Top Five Albums of 2024 to Enter Your Wrongdoer Era
Music
Has your “niceness” been taken for granted, pilot-lighting a devious fury within? You may be experiencing the beginning stages of your change in lore. Follow this step-by-step (musical) guide to see if you’re in mid-development of your “wrongdoer” era. REMINDER: No matter how kind and loving you present yourself to be, you’re always the bad guy in someone’s eyes.
Cask
Brick By Brick
Self-Released
Street: 07.16
Cask = Turnstile x Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson (Twins of Evil) + Castlevania
Transition: The alteration in mental/emotional chemistry deserves the radically-shifting soundtrack. Brick By Brick trickles anguish and ambience in every track, cork-screwing through asthmatic screamo and droning synthwave. Papa Meat himself Hunter Hancock explodes gargoyle vocals of barbaric yawps. For a man who creates Eldritch horror-esque parodies for a living, it only makes sense to level up in all artforms with the same shock and awe. Brick By Brick’s slow needle pricks may not be effective at the beginning, but you’ll be pestering mad to the sound before you know it. Side effects include elevated heart rate, snickering demeanor and cravings for violence.
Brooks Nielsen
A Ride I’m Waiting For
Self-Released
Street: 06.07
Brooks Nielsen = The Growlers + The Tornadoes (Roy Rogers / Hank Williams)
Denial: Sometimes it takes some pushback to truly recognize the shifting stages. The tropical cowboy himself Brooks Nielsen released A Ride I’m Waiting For—a moody sort of ballad that’s marmalade jammy but hides darkness within. It’s boardwalk alt-rock spliced with the Western melancholy of Roger Miller or, some may argue, Johnny Cash. I never thought you could fuse Santa Fe with Santa Cruz in such a charming manner. However, Brooks’ twangy nasal with “Misirlou” surf sounds in tracks like “Easy Is a Red Flag” feels like a beachside ghost town. So Watusi with your closest bar fling and stay naive to the rising tide—it’ll creep kneehigh before you know it…
Castle Rat
Into The Realm
King Volume Records
Street: 04:12
Castle Rat = Witchfinder General + Warlock x Gallhammer^2 (Heavy Metal illustrations)
Rage: It’s as primal as an emotion can be. Pure venomous adrenaline pistoning into the veins, as you damn all who tempts to tango with your lit-match fury. Volbeat gets the juices going. Death Grips floors the high-octane wrath to an oblivion. But lately, no other album takes me to dark places to clatter blades with my demons like Castle Rat’s Into The Realm. The nearly melting ooze riffs resemble something like Salvador Dali’s clocks, the downhill spiral of mythical drum sets and basslines, only to nestle me gently in the chainmail bosom with the absolute goddess that is Riley Pinkerton’s wicked vocals. It’s the rock-n-rolla for the ages!
Nessa Barrett
AFTERCARE
Warner Records
Street: 11.15
Nessa Barrett = Lana Del Ray x Savlonic + Plustwo x Drive soundtrack
Hysteria: Once the blood pressure drops and all rage is conquered, the carefree sensation of euphoria covers you in a dazy mindset. It’s almost as if your nihilistic tendencies have taken over, leaving a rosy-tint to your outlook. AFTERCARE amplifies that vibe, implementing neon streaks and smokey vaporwave. “PASSENGER PRINCESS” is that ride-or-die attitude, nearly tipping into Harley Quinn territory, while “DISCO” featuring Tommy Genesis is hypnotic to hypodermically inject through the speakers. If hysteria has got you in a laughing-while-beaten-down kind of mood, let TikTok girlie Nessa Barrett raise you up and arm you with a pair of pink lemonade knuckle dusters.
KORDHELL
A MILLION WAYS TO MURDER (DELUXE)
Black 17 Media
Street: 11.24
KORDHELL = deadmau5 + Corpse Husband √Russian crime underbelly
Revenge: (Psst! This album actually came out in November of last year. Don’t tell my editors.) The final level is a sinker, suppressing all the mixed, heavy magnitude feelings to fit snug in a .45 round. Straight from a secluded Russian gulag and tinkering with radioactive strobes like Chernobyl, house DJ KORDHELL shakes any club or dive with a sonic boom. Most may interlay his music with their shitbox Mazda show-off shorts, but locked in with a decent pair of noise-canceling headphones or crater-causing subwoofer to receive the right dose of getting even. Kill them with kindness, they say? I heard a hacksaw works better…
DISHONORABLE MENTION
Various Artists
A Whole New Sound
Walt Disney Records
Street: 09.06
A Whole New Sound = Simple Plan + Bowling for Soup x the desecrated corpse of Walt Disney
Fucking insanity: There are certain projects that should’ve never been teased into existence. What these last four years have shown us, though, is to expect the unexpected. After-birthed from the festering seaform of Bob Iger’s impaled ball sack came A Whole New Sound—a freshly-soaked urinal cake squashed down into the shape of a pop-punk record rehashing timeless classics. You would think dragging alt-rock bands like Plain White T’s and We The Kings away from their PM shifts at Spencers would supercharge the nostalgia faction. Oh, you troubled soul. You’re so blind from the truth! Another cash grab, another reboot, another tarnished IP to skid mark any remaining imagination from the Disney name. Hating this album was an understatement. I’m livid with anger and fear of what’s to come next…
Read 2023’s Top Fives:
Top Five Rock-Distorting Albums of 2023 to End the World (and the Year)
Top 5 Roots Albums of 2023 For Swinging to the Beat, Boots on Your Feet