Best Albums of 2016
The Blind Shake – Celebrate Your Worth LP (Goner)
After 12 years of flexin’ midwest muscle, this Minnesota trio has honed their craft into something bigger than the punchy garage punk scene they’ve flourished in. Their jams are instantly craveable and continue to reap endless rewards with every listen. Each release has gotten better and better and this one is easily the best written and best recorded one yet.
Leather Towel – Leather Towel IV (Hozac)
Leather Towel takes postpunk’s angular, severe regimen and shocks the shit out of it with punk’s reckless energy and speed. Decoding the twin guitar attack as it circles over you with a reverbed bass throb and breakneck 1-2-1-2 hardcore beat will put the wheels-flying-off thrill of this record on your must have list in no time.
Lithics – Borrowed Floors LP (Water Wing)
Ya might think in the year 2016 that there’s not much life left in angular postpunk tunes, but this Portland quartet, true to the hype they’ve garnered over the last year or so, deliver the goods on this 10 song platter. They’ve injected vibrancy into the form by punching out smart, tightly knit songs that crackle with an assertiveness that’s somehow both detached and impassioned. It’s an impressive debut with solid songwriting executed perfectly. Looking forward to hearing more from Lithics.
Lumpy & The Dumpers – Huff My Sack LP (Lumpy)
These St. Louis freaks are pretty much the jizzy cream of the punk crop. After a number of killer 45s and demos below their belts, like 2013’s “Sex Pit” and 2014’s “Gnats in the Pisser” — recently collected on their Collection LP for your listening pleasure — Lumpy & The Dumpers have proven that they can keep their crude punk damage fun in larger doses.
Oranssi Pazuzu – Värähtelijä 2xLP (20 Buck Spin)
This Finish metal band’s double album expands on their shamanistic sound often described as black metal psych, but that really doesn’t give a satisfactory description of what’s going on the 4 sides of this beast. Sure it’s massive and it does have a buzzing psychedelic squall, but the sounds here are warped and fucked beyond anything else you’ll hear in this world. Texturally, their sound is layered and dense in a way that’s wholly unique and intriguing, and even more remarkable is that the songwriting also pushes things a few steps further out with riffs that mutate to defy expectation and convention with every expansive minute. Give this monster your undivided attention and get ready for a journey you’ll not likely forget.
PUFF! – Living in the Partyzone LP (Slovenly)
Pretty much knew after hearing PUFF!’s Identitätsverlust 7″ that anything this Berlin group put out would be required listening. And even though this album doesn’t match the explosive electrospasm of that brainstomping single, it does take their mutant synthpunk sound into so many twisted directions that your attention will not wander.
Terry – Terry HQ LP (Upset the Rhythm)
Fuckin’ A Australia is cranking out the quality jams. I’ll admit that I was a little put off with my first spin of this record, since I was expecting something more in line with Total Control and UV Race with a little more grit and in-the-red volume. So after tabling my disdain for acoustic guitar (featured on just a few tracks) and the overall cleaner sound of Terry, I gave it another listen and soon realized that I was approaching it all in the wrong way. Now Terry HQ has had more listens than pretty much anything else this year. Its Breeders-by-way-of-The Fall sound is charming and plays well for pretty much any mood. It’s a patchwork of great ideas bringing life to staid rock elements with a level of creativity that few bands are brave or playful enough to explore.
Tørsö – Sono Pronta a Morire LP (Sorry State)
Okay, so this technically came out Dec 2015, but for all intents and purposes this rager made big waves well into 2016 with ferocious hardcore played fast and hard as hell. There are plenty of D-beat hardcore groups out there plodding similar territory, but few are able to whip up the feral energy Tørsö has on all 11 tracks of their debut LP. Every song thoughtfully builds and explodes with enough power to level your local all-ages space and the gazillions of by-the-numbers hardcore bands unfit to share the bill.
Useless Eaters – Relaxing Death (Castleface)
You may remember at time when Jay Reatard was releasing a ridiculous amount of material. It was impossible to keep up with his prolific output and too easy to stop paying much attention. Fast forward past his sudden departure in 2010 and of course it became crystal clear that all those records he was cranking out year after year were all worthy of attention even if it seemed like overkill at the time they came out. I’ve taken that lesson to the equally prolific Seth Sutton and his flagship Useless Eaters band who continue to make instant classics ever since they started spitting out wild ass 7-inches in 2009. With increasing frequency the Eaters have sharpened their sonic attack and traded in the frantic garage fury of their earlier releases with a finely tuned machine that hooks you in and continues to hook deeper and deeper as every one of the 12 tracks on Relaxing Death wraps itself into your DNA.
Wet Ones – Wet Ones LP (Black Gladiator)
Ensuring that punk still aims straight for the jugular, Kansas City’s finest lowlifes spat forth one of the nastiest piss-colored slabs of hate ever committed to wax with their self-titled debut. Merrily puking out gnarly punk in its basest, visceral form, the Wet Ones push the punk rock needle well past the point of accessibility/mediocrity into something so beautifully ugly one can’t help but to mainline it again and again and again…