Best of 2017 Q1

Favourite albums of 2017 Q1 (listed alphabetically):
1. "Prisoner" - Ryan Adams
2. "Tourist In This Town" - Allison Crutchfield
3. "More Life" - Drake
4. "HNDRXX" - Future
5. "Near to the Wild Heart of Life" - Japandroids
6. "The Order of Time" - Valerie June
7. "After the Party" - The Menzingers
8. "Culture" - Migos
9. "One Foot Out" - Nines
10. "Drunk" - Thundercat

Favourite songs of 2017 Q1:
1."North East South West" - "Near to the Wild Heart of Life" - Japandroids
2. "Nothing Burns Like the Cold" feat. Vince Staples - "Nothing Burns Like the Cold" Single - Snoh Aalegra
3. "Funeral Pyre" - "Funeral Pyre/Distant Solar System" - Julien Baker
4. "The Heart Part 4" - "The Heart Part 4" Single - Kendrick Lamar
5. "After the Party" - "After the Party" - The Menzingers
6. "Sunday Morning Jetpack" feat. The-Dream - "I Decided." - Big Sean
7. "Get It Together" feat. Jorja Smith & Black Coffee - "More Life" - Drake
8. "Slide" feat. Frank Ocean & Migos - "Slide" Single - Calvin Harris
9. "What Happened to Fire?" - "What Happened to Fire?" - Your Old Droog & Wiki
10. "Throwing Lines" - "Kelly Lee Owens" - Kelly Lee Owens

Album of the Week: Beach Slang The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us

For some reason, earnestness sometimes rubs people the wrong way.

It's easy to make fun of someone when they wear their heart that much on their sleeve – there's certainly a vulnerability that accompanies giving that much of your heart to something, and doing so publicly. But there's a bravery required to opening up that way, and I'd argue every single time that the bravery always transcends any shit you take from someone about it.

Beach Slang's frontman James Alex believes earnestly in rock music. In its power to heal, to inspire, to make us feel, even just for three minutes or less, that someone out there fucking gets it.

And with the Philadelphia group's debut album, The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us, he's made a record that sounds like a devotional to music's power. It'll crush your ears with its power and hooks, even while Alex is being a romantic about music the whole time.

The thing flies by at just 27 minutes, and that's perfect for the make-or-break emotions, the pounding guitars, the sing-along choruses. It's all an explosion of beauty and joy, and the album leaves you wanting more. You can't help put hit play again as soon as it finishes.

Everything about the music and lyrics here is on its sleeve – and that include the album's thesis statement. "Ride The Wild Haze" opens with, "I feel most alive/when I'm listening/to any record that hits harder than the pain," and the rest of the song goes on to detail the escape Alex finds in music, how his brain sometimes gets in the way of his heart, and finding that "wild haze" – a way to escape it all. It's all catharsis, and perfectly soundtracks the moment when you stop giving a shit.

The whole album is full of songs like that.

Beach Slang's influences are pretty obvious – The Replacements loom large over the soundscape, and Japandroid's seminal Celebration Rock is an obvious touchstone. Things We Do doesn't quite match that album, but there's plenty of drive and power to get damn close.

Even the one break in the momentum, the startlingly gorgeous "Too Late To Die Young," is a love song to a scene, not a person. It's a torch song for the stage, for the audience, for creating something that connects with people you would never expect. It's one of the most honest and pure moments in music this year, and hits even harder because of the sea of rock around it.

Like any romantic, Alex is a fan of the big gesture, and that's what Things We Do ultimately is: the big move, the declaration of love, the "dare to be great" moment. Some people are always going to find that kind of thing corny, but as for me, I say fuck 'em. Throw this album on, turn it up and cut loose. And as the author Stephen R. Donaldson wrote, "Be true. There is also love in the world." Just listen.

The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us is out on Polyvinyl.

Also recommended this week:

Amy, the soundtrack to the award-winning documentary about Amy Winehouse.

Real Estate guitarist Martin Courtney's solo debut, Many Moons. 

Kirk Knight's long-awaited, woozy debut, Late Knight Special.

Van Morrison's reissue of the best album of all time, Astral Weeks.

The Neighborhood's moody rocky album, Wiped Out!

Album of the Week: Kelela Hallucinogen

For many years, albums were almost always 40 minutes long. This was the amount of time a vinyl album could hold, and unless an artist wanted to get really adventurous (and expensive) and go with a double LP, they had to pare down their songs to fit that time frame.

Think about that for a minute. That means most of the defining records from people like Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and countless others changed music forever in 40 minutes or less. That just boggles the mind.

New mediums allowed for more time, and thus more music, culminating in CDs, which provide 80 minutes for musicians to experiment with. Some artists use that time to the max (think Kendrick Lamar's brilliant but exhausting To Pimp A Butterfly), but even an average album still clocks in at around an hour.

I've always been a "leave them wanting more" guy, so while I appreciate the efforts many musicians put into making use of all the time they have, many of the albums that have hit me hardest in recent years go for brevity. Take Japandroid's Celebration Rock, easily the best rock album of the century, which clocks in at just 35 minutes.

We can now added Kelela's new EP, Hallucinogen, to the list of heavy hitters who can knock you out with just a few well timed hits. Hallucinogen is a mere six songs and clocks in at around 37 minutes. And yet, she doesn't waste a second or a sound in creating a gorgeous sonic landscape in which to get lost.

The theme of Hallucinogen is a kind of Memento'd relationship – first song "A Message" is the end of a relationship, and she works her way back to the start from there, ending with the gorgeous "The High."

Kelela really digs into those brutal thoughts that envelop you after losing someone:

I won't shed a tear

Cause waterworks are easy

Left some things behind

Don't need your help

And all I know is all I've got

Is it hard to face

All we lost?

She beautifully gives voice to all the self-doubt, bitterness and grief that the loss of a partner can create, and does so in a completely honest way.

"The High" is glitchy sex anthem, as ominous as it is intoxicating (check out lines like, "My lips are creeping up your neck/You shiver and try to pull back/And forth and back and forth with it") and indicative of a relationship that had a shelf-life built in. 

Her insightful songwriting throughout is augmented by breathy-vocal delivery that belies her range when she fully cuts loose. Her words come to you with a breathless muffle, like she's singing to you with her face in a pillow, and it carries with it an immediate intimacy. But you can also hear her sly smile, especially on standout track "Rewind."

The soundscape is all icy synths and 808s – the kind of stuff Drake lives in and Tink skates through – and Kelela is perfectly at home there. "A Message" has one of my favorite beats of the year, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear Drake hopping on a remix of it at some point. It's perfect headphone music, and Kelela subtly bends all the music to her will.

Kelela is just getting started (this is only her second release) and by taking a classic approach to constructing an album, she proves has greatness ahead. Give her your attention – you won't regret it.

Hallucinogen is out on Cherry Coffee/Warp.

Also recommended this week:

The Decembrists lovely EP, Florasongs.

The first part of Game's Documentary 2 release.