Favorite Albums

1. Ghost Wave, Ages (Flying Nun)
With Ages, Aukland five-piece Ghost Wave proved themselves the heir apparent to the Flying Nun legacy. Like The Clean, Verlaines, Tall Dwarfs, et al. before them, the band combines jangly guitars with pop smarts and VU overdrive. It all amounts to a debut that show the New Zealand label’s best days aren’t behind it.

2. Toy, Join the Dots (Heavenly Recordings/[PIAS] America)
Toy’s second album picks up where their debut left off, blending shoegaze haze and pyrotechnics with catchy hooks into something immediately arresting. The London band has reined in its vortex of swirling sounds, however, to create an album of concentric sonic bliss.

3. Suuns, Images du Futur (Secretly Canadian)
On their sophomore album, Montreal’s Suuns sculpt electronic rhythms and phased guitars into songs that are every bit as catchy as they artful. Images du Futur lives up to its name, conjuring sounds that seem completely not of this world, but some aural epiphany yet to come.

4. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, English Electric (BMI)
OMD may be largely remembered for “If You Leave” and its other ’80s pop, but band was responsible for some of the most ingenious sides of electronic music of that decade as well. With English Electric, they conjured those roots, crafting an album that was evocative of their previous work and unlike anything else.

5. Various Artists, The Velvet Underground and Nico (Castle Face)
Originally slated for release last year to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Velvet Underground’s debut, this album sees the Bay Area’s brightest honor that seminal record with covers that retain the spirit of the originals without being retreads. Ty Segall does a gnarly deconstruction of “Femme Fatale;” Warm Soda’s “I’m Waiting for the Man” is at once poppy and demented; and Thee Oh Sees go nuts on “European Son.” All-in-all, it’s almost as good as the original—and that’s really saying something.

6. FUZZ, FUZZ (In the Red)
Ty Segall continued to keep himself busy in 2013, by releasing both a solo album and this record with “metal” side project FUZZ. While you can hear elements of Sabbath and Deep Purple at work here, what sets this album apart is the combining of that influence with the pop hooks and psych overdrive on which Ty has made his name.

7. Johnny Marr, The Messenger (Sire/ADA)
While the former Smith guitarist has had his moment in the nearly three decades since that seminal group broke up, this solo album makes one reassess how Marr has been wasting his time all those years. Quite simply, this is the first music he’s made that has lived up to his legacy. Additionally, his live show, which included a handful of Smiths tunes, was as good as any I saw this year.

8. Girls Names, The New Life (Slumberland/Tough Love)
Belfast four-piece hearken back to post-punk’s gilded age of the early ’80s with darkened tones belied by catchy hooks. The band’s sophomore album was a perfect dichotomy of light/dark, melody/dissonance, and joy/ despondency, and the kind of record that sticks with you long after its over.

9. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Push the Sky Away (Bad Seed Ltd.)
On his 15th album with the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave works in a much more subtle manner than he has in the past. As such this seeming unassuming record builds as it progresses and increasingly reveals itself the more you listen to it. This may not have the immediate, raw power of his younger days, but there is a gravitas nonetheless.

10. Joanna Gruesome, Weird Sister (Slumberland)
It’s hard not to be reminded of the ’90s and the sounds being emitted back then when hearing the rambunctious debut from Joanna Gruesome. Luckily, the band takes those influences, which range from American grunge to Scottish twee, and spit out something just as arresting.