Gavin Fearnleys Top Albums of 2024
1. Loophole — Michael Head & the Red Elastic Band
To be called one of your home city’s best songsmiths is an impressive boast at the best of times. When hailing from Liverpool, however, it’s a gargantuan achievement. Michael Head, formerly of the Pale Fountains and Shack, has consistently produced quality album after album and Loophole not only keeps up with past records it surpasses many of them. How is he not enjoying national treasure status?
2. Songs of a Lost World — The Cure
Expectations were high (excuse the pun). Frankly, many of us who had followed The Cure over decades could have been forgiven for bracing ourselves for the worst — even those of us who didn’t fling 2008’s 4:13 Dream into the nearest incinerator. Alone, I Can Never Say Goodbye and Endsong are some of the best songs Robert Smith has written. Cemented by Smith’s insistence on providing affordable merch and concert tickets, we’re lucky to have lived within the same time as him.
3. Weird Rooms — The Black Watch
The Californians, fronted by 67-year-old John Andrew Fredrick, released my favourite song of 2024, Gobbledegook. It’s the sound of The Cure’s Just Like Heaven as if falling into the arms of My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields before being wrestled away by Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow and thrown into a cement mixer made by Idlewild Ltd. A notable mention must also go out to track three on the album, Miles and Miles; dreamy shoegaze lullaby at its best. A great album.
4. City Lights — The Waeve
City Lights is the second studio album by this duo, consisting of Graham Coxin (Blur) and Rose Elinor Dougall (The Pipettes). Whilst not quite as good as the eponymous debut from the year previously, it still tore holes out of most bands’ offerings this year. Title track, City Lights, and Broken Boys should be ripping up indie and alternative disco dance floors the world over. Criminally underrated.
5. The Great Bailout — Moor Mother
Personally speaking, I don’t recall hearing anything like it. American poet, musician, and activist Camae Ayewa, better known by her stage name Moor Mother, does not hold back on her visceral attacks on Britain and the British establishment. In the Great Bailout she profoundly calls out the country’s shying away of its historic use of slavery and serial invasion of countries. “Did you pay off the trauma?” she rhetorically asks in opening track Guilty. It sets the tone for a dense, and sometimes disorienting collection of songs. We British would be well advised to take heed of the subject matter, especially when addressing the Windrush scandal: “Who helped build the country? Who’s getting deported?”
6. The Night — St Etienne
This feels very different to most St Etienne albums which have come before. Like The Cure’s Songs of a Lost World, The Night looks at the shifting of time and getting older. It is an experimental record with more in common with albums by Piano Magic than earlier St Etienne releases such as Foxbase Alpha and So Tough. It is excellent.
7. Coin de l’oeil — Healees
This Paris-based Breton/American/Swedish/Belgian four-piece have been developing their dreamy shoegaze-tinted noise pop for around ten years now. This is their best record to date with recognisable influences from Slowdive, Pale Saints, My Bloody Valentine (of course) and Ride. This should be in anyone’s 2024 best of list.
8. Numb — Levin Goes Lightly
Germany’s indie-pop and synth wave artist Levin Goes Lightly has proven to be a reliable source of catchy and irresistible records in both English and German for around a decade.
The bi-lingual vocals are lifted by driving electronic beats, calm synths, warm organ tones, and New Order-like guitar sections.
9. Madra — New Dad
Highly rated by The Cure‘s Robert Smith, Galway’s New Dad have spent 2024 playing countries like China, the USA, Germany and Belgium. This is a strong debut with the promise of better albums to come.
Fourth track Change My Mind is particularly impressive.
10. This Could Be Texas — English Teacher
The “Yorkshire indie nerds” (NME) turned heads this year when their debut album won the Mercury Music Prize. However, the Leeds-based band had quietly been demonstrating their potential with melodic pop gems The World’s Biggest Paving Slab and Song About Love. The question is whether they can continue this momentum.