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Any reader of this blog should know I love the music of Brandi Carlile. One of the most talented singer-songwriters in the world.
A new album with artists like Pearl Jam, Old Crow Medicine Show, Adele, and the Avett Brothers covers the songs of Carlile's The Story album. Everything about this has me completely interested.
Here's Dolly Parton's cover of the title track, which is amazing.
Watch, and then listen to the rest of the album streaming free thanks to NPR.
I've been pretty busy this year, so I have a long list I could give but I don't feel like I've listened deeply enough to do 30 albums justice. But I can give you five that I think are the bees' knees. My lists all the way back to 2006 are below. Enjoy! And please let me know your favorites!
5. Pinegrove - Cardinal
4. Frank Ocean - Blonde
3. Slow Dakota - The Ascension of Slow Dakota
Christ-haunted. Literary. Curious. Playful. Mindful.
Try: "I Am Held Together"
2. Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
Punky. Can rock hard, but driven by lyrics. Wonderfully honest and provoking lyrics.
Try: "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales"
1. Bon Iver - 22, A Million
Hands down, the bestest of the bestest. Yeah, I know, it's quirky and weird and whatever. It's almost perfect as work of art depicting the messy clamor through darkness and struggle in the search for something more. It's longing and wanting and waiting and a whole bunch of things that should make the thoughtful listener think and seek alongside Vernon. It's the kind of spiritual pursuit that I want from art. It's not easy. But it's really good.
Try: 33 "God" | Full Concert
Previous Years -- Best Albums
2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006
Bon Iver's new album, 22, A Million, is frontrunner for album of the year for me. This lyric video for one of my favorite tracks, "8 (circle)," is all it needs to be. Provoking and confounding and grappling for something. Will he find it?
Thoroughly enjoying Whitney Bozarth's album, Anchor for My Soul. More good stuff coming out of Sojourn Music!
Streaming Free
Cheap Albums
NEW
I haven't been shy in expressing my love for and joy in the music of Gray Havens (Dave & Licia Radford). The new song, "Far Kingdom," is a song I've been listening to for a while from their upcoming January 2015 album Fire & Stone. I couldn't wait to introduce to you, and they've just released a video so I get the pleasure of sharing it. It's simple, and soaring, and gorgeous. I have yet to listen to it without getting the chills. Follow the lyrics below the video. Also check out Where Eyes Don't Go.
Lyrics:
There is a far kingdom
A ways from here
Beyond the storm and the sea
There will be no need of darkness
And none for tears
When that far kingdom I see
There’s a river we will know
Ever clear and ever full
From the fount that overflows
In the light of the King
And when we drink it we will find
That this joy, ever full, will ever rise
And it’ll rise on, in the kingdom
In the kingdom
There is a far kingdom
On the other side of the glass
And by a faint light we see
Still there is more gladness
Longing for the sight
Than to behold or be filled, by anything
There’s a river we will know
Ever clear and ever full
From the fount that overflows
In the light of the King
And when we drink it we will find
That this joy, ever full, will ever rise
And it’ll rise on, in the kingdom
In the kingdom
There is a far, far kingdom
There at the end of the sea
Where they know my name
And until that far, far kingdom
Calls me home
Oh, my soul, I will wait
For the river we will know
Ever clear and ever full
From the fount that overflows
In the light of the King
And when we drink it we will find
That this joy, ever full, will ever rise
And it’ll rise on, in the kingdom
In the kingdom
And it’ll rise on, in the kingdom
In the kingdom
I've been mentioning this new album around social media lately and want so bad for everyone to check it out. Delta Spirit: Into the Wide ($6.99). I've enjoyed all their past albums and I've seen them in concert. Amazing live band. With all my praise in the past, they've outperformed my expectations. I LOVE this album.
I will have a review or response or something here or at CaPC at some point. But for now, just pick it up and let me know what you think.
Here are a few new albums, out today, that are worth checking out. Click on the album to sample it. If you don't know Anathema, it's a bit of post-rock pop. First Aid Kit is folk-rock. If you have other suggestions on this New Music Tuesday, drop them in the comments.
Reviews of Jack White: Lazaretto.
Reviews of Anathema: Distant Satellites.
Reviews of First Aid Kit: Stay Gold.
There isn't a chance that I would pass up the new Sharon Van Etten album, Are We There. Her previous albums, Tramp and Epic, are great. I don't even need to preview the new album in order to buy it, but I know some of you do. Just watch this video for "Afraid of Nothing" and I know you will do what's right and buy this album. Looks like Are We There is a few bucks cheaper this week as Amazon's "Album of the Week."
Really want to get my hands on the Champs album, Down Like Gold, but it's not in the U.S. yet. Here's something to obsess over until it gets here. Love.
I couldn't get enough of The Menzingers' debut album, On The Impossible Past. Outstanding. High-energy. And now we get to see what they do next as Rented World is now STREAMING FREE before they release it next Tuesday (22nd). Here's their first single, which makes this punk happy...
My new piece on Saintseneca and their album Dark Arc is up at Christ & Pop Culture: "Saintseneca's Dark Arc: Stripping Off The World's Varnish." Here's a blurb...
The entire album is a juxtaposition of style and substance. It’s subversive, kind of Banksy. I can’t help but think that this is similar to what the church should be doing in the midst of our consumer culture. We should be taking the shiny, happy things of this world and breaking them, showing they aren’t what we think they are. We should be stripping off the varnish, seeing through the luster.
Go read my whole article, and please do go pick up Saintseneca: Dark Arc.
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ere are my recommendations out of the April 2014 bin of $5 albums at Amazon.
Classical...
The new album from Manchester Orchestra is out today and it's called Cope. I listen to their previous albums regularly: Mean Everything To Nothing & Simple Math. They have a great mix of thoughtful lyrics and tempered melodies followed by the sounds of heavy, grind-it-out rock anthems. A very enjoyable mix for me. Check out "Cope" from Letterman...
Above all other things that are worth doing in the world of music today, I hope you will STREAM FREE the new Champs album, Down Like Gold. Can't buy it in the U.S. yet, but I can't wait for it to get here!
There's yet another new list of $5 albums for the second half of March.
Miranda Dodson: Ascend EP -- This is getting a lot of play in my house. Really love "King Rise" as it takes us through the story of Jesus. It's streaming now. The album begins streaming tomorrow (Tuesday, March 18th).
Kristen Gilles: Parker's Mercy Brigade -- Kristen's new song "Chase Away My Unbelief" is a remarkable song about doubt and faith. While the background is tragic, the song is ultimately hopeful and comforting.
If you are like most people in America, you are still singing Frozen songs. One that I woke up singing today, "Love Is An Open Door," as someone performed in a van...
Two albums are out today that I've been enjoying for a couple of weeks while they were streaming free -- Phantogram: Voices and Angel Olsen: Burn Your Fire For No Witness.
Reviews -- Voices: 85/100 combined score at Metacritic is really good, including a Pitchfork "Best New Music" tag
Reviews -- Burn Your Fire: Paste 8.5/10 & Pretty Much Amazing says "a strong collection of 11 dark, pulsing tracks brimming with energy, humming with a persistent groove, driving with a head-bopping beat."
If you don't have time to listen now, please save this post somewhere and come back to it. This song may be a tremendous blessing to you or to someone in your family or church who is suffering. I encourage you to find time to really listen. I don't often find songs that hit me so deep and make me long to share it with others (especially those in pain).
I received the new album from Kristen Gilles in the mail and have listened to a little. Now I'm completely stuck on one song, "Chase Away My Unbelief." This is from the website of Kristen Gilles...
After our son Parker was stillborn, we cried out to God. Many of those cries came together in the form of this new song from our upcoming album Parker’s Mercy Brigade, “Chase Away My Unbelief.” This is a song for everyone who is broken by the thought of what might have been. A child who was never born. A child who was, but whose stay on earth was all too short. A broken home. A broken heart. A chilling medical diagnosis. A betrayal. Bankruptcy. Addiction. An inner conflict that causes you to say, “God, if you’re up there, if you’re powerful, and if you’re good, then why is everything so messed up?”
If you ever feel like God is far away, that he won’t answer you, let this song be your cry. If you ever feel like you’ve become a slave to your current circumstance, or that you have trouble seeing a larger perspective, let this song be your cry. If you ever hear about children starving and evil raging around the world, and your spirit groans, let this song be your cry.
Let me be honest: I don't cry easily. Partway through "Chase Away My Unbelief" I did begin to cry with the Gilles' over their loss and was provoked to cry out to God concerning the brokenness all around and in my own life and family and church. I think I have a lot more to cry over in my life that I have been avoiding. This song is helping me do so. What a beautiful lament for our time. Listen below and follow along with the lyrics. Hear more and pre-order Parker's Mercy Brigade at KristenGilles.com.
"Chase Away My Unbelief"
Lord, when I think You’re far away
Returning silence for my prayer,
When I’m reminded of old doubts
That You still reign, or that You care,
Teach me how to doubt no more,
To know You’re found by those who seek,
And my emotions can deceive;
Chase away my unbelief.
In the face of deepest loss,
Blinded by my bitter tears,
Broken by what might have been,
A slave to things as they appear,
Then whisper peace into my soul
In midst of pain and piercing grief.
My own perspective’s incomplete.
Chase away my unbelief.
When I suspect You’ve lost control
Or You’ve forsaken what You made,
When children starve both near and far
And love has wilted under hate,
Remind me of Your promises:
A kingdom full of life and peace!
Help me to trust eternity.
Lord, chase away my unbelief.
Cause my emotions can deceive ...
My own perspective’s incomplete ...
Help me to trust eternity,
Lord, chase away my unbelief.
Every so often an album comes along that reminds me why I search for good music far beyond what's on the radio and being advertised. I want music that makes me think and feel. I want music that makes me search through the lyrics to dig in deeper. I want hints at the backstory of the life of the songwriter, someone who writes out of their own experience. Those albums are great albums.
Bad Debt is the almost-new album by Hiss Golden Messenger (M.C. Taylor) and it's right in the sweet spot of that kind of greatness. Taylor recorded these songs at his kitchen table while his family, including his firstborn son, was sleeping in the winter of 2009. The original release of the album didn't last long after the CD stock was destroyed in the 2010 London riots.
Now given a proper release, we get to hear this remarkable album. It's just a man, his guitar, and his songs. Lo-fi. Simple. Oh so simple. You feel like you are sitting on the other side of a narrow room listening to songs that were written long ago and have never been so relevant. I encourage you to pick it up and sit under their spell.
Reviews worth reading --> Pitchfork 8.2/10 - "an album deeply concerned with the nature of faith and man’s relationship with his Maker" | Paste 8.6/10 - "just fundamentally phenomenal" | Slant 4/5 - "utterly ageless, like a surviving relic from time immemorial"
It's -40F wind chill here, which means you light up the fireplace and listen to Bon Iver. One of my favorite EVER albums, For Emma Forever Ago, is $5.
If you haven't checked it out yet, my Best Albums of 2013 list is up. Would love your thoughts. What music from last year did you enjoy?
Damien Jurado: Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son - My love for this dude's music has grown the last few years. Excited for this one. I'm only five songs in and I'm very, very happy so far.
Cheap Albums from my 2013 list ($5 unless noted otherwise)...
Other cheap albums worth checking out...
