Staff Picks for December 2020

Under-the-radar Belgian electric guitarist Pierre Vervloesem has chops to burn but his avant rock and jazz projects have had a strongly collaborative bent rather than serving as mere axe-strutting vehicles. He doesn’t even play guitar in this hot-wired instrumental outfit, instead pumping out solid bass joined by his bandmates on sax, keys, and drums. The music files for this ironically titled, adventurous yet tuneful 2014 set were mysteriously deleted, necessitating a re-recording; thankfully, the quartet’s high energy and spirits were sustained the second time around.
- Dave Lynch

Sripping away much of the noodling and noise of their earlier work in favor of tighter structures, more immediate melodies, and vocals, on Rock Action Mogwai recaptures the excitement that surrounded their first releases. The album incorporates bristling distortion, propulsive drums, and electronic textures, but the album's most remarkable moments revisit and reinvent more traditional sounds.
- Heather Phares

Looking for an under-appreciated gem of a band from the new wave era? Look no further than these Liverpudlians and their infectious, soaring, drum-strong debut. It includes U.K. Top 20 hit "Love Is a Wonderful Colour" and the rhythmically exhilarating U.S. Top 40 hit "Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)," all featuring drummer Chris Sharrock, who would later play for the Lightning Seeds, World Party, Oasis, Beady Eye, and more.
- Marcy Donelson

A masterclass in sonic savagery, Torch Runner unleash a relentless grindcore assault with 2014's most explosive album, Committed to the Ground. Capriciously shifting between frenzied blast beats and doomy menace, the album directs a torrent of aggression at the listener, who must fight to hold their footing as wave after cathartic wave crashes against them.
- Gregory Heaney

Harry Belafonte became a star with the release of 1956's Calypso, which contained eight faux Jamaica-inspired folk tunes written by Brooklyn-born (and Juilliard trained) Irving Burgie. The songs were calypso the way that Porgy & Bess is blues, suggesting the form more than being it, but they were undeniably infectious, and the album was phenomenally successful, becoming the first album ever to sell a million copies in the U.S., and sold some 11 million copies worldwide.
- Steve Leggett

Guitarist Lee Ritenour's first all-acoustic record, 1979's Rio, is a slick, if still organic mix of instrumental jazz, funk and Bossa Nova. Adding to the album's depth are appearances from Ernie Watts on flute and Dave Grusin on keyboards. Think of it as the hippest doctor's office music ever recorded.
- Matt Collar

Falling just outside of the official canon, the Beatles Christmas Records were a series of 7" singles released annually to the Beatles Fan Club between 1963 and 1969. Never intended for wide circulation -- most of them were given out to U.K. members of the Fan Club and never crossed the Atlantic -- the records were cut during the Beatles' spare studio time and sound that way, with the Fab Four yucking it up like the Goons, sending up their own hits and other chart-toppers and generally engaging in good-natured nonsense.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Upon seeing a Bad Religion album titled Christmas Songs, the instinctive reaction would be to assume the band was releasing an album meant to skewer the holiday and the evil corporations that profit from its commercialization. Instead, the album is exactly what it appears to be, with the legendary punk band delivering high energy yet faithful renditions of Christmas classics like "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "Little Drummer Boy," and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."
- Gregory Heaney

On her first full-length Christmas album, pianist/vocalist Diana Krall delivers a smoky, sophisticated, and slightly melancholy album perfectly suited to accompany egg nog cocktails and romantic afterglow holiday affairs. Krall coos life into such standards as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve," and "I'll Be Home for Christmas." If you like your holiday albums cool and classy, Christmas Songs is a stocking stuffer that's sure to please.
- Matt Collar

In November 2018, the Old 97's finally crossed one bit of unfinished business off their bucket list by releasing a Christmas album. Love the Holidays leans a bit to the pop side of the band's sound, as if they struck a midpoint between their classic attack on Too Far to Care and the more artful approach of Rhett Miller's solo work.
- Mark Deming

Forty-some years into his life as a verified metal god, it probably seemed like as good a time as any for Rob Halford to make a Christmas album. There's an hefty dose of self-awareness and irony in Celestial, a collection of metalized Christmas carols and traditional holiday tunes, and a few Halford originals in the holiday vein, resulting in a fun reimagining of holiday and metalhead traditions alike.
- Fred Thomas

Sia's mission to put her idiosyncratic stamp on traditional forms like chart-topping pop and musicals continues with her holiday album Everyday Is Christmas. Working with longtime collaborator Greg Kurstin, the pair give the musical DNA of '50s and '60s holiday hits like A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector and "Jingle Bell Rock" some 21st century pop gloss; "Candy Cane Lane" is stuffed full of sleigh bells and saxophones, while "Santa's Coming for Us" sets those sounds to a reggae-tinged beat.
- Heather Phares

The eponymous 1983 debut by New Orleans-bred hard rock trio Zebra certainly sought to fill the post-Zeppelin void, but they also injected a pleasing amount of pop into their material. Amid the riffing and rock posturing, this overachieving power trio layered in plenty of hooks, harmonies, and melodic prog-rock elements, which eventually helped the record go gold.
- Timothy Monger

On this surprisingly excellent debut, the budding singer/songwriter dives deep into heartbreak on a collection of simple and relatable breakup tunes backed by Manchester Orchestra's Andy Hull. As sad as can be, it may not be groundbreaking, but it connects with devastating power for anyone who's ever survived a bad breakup. Shoot for "Undone," "Let Down," "Eyelids," and the title track.
- Neil Z. Yeung

Strictly using a limited assembly of analog synthesizers, the London-based duo create psychologically charged coldwave pop distinguished by sharp beats and haunting melodies, and most importantly, Alison Lewis' striking lyrics, which express deep feelings of longing, desire, and anxiety while using terms related to neuroscience and anthropology. Opener "Synapse" cuts the deepest, but the rest is just as strong, and the album has earned its status as a modern minimal wave classic.
- Paul Simpson

Bassist Joshua Abrams enlisted guitarist Jeff Parker, Italian reedist Guillermo Gregorio, and European brass master Axel Dörner in completely blurring the lines between free improvisation, free jazz and "free composition.” The musical entrances are initially disembodied then recontextualized within the larger context of exploration and curiosity sans academic posturing. These pieces living encounters with what lies just beyond solo or group interaction, to become a collective language at once strange, mysterious, and beautiful.
- Thom Jurek

Recorded with a who's who of fusion titans including trumpeter Eddie Henderson, bassist Stanley Clarke, and keyboardist Herbie Hancock, Dance of Magic channels the lessons drummer Norman Connors learned in the employ of Pharoah Sanders, Sam Rivers, and Sun Ra, marshaling Latin rhythms, electronic textures, and cosmic mysticism to create nondenominational yet deeply spiritual funk-jazz.
- Jason Ankeny

On his 1992 debut, this Houston rapper followed closely in the footsteps of the Geto Boys, but somehow managed to reach even deeper levels of depravity than his hometown affiliates. Intense portrayals of horror scenarios and less fantastical explorations of mental anguish were recorded with even less of a budget than his peers, resulting in an album that's painfully raw and sometimes legitimately shocking.
- Fred Thomas

This is the tenor saxophonist’s first leader date since 1960. He teamed with complementary altoist Gary Foster, bassist Dave Parlato and drummer John Tirabasso vin offering spirited readings of some of his favorite compositions, including "Lennie's Pennies," "Subconscious-Lee" and "You Stepped Out of a Dream." In addition, there is a fairly free group improvisation (the 15-minute "Touch and Go") and a brief rendition of Bach's "Two-Part Inventions #13,” resulting in not only a welcome return, but one of the artist’s finest ever recordings.
- Scott Yanow

Despite Bill Evans' stern, buttoned-up image on the album's cover, Portrait in Jazz is a wonder in warmth and dynamic interplay between the pianist and his agile rhythm section of bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, who come across as equal partners on this prime 1959 studio date.
- Timothy Monger

From beginning to end, Gang Starr's third album cuts with the force and precision of a machete and serves as an ode to and representation of New York and hip-hop underground culture. The genius of Daily Operation is that Guru's microphone skills -- virtually unmatched at capturing both the little streetwise details and broader implications of urban life -- are perfectly married to the best batch of tracks Premier has ever come up with.
- Stanton Swihart

Listening to it for the first time in 2020, it's hard to believe this thing is over 50 years old. Totally extreme death metal free jazz which levels everything in its path.
- Paul Simpson

A forward-thinking jazz guitarist and early architect of electric fusion, Larry Coryell is perhaps less well-known for his singing. However, during the late '60s and early '70s, Coryell did just that, writing and performing a handful of inspired, if quirky jazz-meets-singer/songwriter style compositions on every album. His second solo album, 1969's Coryell, is a great example, and finds him fearlessly blurring the lines between hardcore blues-inflected jazz, pop, and rock.
- Matt Collar

Four long years after the issue of Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds, Vol. 1, Scott strolls and swaggers joyously in the no man's land between soul, funk, jazz, and, of course, those swinging hip-hop beats. It's seamless in its construction, unlittered in its production, honestly and elegantly articulated in its poetic soul, and utterly intoxicating in its groove consciousness.
- Thom Jurek

There's been significant turmoil in the Fear Factory camp lately with the departure of longtime vocalist Burton C. Bell, so jump back to happier times with the band's high water mark, which showcases its careful juxtaposition of pummeling rhythmic assault with big melodies.
- Chris Steffen

The sole 1975 album from this obscure jazz-funk keyboardist was largely overlooked in its day, sitting in a grey area somewhere between funk, prog, spiritual jazz and boundary pushing avant garde sounds. One of the rare quartet dates consisting of two keyboardists, a bassist and a lightning fast drummer, the most out there rhythms on 2nd Wave presage the glitchiness of Aphex Twin, while more down to earth tunes are sentimental in a way that's fluid, dreamlike and pleasantly confusing.
- Fred Thomas

On their militant second album, Algiers and producer Adrian Utley offer a soundtrack for the apocalypse, yet refuse to be swallowed by it. They assert that even amid violence, darkness, and horror, that the human spirit is affirmed through witness and resistance, leading not only to solace but to redemption.
- Thom Jurek

A heady and sometimes capricious piece of work that vacillates between pastoral folk, classical crossover, proto-punk, and progressive rock, Alt-J's third LP is never clear about its overall intentions. The same could be said about the band's two previous outings as well, but Relaxer is a thornier beast than either of them, carefully concealing its myriad barbs beneath bucolic washes of meticulously forged comeliness.
- James Monger

This fifth album by the Liverpudlians was their highest-charting in the U.S. The songs here, which include the U.K. Top 40 hits "The Game" and "Lips Like Sugar," were among the hookiest and most memorable the band would ever write, while the arrangements are noticeably clean and punchy, mostly eliminating strings. Surprisingly, vocalist Ian MuCulloch appeared to have rediscovered the maxim "less is more"; his singing was comparatively restrained and tasteful, resulting in a more natural, unforced emotiveness that was extremely effective.
- David Cleary

The debut of a group led by Allo Darlin's Elizabeth Moss and Making Marks' Ola Innset, this album's bittersweet indie pop might be just the thing for the final breaths of autumn. The pair alternate lead vocals on tracks that are also split between fleshier electric guitar arrangements (Innset) and more-pastoral fare (Morris), but they share a knack for affectionate, effortless melodies and partly sunny outlooks.
- Marcy Donelson

In the wake of a low-quality leak of unreleased tracks from their Toxicity sessions, the band decided to issue this finished version, which arguably matches that seminal 2001 LP. As raucous and unhinged as anything that came before it, the quartet rips through highlights "Mr. Jack," "I-E-A-I-A-I-O," and "Fuck the System" with confrontational, politically-charge ease. With two new tracks released in 2020, it's high time to revisit this oft-overlooked gem.
- Neil Z. Yeung