Rollasoc's Top Ten Albums of 2014 - Part 3

So part 3.   Hits and misses.

Biggest Disappointment of the year:   Elbow - The take of and landing of everything.

Being a huge fan of the first three albums, I feel a gradually quality drop off over the last couple of albums.  This one, I have listened to probably 20+ times and I couldn't name a single song off it, let alone hum any of it.   Shame really.

Great Hope for 2015:    The Anchoress

 As a huge Mansun fan, any project that Paul Draper is a part of is of interest. I'd previously been unaware of Catherine A.Ds work.  This is a great slice of anti pop.  Good tune, great melodies.  Looking forward to the album (plus Paul Draper's solo album....) 

Plus it is not often that an EP comes with a free Mills and Boon book (mine is called A world of Difference!)

Disqualified from the top ten:
1. Erica Nockalls - EN²
     Should be in the top five. Disqualified on account of not having a video.  So nothing to link to.

Possibly less bonkers than her debut "Imminent Room", this is a  more sweary, cutting, harder, heavier, faster, angrier Erica, with moments of beauty just to disorientate and confuse you.

Plus "Whatever makes your heart bleed" is possibly one of my favourite tunes of the year.



Nearly Made the top Ten:

On another day any of these might have made my top ten.

1. John Wesley - Disconnect

John Wesley is probably best known as the touring guitarist for Porcupine Tree, of which there are several nods to on this album.    Everytime I play it, I think I should listen to it more often. One bonus is Alex Lifeson on Once a Warrior.

2. Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's modern boxes

Famous posterchild for being released on the bitorrent network. This did inspire us to release our EP6 onto Bittorrent.  We were presently surrprised how many people downloaded the full package of EP and video.

I have to be in the mood for this, sometimes it just irrates me, other times it is just stunning.

3. Ed Sheeran - X

I went to see Ed Sheeran a couple of years ago.  For one bloke with a loop pedal, I was blown away.
I was worried that this album would be terrible after his great debut.  I would be interested to hear the album he scrapped before coming up with this.

It does have some dodgy moments (Sing what is the point of Pharrell Williams on this), but that might just be too many tracks on the deluxe version.

4. Royal Blood - Royal Blood

Great album, but does make me want to go and listen to Death from Above 1979 afterwards. Sorry.




Worst album I've listened to:  
Katy B - Little Red.

The thing with spotify is most things are on there. So when I get the urge to listen to the number one album.  I can.  A single song on its own is fine, but a whole album was painful.

At least I tried listening to something different.