50

Drug Church
Prude
(Pure Noise)

Drug Church make it look effortless, but their relentless tour schedule, life-affirming live shows, and no-skips discography are winning over larger audiences. Prude is a further refinement of their signature sound–melodic hardcore with instantly memorable riffs and lyrics that read like pulpy flash fiction and sardonic op-ed pieces. Lead singer Patrick Kindlon still has no use for the tough guy typists who knock everyone down from their phones, and “The Bitters” is a killer takedown with a massive breakdown.

Elsewhere, some empathy creeps in on songs like “Yankee Trails”, which is one of the catchiest songs in their catalog, and on “Hey Listen”, where he is haunted by a billboard of missing kids. But don’t worry. They have not gone soft, and “Slide 2 Me” and “Business Ethics” are two more memorable character sketches of a piece with classics like “Weed Pin” from the band’s breakthrough, Cheer. Drug Church came for the crown with Prude, and it’s hard to think of a band more worthy of it. – Brian Stout

49

Dua Lipa
Radical Optimism
(Warner)

The cover of Dua Lipa’s third album, Radical Optimism, depicts the singer treading water as a shark’s dorsal fin approaches, like a scene from Jaws. The album title implies that Dua Lipa survives the beast. Yet the image symbolizes the predatory expectations the British-Albanian pop icon faced as she followed up her 2020 breakthrough album, Future Nostalgia. 

Bolstered by its advance single, “Houdini”, Radical Optimism raced up the charts to become one of 2024’s standout albums in the dance-pop genre. Songs like “Training Day” and “Illusion” keep the adrenaline flowing, although several other tracks, including “French Exit” and “Maria,” with their acoustic overtones, are calmer takes on Dua Lipa’s persona. The production team for Radical Optimism, led by Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, helped drive the album’s infectious combination of modern Eurodisco and psychedelic inflections. Despite some mixed reviews, Radical Optimism reaffirmed Dua Lipa as an artist in the process of developing, maturing, and testing new waters. – Peter Thomas Webb

48

Los Campesinos!
All Hell
(Hearts Swell)

The first full-length in seven years from the self-proclaimed only emo band in Europe is their masterpiece. These 15 songs find Los Campesinos grappling with late-stage capitalism blues, the march toward midlife, too many drinks, and failed romance with their trademark one-liners and the unsparing, unflattering details of connections gone awry. Like Foxing’s stellar self-titled release, Los Campesinos independently recorded and released All Hell themselves, and it hits like a labor of love.

“Holy Smoke (2005)” and “The Order of the Seasons” crackle with energy, and the prettier, more unexpected tracks like “Feast of Tongues” and “Long Throes” are some of the best on the record. The band may have left behind its practice of all members using the last name “Campesino”, but they have never sounded more cohesive or sure of themselves. As their fans wade into middle age, Los Campesinos! are right there with them–disillusioned but still capable of cracking a smile. – Brian Stout

47

Meshell Ndegeocello
No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin
(Blue Note)

It’s well within reason not to expect a new Meshell Ndegeocello album in 2024. After all, it arrived just a little over a year after her Grammy-winning album The Omnichord Real Book. Many of us are still unpacking the rewards from that record, which marked her debut on the Blue Note label. Whether it was an issue of just phenomenal timing (2024 marks James Baldwin’s 100th birthday) or the work simply being at a state where it was “done” (the album has been a project for about eight years), No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin was an unexpected, but much-needed arrival in 2024. 

Heavily inspired by Baldwin’s essay The Fire Next Time, No More Water is as much of a work of Ndegeocello as it is her rich, deep roster of collaborators. Spoken word artist Staceyann Chin takes Baldwin’s message of defiance and raised-fist activism and channels it into the contemporary, hoping “My death must mean something more than a footnote in the media frenzy of our time.” Chris Bruce’s guitar strikes a mournful note in tracks like “Hatred” and Trouble”. 

As someone who often wrote about his complex relationship with Christianity, it’s fitting that many of No More Water’s highlights have an almost hymnal quality to them. “Thus Sayeth the Lord’s” beautiful chorus urges listeners to “wait for it,” and leads into another powerful appearance by Chin, declaring, “The Lorde tells us that there is no thing as a single issue struggle / Because we do not live single issue lives.” Demanding, challenging, and compellingly listenable, No More Water continues Ndegeocello’s remarkable, creative streak in the 2020s.  – Sean McCarthy

46

Wild Pink
Dulling the Horns
(Fire Talk)

On Dulling the Horns, Wild Pink deliver a solid record from top to bottom, with moments of brilliance spread throughout. Standout “St. Catherine St” describes being hungover in another country, with the revelatory observation that “quitting drinking is like swimming away from land”. The commanding track builds to a guitar solo, the entirety of which sounds like it might crumble under its own weight. Tracking the album live and removing some of the overproduced elements could have backfired for a band known for their contemplative rather than commanding presence. However, this LP proves to be the shot in the arm needed at this particular moment, unearthing new tones resulting from Wild Pink’s maturation. – Patrick Gill

45

The Zawose Queens
Maisha
(Real World)

On their debut album, Maisha, Pendo, and Leah Zawose take the lead musical roles typically held by men in Wagogo music and step into them with relish. Singing and playing with friends and family as support, they relate stories of life, family, and history with aplomb, lively against beds of subtly contemporary production by Oli Barton-Wood and Tom Excell. Relatively stripped-down in terms of electronic effects, Maisha lets genuine musicianship shine, taking care only to add elements that benefit the central Queens and their collaborators.

Maisha is a triumph, an endlessly satisfying assemblage of textures and timbres. The Zawose Queens emerge as deservedly confident performers who know how to deliver the messages on their minds, honoring the past and engaging every moment of the present with full hearts and nimble voices. Each instrument, human or otherwise, sings with a clarity that draws attention to the multitude of sounds that populate the album’s ecosystem, from the metallic buzzing of ilimba and the soothing hollow of hand drums to the sharp pangs of wide-ranging strings and voices unbound. A work of vigor and grace. – Adriane Pontecorvo

44

Sabrina Carpenter
Short n’ Sweet
(Island)

Short n’ Sweet abounds with Sabrina Carpenter’s sly innuendo, a contrast to the cartoonish flair of Katy Perry. Perry’s Teenage Dream never missed an opportunity for playful objectification, becoming a parody of itself. This approach differed from Britney Spears, who was serious about her proactiveness. Careful not to repeat history, Carpenter sidesteps Perry’s obviousness without taking herself too seriously. The title Short n’ Sweet nods to its length, 36 minutes, and Carpender’s height, which in “Taste”, she describes as “Five feet to be exact.”

The sleek, chart-topping single “Espresso” embodies Carpenter’s approach to pop: cautious maximalism. The viral lyric “I’m working late ‘cause I’m a singer” summarizes her ability to create mythology around a self-evident topic: her occupation. By approaching a blindly optimistic genre with wry humor, Carpenter reclaims it for Gen Z.  – Matthew Dwyer

43

Mary Timony
Untame the Tiger
(Merge)

Mary Timony has come to inhabit a category of one. Given her frequent projects and collaborations over the last three decades, this may seem like an odd assessment. Timony epitomizes the rock-and-roll lifer, a journey-person musician who has tried out, tested, and integrated different genres through a steady output of albums. This new solo album feels different, however. Though she has never been absent from the scene, Untame the Tiger sounds like both a culmination of these prolific decades and a re-introduction. “Check the situation, is it cruel or is it kind?” is the line that starts the record. It’s the kind of question that comes from someone who has experienced both forms of reception. Untame the Tiger is ultimately an LP born of grief and difficult life experience, with an artist at her peak who can take measure of such unwanted travails neither enmity nor complete forgiveness. – Christopher J. Lee

42

Magdalena Bay
Imaginal Disk
(Mom + Pop)

For the Los Angeles-by-way-of-Miami synthpop duo Magdalena Bay, their 2021 debut Mercurial World was already one of the best albums of the young decade, setting up a very high bar to clear for any follow-up effort. In truth, no one should’ve doubted Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin. Having moved out of a tiny apartment complex in Los Angeles to their own place (thereby allowing Mica to scream at the top of her lungs without setting off a noise complaint), Imaginal Disk improves on their debut in every possible way, proving more colorful, more ambitious, and far weirder than even they thought possible. With obscure lyrics about mirrors and identity wrapped up into a panoply of styles and textures, even throwaway interludes are filled with hooks that could be used in standalone singles.

The sly “Image” has the year’s best pop hook, while the epic “Death & Romance” is the group’s best creation to date, full-stop. Having written and produced for other artists, they steal back their Lil’ Yachty instrumental for the lushly psychedelic “Love is Everywhere”, go back to their amp-breaking prog-rock roots in “That’s My Floor”, and reach dreamy highs on the lush “Angel on a Satellite”, this time employing a real orchestra instead of the synthesizer string settings they used on their debut.

Since the record’s release, Rosalía dressed up as the album cover for Halloween, and the duo’s biggest pop inspiration, Grimes, swung by to do a remix, giving validation to a duo who are releasing the best possible pop songs of any given year. How imaginal. – Evan Sawdey

41

Madi Diaz
Weird Faith
(Anti-)

Madi Diaz writes and sings pleasant-sounding, sincere songs about love, breakups, and the games we play with ourselves when things don’t work out the way we expect them to. She has a warm, expressive voice and a latent sneer at her emotions. Hurting another is just another way of wounding ourselves. Things like crying can feel good. And as Joni Mitchell once sang, “Laughing and crying / you know it’s the same release”. Diaz has a sense of humor about her feelings and the situations others find themselves in when connecting with her. There is more to being intimate than just being physically naked. Commitment is an undisguised danger. Do we want to kill our lovers, fuck them, or marry them? The answer is all three. Or as she sings, “When I love you / I hate you the most.”

Musically, Diaz’s mostly acoustic melodies reveal the power of being direct. Her delivery has a polished rawness, like that of varnished mahogany. Her duet with Kacey Musgraves, “Don’t Do Me Good”, has been nominated for a Best Americana Performance Grammy Award, while the album it comes from (this one) was nominated for Best Folk Album. Diaz’s voice conveys the sincerity of the joker who knows that pies in the face really hurt but that whipped cream is a delight. There is an ache in her throat one minute, a giggle the next. That’s the lesson of tough love. – Steve Horowitz