2 Albums for Every Year I've Been Alive (Part II)
2006 to 2023
Phew! Okay, I’m back with the final installment of this two-part undertaking of mine. We’re fully into the part of the timeline where I have year-end lists and write-ups to pull from so I have tried to include snippets of my other writing on some of these album and then shortened some to be a bit more concise.
Would love to know what you have thought about both of these lists, and if you find anything new-to-you that you dig!
Don’t forget to check out Part I of this list over here if you haven’t already:
As always, please reach out on the hellsite, the better site, or better yet join the Rosy Overdrive Discord server where I can be found now and again. You can also find me in the corners of Rate Your Music scrounging for obscure emo, hardcore, indie-rock and pop-punk.
Don’t forget: if you’re reading this in your email it will be cut off. Read on the web for the full list of reviews!
2006
The Advantage - Elf Titled
Probably weird to be starting the second portion of this list with an album of video game music covers, but alas! Hard to overstate how much I listened to this album circa 2006 to probably 2010. It represented the perfect Venn diagram for me, where the appreciation of NES compositions overlapped with my music addiction and interest in Hella or math-rock. Probably also some weed in that chart too. I smoked a lot of weed circa 2006. Regardless, I love this record and in particular Hella's Spencer Seim on the drums really makes the whole thing sing. Don’t call it a novelty album!
The Arrogant Sons of Bitches - Three Cheers for Disappointment
Ska-punk is very under-represented in this project. In my original playlist of 6 albums a year some albums like Catch-22’s Keasby Nights made the cut. 2006 is also an interesting year for this list; I was listening to a lot of new music still at this time, but none of the albums that I find browsing the 2006 chart on Rate Your Music grab me as personally important, or albums I would listen to enough to pick them. So while The Arrogant Sons of Bitches were a band I didn’t get into until after BTM! and Jeff Rosenstock’s solo work, but it’s one of my favourite ska-punk albums and worthy of standing up to pedestaled classics of the third-wave genre.
2007
The Arrivals - Marvels of Industry
The Arrivals are sometimes unfairly known as “that other band Paddy Costello from Dillinger Four was in!”. I feel like people looking for more music that sounds just like D4 sometimes bounce off the bar-punk sound here. It skirts between poppy punk rock orgcore and a kind of vintage aping pub-rock vibe (think Clash, etc.) Regardless, I always really dug this band and surprised there's not more reviews/ratings out there for their work.
Dog Day - Night Group
Dog Day's Night Group has always stood in my mind as one of the key Canadian indie-rock releases of the 2000s. I guess to describe this in general terms I'd say it's a mix of Canadian indie rock (Thrush Hermit, The Super Friendz etc.) and indie pop with a bunch of other various genre elements (post-punk bass, plucky synth-lines, etc.) thrown on top. "Oh Dead Life" is one of the best indie-rock singles of the 2000s for my money.
2008
Bayside - Shudder
In the past year or so, Bayside went from a band I had never bothered to check out, to one of my favourites of the genre. When I finally got around to checking out their debut record, I was surprised to find that a band I had filed away in the "00s emo rock with embarrassing screams" section of my brain played more of an Alkaline Trio and Smoking Popes influenced depressed pop-punk sound.
Over time, this has become one of my favourites from them, due to massive earworms like “Boy”, “The Ghost of Saint Valentine”, “A Call to Arms”, “I Think I’ll Be OK” and a lot of other strong deep cuts. It’s bizarre to me that some people consider this one of their weaker efforts.
Love is All - A Hundred Things Keep Me up at Night
Love is All came out of that meeting place of indie pop, post-punk and dance-punk that was rattling around in the aughts. It would be easy to listen to the band and dismiss them as any other overly-enthusiastic, sax-adorned act from the era, but that would be a gross simplification. They have as much in common with bands from that scene as they do with new wave rave ups and art punk bands from the 70s. The key to their sound is the ability to infuse their frothed up dance punk sound with emotion and really potent storytelling. Eventually you come to realize this is a get-together-and-break-up album, and on songs like the closing one-two-three punch of “Big Bangs, Black Holes, Meteorites”, “A More Uncertain Future” “19 Floors” the band gives glimpses on the rawness that comes after all the glitter has fallen on the dancefloor and everyone else has gone home. The album doesn’t end with the expected optimism or depression of a post-break-up song but instead “19 Floors” paints a relatable picture of living in a building full of people but still feeling alone.
2009
Cursed Arrows - Telepathic High Five
This one is pretty personal. I saw Cursed Arrows play Rancho Relaxo in Toronto sometime between releasing their debut album Knives Are Falling From The Sky and when they changed their name from Arrows to Cursed Arrows and recorded Telepathic High Five. Cursed Arrows were a good example of when you make a band your life for me. I loved their show, bought their album, followed their blog where they wrote about recording this record, and then saw them damn near every single they came through Toronto around that time. Even their pro-animal messages played a big part in me becoming vegetarian at the time, I mean, I was all in.
The album - a guitar and drums assault of sprawling, noisy rock with elements of post-grunge, vaguely progressive songs that run in every direction and a heaping of punk attitude - is pretty embedded in my core. I wore my Cursed Arrows shirt until it fell apart in tatters. I’m not sure I could write an unbiased review. I love this record.
Mos Def - The Ecstatic
It’s a real bummer that this album - Mos Def’s best imo - isn’t available on streaming platforms because of its samples. I always liked Mos Def’s work - particularly Black Star - but felt like Black on Both Sides and The New Danger were spotty as albums with highs and lows throughout. The Ecstatic was top-to-bottom fantastic with amazing production from Madlib, Oh No, The Neptunes, Preservation and more. Highly recommend seeking it out.
2010
Grass Widow - Past Time
Have loved this since it came out in 2010 and really need to remind myself to revisit this more often. Just gorgeously layered harmonies, plucky lead guitar lines and post-punk basslines bouncing off one another in the best of ways. A special album that for me will always be five stars.
The Like - Release Me
For an album with the pedigree that this one has, I’m surprised it is still a bit of an underrated gem. Members of The Like all had parents in the music industry - including Elvis Costello drummer Pete Thomas - and for their second album they enlisted producer Mark Ronson, the bassist from Phantom Planet as well as members of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. The result is a stack of wildly catchy 60s-influenced, farfisa organ adorned pop tunes. The foundation of these songs are retro, but there’s still a rock backbone to them, leading Drowned in Sound to describe the album as "the Shangri-las as if they were backed (by) The Kinks".
Every time I revisit this album I wonder why or how it wasn’t an enormous hit.
2011
Crusades - The Sun Is Down and the Night Is Riding In
Crusades basically play punk rock draped in spooky atmosphere but with a decidedly chewy pop-punk center beneath it all. They might bash out what is essentially a pop-punk song in "Dreamers" before moving on to an acoustic-introduced hardcore-adjacent punk rock song like "Remedy." Basically they flirt with most types of melodic punk in and around their 80s punk and metal worshiping clothing.
Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full of Holes
To be honest, I don't think Fountains of Wayne were an "album" band outside of a few exceptions. Fountains of Wayne is a huge set of alt-rock power-pop songs. Sky Full of Holes is similarly a major stack of jangly pop songs that seem to callback to shimmering 70s radio rock.
In some ways Sky Full of Holes is a fitting bookend to their career and the flip-side to their self-titled debut - older, wiser, subtler, but still able to land some catchy as hell hooks.
2012
Hold Tight! - Blizzard of '96
Continuing the trend of the 2010s and some of my above reviews, it's confusing to me that a) I missed this in 2012 because I was all on top of this genre and b) that there are so few ratings/reviews for this online.
I discovered this thanks to dewtaylo's underrated list on Rate Your Music. it has stayed in my heavy rotation (along with their other LP and EP) ever since.
This is some of the most underrated beer soaked orgcore singalong punk rock of recent memory, for sure.
VCMG - Ssss
Vince Clarke and Martin L. Gore got together and made an album of techno, and it rules. Over the course of an hour, it'll wear some listeners down but I can easily spend an hour with this kind of music in my headphones. Would love another album of this kind of stuff from them.
2013
Nona - Through the Head
Through the Head is one of the great indie-punk-pop-rock albums of the 2010s, likely obscured for many by their inability to get past Mimi's vocals (though Charly Bliss didn't seem to have this issue? No idea.) An essential hidden gem of the genre.
Marnie Stern - The Chronicles of Marnia
The perfect mix of Stern’s outrageous guitar talent and incredibly catchy melodies. I think fans of Stern’s noisier, cacophonous records were disappointed here but it remains one of my most listened to records in their discography.
2014
Ultrasyd - Chipsters EP
This EP of hyped up near-EDM level chiptune music is still a fucking banging 20 minutes to this day. Absolute game-changer kind of shit I feel like. If you like this stuff L'Épidemie Dansante is also very dope.
Hard Girls – A Thousand Surfaces
The kind of album with an impact that feels outsized based on its reception. This album has always been pretty well received, and I enjoyed it upon release, but over time it has grown in cult status for a few reasons.
Firstly, the band is a part of the Jeff Rosenstock extended universe. Mike Huguenor of Shinobu has performed with Rosenstock (and Bomb the Music Industry!) as well as Asian Man records acts like The Bruce Lee Band, Classics of Love, Kitty Kat Fan Club and more. And secondly, due in part to the first, it has been heralded online in some journalistic circles really heavily - particularly on music Twitter.
All this is to say, that after all these years this album is still talked about in hushed tones, and for good reason because it rips! Pretty much a perfect intersection of sweaty indie punk and noisy indie guitar rock.
2015
All Dogs - Kicking Every Day
A series of mid-tempo chug-along pop-punk tunes that slowly build to some of the most cathartic releases heard on any record that year. This album continues to stand the test of time for me and I can't imagine it'll stop being that way. One incredibly moving, emotional album that really hits me in the gut every time I revisit it. Absolutely one for the decade lists imo.
Sauna Youth - Distractions
Distractions is a hyper-tight blast of angular art-punk guitar slashes, shouted choruses, pummeling drum thrashing, and fizzed-out energetic hooks galore; it’s definitely the kind of record that could be easily passed over with a shrug by more passive listeners, but a closer look will reveal just how innovative this stuff really is.
2016
Crying - Beyond the Fleeting Gales
Hard to describe how much I care about this album! The mix of AOR influences here is just perfection; prog-pop song epics, soaring guitar lines, gorgeous lyrics from Elaiza Santos. I know that Galloway has been busy with other projects (BUMPER, working with Long Beard, etc.) but if Crying dropped this album and never release anything else that's gotta be one of the biggest power moves in modern indie-rock.
Jeff Rosenstock - WORRY.
When this album came out, I felt like it was less consistent than WE COOL?. Over time, I realized how wrong I was and think the record running off the wheels and busting at the seams into a suite-cycle featuring genre-hopping madness is just plain brilliant. Definitely a peak for Rosenstock, who basically defined an entire generation of listeners with this album.
2017
Fishboy - Art Guards
A conceptual album of sorts, each track outlines a character and their jobs - an art guard of course, a former performance artist, a popular photographer, and more. Each track is a gorgeous, catchy ode to their lives, achievements and regrets. On the final track, every character re-appears for a food fight. It sounds quirky and silly, but what Fishboy is so brilliantly able to do is infuse the record with humor, pathos, and palpable emotion.
BA Johnston - Gremlins III
When I moved to Toronto, one of the only constant in life was B.A. Johnston would be touring somewhere - and whether I was in Toronto, visiting my home town, or anywhere else in Ontario, there was probably a B.A. show either coming up, or one just past.
In the past year, I’ve left the big city and re-located back to my home town. One of the first things I did was go see B.A. Johnston at the local dive bar that I spent my summers at when I would come home from College. Full circle and all that. Funny how life works.
This is one of their more consistent albums of songs about uniquely Canadian things like being drunk in a canoe, cooking frozen lasagna or drinking beers in the alley. Okay, so maybe not entirely unique to Canada, but still.
2018
The HIRS Collective – Friends. Lovers. Favorites.
Not only a celebration of queer and trans lives, but with a stacked list of featured performers (Shirley Manson, Lara Jane Grace, Marissa Paternoster, Alice Bag and more) and 26 no-duds bangers in a row, this has gotta be up there as one of the top 5 releases of 2018 for me. I’ve probably called a record or two on this list as important already, but Friends. Lovers. Favorites. is fucking important.
cupcakKe - Eden
CupcakKe put out TWO records in 2018, both of them pretty great. For my money, Eden was the best – it’s shorter at 33 minutes (Euphorize is nearly 50, a problem that has returned on their 2024 album) and though there’s some dope tracks on the latter, nothing beats Eden’s “Quiz” imo. I don’t think there’s a better rapper out there right now, in terms of setting up punchlines and knocking them down. I hope they are able to get back to the consistency seen on Eden.
2019
ahem - Try Again
Ahem's 2018 EP got me hooked on their sound from the opening notes of "Air Supply" and their full-length Try Again continues their streak of fuzzed out pop with trade-off vocals and playful but cathartic melodies. Just try and stop yourself from pogo-ing in place while Try Again's 26 minutes slide by.
Rosie Tucker - Never Not Never Not Never Not
Absolutely, no contest, hands-down the album I listened to most in 2019 was Rosie Tucker’s Never Not Never Not Never Not. It’s a perfect intersection of everything I love and since they released this album they have become one of my all-time favourite artists.
2020
Noera - Bird in Flight, done in soap
Noera’s Pearls was one of the best records of 2019, so I was very stoked to see another release from Prudence Delilah in 2020. With Bird In Flight, done in soap, Noera has established themselves as one of the best acts going. These two records are so strong, so well produced and written that I’m surprised to not see more people talking about them.
Power Alone - Rather Be Alone
Power Alone’s Rather Be Alone was another huge release for me in 2020 and one that followed me around all year - from blasting it in the car stereo, to cranking it on headphones for some much needed release on a lunch hour. This is huge, groove-based hardcore that hits incredibly hard riff-wise and lyrically.
2021
Every Time I Die - Radical
Unfortunately, after Radical was released the band imploded and has splintered into two other acts - Better Lovers and Many Eyes. If Radical will remain their swan song, it’s an amazing album to go out on. Not many bands can claim that over the course of their careers they just got better and better and better, but ETID is absolutely one of them.
Comfy - Volume For
Comfy’s Volume For was definitely my most-spun album of that year - the last.fm stats do not lie. This was just a huge one for me, wildly addictive and sprawling indie-pop from track one to track 14. If you haven’t heard Comfy, get this and don’t forget to circle back on their previous LP too. They’ve also got a new one that will surely be on 2024’s year-end list.
2022
Blushh - C'est la vie!
Blushh did something that few bands can do: expand upon what made their music so great in the first place, taking steps in a number of different textual and compositional directions while retaining that special something they had in their early work. This is a much more orchestrated, lush kind of power-pop than their fuzzy early work, and it’s all the better for it.
Fievel is Glauque - Flaming Swords
This is an impeccable record of jazzy indie psychedelia, all the more impressive when you realize this entire album was recorded 100% live in a single studio session. Listening to the album, hearing how many incredible performances it holds, and that they were all captured live is revelatory. I could listen to this album all day, and often do!
2023
awakebutstillinbed - Chaos Takes the Wheel and I Am a Passenger
There's a lot of emo that sounds similar to absib but for my money, this is one of the best examples of the modern take on the genre. They never sound like they are indulging in tropes just because it's expected of the genre - every noodly little riff, foray into poppy hooks or pull back into sparse guitar and echo-y vocal takes feel earned and a part of a greater emotional whole.
I think by the end of “Bloodline” - the six-and-a-half-minute opener - you'll know if this is for you or not. I had shivers by the four-minute mark and loved every minute of the rest of the album.
mui zyu - Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century
An amazing kind of experimental haunting pop music record. Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century was a bit out of nowhere for me when it came out so it hit hard. This is one of those albums that I kept revisiting again and again because it’s got an amazing mix of listenable art-pop vibes but with a ton of depth that repeat listens continued to open up. Love, love it. Their 2024 album is phenomenal too.
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.
Kind of nuts how few of these I've heard - or even heard of - but your enthusiasm and the Mui Zyu lifeline will get me to check some of them out!
.....just followed you on Spotify.