Sound Obsession

In alphabetical order by artist name. . . . Blocks & Escher:   Something Blue   (Metalheadz - 3/26/18) The Breeders:  All Nerve   (4AD - 3/2/18) Leon Bridges:   Good Thing   (Columbia - 5/4/18) Dillon Carmichael:   Hell On An Angel   (Riser House - 10/26/18) Detboi:   Ice Cold   (Metalheadz - 1/22/18) Anderson East:   Encore   (Elektra - 1/12/18) Failure:   In The Future Your Body Will Be The Furthest Thing From Your Mind   (Failure - 11/16/18) The Marcus King Band:   Carolina Confessions   (Fantasy - 10/5/18) Colter Wall:  Songs of The Plains   (Elektra - 10/12/18) Windhand:   Eternal Return   (Relapse - 10/5/18)

At The Drive-In, 9:30 Club, Washington DC - 6/14/16 Black Pistol Fire, U Street Music Hall, Washington DC - 6/6/16 The Kills, 9:30 Club, Washington DC - 5/14/16 Ghost, Hippodrome, Baltimore MD - 5/8/16 Ghost, Hippodrome, Baltimore MD - 5/8/16 Iggy Pop, Academy of Music, Philadelphia PA - 4/15/16 Iggy Pop, Academy of Music, Philadelphia PA - 4/15/16 Iggy Pop, Academy of Music, Philadelphia PA - 4/15/16 Iggy Pop, Academy of Music, Philadelphia PA - 4/15/16 Autolux, Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington DC - 4/1/16 Autolux, Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington DC - 4/1/16 Graveyard, 9:30 Club, Washington DC - 2/12/16 Muse, Verizon Center, Washington DC - 2/1/16 The Arcs, 9:30 Club, Washington DC - 12/14/15 Kvelertak, Oslo Hackney, London, UK - 11/29/15 Windhand, Metro Cafe, Baltimore MD - 11/14/15

2015 was an exceptional year for music.  Here are my top-ten favorite albums of 2015, and check out my ten runners-up and honorable mentions .  Hey, better late than never.  Enjoy. . . . 1. Ghost: Meliora (8.5/10) Meliora is Ghost's third LP, released in late summer of 2015. The title is a Latin adjective meaning "better" and so it is that the album continues an upward trajectory for the Swedish occult-metal band, adding to their mock-ecclesiastical mythos. Ghost's breakout debut Opus Eponymous mined a spooky mediaeval aesthetic exemplified by a traditional proto-metal sound, while their playful sophomore album Infetissumam (previously reviewed here ) skewed baroque, incorporating disparate elements like disco, surf-rock, and choral music. By contrast, Meliora is the band's take on 20th century modernity and futurism (its cover references Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis ) . Accordingly, on Meliora , the band's musical palette...