that’s good news for fans of caustic post-punk that reflects the alienation of millennials across the globe. The songs on 800 writhe and dart like a cornered animal, lulling you into a falsely melodic sense of security that’s punctuated by blasts of guitar skronk and electro beats. It’s this omnipresent anxiety that gives this EP a powerful urgency that belies its short length, and that makes surprises like the yacht-rock-inspired “13 Again” all the more potent. Sam York and Elizabeth Skadden of defunct group WALL lend their vocals to two tracks, but this is Bichkraft’s show – and to paraphrase the hectic “Introducing Yourself,” this is their introduction to the world.

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Constant Mongrel — Living in Excellence (Australia)

“Because the right is on the rise/my interest is too,” goes the sardonic chorus of “600 Pounds,” the opening track that sets the tone for the entirety of Living in Excellence. Like many of the albums I found myself gravitating toward this year, this is urgent music for anxious times that offers something new with each listen. On the surface, the Melbourne quartet (comprised of members of Terry, Woollen Kits, Nun and Taco Leg) offers a simple but much-needed escape, making the sort of noisy emotional post-punk that recall an era where your favorite band really could be your life. But with biting lyrics like those above and the group’s newfound appreciation for free jazz excursions, LIE also has the sense of a still chaotic but increasingly focused response to the decades of malaise and profiteering that have landed us in the sorry moment we find ourselves in today. It’s a rallying call that isn’t afraid to name the enemy, and it’s also fun as hell.

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Cutty’s Gym — Zante EP/Benidorm EP (Tie) (Scotland)

A surprise late-year find, this Scotland four-piece impressed me on two levels: first, with their frenetic sound that seems to share equal DNA with Girl Band’s frenetic post-punk and Uniform’s pounding industrial noise, and second, by dropping not one but two excellent EPs in 2018. Zante is the band at its most blown out, racing full speed ahead through lengthy tracks that provide ample opportunity to showcase the group’s muscular, repetitive riffs. Benidorm, the more recent of the two, offers more of the same on tracks like “Liberator Street” and “Not My Hair,” but also sees the band trying out other styles from the hardcore-inspired “Slave Unit” to “Not My Hair,” which could be a bokeh alt-rock track from another dimension. These EPs together make for an excellent debut showing for the group that has me eagerly awaiting an LP – and if their work ethic to date is any indication, it could drop any time now.

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Dream Can — Into Sparks (China)

While labels like P.S.F. and Avant put the Japanese experimental and psych scenes on the map (ably carried on today with groups like Kikagaku Moyo and their label Guruguru Brain), the Chinese music scene is notoriously under-represented in the West. But as a great man once said, life finds a way, and Shanghai’s underground is alive and well with labels like Maybe Mars leading the way. Among their slate of excellent 2018 releases, Into Sparks is a particularly revelatory experience from a young trio of women blazing their own way through a mix of legendary psych influences. The album kicks off with the freewheeling eight-minute space rock of “Cheap Cheap Time I Live, Money Money Saves Me” before transitioning into the hard-edged psych of “Why Should I Wait.” In an era where psychedelic sounds too often come prepackaged and formulated for mass consumption, Dream Can recalls the early confrontational power of the genre, particularly on the unapologetic “Kill the Man.”

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Entropia — Vacuum (Poland)

Leipzig-based “post-metal” quintet Entropia puts the “heavy” in “heavy psych.” While their first two albums occupy the same comfortable blackgaze space as groups like Deafheaven and Oathbreaker, Vacuum sees them striking out in a bold new direction, pairing the blast beats of extreme metal with LSD-fueled excursions right off a Flower Travellin’ Band record. Three of the tracks crack the 10-minute mark with a fourth just shy at 9:44, and it’s hard to overstate the pleasures that await when the band kicks into a groove and then rides it, echoing the peaks and valleys of a true psychedelic experience. This is an album that’s meant to be listened to with the sound up and your full attention, revealing new intricacies with each spin.

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Exploded View — Obey (Mexico/UK/USA)

Annika Henderson, the haunting vocalist for international music project Exploded View, has a work ethic that many of us can only dream of, having tackled political journalism and poetry in addition to spearheading her own solo musical career and working with Geoff Barrow’s post-Portishead project BEAK>. It should come as no surprise, then, that Exploded View’s second album sees the group venturing into unexplored territory, leaving behind the more immediate pleasures of earlier releases (and their live recording process) for a more cerebral experience built on multi-instrumentation and overdubs. The lush but minimal soundscapes are a fitting complement to Annika’s unapologetic and often unforgettable lyrics (in a perfect world, “Dark Stains” would be recognized as one of the defining tracks of 2018). Obey captures the sound of a group that has already captured my heart, but is clearly only just starting to show us what it’s truly capable of. 
 

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Farsa — Tempo Morto EP (Portugal)

From our “Five Questions With…” feature:

Farsa is a heavy post-hardcore band out of Portugal — heavy not just in their pummeling sound, but in the ideas that fuel the six tracks on their excellent debut EP, Tempo Morto … With lyrical touchpoints ranging from Marxist theorist and filmmaker Guy Debord to anarchist writer Albert Libertad, Farsa rails against the daily oppressions of modernity as uniquely experienced in their native Lisbon, yet increasingly felt by young people around the world who refuse to be shackled by decaying systems of power and tyranny. The fact that the gang’s righteous anger never diminishes the power of its anthemic punk missives doesn’t hurt, either.

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Hórmónar — Nanananabúbú (Iceland)

Some people swear by the Sugarcubes as Björk’s finest pre-solo work, but for me, it’s always going to be Kukl, the no-wave noise punk group that put out two excellent LPs on Crass Records before its premature dissolution. Hórmónar includes the group in its thank yous below the music video for “Glussi,” and whether it’s simply a nod to a formative influence or not, it’s easy to draw a straight line across three decades between the two groups — most notably on “Ekki Sleppa,” where angular guitar lines crash against a dynamic saxophone with breathtaking results. That’s not to say that Hórmónar is simply a retro act, though — as the “Glussi” clip shows, this is very much a project with a fresh perspective on some of the twenty-first century’s most pressing challenges. And I’m not the only one who thinks so — the band also won the Icelandic Music Experiments competition in 2016, proof of both Icelanders’ excellent taste and the accessibly melodic core at the heart of these explosive punk missives.

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Lupe de Lupe — Vocação (Brazil)

From my “Album of the Week” review:

…Lead single “O Brasil Quer Mais” (“Brazil Wants More”) is perhaps the group’s most blistering attack yet and one of its most aesthetically ambitious. A mini-epic in three parts, the track pairs buzzsawing post-punk guitars with Vitor’s venomous lyrics, calling out narrow-minded ideologues on both the right and the left whose narrow definitions of sexism, racism, and violence address symptoms rather than the disease. As a non-Portuguese-speaking listener, this rich lyricism is only accessible thanks to the help of Google Translate. Without this knowledge, though, Vocação still impresses on a technical level. The band’s artful take on the noisier side of indie rock fits comfortably alongside stalwarts like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and My Bloody Valentine, most notably during “Esqueletos” (“Skeletons”) or the carnivalesque grunge-gaze of “Vejo Uma Lua No Céu” (“I See a Moon in the Sky”). The album’s climax comes in the penultimate track, “Voz” (“Voice”), which unspools over more than 14 anxious minutes that builds from a calming piano intro to a full-force reverb-soaked attack. Again, though, the lyrics provide the depth that makes this album so rewarding and so necessary as Vitor explores the power of voice – in speech, in song, and in the pursuit of justice – if we’re only brave enough to accept it. These days, it’s a responsibility that seems more vital than ever, and I can’t think of a better soundtrack.

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Lute — LVTE (Italy)

I’ve often found the adjective “cinematic” most commonly used with a particularly self-indulgent strain of instrumental music that often leaves me unmoved. In the case of Lute’s presumably self-titled new album, though, “cinematic” is an apt descriptor that belies the LP’s 24-minute runtime. In less time than it takes to watch a late-night rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond, Lute take us through 13 tracks informed by horror movie soundtracks, post-metal, and math rock. It would be easy enough for the tracks to run together given their relatively short length; however, Lute imbues each with their own particular flavor. As the album art suggests, there’s also a deeply spiritual/occult element to Lute’s music that’s so heavy, you can practically hear the robes swishing by as unseen figures slink through the shadows. Fittingly, you won’t find much about these guys online; this dark gem of a record speaks for itself.
 

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Slift — La Planète Inexplorée (France)

From our “5 Questions With…” feature:

I’ve been looking forward to the day we could feature French garage-psych group Slift ever since I caught the music video for “Fearless Eye,” which pairs that track’s spacey psychedelia (complete with shimmering flutes) with strange, occult goings-on in the Spanish Desert. The track comes from their debut LP La Planète Inexplorée, released across five labels (Howlin’ Banana Records, Stolen Body Records, Six Tonnes De Chair Records, EXGAG records, and Rockerill Records). It’s that kind of excess that makes the band’s singular sound so memorable, and while there are hints of Thee Oh Sees, Wooden Shjips, and other similar cultish psych titans, this is one of those rare albums that sounds fresh from the first note.

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Uivo Zebra — S/T (Portugal)

This album is the kind that’s difficult to recommend: it won’t resonate with everyone, but its proponents will be floored. Occupying an aural space somewhere between the classic Rock in Opposition of Henry Cow and Samla Mammas Manna and the free psych of Dire Wolves and the rest of the BBIB camp, this is about as pure a musical experience as I’ve come across in 2018. Jorge Nuno trod similar territory with his psych/improv group Signs Of The Silhouette, but works new alchemy here in conjunction with João Sousa (member of the collective/label A Besta) and Hernâni Faustino, an ubiquitous figure in the Portuguese experimental music scene. The five tracks here burn with the energy of jazz and the heaviness of the rawest electric blues, pursuing pounding grooves with a manic fury before discarding them for the next sonic high. The sense that this could all have gone horribly wrong is all part of experience, an invitation to finally shed your inhibitions and trust in the guidance of a trio of master musicians – even if they might not know where they’re going, either.

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Xylouris White — Mother (Greece/Australia/USA)

A truly transcontinental collaboration, Xylouris White is the project of Cretan lute player Giorgis Xylouris and Australian-born, New York-based drummer Jim White (he of Dirty Three). The duo explores avant-rock improvisation through the lens of Greek folk traditions, inspired by Giorgis’ rich familial musical history – his father and brother are both nationally recognized icons in the traditional Greek music scene, and Xylouris himself also leads the cross-generational Xylouris Ensemble. As with many of my album selections this year, these songs take us into unfamiliar listening territory and out the other side. Rich in technical proficiency but played with a punk rock urgency, they’re yet more proof that there’s more than one way to rock and roll.

Bryan’s Year in Music

2018 was a weird year for a lot of reasons big and small, macro and micro, personal and political. I don’t think I’m alone in describing it as a year of confusion and uncertainty, despair, and disillusionment. But it was also a year punctuated by moments of utter joy — often resulting from concentrated effort to find those rays of light in the midst of an encroaching darkness. So perhaps it’s really no surprise that 2018 was a year in which I rekindled my love for darker, heavier sounds. (It sure helped that 2018 offered up an embarrassment of riches for fans of such.)

To wit, in 2018, veteran acts like At The Gates and Skinless made remarkable comebacks, while their death-metal descendants in bands like Outer Heaven and Horrendous took the mantles of their idols and finally transcended them. Acts like Wayfarer and Panopticon used the language of black metal to portray vast expanses of natural beauty, shaded by uncertainty of man’s effects therein. Skeletonwitch offered a triumphant new direction after kicking out an allegedly abusive frontman. Thou tackled heady political issues through a lens of abstract imagery and vicious, viscous sludge. Khemmis made melodic metal powerful again, while No Love merged disparate strains of punk into a united front of snotty, acidic excellence. And that’s just scratching the surface.

It was a good year to retreat, at least sonically, into the cathartic dynamics and escapist fantasies of metal, to feel empowered by punk-rock anthems and reflect among gusts of blackened riffing.

The following albums, ordered alphabetically rather than by my own arbitrary and immutably individual ranking, present a survey of my listening in 2018. May it offer as much to you as it has to me.

At the Gates — To Drink from The Night Itself (Sweden)

 

Bongripper — Terminal (Illinois, USA)

Daughters — You Will Not Get What You Want (Rhode Island, USA)

High on Fire — Electric Messiah (California, USA)

Horrendous — Idol (Pennyslvania, USA)

Khemmis — Desolation (Colorado, USA)

No Love — Choke on It (North Carolina, USA)

Outer Heaven — Realms of Eternal Decay (Pennyslvania, USA)

Panopticon — The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness (I and II) (Minnesota, USA)

Skeletonwitch — Devouring Radient Light (Ohio, USA)

Skinless — Savagery (New York, USA)

Sleep — The Sciences (California, USA)

 

Thou — Magus (Louisiana, USA)

Voivod — The Wake (Quebec, Canada)

 

Wayfarer — World’s Blood (Colorado, USA)

Honorable Mentions

(100 Additional Records We Enjoyed in 2018)

39th & The Nortons — Mourning Waltz (FRA)
AFI — The Missing Man EP (USA)
Al Doum & the Faryds — Spirit Rejoin (ITA)
Anna Wise & Jon Bap — geovariance (USA)
Anthroprophh — Omegaville (GBR)
Bambara — Shadow On Everything (USA)
Barry Walker — Diaspora Urkontinent (USA)
Bat Fangs — S/T (USA)
BC Camplight — Deportation Blues (GBR)
Beach Skulls — Las Dunas (GBR)
Bertha Lutz — Minha Resistência É Minha Revolução (BRA)
Bill Frisell — Music IS (USA)
Birds in Row — We Already Lost the World (FRA)
Black Dresses — WASTEISOLATION (CAN)
Blanko Basnet — Ocean Meets the Animal (USA)
Bodega — Endless Scroll (USA)
Bogan — C’est tout qu’est ce qui m’intéresse (FRA)
Camp Cope — How to Socialise & Make Friends (AUS)
Cathedrale — Facing Death (FRA)
Cave — Allways (USA)
Cloud Nothings — Last Building Burning (USA)
Cockpit — Cockpit II (FRA)
Colin Stetson — Hereditary OST (USA)
Crippled Black Phoenix — Great Escape (GBR)
Crucial Features — Kaprizai (LTU)
Dante High — S/T (USA)
Dark Web — Clone Age (USA)
Death Valley Girls — Darkness Rains (USA)
Dilly Dally — Heaven (CAN)
Dream Wife — S/T (GBR)
En Attendant Ana — Lost And Found (FRA)
Escape-ism — The Lost Record (USA)
Frigs — Basic Behavior (CAN)
Futuropaco — S/T (USA)
Giant Kitty — Rampage (USA)
Grace Vonderkuhn — Reveries (USA)
Helen Kelter Skelter — Melter (USA)
Hen Ogledd — Mogic (GBR)
Here Lies Man — You Will Know Nothing (USA)
Herself — Rigel Playground (ITA)
Hold Station — Dawn of a New Day (FRA)
HOLY — All These Worlds Are Yours (SWE)
Hookworms — Microshift (GBR)
HoT To RoT — HoT To RoT EP (AUS)
Ian Decker — Pop Album (USA)
J.C. Satan — Centaur Desire (FRA)
Jaromil Sabor — Second Science (FRA)
Jungle By Night — Livingstone (NLD)
Kaviar Special — Vortex (FRA)
KOKOKO! — Liboso (COD)
La Secte du Futur — Wounded Princes (FRA)
Landing — Bells In New Towns (USA)
Las Rosas — Shadow By Your Side (USA)
Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers — Bought to Rot (USA)
Lay Llamas — Thuban (ITA)
Lewis & The Strange Magics — The Ginger Sessions (ESP)
Los Mundos — Ciudades Flotantes (MEX)
Los Nastys — Musica para el Amor y la Guerra (ESP)
Melvins — Pinkus Abortion Technician (USA)
Miesha and the Spanks — Girls Girls Girls (CAN)
Minami Deutsch — With Dim Light (JPN)
Mint Field — Pasar de las Luces (MEX)
Miss World — Keeping Up With Miss World (GBR)
Mudhoney — Digital Garbage (USA)
Nest Egg — Nothingness Is Not A Curse (USA)
Night Battles — Remedy and Cause (USA)
Personality Cult — S/T (USA)
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs — King of Cowards (GBR)
Reese McHenry & The Fox — High Comma (USA)
Reverend Beat-man and the New Wave — Blues Trash (CHE)
RF Shannon — Trickster Blues (USA)
Roy Montgomery — Suffuse (NZL)
S.E Ward — Leaving (USA)
Say Sue Me — Where We Were Together (KOR)
School Damage — A to X (AUS)
Shame — Songs of Praise (GBR)
Sherpa The Tiger — Great Vowel Shift (UKR)
Space Coke — L’appel du vide (USA)
Sundays & Cybele — On the grass (JPN)
Sunwatchers — II (USA)
Swearin’ — Fall into the Sun (USA)
Teksti-TV 666 — Aidattu tulevaisuus (FIN)
The Cavemen — Nuke Earth (NZL)
The Coltranes — White Hag (USA)
The Dahmers — Down in the Basement (SWE)
The Goon Sax — We’re Not Talking (AUS)
The Nude Party — S/T (USA)
The Power — S/T EP (USA)
The Sammies — Bonfire Nightclub (USA)
Thee Melomen — Disappear (HRV)
Tired of Everything — Silenced (USA)
Undone — Everything is New Under The Sun (MKD)
Uniform — The Long Walk (USA)
War on Women — Capture The Flag (USA)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane — Luz Del Fuego (BRA)
Wood Chickens — Well Done (USA)
Wooden Shjips — V. (USA)
Workin’ Man Noise Unit — It’s Not Nothin’ (GBR)
Yess Woah — Believe (CAN)
ΝΟΜΟΣ 751 — ΝΟΜΟΣ 751 (GRC)