Yet another December and another amazing SZA album declaring a massive “fuck you” to all end-of-year lists published from November to early December. I have yammered on in past posts about the rather odd timing of end-of-year lists that aren’t published at the end of the year appearing on nearly all music websites. I will spare any gentle soul reading this post the litany of those complaints here. Nevertheless, some albums seem to be ignored in November & December.
Sort of like how we avoid the sad gaze of a young boy having just freshly received a wedgie from an older bully.
Instead, as a bid to honor the albums that are often overlooked during the final two months of the year, I present on the weekend after the first Friday album drop of 2025 a “best 15 albums” that blessed us in November and December of 2024 (lest they not be forgotten!) November and December album release Fridays seem to always provide an overabundance of rap albums (why is that?), and there were indeed a couple of very good ones this year that weren’t by Kendrick Lamar. I also caught some compelling R&B, indie rock, and heavy music releases.
After the results of the election, I desperately needed these albums in November & December. They offer some awesome vibes to sustain meaning in life, buffering my soul against the shit show yet to come as a psychotic hyper-capitalist, and his uber-wealthy cronies, take the reins of our dying, morally corrupt country.
With that fucking WEDGIE of a dire note, here are my favorite 15 releases from the last two months of the year that was 2024.
15. Freddie Gibbs – You Only Die 1nce
There seems to be some disagreement about when exactly You Only Die 1nce exactly dropped. Spotify says October 31, but everyone else indicates November 1. Hence, I am counting the LP as a November release. The album is a divertive, supposed sequel to Gibbs awesome 2017 release, You Only Live 2wice. Whereas the earlier release was in nature an allusion to Gibbs’s softer side (dealing with love and loss), with a Jesus as a narrative figure, You Only Die 1nce features a devil on Gibbs’s shoulder, intermittently tempting and chastising the rapper via interludes throughout the album. Slink Johnson, who represents the devil in You Only Die 1nce and correspondingly the Jesus figure in You Only Live 2wice provides the relative link between both albums (and the contrasting heavenly versus demonic album covers).
Gibbs has long been among my favorite rappers, largely because of his slick, gravelly baritone and the strength of the melodic, jazzy samples that usually appear on his tracks.
Certainly, You Only Die 1nce is not one of Gibbs’s best by any stretch. Yet, the album has some great tracks and shines with a touch more glimmer among the long list of rap albums that landed in the last two months of December.
The rapid-fire delivery of “Walk it Off” makes for the most appealing segment of the album followed by the groovy bass lines and tough delivery in “Cosmo Freestyle.” Gibs surrounds the rather subdued samples with inflective, personal reflections and references to more public affairs, such as Diddy’s grim circumstances and his feelings about the rap industry. I could absolutely do without the grating interludes from Slink Johnson (I somehow like them much better in the former record). Yet, at whatever time of year, a little Freddie Gibbs is a pretty great thing.
Favorite song – “Walk it Off”
14. THUS LOVE – All Pleasure
All Pleasure marks my first experience with THUS LOVE, and I confess that the album took some time to grow on me – I gave it several extra spins though, since I am seeing the band open for The Vaccines later in January. Perhaps my sticking point was Echo Mars’s vocal delivery and the band’s glammy post-punk, recalling 00s alt-rockers like Julian Casablancas or even Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos (who dropped a new album on Friday!). While not a massive fan of that period of alternative rock & roll, I suppose it possesses its charms, and All Pleasure does much to invoke the era for better or worse (I suppose for better…).
I give the members extra kudos though since a few of them reside in Brattleboro, Vermont – a swell northern New England town where I have spent considerable time.
Having taught high school in southern Vermont for a few years, I know exactly the type of dumbass snowboard/pothead kids that stagger out of the forests there and can just imagine the goofy behavior of Mars & Crew – at least they can craft some cool throwback tunes to the early 00s.
After a handful of passable tunes, the album kicks into gear with the wonderful piano ballad, “Face to Face” which doubles down on Mars’s croony voice and a solitary piano. From that point, the track list offers a row of bangers. My favorite moments are the steaminess of “Lost in Translation,” references to masturbation on “House on a Hill,” and the spry chorus of “Bread for Blood.” The closer, “Losing a Friend” represents the best song of the project with its groovy bass line echoing through the tune and the final jam closing the song (and album). With the seemingly retro vibes of All Pleasure (and Franz Ferdinand’s recent comeback), perhaps THUS LOVE finds itself ushering in the latest iteration of 00s-styled glam punk (similar to the contemporary resurgence of emo, hardcore, and shoegaze).
Favorite song – “Losing a Friend”
13. The Body – The Crying Out of Things
I love checking out new releases from The Body because the duo’s vibes are so creepy and unsettling in a super creative and artistic way. Some are hit and miss (with their 2021 release I’ve Seen All I Need to See representing the scariest release ever recorded as music), but their projects are usually quite solid and engaging. November 2024 brought us their newest (after a February collaboration with Dis Fig, The Crying out of Things”) which per usual offers a bit of an industrial vibe somewhat similar to (but not quite as strong as) the Full of Hell/Andrew Nolan release discussed at length later.
In frequent instances in this album (and past projects), The Body’s return to the use of drum distortion expressed as static noise (or as a complement to analog percussion) might seem off-putting to most ears.
However, the way drummer, Lee Buford, executes the effect can offer a satisfying sonic experience for my sensibilities. As in past efforts, the band also employs some nuanced horns courtesy of Dan Blacksburg (occurring in “Last Things,” “Careless and Worn,” “The Premonition”) and “singer” Chip King’s ear-splitting shrieking in the place of a vocal.
All my favorite dimensions of The Body’s approach to crafting music coalesce in “Less Meaning” – the wall of thundering distortion accompanying an aggressive, steadily quickening beat would make Ministry’s Al Jorgensen blush. Many of The Body’s critics have suggested their compositions approach the unlistenable, and they are not necessarily wrong. The songs on any given release from the duo at least produce the perfect soundtrack for any Halloween haunted house designed to generate terrified children and calls to the local authorities.
Favorite song – “Less Meaning”
12. The Green Child – Look Familiar
Having never heard of Australian band The Green Child, I was pleasantly surprised with this mid-November indie rock release. The aspect making Look Familiar so compelling is the variance in style and genre with which The Green Child operates in the LP. Synth-pop seems to underlie most of the album’s cuts (occasionally employing motorik beats), but the tunes branch out into some surprising territory. Starting with the opener, “Wow Factor,” a lite synth-pop song resembling a mid-80s cut from a band like OMD.
The album’s grooves pivot a couple of songs later to something akin to classic rock in “Easy Window,” recalling the drum beat and vocal in Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk.”
Occasionally, a bit of psych is offered into the mix highlighted in “Look Familiar” and “Step Over Water.” For me though, the heights of this project occur in the hardest rockers that swerve furthest away from the synth-pop vibes (“Year of the Books” and the album standout “Feet Are Rebels”). Since Look Familiar’s release, I’ve seen a gaggle of reviewers attempt to pin the project down with labels such as synthy post-punk, psychedelic pop, krautrock, motoric, etc. However, the attractiveness of the album simply rests in its elusiveness.
Favorite song – “Feet Are Rebels”
11. Fucked Up – Someday
I sadly missed the heyday of Fucked Up in the late 00s and early 10s. To compensate, I have paid close attention to the stuff the band has released since about 2018 (which has been quite a lot) – with special regard for the epically strange Year of the Horse. There have also been recordings that I just couldn’t wrap my head around (see 2023’s One Day). Happily, Someday (Fucked Up’s second album in 2024) is an easily accessible outing in the band’s vast and prolific catalog. The album is the third in a series of four albums incorporating the theme of “day” as a concept. The members of Fucked Up have approached these “days” albums as an exercise in speed recording – each musician has twenty-four hours to finish their part.
Fucked Up has more or less departed from their pure hardcore punk roots, and Someday reflects just how far separated they are from the genre.
The album’s harmonic arrangements featuring a cheerful chorus of voices nearly throughout the album resemble Canadian supergroup The New Pornographers. (I‘m thinking specifically of the vibe in the beloved Brill Bruisers). Another similarity to the Pornographers’ album is the switching of vocalists from song to song.
The album’s low point occurs with David Abraham’s typical hardcore shouty lyric on “Man Without Qualities.” Not that shouty is bad per se. Yet, the cut (placed in the middle of the tracklist) interrupts the otherwise very cohesive song set. Thereafter the album satisfyingly returns to the smoother Gouplove vibe with some bangers including “The Court of Miracles,” “Fellow Traveller,” and “In the Company of Sisters.” While I am scratching my head regarding the whole temporal theme of these records, Someday definitely represents the best of the tetralogy so far.
Favorite Song – “Fellow Traveller”
10. El Cousteau – Merci, Non Merci
I saw El Cousteau perform in 2024 as an opener for the rapper MIKE. With his rather slim diminutive appearance, wearing a sleek grey suit and a slim tie, the D.C. rapper didn’t really represent himself as the womanizing figure that his album covers and lyrics portray. I’ve enjoyed El Cousteau’s releases up to this point and those of other similar indie, lo-fi rappers like MIKE, Niontay, Akai Solo, and R.AP. Ferreria (MIKE’s 2024 album, Pinball, was one of my favorite rap LPs of the year). On this early November release, Merci, Non Merci, El Cousteau have leveled up from past releases with some powerful features from Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE. The record’s excellent single, “Words2LiveBy,” probably represents Cousteau’s most prolific career moment, as he and Sweatshirt share some excellent verses.
My favorite verse on the album, Sweatshirt’s “Free Gaza, we on the corner like Israelites,” evokes a clever juxtaposed image of devastation in Palestine with the intimidating presence of Black Hebrew Israelites howling at white folks on random urban street corners. Album standout, “Skinny Jeans and Gucci Belts” features underlying midi video game synths and strings, and offers one of the few instances that El Cousteau sings on the record. I’m hoping to catch Cousteau again, just to see if he appears on stage in his cool grey suit.
Favorite song – “Skinny Jeans and Gucci Belts”
9. FLO – Access All Areas
These three gorge young women from the UK stealthily dropped their debut album, Access All Areas, in mid-November, rising through the murk to become one of my favorite pop R&B albums of 2024. The ambitious LP from the girl group composed of “Misses Jorja, Renée, & Stella” is packed with some bangers, juicy hooks, and relentless harmonies. Clocking in at just over three-quarters of an hour, Access All Areas is a s massively strong debut for the trio – the lyrics are confident, sincere, and crazy positive (precisely the vibe I need at the moment). The first real scorcher of the album is the catchy, “In My Bag,” with a serviceable feature from GloRilla. The hits pour forth from that point, with album highlight, “Walk Like This,” the wonderfully sincere ballad/interlude “Trustworthy,” the intense harmonizing in “Caught Up,” and the steamy “Nocturnal.”
Similar to last year’s debut from UK’s alt-rock band The Last Dinner Party, FLO could seem like a product of overhype and overproduction (a male music producer assembled the ladies from views of Instagram posts – YIKES). I don’t get that vibe though from the album or the members of FLO. Evidently, after joining ranks, the young women slummed it out for a few years, developing their craft, and releasing a few EPs and singles (rather than rushing a debut). The result is a record that sounds genuine and organic, making for an energetic, fun listen to liven up some rather cold January SATURDAY nights.
Favorite song – “Walk Like This”
8. Wallice – The Jester
The artist known as Wallice returns from her 2023 EP, Mr. Big Shot, with quite an impressive debut album. I thought the EP was great, yet The Jester demonstrates a great deal of songwriting maturity not entirely visible from the releases of her earlier catalog. “Gut Punch Love” offers an early hint of that progress on the record, with its fun keys and engaging chorus. The set list really soars in “Clown Like Me,” a collab with the great Albert Hammond Jr., featuring his jangly guitar and exuding a trace of vintage Strokes.
There are some compelling sonic moments in Jester, but for me the showstopper is the album’s first cut, “The Opener.”
Having been to a ton of indie shows and usually very attentive to opening bands, I recognize that supporting artists often have a tough go. The challenges implicit in performing in front of ambivalent crowds in small venues as folks pour in expecting to see the headliner I imagine would be discouraging. Wallice’s lyrical description of the experience in “The Opener” is raw and honest, as the song ends with the dire confessional line, “someone spilled their beer on me.” The Jester is such a strong debut from an obviously talented artist, but I hope that Wallice hasn’t expended all of the gas in her creative tank.
Favorite song – “The Opener”
7. Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes
Having swooned upon listening to Michael Kiwanuka’s powerful 2019 album (KIWANUKA), I confess that his newest release, Small Changes is legitimately less ambitious and epic. One might say that Small Changes is a cozier release and perhaps a perfect album with which to cuddle up with a stuffed Shiba-Inu as wintertime in Colorado (and other places) creeps forward. Yet, the project has some legit slow jams that worm into the ear after a few listens. On the top of that list is the album’s third cut, “One and Only.” The intimate lyrical themes and arrangements here make for a solid representation of the entire project. As usual, Kiwanuka employs pleasing jazzy effects in his compositions, featuring lovely bass lines, string arrangements, and vintage keys that buttress his affinity for 70s-era soul.
My favorite cuts are “Lowdown” parts I & II – really just one long song conspicuously separated into two songs. The first portion relies upon Kiwanuka’s vocal, but the second diverts into an arrangement with some wistful guitar and backing strings recalling a 1970s progressive rock slow jam. After the socially critical messaging addressing the challenges of white supremacy manifested in KIWANUKA, lyrically Small Changes delves into a more intimate space with tunes about love, relationships, and self-discovery. The LP is no doubt a grower, and its pleasures reveal itself with multiple listens. Although initially surprised by his sonic about-face, ultimately, I’m satisfied that Kiwanuka chose not to make the same album twice.
Favorite song/s – “Lowdown” (parts i, ii)
6. Full of Hell/Andrew Nolan – Scraping the Divine
For two years in a row now, Full of Hell has released amazing team-up albums at the end of the year. In December 2023, they dropped the superb When No Birds Sang with shoegazers Nothing. In November of 2024, the grindcore meisters offered the even better Scraping the Divine with Toronto-based noise punk Andrew Nolan. This rather loud album strongly references the heavy industrial metal that I listened to in the late 80s and early 90s – crushing industrial albums like Ministry’s A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste and Skinny Puppy’s Too Dark Park come to mind. Scraping the Divine is downright terrifying.
The nightmare vibes crashing throughout the album approach The Body’s aforementioned I’ve Seen All I Need to See.
I love the sprawling cut “Common Miracles” (that is illustrative of the entire album), with its initial grinding riff, pounding industrial effects and trippy electronics. A second pummeling riff towards the cut’s conclusion brings the composition full circle. Nolan’s earsplitting genius contributes the industrial sounds and creative dub appearances together with a host of features from extreme heavy music giants like Godflesh’s Justin Broadrick and Hatred Surge’s Alex Hughes (among others). Scraping the Divine will especially entertain horror enthusiasts with an appetite for nightmares of mutilation, butchery, and carnage.
Favorite song – “Common Miracles”
5. Kendrick Lamar – GNX
Kendrick Lamar’s feud with Drake has been widely publicized and his December release, GNX, reflects those events. To be honest, though, I couldn’t give two shits. I honestly haven’t paid any attention to Drake since 2017’s More Life (aside from bored one-shot listens to all his releases since then). As a largely ambivalent, uneducated observer, it is at least clear that Lamar is a great deal smarter than Drake. And I won’t even pretend that I understand 99.99% of Lamar’s references on his album (Drake, Super Bowl, Lil’ Wayne, otherwise). Placing all of that aside, GNX is a cool rap album, and I enjoy listening to it, especially the features with SZA.
Given my rather light understanding of rap music nuances (and its various subgenres), I recognize any attempt at a coherent discussion of GNX is futile.
Nevertheless, having listened through most of Lamar’s catalog, I find his artistic brilliance (for me) lies in the how he and his collaborators produce song arrangements and intriguing samples in his compositions. For example, I love how he samples Spanish vocals from Mexican mariachi singer, Deyra Barrera on the opening track “wacced out murals” (and later). There are frequent and effective inclusions of Latin music samples throughout the album (see “gloria,” reincarnated,” “heart pt. 6”).
The absolute masterstroke of GNX though is the musically complex barnburner “reincarnated.” In addition to revisiting Barerra’s Spanish vocal, the track makes use of Tupac’s classic song “Made N-ggaz’ from 1996, but my favorite moment is the call and response segment that Lamar executes with himself near the end. The track is brilliant and likely my favorite song of 2024. I usually don’t care too much about Super Bowl halftime performances, however, I am super excited to see Lamar perform this year (as the Denver Broncos take on…).
Favorite song – obviously “reincarnated”
4. Rauw Alejandro – Cosa Nuestra
I love a good end-of-year reggaeton album. They always seem to sprawl, and by mid-December, I usually have time to enjoy 60-minutes, plus, of Latin music. In 2023, my Latin/reggaeton end-of-year pick was the Myke Towers epic LVEU: VIVE LA TUYA…NO LA MIA. I greatly admired several reggaeton and Latin/Spanish language releases in 2024 (Young Miko, Bad Gyal, Grupo Frontera, and Kali Uchis to name a few). The latest effort from global phenom Rauw Alejandro landed on this list because it is fun as hell and a pleasurable listen throughout its 18 tracks, not to mention the surprisingly varied sounds and styles.
The album recalls Bad Bunny’s return to historic Latin genres like bolero and guaracha in the 2020 release El Último Tour Del Mundo.
Cosa Nuestra ranges from reggaeton (of course) on “Qué Pasaría…” featuring the aforementioned Bad Bunny, to disco on “Touching the Sky,” to super old school salsa romantica (in the phenomenal cover of cover of Frankie Ruiz’s “Tu Con El.”), and the cover of Laura Pausini’s “Se Fue.” I could rap further about all the surprises occurring on the record. Suffice it to say “Más vale ser cabeza de ratón que cola de león, baby!”
Favorite song – “Tu Con El”
3. 070 Shake – Petrichor
070 Shake’s third album is gorgeously lush and very entertaining, generating some lovely arrangements and sonic diversity. Shake’s debut album, Modus Vivendi, was so epic in scale, and this new record nearly matches it, while taking a much larger swing with a ton of variation from song to song along its playlist. From chillout, rappy dance via “What’s Wrong With Me,” gothy, Depeche Mode-style synthpop in “Elephant,” and aspirational arena rock arising in “Never Let Us Fade,” Petrichor’s surprises seem endless.
Reflecting a 1960s surf-pop version of Blondie’s “The Tide is High, the two-in-one tune “Winter Baby/New Jersey Blues” is the best illustration of just how wonderfully strange Petrichor can be. Not everything hits – the extended spoken narrative in “Blood on Your Hands” and “Love” occurring at the back end of the album drag just a touch. But “Never Let Us Fade” with its symphonic arrangement, backing choir, and assisting vocal from Cam recharges the sonic grandeur that occasionally surfaces through Shake’s catalog.
Favorite song – “Vagabond”
2. SZA – SOS Deluxe: LANA
I love that SZA waited to the end of the year to release her albums. It totally fucks with the music press’s end-of-year best-of lists, forcing them to take the absurd step of ranking her albums on the following year’s lists. Not sure if that is intentional, but I nevertheless LOVE IT. After a tremendous amount of delay, LANA was a surprise, evidently conflict-ridden release, as it was a sudden drop on December 20. And (as everyone on the planet knows already) it is marketed as the deluxe release of her brilliant S.O.S., albeit featuring 15 really great songs.
Whether or not LANA qualifies as a genuine album, it certainly represents one of the better releases of the year.
Just like her past two albums, there is some super clever songwriting, exhibiting an absolute genius for employing the perfect sample, and the lyrics on LANA are often introspective, representing much of SZA’s inner thoughts. The clever twist on the bossa nova classic “The Girl from Ipanema” on “BMF” is gold. The major standout, “Kitchen,” cuts to an inner expression of vulnerability associated with letting go of a relationship. The track also sagely samples the Isley Brother’s classic, “Voyage to Atlantis.” With this turn to the highly personal in LANA’s lyrics, it is nearly impossible to believe that the songs are merely unused material from the S.O.S. recording sessions. Here’s to another five years before a new SZA album!
Favorite song: “BMF”
1. Hidden Mothers – Erosion/Avulsion
The British band Hidden Mothers is a new discovery for me, and their debut album, Erosion/Avulsion, ranks among my favorite heavy music releases of 2024 (probably flying just behind Blood Incantation’s Absolute Elsewhere and Infant Island’s Obsidian Wreath). In our current heavy music moment, it might be commonplace to hear a ton of genre crossover, as a throng of heavy music artists has turned to incorporate the sounds of death and black metal with hardcore, post-hardcore, emo, and shoegaze – with those mix-ups arising from track to track, or even chord to chord.
Hidden Mothers identify themselves as a post-hardcore band and are nice exemplars of the aforementioned mixology.
Erosion//Avulsion offers intriguing touches of doom metal (“Death Curl”), progressive metal (“The Grey”), chilled ambiance (“Caton Green”), and even something akin to gothic country al la Rattlesnake Milk, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, and Wovenhand in “Grandfather.” The first track on the album, “Defanged,” immediately showcases the powerplay of clean vocals against aggressive growling and screaming occurring throughout the tracklist. Erosion/Avulsion is indeed an album reflecting an array of moods and emotions and perhaps a great way to kiss off the highs and very low lows of the year that was 2024.
Favorite song – “Defanged”
5 Honorable Mention Albums
Dorothea Pass – Think of Mist
Primal Scream – Come Ahead
Boldy James + Harry Fraud – The Bricktionary
Common Sage – Closer To:
Warmduscher – Too Cold To Hold