Not only did it see great new releases by the likes of Foals and White lies, it also saw the return of indie veterans such as Balthazar or Mando Diao. Besides these established acts, the best indie albums also included exciting debut albums from the likes of Fontaines D. Check out our list of the best indie albums to see what you might have missed this year. The structure of this album fully grasps the listener and takes their hand to take you on an adventure, where Oscar Pollock talks you through his thoughts and feelings on the world we live in.
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10. Sundara Karma – Ulfilas’ Alphabet
In "indie rock" felt more like a guitar-led free for all with artists drawing from an ever-widening musical well. These are our top 10 picks for the year. The trouble with sitting down to compile a list of the best "indie rock" albums of the year, is that it is incredibly difficult to say what constituted "indie rock" in definitively. Naturally, you'd assume it's a handy label for indie guitar bands who stick to writing indie guitar songs. The trouble is that few artists were doing that this year. So here we have albums that blend in everything from synthpop to post-punk, to folk and even to hardcore to the point where the parameters of genre simply melted away. There lies the joy in lists like this one. Choosing the albums involved a good deal of second-guessing and debate as to whether this or that could legitimately fall under the banner of "indie rock". Ultimately, the albums that make up our top ten could easily appear on any number of genre lists, but grouped under the slightly reductive banner of "Indie rock", there can be little argument that this is simply one hell of a list. The differences between We Slept at Last , Marika Hackman's full-length debut, and her latest offering, the terrific Any Human Friend , aren't infinite, but they're certainly noteworthy, and shed light on the artistic transformation of the year-old British singer-songwriter.
Sea Girls - Open Up Your Head
Here are the 35 best. At this point, Jeff Tweedy has earned the right to rest on his laurels. And yet the beauty of Ode To Joy is that these veterans still feel compelled to push themselves. While the music is superficially quiet, this muted beauty seethes with rage about a world that is seemingly ambivalent about its own destruction. The resulting collection might be the strongest of a prolific career, on a record as self-assured as it is easy to get lost in. White Reaper are disciples of the jock rock greats from the s. But somehow, they manage to feel completely authentic, never falling victim to the gimmick. Marrying spectral piano with her own quavering, honeyed vocals, Pratt writes with the kind of wisdom that only experience can instill, but never loses her sense of innocence, either. Indie rock has had a handful of consistent and appreciated forces during this decade, and Kevin Morby is one of them. His latest album, Oh My God , shows off his ambition as a songwriter for the most fully-realized album of his career.
The indie rock albums released in often occupied one of two spaces: quiet and subdued, or loud and biting. We also heard releases from indie rock greats like The National and Vampire Weekend, proving that even as bands grow and evolve, they can stay true to the indie rock sound. From the outside, the objective is simple: Stay clean long enough and the monkey on your back eventually hops off.
