In this week’s column, I discuss the (second) best-reviewed album of the year, a pair of promising young singer/guitarists, and march on with my Best Albums of 2021 list.

The New Stuff:

Ants from Up There – Black Country, New Road

When Black Country, New Road released their debut album For the First Time last year, I mentally slotted them in as just another one of those talky post-punk bands from the UK, albeit one with more in common with the post-rock pretensions of Squid and black midi than more uptempo groups like The Idles or Ireland’s Fountaines D.C. Ants from Up There – which, as of this writing, is Metacritic’s second best reviewed album of the 2022 – is a fascinating, occasionally invigorating turn away from the deadpan, gloomy angularity of the band’s early sound. Instead, it’s a grandiose chamber pop epic in the style of Arcade Fire or Sufjan Stevens, adding a small symphony of horns and strings to traditional rock instrumentation and allowing Black Country, New Road to compose songs with sprawling scopes and dramatic rising and falling structures that weave together desperate tails of romantic obsession, illness, and loneliness. Sometimes it’s too sprawling – this isn’t a “tight” record, and it’s light on hooks or catchy beats. But its status as a kind of an early Millennial throwback and lead singer Isaac Wood’s sudden departure from the band are destined to provide this with the reputation of an album like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, an ambitious record held up as a masterpiece by some and overrated palaver to others that may never get a proper follow up, a fact that will only heighten its legend.

Recommended Tracks: “Chaos Space Marine,” “The Place Where He Inserted the Blade,” “Basketball Shoes”

Duality – Luna Li

I first heard Luna Li’s music when she opened for Japanese Breakfast at Brooklyn Steel last year, and was immediately impressed by her magnetic stage presence and virtuosic guitar playing, and her debut full length album makes good on the promise she displayed on stage. While the Kali Uchis-style pop/R&B she explores on the album’s early tracks is pleasant enough, Duality really comes alive in its second half, where Li lets her fingers fly across her fretboard, casting her thrilling guitar licks and solos against a lush, orchestral backdrop (I can’t remember the last time I heard an album with so many harps on it). Some of these songs sound a little too clean and dreamy, and some of them a little too similar to video game instrumentals, but anytime Li digs in with her guitar, I feel like I’m listening to the female, Gen Z version of Prince.

Recommended Tracks: “Alone But Not Lonely,” “Silver Into Rain” feat. beabadoobee, “What You’re Thinking,” “Magic”

PAINLESS – Nilüfer Yanya

Speaking of talented singer/guitarists I first encountered while they were opening for a veteran act, Nilüfer Yanya has always intrigued me since I first saw her open for Sharon Van Etten a few years ago, but outside of one or two brilliant songs, her full length debut Miss Universe left me a little wanting. The texture was there – I mean, how couldn’t be with Yanya’s distinctive husky voice – but her songs were bogged down in an inoffensive, rubbery R&B/rock hybrid that failed to take flight. There are some tracks like that on PAINLESS, but there are others – like the Bloc Party-aping “stabilise” – that feel like amalgamations of everything great that the British have contributed to music since the late-90s. Breakbeats, post-punk revival guitars, even Radiohead-style guitar arpeggios – they’re all adopted by Yanya and stirred into this stew of Cool Britannia, making it immediately appealing to anyone who went through an Anglophile phase at some point in their life. On some level, this album is still more interesting than it is good, but you get the sense that Yanya has all of the components to make a great album; after all, she’s already written some great songs.

Recommended tracks: ”the dealer,” “stabilise,” “midnight sun”

Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling ‘em Up – Wednesday

Wednesday were my favorite musical discovery of 2021 (I expand on their sophomore album Twin Plagues below), primarily because of how unapologetic they are. They’re noisy and messy, reveling in feedback drenched guitars that alternate between J Mascis-style leads and thick, shoegaze-y chords. But they’re also unmistakably Southern, making heavy (and innovative) use of lap steel guitar and singing about trailer parks and Dallas Cowboys branded urns with a weary twang. An EP of covers, Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling ‘em Up is a tribute to their disparate influences and the different parts of their identity, featuring songs from traditional country artists like Gary Stewart, alt-country legends like Drive-By Truckers, and bona fide rock stars like Smashing Pumpkins. It’s a much more lo-fi effort than Twin Plagues, but that only adds to its charm. Each of these tracks sound like they could have been hammered out at a rehearsal, but they’re also fully realized and thorough. It’s a special band that can repurpose slick Nashville production into a buzzing, blown out-rocker or add some DIY grit to a song from one of the most notoriously overproduced albums of all time. I look forward to basking in Wednesday’s shambolic beauty for years to come.

Recommended tracks: “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Double),” “Women Without Whiskey,” “Sacrifice (For Love),” “Perfect”

Best of 2021, Part 3:

8. Wish You Were Here Tour Revisited – 2nd Grade

It feels a little disingenuous to include this album, a re-recorded and expanded version of 2nd Grade’s debut Wish You Were Here Tour, in a list of what’s ostensibly the best original music to be released in a given year, but to leaving it off this list would mean leaving off one of my most listened to albums of 2021. It would also mean ignoring the fact that, by recording as a full band instead of songwriter Peter Gill’s solo project, 2nd Grade discovered new dimensions in these old songs, turning once meak tracks into spirited bursts of power pop bliss. Like last year’s Hit to Hit, Wish You Were Here Tour Revisited doesn’t feel like an album so much as a series of beautifully composed television ads from the 60s – sunny, catchy, occasionally bittersweet, but always perfectly constructed.

Recommended tracks: “Favorite Song,” “Wish You Were Here Tour,” “Superglue,” “Held Back”

7. Twin Plagues – Wednesday 

One of the weird things about letting your Best of 2021 list stretch into March of 2022 is that your relationships with the albums you end up writing blurbs for ends up changing, and while I always held Twin Plagues in high regard, I would probably rank it two or three spots higher than I have it right now. I’ve already sung this album’s praises earlier on in the post, but it bears repeating that Wednesday’s fuzzy, lurching blend of grunge, noise rock, country, and shoegaze feels like a shot in the arm to an indie rock scene that felt like it had been getting a little complacent, and that its songs about rural life help push against rich kid stereotypes of the genre. They’ve also pretty much reinvited the lap steel guitar, pushing the instrument to its limits both on the record and on stage (when I saw them live, Xandy Chelmis went so hard he had to play half the show with a missing string). I can’t wait to hear what this band does next.

Recommended tracks: “Handsome Man,” “How Can You Live If You Can’t Love How Can You If You Do,” “Toothache,” “One More Last One”

6. Doomin’ Sun – Bachelor

Melina Duterte (aka Jay Som) and Ellen Kempner of Palehound both excel at whispery, exquisitely textured indie rock – so when they got together to form Bachelor, you knew the project’s debut album was going to be must-listen stuff. It helps that each member of the duo play to their given strengths – Kempner provides yearning lyrics about obsessive fandom and irrational infatuation, while Duterte makes magic with her guitar, contorting it into bizarre, satisfying shapes and smearing reverb soaked chords across sunset-colored backdrops, sometimes all in the span of one song. So many of Bachelor’s songs are about unrequited love or other feelings of longing, but the music they churn out together is profoundly satisfying.

Recommended tracks: “Back of My Hand,” “Stay in the Car,” “Anything At All”

5. I Know I’m Funny haha – Faye Webster

“Relatability” is an oft overused marker of quality when it comes to assessing music or any art, but it’s one Faye Webster exploits to the point of transcendence. Her songs aren’t epic, or sweeping, or particularly dramatic. But they are uncannily familiar to anyone who considers themselves an introvert – the housebound afternoons, the weird dreams, and – most of all – the inherent discomfort with accepting love and affection from another person. Webster’s lyrics are frequently self-effacing, but they do little to undercut her self-evident talent. Still acting as the missing link between country and R&B, Webster’s songs remain as hazy and languid as ever, sounding sometimes like the sound of binge watching TV on a rainy day, other times like getting drunk by yourself at a tacky tiki bar. But no matter the song, Webster is able to tap into a sense of profound loneliness – either as it’s being experienced, or as it lingers on in the back of an otherwise happy person’s mind.

Recommended tracks: “I Know I’m Funny haha,” “In a Good Way,” “Both All the Time,” “A Dream With a Baseball Player”