MJ Lenderman
MJ Lenderman’s Manning Fireworks, full of sad and funny storytelling, is the best album I heard this year.
Big Thief frontperson Adrianne Lenker made a stripped-down country folk classic, Bright Future.
With his longtime band Shellac, Steve Albini’s final work, To All Trains, came roaring out in May just after the legendary artist and engineer’s death. (Till the very end, Albini didn’t want to be called a recording “producer.”)
Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus teamed with an all-star lineup of Emmett Kelly, Matt Sweeney and Jim White to form the Hard Quartet and make an exceptional rock album.
The Effigies were one of Chicago’s first punk rock bands in the early 1980s. A year after lead singer John Kezdy was killed in a biking accident, the mighty punk scorcher Burned was released.
Here’s a dozen of the best albums released in 2024.
MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks
Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future
The Hard Quartet – The Hard Quartet
Deep Tunnel Project – Deep Tunnel Project
Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor
Jeff Parker – The Way Out of Easy
Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood
Amyl and the Sniffers – Cartoon Darkness
Check out these albums, too (listed in alphabetical order). And give the playlist at the end a spin.
David Nance – David Nance & Mowed Sound
Kamasi Washington – Fearless Movement
Nilüfer Yanya
All the Young Punks 