December 27, 2024

Freak Scene #46: My Favorite Albums of 2024

The 10 albums, local and otherwise, that kept me coming back throughout 2024.

A Guide to Music in Western Mass. (and sometimes Connecticut)

This week in Freak Scene, I round up my favorite albums of the year. Since starting this newsletter in February, my listening habits have gravitated toward music from Western Mass. and Connecticut. Many (though not all) of these albums have local connections, which I think is cool as hell. It’s a reminder that great music can, and does, come from anywhere, not just “other places.”

I’m not particularly interested in whatever passes for a critical consensus these days, and I’m certainly not trying to reflect some version of the zeitgeist with my year-end wrap-up. Sure, Charli XCX, Waxahatchee and Jessica Pratt this year released albums that generated buzz, but they weren’t the ones that resonated most with me. My criteria are simple: what albums got stuck in my head and kept me coming back? The 10 listed below below are the ones, presented in chronological order by release date. Let me know your best-of picks in the comments!

Marika Hackman, Big Sigh: “Hackman is unflinching on her fourth album of original material,” I wrote in May for the Boston Globe. (I wrote about Hackman again for the Globe in September.) “That was true of the English singer’s previous albums, too, but Big Sigh feels like a leap forward. It’s a self-reflective collection of tightly written songs that are sometimes bleak, but always engrossing, from the relentless, thrumming bassline that powers ‘No Caffeine’ to the dark-hearted blend of acoustic guitar and piano on ‘Blood.’”

Cloudbelly, i know i know i know: “The mix of triumph and tribulation is simply breathtaking on the second album from this Western Massachusetts alt-pop band,” I wrote in May for the Boston Globe. (I also wrote about Cloudbelly in Freak Scene #9.) “With artful lyrics and arrangements running from anthemic on ‘Fascinated’ to folky on ‘Garbage,’ singer Corey Laitman and company explore a wide swath of human emotion on richly arranged songs that are by turns euphoric, downhearted and ethereal.”

Lisa Bastoni, On the Water: “She’s an evocative songwriter who sings with the wisdom of someone who hasn’t always come by her insight the easy way, and the ache in Bastoni’s voice contains as much compassion as it does sorrow. It’s a powerful combination,” I wrote in Freak Scene #5, where I noted that Bastoni is a worthy participant in the New England tradition of songwriters who “make you swallow hard and wonder why your eyes are damp.”

Black Pyramid, The Paths of Time Are Vast: “Black Pyramid are less about speed than atmosphere, favoring rugged soundscapes built around huge guitar riffs and drums that land with the booming force of a titan swinging an anchor chain against an iron door,” I wrote in Freak Scene #16. “Together, they lend the songs an ominous tension, as if Black Pyramid are making a stand in some untamed wilderness on the edge of an impending storm. More accurately, they are the storm.” This is quest-metal at its best.

Angélica Garcia, Gemelo: An album about cultural duality, Garcia’s third LP mixes sounds, styles and languages: she sings in Spanish and in English. As I wrote in a review for Paste, “it’s not quite rock, or pop, or Latin — not quite anything except a reflection of Angélica Garcia’s distinctive musical vision. With her versatile voice and magnetic charisma, she easily embodies a style here that is all her own.”

Fantastic Cat, Now That’s What I Call Fantastic Cat!: Each of the musicians comprising Fantastic Cat is very good on his own, but together Anthony D’Amato, Brian Dunne, Don DiLego (an Adams native!) and Mike Montali become something greater on relentlessly catchy pop songs that are by turns wry and bittersweet. Their second LP “is an album without a dud,” I wrote in August for the Boston Globe, and the band gave a highly entertaining performance earlier in December at the Iron Horse.

Perennial, Art History: The second album from this Vernon, Conn., “modernist punk” trio is “a riot of whiplash guitars, grinding organ, shouted vocals and bottomless energy,” I wrote in Freak Scene #18. “With 12 tracks, it’s technically an album, but one that flies by in 21 minutes of relentless mayhem.” One of my musical goals for 2025 is to see Perennial perform live.

Cassandra Jenkins, My Light, My Destroyer: Though she’s been around for more than a decade, Jenkins took me wholly by surprise with her astonishing 2021 album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. She’s just as good on My Light, My Destroyer, on songs full of deftly drawn lyrical imagery and richly imagined musical arrangements that range from the straight-ahead indie-rock of “Clams Casino” to the mesmerizing atmospherics of “Delphinium Blue,” along with field recordings and snippets of conversations, including one with her mom.

Wild Pink, Dulling the Horns: Recorded with Justin Pizzoferrato at Sonelab in Easthampton, Wild Pink’s latest is a guitar record, “brimming with immense growling textures that ebb and flow, creating space in the songs as often as they fill it,” I wrote in this review for Paste. “That approach seems to have emboldened [frontman John] Ross to let his lyrical idiosyncrasies loose. He’s droll here, and sometimes offhandedly profound as he comes at the stories and sentiments in his lyrics from unexpected vantages.”

La Sonora Mazurén, Magnetismo Anímal: Not local — from Bogotá, Colombia, in fact — but I discovered this band through the community-supported music organization Secret Planet, which brought La Sonora Mazurén to Holyoke in October (only four of the seven band members made it due to issues with work visas). The group’s latest is rooted in cumbia, though there’s plenty more happening here, too, and all of it is designed to get your body moving. I described it as “fiercely rhythmic” in this story about cumbia for Paste, but the group does just fine with melody, too, on tracks including “Cavernicolas” and “Ale Ale Recule.”

That’s a wrap on 2024! Thank you so much for reading Freak Scene over the past 10 months. If you like what you’ve been seeing here, please spread the word. And you haven’t yet, subscribe!

As we head into 2025, Freak Scene is always seeking submissions. You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first. Previous issues of Freak Scene are available in the archive.