Best Indie Rock Albums of 2021: Down to the Wire
How good can a year end list really be if it doesn’t actually wait until the end of the year? What if I only discover something in December? What’s wrong with you people? I have a list of 11 albums for you this year. I wasn’t floored by a ton of records in 2021. I’m not sure what it was…maybe it’s a little hard for me to focus. Maybe it’s too hard for bands to focus. Maybe to pressing plant lag is doing more damage than we thought. Maybe 2020 sucked the creative life out of everyone and we’re feeling the effects in 2021.
Best Albums
Annual reminder: my year-end list is not intended to cover all genres. I saw some improvement in the best-of lists at large this year. In recent years, it has seemed as though they had all started to converge, but there has been some welcome variety this year. Anyway, you get 11 from me this year. I was going to stop at 10, and then I didn’t. Please forgive the gigantic embedded Bandcamp players. I’m trying to move away from Spotify wherever possible. You know, due to the evil. Let’s do this.
Fresh — The Summer I Got Good at Guitar EP
2019’s Withdraw was a breath of Fresh air in my indie rock world. (Sorry. Ish.) It was my runaway album of the year pick that year. The band returned with The Summer I Got Good at Guitar early this year, and it seems they have commandeered my 2021 as well. I wasn’t sure that’s how it would go, as the first single they dropped, Girl Clout, was quite solid, but didn’t make me obsessed the way some of their songs do. It’s a really good track and I fully appreciate the unvarnished truth about being a woman in the music scene. But it’s not one I have on repeat all day. I find the gasping a little distracting. And now you do, too. Oops.
But never mind that! This five-song EP managed to punch me in the face with two other songs that laid waste to any attempts I may have made to curb compulsive behavior. My Redemption Arc and the title track, The Summer I Got Good at Guitar, are two vicious ear worms that I want to listen to all day. Easily my two favorite songs of the year. This band is excellent, and getting better. It’s basically perfect indie rock and I can’t wait to see what comes next. I hope they write as many songs as humanly possible and never lose that edge. I’m so glad I made the effort to go see them during their lone very short, last-minute U.S. tour a couple of years back. I had to drive to Kingston, NY, but dammit, it was worth it, because who the hell knows when they’ll be able to come back? This one came out on orange vinyl (200 copies) and a gorgeous purple marble vinyl (500). I spent all damn year working on the orange one, as it went on sale while I was asleep and was long gone by the time it was morning in the U.S. I am pleased to report an orange one is now in my custody.
The Sonder Bombs — Clothbound
If I hadn’t cheated and included EPs, Clothbound would have taken the top spot for me. This record just slays, and it’s my clear favorite for best full album of 2021. I’ve been paying attention to The Sonder Bombs since their first EP after I happened across the song End of My Daze and loved it. They released their first full-length album, MODERN FEMALE ROCKSTAR, in 2018, and it was very good. I thought we had settled into a “this is what The Sonder Bombs are” set of expectations after that album, and hooooo boy was I wrong. Clothbound steps it up in every way. This one is brilliant. The band took a leap in technical proficiency, amplified their songwriting structure, and sprayed that fire with emotional gasoline. Some of these songs press all the right buttons. Swing On Sight, The Brink, and Vegas, BABYYY!!! are the biggest standouts for me.
The Sonder Bombs skipped New York on their fall tour, but I couldn’t let the year pass by without seeing some of these songs live, so I took a trip to DC and saw them crush a set at the relocated Songbyrd Café. Highly recommended across the board. In the States, it came out on split green/baby blue vinyl (300), black (500), and silver (800). There was a UK exclusive on blue with pink and green splatter (200), and then a milky clear vinyl version that was exclusive to the VNYL subscription service (1,000). And, finally, there was a “ghostly” vinyl version that looks really cool and was only made available as part of bundles sold through the label (200). This was expensive and aggravating…mostly because I caved and bought a bundle after foregoing it for much of the year.
The Joy Formidable — Into the Blue
The Joy Formidable is reliably good. They have not replicated the commercial success they saw with their first full-length album and associated alterna-darling hit, Whirring, but the band has consistently cranked out quality music ever since. They have their dedicated fan base, and I am part of that crew. I have liked every album they’ve released, and some more than others. Into the Blue is my favorite since Wolf’s Law. They did a tremendous job with this record. It has the sound you have become accustomed to from the band, but it take some experimental steps outside of that formula, with great success. Sevier is the biggest standout for me. The guitar line has a unique, assaulting quality to it that ratchets up the whole song’s intensity and knocks you on your ass. There are a bunch of other great ones on here: Bring It to the Front, Interval, Into the Blue, Farrago…really solid batch of rock songs.
I think The Joy Formidable is at their best when they are not worried about expectations and not trying to be rock stars. My favorite performances of theirs are those that aren’t planned out; when they have a setlist that they follow to the letter for an entire tour with bells and whistles and slideshows, it just isn’t as good as when they have a less-predictable set and just go out and crush it. The short acoustic performances they do for their VIP ticket packages have this quality. Go see one of those if you can. They’ve also put a ton of energy into their music club, which offers a bunch of exclusive tracks and a few streamed performances per year. I find it worthwhile, even if the performances are pre-recorded (to be fair, they are in a bit of a tough spot, with two of them in the States and one in the UK for the whole pandemic — it makes live performances a little tough). Anyway, this record is really solid. The vinyl came out in several forms: white LP with black 7" (1,500), gold with black marble LP with black 7" (indie exclusive, 700), gold with black marble LP with white marble 7" (Rough Trade exclusive, 300), and white marble LP with blue marble 7" (band store exclusive, 500). That last one also came with an exclusive insert thanking all the music club participants.
Sincere Engineer — Bless My Psyche
This record suffered from me overhyping it in my head in the months leading up to its release. I was overeager to hear this album after getting solidly addicted to their first record, Rhombithian, and then having their first single from the new one, Trust Me, burrow its way into my brain almost a year before the album came out. Really — that song was released so far in advance of the album that it was on my 2020 best-of list. Bless My Psyche finally came out in September, after half of the tracks had been released as singles. It’s a very good album. Aside from Trust Me, which is a vicious, anthemic, emo earworm, Dragged Across the Finish Line and Hurricane of Misery are my go-to tracks.
I like this band best with the louder songs (you can generally assume this about me with most bands). I like their slower ones as well, but I prefer that those be the change-ups, and on this record, they are about half the album. I finally got to see them play in Manhattan this fall before everything shut down again, and they were excellent. They apparently can’t keep Bless My Psyche on the shelves, as it’s already been re-pressed, even in the current pressing plant crunch. It came out on olive green vinyl (300), pink vinyl with black swirl (500), and was then re-pressed on purple vinyl. There is also apparently an orange one (300), which was sent to Patreon subscribers for Storm Chasers Ltd. I just learned of that one.
Beach Bunny — Blame Game EP
There are differing schools of thought surrounding release dates. This EP, for example, came out in January. This maximized its opportunity to get streams during the year and make appearances in people’s end of year stats, but also introduced the risk of it falling victim to short attention spans by the end of the year. It’s a solid effort from Beach Bunny, who took my top spot in 2020 with their album Honeymoon. The best songs on here are not quite as good as my favorites from Honeymoon, but I still listened to this EP to death in 2021.
My favorite depends on the day. Nice Guys is a great song, and it sort of became the companion song to the movie Promising Young Woman in my head, despite having nothing to do with that movie other than some general overlapping themes. That’s praise, if that wasn’t clear. That movie was tremendous, and I’m still thinking about it many months later. ANYWAY…the first track on the Blame Game record, Good Girls (Don’t Get Used) is infectious. I find that the repetitive ending goes on a little too long, but it still works, and didn’t faze me seeing it live at all. Overall, very solid. Toward the end of the year, Beach Bunny dropped a holiday song, Christmas Caller, which is great. That one features the guitar play that permeated all of my favorite tracks from Honeymoon. I’m hoping we continue to get more of those on the next album. Blame Game came out on hot pink vinyl, and appears to have done so in large quantities.
Anika Pyle — Wild River
Anika is a brilliant songwriter. Period. If you’ve paid any attention to what I’ve said about anything music-related in the last five years, you know where I stand on that. I’ve been waving that flag since I discovered the first Katie Ellen album. She manages to contend for writing my favorite song almost every year. She released her first proper solo record this year. It’s gorgeous. It’s not something I can listen to every day, as it is an emotional workout. Wild River is Anika publicly processing her grief after losing her father. Well, “publicly” is probably not the right word. She does it very intimately, and just happens to have given us a window to it. The album is a mixture of songs and poetry. It’s a tough listen for anyone who has experienced any real grief. It’s hard to pull specific tracks out of the context of the album, as it is really best experienced as a whole, but Blame is the best track to listen to in isolation. Orange Flowers is the most heartbreaking and personal. The record came with a book of photos and poetry. The first pressing was on white vinyl (200) and the second on clear vinyl with white swirl (200).
TEKE::TEKE — Shirushi
Well, damn. I didn’t think I could still find myself floored by anything truly unique within indie rock, and then this band thwacked me over the head and proved otherwise. They caught my attention with the 7" they put out for the fifth iteration of the Sub Pop Singles Club, and then their full-length, Shirushi, came out this year on Kill Rock Stars. How to even describe this…it’s as if a car full of traditional Japanese sounds had a head-on collision with a surf-rock, dirty guitar-wielding motorcycle gang. It’s partly instrumental, totally badass, and I want it to be the soundtrack of any future Tarantino movie. If I can’t have that, I want it to be the walk-up music for the professional sports career in my head. Available on red vinyl (600), black vinyl, and lime green vinyl (Canada exclusive).
Remember Sports — Like a Stone
My affinity for Remember Sports is well documented. Like a Stone came out in April. It still makes my best-of list, but eight months later, I’m still trying to figure out the right way to put words to this one. They moved away a little from the style that they were developing on their previous record, Slow Buzz, and I absolutely loved the direction they were headed with that one. They definitely branched out more in their songwriting on Like a Stone and showed much greater diversity in their style. I think their lyrics matured as well. The thing that’s missing for me is the technical complexity that their faster tempo songs on Slow Buzz had. There are several songs on Like a Stone that I really like, but none that made my eyes bug out the way that tracks like Up from Below and Otherwise did on the last one. It’s tough, you know? And it’s wholly subjective. But that’s where I landed. Pinky Ring is really solid. Out Loud is a great melancholy song. In the U.S., it was available on pink/peach moon phase vinyl (1,000) and “eco-mix” vinyl (which I assume is using whatever colors were left over at the pressing plant? Not sure. Anyway, 800 copies). In the UK, it was orange (300) and cream with pink splatter (200, Big Scary Monsters Family Friends Legend subscription exclusive).
ME REX — Megabear
Speaking of truly unique indie rock…I’m still processing this one. ME REX, which features two members of Fresh, put out this total trip of an album. It’s 32 minutes long and made up of 52 mostly 30-second tracks, and designed to have no beginning and no end so that it can be experienced in any order. It’s a remarkable technical feat. So for any full math dorks in the audience, that’s 52 factorial possible permutations, which is…a lot. The album is also very good. I haven’t been able to listen to it all in one sitting, as, in reality, it turns into one long 32-minute song. But it’s good. I don’t know, it’s all kind of mind-blowing. You go listen to it on shuffle and sit over here with my mind blown. Blue vinyl.
The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die — Illusory Walls
I’ll be honest, I’ve kind of avoided this band over the years because of their name. I just assumed it would be like mopey early-’00s indie stuff, and I haven’t been in the headspace for that for a while. Then I heard the song Queen Sophie for President, from their 2021 album, Illusory Walls, and I went, “Wait, THAT’S what they sound like?” No, dear reader, it is not. But that song kills and the rest of the album is also quite good. That one track sounds like Lemuria to me. Most of their stuff does not have female lead vocals, though. I get more a Three Mile Pilot vibe, mixed with Sunny Day Real Estate. This is not a bad thing.
Jeff Rosenstock — Ska Dream
Jeff Rosenstock teased Ska Dream, the ska-punk version of last year’s critically acclaimed No Dream, on April Fool’s Day. Everyone thought it was a joke. And then he actually went and did it. And then it was good. It has taken a lot for a new ska-punk record to move the needle for me in recent years. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not opposed to it at all. This isn’t one of those “Gross — ska!” commentaries that hipsters seem to be commanded to deliver by the Bearded Gods of Irony whenever a ska song plays. I’ve just gravitated way more toward traditional ska (and, really, original ska) since I broke into the genre by way of ska-punk in the 90s. It’s kind of like I outgrew ska-punk. I still love what I loved then, but more recent ska-punk has not piqued my interest. All of this is to say that this album, even though it is a reimagining of another album, was a really solidly delivered effort from Jeff, and a welcome addition to the catalog by his ska fans that had been hoping for another foray into the genre.
…and that’s really it for me for 2021. There were a few other songs that really grabbed me this year:
- Team Dresch covered Eliott Smith’s St. Ides Heaven for the Kill Rock Stars 30th anniversary project, and it’s awesome.
- A new John Reis band called PLOSIVS debuted with the track Hit the Breaks, and that is pretty great. The band is the first time Atom Willard and John Reis have collaborated since Atom left Rocket from the Crypt many years ago, and that alone is cause for celebration, but Rob Crow of Pinback and many, many other bands is also in the group. Very strong potential here.
- Home Is Where dropped an interesting EP called I Became Birds. It’s a little hit or miss for me, but the song Assisted Harakiri is tremendous.
- Empath came out with a great song called Born 100 Times, from a forthcoming album. I am looking forward to said album.
Oh, and here’s a playlist. I know I said I was avoiding Spotify where possible, but this is my only way of making a public playlist for the moment.
2020 Late/Honorable Mention
Finally, I wanted to call attention to an album that did not make my 2020 list: Brave Faces Everyone by Spanish Love Songs. I heard this one in 2020 and it made a lot of people’s end of year lists last year. It is excellent, but it is super depressing and I was just not in the right headspace for it in 2020. Somehow, I was in 2021, and I was able to appreciate it more fully. It’s real wallow-in-self-pity stuff, but there is a place for that. Here’s a happy song called Self Destruction (as a sensible career choice). See you in 2022.
