Mid Year Report

Since everybody else seems to be doing it, here's my Top 5 records of the year. It's entirely possible one  or two or all of these will fall off the Top 10 of the year (that happened last year with The Shins) but I doubt it! These records are all really good!! Some hard and heavy stuff...some mellow stuff.

The Eldritch Dark by Blood Ceremony - What happens when Black Sabbath meets Jethro Tull? You get Blood Ceremony. Though front-lady Alia O'Brien is far cuter than either Ozzy or Ian Anderson. I've been drooling over this record on Spotify for a while...the vinyl is supposed to be coming soon, so I will write about it when it shows up. They are from Canada, which is apropos of nothing.

Ultraviolet by Kylesa - This is s good as modern metal gets. Smart, well-written, not super-fast so it keeps a great groove. Kylesa know how to get it mellow before breaking into a sonic tidal wave. Read more here and here (Blood Ceremony here to!)

The Stand-In by Caitlin Rose - And now for something completely different. Sensational country-esque singer-songwriter. I say country-esque because "modern" country is equated with junk like Taylor Swift. This is the real deal. More here.

Impossible Truth by William Tyler - Brilliant record I wrote about here. Guitar instrumentals can get dull in a hurry; this doesn't get dull at all, it's mesmerizing. It's not the kind of record you dance to (I guess you can but it'd be kind of weird) but even though it's wordless it's the kind of record you still pay attention to.

Elephant Stone by Elephant Stone - More Canadians. Psychedelic prog-pop with 12-strings and sitars. Very classic era 90s sounding band. I need to listen to this record more. Wrote about seeing them live here.

There you go. Like I said, I can't really see these records falling off the list. Especially the Blood Ceremony one. If one of them does (or two or three) then that will be great because that means more killer records came out. I expect the new Blackfield will be on my list, that comes out September-ish. Alcest and Anathema are both working on new records. Records I have now that could make the list? Destroy This Place, Arbouretum, Kadaver maybe. It will be fun to find out!!