Top 20 Albums of 2024

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For the full list and year-end wrap-up click here: MaxSounds 2024

Here’s the list of my favorite albums for 2024 along with a disclaimer.  For the sake of creating a list I put these albums in a sequence, though there is not as significant a difference between the rankings as it would seem. So while The Cure’s new record is my favorite of the year, it’s not easy placing the new Opeth album a full 19 spots later.  What I’d really like is a TARDIS of a list where I could fit 20 albums into my top 10 and at least 30 into my top 20.

MaxSounds 2024 Top 20

  1. The Cure • Songs of a Lost World
  2. Vampire Weekend • Only God Was Above Us
  3. St. Vincent • All Born Screaming
  4. David Gilmour • Luck & Strange
  5. Still Corners • Dream Talk
  6. The Last Dinner Party • Prelude to Ecstacy
  7. English Teacher • This Could Be Texas
  8. La Luz • News of the Universe
  9. Pearl Jam • Dark Matter
  10. SPRINTS • Letter to Self
  11. Amyl & the Sniffers • Cartoon Darkness
  12. Mannequin Pussy • I Got Heaven
  13. Mr. Gnome • A Sliver of Space
  14. Kim Deal • Nobody Loves You More
  15. Sleater Kinney • Little Rope
  16. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds • Wild God
  17. Jack White • No Name
  18. X • Smoke & Fiction
  19. Beth Gibbons • Lives Outgrown
  20. Opeth • Last Will & Testament

Bonus Albums

Late Discoveries

  • Personal Trainer • Still Waiting
  • Porridge Radio • Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me
  • Ekko Astral • pink balloons

Other notable albums (a-z)

  • Father John Misty • Mahashmashana
  • The Fauns • How Lost
  • John Grant • The Art of Us
  • Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks • True
  • Pineapple Thief • It Leads to This
  • Shannon & the Clams • The Moon Is In the Wrong Place
  • TORRES • What An Enormous Room

Surprisingly Good Albums from OG Artists

  • Jesus & Mary Chain • Glasgow Eyes
  • Modern English • 12345
  • Pet Shop Boys • Nonetheless
  • Smashing Pumplins • Aghori Mhori Mei

1- The Cure • Songs of A Lost World

Ever since I discovered The Cure in the late 70s/early 80s, they’ve been a significant part of my musical experience. For me, The Cure’s music transcends genres, styles and eras. They may have begun as part of the post-punk/new wave movement, but they’ve long since eclipsed those labels. Robert Smith and his band create music that exists outside of whatever else is happening in music or pop culture. So here we are in 2024, forty-five years since their debut (Three Imaginary Boys) and sixteen years since their last output (4:13 Dream), with an album that can stand alongside the best of their long career. Songs of A Lost World has found a place among albums like The Head on the Door, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Disintegration and Wish, as one of their best records. How often does this happen so deep into a band’s career? Here’s the epic album closer, “Endsong” from the Shows of a Lost World tour. [go-up-to-main-list]

2- Vampire Weekend • Only God Was Above Us 

Some albums take a few listens to cement their place in my mind (and ears), but not the newest release from Vampire Weekend, Only God Was Above Us. From my first listen last April to my most recent spin earlier today, this album was a shower, not a grower! Every song has something that draws the listener close and then takes them on a journey. The first track, “Ice Cream Piano”, starts soft and slow, but there’s an undercurrent of tension represented by the hum of feedback that keeps growing little by little until the song explodes into sound at about the 1:17 mark. Then, just as you think they can’t add any more, here comes tumbling arpeggios of strings, and the song takes off all over again. This LP is an instant no-skip classic! [go-up-to-main-list]

3- St Vincent • All Born Screaming 

Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, is described by AllMusic as “a musical polymath who blends rock, jazz, electronic and classical touches innovatively”. Oh, and she also shreds on guitar! Her new album, All Born Screaming, is yet another collection of genre-bending, exhilarating songs. My favorite moment in the album (among many!) happens during the second song, “Reckless”. After the achingly slow buildup that takes up the first 2/3 of the song, there’s a pause at the 2:38 mark – and then the music shatters everything you thought was happening and explodes into a wall of noise. And that song just barely prepares one for the electro-industrial funk of the one that follows, “Broken Man”, which also twists and turns and pummels the listener. To get an idea of what I mean check out this batshit crazy performance on Jimmy Kimmel. When listening to St Vincent, turn the volume to 11! [go-up-to-main-list]

4- David Gilmour • Luck and Strange 

The title track of David Gilmour’s fifth solo album is built around a recorded jam session with the late Pink Floyd keyboardist, Richard Wright, and there are certainly parts of this excellent late-career album that have the feel of classic Floyd.  The standout third song, “The Piper’s Call”, starts off with a simple strummed ukulele and slowly builds and swells.  Then the final 2-minutes turns into a powerful, evocative guitar solo/jam that would be right at home on the classic 1977 Pink Floyd album, Animals.

However, Gilmour isn’t merely trying to replicate his past glories.  By continuing to tour to stay sharp and finding new collaborators, including his talented daughter, Romany (as singer, harpist & writer, he has created an album that fits in well amongst the best of a long and celebrated career. Here is the music video for the song David and Romany Gilmour performed together, “Between Two Points”, which was originally recorded by the British dream-pop duo The Montgolfier Brothers. [go-up-to-main-list]

5- Still Corners • Dream Talk 

Still Corners, a British/American dream-pop duo, has been making lush, atmospheric music since their debut EP, Remember Pepper, in 2007. While I’ve enjoyed all their albums since discovering them about a decade ago, this is the first time that they’ve captured my attention so fully. Dream Talk was released back in April, and according to my Spotify Wrapped I listened to this album A LOT – especially the song “The Dream”. This is music to escape and chill out with, where the mood and feeling matters as much as the music and the words. In some ways the album can feel like one long, evolving song – though each number stands on its own. Here’s a live version of “The Dream” which takes the song to another level. [go-up-to-main-list]

6- The Last Dinner Party • Prelude to Ecstasy 

Prelude to Ecstasy by The Last Dinner Party turned out to be my favorite debut album of the year, though first efforts by Sprints and English Teacher made this a close call! This British band, comprised of four women who had never been in bands before, began planning, writing and performing in 2021.  They soon gained a reputation as a band to watch in the London live scene and before even releasing a single the band opened for acts like Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and even the Rolling Stones.  Finally, they released their first single “Nothing Matters”, which charted well in both the UK singles chart and the US alternative chart .  They followed that up with “Sinner” and “My Lady of Mercy”, all with creative videos that harken back to the classic MTV era. The band presents a beguiling mix of baroque indie rock that sounds like it could be the lost lovechild of Florence + the Machine and Queen. I caught them live earlier this year, and they put on a fantastic show in front of a sold out, wildly enthusiastic crowd at The Music Box here in San Diego. Here’s a clip of “Portrait of a Dead Girl” from the show I attended. As the song goes on check out how invested the audience is. [go-up-to-main-list]

7- English Teacher • This Could Be Texas 

There is just so much going on in this debut LP from Leeds four-piece English Teacher, that it’s hard to know where to start.  From song to song, and often within a song, the band segues and swerves between a wide range of sounds and styles.  Sure there are established forms present like rock, post-punk, dream pop and electronica, but you almost need to invent new genres, like “indie-prog”, to accurately describe their sound.  This is an expansive, nuanced, mesmerizing album that shows English Teacher to be a group of musicians worth following to see what they’ll do next. Here’s a live in the studio video of the slow burner, “Mastermind Specialism” and both a the official music video and then a live performance video of the song “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab”.  [go-up-to-main-list]

8- La Luz • News of the Universe 

La Luz (Spanish for “the light”), are a 4-piece surf – indie – psychedelic – garage – rock band formed in 2012. Led by Shana Cleveland on guitar and lead vocals, the Seattle band began mostly as a surf-revival band with a modern take on the classic surf sound. Since their first album, It’s Alive released in 2013 with songs like “Sure As Spring”, La Luz has continuously added to their sound with influences from garage rock, psychedelia, girl group and doo wop being added to the mix. These influences have culminated in their fifth album, News of the Universe. After an introductory a cappella piece that sets the stage for what’s to come, we get the first real song, “Strange World”, which starts off with a psychedelic garage-rock stomp, a la the Black Keys. But then, 38 seconds in, the song shifts gears into a gorgeous psychedelic girl-group piece, with soaring, harmonized vocals, only to shift again as the sounds, voices and music swirl and build and finally end with a flurry of percussion and an electronic keyboard breakdown. La Luz may have begun as an indie-surf band, but by expanding their sound and aesthetic they’ve created a timeless album that both borrows deftly from the past and fits right in today. [go-up-to-main-list]

9- Pearl Jam • Dark Matter 

After thirty-three years and twelve albums, Pearl Jam are still here, filling arenas and releasing compelling rock n’ roll albums.  Dark Matter starts out with the bracing one-two punch of “Scared of Fear” and “React, Respond”.  These are two charging, riff-filled, all-out classic rock songs that show just how much life Pearl Jam still has entering the fourth decade of their career. Yet as much as some songs on Dark Matter rock, Pearl Jam still knows how to slow it down with great results, as on the gorgeous and contemplative closer, “Setting Sun”.  But the song that reaches for the brass ring of the band’s early glory years the most is “Waiting For Stevie”.  This song, which gets its title from Stevie Wonder, begins as a mid-tempo rocker and then slowly builds until an epic guitar riff takes over.  Add in Matt Cameron’s huge drum fills and sound, followed by an extended, scorching guitar solo from Mike McCready and you have a song that can stand with the best in the bands’ catalog. [go-up-to-main-list]

10- SPRINTS • Letter to Self 

From the SoundCheck podcast: “Dublin band SPRINTS combines roaring guitars and searing punk melodies with inward-looking lyrics, and always deliver charged music with abrasive authenticity.”  SPRINTS is everything I love about rock n’ roll and demonstrates why I still search for new music and new bands to this day.  It’s so simple: vocals, guitar, bass and drums.  Sure, you can add keyboards, and every once in a while throw in a horn section, but mostly it’s the first four.  SPRINTS has found a way to take these primal ingredients of rock music and shape them into something that has both classic punk energy and a modern, ferocious and blistering feel. Check out SPRINTS live at KEXP. [go-up-to-main-list]

11- Amyl and the Sniffers • Cartoon Darkness 

With massive guitars, driving bass, pummeling drums and fervent vocals, Amyl and the Sniffers create music that is both confrontational, cathartic and rocks the fuck out!  This Aussie band is now three albums into their career and has found a way to expand their no-frills punk into a sound that can still turn a club into a frenzy or blow off the roof of the arenas they’re now playing in.  Bands like Amyl and the Sniffers are proof that rock music is still as vital as ever.  Rock is not dead, and it’s still giving “the man” a middle finger! (here’s “Guided By Angels”, the first song I ever heard from Amyl and the Sniffers) [go-up-to-main-list]

12- Mannequin Pussy • I Got Heaven 

This indie-punk band from Philadelphia has been turning heads and bursting eardrums for a decade now, with each of their three previous albums topping the previous one.  But Mannequin Pussy has officially arrived with their fourth LP, I Got Heaven.  This album is full of big hooks, searing riffs and dizzying shifts in dynamics; and it’s all led by the wildly charismatic and often unhinged performance of frontwoman Marisa Dabice. I regret not seeing this band at their sold-out show at The Observatory in San Diego (capacity 1100) last October but I won’t make that mistake again. Here’s the official music video of “I Got Heaven” plus the live version on KEXP. [go-up-to-main-list]

13- Mr. Gnome • A Sliver of Space 

Mr. Gnome’s music is almost impossible to categorize. While descriptors like art-rock, indie-psychedelic, synth-pop and theatrical are useful, they don’t tell the whole story. Just check out the opening track, “Nothing and Everything”, which is a seven-minute long, intense, proggy, layered, musical journey. This is followed by “Fader”, another epic seven-minute song, that features an extended psychedelic electric guitar freakout that sounds like Jeff Beck fronting the Flaming Lips at a concert on Jupiter. If you already know about Mr. Gnome then congratulations – if you don’t, then do yourself a favor and check them out. (for further listening check out “House of Circles” from their 2011 album, Madness In Miniature). [go-up-to-main-list]

14- Kim Deal • Nobody Loves You More 

While the voice that opens and carries the listener through this excellent solo debut is unmistakably that of Kim Deal, this record sounds very different from any of her previous work with The Breeders, Pixies or The Amps. The first track, “Nobody Loves You More”, features a languid, string laden opening for 90 seconds before a full-on brass section bursts into the song, letting the listener know to expect anything and everything going forward. The third song, “Crystal Breath”, sounds like it could sooner fit right in on a Masseduction era St. Vincent album than on any Breeders record. This album, with its many adventurous, eclectic, often lavish twists and turns, only gets better with each listen. [go-up-to-main-list]

15- Sleater-Kinney • Little Rope 

I came late to the Sleater-Kinney party, arriving in time for the excellent 2015 album No Cities to Love which featured the incendiary track “Surface Envy”.  I’m not proud of that, but as much as I’ve tried, I can’t follow every band!  But I’ve done my best to catch up since then and have discovered just how much SK has meant to rock music since they started in the mid-90’s, especially the indie-punk-riot grrrl scene that they sprang from. Fast forward to 2024 and the opening song, “Hell”, off the band’s 11th album, Little Rope.  It starts off slow and sparse until it breaks out into a maelstrom of sound and fury.  The song continues as the dynamics shift violently back and forth from calm to fury and back again.  It’s hard to believe that a band can put out an album this striking and meaningful a full 30 years after their debut. [go-up-to-main-list]

16- Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds • Wild God 

Nick Cave long ago transcended the role of being a mere rockstar.  From his start as the leader of Australia’s short-lived, impactful, post-punk band, The Birthday Party; through the many albums with his eclectic backing band,The Bad Seeds; to his soundtrack work with Warren Ellis; Cave has been a prolific, enigmatic, iconoclastic anti-rockstar rockstar.  It seems like the less accessible Cave becomes with his music and lyrical themes, the more his star rises.  Over the course of the last 45 years, Cave and his band have gone from rooms to clubs to theaters to arenas to stadiums without seeming to give one fuck about what anyone else thought of their music.  Let’s give credit to the music fans around the world who have figured out just how essential Cave’s work is. So just put Wild God on and let Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tell you another story. [go-up-to-main-list]

17- Jack White • No Name 

With No Name, Jack White now has as many solo albums (six) as he released with the White Stripes.  Add in three LPs each with the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather and that is a lot of music for one person to be a part of, much less the driving/creative force for much of it.  Yet here we are, 18 albums and 25 years since The White Stripes was released in 1999, and Jack White has put out an exciting, raucous and primal record that fits in well with the records of that two-piece band that made him famous so many years ago. Check out “That’s How I’m Feeling” to hear what it’s all about. [go-up-to-main-list]

18- X • Smoke & Fiction 

X arrived in 1980 with their ferocious debut LP, Los Angeles, which is not just one of the best punk-rock albums ever, but one of the best rock ‘n’ roll albums. And now we have the bookend to a storied career as Smoke & Fiction is billed as the band’s farewell album. The album opener, “Ruby Church”, has everything you could want from X: snarling, intertwined vocals from Exene Cervenka and John Doe; rockabilly infused guitar licks from Billy Zoom; and a driving beat from DJ Bonebrake on drums. While it may not be as visceral as their debut (how could it be?), Smoke & Fiction is still a powerful final statement from a band that helped change the face of rock n’ roll 45 years ago. [go-up-to-main-list]

19- Beth Gibbons • Lives Outgrown 

I still remember the first time I heard Portishead.  It was at a friend’s loft in downtown San Diego in 1998.  I was living in Houston at the time and had not been exposed to “trip hop” or whatever other labels were being assigned to artists like Massive Attack, Tricky and Thievery Corporation.  Those bands were (and are still) fantastic, but Portishead had something they didn’t: Beth Gibbons on vocals.  Portishead only released three albums between 1994 and 2008 and this is only Gibbons’ second solo outing, her first being a collaboration with Rustin Man (aka Paul Webb of Talk Talk) on the 2002 LP Out of Season. 

Beth Gibbons’ voice is all at once haunting, intense, mysterious and ethereal.  And she brings her unique vocals to a set of songs that don’t seem to inhabit any particular style or genre.  They just exist as the perfect vehicle for Gibbons’ singular voice.  Here’s “Floating On A Moment”. [go-up-to-main-list]

20- Opeth • Last Will and Testament 

By now Opeth has become an institution in the annals of heavy progressive metal.  Many OG fans were dismayed when they ditched the harsh vocals several albums ago, but it turned out to be a good move as the band was able to gain a wider audience by leaning even more in the progressive heavy-rock direction. 

So it was surprising to hear Mikael Åkerfeldt’s wrathful roar return in 2024, this time as a character in an epic concept album about the reading of the will of a powerful and wealthy man, the patriarch of a family whose saga is full of deceit and intrigue.  Some may be turned off by the growling voice of “the patriarch”, but just know he’s just one character in a complex story told alongside music that is dramatic, layered and constantly shifting gears.  At one point you’ll hear a gorgeous Mellotron passage accompanied by orchestral strings followed by an extended brain-melting prog-metal guitar outro. It was also an unexpected treat to hear Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson on the album as he proved both a trademark flute solo and the spoken-word voice of the seedy lawyer. Here’s the full epic Chapter §4 and a live clip of Chapter §3. [go-up-to-main-list]

BB- Saint Etienne – The Night

It’s a sign of what a strong year in music this was that I could not find a spot for the excellent new Saint Etienne LP in my top-20.  So here’s the album that didn’t quite fit:

This latest album by this British indie-pop-experimental band is meant to be listened to at night, with headphones, in a very quiet and dark room (seriously, don’t listen to it any other way). The songs swirl and morph from stark and simple to lushly atmospheric. The words and music seem like they just appear, almost out of nowhere, to take us wherever Saint Etienne is going.  [go-up-to-main-list]

HM- Kings of Leon • Can We Please Have Fun

In 2005, I went to see U2 play an arena show in San Diego in support of their 2004 album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.  Their set featured a dazzling display of sound, lights and special effects, but before they played, there was a relatively unknown band from Tennessee opening the show.  As usual, the crowd was sparse at the beginning of the openers’ set, as it usually takes a while for the arena to fill in for the headliner.  But this felt different.  This sounded different.  This band that most attendees had barely heard of, if at all, was just going for it on stage, playing like they were the headliners.  The crowd seemed to notice, and by halfway through their set the Kings of Leon, who had just released their second album, Aha Shake Heartbreak, had pulled the audience in from the hallways and let them know they weren’t there to fuck around.

While it wasn’t long before the Kings of Leon were headlining arenas themselves, it was still quite a moment to see a new band take control of a crowd that wasn’t there to see them the way they did.  That’s a fair amount of words to say that I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart (and my ears) for the Kings of Leon.  While this album may not contain the next “Sex On Fire”, it is still their strongest collection of songs in at least a decade, and proves to me once again why I always get to shows in time to see the openers. [go-up-to-main-list] 

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