It is no small secret that this is my favorite album of all time.

White Lighter is a project defined by scope. The lo-fi Prelude and the lamentful Caesar are under a minute long, while the closer, Post-Script, meditatively glides past 6 minutes. But the real scale is found internally - each track could easily be four or five smaller ones; the effect is that you're always on the edge of your seat, never knowing what's coming next, settling into a slow moment never long enough for it to be boring before the band knocks you out of said seat with an explosion of sound, horns and strings, Kyle Morton's expressive voice and a chorus of harmonies permeating throughout.

This is undeniably a sad album, lyrically, but it never feels like it; if the words are lamenting the brevity of life, the melody makes it feel like a triumph, like spitting in the face of fate; if the words are telling the story of a heartbreak or a death or a defeat, you don't feel the grief but instead the budding revanchism.

I mean, White Lighter has some of the best single moments in Music: The fable-like outro of Young Fathers, everything leading up to the drop on Hunger and Thirst, the punchy Wolves closer of Morton's Fork, the almost Alt-J-y end of the first verse on Dreams of Cannibalism all come to mind. God, when the overdriven guitar kicks in on that heartbreaking, furious second verse of the Lake - that's cinema. That gets me every time.

Thing is, it's impossible to talk about these songs in terms of Verses and Choruses and Bridges, they're more like rivers; the flow can be calm and gentle or breakneck, and you're just as likely to hit some rapids or go over a waterfall as you are to float gently by. These songs are expressions of faith, of belief, of love, of loss. Morton's lyrics wash you in it, they stick to you, they come back to you months later like proverbs. He sings, he talks, he yells. When he's angry, you feel it, when he's desperate, you're just as much so. The other vocalists and the brass section and the rest of the veritable orchestra he has backing him up reinforce these emotions, and the result is, despite my best efforts, indescribable.

Put on some headphones, and set aside ninety-three minutes of your life - you're gonna end up wanting to listen to it twice.

Shocker, I know. The Beatles are pretty undeniably the greatest band of all time (not even my personal favorite - still the Greatest.) The more you look into it, the more it becomes self-evident. But that's just a fact - and reviews are for opinions.

Abbey Road was the final album recorded by the Beatles, and as such is the culmination of all their work, all their growth as a band and as individuals - and it shows. Whereas the White Album was great because it has an eclectic collection of tracks showing off all the depth and personality each Beatle brings to the table, and Sgt. Pepper's was great because it did something unique (for the time) and put together a tight, curated tracklist, Abbey Road is great because it does both, and better than either. Like the White Album, some of the dumbest songs ever written are on this album, and yet they're some of my favorites. Like Sgt. Pepper's, they try something really cool and new (The Medley) and top it all off with a big finale (although admittedly A Day in the Life is better than The End.)

And, man, they do not miss once on this album. It goes something like this: all-timer Lennon song; all-timer Harrison song (all-timer Song, period); all-timer Granny Mccartney song; all-timer normal Mccartney song; the only good Ringo song, which is not only good but Fantastic; [redacted]; all-timer Harrison song again; all-timer Lennon song again; and then Paul McCartney's fucking masterpiece, an innovation in tracks blending together, a pretty much unmatched achievement in album layout before or since. Look me in the eyes and tell me Abbey Road doesn't deserve the hype.

Oh, and I do not care for I Want You (She's So Heavy).

Full review forthcoming...

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The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) surely seems like the outlier on this list, right? Thing is, this album does something very well that many other albums fail to do at all. Buoyed by its impressive array of late-2000s indie talent, this album cultivates a vibe.

It's impossible to put on this soundtrack and not feel like you're there, taken back to high school in the closing years of the first decade; you're Edward, trying to fit in, different somehow from your classmates, object of attention against your wishes; you're Bella, just as isolated, never fully settled down in this new place; at once at odds with your surrounding and knowing exactly how each tired day is going to play out, like you've been alive for a hundred years.

These songs are yearning; in their most upbeat moments its feels like a rare breakthrough, a reminder to keep going. It's often slow, but always thoughtful. It feels like you've just burned a best-of CD and taken it on the bus.

And I don't even like the Twilight movies that much!

This album does have its issues. Haldern is a lesser son of greater sires, and if you do something more interesting with Mark's Theme and fix that godawful drumming on Snow Globes - the refrain is so good but the dissonance takes me out every time! - you have an airtight, perfect album on your hands.

Now, that's not what we've got. But what we do have more than makes up for it; you could put Snow Globes on the tracklist another five times and it would still be a Ten. I stumbled across this album online, and all I had to listen to was that Intro to be completely, irrevocably sold on the project.

And it just gets better from there. Chaos Space Marine can just as easily be the opener to a goofy faux-victorian student musical, but the driving rhythm and our first - of many - taste of Isaac Wood's delicious, rich vocals keep you entirely immersed. If Intro gets you sold on the promise, this song gets you hooked on the vibe, the story, the tone. There's teases of the intensity (those drums!), the humor ("So long, chumps"), and even the story (references to Good Will Hunting's iconic Billie Eillish refrain and the ever-present Concorde) that await you.

Concorde, speaking of, is deceptively laid-back but has that signature bombastic buildup and ending that makes it all worth it. Bread Song is heartbreaking until it becomes heartbreaking and raucous. I sing Good Will Hunting to myself pretty much constantly; this is easily the catchiest song on an album that doesn't go for catchiness but has it in unbelievable abundance anyways. Actually, I take it back, The Place Where He Inserted the Blade is the catchiest, a laurel it need not rest on, since it's also perhaps the greatest song ever written. And Basketball Shoes is so ambitious, so BIG, that just thinking about it gives me chills and actually listening to it sends me into a near-catatonic state, like a musical cinder block heaved full-force at my sternum.

With its amount of depth, clever instrumentation, huge moments, diversity of pace but consistency of tone, and just stellar lyrics, this could easily be a Typhoon album (and that's high praise) - no wonder I love it so much.

What can I say? Alt-J are allergic to making a perfect album. They're always so close, too.

This one is noticeably chiller than the other three. Besides the obligatory slow-build-up-and-massive-climax tracks (which, as usual, are incredible,) even the catchy upbeat songs are very laid-back, smooth, slick, flowy. If you close your eyes you can picture Joe Newman singing most of these on a pool float somewhere. This can be very good and even fascinatingly implemented on tracks like Bane, U&ME, and the Actor; on the other hand, you have songs like Hard Drive Gold, which unfortunately Sucks. And of course, as usual, they've added some pretty forgettable tracks in the second half there, which, when combined with the overall lethargic feel of the album, make for some real snoozers.

THAT BEING SAID: Chicago and Philadelphia are classic Alt-J grandiose-bangers. Bane is slippery and intriguing throughout, while being the closest this album gets to a proper Rock song. Get Better would be trite if made by anyone else but instead it's an all-timer Sad Boy Hours staple. Powders makes me feel emotions, man. And Happier When You're Gone is, against all odds, probably in my top three Alt-J songs of all time. I gave this a 9 for a reason.

Full review forthcoming...

Never leave it too late, always enjoy the taste
Of the great
          great
          great 
          grey world of hearts

As all dogs everywhere bark
                                     bark
                                     bark
                                     bark
It's worth knowing
Like all good fruit, the balance of life
Is in the ripe and ruin
                                    

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Look, Tap Out is a good song. So is the All the Time - but after that, you really think you've heard enough of this album. "I get the gist," you know? THEN that little synth riff at the beginning of One Way Trigger kicks in and you're back up again. That song makes you pick your ass up and Dance, but in a kinda melancholy way, kind of a Charlie Brown type dance. Like you're dancing and Remembering. You asked me to stay...

Then, bang, we're pulled out of that moment, like snapping out of a daydream, straight into the passenger seat of a convertible doing a $dollar down the Pacific Coast Highway. Goddamn right it's Welcome to Japan. This song is refined slick oily Cool, and it makes you feel cool. Hell, it makes you cool all on its own. And when you hit that ending, it's like crashing out after a really good run, like sprinting and tripping on a rock. And that brief, glorious moment where you were on top of the world is over. And then -

You open your eyes.

Here it is, masked behind this arpeggio somewhere between a violin and a synth, this heart-monitor rhythm that makes you feel like the song is scanning you somehow: the Comedown Machine. You can practically se the title card appearing before your eyes. After such a bombastic beginning to the album, we've finally reached our limit and crumbled under the pressure - but that was just the prologue. We've reached the true heart of the story. In the life of a rockstar, we've just jumped the shark. We're crashing out. We're down.

But we don't stay there for long.

Full review forthcoming...

Full review forthcoming...

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Mitski has a tendency to write the best two minutes of music you've ever heard, and instead of adding some slop to make it a nice radio-friendly 3.5 minutes like most artists would, she leaves it as-is and goes and writes another. What we're left with is a collection of diverse, immensely catchy, sometimes-light-sometimes-heavy-but-always-short-and-sweet, good-ass songs.

These songs are firmly in the Mitski Tradition of, say, Francis Forever, with melancholy but realistic lyrics (I often think about Cause nobody butters me up like you/and nobody fucks me like/me) and an often-slow start that builds to an absolute Ripper of a climax. The secret sauce on this album, though, is the prevalence of an upbeat tempo, not just within each song but between them, whisking us past each amazingly hand-crafted song like a whirlwind or an out-of-control carousel, enticing us, grabbing our attention, then, "Nope, time to go."

Put it on shuffle, listen straight through - every one of these gems will sparkle just as brightly. You'll seriously never want it to end.

We're definitely at the point in the list where albums stop really working as an in-order curated experience (which goes to show just how rare that feat is) and where they more function as a collection of songs. And in doing the latter, The Carpenter gets top marks.

The reason it doesnt work as a straight listen-through is because Winter in my Heart takes the wind right out of your sails after the stellar Once and Future Carpenter and the delightfully yoinky-spronky Live and Die. If I have one gripe with this album, it is that.

But then we're back to the bangers. If for I and Love and You the avett brothers were at their most folsksy and contemplative, then on this one its like they sat down and decided to only write slappers this time. Pretty Girl from Michigan is an absolute all-timer, and I Never Knew You does the impossible and manages to follow it up. February Seven is one of those classic Avett Brothers songs that is defintely a mote slower and so full of sentiment to teeter on the brink of saccharine, but these guys know that; what is this, amateur hour?; and it ends up being yet another banger. Add it to the list.

Through my Prayers is a bit of a skip.

Now, don't take the opening paragraph as me saying this album doesnt work as an album overall. It very much does. The connective tissue between all of these songs is this bouncy feeling, an upbeatness of a kind unique from their earlier work. There's more horns, more staccato, more roundness and fullness. It's to the point where you can sort of pick these songs out of a crowd and say "yeah, this one's from the Carpenter." Case in point, the dual waltzes of Down with the Shine and A Father's First Spring, both of which are just great.

Then it's time for Geraldine and Paul Newman vs the Demons, both of which are - say it with me now - all-time bangers, and not even just by Avett standards. The latter in particular sounds like they decided to write a Decemberists song and just knocked it out of the park, and the former is a staple on all my playlists. How is such a good song packed into a minute thirty-seven?

Then Life, which is, mercifully, actually fantastic and not another Through My Prayers, to close it out. And immediately after, The Once and Future Carpenter, then Live and Die, then Winter in my Heart...

Full review forthcoming...

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The beginning of Macchu Pichu is sounds like going through one of those Mario pipes into Strokesland, and boy is it a welcome sight. This is the song that got me into the Strokes, full stop, and everyone who listens to it has the same reaction.

Not all of the album is this good. You're So Right is forgettable, and Metabolism sounds kinda the same but with a knockoff Muse sound (the band does grandiose much better on other occasions); these opinions seem to be reflected by the community at large, given their lackluster Spotify play count. I have no need to listen to Call Me Back ever again. For the most part, though, the tracks found here are quite good, listenable and relistenable, even though they might entirely escape your notice on the first listen-through.

This isn't the type of album with a consistent feel or story or anything, it's more like a Toys'R'Us of catchy alt rock. So, points deducted, I suppose, but it's hard to be mad or disappointed in this album for longer than a couple seconds. Cause before you know it, Gratisfaction is playing, and everything is forgiven.

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It's just not as vibrant, energetic, or catchy as XO. "Between the Bars" is no "Waltz 2." There's some slappers in here for sure, but honestly the more laid-back tone doesn't do it for me; combine that with fewer catchy melodies and a less polished sound and you have a nice, solid, very ElliottSmithy Elliott Smith album. Maybe just listen to the greatest hits and leave it at that.

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