Here we are. The top five albums I reviewed in the last five years. I revised this list of all twenty-five records several times. It wasn’t easy to get here, but here we go.
#5: The Black Angels – Wilderness of Mirrors (2022)
This was a great return for my favorite band. The Black Angels came back in 2022 with anger about the past and hope for the future. It was a psychedelic, heavy reflection on the current times, what came before, and what was looming.
#4: Shame – Drunk Tank Pink (2021)
The album’s name refers to a color that’s often painted in jail cells to calm rowdy people. This post-punk album blends rowdy rage with punk riffs and cutting lyrics about how bonkers the world was back then…and still is.
#3: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Land of Sleeper (2023)
Good heavens, this thing is massive. Pigsx7 unleashed an album that was designed to shake us out of our doldrums and also explore the weird world of dreams and how they merge with reality. It rocketed into my “best of” list for 2023 upon my first listen, and their tour for this was solid.
#2: A Place to Bury Strangers – Synthesizer (2024)
Speaking of albums that landed in my “best of” lists for a particular year and then never moved out of it, how could I not include an album by APTBS that, no joke, you can turn into an actual synthesizer. The album cover is a circuit board. You can create music with this thing. Plus, the whole album shreds. It’s a stunning work that I think only they could imagine and then execute so well.
#1: Matthew Halsall – An Ever Changing View (2023)
I almost didn’t hear this album or discover Halsall’s work. It got buried in a big stack of unread e-mails and press releases and I didn’t open the file until late fall of 2023, not long before I was about to make my “Best of 2023” list. Lo and behold, it was the most beautiful album I’d heard all year. “Ambient jazz” doesn’t describe it well enough. It’s an album that instantly changes the atmosphere around you for the better.
There you have it. Up next, my top twenty-five concerts of the last five years…which was more difficult to determine than this list.
Keep your mind open.
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