If It's Too Loud...

If 2023 is the year of artists reinventing themselves, my number one album has to be Caroline Rose's The Art of Forgetting. I've been a fan since their alt-country days of 2014's I Will Not Be Afraid , through the changes since.  The Art of Forgetting is a concept album of sorts. It's about Rose processing the pandemic (their previous album, Superstar , was released March 6, 2020), along with losing their grandmother to dementia and a particularly rough break up. That makes this album not a particularly fun one. It's not a downer, per se, but it's not exactly filled with road trip ready party jams. But, The Art of Forgetting is art. This is an art pop album that sees Rose pushing their boundaries, and then pushing some more. Even a song that starts off relatively simply like "Miami" slowly veers off into a more experimental direction, and might be the showcase of the album. When I saw Caroline Rose back in April, they commented that they felt they had ...

I loved Sapling's 2020 album No Sequoia , and I was looking forward to amor fati to be released in May. I wasn't quite expecting to love this album as much as I did. The songs on amor fati are somehow both more pop and more experimental than the previous album. Sapling's sense of humor isn't as apparent this time around, but it's more biting. Plus, it's noise punk masquerading as prog rock?  amor fati gets better and better with each listen, as you always discover more to like each time. "A Fox Upon the Tomb" and "11:37" are the songs that initially grab you, but others slowly grow on you until they become favorites. "The Little Monkey Who Wasn't Very Good at the Accordion: A Bedtime Story" is a spoken word story by Amber ToiletFire Tortorelli over accordion that was amusing the first time, but is now one of my favorites on the album. "Inaction in Action" might be the best example of a song that is both more pop and mo...

Say what you will about Spotify, but thanks to it I discovered Wednesday. They kept getting played at the end of albums I was listening to, and I kept wanting to hear more. I quickly became a fan, and ended up adoring their 2023 album Rat Saw God. I think Wednesday can be summed up by my wife's reaction to hearing them: Are they indie rock or are they country? And my answer was yes. They have one of the most unique sounds out there today. It's a noisy version of indie rock that still has enough pop hooks to keep you listening, and just enough twang to countrify it more than a little bit. A song like "Bull Believer" is a giant, epic indie rock song, while "Chosen to Deserve" is an off-kilter country jam. Wednesday play with Drive-By Truckers quite a bit, which makes perfect sense. They're both rock bands with a hard country edge to them. It's not too many bands with a pedal steel player that can inspire mosh pits, but that's what Wednesday does at...

When I first heard Be Your Own Pet way back in 2005/2006, I felt like I was far too old to be into them. I was pushing 30, and they were teenagers, but I kept reminding myself that if Thurston Moore and Iggy Pop could be fans, so could I. They disbanded shortly after, and every so often I wondered what they were up to. Suddenly, a few reunion shows were announced, and they released a comeback album in September. With Mommy , Be Your Own Pet and I are now the same age. The songs still have the same punk fury and sense of humor as their original releases, just toned down a bit. Like Jemina Pearl says in "Goodtime!" "I got two kids and a mortgage." Maybe it's because they've been pent up for a decade and a half, but Be Your Own Pet have barely slowed. (Just the appropriate amount.) Mommy is filled with songs about aging, mental health, lefty politics, etc. It's a great punk record for middle aged people that haven't given up and started listening to bro...

Speaking of artists that have leveled up in 2023, Margo Price absolutely killed it with Strays. I've repeatedly said that it seemed like Price realized the world needed a Tom Petty and decided to become one. Strays  still has a country sound, but it has more of that timeless classic rock meets alt-rock sound that Petty mastered. (Plus, I believe we're legally required to mention that this album was written on shrooms since most coverage of it focuses on that fact.) Strays is just a great rock album. "Been to the Mountain" leans into psychedelic rock. "Light Me Up" is a little more straightforward country rock. "Radio" goes a little New Wave and brings in Sharon Van Etten for some vocals. And then there is "Lydia." "Lydia" is this quiet and intense song that is mostly folk but has some indie rock noise moments delivered by strings. And it has Price delivering her vocals in the best speak-singing method since... well... Tom Petty....

Continuing 2023's theme of bands leveling up with new albums is Lydia Loveless' Nothing's Gonna Stand in My Way Again. Somewhere else was my favorite album of 2014, and while I've enjoyed her releases in between, nothing Loveless has released has quite connected with me that way since. This new album comes pretty close, though. Loveless has all but abandoned her early alt-country sound and has recently picked up a more pop friendly sound. Nothing's Gonna Stand in My Way Again  finds this great middle ground. A song like "Sex and Money" is nearly pure pop, but with more of an indie rock edge to it. What makes this album so great is how it's a purely unique blend of pop, indie rock, punk, and alt-country. "Feel" is a song that is as beautiful as it is discordant. Loveless' vocals have never sounded better, but musically the song is more art and noise rock than anything they've done previously. "Toothache" is power pop, and ...

When boygenius (the group made up of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker) released their EP back in 2018, I assumed it was a fun off one project from friends who felt like collaborating. Much like The Bens (the group of Ben Folds, Ben Kweller, and Ben Lee), we'd never hear from the trio again and it would be a fun little footnote in their careers. But boygenius kept going, and this year they released the excellent the record. And they got huge. They're at the level where it's cool to both love them and hate them. Their backlash now has backlash. We obviously love them, and with good reason. At no point do any of the songs on  the record  feel like a Phoebe Bridgers song, or a Lucy Dacus song, or a Julien Baker song. They've accomplished this feat where the entire album somehow sounds like all three of them, and something completely new. Plus, it's a wildly diverse album. "$20" is a full on indie rocker, "Emily I'm Sorry" is alt-pop ...

The theme of 2023 seems to be established artists we've loved for years leveling up and making fantastic, mainstream albums. No band did that more than Deer Tick. Emotional Contracts  sounds like Deer Tick decided they wanted to start headlining much bigger venues, and made a big rock record. Some of their previous album had that same feel, but Emotional Contracts feels much more earnest than some earlier attempts. That isn't meant as a knock on any of Deer Tick's previous releases. This one just sounds like it appeals to OG fans while opening the door as wide as possible for new ones. While Deer Tick may not quite sound like Hank Williams meets Nirvana, both of those artists' roots are all over Emotional Contracts. A song like the Ian O'Neil fronted "Forgiving Ties" is nearly impossible to resist. It still has that twangy and slightly off-tuned guitar, but it's one of the most catchy songs of the year. One of the main appeals of this incarnation of De...

I discovered Bella White's 2020 album Just Like Leaving  a year late, but I quickly became smitten with the singer's blend of traditional folk and bluegrass. She released her sophomore album this year, and Among Other Things may be even better than her first. The songs on Among Other Things  are still traditional folk and bluegrass, but for this album White updated the sound to a more modern version that at times stops just short of folk-pop. The Canadian native just has that kind of voice that sucks you in. White just sucks you in with her natural talent as soon as "The Way I Oughta Go" starts, and keeps you mesmerized until the album closes with "Among Other Things." The standout track for me is "Flowers On My Bedside," a song that stretches the genre of traditional folk just about as far as it can go while still being traditional folk, and is one of the most engaging songs of the year. As with any article about Bella White, I have to mention tha...

If you've been paying attention to David Wax Museum for the past few years, you'll know that they've been talking about having a great album in the can that they were just waiting to release when they felt they could truly tour behind it and promote it properly. That album is You Must Change Your Life , and it's truly a culmination of David Wax Museum's recent sound experimentation as they've moved away from the traditional Mexican folk of 2011's Everything is Saved and 2009's Carpenter Bird to a more modern folk sound (along with some experimentation.) Sometimes an album sounds like a band is trying to make a big, hit record, and that is certainly the case with You Must Change Your Life , but it still feels like an earnest release. David Wax Museum are a band I've been a huge fan of for a while. Since discovering them through the Newport Folk Festival and NPR way back in 2010, this is a band I feel a strong connection to. ("When You Are Still...