Hop Along
Painted Shut
(Saddle Creek)
Painted Shut is where competing tendencies — folk-punk staccatos, college radio rock fuzz, early ’00s self-aware sincerity — fall in perfect step, just as the guitar strums line up in neat accord with the quirky, just-strained-enough lilt of singer-songwriter Frances Quinlan’s voice. It’s punchy where it needs to be, vulnerable in others (especially in standouts “The Knock” and “Waitress”), steering that rhythm towards a conclusion that never once disappoints.
Jamie xx
In Colour
(Young Turks)
The contrast between Jamie xx’s debut solo record and his towering work with The xx can be seen in the artwork aesthetic alone, the chilling, deep black void filled up with every fanciful splash of color and vibrancy he sees rushing in and out of his line of vision. “Loud Places” and “Sleep Sound” exist on that same icy plane of “Intro” or “Angels,” but “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)” and “Gosh” go to show that Jamie can wreck the FM radio clique should he feel so inclined.
Kendrick Lamar
To Pimp a Butterfly
(Top Dawg)
Fresh from the best hip-hop album of the recent past in good kid, m.A.A.d city, Kendrick Lamar didn’t double down on the exhumed West Coast sound of a conflicted Compton kid with his follow-up. Instead, he exploded in a free-form jazz opus that somehow grows bigger and more marvelous with every listen. Lamar is a special, singular artist, and To Pimp A Butterfly only reinforces the importance he will carry into hip-hop for as long as kids are hungering for rhymes to express their frustration (and occasional astonishment) with the world around them.
Leon Bridges
Coming Home
(Columbia)
Anyone lesser standing in Ft. Worth product Leon Bridges’ shoes would play as a hologram of the voices of yesteryear. But with his debut LP, Bridges is everything early, soulful singles “Coming Home” and “River” promised. In turbulent times, his comforting tales of life, love, and struggle serve as a wholesome reminder of a golden-era America, even if the same troubles that mar those memories are as relevant as ever before.
Lower Dens
Escape From Evil
(Ribbon)
The indie music legacy of Baltimore is growing all the time, and Lower Dens are the latest to enter into the upper echelon alongside the likes of Animal Collective, Beach House, Future Islands and Dan Deacon. They do so on the strength of Escape From Evil, the followup to two critical successes (2012’s Nootropics and 2010’s Twin-Hand Movement) that didn’t offer up anything as immediately accessible as neon-rimmed indie rock singles “To Die in L.A.” and “Ondine” — perhaps the best twosome of the year so far.
Mikal Cronin
MCIII
(Merge)
Maybe lost somewhere along the way of the comedian-starring music videos for “Turn Around” and “Say” is that frequent Ty Segall collaborator Mikal Cronin is writing his best songs to date. On his brooding power-pop opus MCII, Cronin channels the sweaty, poster-plastered garage riffs of his earliest work into soaring rock songs that rival what just about anyone is doing at this point.
Natalie Prass
Natalie Prass
(Spacebomb)
She’s as honey-voiced and doe-eyed as the Disney princesses she’s so often compared to. But the truth is that Natalie Prass is a siren with a fiery vibrancy, wrapped up in that gentle soul that will engulf anyone drug to shore by stirring symphonies “My Baby Don’t Understand Me” and “Bird of Prey.” For someone so fluttery on first glance, she sure has a way of shifting the ground your standing on.
Rae Sremmurd
SremmLife
(Interscope)
Commercial rap met its match in Mississippi sibling duo Rae Sremmurd, the first new name that feels built to last in an era that’s seen little more than flaring, flash-in-the-pan wonders and the same old names from 2005. From “Throw Sum Mo” to “No Type” to “No Flex Zone,” these youthful and hellbent studies of the intersection between pop and hip-hop infect anyone who isn’t demolished by their vintage, bass shaking antics.
Shamir
Ratchet
(XL)
Like a Pee Wee’s Playhouse of gummy sass, repurposed ’90s mall club hooks and glass candy flourishes aplenty, Ratchet is as playful, inventive, and uncompromising a pop album you’ll find in 2015. Dripping wet with Shamir Bailey’s personality, it’s a debut LP that could have never been made by anyone else, embracing outsider tendencies and crowd-friendly inclinations alike in a fucking enthralling amusement park ride through some of the best dance tracks (“On the Regular,” “Make a Scene”) released in the last year.
