Jesse's Favorite Albums from 2016

1. Radiation City - Synesthetica

Fully realizing their breathtaking potential. So many layers of art pop awesomeness.  
  

2. Sheer Mag - III             

Cranking up this album makes any day feel like Friday night and every beer taste like a High Life.

3. Frightened Rabbit - Painting Of A Panic Attack             

Their mastery of celebratory self-loathing is peerless.     

4. Candace - New Future             

Just packed with killer dreamy shoegaze. And as you'd hope, it's fantastically noisy live.  

5. Martha - Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart          

They draw me in with their popping duets, but deceptively clever in their quirkiness.
    

6. Pink Mexico - Fool     

Buzzing surf pop that is both harder and catchier than the last one you heard. Playing it loud and often.

7. Mercury Girls - Ariana

Two absolutely stunning singles of c86-style indie pop.

8. Deathlist -Deathlist

A personal & potent EP from the Summer Cannibals' bad ass, renaissance bassist. Easily one of my favorite EPs this year.

9. Minden - Sweet,Simple Things        
   

Their tightest, funkiest, and most dynamic songs to date. And so silky smooth.    

10. Holy Vision -King Cash         

Binging hard on this shimmering and banging alt. pop. So good. 

11. Y La Bamba - Ojos Del Sol

Libre's buoyant bilingual harmonies inspiring basking in the warm Saturday morning sun. Glad Y La Bamba are back with their gorgeous indie folk.

12. Mo Troper - Beloved             

Youthful, testy, and dimed out power pop, reminiscent of Superdrag classics.  
 

13. Augustines - This Is Your Life              

Pull me along on their stumbling late night anthems in a way that U2 and their ilk never could. Take a shot, spread your arms, and soar.      

14. Lucius - Good Grief 

Art pop masters let their identical hairdos down and get noisy.  

15. Landlines - Problems 24/7

Long anticipated and stellar collection of slacker surf pop.

16. Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor's Guide to Earth  

Driving straight past his Nashville ascendance, this Waylon-loving iconoclast headed west to Memphis for a countrified soul epic.

17. Summer Cannibals- Full Of It             

Damn, these songs are explosive. Feeling this righteous anger more than ever.   

18. The Record Company - Give It Back to You  

Only knock against this great retro soul/blues album is I started rocking half the songs so long ago that they sound fresh again. Luckily, the new songs are some of the best.              

19. Photo Ops - Vacation             

I hear some Fleet Foxes in these guys, just smelling less of campfire, which could mean they both just build on sweet Beach Boy indebted harmonies.

20. TV Girl - Who Really Cares

I dig TV Girl's pursuit of pop alchemy, floating their wry observations over DJ scratches and an organ riff, and punching it all up with sampled hooks. Like adding an indie pop twist to classic singles by the Avalanches or Wiseguys.