INDIEVOTION'S BEST AUSTRALIAN ALBUMS OF 2018

Australian music scene is one of INDIEVOTION’S greatest crushes for more than a decade. Countless hours of pleasure and joy listening to so much remarkable music. In order to make it official we’ve decided to have a new blog feature, last year, appropriately called “Australian Gems” which may sound a whole lot cheesy, but it was inspiration on the spur of the moment.

This new feature presented all throughout 2018 a set of around 50 solo artists and/or bands that highly capture the essence of extraordinary artistic achievement, inventiveness and excellence of the Australian music scene, particularly the one we esteem to call the indie/underground one.

Back in 2016 the musical world got severely hit by that marvelous “sonic hurricane” that was Courtney Barnett’s “Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit”. This so called Courtney Barnett sort of phenomenon worked out like a can opener for the world to know how many brilliant musicians there are in Australia and making fabulous music, in most cases in DIY mode of creativeness.

To say that the Australians music scene did not start with Courtney Barnett is indeed correct, but she made the world look to Australian music like no other artist did before, not even the stunning Steve Kilbey’s The Church have done it, and they probably are the best known ambassadors of Australian music worldwide along with Miss Barnett.

Last year has undoubtedly stood out as another fantastic one for music in the land of Oz. So many great acts, so much refreshingly good new sounds, so much to dream about. Our list does not pretend to be definitive, orthodox nor even try to opinion make about the issue in appreciation, but we’re pretty sure that our list is a very good sample of what was decidedly been the best music proposals made in Australia during 2018.

All albums scored between 8/10 and 10/10.

ALBUM OF THE MONTH (December): Kristin Hersh - Possible Dust Clouds (2018)

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 10/10

ALBUM OF THE WEEK (#52): J. Mascis - Elastic Days (2018)

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 8/10

ALBUM OF THE WEEK (#51): Rays - You Can Get there From Here (2018)

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 8,5/10

ALBUM OF THE WEEK (#50): Pill - Soft Hell (2018)

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 8.5/10

AUSTRALIAN GEMS 2018: The Ocean Party - The Oddfellows' Hall

INDIEVOTION SCORES: 8.5/10

2018 IN MUSIC SESSIONS (Dec): Courtney Barnett at Kexp

ALBUM OF THE WEEK (#49): Creux Lies - The Hearth (2018)

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 8/10

ACTORS: Consecration in Seattle (Live at KEXP)

EP OF THE WEEK: The Native Cats ~ Spiro Scratch

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 8/10

ALBUM OF THE MONTH (November): Emma Ruth Rundle - On Dark Horses (2018)

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 9/10

ALBUM OF THE WEEK (#48): Vagina Lips - Generation Y (2018)

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 7.5/10

2018 IN MUSIC SESSIONS (Nov): Tennis

ALBUM OF THE WEEK (#47): Neurotic Fiction - Pulp Music (2018)

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 8/10

ALBUM OF THE MONTH [October]: INTERPOL - Marauder (2018)

It is not any unusual when the subject involves Interpol discography to often hear and / or read critics moaning about how good they used to be sixteen years ago after the elegant post punk display of «Turn on The Bright Lights» or when Carlos Dengler was playing bass with the band and how he did craft their signature sound, blah, blah, blah...

People seem to have some hardship in putting things under perspective concerning some iconic bands and when it comes to Interpol that happens quite often. Interpol´s debut album did push the band really higher and thus consequently originating the sudden appearance of a crowd of devotees from all over. The band was probably at the acme of their angst ridden musical creativity, living the life at the speed of light and mistakes of more youthful years and though their followers and critics did want the band to keep compulsively releasing recurrent altered versions of the first album that would not happen.

Interpol might have been marked to be stadium fillers just like Foo Fighters and bands alike but things worked out for the band quite differently. Interpol would not become the aforementioned stadium fillers because the fashionable exuberance, cleanness and foggy aura of their musical and stage aesthetic demanded something else different so, instead of arenas Interpol began selling out amphitheaters all around the Planet Earth feeding the militancy of angst hungry crowds.

By the time «El Pintor» was released many believed Interpol was living the last days of musical creativity and becoming boringly predictable. Such a huge misconception this would prove out to be. A couple of months ago the band decided to challenge the prejudices of the musical world when unexpectedly announced a new album during 2018. What were they up to and what should we expect from Banks, Kessler and Fogarino?

If there is something that makes of Interpol’s sixth album one of the most concise highlights of 2018, lays upon the fact that instead of being nostalgically stuck in the past, obsessively asking themselves if they would be the exciting, sparkling, euphoric post punk 21st century ambassadors forevermore, the band did call a truce with their past and set moving on and the result could not have been more eloquent: «Marauder» is a brilliant, mature album, a crystal clear statement that life goes on, and we all learn for the better or worst on how to deal with the highs and lows and Interpol did that in great fashionable angst ridden clean, chic style.

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 8.5/10

ALBUM OF THE WEEK (#46): SAVAK - Beg Your Pardon (2018)

INDIEVOTION SCORE: 8/10