2015 FAVORITE ALBUMS (PART II “1-30”)

1. Kelley Stoltz – In Triangle Time (Castle Face)
“Sixteen years on from his debut, Kelley Stoltz is still one of the titans of psych-infused indie pop, generating new material at a rate that’s inspiring in terms of both quantity and quality…” (allmusic.com)
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2. Thee Oh Sees – Mutilator Defeated At Last (Castle Face)
“…Thee Oh Sees continue to be omnivorous – synths & acoustic guitars expertly wind their way throughout like veins of gold through granite – any & all that stands in its way will be devoured and assimilated. This is the sound of a band doing what they do best.” (Castle Face)
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3. Static Daydream – S/T (Saint Marie)
“Static Daydream follow the Psychocandy formula of taking Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound to its violent extreme, marrying girl group pop hooks and pounding, insistent rhythms with painfully loud, serrated guitar noise, often jacking the tempo up to punk speed…” (allmusic.com)
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4. The Shifting Sands – Cosmic Radio Station (Fishrider Records)
“The Shifting Sands are part of the second generation of flat out great New Zealand bands. Their dense, multilayered psych pop is heavily reminiscent of the best of the Flying Nun bands, but with a twist. Singer Mike McLeod has a warm, sun-dappled voice that lends itself well to these stunning compositions…” (active-listener.blogspot)
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5. Cruising – Cruising EP (Tough Love Records)
“Cruising unites some of Dublin and Belfast’s finest indie groups: Girls Names, September Girls, Sea Pinks and Logikparty
As Benni Johnston’s voice wrestles with these themes throughout the record, the band follow suit delivering a brooding take on the garage-rock genre, with multiple playbacks revealing Cruising’s interlocking sound as they turn from jangling beat punk to full-on noise” (http://thelastmixedtape.com)
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6. Ryley Walker – Primrose Green (Dead Oceans)
“A short lifetime of interminable practice and discipline have resulted in a masterpiece of an album, an album of a sort we haven’t seen since the 1970s…”(deadoceans.com)

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7. The Sundowners – S/T (Skeleton Key Records)
“These tunes are executed to stir something inside of us all: the tremors of thunderous noise, of introverted expulsions, of moving melodies. They encapsulate both the darker and lighter sides to us that are best embraced now for fear they will be torn apart at the hinges of existence. The gospel in the case of this impressive debut is: smoke until stoned, or dance until you literally drop dead. Fabulous stuff” (http://www.kemptation.com)
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8. Spectres – Dying (Sonic Cathedral)
“..It’s a noisy little beast that will leave you feeling somewhat battered, disorientated, but actually, the stink of the corpse of rock has never sounded so good. Just have some paracetamol to hand…”
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9. Froth – BLEAK (Burger/Frantic City)
“For their sophomore album, Bleak, Froth has largely traded in the sun-soaked 60s pop of their first long-player in favor of a maximalist shoegaze sound that combines screaming guitars with muscular drumming and throbbing, nervy bass lines…” (azbinrecords.fr)
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10. Moonwood – Desert Ghosts (Arachnidiscs Records)
“…There’s a perfect balance struck here between the explorative, the hypnotically repetitious, and a more structured play on conventional songcraft, which makes this a thoroughly unpredictable ride which challenges and rewards the listener in equal measure, while evoking the desolate, open stretches of its source material with apparent ease…” (http://active-listener.blogspot.com)
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11. Grand Blue Heron – Hatch (Jezusfactory)
“Saturated in pristine dark musical sound-scapes the viscosity of their music is palpable from the opening barbs of ‘Call the shots’.  The driving post punk recalls early Joy Division but with an abrasive Gang Of Four anger attached to it such is its ferocity and belligerent guitar attack…” (soundblab.com)
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12. Children Of Leir – S/T (Simulations)
“The specialists in playing hypnotic psychedelic trance-like long numbers with strong grooves”

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13. Protomartyr – The Agent Intellect (Hardly Art)
“Agent Intellect is thoroughly flooded with intense conflict, tension, and dread. The melodically driven, dynamic nature of these songs creates a level of complexity and brightness that makes Agent Intellect more than just pure doom-and-gloom. These tracks also bounce and shake with a sky-soaring energy…” (www.stereogum.com)
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14. Heaters – Holy Water Pool (Beyond Beyond Is Beyond)
“…There is certainly no shortage of bands offering up reverb-drenched, trembling garage rock, even with surf rock undertones, but Heaters have somehow avoided the exhausted approach to the genre, perfecting a blend of garage lo-fi, psych, surf and honest-to-goodness rock’n’roll. Yes, they’ve got their reverb punched up and their tremolo dial on high, but it’s all bang-on without sounding hokey or forced. Heaters’ debut is near perfect…” (http://exclaim.ca)
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15. Minami Deutsch – S/T (Cardinal Fuzz)
“…Combining the oppressive micro-detail of the German masters with the delicate synth lines of modern pushers like The Horrors, as well as with the spacey blast-offs of revivalists like Wooden Shjips, side A kicks off with creepy heavy breathing and vaguely sci-fi spoken samples echoed out to infinity. The intriguely titled “Vocalism Ali – Forever Takemitsu” continues to turn the screw, getting heavier as drums and synth static fade in and out…” (www.sicmagazine.net)
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16. Presents For Sally – Colours & Changes (Saint Marie Records)
“…may have only formed in 2009 but their music could quite easily have been crafted two decades earlier. Heavily influenced by Creation Records’ halcyon period and the many bands spawned from that era, the trio – Matt Etherton, his wife Anna and Phil Russell – have been honing their sound over the past six years…its 11 tracks take the listener on a journey that takes in a diverse range of sonic elements from all out sonic attack to acoustic laments about waking up in the morning…” (http://drownedinsound.com)
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17. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit & Think & Sometimes I Just Sit (Mom + Pop)
“Courtney Barnett is only on her first proper album, but she’s already setting herself apart as one of the sharpest, most original songwriters around – at any level, in any genre…” (rollingstone.com)
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18. Josefin Ohrn + The Liberation – Horse Dance (Rocket Recordings)
“The collection of eight songs gallops forward with the momentum of wild horses; it’s as if the psychedelic riffs and the trip-hop-inspired production roam free… until they’re tamed by Ohrn’s seductively ethereal voice…” (noisey.vice.com)
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19. Sunflower Bean – Show Me Your Seven Secrets EP (Fat Possum)
“Sunflower Bean’s style is that of a thick psychedelia mixed with touches of jangly post punk/new wave, complete with warping, billowing guitar textures that make pedal nerds drool a little bit and all the reverbed vocals that you could ask for” (http://whus.org)
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20. Gnoomes – Ngan! (Rocket Recordings)
“…‘Ngan!’ is the sound of a band looking above and beyond modern archetypes of guitar-fuelled noise in search of a strange & beguiling personal vision & dissolving barriers of distance, cultural context & geographical inconvenience with a confident & warm-hearted flourish.” (Rocket Recordings)
Get it on Vinyl here

21. Girls Names – Arms Around a Vision (Tough Love)
“Arms Around a Vision acts as a love letter to European elegance – Italian futurism, Russian constructivism, Germany’s Zero Group and both Neubauten and Bowie’s Berlin. Love and pain, romance and fucking. It’s all in there somewhere…” (Tough Love)
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22. Charles Howl – Sir Vices (Ample Play)
“It’s no wonder Charles Howl has produced an album that sounds like The Modern Lovers channeling The Stone Roses while maintaining its contemporary charm…” (ampleplay.co.uk)…and they gave us a remarkable song for 2015…at least! I love you 47!
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23. Sonic Jesus – Neither Virtue Nor Anger (Fuzz Club)
“On the surface, Sonic Jesus are yet another band in the seemingly never ending nu-psych/shoegaze revival; droning, gothic, heavy and hypnotic. What sets them apart, is the sheer unrelenting density and stubborn trudge of Neither Virtue Nor Anger.” (thequietus.com)
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24. Bed Rugs – Cycle (Waste My Records)
“For years we have waited for that one band that would open the boundaries and find that perfect balance between true-hearted pop songs and some crunching yet subtle psychedelic guitar madness. And these four crazy fucks are ready to butter their butcracks and fill the gap.” (http://wastemyrecords.com)
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25. Mark Lanegan – Houston (Publishing Demos 2002) (Ipecac Recordings)
“Thanks to the atmospheric accordion haze provided by Bukka Allen, the sitar accents of Ian Moore, and controlled feedback bursts of long-time collaborator/ex-Dinosaur Jr. member Mike Johnson, the album gently blurs the edges of Lanegan’s sturdy roots rock template with subtle lysergic touches, like mirage vapors rising from the desert sands…” (pitchfork.com)
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26. Serpent Power – S/T (Skeleton Key Records)
“The Zutons’ Paul Molloy bumped into Ian Skelly, from The Coral, at an after-show party. Their eye’s met and it was instant karma…Taking influence from normal everyday events such as alien brain abduction, phantom bogeymen; sirens, voodoo witch-doctors and waitresses come serial killers, the resulting 12 track album is now complete…and groovy! (www.backseatmafia.com)
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27. Juleah – Melt Inside The Sun (Konkord)
“Water softly lapping at your person while the intense sunlight plays psychedelic shadows across the underside of your eyelids… Ever wondered what that would sound like musically? Then look no further. Melt Inside The Sun is the second album by Austrian artist Julia Hummer, who performs under the band name Juleah. Each song shimmers and you can practically hear the heat haze on each groove…” (fourculture.com)
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28. Coke Weed – Mary Weaver (Beyond Beyond Is Beyond)
“Drawing deeply from her sunbaked Florida-goth roots, Nina’s voice glides sweetly as she delivers a terrifying treatise on the cost of love. The darkness of the subject matter is offset by the Weed’s color show of interweaving guitar expressionism, which rides a crest of the band’s toughest grooves to date…” (BBiB)
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29. Weird Owl – Interstellar Skeletal (A Records)
“Weird Owl’s strange sonic rocketry has ventured ever deeper into the vast starry expanse, and their transmissions back to Earth have grown ever freakier as a result…” (A Records)
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30. Jacco Gardner – Hypnophobia (Full Time Hobby)
“Gardner creates a collection of “catchy, baroque-psych concoctions” that “plays like a daydream twisted through Joe Meek-esque production”…” (hypem.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

2015 FAVORITE ALBUMS (PART I “31-54”)

31. Documenta – Drone Pop #1 (Touch Sensitive)
“Influenced by the English guitar minimalism, the darkness and light of Detroit, and the German Kosmische, Documenta present a true psychedelia through repetition, melody and rhythm…” (touchsensitiverecords.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

32. Novella – Land (Sinderlyn)
“Novella’s debut album, Land, is a controlled blast of mainlined electricity, a tempest of relentless groove and crystalline vocals that is at once the vicious edge and the calm eye of the storm…” (sinderlyn.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

33. A Place To Bury Strangers – Transfixiation (Dead Oceans)
“…the band’s small but noticeable stabs at restraint make Transfixiation another step forward in A Place To Bury Strangers’ evolution from brutal experimentalists to more pop-conscious noise rockers.” (www.avclub.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

34. Death and Vanilla – To Where the Wild Things Are (Fire Records)
“Named after the Maurice Sendak children’s book, the album is comprised of pop music with a wild, dreamy and experimental edge, celebrating imagination and the ability to travel to stranger recesses of the mind” (Fire records)
Get it on Vinyl here

35. Chastity Belt – Time To Go Home (Hardly Art)
“Recorded in a deconstructed cathedral and mixed by legendary Wire guitarist Matthew Sims, Time to Go Home is a throwback to mid-’80s darkwave that gives it an intellectual edge for its resemblance to such a specific moment in classic British new wave. ..” (spin.com)
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36. Moon Duo – Shadow Of The Sun (Sacred Bones)
“…The unchartered rhythms and tones of this album reflect their strive for equilibrium in this new environment, and you can hear that Shadow of the Sun is the result of months of wrangling with this profound, unsettling way of being…” (www.sacredbonesrecords.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

37. The Brian Jonestown Massacre – Thingy Wingy (A Records)
“This album brings the traditional Brian Jonestown Massacre sound mixed with eastern influences & bringing it up to date with the benefit of all the additional weirdness that’s been discovered in the past 40 years…”
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38. Shinies – Nothing Like Something Happens Anywhere (Dirty Bingo)
“The sunrise through squinted eyes drifty narrative of Larkin’s key poem is the perfect backdrop to the swells and swirls of their impressive shoegaze-pop debut long play…” (dirtybingorecords.greedbag.com)
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39. Creepoid – Cemetery Highrise Slum (Collect Records)
“this new collection feels like their most fleshed-out release to date, fulfilling the gloomy promise of their doom-laden brand of slowcore by mixing in a glassy-eyed sense of melody that’d make Meat Puppets proud” (www.spin.com)
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40. Haybaby – Sleepy Kids (Tiny Engines)
“Somewhere between the art punk of Blonde Redhead & Sonic Youth, the classic indie rock of The Pixies & The Breeders & the attitude of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Haybaby impatiently reside. They also sprinkles a little bit of sludge & noise pop into the mix & balances their raw energy with deceptive and captivating melodies” (www.tinyengines.net)
Get it on Vinyl here

41. The Sonic Dawn – Perception (Nasoni)
“The Sonic Dawn (formerly The Mind Flowers) is a Copenhagen-based psychedelic blues collective with occasional folk flourishes. They seem to be channeling that cool West Coast sound from the late 60s on their latest Nasoni Records release “Perception”, combining obvious Hendrix & Love influences…” (active-listener.blogspot)
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42. The Orange Revival – Futurecent (Fuzz Club Records)
“…Echoing some of the wildest chapters of Rock & Roll history, from The Stooges to Brian Jonestown Massacre and early Nebula, the record has a 60s hypnotic flavour, spiced up with hammering drums, organ buzz and fuzzy guitar riffs…”
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43. Vision – Inertia (Burger Records)
“If punk is more a way of life than a defined sound then Vision is clearly a punk band. Inertia stands toe-to-toe with the band’s previous effort, both in terms of writing & raw emotional energy, as well as the on-point bass playing & ferocious vocals-signature traits of a band that has always deserved more attention than they’ve been given” (larecord.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

44. Paul Orwell – Blowing Your Mind Away (Heavy Soul)
“The young brash lad has just flipped that sound and released one of the best sounding ‘60s beat British Invasion records in 2015 with plenty of distorted guitars, mood pacing organ, and hooks that will keep you coming back for more…” (thefirenote.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

45. Moa Bones – Spun (Inner Ear)
“Summery sonic vibes, harmoniously floating melodic ease and ludic electronic waves – Moa Bones’ dreamfully pensive yet vividly sparkling release ‘Spun’ comes in as a fresh breeze of sound carrying dainty, delicate folk-music bliss of exciting experimental ethos…” (whenthehornblows.blogspot)
Get it on Vinyl here

46. White Noise Sound – Like A Pyramid Of Fire (Rocket Girl)
“…a metronomic and hypnotic onslaught of melody, groove and exploration which goes beyond the standard tropes of psychedelia…” (rocketgirl.co.uk)
Get it on Vinyl here

 

47. Pinkshinyultrablast – Everything Else Matters (Club AC30)
“…Did you missed Lush or Slowdive? If yes, then don’t look any farther! You will get both of them in a package of one! The Russians Pinkshinyultrablast are coming to fill the gap!!!!…” (http://blackspinrecords.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

48. White Manna – Pan (Cardinal Fuzz)
“Pan is the equivalent to a surging psychedelic whirlwind, however you keep second-guessing what you’re hearing because little do you realize you’re stranded in the center of a scorching desert…” (styrofoamdrone.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

49. New Candys – New Candys As Medicine (Picture In My Ear)
“With original Loop drummer/producer John Wills on knob twiddling duties, and 2 members of the band also making up Mexican mind benders Lorelle Meets the Obsolete’s live line up, New Candys are certainly keeping the right company to brew up a right old Psychedelic hoedown…” (echoesanddust.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

50. The Amazing – Picture You (Partisan Records)
“If drugs are synthetic love, The Amazing is the syringe, and “Picture You” is the drug you’ve always wanted to try but never did. Take a vacation from the bullshit, get addicted, and then get your friends fucked up…” (partisanrecords.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

51. My Expansive Awareness – ST (Analog Love Records)
“My Expansive Awareness is a classic neo-psych band in the Brian Jonestown Massacre mold (the good years), giving us good riffs, driving rhythms, groovy moods and just a hint of darkness. Music for dusk. Not quite day and not quite night, the in-between time when life is at its most exciting and all things are possible…” (ymbdad.blogspot)
Get it on Vinyl here

52. The Black Ryder – The Door Behind The Door (The Anti-Machine Machine)
“…The talent they showed for crafting atmospheres is even more impressive here: thanks to the lavish production & arrangements, The Door Behind the Door is crisper & more massive-sounding than its predecessor.” (www.allmusic.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

53. Shadow In The Cracks – ST (Goner Records)
The brothers Blaha (The Blind Shake) are back with Shadow In The Cracks, a new side project that sounds like the devil’s work for their rarely idle hands….plays like the psyched-out, sleep-deprived flipside to the melodic scuzz they’ve become known for…” (http://noisey.vice.com)
Get it on Vinyl here

54. Gunman And The Holy Ghost – The Story of Radiate & Novocaine (8MM Music)
“The album is first and foremost one thing: misery ballads, which serenade opposites attracting and colliding. Love and separation, inner demons and the surreal aspects of human existence…” (fuzzclub.com)
Get it on Vinyl here