Once is an incident, twice is a trend and trice is a tradition; hence the traditional list of 20 favorite albums of the year 2017 – the eclectic way, as traditionally.
01. The Golden Boys – Better Than Good Times
This Austin outfit has put together their sixth album; an unusually coherent but beer smelling one, accompanied by strong melodies with good prospect to win over wide minded garage popsters.
02. Biters – The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be
Whether you want it or not, Biters’ second full length record takes all of us who refuse to grow up straight back to the vulgar mid-‘70s, when too much flamboyancy and glam was the norm, before the first generation of glitterati dinosaurs, like T. Rex, went extinct.
03. Deer Tick – Vol. 2
After four years’ silence, bandleader John McCauley helps to fill up the twin to their bubbling under acoustic Vol. 1 (2017) with ten strong electrified mature slices of what seems to be bar-stool founded philosophy.
04. John Wesley Coleman III – Microwave Dreams
One of The Golden Boys’ (cf. # 1) front men has an output frequency nearly comparable to that of Guided By Voices and his contagious lackadaisical attitude towards music charms all of us who appreciate such slack.
05. JD McPhearson – Undivided Heart & Soul
Their third album expands and modernize the previous rockabilly base, leading them in certain places to embrace the same musical territory as Rockpile and The Strokes covered.
06. Black Lips – Satan’s Graffiti or God’s Art?
Who could imagine that Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon would get involved and support the reorganized and enlarged Black Lips in the work to make such a glorious mess like this unpolished one?
07. The Jesus and Mary Chain – Damage and Joy
JAMC’s Reid brothers are back after almost 20 years’ silence on the record front and they pick up the thread after Munki just as time have stood still since then and advance from there.
08. The Yawpers – Boy in a Well
What about a Tommy Stinson produced album that loosely circles around an idea of a French woman deserting her son in a well during World War I and sounds like a crossbreed between The White Stripes and The Gun Club?
09. Dan Auerbach – Waiting on a Song
There is not much similarity between the stuff Auerbach put out with The Black Keys and this softie that has a 1970’s atmosphere beautified by Duane Eddy, John Prine, and others.
10. Bash & Pop – Anything Could Happen
Ex-Mat Tommy Stinson shows up again (cf. # 8), here with his reformed band releasing their first album since 1993 and after his eighteen-year spell impersonating Duff McKagan.
11. Chuck Prophet – Bobby Fuller Died for your Sins
Chuck Prophet labels his kind of music here “California Noir”; a sunny façade with an ominous inside, underscored by the front cover’s nudie suit and palm trees while the backside shows the identical passageway in LA where a mid-‘60s photo of Bobby Fuller was taken.
12. Samantha Fish – Belle of the West
Idle Samantha’s second album this year, more unpolished and back-to-the-roots than her previous one (Chills And Fever), most probably due to producer Luther Dickinson.
13. Benjamin Booker – Witness
Booker comments current societal tensions escorted by a blending of various musical styles with a refreshing punk attitude that lurks behind every corner.
14. Steve Earle & The Dukes – So You Wannabe An Outlaw
Grumpy big-hearted humanist Earle re-invents his own initial country-style in So You Wannabe An Outlaw after some earlier excursions in other fields of music.
15. Flamin’ Groovies – Fantastic Plastic
First studio album this millennium from this extraordinary durable group that is now well into its sixth decade of spreading groovy grooves.
16. Nikki Lane – Highway Queen
Taking the Texan Longhorns’ highway Lane to the country for sure on this her third time around; but you may also call it Americana-pop if you are more comfortable with such earmark.
17. Josh Ritter – Gathering
Josh Ritter gathers influences from different musical sources in order to reshape himself and getting clues how to gain full control of his voice.
18. Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Navigator
Alynda Segarra cultivates and re-connects to the Latinx identity on this very self-conscious Puerto Rican flavored album.
19. John Moreland – Big Bad Luv
After the cover picture have sunken in, you will experience a voice reminding of a down to earth Bruce Springsteen carried by a genuine country structure; an odd bird in the 4AD cage.
20. The Minus 5 – Dear December
Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey gathered a bunch of exciting friends to record these ten holiday greats (slightly surpassing Bloodshot Records’ 13 Days Of Xmas); McCaughey suffered a stroke in November and Yep Roc donates a portion of the proceeds to his medical fund.
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