While singling out top albums from 2018 was a little tough, there was no shortage of great songs this year. There were many more albums that had one or two great songs I kept returning to than there were full-length album releases that I loved start to finish.
Below are ten such standout tracks from albums that you won’t find on the indiecator’s “top of 2018” list.
10. Razorlight – Brighton Pier
Olympus Sleeping was meant to mark the great resurrection of Razorlight, one of the most talked-about indie rock bands of the mid-2000s (at least in the UK), who hadn’t been heard from in a decade. Unfortunately, this didn’t really pan out. The album received little attention and lukewarm reviews. Admittedly, while Olympus Sleeping is far from Razorlight at their peak, it does have some of the band’s strongest tracks yet. Case in point is “Brighton Pier,” a rocker full of confident swagger. The song combines the jangly guitars and stomping drums of the Razorlight of yesteryear with synthesized organ and horns to add a touch of unexpected new flair. It’s a real standout on the album, and it satisfies any nostalgia for mid-2000s UK indie rock you may have developed. You can read more about Razorlight’s Olympus Sleeping here.
9. Albert Hammond Jr. – Muted Beatings
If you’re a fan of the Strokes, you’ve probably noticed that the band hasn’t released a studio album since 2013’s forgettable Comedown Machine, or really anything since the brief Future Present Past EP in 2016. This absence has left fans in the meantime with members’ solo and side projects: frontman Julian Casablancas has been getting weird with the Voidz, while rhythm guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. has been making albums that sound the most Strokes-like. His fourth solo release Francis Trouble is full of fuzzy riffs, lo-fi vocals, and garage rock energy, resulting in a pretty solid album overall. However, the track “Muted Beatings” stands out from the pack thanks to its emotional delivery and sense of urgency. Between the volleys of guitar and the frantic drumming, the song never gives enough time to breathe, even if the chorus is just a combination of “doo-doo-doo” and “I don’t care.” Also be sure to check out the video, which was a finalist for this year’s “best of” countdown.
8. Devotchka – Done With Those Days
For the uninitiated, Devotchka are a band best described as an eastern European-influenced lounge/cabaret act. Their seventh album This Night Falls Forever took things in a different direction from their earlier releases, toning down the horns and tango melodies in favor of a more guitar and orchestral-based theatrical sound. Yet even this vague descriptor feels incomplete, as standout track “Done With Those Days” has the feel of an old timey waltz mixed with a country number – are “cowboy ballads” a thing? It opens with a whistled melody on par with Andrew Bird, and singer Nick Urata carries the verses with a subdued tone before howling along with the melody for a non-existent chorus. It’s all around very atmospheric, fitting well with the album’s title, and shows that Devotchka are always full of surprises.
7. Peter Bjorn and John – Every Other Night
Peter Bjorn and John’s eighth album was actually quite good, and only narrow missed this year’s “best of” countdown. Aptly titled Darker Days, it was full of tracks that carried a downbeat melody and/or pessimistic lyrics, which is somewhat shocking if you know them best for “Young Folks” (AKA that one whistling song). “Every Other Night” was an immediate favorite from the album, with its staccato bass and snapping snares that reminded me a little of the band the Drums. John, who has the softest voice of the trio, takes the lead on this one, contrasting the instrumental pep with a somber tale of regret that prominently contains the lyrics “kicking myself in the morning, kicking myself at night.” Other tracks on Darker Days including the Bjorn-fronted “Gut Feeling” likewise capture this spirit of bleak pop, and you can read more about the album here.
6. Everything Everything – Breadwinner
Coming from Everything Everything’s A Deeper Sea EP, “Breadwinner” is the only track on this list not from a studio album. I truthfully didn’t get too many EPs this year, and I shun singles, as laid out in this rant. I am really glad I got A Deeper Sea though, since “Breadwinner” is one of the best Everything Everything songs I’ve heard, and one that summarizes the band’s style well. A general ominous tone? Check. Instrumentals that blur electronic music and rock? Check. Frontman Jonathan Higgs going between his trademark falsetto and natural rapidfire singing that borders on rapping? Oh yes. Even the lyrics are characteristically cryptic and political, and although I’m not sure of the track’s overall meaning, I love when Higgs sings “power” five times fast. We’ll probably have to wait until the band drops by on Genius again to find out what this track is really about, but in the meantime, give it a listen for a great introduction to Everything Everything.
5. The Joy Formidable – Y Bluen Eira
The only track on this list not in English, “Y Bluen Eira” is sung in the Joy Formidable’s native Welsh and translates to “the snowflake.” Sure, it’s an underwhelming title, but the song opens the band’s fourth album AAARTH with a definitive bang. Starting with glitch-like effects and chant-like vocals, it explodes into the hard rock guitar riffs that the band have become known for, with the occasional lead guitar melody chiming in. There’s an amazing drum solo at the end that builds and then dissipates rather than explodes, and I honestly wish this song were several minutes longer. Even with this nitpick and my complete ignorance of what the lyrics mean in English (I have yet to find a translation), it’s still one of the most captivating Joy Formidable songs to date, and is the most prominent highlight of AAARTH, which you can read more about here.
4. The Decemberists – Rusalka, Rusalka/Wild Rushes
The Decemberists took an ambitious “see what sticks” approach to their eighth album I’ll Be Your Girl. They tried a few electronic-oriented tracks. They got political once or twice. There were a bunch of straightforward folk-rock songs in the same vein as their last two albums. If you read my full review of this album, you may recall I wasn’t a fan of this scattershot approach, and I miss the days when the band were quirky bards who sang songs that required a dictionary and/or encyclopedia to understand. With this in mind, the eight-minute two-part epic “Rusalka, Rusalka/Wild Rushes” emerges as an out-of-place high point on I’ll Be Your Girl. Here, singer Colin Meloy tells the tale of a rusalka, a siren-like creature from Slavic literature that lures men to their deaths by drowning – in other words, peak Decemberists material. The first half is slower and marked by piano, drums, and a general sense of foreboding, while the “Wild Rushes” part picks up significantly as folksy acoustic guitars and backup vocalists enter to give it a climactic finish. It’s more like the Decemberists’ 2009 album The Hazards of Love than anything they’ve done since, and it’s like the band put it on I’ll Be Your Girl to reassure longstanding fans: “don’t worry, we’ve still got it.”
3. Interpol – The Rover
As an indie rock act whose popularity peaked in the mid-2000s, Interpol were in good company releasing music this year. Seriously, just look at some of the names on this list of reviews. To separate Interpol from this pack of aging rockers, their sixth album Marauder was their best release in ten years, drawing inspiration from last decade’s great garage rock revival while still sounding fresh. Its first single “The Rover” had me hooked immediately, with a rougher, livelier sound than you’d expect from a band who were once compared to Joy Division at every opportunity. Additionally, each band member really does a great job on this track: guitarist Daniel Kessler creates a great melody right off the bat, singer Paul Banks delivers lyrics about a mysterious cult-like leader in his signature baritone, and drummer Sam Fogarino periodically steals the show whenever he throws in a drum roll. Marauder may not have made the top albums list this year, but I still recommend it for any fans who miss the 2000s, and you can read more about it here.
2. The Voidz – Pyramid of Bones
As mentioned earlier on this list, the Strokes’ rhythm guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. has been keeping busy with fairly Strokes-esque solo albums, leaving frontman Julian Casablancas to fiddle around with the Voidz. This band, formerly known as Julian Casablancas + the Voidz, is his more experimental and punk-tinged creative outlet, and their first album Tyranny was full of strange sound effects and vocal distortions. This year’s release Virtue was a little more restrained, but when it did let loose, it really made it count. For instance, the single “Pyramid of Bones” sounds like nothing else on Virtue and is the best hard-rocking track I’ve heard all year. Its verses bear some resemblance to the Strokes, thanks to the angular guitars and Casablancas’ mumbling vocals, but the song really sticks out thanks to a Black Sabbath-like metal riff that serves as its cornerstone. It even sounds like death metal in a few bits when Casablancas screams “LIESSSS” and all of the instrumentals devolve into thrashing. I know the track bears some sort of political message based on the weird-ass video and the few comprehensible lines like “don’t you ever listen to the white man’s lies,” but good luck piecing it all together. Regardless, give this a listen for a head-bangingly good time, and read more about the Voidz’s Virtue here.
1. Kanye West – Yikes
Well, this has certainly been quite the year for Mr. West. Despite all his past shenanigans, 2018 was his breaking point for a lot of fans, between the doubling down on #MAGA love, his outlandish statements about slavery, and delivering a rant in the Oval Office that was so perplexing it left Trump of all people speechless. While these are just a small selection of the times he made headlines this year, he’s been quietly doing some good things as well, like donating money to good causes. He’s allegedly done making political statements for now, so let’s hope that lasts longer than Morrissey’s short-lived pledge to no longer do interviews.
Moving past the headlines, Kanye was very busy with music this summer, releasing five different albums in five weeks in what became known as his “Wyoming Sessions.” He served as producer on three of these albums (Pusha T’s Daytona, Nas’s Nasir, and Teyana Taylor’s K.T.S.E), collaborated with Kid Cudi on one (Kids See Ghosts), and put out his own eighth studio album, ye. While not the worst album I’ve heard all year, ye is definitely towards the bottom in a ranking of Kanye’s discography. Like all of the other Wyoming Sessions albums, it’s only seven tracks long, but this one feels particularly rushed, maybe because Kanye put the whole thing together in two weeks. It does have some brilliant moments though, and while most critical praise has been focused on the track “Ghost Town” thanks to 070 Shake’s guest spot, I loved “Yikes” from the first listen.
“Yikes” is one of two tracks from ye that’s just Kanye, and was an obvious single choice as its most straightforward hip-hop song. It has a great beat throughout, and Kanye’s singing at the chorus evokes his 808s and Heartbreaks days. The lyrics deal with his mental health and addiction issues, from the refrain of “shit can get menacing, frightening, find help” to his embrace of bipolar disorder not as a disability, but a superpower. Of course, there are some first-rate Kanye lines throughout, including multiple references to himself in third person (“this is why all the bitches fuck with ye”) and the most important question of our time, “you know how many girls I took to the titty shop?” While most of his public statements still just deserve a “thank you Kanye, very cool!,” “Yikes” is proof that there’s still a great rapper and producer somewhere inside his head.
(An honorable mention goes out to Kanye’s song “Lift Yourself,” which clearly had the best lyrics of the year)
