The Nicsperiment's Top Nine Albums of 2017

Hey, it's my list! This year's list might seem conventional at first, but it gets weirder as it goes along. 2017 is definitely an emotion-based one, but I've found that those are generally the ones I've still agreed with later...I've done them that way for every year after 2010...after I realized I was trying to fit in with the rest of the critics. I don't listen to hardly anything from that list anymore, but everything 2011 on is still in my rotation. Better to just be honest with yourself and listen to what you like, then force yourself to like something somebody else says is good.
The usual caveat: 1.3 trillion albums were released this year. I and every other music critic (no matter how definitive and authoritive they attempt to sound) did not even hear a minuscule amount of those. These are my nine favorites from that less than minuscule amount.

9. Hammock -- Mysterium

I struggled with whether or not I'd add this album to the list for quite a while. I generally hate when bands I like go fully minimalist, particularly when getting quiet and boring has been such a huge trend this decade. However, the emotional weight of Mysterium, inspired by the death of one of the Hammock duo's nephews, is so much to bear, more instrumentation may have broken it. As it is, these melancholy, yet ethereal guitar textures, piano, strings, and choral layers are enough to not only convey Mysterium's crushing sadness, but also its hopeful expectation.


8. '68 -- Two Parts Viper

Josh Scogin has realized his dream of re-imagining late 80's Nirvana as a bar band who plays in the middle of the American desert in midday to one patron seemingly asleep at the counter, who raises his glass in the air in tribute after each song. It's like punk-leaning grunge met the blues in a back alley and decided to face off in a poetry slam. It's Josh Scogin on guitar and throat-scraping vocals and Michael McClellan on drums, and it is awesome.


7. Demon Hunter -- Outlive

Demon Hunter have finally, after ten years of indecisiveness, transformed from a nu-metal band to a tech-metal one. I love the first three Demon Hunter albums, which gladly exist in the Slipknot screamy, but hook-filled percussive radio rock realm, but since then, Demon Hunter have struggled to put together a cohesive album. In that interim, they've tried to put the sound they really seem passionate for, the aforementioned European tech-metal one, into a blender with their early nu-metal sound and a never-fully-realized Pantera influence, but this has led to top-heavy albums with second halves that are generally boring and inconsistent. Thankfully, Demon Hunter have finally said, "Screw It! The album is going to sound like this." The result is Outlive, whose tech-metal sound not only seems to suit each band member's musical skill-set, but allows vocalist, Ryan Clark, the opportunity to let his voice breathe. This means Clark sings far more than he screams, and in the past, I would have thought this a flaw--the band made their original hay mostly having Clark scream his head off. It's clear now, though, those early albums work because the band picked one sound and stuck with it. That intense focus pays off here with some of the best songwriting of Demon Hunter's career, and the first time in eight albums that they've made this list (though if I could redo that 2004 list, Summer of Darkness would have a spot!). What a ramble that was, though it mirrors me coming to terms with, and subsequently loving this album! I miss still listening to a Demon Hunter album a month after it's been released!


6. Bad Sign -- Live and Learn

Making an extreme statement just to provoke a reaction is lame. Because of that, I won't say that rock music is dead, but it isn't even gasping at relevancy in the world of 21st century music. Remember the last time a rock song topped the charts? It'll probably never happen again. Who cares. South London's Bad Sign are making great rock music, and their Basick Records debut, Live and Learn, is a driving, atmospheric blast, featuring incredible musicianship and soaring vocals, all created by a classic three-piece rock band configuration.


5. Paramore -- After Laughter

Throughout all of Paramore's career. I've only felt young enough to listen to the music on 2013's self-titled album. I particularly enjoyed that album's newly diverse musical palette, and its incredible rhythm section. Four years later, Hayley Williams and Zac Farro have returned with a totally new creative vision, sans that rhythm section, with Taylor York, who played with the band back when I felt too old to listen to their music, on drums. This would be a bummer had these three not just made the best album of Paramore's career. After Laughter is a musical ode to 80's pop-rock, with keyboard and guitar textures of that era mixing with some indie sounds of today, along with Williams most melancholy vocals and lyrics. This is an incredible change of pace, muted pastels after the glowing neon of Paramore, but After Laughter is somehow even more consistent and cohesive than its predecessor.


4. P.O.S. -- Chill, dummy

P.O.S. nearly died, but now that he's back from the brink, he sounds more pissed off at current events than thankful that he's still breathing. The Minneapolis rapper lasers in on racial inequality like he never has before, and Chill, dummy features more African American guests than any of P.O.S.' past albums. There's an immediacy here that also feels new, further sharpening the edge he's always had, yet his music is diverse in sound as ever, ranging from the laid-back desert apocalyptic landscape of "Pieces/Ruins," to the electric banging intensity of the eight-minute closer "Sleepdrone/Superposition."


3. Irrelevant -- Vague Memories

While electronic music is, by its very nature, experimental, its artists rarely seem to push the genre. Four-on-the-floor, throw on some keyboard, call it a day. Not Irrelevant. His Vague Memories, a 30-minute, two track odyssey, is a unique emotional juggernaut, conjuring imagery of someone's mental degeneration, as their mind searches for familiar thoughts, cogent memory. Irrelevant mixes sampling, found sounds, original beats, and ambient keyboard textures, as he searches through chaos, finds ghosts of an early 90's dance hall, then lets the whole thing fall away into disconcertingly unfamiliar territory once again.


2. Spaceslug -- Time Travel Dilemma

This is the sound I've been looking for. It's like Saturday Morning Sci-Fi Serial, The Metal Album. Featuring a huge, expansive sound, set by lumbering, laid-back rhythms, a fuzzy guitar tone that could could kick-start the sun, shamanistic vocals that seem older than time, and stretched out songs that fully explore some brilliant sonic ideas, Spaceslug's Time Travel Dilemma is my jam.


1. Julie Byrne -- Not Even Happiness

I generally can't abide folk music, or overly quiet music in general (yeah, I think I said that already). However, Julie Byrne's Not Even Happiness won me over in a matter of seconds. Byrne's soothing voice and unique picking style (Not Even Happiness is almost entirely vocals and acoustic guitar) sound so close to water gently rushing over stones, wind lightly brushing through tall grass, sun slowly melting snow, pine-needles softly crunching under foot, I can't resist this album. Not Even Happiness is miraculously calming, like the Earth calling me home. I've never been so moved by something so small.