Best New Albums of 2019

It's one of the best new albums of 2019, yet you really have nothing to say about it?

No biggie, just kidding around, I don't fully understand posts like this with just a picture, I like to make it personal, give it some context, open a discussion, but yea, I know, we're all different

 

Ask not what your music can do for you, but what your music can do for your country. I think the risk of the current scene is it’s becoming a lightly gilded age of tone and drone. Where are the redemption songs?

 

Tim Easton- Exposition
Just a ridiculously talented dude releasing another fantastic album. I'm not a fan of this genre (folkie stuff), but I love, love, love this guy's tunes. Been a big fan since the Haynes Boys days and I'll always be a fan. His new album is freely available on Bandcamp, but if you dig it, please consider buying a physical or digital copy.

Exposition, by Tim Easton

 

Only heard The Specials one so far. Looking forward to Sleaford Mods and Fontaines DC.

 

I let the music do the talking!

 

I've been a Steve Gunn fan for a long time, but this might be his best record yet. His experimentation and guitar playing have always been top notch, but this feels like a quantum leap forward with his songwriting. "Vagabond", "Stonehurst Cowboy" and "Paranoid" are among the best songs I've heard this year.

 

Excellent choice-just listened to the vinyl this weekend. Sounds great!

 

Finally heard it yesterday - good album but not as good as his previous effort imo.

 

Listening to the new Lorelle Meets The Obsolete album, De Facto, and it's pretty good. Really cool collection of beautifully layered, hypnotic psych/shoegazey grooves, set to echoey, dreamy vocals - good stuff!

 

So far I'm really enjoying Bob Mould's Sunshine Rock and Mike Krol's Power Chords.

 

Hmm, sold on that description! I think they had a track on a recent MOJO cover mount disc, but I haven't played it yet.

 

Weyes Blood you’re a (legit composer) babe.

Titanic Rising, by Weyes Blood

 

Thanks for recommendation! It comes across as a hybrid of Sufjan Stevens and a less angsty Tobias Jesso Jr. in a good way.

 

shades of 70's southern rock... some of the chord changes remind me of Led Zep... great lead singer reminds me a bit of Paul Rodgers.

Not sure my description did the song justice... but this track is great.

 

Steve Gunn record is very good.
Guided by Voices have somehow cranked out another beast. This time a double. It's fantastic!
The Delines album is alt-country gold.
Lastly, I haven't cracked open the William Tyler and Jessica Pratt records but they arrive reviewed to this point.

 

Jessica Pratt was underwhelming in the first listen or two, and very short. Through headphones there was a lot more going on but the songs haven’t immediately resonated like her first two albums. I’ll give it some more spins this weekend.
Sharon Van Etton’s new one is stunning!

 

speaking of a band that took that next leap forward. I remember listening to Chambers and liking it. The opening track, What's Holding You?, is really garagey-droney with psyched-out squalling guitar. Their follow up Balance really mellows out and brings up the production level. People have compared it to Broadcast's Tender Buttons. De Facto, in my opinion their best effort yet, continues to raise the production level and adds more synth. The opener, Ana, and closer, La Maga, are largely instrumental landscapes, but the rest of the album is more song oriented. I have Balance and De Facto on vinyl. They're not by any means audiofile pressings, but they're pleasing to listen to with wide sound stage. Definitely not low volume or shrill. De Facto is my favorite album of 2019, so far. Deerhunter's new one is right behind it.

 

Finished that Rival Sons record, I really liked most of it. The high points are terrific but, again (and maybe this is just me), I find myself let down by their ballads. I just don't think that's a strong point for 'em. The rockers are fantastic though and I wish Greta Van Fleet fans would find these guys who do the '70s leaning, blues based hard rock thing so much better.

 

No hay caminos cortos a la libertad, by Heráldica de Mandrake

Some damn good doom metal from Chile. It looks like this isn't exactly a 2019 release. Apparently it was previously released on tape or something, and this is the first digital release. I'm counting it as 2019.

Also, don't call them Stoner Doom: "We don't play stoner doom. We play about revenge, undead gods and hatred for tyrants. At war, if you smoke weed, YOU GOT KILLED."

 

Album Review – Joshua Ray Walker’s “Wish You Were Here”

Kim Taylor — Songs of Instruction

 

The Delines -The Imperial is up on youtube. good stuff.

 

For albums that have actually been released and that I have listened to, it must be Rymden ‎– Reflections & Odysseys. The 2 surviving members of Esbjorn Svennson Trio team up with Bugge Wesseltoft for a kind of modern European jazz supergroup. Absolutely superb - not a bad track on the album. Also benefits from Jazzland's 'all new vinyl is 45rpm mastered' approach so sounds amazing on wax.

 

Jonny Nash - Make A Wilderness - (Music From Memory)
Modern Classical/Ambient


Instantly fallen in love with this release. Simply beautiful soundscapes which I really can't wait to listen to on the headphones back home as I just let myself take it all in whilst it carries me off to another world.



From Boomkat:
Taking cues from the vivid literary description of landscape and environment in work by authors Shusaku Endo, J.G. Ballard and Cormac McCarthy, on ‘Make A Wilderness Jonny limns an “other” space, relaying a series of sonic postcards from an ancient non-place of the imagination.

Nash wrote and recorded the music in Amsterdam, London and Venice during 2017 and 2018, bringing in vocalist Laura Giavon and cellist Janice Wong to add fleeting human presences to the album’s wilderness themes. The results, while steeped in ideas of isolationism, are perhaps best described as introspective, laced thru with Nash’s signature, heart-rending melodic flourishes and delivered with his achingly patient timing, always keeping listeners hovering, anticipating his next note.

 

Beirut Gallipoli is lovely.