musicOMH's Top 50 Albums of 2016

musicOMH's Top 50 Albums of 2016

Original Source →

50.

October 14, 2016
Critic Score
74
18 reviews
It’s utterly bonkers, but there’s so much raw talent there, once they’ve learnt to rein in their excesses The Lemon Twigs could go on to produce something truly special in the future.

48.

August 19, 2016
Critic Score
72
17 reviews

Slow Club have always reinvented themselves with each album, and this is another example of the talent of one of this country’s best kept musical secrets.

47.

September 30, 2016
Critic Score
71
20 reviews

She’s come a long way from those more quirky days, but Remember Us To Life is a good reminder that Spektor is still more than capable of conjuring up moments of magic.

46.

April 29, 2016
Critic Score
82
18 reviews

A whirling dervish of an album, and a culmination of all their previous hard work, Nonagon Infinity is the sound of a band at their wigged out best.

43.

May 19, 2016
Critic Score
74
4 reviews

39.

January 22, 2016
Critic Score
78
35 reviews

It retains all that made them great in the first place – the swooning choruses, the punchy guitars, the massive productions – but at the same time offers proof of elegance and grace as their maturity grows.

38.

May 13, 2016
Critic Score
87
3 reviews

37.

May 20, 2016
Critic Score
74
15 reviews

The end result is arguably even better than Love’s Crushing Diamond.  All the qualities that made that record so sublime have been built upon further on Skip A Sinking Stone, delivering a more expansive work of rare depth and poise.

36.

February 26, 2016
Critic Score
78
16 reviews

At the centre of all of this, always, are Leschper’s remarkable vocals: brittle and quivering at one moment, bold and unfaltering the next, with an occasional folkish twang of Joanna Newsom or Jessica Pratt.

35.

February 5, 2016
Critic Score
81
11 reviews

34.

May 6, 2016
Critic Score
76
21 reviews

The loop pedals are still present of course, and it’s not a huge leap from previous albums The Magic Place and Nepenthe, but the overall sound is richer and lusher than ever before.

33.

September 2, 2016
Critic Score
76
16 reviews

Trick may well be his masterpiece, combining all the elements that have made him such an enduring and much-loved musician over the years to create a genre-bending classic.

32.

June 27, 2016
Critic Score
80
39 reviews

There’s certainly more highlight than filler contained in Freetown Sound and it is, ultimately, an album that deserves to be heard.

31.

September 16, 2016
Critic Score
75
4 reviews

30.

September 16, 2016
Critic Score
74
15 reviews

29.

March 18, 2016
Critic Score
77
41 reviews

Thanks in no small part to the significant contribution of Homme, the shirtless rocker has created his best work since his early Bowie collaborations. It seems only right that Iggy should end his long career on such a high.

28.

January 15, 2016
Critic Score
81
19 reviews

25.

January 22, 2016
Critic Score
80
44 reviews

Defiant, solid, aggressive and powerful are all words which you could level at Adore Life. It’s also an album of supreme confidence, one which has no issue with simply stating its case, of which it is certain.

24.

February 26, 2016
Critic Score
80
27 reviews
If this is to be the band’s swansong, they’ve left behind something timeless and quite beautiful.

23.

September 23, 2016
Critic Score
80
26 reviews

The tone for much of I Had A Dream That You Were Mine is set both musically and lyrically by its opening track – the warm, woody palette and the tinges of loss and regret.

22.

June 17, 2016
Critic Score
81
29 reviews
When three strong, unmistakable voices come together, there’s always the possibility of getting something watered down, but instead each individual’s powers are amplified.

21.

May 6, 2016
Critic Score
81
38 reviews
It’s a strange album that is melodically approachable, but lyrically draining. By the time you get to the eponymous title track, the unending nihilism within has done its work.

19.

August 19, 2016
Critic Score
72
22 reviews

At times listening to 25 25 is like you’ve broken into a hermetically sealed echo chamber in which reverberations from dance floor’s past, present and future now exist.

18.

March 18, 2016
Critic Score
77
10 reviews
For all the theatrics, it’s an incredibly tender, accessible album, with sing-along choruses and musical quirks that will lodge in your brain for days.

17.

November 4, 2016
Critic Score
81
27 reviews

FLOTUS might be an experiment, but if it turns out to be the template for Lambchop’s future output then that would be no bad thing.

16.

November 4, 2016
Critic Score
80
13 reviews
Whether stark and menacing, grief-laden or simply plain daft, Lodestar is a triumph of storytelling and sound.

15.

August 20, 2016
Critic Score
86
42 reviews

It’s just about impossible to live up to the hype that an album like this has been subjected to, but Ocean comes pretty close. Blonde is often a bit of a sprawling mess, but with some patience it becomes one of the most rewarding albums you’ll hear all year.

14.

April 15, 2016
Critic Score
77
47 reviews

The Hope Six Demolition Project has plenty of harsh, ugly moments; this isn’t Harvey crafting beautiful vignettes. Instead, she’s often reflecting the ugliness she sees around her, conceding that the world ain’t always pretty.

13.

September 27, 2016
Critic Score
84
36 reviews

The whole of Atrocity Exhibition takes Brown’s craft to a new level, even if his delivery occasionally grates. It’s by far the best thing he’s released and confirms his arrival among the rap elite.

12.

July 8, 2016
Critic Score
79
23 reviews
The sound might be ’80s, but this is undeniably now, and Shura a new star in 2016’s increasingly bible-black night.

11.

April 15, 2016
Critic Score
73
23 reviews
When Le Bon gets the balance right ... she is undoubtedly one of the most interesting, original singer-songwriters out there. She over-eggs the pudding occasionally, but that’s a small price to pay for adventure.

10.

October 21, 2016
Critic Score
89
32 reviews

It feels like the most human of his late works, with acoustic instrumentation carefully balanced alongside drum programming and vintage keyboards.

9.

September 30, 2016
Critic Score
87
48 reviews

After a few plays, 22, A Million begins to make a beautiful kind of sense. It’s the natural evolution of Vernon’s sound, back from when he experimented with a vocoder on the final track on the Blood Bank EP, Woods. And the songs themselves, once they’re stripped of all the vocal trickery, are as heartbreaking as ever.

8.

September 2, 2016
Critic Score
86
39 reviews

While her previous album Burn Your Fire For No Witness seemed like a huge step up for her, My Woman seems even more like a statement.

7.

September 30, 2016
Critic Score
88
30 reviews
It’s a record that articulately and passionately celebrates what it means to be black in America, but never runs the risk of becoming a divisive polemic, while also containing some impossibly slinky RnB.

5.

March 4, 2016
Critic Score
81
8 reviews

Anna Meredith’s self-described ‘collection of musical pests’ should welcomely plague many a listener for a long time to come. It’s a marvellously un-sobering boisterous beast of a record, and a sparkling début.

4.

May 8, 2016
Critic Score
87
49 reviews

This is as compelling and coherent a collection as they have ever made. It’s a record that you can delve deep into and really inhabit; everything’s in its right place.

3.

October 7, 2016
Critic Score
84
16 reviews

It’s a vital record that’s a blast of clarity in a muddy, chaotic world.

2.

September 9, 2016
Critic Score
91
40 reviews

As from an unspeakable event a remarkable record has come. One that sits amongst Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ best. Skeleton Tree is full of grief, but full of heart too.

1.

January 8, 2016
Critic Score
86
45 reviews
It’s an album that sums up Bowie as an artist – restless, audacious, constantly looking forward to the next new idea. January may only be a week old, but that ‘Best Of 2016’ list already has a slot filled.
Original Source: http://www.musicomh.com/features/lists/musicomhs-top-50-albums-2016
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