Drawing to a close my now usual summary, I hereby present those cuts that have best soundtracked my year – the only rule being that each entrant could only be represented once in order to best share the love.
On heavy rotation throughout the year, these tracks truly rock/humble/excite – delete as appropriate. Do make sure you get to the bottom of the list. In a just world all these tracks would be in the top 10. To help you explore this list I’ve also put together a Spotify playlist with all those tracks that it has on its books (circa 90%).
No doubt you had your own favourites. Here are mine (rough genre given in brackets):
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1. envy – “Ticking Time And String” (Post-Rock/Metal)
If you’re not GY!BE (see #3), this is how you do post-rock in 2015. Tetsuya Fukagawa’s opens the brilliant “Ticking Time And String” with a surprising lullaby, a track in which monumental doom and his deathly growl later comes tailor-made for festival headlining at the summit of Mt. Fuji, shouting into the faces of the Gods. When its crying post-rock strings arrive they do so with them the deep swell of emotion so much similar material has lacked of late. As intended, they and envy defy you to hold back the tears.
2. Desaparecidos – “Te Amo Camila Vallejo” (Emo/Rock)
Hands up. Conor Oberst has a soft spot in this writer’s heart and his whiny voice sounds as good to these ears over tender acoustics as it does when he’s rocking out as Desaparecidos – his recently reignited vehicle for triumphant emo yowling. The irrepressible “Te Amo Camila Vallejo” is his new LP’s highlight, injecting pure energy into its 3.5 minutes and fist-pumping its way to a climax that puts it amongst his best recordings.
3. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – “Piss Crowns Are Trebled” (Post-Rock)
The album from which the evocatively titled “Piss Crowns Are Trebled” comes contains only four tracks and they are to be taken as a single pill. While elsewhere the LP may languish in atmospheric drones, its final statement is one loooong climax that builds and crashes, smears of feedback and strong string parts simmering through waves of crescendos. This is GY!BE at their elemental best.
4. Grimes – “Venus Fly feat. Janelle Monáe” (Pop)
The queen of electro-pop’s feminist voices, Claire Boucher’s “Venus Fly” is ridiculously catchy, yet there are bruises under its concealer. “Why you looking at me?” asks Janelle Monáe, calling out those for whom looks are everything (or worse), the track’s narrative then becoming more macabre and violent. As the less-than-subtle is pushed into brutal via a crazy-powerful beat, it’s clear the fight-back has another anthem.
5. Chelsea Wolfe – “Grey Days” (Folk/Metal/Goth)
[sic]’s AOTY award already in the bag with the stunning Abyss, “Grey Days” is one Chelsea Wolfe’s most striking out-takes and she has many. Indicative of the best of witchy combinations of ominous melody and frosty vocals, it growls less obviously than some of her doomed material, deploying sombre strings where others might pummel with sub-bass. Remarkable as it sounds, this really is Wolfe’s lighter side.
6. Sonic Jesus – “Triumph” (Post-Punk/Psyche-Rock)
Don’t be fooled into thinking all of Sonic Jesus’s lengthy Neither Virtue Nor Anger sounds like “Triumph” because it most certainly does not. It’s a gloriously gloomy post-punk outlier with a steely, industrial edge in a sea of nevertheless quality psyche-rock. True, what sets it apart is partly an unusual swirl of organ, but it’s the track’s unstoppable chug and spectacular vocal that really bring home the bacon.
7. GHXST – “No Luck” (Grunge/Blues/Rock)
This shit-kicking mosh-fest is built on nasty blues run through some of sort of electric chair-cum-pedal, Shelly X’s sexy vocal silhouetted against a swarm of strobe light. They call the pounding noise they produce “doom-grunge”. In our eager review we called it “no wave swamp-fuzz”. Whatever, its apt buzz-saw solo may be out of time, sure, but it’ll never be out fashion.
8. Ceremony – “Bleeder” (Post-Punk)
Is there room for yet more post-punk that sounds like Joy Division/Interpol? Hell yes, if you’re anything like us. “Bleeder” is one of many stand-outs from Ceremony’s killer fifth album The L-Shaped Man. It has the cold precision of a serial killer, offering a mid-range mix of ominous drums and rumbling bass over which surf-punk licks gradually strangle the life out of any resistance you may have left.
9. Pile – “The World Is Your Motel” (Indie-Punk/Post-Hardcore)
“The World Is Your Motel” takes its particularly jagged post-hardcore squeal on a tour of the Touch & Go back-catalogue from the off, its stabbing guitar raining in from all angles, murderous bass patrolling the perimeter, and a frenzied vocal marshalling proceedings like a snarling Cerberus. It’s an exhilarating ride that leaves you bruised, confused and rabid for the rest of the album.
10. METZ – “Acetate” (Grunge/Post-Hardcore)
Owners of this year’s best leaden riff, METZ have always known how to rip it and they’ve never done it more convincingly than on “Acetate”. Their second LP didn’t have the consistency to hit these extremes often, but here their throaty bass and white-hot noise are as heavy as bag as spanners and manage to both whet the appetite and leaving you wanting more. And there’s definitely an art to that.
11. Deaf Wish – “Calypso” (Noise-Rock)
Like the best of artists there’s brain to Deaf Wish’s brawn and their excellent LP, Pain, closes on “Calypso”. Deftly woven into its angular racket, which owes its existence more to NYC than it does the band’s native Melbourne, pretty guitar dances out of the shadows as a tender spoken-word adds melody that just for a moment sounds like poetry: “sometimes my life turns to noise.” Too true.
12. Protomartyr – “Why Does It Shake?” (Post-Punk/Punk-Rock)
“Why Does It Shake?” Protomartyr’s fascinating frontman Joe Casey repeats. “The body” he then clarifies. He’s in existentialist form for the remainder of the intelligent punk-rocker, too, querying humanity’s place in the circle of life and coming to terms more specifically with his mother’s final battle with Alzheimer’s. He never asks for sympathy, though, and it makes his questioning missive even more magnetic.
13. Bully – “I Remember” (Alt-Rock/Grunge)
Amidst a wealth of classy contenders, Alicia Bognanno has claimed 2015 as her own, the firebrand frontwomen elevating her band’s scrappy indie-punk to grungier hunting grounds in a single bound. The feisty “I Remember” is just two minutes long, but it packs a mighty punch, Bognanno howling a worrying long list of dark suppressions as if cornered in her therapist’s office.
14. Dilly Dally – “Desire” (Punk/Alt-Rock)
Most sane people enjoy a blast of Black Francis and “Desire” has many of his hallmarks. He didn’t have a voice like guitarist Katie Monks though. She’s only in her 20s, but she sounds like she’s suffered from years of dank self-abuse and it elevates Dilly Dally’s material from good to spectacular. This is the companion-piece in many ways to Bully’s “I Remember” (see #13).
15. The Decemberists – “Carolina Low” (Folk/Literate Indie)
Equally at home in grandiose shanties as they are in bare-bones folk, The Decemberists are always an intriguing proposition. Add to that Colin Meloy’s unique historical narratives and they’re always worth a listen. As for “Carolina Low”, it sounds like it belongs on the Cold Mountain soundtrack, a stunningly stripped-back acoustic number that’s chilly all the way to its deep roots.
16. Jupiter-C – “Locust” (Dream-Pop/Darkwave)
Ashiya Eastwood and David Kane make brooding electro-pop that ranges from slo-mo rattles that recall cooler-than-you Aussies HTRK to buzzed-out dream-pop and darkwave manoeuvres. The stand-out “Locust” houses snare programmes so sharp they’re dangerous, devastating guitar distortion and super-strong male-female vocal melodies for starters. Gorge yourselves accordingly.
17. Keroscene – “Cotton Candy” (Alt-Rock)
They don’t make music like they used to anymore, do they? In fact they do. Keroscene are Exhibit A and the London band offer a nostalgic take on late-80s noise/alt-rock. “Cotton Candy” bathes in melodic synth, chimes and harsh snares like a lost J&MC number stripped of feedback. It then develops into a lovely daydream about the pretty indie girl at the front of class, which those of a certain age ought to enjoy tremendously.
18. Meat Wave – “Sunlight” (Punk-Rock/Alt-Rock)
Meat Wave like it heavy and they like it poppy. Flirting with the type of power guitar favoured by Foo Fighters and Feeder you might think them undeserving of your attention, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find a song like “Sunlight”. It’s vaguely Smashing Pumpkins-reminiscent and really turns the screw via serrated guitar work and a tortured vocal. Shame they’re just too orderly elsewhere for a proper punk band.
19. Milk Teeth – “No Fun” (Grunge/Emo)
You know you’re old when you can’t get on board with what the kids are listening to. Prepare to lose a few years then because “No Fun” is both made by youngsters and – perhaps surprisingly given its title – great fun too. The screaming vocal is shared by Josh Bannister and Becky Blomfield and the track’s wild chorus is pure adrenaline, plonking the band straight into the pogoing pit of a real rock night.
20. Grave Babies – “Eternal (On & On)” (Goth-Rock)
There’s a power to proper 80s Goth-rocking and it tends to be driven from chest-bursting snares, low-end bass guitar providing both the gloom and a dark counterpoint to the percussive explosions. “Eternal (On & On)” is no exception, its eviscerating guitar hooks combining to a statement of some considerable stature. Music needn’t always look forward to be appealing.
21. Wolf Eyes – “Enemy Ladder” (Hardcore/Trip-Metal)
Crazy prolific noise-lords Wolf Eyes have made a career of sounding like no-one else. Their new work is corrosive and yet it houses recognisable rockers. These same tracks grind out grooves through pure feedback and sludge. With that in mind, consider just how destructive “Enemy Ladder” is, its heavyweight HC crunch unloading like broadsides from the punishing guitars.
22. Girl Band – “Pears For Lunch” (Post-Punk/Noise-Rock/Post-Hardcore)
Highlights tumble and throb from Girl Band’s explosive Holding Hands With Jamie at regular intervals, chief of which is the disorientating “Pears For Lunch” – an ugly snapshot into depression, mental disorder and watching Top Gear with your trousers down. Industrial punk and abrasive post-hardcore surge into one hot stream. It’s therapy. It’s cause. It’s revealing. It’s exhausting.
23. Grey Hairs – “Ship” (Post-Hardcore/Sludgecore)
Opening with a peel of feedback as a jack is inserted into a port, the warts-and-all “Ship” sludgily chugs around its middle section before latterly finding a heavy QOTSA groove on which to close. Tell anyone this was on Sub Pop – you can choose your own decade – and they’d believe you in a heartbeat. It’s ferocious music to wet your pants to (yes, that’s a Pissed Jeans reference).
24. Empress Of – “How Do You Do It” (Electro-Pop)
Here there’s a neat beat-squelch to satisfy the rhythm, but it’s the interplay of Lorely Rodriguez’s striking, Austra-like vocal and that silly little synth line that really snags the ear. “How Do You Do It” is a track that reputedly shows the unglamorous side of being a touring musician, and how it’s all totally worth it for “one hour of bliss on stage”. Suffice it to say it handles the latter better.
25. Colleen – “Captain Of None” (Electronica/Art-Pop)
Building on a flighty, intangible opening of plinky-plonk electronics and plucked viola, “Captain Of None” comes alive at its midpoint via a regular beat over which French multi-instrumentalist Cécile Schott becomes increasingly agitated. Her smart and breathy composition, the title track from her equally impressive album, manages both to engage the brain and raise a wry smile.
26. Wax Idols – “Goodbye Baby” (Goth/Alt-Rock)
American Tragic, from which the hard-rocking “Goodbye Baby” comes, is a break-up album and on it Hether Fortune tackles the “whole spectrum of grief”. The LP may lose its way a little on the flip, but here she deals strongly with defiance and protest (the track ought to called “I’ve had enough”). When a stabbing synth part robbed from The Cure kicks in to the distortion you’re practically cheering her on.
27. Tamaryn – “Sugar Fix” (Goth-Rock/New Wave)
Tamaryn’s album didn’t quite make the cut in our releases of 2015 feature, but her “Sugar Fix” is a dark delight, another that borrows Gothic guitar and bass work from The Cure, this time from their anthemic “Burn”, and sets them against a swooping and fragile Elisabeth Fraser-style vocal. It’s simultaneously tender and ominous, punching below the belt whilst wearing a halo.
28. Kurt Vile – “Pretty Pimpin” (Singer-Songwriter/Heartland Rock)
The deliciously unkempt lead single from the 2015 LP, “Pretty Pimpin” sees Kurt Vile struggle with his identity in the mirror. Downloading his thoughts into song form, he retreats musically to his FM heartland, bubbling some spidery Lynyrd Skynyrd chords around his lazy Philly drawl. His split personality is our gain, however, as it lets him play snotty Vile off against silly Vile for charming results.
29. Cowboy Lovers – “Poor Lord” (Rock)
“Poor Lord” is the jam from an album full of them. Formerly hometown rock DJs in Alicante, F. Pascual and H. Bardisa now ply their trade as a hard-hitting guitar-and-drums duo. This enthusiastic but all-too-brief cut contorts between marauding sleaze and infectious psyche-rock riffs. Cowboy Lovers make a compelling case as to why no-one’s ever sold their soul to the devil over a turntable.
30. Wilco – “You Satellite” (Singer-Songwriter/Heartland Rock)
You probably know Lou Reed once wrote a song about a satellite. Well, now Wilco has done so too and it’s a subtle rocker that slowly unfurls itself like a contortionist extending to full stretch. Its beautiful restraint allows its author to detail his inner conflicts in reserved tones when perhaps the temptation might have been to yell them from the rooftops.
31. Diet Cig – “Dinner Date” (Indie/Slacker Punk)
The three-minute pop song is missed and resented in roughly equal measure. In any case, these days it could be said to have morphed into a spiky track like “Dinner Date”. It’s lightly distorted indie-punk that succinctly charts certain strains of the modern malaise, tackling subjects such as the early expiration of organic produce and daddy issues, Alex Luciano’s sweet vocal covering serious topics.
32. The Soft Moon – “Feel” (Darkwave)
Arch-miserablist Louis Vasquez fancies himself a time traveller – his chosen destination the dark clubs of the early 1980s. Mining a minimal seam of lost Depeche Mode wavers, his stuttering drum machine, bassy beats and metallic post-punk riffs pulse out of the speaker cones like a succession of slaps to your windblown skin. They hurt because they’re supposed to.
33. A Place To Bury Strangers – “I’m So Clean” (Noise-Rock/Post-Punk)
Coming on like a soundboard capture of some famed APTBS live-show, “I’m So Clean” is visceral, nasty and anything but cleanly committed to tape. It feels like careering face first into a roll of rusty barbwire. Even the equipment doesn’t like being pushed this hard and is often little more than electronic protest and feedback. All that static can’t help but get the dopamine receptors firing.
34. Bernard + Edith – “Crocodile” (New Wave/Dream-Pop)
There’s no getting around it. “Crocodile” sounds a lot like The Cocteau Twins and its title implies a working knowledge of Ian McCulloch. Don’t blame Bernard + Edith though, for their excellent and varied Jem LP sounds like a lot of people. Never meet your heroes, they say. Is it really so bad to emulate them, though? “Crocodile” suggests not, because its airy beauty is truly something to behold.
35. Sealings – “White Devil” (Shoegaze/Noise-Rock)
The best track on Sealings’ shoegazy I’m A Bastard LP is “My Boyfriend’s Dead”, but we included that in our 2010 list so onto “White Devil”. The band have cleaned up ever so slightly over the last five years, but they still know how to lacerate an eardrum and this two-minute noise-rock blaster combines tumbling shards of guitar sharp enough to cut you in half.
36. Birdskulls – “Good Enough” (Grunge/Pop-Punk)
British guitar music sucks, right? Wrong. It must be said that Birdskulls are far from re-writing the rulebook, but their poppy grunge fuzz is plenty better than “Good Enough”. Beneath the obligatory plaid there’s satisfyingly chunky guitar action, throaty bass and singer who knows how to do that gargling broken glass trick. In 1995 this sort of thing used to go in the chart, you know.
37. Father John Misty – “The Ideal Husband” (Country-Rock)
You’ve never heard a bar-room confessional quite like this. Josh Tillman is prone to slander, drives home drunk and practices unsafe sport-sex. Consequently he’s at his most rocking here, and his atmosphere feels dangerous. The fists are going to start flying, we’re just unsure when. His stomp is eloquent all the same, but self-loathing and it becomes more and more desperate with the realisation he is not “The Ideal Husband.”
38. Courtesy – “ComEd” (Psyche-Pop/Space-Rock)
Super-spacey synth work sets the hypnotic tone: precise, but sparse percussion spitting out barycentric co-ordinates like Morse code. An enigmatic vocal starts robotically, drifting off into choral backing. Finding common ground between Liars and The Flaming Lips, tracks like this ensured Chicago residents Courtesy’s Slow Bruise LP was a real cool spool, as the kids used to say.
39. Moon Duo – “Free The Skull” (Psyche-Rock)
Psyche-rock gets a lot of gyp for its unconcentrated sprawl, but the opening exchanges on “Free The Skull” are as tight as you like. Two bare drum rolls and the fuzz riffs ride on in. Ripley Johnson is to the point with his sleepy vocal in under twenty seconds, too, and this all sets the scene for a brilliantly catchy four-minute space-rocker in which there’s still time for some sweet solo action. On Mars this would be classed as pop.
40. Björk – “notget” (Electronica/Singer-Songwriter)
Though Björk has never let a producer dominate her, the thought of a proper three-way collab with her, Arca and The Haxan Cloak appealed tremendously. The enigmatic “notget”, written by all three, was about as close as that dream got, future beats slashing at the track’s fabric, dirty low-end throb keeping her vocal grounded. Together they splutter towards event horizon.
41. Disappears – “Irreal” (Post-Punk/Space-rock)
Even before the monumental drums crash in to disrupt the waveform like a big hit on the Richter scale, you know “Irreal” is a serious bit of kit. It’s the needling quality of that cold-fingered guitar, the deathly monotone of the vocal. Disappears have conjured a distinctly outer-rings concept of humanity like all that had to go on was the contents of the Voyager probe.
42. Viet Cong – “Continental Shelf” (Post-Punk)
On their S/T debut LP, you got the impression Viet Cong didn’t often show their full hand. They relished instead their place in the post-punk shadows, fizzing up a defensive wall of distortion. On “Continental Shelf”, however the guard came down. Sure, there’s the usual simmering stomp and snarl, but so too passages of assured and kinda sleazy punk-rock that smack of the genesis of a new great.
43. Sufjan Stevens – “Should Have Known Better” (Singer-Songwriter/Folk)
Sufjan Stevens does tear-stained beauty quite unlike anyone else. Here he struggles with maternal abandonment and a conflicted childhood, and his exposed finger-plucking does imbue an apt sense of melancholy to proceedings. Almost imperceptible, though, are choral flourishes and impossibly soft keys and they reveal him to be a tender optimist despite everything.
44. Girlpool – “Ideal World” (Indie-Punk)
As others have said, you could sit a novice down and have the minimal chords to “Ideal World” nailed in under a minute, but that’s not the point. With no percussion to hide behind, Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker know how vulnerable their position is and it makes their croaky confessional hit that bit harder. Making naivety compelling is a skill in itself.
45. Pale Blue – “One Last Thing” (Italo/Electro-Pop)
Captured Tracks are excellent at many things but hitherto that hasn’t included Italo-styled dance music – that’s why Mike Sniper put it out on new label Two Mikes Records. It’s no surprise to find the second Mike is Simonetti of Chromatics and Glass Candy and his “One Last Thing” cruises an irresistible bass pulse, a tell-tale vocal swooping in and out on disinterested loops. It’s just got this bounce that defies you to stay still.
46. Best Friends – “Happy Anniversary” (Indie-Rock)
This is a track that starts off innocently enough, jangling along like any old indie-rock you care to mention. It needs a dose of something to elevate it though, and that’s just what it gets via an impassioned and serrated vocal turn. From here on it’s the interplay of sunny guitar and darker drums that do the damage. You’d be amazed how wild the kids go for this one in the pit.
47. Purity Ring – “Stranger Than Earth” (Pop/Bass-Pop)
The new album disappointed, Purity Ring’s wholesale conversion to linear-if-decent pop undoing much of their previously exciting work. That’s not to say it wasn’t without highlight, however, and “Stranger Than Earth” is a cutesy composition undercut with cool trap rips and Bass-pop muscle. It also ramps up to a large EDM/trance drop, which ultimately will make or break it for you.
48. Braids – “Sore Eyes” (Electro-Pop)
Braids cut a very svelte, yet feminist figure in 2015 and, despite struggling through a wall of cigarette smoke, “Sore Eyes” still managed to flutter its long lashes more seductively than most. It’s tasteful, minimal electro-pop of quality that thrives on surges of synth, percussive clicks and an insistent keyboard refrain which, when combined, feel really quite powerful indeed.
49. Yung – “Nobody Cares” (Punk-Rock/Post-Hardcore)
Yung’s splendid Alter EP was educated at the Cloud Nothings school of post-HC pop-punk, strong melodies an integral part of the band’s breakneck compositions. Each is smeared with youthful optimism and the brief “Nobody Cares” mixes up Mikkel Holm Silkjær’s irresistible nu-grunge growls with spidery bass-lines and jangling acoustic passages – the sort of out-of-nowhere greatness that stops you dead in your tracks.
50. Jenny Hval – “Heaven” (Singer-Songwriter/Experimental)
From Jenny Hval’s wild and weird collection of experimentalism comes this ethereal soother. She can be many things to many people, but here, over a watery and whispery intro that gives way to wispy synths and evocative beat layers, she’s at her most attainable. It’s all relative of course – still she shoe-horns in comparisons with Jesus and disgust for the modern contempt of life.
The best of the rest (no particular order):
botpoem & bugyell – “Wake Up” (Experimental Rock/Electronic Composition)
Colleen Green – “Grind My Teeth” (Pop-Punk)
Lady Lamb – “Billions Of Eyes” (Indie-Pop)
King Khan & BBQ Show – “Kiss My Sister’s Fist” (Garage-Rock/Punk)
The Amazing – “Winter Dress” (Indie/Dream-Pop)
Francisco The Man! – “You & I” (Indie-Rock)
Shunkan – “Our Names” (Indie-Rock/Fuzz Pop)
Pretty Lightning – “Woodlands” (Blues-Psyche)
Total Love – “I Don’t Wanna Work” (Indie-Surf)
Torres – “Strange Hellos” (Singer-Songwriter/Rock)
White Manna – “Evil” (Psyche-Rock)
Eternal Summers – “Together Or Alone” (Indie-Pop)
Nadine Shah – “Fool” (Singer-Songwriter/Rock)
Yvette – “I Don’t Need Anything From Anybody” (Noise Rock)
No Joy – “Remember Nothing” (Shoegaze/Dream-Pop)
His Electro Blues Voice – “Tartlas” (Experimental/Noise-Rock)
U.S. Girls – “Damn That Valley” (Alt-Pop)
Charles Howl – “I Love You 47” (Garage-Surf)
Total Babes – “Circling” (Garage-Rock)
Dignan Porch – “Out Of The Picture” (Indie-Rock/Garage)
The Parrots – “White Fang” (Garage-Psyche)
Titus Andronicus – “Dimed Out” (Punk-Rock)
Courtney Barnett – “Depreston” (Singer-Songwriter)
Sharon Van Etten – “Just Like Blood” (Singer-Songwriter)
Royal Headache – “Need You” (Garage-Punk/Pop)
Strange Wilds – “Pronoia” (Grunge)
Elvis Depressedly – “N.M.S.S.” (Singer-Songwriter/Indie-Pop)
Horsebeach – “Dana” (Dream-Pop/Indie)
Sheer Mag – “Fan The Flames” (Classic Rock/Lo-fi)
All Dogs – “That Kind Of Girl” (Indie-Rock)
Sarah Mary Chadwick – “Am I Worth It” (Singer-Songwriter)
Autobahn – “Beautiful Place To Die” (Kraut/Post-Punk)
Deerhunter – “Take Care” (Dream-Pop/Indie)
Beach House – “Space Song” (Dream-Pop)
Fuzz – “Rat Race” (Garage-Psyche)
3 Moons – “This Old Christ” (Psyche-Folk)
TRAAMS – “Silver Lining” (Indie-Rock)
Marching Church – “King Of Song” (Art-Punk/New Wave)
O>L>A – “Kind Hearts” (Avant-Pop/Electronic Composition)
Shopping – “No Show” (Post-Punk/Punk-Funk)
Timmy’s Organism – “Get Up, Get Out” (Rock)
Sexwitch – “Kassidat El Hakka” (Psyche/Tribal)
Hey Colossus – “March Of The Headaches” (Experimental Rock/Sludge Metal)
Sports – “Get Bummed Out” (Indie-Pop)
Nao – “Apple Cherry” (Pop/Neo-R&B)
The Holydrug Couple – “I Don’t Feel Like It” (Psyche-Pop)
Krill – “Torturer” (Indie-Punk)
Ought – “Beautiful Blue Sky” (Punk-Rock)
Hop Along – “Horseshoe Crabs” (Indie-Rock)
Sun Kil Moon – “With A Sort Of Grace I Walked To The Bathroom To Cry” (Singer-Songwriter)