There is No Year is the music we need right now, fired up, political and anxious, staring the end of the world in the face, but not giving up.
These tight, explosive songs combine a refined poetic lyric approach in songwriting and arranging that's every bit as urgent as the album's two predecessors, yet it's so emotionally charged, it leaves the listener breathless and exhausted, as well as compelled and excited.
The band continue to be radical, but rather than being reactionary, ‘There is No Year’ is precise, thoughtful and powerful.
There Is No Year is an outstanding album that offers the listener the opportunity to step into a grim reality, but to do so feeling armed against that gloom, and desperate to be part of some or any change.
Whereas their previous albums were instinctive in their anger, this finds the group taking a far more measured and varied approach.
Algiers are difficult, unplaceable, a band that need sleevenotes and lyric sheets and longform narrative films, not a download link in a Whatsapp thread.
‘There Is No Year’ is a reflection of its subject matter; chaotic, troubled, intense and conflicted, defiant yet broken.
Far too few of this group’s contemporaries take risks like they do, and far too few have anything of substance to say.
There Is No Year is another solid album from a band that has yet to disappoint. Even with all of the new things that they try, it’s hard to discredit Algiers for attempting to shift themselves in another direction.
Sitting right at the cross-section between optimism and pessimism, There Is No Year is an enlivening experience, and a mostly successful artistic rendering of a world on fire.
If the third album by the Atlanta-based group serves one purpose, it is that if you give Algiers thirty-seven minutes to mix politics and their distinct sonic attitude, you will have one messy, overflowing melting pot.
An album that often buries Algiers’ proven penchant for radical political songwriting under some of synthwave’s worst impulses.
Grounded in historical horrors and gesturing darkly at personal demons, the gospel-punk band’s third album is shot through with dread.
It’s a record that doesn’t do things by halves, which is commendable but often to Algiers’ detriment.
Algiers play it dismayingly safe on their third album.
In isolation, none of the tracks here are a write-off, but as a whole they don't connect into the holistic statement that writers and performers of this talent and thoughtfulness could achieve.
Whether it’s the grayscale production at the hands of Randall Dunn and Ben Greenberg that plagues the middle of the album or a seeming lack of enthusiasm on behalf of the band, There Is No Year is one of the most disappointing follow-ups in recent memory.
Unfortunately Algiers seem have to have spent so long introspectively soul-searching about the end of the world that they’ve forgotten how to write much in the way of engaging music.
Not quite as consistent or as powerful as I was expecting and I wish "Can the Sub_Bass Speak" was on here, but "There Is No Year" is still an interesting ,well-written and performed dystopian post-punk album with lots of soul influence and a great deal of synths and electronics.
Fav Tracks: Unoccupied, There Is No Year, Void, We Can't Be Found, Losing Is Ours, Chaka
Least Fav Track: Hour Of The Furnaces
Score:
7.4
Good
The same old cheesy genre mismatch approach from Algiers - vaguely promising dark atmospherics slathered in OTT ‘heavy on the ham’ gospel/soul outpourings.
My least favourite vocals are BIG VOCALS that fail to convey any emotion - nothing is communicated to me by this singing style.
The Algiers sound has never appealed to me - and it appears that it never will.
This isn’t the urgent call to arms that I expected, but I almost love There Is No Year more for that fact. What Algiers have delivered instead is a moody, dystopian vision of a future that’s already arrived. As opposed to what sounded like uninhibited riots on their previous album, the band instead opt for a stealthy takeover here: penetrating your mind with dark synthesizers and melodies that sneak their way into your head. Throughout much of this record, Algiers are at their most ... read more
1 | There Is No Year 3:14 | 67 |
2 | Dispossession 4:15 | 73 |
3 | Hour of the Furnaces 4:25 | 59 |
4 | Losing Is Ours 3:43 | 57 |
5 | Unoccupied 3:06 | 56 |
6 | Chaka 3:52 | 58 |
7 | Wait For the Sound 4:11 | 52 |
8 | Repeating Night 3:01 | 59 |
9 | We Can't Be Found 3:24 | 49 |
10 | Nothing Bloomed 3:40 | 54 |
11 | Void 2:57 | 40 |
#32 | / | The Quietus |
#44 | / | NBHAP |
#77 | / | Les Inrocks |
/ | AllMusic |