Rockshot Magazine Albums Of The Year 2024
The Last Dinner Party - Prelude To Ecstasy
A record that reportedly sat in the can for a year while the label pushed to generate buzz for the London-based, female and non-binary quintet, appetites were well and truly whet when The Last Dinner Party’s debut LP – Prelude To Ecstasy – finally dropped in February. And it was well worth the wait!
A masterpiece in baroque-rock, the BBC Sound Of 2024 group’s record more than lived up to expectations. Its opening title track comes by way of a leftfield orchestral overture, heavy on the woodwind & brass. But it is with Burn Alive that the group’s now signature sound comes to the fore, Abigail Morris’ gorgeous, raw vocals supplemented with Aurora Nishevci’s ‘80s synths. Fifth single Caesar On A TV Screen follows, lush harmonies and changing tempos making you wonder just what you’re listening to as added strings lift. The Feminine Urge seems like it’s lifted wholesale from the 1970s while equally sounding fresh.
Piano lifts On Your Side before the tune’s slow-groove has you swaying along while singing along “when it’s 4am, and your heart is breaking” before Beautiful Boy brings back those record-opening flutes, gentle keyboards and lush vocal harmonies carrying the bulk of the tune before it’s rousing crescendo close.
Stirring mandolin-driven Gjuha is inspired by keyboardist Aurora Nishevci being ashamed about not knowing her mother tongue of Albanian before second single Sinner picks up the tempo once more. Piano introduces Portrait Of A Dead Girl, “I wish you had given me the courtesy of ripping out my throat” Morris croons morbidly.
Lead (and highest-charting) single Nothing Matters supplements rather than carries this record, it’s in-your-face coarse language dropped in matter-of-factly has had crowds screaming along all year before the solemn, slow-drive Mirror closes out what is truly an astonishing debut LP. Believe the hype, I for one, really can’t wait to hear what comes next.
– Kalpesh Patel
Fat Dog - Woof
The challenge for Fat Dog in 2024 was clear: How would they transfer the raucous energy of their already legendary live shows onto wax?
It gives me great pleasure to say that the band from Brixton have nailed it. Early singles and mosh pit favourites like All The Same and Wither blend with newer, less immediate but still effective tunes, bookended by outlandish spoken sections proclaiming that, ‘you cannot kill the dog!’. Indeed.
Special mention has to go to both King Of The Slugs and usual set closer Running, which serve up the greatest examples of the vitality of the live shows, blending klezmer with echoes of The Prodigy and Nine Inch Nails. Yes, it is as bonkers as it sounds, and we love them for it.
– Alex Kavanagh
Jessica Pratt – Here In The Pitch
Oh we could be in Brazil with Gilberto Gil, we could be in peak Beach Boy era 1966, we could be Homeward Bound in a Wigan railway station, we could be in the drop out scene with Mazzy Star. Jessica Pratt’s 4th LP is the perfect late night album, beautifully sparse arrangements, floating and swirling melodies that pull you into the record album. At first I thought Here In The Pitch was the saddest music but it’s amazingly hypnotically hopeful too!
– Simon Jay Price
TISM - Death to Art
Legendary costumed Melbourne pandemonium rockers TISM once described themselves as “the ergonomically designed shovel collecting the dog shit of rock”. It is a poignant image that makes it sound as though they have an endgame, trolling the music industry from within since the 1980s, (making easy work of the poor journalist that they were speaking at), only backed-up by reuniting after a twenty-year hiatus and releasing their longest album, and calling it Death to Art. However, despite a spectacular reunion, this new album, a concept record chronicling an eighty-minute drive in a hearse, provides an ever-entertaining satirical admission of defeat, as if to admit that they aren’t allowed to say what they once could, but hey, let’s pretend we just did – “let’s escape with old-school TISM… Part-catchy pop, part botulism.” During the final track, TISM’s Last Will and Testicle, they boldly repeat that “everything is shit except for TISM”. Anyone who doesn’t believe it yet will at least be intrigued enough to dive further down the fascinating rabbit hole to discover why.
– Nick Pollard
China Crisis - Greatness
Compilation or re-recording of the year for me is China Crisis’ fabulous Greatness LP. An orchestral re-recording many of the bands hits, using the original vocals in the main, the group give widescreen treatments to everything from Black Man Ray through to King In A Catholic Style while making me realise why I loved them first time round and why I was wrong to stop listening after the first album. This is a magnificent treasure of an album, showing how deft lead vocalist/keyboardist Gary Daly and guitarist/vocalist Eddie Lundon were at getting tough messages across in pop songs.
– Simon Phillips
Cartoon Darkness - Amyl And The Sniffers
2024 delivered a bumper selection of music to unwrap. From blues rock to synth-pop to jazz, there was something to grip even the most discerning music lover.
My favourite gift came wrapped in loud, unapologetic Australian pub rock, courtesy of Amyl And The Sniffers and their third studio album, Cartoon Darkness. It was an electrifying soundtrack to a year that was equal parts absurd and terrifying.
Formed in Melbourne in 2016 by housemates Amy Taylor, Bryce Wilson, Declan Mehrtens, and Calum Newton (later replaced by Gus Romer), and with two studio albums and two EPs already under their belt, they’re no strangers to accolades either. Their 2022 release, Comfort To Me, snagged Best Independent Punk Album or EP at The Australian Independent Record Awards and Best Group and Best Rock Album at the ARIA Music Awards.
Cartoon Darkness signifies an evolution in the band’s sound, but their signature raw punk energy is alive, well and more ferocious than ever. It’s an electrifying, multilayered experience that’s anything but subtle. Let’s be clear, this album is not for sensitive ears and, if you’re a parent of a small child like me, certainly not one for the family road trip. It’s gnarly, sneery, sweary rock ferocity. It doesn’t just pack a punch, it knocks you square in the face, leaving you dazed and rubbing your jaw long after the final track fades.
Beneath infectious hooks and high-octane punk lies sharp social commentary, tackling issues like personal liberation, consumerism, online trolls and the state of the world today. Standout tracks are Chewing Gum, a knotty love anthem for the modern ages with a mildly gentler tempo (by Sniffers’ standards) that sweeps you up and spits you out again. The pulsating bass of U Should Not Be Doing That will lodge in your brain, while Tiny Bikini sees dynamite singer Amy swing at body-shamers. The album closes with Me And The Girls, a fierce, anti-misogynist anthem perfectly aimed at boys glued to their Xboxes.
Listening to Cartoon Darkness makes you feel like you can take on the world; like having a bit of a scrap but an exhilarating one – and for all the right reasons.
– Nicola Greenbrook
Chuck Ragan - Love And Lore
No one like to declare an album to be an artist’s best record, and professional punk rock mountain man Chuck Ragan has produced some cracking albums over the course of his solo side project. But on Love And Lore, the occasional Hot Water Music frontman has conjured up his own inner tensions and washed them clean of their sins in a record aching with maturity and longing. If the undying hope of making one’s musical mark conveyed on All In or honky-tonk dueting on One More Shot don’t make you fall in love with Ragan, the proto-punk sketches of Wild In Our Ways surely will. But the desperation for resolution and release on Winter is what’ll make you welcome him into the open arms of your record collection. Considering his normal tours are bare-bones acoustic delights, each song an excuse to unleash That Roar which made his name, we can only speculate how phenomenally emotional his 2025 outing will be.
– Kate Allvey
Fontaines D.C. - Romance
A startling statistic that became apparent this year was there had been just 3 number one singles in the 2020’s that come from bands. One of which was The Beatles! It seems to be that social media has promoted the solo star. Easier to market and more fruitful for young people to aspire to.
Fontaines D.C. are looking to take that spot of the next big chart topping band. Releasing their debut album in April 2019, the Dublin five piece have soared, selling out two nights at Alexandra Palace this autumn and with headline shows at Finsbury Park and Newcastle’s Exhibition Park next year, there seems to be no ceiling to the Irish group.
The immediacy of their sound on their fourth album, is in no part down to their rapid ascent. They don’t like standing still. After touring their third album Skinty Fia and supporting Arctic Monkeys in America untilOctober 2023, just six months later, they released the first single from Romance, the breathless Starbuster is released. It’s an audible panic attack that is guranteed to raise the heart rate. They enlisted producer James Ford, known for his work with arena-scale bands like Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz, and Foals for to amp up the bands sound at scale. It’s their most polished body of work, they sound self-assured. Rather than looking inwards, focusing on their own communities using working class and classical reference points, they’re looking out to the world utilising pop melodies to fill the available slot of the next big Arena band.
And a fitting frontman and vocalist they have to take them there, with Grian Chatten vocal performance, his most confident on this album, showcasing his range, his falsetto sounding delicate on Favourite.
Here’s The Thing nods to nu metal, a genre that influenced the band whilst Sundowner has a shoegaze tone of guitars. Despite the more amplified cinematic sound, there is still an air of melancholy. Whilst this may be their most accessible record, there are still references to their heritage. Horseness Is the Whatness, named after Ulysses by Irish poet James Joyce, is a beautifully warm song. You feel that they’ll never forget where they came from.
– Chris Lambert
Fabiana Palladino - Fabiana Palladino
Evoking the best of 1980s smooth synth-pop, the 36-year-old British artist’s self-titled debut LP is truly a hidden gem of 2024’s plethora of new music releases. If “long-awaited” is a label banded about too often, it really is true of Fabiana Palladino, this LP dropping some 7 years after she signed with Jai Paul’s Paul Institute label.
Sure, her pedigree is excellent – she is, after all, the daughter of bass maestro Pino Palladino (whom she enlists for this LP). But that takes nothing away from her raw talent on display across the 10 gorgeous, self-produced tracks of this LP. Synths and jangly guitars mix with slow beats and delicious harmonies throughout but especially so on I Can’t Dream Anymore. Gorgeous guitars compliment lush vocals on Give Me A Sign while pianos and funk guitars drive Stay With Me Through The Night.
The plethora of synths, synth-beats, crashes and vo-coded vocals throughout Deeper across otherwise sparse instrumentation evokes that mid-1980s feel, perhaps more than any other cut on the record.
– Kalpesh Patel
Wunderhorse - Midas
Wunderhorse was once the name applied to the solo project of Jacob Slater, former frontman of short-lived but incredibly exciting grunge punk crossover band Dead Pretties. Slater’s new band – Harry Fowler (guitar), Peter Woodin (bass) and Jamie Staples (drums) have now subsumed the Wunderhorse name. Slater might be front and centre, but Wunderhorse has become a collective.
Around 18 months ago, the band were still playing regional clubs and pubs. In May next year, they headline London’s 10,000 cap Alexandra Palace. This meteoric rise was formed on the back of excellent debut album Cub. The future rested with the eagerly anticipated follow up, Midas, which dropped in August.
The band need not have been concerned. Midas was met with near universal praise from just about anyone that heard it. Whilst Cub, with its jangling guitars, arpeggios and riffs was bathed in a certain amount of polish; Midas, under the guiding hand of former Rolling Stones producer Craig Silvey, adopted a far more stripped back, lo-fi sound. The aim was to create a record that better reflected the vibe of the live band and to this end all songs bar the album closer Aeroplane end with crashing chords, often accompanied by a wall of feedback. If cheesy fadeouts are your thing, please look elsewhere.
The opening triumvirate of Midas, Rain and Emily are proper rock tunes that pin you to the seat. Silver follows and lightens the load slightly in terms of the music, if not the lyrics:
“I’ve always known an anger, and I’ve always known a shame,
I felt it like a hunger before I knew my name.
I’m just an empty promise, with nothing much to say,
So fill me up with poison, and pour me down the drain.”
These sentiments of self-loathing are a hard listen and Slater delivers them with such apparent ease you just have to hope it’s not autobiographical. Further anguish comes in Arizona, where the lament of the loss of a child is felt:
“And I never meant to hurt you,
Or to tear you from this life.
And I’m sorry if you suffered,
When they turned out all the lights.
But you’re woven in the verses,
Of this broken lullaby.”
The album is at its most raw in July, which is essentially four minutes of guitar hum, two extremely distorted power chords and Slater repeatedly telling the listener that he’s ready to die.
So, Midas is at times a difficult listen, but it’s not all doom laden. In Superman, Slater flies like an eagle; a metaphor for showing his peers that he has capabilities they couldn’t begin to imagine. Girl is a far more upbeat tune and the album closer, Aeroplane; at close to nine minutes by far the longest track on the album, is a work of art. Drenched in laid back acoustic Americana, it could be on a different record from a different band at a different time. Then, in the second half, Fowler brings us back to where we started with an exceptional, haunting guitar solo.
Cub was an inspiring debut album. With this second record, Wunderhorse proved without doubt that they really do have the Midas touch.
– Simon Reed
Cigarettes After Sex - X’s
Texas-hailing dream-pop trio Cigarettes After Sex returned in 2024 with third LP X’s, very much a continuation of form. But, in my opinion, that’s the great thing about this record. Frontman Greg Gonzalaz’s androgynous vocals coupled with the group’s signature sparsely-instrumented slow-groove awash with breezy guitars lends to a uniquely calming sound.
Opener and title track X’s kicks off with deliciously reverberated guitars before handing off to Jacob Tomsky’s drums and Randall Miller’s bass. Tejano Blue carries on the theme, a slow groove atop of dreamy guitar riffs with in-your-face lyrics “we wanted to fuck, like all the time” Gonzalaz whispers alongside his loveletter to Cocteau Twins.
Rousing Silver Sable leads into one of the standout tracks on the LP, Hideaway. Even sparser instrumentation than before (if you can imagine) leads to a crescendoing chorus that’s hard not to croon along to. Baby Blue Movie ups the tempo before it’s wound down once more with Hot.
Moody vocals that seem to sonically soar above deliciously placed guitars, underpinned by the ever-present rhythm section sums this collection of songs up, but the sum is far more than its parts as the shimmering tunes wash over.
– Kalpesh Patel
Tymon Dogg & The Dacoits - The Granada Sessions
This album is a more than welcome comeback by Clash associate Tymon Dogg recorded in Granada with several members of Lagartija Nick. Tymon weaves his magical mix of folk and punk with added strings into a collection of songs with heavy political questions and messages, yet filled with love as well as the monumental instrumental Genghis Khan alongside songs like I Don’t Want to Be Poor and The Turning of the World that really need to be heard widely.
– Simon Phillips
Dorothy Carter - Troubadour
Re-issue of then year for me is Troubadour, Dorothy Carter’s amazing 1976 debut album. I was stunned on first listening and have played this album more than any review album in about 10 years. Reluctantly recorded in Studio B in Cambridge Massachusetts, this is an outsider folk classic, a mix of traditional folk songs and originals. Carter’s use of Hammered Dulcimer and Psalter is revelatory, especially on Visiting Song and King Of Glory.
– Simon Phillips
Jane Weaver – Love In Constant Spectacle
The sound of Jane Weaver’s 12th record is something else. What grabs me is not only her beautiful and precise vocal phrasing but the way the bass guitar interweaves (no pun intended) into carefully crafted use of electronics. The songs are ancient and modern, storytelling with a folk twinge, upbeat and lyrically magnificent modern pop songs…I imagined almost this is what would happen if Taylor Swift and Talking Heads made an album together but in a very English way of course.
– Simon Jay Price
Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard And Soft
R&B-infused Chihiro showcases her gorgeously high vocal range, underpinned by a driving bassline and 1980s sci-fi soundtrack-evoking synths. Birds Of A Feather feels like summer washing over you and was used as such at her performance at the closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics as they handed over to her home city of LA, host of the 2028 games, contrasted by the acoustic guitar-driven alt-rock of Wildflower and The Greatest.
The Diner evokes the macabre, a fairground ride of a tune with Eilish’s vocals hiding behind music and effects while Bittersuite comes out blazing vintage synths before settling into a slow groove haze, haunting vocals cascading before a left-field tonal and tempo shift for the majority if the song’s back half, those opening synths returning to close it out.
Breezy Blue seems like an anticlimactic conclusion to the record, but is, in its own right, a compelling and haunting tune, a theme that seems to carry through the majority of the LP, the tune pivoting midway, simply luscious.
– Kalpesh Patel
Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
American gothic folk and doom queen Chelsea Wolfe returned with her first studio album in five years, the impractically, cyclically-titled She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, this time taking a dark and melancholic electronica turn. In collaboration with producer and TV on the Radio guitarist Dave Sitek, Wolfe delivered an experimental fusion of gloomy industrial rock and trip-hop, standing between Nine Inch Nails and Massive Attack. In lead single Dusk, guitars collide violently with a barely tamed ocean of static. The whispery fragility of her voice does not disappear beneath the raucous, instead standing out as somewhat raw, especially when compared to her previous albums that are heavily bathed in reverb. Despite this chaotic texture, everything sounds focused and masterfully deliberate.
– Nick Pollard
The Smile - Wall Of Eyes
Radiohead had a way of re-inventing themselves periodically throughout their 30+ year career. Having not released anything since 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool – largely made up of previous demo’s and songs performed in live sets, 2021 saw Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood teas a new group alongside Tom Skinner of British Jazz collective Sons of Kemet. They performed on the Live at Worthy Farm Concert Livestream in May of that year but it would be a full 12 months until their debut album A Light for Attracting Attention was released.
Wall of Eyes is the first of two records The Smile released in 2024. Building on their 2022 debut, the addition of luscious strings from the London Contemporary Orchestra make songs like I Quit and Friend of a Friend sound ethereal, the latter of which could have been off of Sergeant Peppers if the subject wasn’t about responses to the covid pandemic.
Both Yorke and Greenwood have always had itches to scratch. Solo albums, film soundtracks but this feels different. This is by no means a vanity project. They’ve had pretty heavy touring schedules across the last 3 years and having seen them at the Eventim Apollo back in March, there’s no big fuss over the stage production, no big communication with the crowd. They’re just musicians, exploring a new direction. There’s freedom in anonymity. liberation in stepping out of the limelight and trying new things.
The opening track, Wall of Eyes is sleek. The album as a whole is free of form yet still sounds loose. Each song has a jam-like quality as if the final arrangements may have only been finalised as the engineer pressed record. Tom Skinner on drum’s allows Thom and Jonny conjure a haunting atmosphere through Yorke’s vocals and Greenwood’s twisting and turning precision guitar licks.
Teleharmonic which debuted in Series 6 of Peaky Blinders in 2022 has been reworked and features spiralling synths. The 8 minute epic Bending Hectic detailing a car crash is a fascinating journey. The guitar possibly mimicking that of a car engine. It becomes apparent that this accident is actually a suicide attempt and at the last verse, the protagonist is possibly regretting his decision to end things this way.
The future of Radiohead is fueled by rumours – one week members confirming they had rehearsed together and seemingly weeks later, refuting any sort of reunion. Given the body of work in a relatively short space of time, it feels like this is the main focus for Yorke & Greenwood. It’s certainly something to savour. There is beauty in the unknown, and who knows what they’ll do next.
– Chris Lambert
The Black Crowes – Happiness Bastards
This isn’t just an album; it’s a statement of intent. From the vinyl packaging—basically pasting over their two biggest albums of the past The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion on the front and Shake Your Money Maker on the back, then adding the words “Happiness Bastards” in a large bold black font—the band is signalling their return to greatness. Subtlety isn’t the aim here; this is a full-throated declaration of who they are.
And it exceeds all expectations.
By the time Rich Robinson rips into his second solo on the opening track, Bedside Manners, it’s unmistakable: The Black Crowes are back. It’s been 15 long and tortuous years since any new studio music from the brothers Robinson.
Rats And Clowns sees Chris Robinson bite back, “You want some?” he screams. It’s fiery and unapologetic, a perfect setup for Cross Your Fingers, which starts as a tender acoustic number before erupting into venomous defiance with lines like, “Why’d you hope I die?” Jay Joyce’s production strips the album down to its essence, making every track feel urgent and alive.
The raw power is tempered with moments of gospel-tinged elegance, like the organ-driven Wanting And Waiting, which brims with the unrestrained joy of rock ‘n’ roll—a joy that hasn’t always been synonymous with the Crowes but is undeniable here.
Chris Robinson’s vocals remain as magnetic as ever. Wilted Rose is a standout ballad, featuring a mesmerising duet with country starlet Lainey Wilson that builds slowly into a soaring crescendo.
The album’s second half roars in with Dirty Cold Sun, a swaggering masterpiece that channels Mick Jagger’s strut and then some. Bleed It Dry drenches itself in harmonica and grit, while Flesh Wound evokes E Street Band energy with its propulsive rhythm. The slide guitar on Follow The Moon is pure, unfiltered Rich Robinson, adding a filthy charm that only the Crowes can deliver.
The closer, Kindred Friend, is a reflective, soul-soothing ballad. With lyrics like “Tomorrow owes nothing to the past,” it encapsulates the album’s ethos: embracing the future while honouring the past.
When word broke of their first album in 15 years, fans were understandably anxious. Could they meet their legacy? With Happiness Bastards, they haven’t just met it—they’ve surpassed it.
This is more than a return to form. It’s the sound of a band rediscovering and owning what made them great in the first place.
– John Hayhurst
Alkaline Trio - Blood Hair & Eyeballs
“I’m waiting to break like teenage heart in America,” wails Matt Skiba on Teenage Heart, just one of a ton of superb tracks on Alkaline Trio’s first album in six years. It’s a thoughtful record, the view of outsiders watching the world become even more unpleasant than their early lurid fantasies could have predicted, taking it all in with maturity and a raised eyebrow. Early single Bad Time bursts with bewilderment and the desire to feel a human connection in the midst of insanity, as well as one of the most pleasingly nuts Alkaline Trio lines we’ve heard in a while (“I’m being stalked by Latin Royalty and Me and Marty just ate Shrooms”), but then there’s the echoing post-punk shadows of Versions Of You to haunt your aching heart. Sure, there’s very little of the cinematic slasher gore that we’ve come to associate with the lads over the years, but they wear their maturity and nuance with such style that you won’t feel let down by the lack of shocker lyrics. All in, this is the record that proves why Alkaline Trio have achieved such enduring success over the last two plus decades.
– Kate Allvey
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