Drowned in Sound's Favorite Albums of the Year 2015

Drowned in Sound's Favorite Albums of the Year 2015

Original Source →

100.

August 21, 2015
Critic Score
72
16 reviews
The record is far more avant-garde than any of le Bon’s solo material, and calls on the most antisocial aspects of Presley’s. It’s gnarled, it’s confounding, it’s strong-armed, and you’re sure it’s winking at you every once in awhile.

97.

May 11, 2015
Critic Score
77
20 reviews
This isn’t a record to stick on in the car stereo but an album to obsess over on sleepless nights.

96.

April 6, 2015
Critic Score
77
11 reviews
The songs on this record have been delivered with the kind of aplomb that only someone with an unshakeable confidence in their work can muster, which suggests that Nadine Shah’s artistic future is mouthwatering.

95.

Fairhorns - Fuckup Rush
March 30, 2015
Critic Score
80
1 review

94.

January 26, 2015
Critic Score
77
19 reviews
Vital, urgent and impassioned – Gas Coombes has written the record he always deserved a chance to make.

92.

October 2, 2015
Critic Score
79
24 reviews

New Bermuda is overflowing with more ideas than either of Deafheaven’s records to date.

91.

Villagers - Darling Arithmetic
April 14, 2015
Critic Score
74
23 reviews

Darling Arithmetic is rarely anything but elegant. There are a multitude of splendid noises across its focused path but never anything approaching a scream.

90.

May 19, 2015
Critic Score
79
29 reviews
At once Herndon’s most accessible and most adventurous record, this is digital age avant-garde sound art put through a pop prism, and it’s all the more exciting as a result.

89.

March 17, 2015
Critic Score
79
26 reviews

88.

September 18, 2015
Critic Score
79
21 reviews

There’s a marked step forward in the deceptive depth of Sun Coming Down, and Ought perhaps traded in some of their debut longplayer’s immediacy in getting it, but their wit and emotional complexity remain stronger than ever.

87.

October 30, 2015
Critic Score
75
28 reviews
The great strength of El Vy ... is that it brings forth both members’ strengths to create something that sounds like a proper polished debut from a 'real' band.

86.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
77
35 reviews

He makes no huge stylistic leap on the album, but instead allows for an organic refinement of his already unique and provocative style. It’s well aware of its influences, and well aware of itself.

85.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
83
49 reviews
This is a record that demands your reflection and immersion, rather than just mindlessly wigging out. Whilst that may be disappointing to hear for some, it doesn’t take too much away from the latest stage of this 29-year-old’s fascinating career.

83.

March 24, 2015
Critic Score
84
44 reviews

There are manifold reasons why Barnett’s music is so compelling, then, but it all boils down to the way that she mines the little details for something powerful and resonant, creating songs that are at once universal and deeply personal.

82.

March 24, 2015
Critic Score
73
15 reviews
The Cribs have managed to interpret the notion of 'pop music' into an often-spectacular record.

81.

May 4, 2015
Critic Score
80
1 review

80.

March 23, 2015
Critic Score
81
14 reviews

While Campbell's music hasn't done a complete U-turn and embraced sonic maximalism, the nine tracks on Hinterland benefit from greater depth, evident on even the sparsest cuts.

79.

October 2, 2015
Critic Score
81
30 reviews

Grey Tickles, Black Pressure is a rich, dense and rewarding album. Dig deep into it and watch it envelop you - decay and chaos has rarely sounded so seductive.

78.

September 18, 2015
Critic Score
69
34 reviews

Its components are more straightforward, with keyboards, drums, bass and the odd guitar are being looped about with gleeful abandon but still sounding more minimalist than either of its predecessors.

77.

September 11, 2015
Critic Score
68
36 reviews

It’s a stylish, likeable work, that while not hitting the peaks of excitement in their early albums has a real consistency and warmth.

76.

Anna von Hausswolff - The Miraculous
November 13, 2015
Critic Score
79
14 reviews

Perhaps, if you are already aware of her work on Ceremony, then The Miraculous will not be a surprise to you. But if you have not, then it may well be a complete revelation.

74.

June 1, 2015
Critic Score
83
45 reviews
There’s a depth to this record that evokes an intellectual approach to his craft: every beat, synth and sample appears to have been meticulously planned by this music nerd (which is in no way meant as a diss).

73.

January 5, 2015
Critic Score
77
15 reviews
Indeed, the ten tracks that make up the record often move from a verse/chorus structure to something entirely different.

72.

Colder - Many Colours
November 6, 2015
Critic Score
74
4 reviews

71.

January 27, 2015
Critic Score
78
24 reviews
It sounds casual and ramshackle on first listen, but it’s a very detailed and precise record.

70.

October 16, 2015
Critic Score
75
22 reviews

70.

August 28, 2015
Critic Score
79
44 reviews

This is music that lingers in the mind and seeps into the bones. And while you can view it as melancholic, Scally and Legrand never dwell on sentimentality or allow anything to sink into despondency.

69.

April 21, 2015
Critic Score
79
35 reviews
While the debt is still to the Sixties and Seventies sounds of Muscle Shoals, of Otis and Aretha, and a big slab of late-era Beatles, the quartet work hard to make this a sonically interesting journey.

68.

March 2, 2015
Critic Score
70
14 reviews
The record is alive. It has punch, guts, heart, all the things you would hope for really, whilst at the same time maintaining the central potency of what made Ghostpoet so great in the first place.

66.

October 30, 2015
Critic Score
73
13 reviews

65.

May 11, 2015
Critic Score
72
27 reviews
It’s a record which grabs you by the collar from the opening seconds and angrily demands that you fucking well listen to what it has to say.

63.

February 24, 2015
Critic Score
79
12 reviews

62.

June 23, 2015
Critic Score
72
22 reviews

It doesn’t quite retain the piss and vinegar, lightning-in-a-bottle feel of its predecessor. But then of course it doesn’t: that album was turned out in a matter of days by much younger musicians, while this release spanned years and several recording sessions and it’s still absolutely exhilarating.

61.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
75
44 reviews
It’s an excellent album by a band who seem to be permanently brimming with life and ideas, a glimmer of warmth to lighten the dark depths of winter.

60.

February 3, 2015
Critic Score
65
14 reviews

59.

September 4, 2015
Critic Score
72
10 reviews

57.

April 20, 2015
Critic Score
85
4 reviews

55.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
88
37 reviews
Holter’s songs are grand, cinematic experiences, akin to entering a nebulous, shimmering other-world.

54.

Lanterns on the Lake - Beings
November 13, 2015
Critic Score
79
12 reviews

53.

October 16, 2015
Critic Score
79
40 reviews

Fading Frontier ... is the sort of record that only Deerhunter could make, a contradictory and even on paper somewhat illogical set of songs that nonetheless constitutes the most graceful set of music of the band’s career.

52.

August 7, 2015
Critic Score
70
28 reviews
Their rampaging style of yore feels a little constrained and tamed by the booming production and ‘nice’ singing, but at the same time they are beginning to write some pretty stupendous ‘proper’ songs.

51.

June 2, 2015
Critic Score
77
22 reviews

Before the World Was Big is a record that will help you appreciate the 'good old days' whilst you're still in them; it's a record that will make you feel okay about the unsettling aspects of the future and it's a record that will make you wanna hug your pals and never let them go.

Original Source: http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4149657-drowned-in-sounds-favourite-albums-of-the-year-2015
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