10. Ryley Walker – Primrose Green
Ryley Walker – Summer Dress
If you like jazz and psychedelic-tinged rock along the lines of Traffic and Steve Winwood – Grateful Dead as well – you’ll love this. I’ve read that Tim Buckley, who I’m just now appreciating because of Ryley Walker, was a huge influence. The Chicago-based musician has pulled together local, seasoned jazz musicians for this tour de force. Ryley’s chromatic finger-picking style and sense for a heady blend of the abstract and the melodic is breathtaking. There is something primal and progressive deluged here as well, and it’s not difficult to get lost – captivated throughout the listen. The title track leads off with a dazzling acoustic riff and lovely piano fills as an intro to Ryley’s soulful croon. “Summer Dress” presses further into psych territory with brilliant vibraphone and electric guitar flourishes. “Love Can Be Cruel” swings with vigor, and back-porch folk textures the splendid “On the Banks of the Old Kishwaukee”. “Sweet Satisfaction” is a breeze of acoustic guitar and expressive vocals with smoky-like elements before breaking into a fusion jam. Throughout the playing from this exceptional ensemble, there are restrained crescendos with playfully complex arrangements. It seems effortless, but Ryley delivers an absolute gem of an album.
9. The Tallest Man On Earth – Dark Bird Is Home
The Tallest Man on Earth – Slow Dance
The Tallest Man On Earth, aka Kristian Matsson, is a Swedish folkster who brings to mind Paul Simon and Tom Petty including touches of a world-weary vagabond aware of every possible human emotion. I dig his wordiness and gravelly voice. His warbling croon has awesome range and a knack for gripping the listener – no matter how displaced from home. These tunes of strife, longing, and loss – and the way it shapes us – have an authentic emotional impact, and it’s not just the lyrics. “Fields of Our Home” ebbs and flows under “What if you’d never been through lies, Young sorrow, Wailing loans” while “Darkness of the Dream” positively soars with “A fear of heart and all of its turnings, And it’s never letting go”. The shuffling beat and Matsson’s vibrato vocals with timed breakdowns – “In a place like this I should never feel afraid” – on “Slow Dance” is phenomenal. Also on this amazing song – “Get around. This is handsome life. I guess my rhythm grew. Through my darker time, oh.” Elsewhere, “Timothy” has a bouncy Celtic vibe and “Beginners” is slightly disguised as a coffee house picker. Dark Bird Is Home feels like home – there’s just something very natural and comforting about these gorgeous tunes. Whether it’s a piano ballad or layers of guitar, electronics, and percussion – it comes straight from the soul.
8. The Lone Bellow – Then Came The Morning
The Lone Bellow – Then Came The Morning
Brooklyn trio The Lone Bellow weave passionate yarns of expansive, lush, Folk Rock to a degree that makes them near genreless – a real acclamation. They reveal a wide variety of sonic palettes that can all be accurately described as gorgeous. Title track “Then Came The Morning” shows the way with Zach Williams soulful cry and a march through atmospherics. “Fake Roses” would have been a 70’s classic rock radio staple and matters become grandly anthemic on “Take My Love”. There are additional elements of Motown soul on “Marietta” and stripped-down country gospel on “Watch Over Us”. Funky rockabilly and a thunderous rhythm section drives “Heaven Don’t Call Me Home” and “Cold As It Is”, while “Telluride” is a slow burning album highlight. Part of the joy throughout is feeling the mix of guitar, mandolin, pedal steel, keys, strings, and horns – each occupying its own air. Also fantastic are the ubiquitous multi-part vocal harmonies. This sophomore album has fantastic production quality and delivers both pleasing singalongs and deeper layers of superb musical ability.
7. Banditos – s/t
Banditos – Golden Grease
Banditos create a perfect blend of hazy Blues, stomping Folk, and rowdy Rock and Roll. Their self-titled debut album contains solid songs throughout with wild diversity, and most impressively – these folks can play! They are extremely talented individually and leave enough space for each other to showcase all the roots-based eclecticism going on. Headphones and/or loud volume is recommended. Take the boogie-woogie opening track “The Breeze” with its overdriven electric guitar, banjo riffs, rollicking drums, and loose medley of ideas that barely end in the same place. Next track “Waitin'” is progressive bluegrass featuring the vibrant wail of Mary Beth Richardson on lead vocals. “Golden Grease” is my favorite tune with its slow build-up of picking and drum snare while concurrently exploding with burning Blues Rock. Vanguard, late-night atmospherics permeate “Ain’t It Hard” and “Old Ways”. “Still Sober (After All These Beers)” is the kind of barroom country rocker that Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis would want to sit in on. If you’re not already dancing around the room by the time “Can’t Get Away” plays, you can’t be contained…with it’s bouncy rhythm and fervent, reverb-soaked lead guitar. Lead guitarist Jeffrey Salter is even more unrestrained on a gem of an album closer, “Preachin’ To The Choir”. The album contains abundant powerful guitar riffs and gritty vocals from all 3 vocalists – Corey Parsons, Stephen Pierce, and Richardson. An all around phenomenal listen balancing both musical finesse and energetic performance. My favorite new band of year 2015 and one to follow going forward.
6. Modest Mouse – Strangers To Ourselves
Modest Mouse – The Ground Walks, With Time In A Box
It’s been a long 8 years since Modest Mouse’s phenomenal We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. I have specific memories of listening to that album and can place it at certain times and places. Most are regrettable. Much has happened since then, and it’s interesting to see what musical direction and maddening afflictions are driving band leader Isaac Brock. Strangers To Ourselves rocks and is quite simply awesome! There is nothing forced about the entertaining weirdness and tasty detours welcomed among this ingenious work. Lyrically, the album is based on a singular – and familiar – Brock theme, that we still don’t understand our place on this earth, may have never been meant for it, and are destroying it without care. The opening title track reminds us “how lucky we are, that we are, so easy to forget” with a foreshadowing theme and building groove. “Lampshades on Fire” pens a fun, catchy melody at odds with the message of ignorance to our impending doom. Lyrics such as “Burn it up or just chop it down. But this one’s done so where to now?” are delivered both emphatically and bitterly. My most admired trait about Modest Mouse albums is that it will not be a straightforward listen – but challenging and highly engaging music. This is embraced in the spooky “Shit In Your Cut”. “Ansel” is a brutally true story about Brock losing his brother and reminds us all that moments with our loved ones are huge – because “you can’t ever really know” when it’s “the last time that you’ll ever see another soul”. Another album highlight, “The Ground Walks, With Time In A Box” is a brisk, subliminal, multi-layered affair a la Talking Heads. I also extremely dig the freak out excursion of “Sugar Boats” and the psychedelic gorgeousness of “Wicked Campaign”. Throughout this galvanic album, the music is buoyant and even the darkest, most frenzied vocals are riding on beautiful melodies. This tension, along with immaculate production and a wide variety of sonic complexities, ensures this is an essential listen for some time to come.