Sound Obsession

A diverse year for music, here are my favorite albums of 2014. Enjoy. . . . 1. D'Angelo & The Vanguard - Black Messiah (9/10) Enigmatic and reclusive Richmond, VA, soul man D'Angelo has been a favorite of mine since the mid-90's when he dropped his debut album  Brown Sugar -  an exceptional 1995 launch that vaulted over its tepid R&B and "neo-soul" competition by merging tough hip-hop swagger with throwback musicality and charm. I even picked that album's version of "Cruisin'" over Smokey Robinson's 1979 original to sit alongside classic cuts by Wilson Pickett, Stevie Wonder, and Bill Withers on my wedding goodie-bag mix CD three years ago. So, after a fourteen year hiatus plagued by legal troubles, substance abuse, weight gain, and the paralyzing anxiety of high expectation to follow up his acclaimed sophomore album,  Voodoo from 2000, D'Angelo finally, and without much warning, dropped his long awaited third LP 

Pallbearer, Metro Gallery, Baltimore MD - 10/30/14 Tombs, Metro Gallery, Baltimore MD - 10/30/14 Slowdive, 9:30 Club, Washington DC - 10/22/14 Gorgon City, U Street Music Hall, Washington DC - 10/10/14 Earth, Rock & Roll Hotel, DC - 10/21/14 Earth, Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington DC - 10/21/14 Black Keys, Verizon Center, Washington DC - 9/25/14 Jack White, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia MD - 9/14/14 Skeletonwitch, Empire, Springfield VA - 9/12/14 Beck, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia MD - 7/24/14 Queens of The Stone Age, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia MD - 7/17/14 Queens of The Stone Age, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia MD - 7/17/14 Queens of The Stone Age, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia MD - 7/17/14 Deafheaven, Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington DC - 6/10/14 Deafheaven, Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington DC - 6/10/14 Deafheaven, Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington DC - 6/1

Failure Date:  June 5, 2014 Venue:  The Fillmore, Silver Spring, MD Naming your band "Failure" seems kind of stupid - not just tempting fate but poking it right in the eye. Then again the early 1990's was a time when a rocker could be a " loser ," a " creep ," or " dumb " and still be a chart-topping superstar.  This was an era of drab irony and false modesty, when po-faced guitar heroes with secret arena-rock ambitions were saddled with the overwhelming weight of "punk rock guilt" - the pop-cultural pressure to act like you just didn't care . It was in this miasma of anti-careerist posturing and slacker ethos that LA based alternative rockers Failure formed and eventually disbanded.  Comprised of Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards, with drummer Kellii Scott and guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen joining later, Failure did everything right.  Their debut album Comfort , released in '92, was produced by indie-rock iconoclast Steve Alb

Black Breath Date:  May 21, 2014 Venue:  Ottobar, Baltimore, MD The twelfth annual Maryland Deathfest (aka "MDF"), apparently the largest metal festival of its kind in North American, officially kicked off in Baltimore yesterday, but any black denim and leather clad longhair who wanted to get a jump on the four day festivities had their chance at the sold out "pre-fest party" at Ottobar this past Wednesday evening - featuring New York veterans Immolation, Baltimore's Misery Index and Noisem, and Seattle's Black Breath.* Black Breath (left to right - Jamie Byrum, Eric Wallace, Elijah Nelson, Neil McAdams, and Mark Palm)  I've had a lot of fun navigating the metal scene at large with its plethora of sub-genres, over the last decade or so, but death metal (and its close cousin grindcore) has been a final frontier of sorts for me.  Like black metal, with its sordid history of violence and controversial politics, death metal isn't entirely

Mastodon, Gojira, Kvelertak Date:  May 13, 2014 Venue:  9:30 Club, Washington, DC Last Tuesday was the hottest day of the year so far in DC so it was only appropriate that DC's 9:30 Club host a sold out evening for the most scorching metal tour of the year so far - Mastodon with Gojira and Kvelertak supporting. Mastodon (Brent Hinds and Troy Sanders) Norway's top purveyors of beer soaked black n' roll, Kvelertak, hit the stage first.  This band's sophomore album Meir made my top ten list last year and I was lucky to catch them crush an awesome set at the tiny Rock & Roll Hotel too.  It's a tough proposition for a boisterous six-piece, whose amped-up party rock works best after guzzling a few brews, to capture a crowd that's still trickling in off the sidewalk - but Kvelertak had everyone in a stranglehold in short order. Kvelertak (Marvin Nygaard, Erlend Hjelvik, and Kjetil Gjermundrod) Lead screamer Erlend Hjelvik emerged with a s

Beck:   Morning Phase Label:  Capitol Records Released:  February 25, 2014 7/10 Beck is one of the pivotal artists of my adolescence.  I distinctly remember seeing him on MTV's late night alternative-rock show "120 Minutes" in late winter of 1994, interviewed by that already legendary pillar of cool - Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.  Along with the Beastie Boys' Ill Communication ( plugged on that same broadcast) Beck's major label debut Mellow Gold was my soundtrack of the summer.  Kurt Cobain had just committed suicide and for me, previously a grunge fanatic, that gesture put a bookend on the sanctimonious purism and unhealthy gloom that enveloped rock music at the time.  I was ready for something new - something brighter and more fun.   Mellow Gold 's hodgepodge of punk, noise, folk, and hip-hop was exactly that and Beck has remained an indispensable fixture in my musical world ever since. So here we are, twenty years on from Beck's improbab

Tycho Date:  April 20, 2014 Venue:  9:30 Club, Washington, DC I rarely attend good shows on Easter Sunday - apart from the choir at the occasional sugar-fueled church service (admittedly, it's been a while).  This past Sunday I checked out Tycho at the 9:30 Club.  It happened to be 4/20 as well - a day famously dedicated to a different kind of ritual sacrament.  Despite that apparent contradiction, Tycho's mix of pastel colored grooves and heady atmospherics seemed entirely appropriate. Tycho ( Joe Davancens,  Rory O'Connor, Zac Brown, and Scott Hansen) Tycho, real name Scott Hansen, is a San Francisco-based indie-electronica musician and graphic artist who previously worked solo but took on a full band for his latest album Awake .  I had just reviewed Awake and was excited to see how Hansen would perform his latest material with new bandmates Zac Brown and Joe Davancens alternating between guitar, bass, and synthesizer, and Rory O'Connor on drums. If

Tycho:   Awake Label:  Ghostly International Released:  March 18, 2014 6/10 Tycho is to Boards of Canada what Coldplay is to Radiohead.  After the latter band pioneered an appealing sound, then defiantly veered into "difficult" territory, the former band emerged to fill the new gap - shamelessly emulating the latter band's original pop sensibilities.  This isn't a total indictment however.  Why did Boards of Canada have to alienate fans by following up the infectious Super 8 trip-hop of their classic 1998 album Music Has the Right to Children with that onerous collection of nightmare vignettes Geogaddi in 2002?  Enter a host of unapologetic imitators like Tycho, with albums like 2006's Past is Prologue,  giving hungry fans a generous helping of that classic Boards of Canada sound. Tycho is the alias of San Francisco audiovisual artist Scott Hansen.  As Tycho, Hansen creates instrumental electronic soundscapes as impeccably as he does graphic art (design