In this week’s column, I look at two albums that may have slipped under your radar, and finally finish up my countdown of the Best Albums of 2021. 

The New Stuff:

LIFE ON EARTH – Hurray for the Riff Raff

Hurray for the Riff Raff, a band that’s really the solo project of New Orleans-by-way-of-New York singer/songwriter Alynda Segarra, have been quietly prolific since their 2007 debut. Focused on folk and Americana early on, they’ve since evolved into a more mainstream indie rock band, culminating in this year’s LIFE ON EARTH, which borrows heavily from The War on Drugs, the indie rock band of the moment. The Drugs-inspired tracks on LIFE ONE EARTH are the best ones, Segarra knows how to write propulsive rock tracks that layer synths and acoustic guitars, but on the slower, more piano focused tracks that are this project’s traditional domain, the album really drags. Segarra’s narrative songwriting is also stuck in a bit of a rut. 2017’s The Navigator deftly tackled immigration, gentrification, and the various crises Segarra’s ancestral home of Puerto Rico faced in the Trump era, but when they revisit those topics, as they do on “PRECIOUS CARGO,” it feels like they’ve run out of anything interesting to say beyond “ICE is bad.” And at the risk of overstepping my bounds, the Caribbean patois they affect on that same song feels like it’s skirting the line between empathy and appropriation.

Recommended Tracks: “PIERCED ARROWS,”  “RHODODENDRON,” “SAGA”

Dissolution Wave – Cloakroom

After seeming to peak with the ascendance of DIIV circa 2013, the shoegaze revival has entered a new phase in which bands like Wednesday and Greet Death have been pegged as the favorites of savvy critics and act as a counterpoint to the wispy singer/songwriters that have dominated indie rock as of late. Cloakroom are probably a little too heavy to be embraced by some indie rock fans – more than one of their songs sound like metal godfathers Black Sabbath – but Dissolution Wave, their third full length album, is an under the radar gem. Despite the crushing weight of its instrumentation, this is also a very soft album – lead vocalist Doyle Martin acts as a calm and reassuring guide through the noisy atmosphere, and this juxtaposition of power and gentleness is reflected in songs titled, on the one hand, “Fear of Being Fixed” and “Dissembler,” and on the other, “Dottie-back Thrush” and “Lambspring.” This is not an album for people who like their tempos high – in fact, it can occasionally veer into plodding territory – but anyone who values texture and doesn’t care all that much about making out lyrics should be able to buy what Cloakroom is selling.

Recommended Tracks: “Lost Meaning,” “Fear of Being Fixed,” “Dissembler”

Best of 2021, Part 5

4. HEY WHAT – Low

Has there ever been a more unlikely “experimental” band than Low? Beginning in the 90s as a slowcore band, the unassuming Minnesota couple of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker have since reinvented themselves as the prophets of a new kind of music created by pushing audio technology to its limits, creating sounds that sound heavenly and hellish at the same time. A lot of that is thanks to the production work of BJ Burton, who pursued similarly boundary pushing sonic environment in his collaborations with Bon Iver, but where that latter project can sometimes feel aimless and indulgent, Low are more focused in their intensity, providing close, clean vocal harmonies while technology, the Earth, and the human race falls apart around them. If the Book of Revelation ever comes to pass, I imagine it will sound something like this album.

Recommended Tracks: “White Horses,” “Days Like These,” “More”

3. Valentine – Snail Mail

Exhaustion has been the bane of many a sophomore album. So many young artists succumb to the pressure of following up a smash hit debut by putting out something that sounds a little too conservative, or a little overproduced, or sometimes a little too similar to their first record. On Valentine, Snail Mail mastermind Lindsay Jordan tries to make that exhaustion (which included a stint in rehab) work for her, following up Lush’s songs of teenage longing with a record of burned out young adulthood. The passion is still there but it’s been beaten to the ground by the demands of real life, and even some of the poppier arrangements Jordan pursues sound worn in and worn out. It’s one of the most emotionally vulnerable albums of the year. 

Recommended Tracks: “Ben Franklin,” “Headlock,” “Glory”

2. ULTRAPOP – The Armed

I understand why The Armed are considered a punk band – they play at breakneck speeds, do a lot of screaming, and, in the tradition of Henry Rollns, are incredibly ripped. But to merely describe them as a punk band is to be reductive, and ignore the chaotic percussion, electronic textures, and the unlikely hooks they occasionally manage to pull out of their imposing wall of sound. ULTRAPOP is far from my most listened to album of 2021, but that’s because it’s just so much to drink in. That’s also why it’s my second-favorite album of the year. It doesn’t take a lot of talent to push every dial up to eleven, but it does take a ton to make something remotely listenable out of it, which is what The Armed are able to do here, and hopefully what they’ll be able to do for years and years.

Recommended tracks: “ALL FUTURES,” “AN ITERATION,” “AVERAGE DEATH”

1. Jubilee – Japanese Breakfast

Jubilee was not a slam dunk number one album of the year for me. A fan of Japanese Breakfast’s previous work, I was wary of the poppier, more synth-driven direction of this album’s early singles. But Jubilee is so much more than Japanese Breakfast’s pop album – instead, it’s a Beatles-esque pocket symphony, a fully fleshed out musical masterwork that builds on the band’s earlier sound rather than replacing it. It’s also Beatles-esque in its relatively sunny demeanor. True to its title, Jubilee is very much an album about joy – the joy of performing, the joy of love, and crucially, making room for joy when it’s the last thing your brain wants you to do. So much of the music of the past ten years has been defined by misery, and I’ve loved a lot of it. But this punchy, realistically positive album was the perfect antidote to the real world’s recent doom and gloom. It takes a lot of work, and more than a little bit of luck, but life can be good if you try.

Recommended Tracks: “Be Sweet,” “Kokomo, IN,” “Slide Tackle,” “Savage Good Boy”