For the full list and year-end wrap click here:  MaxSounds 2016

This was an interesting year in music for me.  Just like I did 4 decades ago, I do a lot of my best listening while I drive.  My challenge this past year though was that I kept getting distracted by this ridiculous election.  I’m not going to get into that here, but I spent way too much time flipping the dial between news channels and not enough time listening to music.  Because of that there are albums that got by me or that I didn’t pay enough attention to.  Hopefully I’ll catch up to them soon enough but until then, here are the albums that got my attention this year.  I’ve put them in order – but really, outside of the top 5 the sequence isn’t that meaningful.  Though the first one was easy….

1. David Bowie • Blackstar
2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds • Skeleton Key
3. Black Mountain • IV
4. Frightened Rabbit • Painting of a Panic Attack
5. Plants & Animals • Waltzed in from the Rumbling
6. Shearwater • Jet Plane and Oxbow
7. Steven Wilson • 4 ½
8. Opeth • Sorceress
9. Wolfmother • Victorious
10. Claypool Lennon Delirium • The Monolith of Phobos
11. Tacocat • Lost Time
12. Garbage • Strange Little Birds
13. Savages • Adore Life
14. Daughter • Not to Disappear
15. School of Seven Bells •  SVIIB
16. The Kills • Ash & Ice
17. Okkervil River • Away
18. Caveman • Otero War
19. Wye Oak • Tween
20. Kristin Kontrol • X-Communicate

1- David Bowie • Blackstar Considering Bowie’s immeasurable talent, contributions, and influence on rock ‘n’ roll I imagine I’d put this album at the top of my annual list anyway. But it just so happens that this record belongs in this spot regardless of the circumstances.

The first time I heard this album I was making a nighttime drive from San Diego to Phoenix.  I had resisted listening to previews of the record so I could take it in all at once the first time I heard it. I had nothing else to do but keep my car pointed straight and listen to this magnificent record unfold.  Man, if we could all pick our own way to “shuffle off this mortal coil” this is the way to do it.

2- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds • Skeleton Key  Of all the records that came out in 2016 I’ll bet I listened to this one the most. The pain, anguish and grief that Cave poured into this album – without ever coming close to being maudlin – is astonishing.

If I hadn’t already known that Cave’s 15-year-old son had died during the making of this record it still would have been obvious that something devastating had occurred.  The first couplet of the opening song, “Jesus Alone”, tells you where Cave’s heart was:  You fell from the sky/Crash landed in a field; which describes literally and poetically how his son died. The anguish is unmistakable and really comes to a head with the gorgeous, though brief, chorus of: With my voice/I am calling you.

This is a minimalist album musically, with most songs seeming like ambient soundscapes, but the lyrics are breathtaking and often harrowing.  When the vocal melody breaks through the dirge, as in the set piece of “Distant Sky”, it can bring tears to your eyes.  It also, in just one song, provides enough light to balance an otherwise very dark album.

3-  Black Mountain • IV  One of the things I like about getting my music at a real record store is that I often discover music I wouldn’t have otherwise. Either by talking to the staff, browsing the racks, or hearing what’s playing while I’m shopping.  But the next level up from that is when the staff – often surreptitiously – plays something while I’m in the store just to see if I’ll go for it.  As if they are baiting a hook and to see if I’ll take a bite.  I was in my favorite record store, Lou’s Records in Encinitas, just browsing around when the sonic mood shifted decidedly.  I don’t remember what was playing before but suddenly something loud, and heavy, and trippy was pummeling the handful of customers in the store.  I pretended not to notice what Jeremy was doing since I knew he was trying to manipulate me.  But of course, I succumbed and went over to the counter and said something along the lines of, “I know what you’re doing but I really want this record!”.  This was Black Mountain’s 2008 release In the Future.  Since then I’ve I haven’t missed an album, or a tour and they are easily one of my favorite acts since the turn of the century.

This record has everything I loved about the band almost 10 years ago and more — massive guitars, melodic vocals, proggy keyboards and arrangements, and interesting lyrical ideas – but the craft they’ve learned over the past decade is on display as well.  This isn’t just one of my favorite albums of 2016 but might make my top-10 of the new millennium. And for what it’s worth they are a beast live and easily one of the loudest groups I’ve ever seen.

4- Frightened Rabbit • Painting of a Panic Attack Yet another dark album thematically this year (Bowie, Cave, SVIIB) but this time with soaring guitars, huge hooks, and big choruses. Frightened Rabbit has been a favorite since my daughter texted me years ago to check out the band when she came across them playing a free set on the UC Berkeley campus. This is another band that puts on sensational live performances.

5- Plants & Animals • Waltzed in from the Rumbling I guess it’s no coincidence that this record is listed right behind Frightened Rabbit’s. The day after my daughter sent me that text re FR I caught their show at the House of Blues here in San Diego.  The openers?  Plants & Animals!  While Plants & Animals don’t swing for the fences the way Frightened Rabbit does, they have still captured my attention ever since.  One of my favorite songs over the last several years was “The Mama Papa” off their 2010 album, La La Land.  This new album, their fifth overall, is filled to the brim with musical and lyrical ideas and at times it seems like the songs can barely contain them all.  This is an album I usually put on when I’m in a good mood and half way through the ebullient second song, “No Worries Gonna Find Us”, I feel even better!

6- Shearwater • Jet Plane and Oxbow  If someone asked me to describe most genres in rock I think I could give a reasonably good description. But modern indie rock? I’m not so sure.  Really it seems like anything goes now and this album illustrates that quite well.  There are pulsing electronic synths (“Prime”), jagged beats followed by a Bowie-esque vocal hook (“Quiet Americans”), and driving melodic rockers (“A Long Time Away”).  And that’s just the first three songs!  A lot of music fans have never heard of Shearwater, but they’ve put out 9 long-players since splitting from Okkervil River way back in 2001.

7- Steven Wilson • 4 ½  The name of this record suggests that this is not a full album – as if it exists only to bridge the gap between the previous record, 2015’s Hand. Cannot. Erase and 2017’s To the Bone. But at nearly 40 minutes long and six fully formed songs this sure seems like a full album to me. Regardless, this is just great modern prog-rock.  In an era when most artists and groups of any stature put out albums only every 3 to 4 years (or 11 years and counting – hello Tool!!) Steven Wilson is undeniably prolific.  Yet the quality of his music is never diminished.

This record is book-ended with two behemoths in track one, “My Book of Regrets”, and the final track, “Don’t Hate Me”.  These are both 9 minutes-plus epics that cover a vast array of musical styles.  In these songs you’ll find everything from prog-metal to jazz and everything in between.  Fans of Pink Floyd and King Crimson will find a lot to like with this record, but Steven Wilson and company are no retro act and if this is just some in-between-album it’s a damn good one

8- Opeth • Sorceress  This album marks the third outing since Opeth abandoned the blast-beats and cookie-monster vocals that accompanied the death-prog-metal from their earlier years. While they can still summon a bludgeoning presence, as on the title track, the band has fully transformed itself into a nimble, and at times crushing, prog rock band.

9- Wolfmother • Victorious  It’s hard to imagine Wolfmother releasing an album and it not being in my top-20 for the year. Since the first time I heard of the band (in a surf video called Young Guns II) they have scratched every itch I’ve ever had for melodic hard rock. To my ears, it seemed like someone had put Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and The White Stripes into a blender and poured out a cool mug of Wolfmother.  There may be different players alongside songwriter, guitarist, singer Andrew Stockdale, but their formula of hard-charging melodic 70’s fueled rock ‘n roll is still essentially the same.

10- Claypool Lennon Delirium • The Monolith of Phobos. This super-group formed around Sean Lennon and Les Claypool sounds exactly like you think it would. It’s weird, trippy, psychedelic, proggy and very strange. Just put some headphones on, drop the needle on the opening title track, turn the volume knob to 11, and get ready to go on a trip into intergalactic space.

11- Tacocat • Lost Time I think it’s safe to say that Tacocat, the 4-piece punk/pop [the order of those descriptors matters!) band from Seattle, were not writing their latest album for me, a middle-aged man who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Jethro Tull. But fuck-it, that’s not my fault, because this is just great music! I like everything about this album, from its big surf-inspired guitars to its clever lyrics. And if you ever get a chance to see this band live do not miss it – while their records are great this band is a whole different animal onstage and put on easily one of the best shows I saw all year.

12- Garbage • Strange Little Birds  I wonder if this album had come out, exactly as it is, in 1999 if their fans from almost 20 years ago could tell this was a blast from the future? I doubt it.  Just listen to track two, “Empty”.  It has everything anyone ever loved about Garbage: a huge production, mammoth guitars and towering choruses.  So, is this just a retread from their past glory?  I don’t know and really I don’t fucking care. All I know is that when I put this cd in car’s player I turn the volume knob clockwise and set my cruise control so that I don’t drive 100 mph.

13- Savages • Adore Life  If I had somehow never heard of Savages and you played this record for me and then asked me to guess which decade it’s from, there’s a good chance I might miss by 30 years! I’d sooner believe that this was a contemporary of the post-punk scene that produced Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus than believe it was a modern record.  At this point though, does it really matter?  My 15-year-old son’s favorite band is Blue Oyster Cult – genres and eras don’t seem to matter anymore.

14- Daughter • Not to Disappear  The listener might be fooled into thinking this is just chill background music. The listener would be wrong.  At times the music is slow and languid, at others it is noisy and bristling with post-punk energy.  This record should be played loud and listened to carefully as there is a lot more going on, and it is much more powerful, than it first seems.

15- School of Seven Bells • SVIIB  One of my favorite bands of the early 00’s was Secret Machines – a band that seemed to combine elements of every movement in rock since the Beatles with a heavy dose of pre-DSOTM Pink Floyd psychedelia and the stomp of early Led Zeppelin. When that band broke up I followed singer/guitarist Ben Curtis when he joined Alejandra and Claudia Deheza (On! Air! Library!) to form School of Seven Bells. The new band combined the best parts of each of their original groups and went on to release four excellent albums.  This, though, is their best album yet as it takes everything they were doing to another level.  The first song, “Ablaze”, really sets the tone as the music brings back the power and majesty of Secret Machines and combines it with the ethereal, driving vocals of Alejandra (by now the group was just a duo).  Set against the force of the music/vocals the lyrics are often melancholy and aching – yet ever hopeful as well.  Sadly, after much of the album was written and recorded, Ben Curtis was diagnosed with, and succumbed to cancer. This album, finished by Curtis’s romantic and creative partner Alejandra and Ben’s brother Brandon two years after his death, stands as a brilliant final statement for the band.

16- The Kills • Ash & Ice  Yet another dark record in a year that saw plenty of them. The songs on this first album by the British/American duo in 5 years are lacerating both lyrically and musically. It’s clear that Alison Mosshart’s time with The Dead Weather raised her profile, but it certainly didn’t soften her approach to songwriting or singing.  And her partner in The Kills, Jamie Hince, must have had his own demons to exorcise since this record has a bristling, defiant vibe throughout.

17- Okkervil River • Away Okkervil River’s last album, 2013’s Silver Gymnasium, contained one of my favorite songs of the past several years: “Down Down the Deep River”. There is nothing on this record that grabbed me so dramatically, but this was still a highlight for the year.  In contrast to most of Okkervil River’s catalog this record is quiet and often melancholy.  It feels more like a Will Sheff solo LP rather than the output of a full band, but Okkervil River has always revolved around Sheff’s guitar and songwriting.  Perhaps it’s fitting then that the title of the first song is Okkervil River R.I.P. And though it’s quiet, there is no shortage of melodic vocal hooks and gorgeous musical passages.

18- Caveman • Otero War  This band is yet another example of why I always arrive at shows in time to see the opening act. When I went to see Frightened Rabbit at the Belly Up in Solana Beach, I had never heard of the opener, Caveman, but I’m sure glad I had a chance to see them. Caveman fits in well with other Brooklyn bands I’ve seen recently like Snowmine and Small Black as they present an interesting blend of clever indie-pop that veers between traditional song structures and more experimental offerings.

19- Wye Oak • Tween  Like Steven Wilson’s 4 ½, this record by the duo of Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack is not meant to be an official album. Apparently, this is a collection of songs left over from previous albums. That may be but this is still a great collection of songs that has all the elements I like about Wye Oak.  Like many others I discovered Wye Oak when their song, “Civilian”, played during a haunting sequence in an early episode of The Walking Dead.  They can be quite and noisy, soft and loud, electronic and analog — often in the same song.  Wye Oak was also one of the highlights of my 2016 summer concert season.

20- Kristin Kontrol • X-Communicate  Crunchy power cord riffs, disco rhythms, new wave embellishments, and pop vocals. This seems like a pop album – but I don’t really listen to pop music – so why do I like this? I know I bought the album on the strength of Kristin Gundred’s (Dee Dee) previous work with Dum Dum Girls but she has definitely gone in a new direction with this project. It may be pop – but it’s a subversive pop – and I like it!

Other notable albums (a-z)

• The Cult • Hidden City
• Deap Vally • Femejism
• Dinosaur Jr. • Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not
• Green Day • Revolution Radio
• Iggy Pop • Post Pop Depression
• Metallica • Hardwired to Self Destruct
• Mystery Jets • Curve of the Earth
• Radiohead • A Moon Shaped Pool
• The Shelters • The Shelters