James' Top 15 Albums of 2016

I haven't seriously written about music in a rather long while so I will not speak about the quality of my writing, but the quality of the albums featured here are indisputable. I listened to a damn lot of music this year and despite generally enjoying most of it these 15 albums are the ones which I feel have really stayed with me for one reason or another. I will not be including EP's here so I wanna give a quick shout out to E-MO-TION Side B by Carly Rae Jepsen, Not the Actual Events by Nine Inch Nails and 4 1/2 by Steven Wilson for all being on the same level as everything on this list.

#15

Stranger Heads Prevail (Thank You Scientist)

Following up a debut album as phenomenal as Maps of Non-Existent Places is as good as an impossible task. Despite that Thank You Scientist manage to deliver an album not as consistent as their debut, but still has the same energy and musicianship which made it so likable. While this style of progressive rock can all too quickly just devolve into dull emotionless wankery there is a sense the entire album of just how much fun these guys are having that you start to forget that the album is as the band says, “a little cliche”. The first real song off the album The Somnambulist perfectly summarizes everything wonderful about the album: the interplay between the band and the constant peaks and valleys throughout the song give the feeling of the most well constructed roller coaster. In terms of wanky prog this year you will not find a better release than this.

Theo's Top 15 Albums of 2016

We at Brouhaha Beat do not condone the practice of releasing annual 'best of' lists before the year is over. As such, this is somewhat later than other 'actual' publications who actually get 'paid' for what they write. We are also keeping our lists separate so that we do not pollute each other's tastes. The concept of the list is fairly self explanatory so I think that it is best to just jump straight into it.

15

Bottomless Pit (Death Grips)

Though they have come to be known for their bizarre off-stage antics, at times resembling a group created for the purposes of performance art, it can be easy to forget that Death Grips are one of the most exciting groups to currently be making music. I thought that Jenny Death was a fitting sendoff but was hardly going to argue when they said that they had not in fact broken up. What we were given was something that combined the tight song structures of The Money Store, the grunginess of No Love Deep Web, and the urgency of something new entirely. Bottomless Pit exhibited obvious influence from more extreme genres of metal, MC Ride screeching over blaring guitars from the outset, walls of noise being constructed in listeners headphones only to be brought crashing down in a beautifully chaotic cacophony. Despite this, it is perhaps their most accessible release to date; most songs have a tight hook and a danceable rhythm, following fairly traditional song structures and utilising pitch perfect production to make what could be as close as we get to a Death Grips pop album. Whilst I think that Eh is one of the weakest songs they have ever put out, they more than make up for it with the cathartic joy I get from Spikes, the satisfyingly screamable chorus of Three Bedrooms in a Good Neighborhood, the eerily funky guitar on Ring A Bell. Bottomless Pit is an album of highlights that serves as a reminder that just because a band shocked us with every album they have previously released, it doesn't mean that they are incapable of doing so one more time.