Best metal albums 2018
“Doesn’t time fly?” asks Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner. Arctic Monkeys, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino For the seasoned sextet, an album so connected to life on the road was bound to hit with natural urgency. The title track is about being stranded (and still playing a show) in Santiago, Chile while “Raining in Kyoto” sees frontman Dan Campbell mourning his just-deceased grandfather with strangers who didn’t speak any English in a Shinto shrine in Japan. You know that familiar press release line about wanting to make a record that captures your live show? Sister Cities is that record - but (as far as we know) the Wonder Years never even uttered that dreaded cliché. ANDREW UNTERBERGERĪfter nearly a decade of carrying the torch for pop-punk (years after its last commercial peak, no less) one of the genre’s most respected bands completed its metamorphosis into, simply put, a damn good rock band. They’re not this generation’s Blink-182, they’re its Guided By Voices, and lucky for all of us that’s a whole lot more sustainable. Five albums into Torrance, CA underground heroes Joyce Manor’s career, and there’s nothing really left to talk about with them except how goddamn great their songs are, trying out new sounds (the ’60s R&B sighs of “Silly Games” and gauzy 4AD guitars of “Gone Tomorrow”) and subjects (romance-for-romance’s sake on “Think I’m Still in Live With You” and webboard kinship on “Friends We Met Online”) with a level of skill and sympathy far beyond anyone once considered their pop-punk or emo peers. They don’t really do super-short songs anymore, they’ve already crossed over to just about everyone they’re going to cross over to, and they’ve matured about as much as any group of friends in a touring band are likely to ever mature. 1 album? That caught people by surprise, too. Once a pop-punk-loving boy band cast in One Direction’s shadow, the Aussie quartet’s first LP in three years is a graduate level course in jaunty new wave (“Talk Fast”), call-and-response arena rock (“Youngblood”), and rock guitar & B (“Valentine”). He doesn’t linger on one idea for long the Florida native breezes through six songs in less than fifteen minutes, making an opening statement that’s heavy in both replay value and hype for a presumably longer, soon-to-come project (he allegedly signed a quite-lucrative deal with Columbia over the summer).
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art kid communes and lonely, moonlit Miami nights, crooning and sing-rapping over blues rock riffs and doo-wop grooves. This most accurately describes the amalgam of Dominic Fike, and - promise - we mean it all in the best way. On his debut EP, 22-year old Dominic Fike traverses L.A. Picture John Mayer or Lenny Kravitz born in the SoundCloud generation, with a face tattoo of the Apple logo, making the most tasteful, tuneful rap-rock you’ll ever hear. Dominic Fike, Don’t Forget About Me, Demos Here, however, the Imposters add an assured rock punch to these lush, sophisticated character studies that empathetically detail everyday tragedies, such as a daughter learning about her philandering father or a divorcee pondering the unraveling of her marriage. With three co-writes from GOAT pop craftsman Burt Bacharach (not to mention one from equally legendary scribe Carole King) on Look Now, Elvis Costello’s latest naturally feels like a return to his 1998 collaborative masterpiece with Bacharach, Painted From Memory. Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Look Now “Prey” and “The Void” are the centerpieces here, mixing guitarists Jeff Ling and Luke Kilpatrick’s soaring, arena-ready licks with Winston McCall’s brutally heady vocals, while McCall shines on the pulverizing album opener “Wishing Wells.” - KEVIN RUTHERFORDĢ3. After teasing a new direction with 2016’s Ire deluxe edition track “Devil’s Calling,” the Australian quintet’s Reverence ups its use of melody - and with hooks like these, you’d think they were veterans of the trade. In 2018, Parkway Drive laid down a blueprint for how modern metalcore bands could evolve without fully shedding the values that put them at the genre’s forefront to begin with. Strikingly immune to cliché and construct, Ross narrates a largely autobiographical queer girl love story that re-imagines a generation of high school flicks and coming-of-age comedy tales in her own power-pop universe.
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20-something’s lyricism is equally infectious. The verses jib and jab just so, the choruses soar and sizzle it’s all hooks, really, but the L.A. Ross’ five-song, self-released EP of DIY bubblegum rocks like it was assembled, bit-by-bit, in a writing room of all your alt-pop faves. Here are Billboard‘s picks for the top 25 rock albums of 2018.Ģ5. The 25 Best Rock Songs of 2018: Critics' Picks