#10 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Fever Ray

Radical Romantics by Fever Ray

Welcome to the Top 10 albums of 2023. This is where things really get fun for me, thinking about the albums from the year that I had the most trouble putting down, and what they mean to me and place they occupy in my life.

Fever Ray is the moniker under which Karin Dreijer – half of the groundbreaking electronic duo The Knife – performs, and seeing them appear here in 2023 should not be any surprise. The Knife’s Shaking the Habitual was #29 back in 2013, and both of Dreijer’s earlier Fever Ray releases have appeared on the Top 31 (#18 in 2009 and #21 in 2017). I am always picking up what they’re laying down.

Dreijer, and their nom de plume, Fever Ray, are unlike anything else I currently listen to. In my younger, gothier days I’d cycle through The Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxsie, and the like, and while all of those bands had a particular look to them – liked to wear dark makeup and do funny things with their hair – I would never have said any of them were “in costume.” My days-away from 50-year-old wants to call Fever Ray “goth,” but there’s something more to it. Dreijer and their Fever Ray bandmates are 100% “in costume,” all the time. On the cover to their phenomenal third album, Radical Romantics, Dreijer has a bald cap on, a ringed mane of long thin white hair, and elaborate makeup that would make them a shoe-in for the Ghost of Christmas Past in a revival of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Radical Romantics is Dreijer’s best album since The Knife’s Silent Shout, which came out back in 2006 (better than the two previous Fever Ray albums, and way better than The Knife’s final album, Shaking the Habitual, from 2013). The additional help Dreijer brought onto Romantics likely has something to do with it. In addition to roping in their brother Olof (aka the other half of The Knife) for four songs, Fever Ray also collaborated with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the Oscar-winning and Grammy-winning duo behind the soundtracks to 2010’s The Social Network and 2013’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (that’s not to mention Reznor’s other gig) on two songs. You can watch videos for both of those Reznor / Ross songs. The first is featured above, called “Even it Out,” and even shows Reznor and Ross performing within. There are some definite Reznor-like sounds flowing through the song. The other is “North,” a more subdued affair, with similar production to the duo’s soundtrack work. Obviously, Dreijer’s work without the help is great, too (the albums wouldn’t appear here on the Top 31 if I didn’t think so). But when 60% of the songs on the album are essentially The Knife songs or tangential Nine Inch Nails songs, there really is no comparison.

You can watch a couple other videos the band has released from the album: “Kandy” and my favorite track from the album, the opener, “What They Call Us.”

I had the immense pleasure of seeing Fever Ray perform live in November, and it was everything I want out of a live show. Theatrics, costumes, dance routines and throbbing bass make for one hell of an experience. Just last week Fever Ray released a live performance video created for ARTE.tv (“the European Culture Channel”) concert series “Passengers,” called Les Hauts Fourneaux d'Uckange (in English, The Blast Furnaces of Uckange) — an hour-long, extremely well-produced film showing the band perform in an abandoned factory in northern France. I encourage you to watch the performance, as it is nearly 1:1 of what I saw back in November, right down to Dreijer’s deathly makeup, their David-Byrne inspired big suit, and the light-up cloud headpiece worn by the keyboardist. Watching them perform, you’ll start to understand what is so magical about Dreijer and the band.

Radical Romantics is eerie, intense, brooding, and it seeps into every one of your orifices like a thick fog. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#11 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Young Fathers

Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers

Here we are on the bubble of the Top 10 of 2023 with Young Fathers, who were in this exact same position with their phenomenal Cocoa Sugar a short five years ago. Heavy Heavy is the band’s fourth full-length, and it’s every bit as good as Cocoa Sugar.

Not much has changed with the band in the space between these two albums. They still hail from Edinburgh, Scotland, and they are still a trio of men who have now been making music together for 15 years: Alloysious Massaquoi (born in Liberia, moved to Edinburgh when he was 4), Kayus Bankole (born in Edinburgh to Nigerian parents) and Graham 'G' Hastings (born in Edinburgh to Scottish parents). Having been writing and performing together since they were teenagers, the three men dance and spar and finish each other’s musical thoughts like brothers. Watch their KEXP Live Performance from earlier this year to see how they play off each other – the first three songs of the short set see each of them take the lead at various points.

Heavy Heavy is only a short 33 minutes long, with 10 get-in-get-out 3-minute tracks. It’s heavenly. Whereas Cocoa Sugar saw the band adopting more pop-song qualities that allowed them to secure a wider audience, Heavy Heavy has them maturing those same ideas into the best they can be. The song “I Saw,” shown above, achieves a sound somewhere between TV on the Radio and Prodigy. The other video they’ve released, for the song “Tell Somebody,” is an odd choice for a video. It’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but the song feels more like a transition, and bridge between the highlights of the album, “Drum” (song #3) and “Geronimo” (song #5).

When I first heard Young Fathers, I wasn’t sure where they should be stored in my musical file cabinet. Over these last two albums, they’ve shifting up to the front of the drawer that features political rock, hip hop, and hard hitting dance artists. (No such drawer exists – maybe that’s the metaphor I should be painting here: they’ve been moved to a musical drawer all their own). Even if you only kinda liked Cocoa Sugar, I urge you to listen to Heavy Heavy. It contains a half-hour of danceable, singable, catchy as all get-out music that you’ll want to repeat again and again.

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12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#12 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Blondshell

Blondshell by Blondshell

I love getting in on a new band on the ground floor and watching them rise to the top. 26-year-old Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Sabrina Mae Teitelbaum, otherwise known as Blondshell, is a great example of this experience. I saw her and her band open for Porridge Radio (#12 last year) at the tiny 200-person venue Barboza in September 2022. At the time, she had released exactly three songs (“Olympus,” “Kiss City,” and “Sepsis” – the latter of which is featured in the video above). Three months later, she was signing a record contract with Partisan Records, home of recent Bacon Top 31 faves Fontaines D.C. (#20 in 2022, #12 in 2020, and #26 in 2019) and IDLES (#24 in 2020 and #16 in 2018) among many others. And now, a year later, she’s released a superb, Obama-approved self-titled debut.

Prior to 2020, Teitelbaum performed under the name BAUM, and had a distinctly different musical personality. BAUM’s music was more centrally Pop with a capital P, and she had a minor viral hit with a song called “Fuckboy.” Listening to that song now, while a little catchy, it unsurprisingly sounds immature and hollow. As COVID started to settle in in early 2020 she made the switch to Blondshell (a name she and her sister came up with over dinner one night). After a couple years of rumination and deep thinking, the first Blondshell song to be released, “Olympus,” came out in June 2022. Over the next year, the magic appears to have taken over as she assembled what became the debut album.

Blondshell has clear linear ties to similar sources as Indigo de Souza did, but Teitelbaum feels more singularly Courtney Barnett, a Bacon Top 31 fave (#5 in 2021, #8 in 2018, and #5 in 2015), and further back into 90s rock, like Hole or the Cranberries. When I saw her perform back in 2022 she played a cover to Built to Spill’s “Carry the Zero,” which came out in 1999. Being a huge BTS stan, of course this had some positive influence on me, personally. You can watch her “KEXP Live Performance” to see her and the band in action, or watch the handful of additional videos she’s released from the album:

• “Salad”
• “Joiner
• “Veronica Mars”
• “Street Rat”

We’re getting into the portion of the Top 31 where every artist becomes a must-listen. There’s no “give this a try,” it’s all very much “stop what you’re doing right now and listen.” And that’s where I‘ll end this review. Do it. Now.

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13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#13 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Indigo De Souza

All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza

There are many ways an artist can pay homage to an earlier time or work, and there’ve been a number of artists on this year’s Top 31 who are clearly referring to something previous. Teenage Sequence is kinda LCD Soundsystem. Greg Mendez is kinda Elliott Smith. Tennis, Kate Bush. Ratboys, Pale Jay, and Anohni equal Big Thief, Lee Fields and Nina Simone, respectively. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Indigo De Souza, the Asheville, North Carolina-based, American-Brazilian singer-songwriter, whose fantastic third album All of This Will End is coming in at #13, is also phoning in directly from the referential dept. Take some Courtney Barnett rock n’ roll fuzz, some Liz Phair directness, and even some of Alanis’ production, and you’ll end up smack dab in the middle of this De Souza record. While it’s not breaking new musical ground (what is anymore, really?), it’s hitting all the right indie rock spots.

De Souza is blunt. The title of the new album is, as you might expect, related to the finality of everything. She told WhyNow.co.uk, “I know that I am fleeting and I’m dying.”

“I named the album All of This Will End because it took me a while to accept that. Once I was able to accept that, feel less afraid of it but more open to it and curious about it, my life started to become more meaningful because accepting you are a temporary thing is what gives way to meaning and intention and connection. “It doesn’t give way if you think you’re special and you’re never gonna die, or if you’re so afraid of death you can’t even think about it. I know the people I love are going to die and so am I, so I love them even more, and I put so much time and effort into showing up. “I basically do as much as I can to shine a light on any corner I can reach. Any corner beyond what I know is beyond my control. I try to pour as much intention into everything I do, as much as I can, because I want people to feel included and safe. I know how lonely it is to be alive, so it feels important to create community if it’s possible at all.”

That loneliness and finality shines through in the lyrics scattered throughout All of This. But the album is not sad and lonely – it is triumphant, loud, and in your face in the best way. Give the song above, “Smog,” a listen and you’ll see. Or watch one of the other videos from the album: “Younger & Dumber” (the quietest song on the album) and “You Can Be Mean” (not so quiet). Then put the album on when you’re angry at the world and want to take out your frustrations. You’ll be glad you did.

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14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#14 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Anohni and the Johnsons

My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons

It’s a travesty that Anohni with and without her band, the Johnsons, has never appeared on the Bacon Review Top 31. They’ve been making stellar music since their 2000 self-titled debut. There have been two “and the Johnsons” albums that could have been featured: their fourth, 2009’s The Crying Light, and their fifth, 2010’s Swanlights. And not including Anohni’s 2016 amazing solo debut, Hopelessness, on the Top 31 that year was such an egregious transgression I even wrote about it a bit after the fact.. I only wish including their stellar 2023 album My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross made up for all those misses. It won’t, but I’m going to give it a try nonetheless.

Anohni Hegarty, formerly Antony, is a singer, songwriter, artist and anything but simple. She is British-born, New York City-based, and Oscar-nominated, for her collaboration with J. Ralph on the climate-change driven song “Manta Ray” from the 2016 documentary Racing Extinction, becoming the first openly transgender performer nominated for an Academy Award. Her solo album, Hopelessness, which featured production by Oneohtrix Point Never, won me over with Anohni’s deep, vibrato-laden voice played over the top of driving electronic beats. Bridge, here in 2023, is a departure and/or return to form, depending on how you look at it. It’s been 13 years since she last released an album with the Johnsons. Combine her rekindled relationship with that producer Jimmy Hogarth, who has work with Amy Winehouse, Sia, and Tina Turner, and you end up with 41 minutes of distinct Anohni-driven soul.

In an interview in The Guardian, Anohni and Hogarth aimed to channel Nina Simone and jazz singer Jimmy Scott. From my somewhat untrained-ear position, I can feel the connection to Simone pretty strongly. This album was recorded in a more immediate fashion than Anohni’s previous, tedious-attention-focused-on-every-note productions. All told, the album took roughly only two weeks to complete, with the band creating a remarkable 3-4 songs a day in that time.

There have been four videos created for the album:

• the above, “Scapegoat”
• “Why Am I Alive Now?”
• “Sliver of Ice”
• “It Must Change”

The cover of the album features a black and white portrait of noted outspoken American gay liberation activist Marsha P. Johnson, one of Anohni’s heroes. According to that same article in The Guardian, Anohni met Johnson just six days before Johnson was murdered in 1992 (still an open case). Anohni had been and remains so moved by what Johnson did and stood for, Anohni named her backing band after Johnson in tribute.

This is a slow-burner of an album that carries a heaviness unlike any other. It feels like a weighted blanket draped over your body, cozy and warm. Put on the record, light a fire, and just let it unfold.

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15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#15 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Noname

Sundial by Noname

Five years can feel very long, or very short. For a kindergartner, five years is a literal lifetime, having gone from an immobile blob to a living, breathing, interacting and fast-moving person. But for the parents of that five-year-old, those first five years can feel like they flew by. Every parent who sends their child off to their first day of kindergarten thinks “Where did my baby go and how did this happen so fast?”

For Fatimah Nyeema Warner, aka Noname, the five years since she released her debut album, Room 25, must have felt extremely long. A lot has happened in that time: She announced a second album, to be named Factory Baby, a year after Room 25 came out, only to formally cancel it a year later;¹ She threatened to retire from music and the spotlight, and started a black- and queer-focused book club; She formed a rap supergroup with Smino and Saba (the latter of whom she collaborated with early on in her career); And she ultimately rededicated herself to her solo career, assembling a fantastic, confrontational, and welcoming second full-length, Sundial.

Noname got her start by falling in love with writing poetry and attending open mics and poetry slams. From there she made the natural movement into freestyle rapping with friends, including Chance the Rapper. Her first recorded appearance was on his second mixtape, Acid Rap, in 2013, and she contributed a verse to a song on his third, the timeless Coloring Book (which I sadly overlooked in 2016). Her first collected solo work was the mixtape Telefone, which came out immediately following that Chance collaboration.

Warner has a command of rhythm and verse unlike no other. While she doesn’t have any music videos I can point you to, you should hit play on her Tiny Desk Concert above. You can also hear a bit of her skill in the short film created about her Sundial Block Party from earlier this year. And then go and put on the full album. I wouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself having listened to it on repeat for the rest of the day.

^{1. She’d grown weary of her fame and frustrated with the (mostly white) demographic that followed her, saying on Twitter, “I refuse to keep making music and putting it online for free for people who won’t support me. If y'all don't wanna leave the crib I feel it. I don't want to dance on a stage for white people.”↩}

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16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#16 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — 100 gecs

10000 gecs by 100 gecs

When I first heard the 100 gecs 2019 album, 1000 gecs, it was from out of nowhere. I’d found it via an unlikely source (NYTimes’ “Best albums of 2019”), got instantly infatuated with it despite not really knowing how to listen to it, and promptly added it to my Top 31 (but near the bottom, down at #29). As the subsequent four years’ repeated listening has proven, I placed that album way too far down on the list. It was mind blowing, and unique enough that it felt like they could never match the genius and immediacy of the sound of that album. Enter 9,000 additional gecs, stage left.

10000 gecs the St. Louis duo’s fantastic and fantastically weird sophomore record, is another triumph. It’s silly and noisy and loud and catchy as hell. “It’s 10 times as good as the last one,” Laura Les told Pitchfork. Les along with her partner in crime, Dylan Brady, had a lot of pressure put on themselves after the success of their breakout, genre breaking debut. While I can’t confidently say this new album is 10x better than the debut, it does prove that 100 gecs are capable of extending themselves well beyond what I or anyone expected.

A close cousin of what the band Sleigh Bells showed us a decade earlier (#12 in 2010 and #31 in 2012), the much less polished and less consistently loud sound from 100 gecs makes them a bit less approachable. Hit play on the video above, for their song “Hollywood Baby” and you’ll see what I mean. Then view any of the other videos they’ve created from the album and you’ll understand the catchiness of it as well:

• “The Most Wanted Person in the United States”
• “Billy knows jamie”
• “Dumbest girl alive”
• “Doritos & Fritos”
• “mememe”

I am once again sitting here drawing a blank as to where 100 gecs can go from this peak. But I thought this same thing back in 2019, so I’m finding it a little easier to throw my expectations out the door and simply hope for the best. Until then, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy 10000 and 1000 gecs in anticipation.

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17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#17 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — The Chemical Brothers

For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers

The Bacon Review has been a fan of Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands’ big-beat electronica outfit The Chemical Brothers for a very very long long time. Their stellar debut album, Exit Planet Dust, came out in 1995, and I loved it and their subsequent releases (1997’s Dig Your Own Hole and 1999’s Surrender). You might think music that resonated with someone in the heart of their 20s youth may no longer relate to the nearly-50-year-old father of two he has become in the subsequent decades, but you’d be very wrong. Granted, the six albums that came out between 1999 and 2019 didn’t land as squarely in my day-to-day listening. But there’s something about the band’s stellar tenth album, For That Beautiful Feeling, that hits different.

This is the Chemical Brothers back in their 1990s glory. Intense bass beats, sampled and repeated vocals about love and life, big sweeping crescendos that take over your body no matter where you are when you hear them — what you remember most about the band is all mostly there. The only real difference is the Beth Orton and Noel Gallagher cameos have been replaced by the French singer/songwriter Halo Maud and everywhere-man Beck.

The band has released a handful of videos from the album:

• The above “Live Again” features a dancer stuck in a loop, continually stepping out of her trailer into an ever-changing landscape, brought on by some barely-scene tentacle-laden alien.
• No Reason is a great song shown to the green-screen escapades of a dancing marching band
• Goodbye features a colorful couple in love
• Skipping Like a Stone ft. Beck is the most ambitious video, but takes the idea of a skipped stone with a hero complex to its illogical extreme.

If you liked The Chemical Brothers back in the day, and if your ears can still hear and your body can still move, then you should definitely check out Feeling. And if the band is new to you, give it a listen to hear what people were dancing to 30 years ago. I’m genuinely curious to hear a current 20-something’s take on the style of dance music that was created 10 years before they were born. Beyoncé, with her most recent house-driven masterpiece, RENNAISANCE (#2 just last year), and others have been giving everyone a taste of what 90s dance music was like. The Chemical Brothers were one of the originators. It’s time for us all to get re-educated.

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18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#18 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Sigur Rós

ÁTTA by Sigur Rós

Sigur Rós released their 7th studio album, Kveikur, in 2013. In the ensuing years, the band members had a few odds and ends, such as producing a version of The Simpsons theme song, appearing in Game of Thrones, re-releasing their internationally acclaimed sophomore album Ágætis byrjun with additional previously-unreleased material, a couple of songs for Black Mirror, their drummer leaving the band due to sexual assault allegations, tax evasion charges being given and then dismissed, and even lead singer Jónsi’s first museum exhibition in the US, at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle.

After that roller coaster of a decade, the band reconvened, and if the music they subsequently recorded is any indication, were ready to settle down a bit. ÁTTA, which is “eight” in Icelandic, is the Icelandic band’s eighth album in their nearly 30-year history. Like their previous albums, it is ethereal, lush, and deeply moving. Without a drummer, and consequently no real percussion in the album, ÁTTA may lack the bombast of past albums. But lacking in bombast by no means means “sparse.” The album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, along with the London Contemporary Orchestra.

To match the rich orchestration of the recorded work, the band went on a global tour with a 41-piece orchestra called the “Wordless Music Orchestra”. A 30-city tour around the globe with 3 band members, 41 orchestra members, and countless roadies makes for a mind-bogglingly large effort. My wife and I got to see the fruits of their labor when they came to Seattle, and it was every bit as magical as you might imagine.

Along with the music for ÁTTA, the band engaged 10 filmmakers to create a short film for each song. They did a similar exercise for Valtari (#7 in 2012) If the emotional weight of the songs isn’t hitting you where it hurts, watching the visuals while listening certainly will. The short films that make up the ÁTTA Film Experiment are all vastly different and interesting – these were my favorites:

• “Blóðberg” is arresting in its simplicity – a drone flight over a barren landscape that goes from endless sand and dead trees to bodies laid across the landscape for as far as the eye can see
• “Klettur,” my favorite track on the album, is equally terrifying, with seemingly disparate sections featuring roller derby, kids in the woods being stalked by a shadowy figure, and blood coming out of the eyes of dolls
• “Gold,” is unique in the way it shows what appears to be a man pining for and dreaming about a relationship lost
• “Andrá,” shown above, is the best video in the Experiment – featuring real Sigur Rós fans with deeply moving stories being brought into the studio to hear the song for the first time and sharing their feelings

There’s not much else I can say about a band you’ve either heard of and love, or never heard of and will likely not enjoy. Sigur Rós, while creating ostensibly background music do an amazing job of forcing you to sit up and listen with your entire being. ÁTTA is no different.

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19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#19 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Black Pumas

Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas

It’s a rare phenomenon when a sophomore album is better than a debut. Debut albums often have years of creativity built into them – the band members often having brought the songs along with them through the high school / college years, having noodled on them for ages before finally putting them to tape. Then the band is asked to produce a 2nd record in a fraction of that time, hence “the sophomore slump.”

Not so with Black Pumas’ 2nd album, Chronicles of a Diamond. The Pumas are a duo out of Austin, Texas. Their self-titled debut album from 2019 did hit my radar at the time, but was a bit too over-produced for my liking. It did not make the Top 31 that year. I think I was the only one to not connect with the album, as they received numerous nominations from the Grammys: Best New Artist, Record of the Year, and Album of the Year.

Fast-forward four years, and singer/songwriter Eric Burton and guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada have produced an even better follow-up. A lot of bands would have crumbled at the pressure of producing something that could match, let alone exceed their critically-acclaimed debut. But Chronicles does just that.

Black Pumas are put into the psychedelic soul genre, pioneered by the likes to Jimi Hendrix and Sly and the Family Stone. Hard-hitting drums and keyboards back up the fuzzed out sounds of Quesada’s guitar and Burton’s vocals. Burton’s voice is placed forward of the band, his lyrics easily heard over the music. Their sound reminds me of the Dirtbombs, or Algiers (#18 in 2017), and even a little of Benjamin Clementine, but with more fuzz (you know Clementine – his song “Nemesis” is the theme song for AppleTV+’s The Morning Show). A neither Clementine nor Burton would be anywhere without Seal having led the way with his gorgeous voice 30 years ago.

Watch the video above, for their great lead single “More Than a Love Song.” You can also see videos for “Mrs. Postman,” “Angel,” and “Ice Cream (Pay Phone).” Even better, just check out Chronicles of a Diamond – it’s one hell of an album.

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20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#20 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Caroline Rose

The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose

I’m a big fan of Caroline Rose, the person. But they’re proving hard to pin down, musically. Their first album, Loner, was my #12 album of 2018, and it was tongue-in-cheek pop rock of the best kind. Then their sophomore album, Superstar – #21 in 2020 – was polished up like a gemstone, more pop, less rock. And now they’ve released a great third album, but again reinvented themselves into something else again.

The “rock” side of them has reared its head again, this time with a little garage and grit thrown in for good measure. The Art of Forgetting is a great album, on par with the other two. But because of these shifts they’ve made on each album, I think they’re having trouble finding their audience overall. Or maybe that’s just how it looks from the aging peanut gallery over here.

The two videos that have been released from the album, the above for the song “Miami”, and also “Tell Me What You Want,” are something of a marvel as well. The “Miami” video (“CHAPTER ONE” as it says at the beginning of the video), shown entirely in reverse, depicts Caroline and a companion in a night of fun and debauchery. Halfway through the video, the marquee overhead reads “THANKFUL FOR YOU.” The “Tell Me What You Want” video is the literal exact opposite, in video form. It starts where the “Miami” video ended, but this time moving forward through time (starting with “CHAPTER TWO”). It depicts the same events as shown in the “Miami” video, but this time Caroline is alone, drunkenly going through all the same motions they went through with the companion (in reverse). Drinking until belligerent, staggering around and falling into a pool, most of the letters on the marquee halfway through have been removed, leaving only “F O O L,” ending the story in the hotel room where Caroline then masturbates to, presumably, the memory or dream of the companion shown in “Miami”. The video ends where the “Miami” video began, with a hotel-room CRT TV tuned into television snow. Directed by Sam Bennett, the pair of videos make for a great story, posing more questions than providing answers, in a provocative way.

I suppose Forgetting is similar – Caroline tells a deeply (seemingly) personal story throughout the album, interspersed with answering-machine messages from their grandmother and other found-artifact noises, such as the starting and stopping “KA-CHUNK” of a tape deck. It makes for a wild ride, and one hell of an album.

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21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#21 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Pale Jay

Bewilderment by Pale Jay

Soul music has had its ups and downs here on the Top 31. From Seattle’s own Pickwick hitting #1 back in 2011, to Leon Bridges and St. Paul & the Broken Bones, to the goddess herself, Sharon Jones in 2017 (RIP), the genre remains alive and well. Enter Pale Jay, a newcomer to the field, with his debut album, Bewilderment. With a voice like Lee Fields or Curtis Mayfield, and easy-living music evocative of Khruangbin, Pale Jay will have you leaning back in your chair and blissfully dreaming about easy breezy summer days.

There’s not much information out there about Pale Jay. He has no wikipedia page, he plays anonymously, and his web presence is boiled down to a single Bandcamp page. He does maintain an active Instagram account, a la SAULT or Banksy. The music on his page only goes back to his first EP, back in October 2021. And aside from a couple singles, this short-but-sweet debut album (with eight songs and coming in at just 24 minutes) is all we get of him. I did find a site reviewing this album who claims Pale Jay was trained as a jazz vocalist and pianist and calls southern California home.

There have been a few artists over the years here on the Top 31 who have chosen to keep their identity a mystery. Some choose to wear obfuscating makeup, such as The Knife or Fever Ray (2009 and 2017). Others choose to stay out of videos and remain unnamed, like Sault (2019, 2020, 2021, and who could forget their SEVEN albums that were #1 collectively just last year). Or there’s artists like Orville Peck, who have worn a mask in public for their entire musical career, and have never dropped character when the public is watching or listening.

Pale Jay fits into the Peck line of anonymity. But whereas Orville Peck has been around long enough that people have been able to put together who his true identity is (thanks to matching up the tattoos he wears all over his body), Pale Jay remains entirely anonymous for the time being. He wears a red balaclava in public (reminiscent of Pussy Riot, who choose to remain relatively anonymous for fear of retribution from the Russian Government), along with a white bucket hat with a red plastic brim. Those combined generally with an all-white turtleneck and white pants, he is effectively covered from head to toe aside from his (yes, pale-skinned) hands, ankles, lips, eyes, and sometimes forearms. (It’s only a matter of time before someone identifies him by the bird tattoo on his left inner elbow.)

You can watch videos Pale Jay has created for each song on the album, each featuring the artist in his signature costume, mostly walking / biking / boating in one long take to each of these songs.

• “Preface”
• “In Your Corner”
• “Dreaming in Slow Motion”
• “Bewilderment”
• “Vladimir”
• “Don't Forget That I Love You”

There’s also this video for a beautiful acoustic rendition of “By The Lake” that will set aside any worries that Pale Jay is unable to master that gorgeous falsetto in a live setting. I chose the featured video above only because it has him driving while lip syncing, with others blissfully trusting their lives to the masked man behind the wheel.

Put Bewilderment on, right now. It’s a short, 24 minute commitment, and you won’t be disappointed. I guarantee it.

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22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#22 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Ratboys

The Window by Ratboys

There seem to have been a slew of artists on the 2023 Top 31 who have been writing, performing, and producing music for over a decade before finally hitting my radar and/or making something great enough to beat out the competition. Please add Chicago’s Ratboys to that list. The band formed back in 2010 when their lead singer, Julia Steiner, and guitarist David Sagan were going to Notre Dame. They released their debut album, AOID, in 2015. Four albums later, here we are with their fantastic fifth full-length, The Window.

I haven’t yet compared Ratboys’ The Window against their previous work, but I feel safe in saying there’s a reason their new album has risen above the fray to land here on the Top 31, and that reason goes by the name Chris Walla. You may know Walla as a huge part of the formation and longevity of Death Cab for Cutie. He left DCFC in 2014 after 17 years, but has continued producing other band’s work to great success, including The Long Winters, The Decemberists, and Tegan and Sara.

Ratboys has a little more fuzz in their twang, but they remind me of a number of past Top 31 alt-country artists. Steiner’s vocals most closely resemble Jenny Lewis (#24 in 2014). There’s a little Big Thief (2017, 2019, and last year), and some definite Katie Crutchfield in there (aka Waxahatchee, whose Saint Cloud was #1 in 2020). If you’ve liked any of those bands, then The Window is for you.

Still having doubts? Then check out the band’s unbelievably good live set they performed at KEXP back in October. I only just watched it for the first time today, a couple days after I wrote the rest of this review, and just one day before this review is published (thanks Pete for pointing it out to me!), and now I’m wondering if I’ve ranked this album too low on the Top 31. That extended guitar solo in the middle of “Black Earth, WI” is Doug Martsch-esque. It‘s too late now to change it, but mark my words: when Ratboys’ next album is in the Top 10 for the year it comes out, I’ll come back here and read this review and remember exactly why it’s at #22.

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23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#23 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — DJ Shadow

Action Adventure by DJ Shadow

Today will forever be known as the day I learned that DJ Shadow’s 1996 top-100 all-time masterpiece Endtroducing… is the Guinness World Records’ holder for “the first album to be recorded using only sampled sounds.” This feels somehow dubious / impossible, but I suppose someone had to be first, and it only adds to the greatness that is DJ Shadow’s debut. But that album is not what I’m here to talk about.

Action Adventure is DJ Shadow’s fantastic 7th studio album (his 6th album, Our Pathetic Age was #21 in 2019, and his 5th, The Mountain Will Fall, #9 in 2016). Where those two previous albums featured big-name guest vocals from the likes of Run the Jewels, Raekwon, and De La Soul, Action is almost entirely instrumental. Aside from the random vocal sample, (such as the lovely sample “All my records are tapes” repeated throughout “All My”), only “You Played Me” feels like a standalone pop song (see the video above). That vocal track, sampled from Jan Jerome’s 1990 R&B B-side “Baby, Got Me Goin,” gives the song an 80s throw-back vibe that will have you bouncing in your seat.

Lacking vocals, the rest of the album feels like it could be the soundtrack to one amazing late 20th Century movie, or perhaps the collected instrumental versions of an album that was originally released with rapping and singing on top. That’s not to say the album is not good — it is great, at being the background to your day as you go about cleaning the house, or hosting a party, or perhaps even on a run. Instead of being the soundtrack to an older movie, it can be the soundtrack to your life today. Watch the video for and listen to “Ozone Scraper,” and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

With a career nearly 30 years in length, DJ Shadow — aka Josh Davis — still has an amazing ability to tap into samples and sounds from the past and make them sound entirely new. Action Adventure fits right in with the work he did on the first U.N.K.L.E. album, 1998’s Psyence Fiction, and his 2006 album The Outsider. He remains a magician at creating beats and blending sounds, and is showing no signs of slowing down.

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24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#24 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Lil Yachty

Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty

I can feel you all collectively rolling your eyes at this pick. That’s ok, I understand. And yet… Lil Yachty’s complete reimagining of himself, his fifth studio album Let’s Start Here., is the 24th best album of 2023.

I’d be surprised if you’ve not heard of Lil Yachty or this album. When it came out at the end of January 2023, the popular music wing of the World Wide Web was up in arms about it. Despite efforts to the contrary, I live in a fairly protected musical world, and consequently had not heard of Yachty prior to release of Let’s Start Here. So in hearing the hubbub about the album and how divisive the opinion was about it, I was intrigued. What could possibly be causing all this fuss?

Upon first listen, it’s clear this is no rap album. Experimental rock? Acid jazz? Synth pop? Psych rock? The world seemed dead set on defining the album as a Tame Impala ripoff (another band I’ve not paid any attention to — maybe now I should?) While being unable to define what it was I was hearing, I could say that I was enjoying the music. It travels all over the musical landscape, but does so in a way that feels cohesive, similar to Wish You Were Here or The Age of Adz. This is a concept album – but what is the concept?

Yachty, whose real name is Miles Parks McCollum, was just an exceedingly accomplished, viral-song inducing rapper until he released this album. A year before the album came out, and two years after his previous album, Lil Boat 3, Yachty announced in an interview his next project would be a “non-rap album,” calling it “alternative” and “like a psychedelic alternative project. It’s different. It's all live instrumentation.” It’s not his fault nobody took him at his word, because a year later that’s exactly what he released.

You’ll need to put the album on yourself to hear first hand the album that could cause so much turmoil. It might not be for you, but you’ll better understand why so many people are so confused by it.

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25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#25 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Tennis

Pollen by Tennis

Tennis and I go way back. I think back to the time I wanted to be on the high school tennis team (this was the hey day of late 80s/early 90s tennis – think Reebok Pumps and Agassi vs Chang). Having had no training whatsoever, and no idea what it might take, I got the courage up to sign up for the round-robin tournament to get onto the team. Then the coach consequently forgot to put me in the lineup, and I had to muster even more courage to go ask him why. “Oh, I forgot, I’m sorry – here, I’ll have you play [name escapes me].” Turns out [name escapes me] was the literal best player on the team (and therefore had not needed to go through the round-robin either). We played a best-of-three sets match and I managed to eek out a 6-0 / 6-0 loss, surprising no-one, and resoundingly ending my budding tennis career there on the spot.

It’s a good thing Tennis, the indie-pop duo from Denver, is nothing like the tennis I know. Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley are husband and wife, and they’ve been releasing music together as Tennis for 12 years now. The phenomenal Pollen is their sixth album together, and the first one that’s resonated well enough with me to warrant repeated listening. Sometimes it just takes a while, you know?

Tennis have a shtick that may or may not work for you. Taking their album at face value, it’s full of solid pop music from start to finish. Nothing too flashy, but almost all of it catch and hummable. But then you look at their videos, such as the one above for “Let’s Make a Mistake Tonight”, or the other one released from this album, for the song “One Night with the Valet,” and it’s clear they’re totally goofing around. They’ve been doing it for their entire careers, so you’d think they’d get tired of it, but clearly not. These two videos are so fantastically bad they’re good, and that’s to say nothing of the great music featured.

Give the album a whirl. You can approach it from many sides – there’s some Chvrches in there, some Tom Tom Club, and even some Kate Bush for good measure. I know you’ll like it – and you may surprise yourself and love it enough to put it on repeat.

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26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#26 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Greg Mendez

Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez

Sometimes artists don’t burst onto the scene so much as they take the long way around. Greg Mendez, from Philadelphia, has taken a long time to hit my radar: there’s an album on his Bandcamp site called “Home Videos (2006-2018)” as well as an “Early Demos” album from 2009 (14 years ago!). His gorgeous, self-titled album is his third LP in that nearly 20-year span of making music, along with 8 EPs of additional songs. And I only heard about him a month ago.

I have not (yet) had the opportunity to explore the depths of his catalogue, but this album sure makes me want to. The production on these singer/songwriter-driven songs puts Greg’s melodic, doubled voice right next to your ears, as if he’s drawn you in close to whisper something special. This places him in the musical room with Elliott Smith and Sufjan Stevens, and the simple guitar plucking that accompanies his striking melodies is from the room right across singer-songwriter hall, with Jose Gonzales and Sam Beam of Iron & Wine.

If you like any of those artists I just named, then Mendez is for you. But don’t take my word for it – download it and listen for yourself! Or you can check out these additional videos he’s created for his album:

• “Maria”
• “Goodbye / Trouble”

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27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#27 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Teenage Sequence

Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence

My love for Teenage Sequence started with a live performance. I was sitting in my car, driving who knows where, and listening to KEXP. Surprisingly, I didn’t switch to something else upon hearing there was going to be a live performance from some band I’d never heard of. By the end of my drive, I was thoroughly impressed with the band.¹

Teenage Sequence is the alter ego of London-born, Texas-living singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Dewan-Dean Soomary. On the record, Soomary was backed by co-producer Kevin VanBurgen, drummer James Gulliver, and Kristin Ferebee (who happens to have been a part of Bacon Review favorites Beirut once upon a time and is now Summary’s wife). In the KEXP performance he was backed by Nick Tamburro on percussion and synths, and Rob Barrett on drums.

If you’re longing for the days of early LCD Soundsystem, where James Murphy wouldn’t sing so much as talk/shout over his wonderfully intricate dance-driven beats, then Teenage Sequence is for you. And this reference to LCD is blatant – upon reading up on Teenage Sequence’s rise in the indie music world, you’ll see numerous comparisons of the album’s opening track “All This Art” to LCD’s “Losing My Edge”. Soomary has taken the comparison in stride, so much so that he opens that song in his aforementioned KEXP performance of the song with the line “I’m losing my edge.” It’s less derivative, more a wonderful, immersive continuation of that music you loved 20 years ago.

^{1. I love the rare phenomenon of hearing a musician perform live before hearing any of their recorded music and instantly falling in love with it. There are many many artists I’ve loved more because I saw them live. But hearing someone for the first time in a live setting, being present in the moment with them and truly hearing them enough to connect with them, that’s something special. KEXP live performances allow you to do that from the comfort of your personal space.↩}

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28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#28 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Slowdive

everything is alive by Slowdive

The dream of the 90s is alive here at #28 on the Bacon Review. Slowdive are an English band that formed in 1989 and released a couple of fantastic shoegaze albums before imploding after the release of their third album in 1995. 19 years later, they reformed, toured around the globe, wrote and eventually released their fourth album in 2017. And now, with the release of everything is alive, they’re back to their original glory, proving they know better than anyone else what shoegaze is all about.

The five piece started working on the album just as the pandemic hit in March 2020, and were forced to put things on hold during the lockdown. The band suffered greatly during the early months of the pandemic, with two members losing parents to COVID-related illness. The music shifted throughout that time, effectively turning into an escape for the band to weather the storm. After many emotional ups and downs, the album finally saw release on September 1st to much critical acclaim.

When you’re looking for music that can survive while played in the background, adding to rather than getting lost in what is happening in the foreground, then Slowdive is where you should turn. everything is alive is well worth listening to, and if you’re not familiar with the shoegaze label, it’s as great a spot to start as any.

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29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#29 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Arlo Parks

My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks

Breaking away from the parade of old white dudes we saw at #30 and #31, here comes Arlo Parks with her sophomore record, My Soft Machine. “Soft” is the optimum word here – there’s no denying Parks’ songwriting prowess, but the end result often paints a rose-tinted, soft-focused soundscape of pop.

Parks (whose real name is Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho) saw her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, land at #14 two years ago. Machine picks up where that stellar, Mercury-prize winning album left off, and Parks shows that she’s grown in the interim. A little more edge, a little more bite, and even closer to what I’ve liked from similar artists, like Japanese Breakfast.

If you liked Arlo Parks’ previous album, you’ll like this one, too. You can check it out on the playlists below.

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30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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• Apple Music Full Album Playlist
• Spotify Full Album Playlist
• YouTube Music Full Album Playlist

Radio Station
The best song pulled from each album

• Apple Music Radio Playlist
• Spotify Radio Playlist
• YouTube Music Radio Playlist

View all previous years’ Top 31s