BRANDON’S TOP ALBUMS OF 2017

10. Feist – Pleasure

Feist returns after a six-year hiatus with a record about everything life gives and takes from us. Personnel from Broken Social Scene featured on Metals have been replaced with a more robust band. This impressive effort is her best since 2004’s Let It Die.

9. Manchester Orchestra – A Black Miles to the Surface

This post-hardcore outfit offer a balmy and surprisingly popular album that contemplates adulthood and gives much food for thought.

8. Dan Auerbach – Waiting on a Song

A well-crafted throwback to 70’s rock, this LP establishes Auerbach as a formidable singer-songwriter in his own right.

7. The Rolling Stones – Blue and Lonesome

After over two decades of struggling to match their blistering stride of albums (each that topped the one before it) that began with Aftermath and ended with Tatoo You, the Rolling Stones finally offer a fresh record worthy of their groundbreaking earlier work. The Stones realize their basis is the blues, find strength in returning to their fundamentals and present this set of blues covers.

6. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.

Lamar proves that mainstream hip hop can still be both intelligent and relevant on this fierce and religious record. Featuring some surprising guest appearances (chiefly 9thWonder and U2) the sound is more conventional than To Pimp A Butterfly.

5. St. Vincent – Masseduction

Taking the extraterrestrial sounds of her self-titled 4th album to new extremes, this offering finds St. Vincent exploring the complications of love and misery that have come with her new found fame. Jenny Lewis and Kamasi Washington both lend a hand.

4. Robert Plant – Carry Fire

Plant continues the trajectory of Raising Sand and Lullabye and the Ceasless Roar: he creates a vibrant tapestry of a wide variety of styles of music. Overall, he seems to acknowledge his work has returned to the standard of the glory days of Led Zeppelin.

3. Dent May – Across the Multiverse

Not since In Rainbows have such sad songs been presented in such a gorgeous manner. Bittersweet lyrics combine with brilliantly executed production. The album is tinged with a Californian ethos reminiscent of Pet Sounds.

2. Godspeed You! Black Emporer – Luciferian Towers

2000’s Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven was the last time the band played with such energy and inspiration. The botched politics of Yanqui U.X.O. are absolved with this album’s progressive demands for human rights. It proves the band are still a force to reckoned with within the post-rock canon.

1. Do Make Say Think – Stubborn Persistent Illusions

The band exits the ether to present their first album since 2009’s The Other Truths. While that work was disappointing this record is as rewarding as the exceptional Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn and You, You’re a History in Rust; this LP is a remarkable recollection of the dynamic sonic textures that made those albums breathtaking. With this Do Make Say Think reaffirm that they are the best post-rock band of the new millennium.

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