#bestof2018albums

[pristinaaa-blog]

A Best of 2018 Albums List that Doesn't Have Any Kids See Ghosts or Daughters on it

Occult avant-garde black metal, awesome Latin dance-pop from Brazil, strong female singer-songwriters who want to save the world. Basically this was music in 2018 for me, a series of albums with breathtaking power and exciting new ideas.

AURORA Infections of a Different Kind (Step I) I have to say that this list is not supposed to be a ranking as it’s simply too difficult to decide which album I liked best. Still, if someone came up to me with a gun in one hand and a puppy in the other, telling me to choose or “the puppy gets it”, I think AURORA’s Infections of a Different Kind (Step 1) would be my choice. It is the most outstanding and the most innovative thing I heard in a long time, carrying an elemental power that hits you hard and makes you dizzy.

Every single note on this record sounds as if everything in the universe was finding its right place. Every harmony and every little thing is perfect, this album gives you a cathartic experience - suddenly everything becomes clear and bright, all the pieces of the cosmos back where they belong. I don’t believe in fate but I have a feeling that this record it was destined to be created somehow. It is insanely powerful and mesmerizing, and it’s nothing I’ve ever heard before.

Aurora really feels like a queen on this album, she has so much love that is enough to embrace the whole world. Using all this love, she takes up the role of the leader who tries to guide people towards a positive future, a role that is the hardest and the most unthankful. Each and every song on this record makes me feel stronger, because they carry the message that it’s all worth it. And well, if such things like this album exist in this world then I guess I have no doubts about that message being true.

Highlights for me are All is Soft Inside, Forgotten Love, and Soft Universe. But the whole thing is amazing. 

Zeal and Ardor Stranger Fruit I used to listen to all these awesome avant-garde bands in the 00’s that sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before. Then they all disbanded and I honestly didn’t think I would ever get to listen to anything like them again. And then I went to Pohoda Festival in the summer of 2018, and was lucky to see Zeal and Ardor live, thus attend one of the most amazing concerts I have ever been to.

Stranger Fruit is definitely one of the most powerful, inspiring, daring and heartbreaking things I have heard in years. There is almost a complete universe in every melody, in all the harmonies and the noisy guitars. The lyrics are so brutal with their simplicity, full of this elemental power. Everything in this music is filled with so much pain, anger and emotion, it really is overwhelming and heart-wrenching, truly beautiful with all the incredible weight it carries. Favourites: Gravedigger's Chant, You Ain't Coming Back, Built On Ashes (this last one is literally the saddest thing ever) 

Pabllo Vittar Não para não I’ve been wishing for a pop album like Não para não for such a long time. I would even go as far as to say I needed it. It’s empowering, sexy, fun, creative, catchy as hell - full of beautiful harmonies and lyrics, awesome Latin beats, tunes played on an accordion - I mean how cool is that? Pabllo is an incredibly talented songwriter, a truly amazing singer, an iconic diva, and to me, her music his incredibly creative and elaborate, and has so much more depth than the songs of the most famous American superstars. (Just to be clear, diva is an absolutely positive word in my vocabulary. It means a person who is fully aware of the talent he or she has, believes in him/herself and goes after what she or he wants, setting an example for us less awesome people.) I love the whole thing from the first moment to the very last, from the perfect pop album-starter, sass-filled club hit Buzina to the Latin pop song titled No Hablo Espanol and the soft closure in the form of the last track Miragem, a graceful finish to what essentially is a break-up record. My absolute favourites are Seu Crime, Nao Vou Deitar and Trago Seu Amor de Volta - these are the perfect examples of the music I have a soft spot for: upbeat, dance-y and happy-sounding, when in reality it is full of sadness and heartbreak.

Anyway. This album will always be close to my heart because I listened to it all the time during my very first trip to New York (or anywhere outside Europe for that matter), so it will always remind me of dancing and singing on the streets of Brooklyn with my headphones on. It made me so unbelievably happy in a very difficult period of my life, and as I don’t speak Portuguese I didn’t even know back then that I was listening to songs that probably have been inspired by another difficult period in another person’s life. Yet the album, especially the songs I highlighted managed to touch something inside me, and I think it’s because Pabllo is one of those songwriters who is able to create depth in her melodies and her vocals as well, not just the lyrics. Which is so, so rare. These people are the best, their songs are like gifts to me and I will always be grateful for them. 

Florence + The Machine High as Hope There’s a liberating boldness and a piercing honesty in this album with all these unexpected confessions from Florence that hit you hard with their openness. I think it’s the very first time she is sharing things that are so deeply personal, and it feels like I’ve been given a gift. To me, she seems like she’s more herself than ever. Listening to these songs she even feels happy to me, like someone who managed to fully embrace herself with all her imperfections. It has an effect on me that’s uplifting and tear-jerking at the same time, I feel like it’s overwhelming me with the universal love and forgiveness Florence expresses towards the world and our faulty humanity. The most prominent example for this is the song Hunger, which is a truly magnificent thing that blows me away every time I listen to it. 

I also love Big God, with its boldness and the melody that reminds me of the early (and coolest) songs of Tori Amos. June is among my favorites as well, it’s the perfect Track no.1 for an album, the way it gradually builds to a cathartic beauty with its simple but wise message.

So what can I even say after this? The songs are amazing, captivating, they bring the usual Florence-like monumental and powerful melodies and production, with mind-blowing vocals (I mean, duuuh), but the majority of the songs here are more on the quieter, more subtle side, which is quite refreshing for me as they sound a lot more natural and pure than the very epic songs on Ceremonials. All in all, this is clearly my favourite Florence + the Machine album, and definitely one of the best albums of 2018. 

Men Named Holger Maelstrom Ahead! Men Named Holger’s debut album is a concept album set in the world of pirates, an amazingly complex thing that is brilliant in how it gradually peels off all the false layers we associate with the adventurous life at the sea - freedom, partying, being outlaws and not giving a damn about anything. This album shows the dark side of this freedom, and through its pirate-related theme it presents heavy feelings and heart-wrenching thoughts we all suffer from sometimes. Like having your people turn against against you even though you did everything you could for them. Or the feeling that you can’t show your true self because you know you will never be accepted by those around you. The feeling when you’re finally free and have left everything behind, followed by this bitter aftertaste in the back of your mind that says it wasn’t really your choice. Or the stinging pain in your heart upon leaving your home, looking ahead in the far distance knowing that you have nowhere to go and that you don’t belong anywhere.

So yeah, this is not the typical pirate-ish-sailor-ish stuff you usually rock out to at Irish pubs - you can absolutely rock out to it, but it’s so much more complex. The guys literally created an own world for their music. They used at least 20 instruments (mandolin, musical saw, balalaika, ukulele, banjo, etc.) to record these songs themselves, which is pretty impressive, yet, it’s not what makes Maelstrom Ahead! exceptional. It’s the emotional depth that’s not only present in the lyrics but in all the melodies, every little note and heartbreaking harmony. It’s a really elaborate and well-thought out album with exciting and versatile songs full of delightful twists and turns that pull you in completely, taking you to an entirely different world.