2017 may not have been quite the sparkling musical vintage that 2016 was, but there were still plenty of excellent albums to grab the attention of everyone. Here are the top 10 albums from Here & There:
10. Pallbearer - Heartless
The Arkansas doom metallers followed up Foundations of Burden with their most consistently excellent effort yet.
9. Lionize - Nuclear Soul
The Maryland quartet give us another soulful, hard rocking album that provided a strong follow up to Jetpack Soundtrack, led superbly by Chris Brooks as always.
8. All Them Witches - Sleeping Through the War
The Nashville psychedelic rockers went from strength to strength in 2017, and Sleeping Through the War summed this up perfectly with its blend of heavy blues and psychedelic rock.
7. Samsara Blues Experiment - One With the Universe
The Berlin kings of the blues jam brought us another album heavy on riffs, atmosphere, and great songs.
6. The National - Sleep Well Beast
Matt Berninger and his distinctive baritone leads the National's 7th album superbly as always, while both pairs of brothers create their usual warm and wonderful melancholic sound that is synonymous with the band.
5. Unsane - Sterilize
A beautifully ugly cacophony, and a return to form for the noisy NYC power trio.
4. Slowdive - Slowdive
Picking up pretty much where Souvlaki left off in the mid 90s, the shoegazers returned with a gem of an album, all gloriously expansive synths and lush guitars. A welcome return.
3. Elder - Reflections of a Floating World
Were it not for the fact that Enslaved and Converge both had excellent new albums waiting for release this year, this would otherwise have won my album of the year title. While not quite a continuation of Lore, Reflections of a Floating World takes its predecessors blueprint and builds on it in a palatable way that makes them ready for a wider audience.
2. Enslaved - E
Another slight re-plot of their musical trajectory, with gambles that largely pay off, from Bergen, Norway's favourite musical sons. The use of a saxophone for the first time ever on an Enslaved album in particular was beautifully done.
1. Converge - The Dusk in Us
Converge continue to rewrite the rulebook of hardcore, pushing the envelope and the boundaries as often as they did on Jane Doe and with the same level of quality of music as a result. Hands down my album of the year.
Honourable mentions:
Power Trip - Nightmare Logic
Colour Haze - In Her Garden
Iron Reagan - Crossover Ministry
Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me
The Menzingers - After the Party
Biggest let down:
Code Orange - Forever. Perfectly good musically, but the clean vocals were horrendous.
Best gig of the year:
A tie between Insomnium at Mama Roux's and All Them Witches at the Institute.
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