One person’s ceiling is another person’s floor. Therefore, my claims that this list of records that dropped in 2024 is better than anything else are certainly worthy of a healthy debate. Yes, Charli XCX is talented, but I’m 55-years-old, and in this critic’s opinion, 55 -year-old men digging on the same type of music people 40 years younger are digging are chasing the wrong sounds.
The next of couple weeks, this column will feature what I think are 10 of the best of 2024.
They are:
10. Cody Dickinson: “Homemade” (Petaluma Records). Cody Dickinson’s solo debut finds the drummer and founding member of North Mississippi All Stars treading on familiar ground while also stretching his musical wings. That familiar ground is sounds reminiscent of his full-time musical offerings, that of dance-floor packing, boogie-heavy jam and blues. “Homemade,” however, also finds Dickinson exploring indie and experimental rock via “Easy”; KISS-inspired 1970s FM rock in “Worldwide”; and traditional gospel in “Can’t Feel at Home.” Those non-NMAS sounds come fitting from a dude whose dad produced some of the best independent music of the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s and ’00s.
9. Sour Bridges: “Down and Out” (Sour Bridges). Calling themselves “browngrass,” this Austin, Texas-based quartet are festival ready with a cocktail of bluegrass, old-school country and rock. This is revved-up, front-porch party picking music that dips into the community vibe of roots music and the rowdiness of rock. There’s fist-pumping power in the opener/title track thanks to that click-clack train rhythm, while lyrically, it reveals a song of loneliness. “Have You Seen My Baby” is ready to score a jig, they drop a psychedelic ballad in “Texas Man” and “Drinkin’ All The Way Home” is a cow-punk stomper. Lonely fiddles, pushy, twangy guitars and aching vocals are all part of this well-balanced offering of roots rock.
8. The Heavy Heavy: “One of a Kind” (ATO Records). Ignore the 2024 release date and you’ll think the Heavy Heavy dropped this in 1969, 1978 or 1984, thanks to the sounds of the summer of love, laid back R&B or loads of jangle à la Laurel Canyon or Paisley Underground. The opener in “One of a Kind” is drenched in reverb, while “Happiness” is sugary sweet and loaded with pop. “Everything” is a psychedelic jam, and that jangle guitar is dreamy and wandering in the closer “Salina.” The guitars are tripped, the harmonies are thick and listeners will revel in this album’s catchiness: It’s wonderful.
7. Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms: “Gold In Your Pocket” (Free Dirt Records). This is country music how it was, and how it should be. With aching vocals that hit on religion and relationships that float over solid instrumentation, Klauder and Willms are laying out music that’s forever yours. Flatpicking introduces the record on the mournful yet celebratory “He’s Gone,” as we mourn a passing yet celebrate the afterlife; and a fiddle cries to pack a dance floor on “Most Lonely day.” “Too Far Gone” has a great shuffle, and that shuffle turns to swing on the Western swing-heavy “Chained by Desire.” Country music so loaded with musical chops treads into hillbilly jazz territory, chops that will pack a dance floor.
6. Sheverb: “She Rides Again” (Peacock Sunrise Records). Part Ennio Morricone, part Ventures, this Austin, Texas-based and female-heavy band deliver all the punchy fun of surf rock and all the dramatic and sweeping sounds of a Morricone-scored film. They get into psychedelic mode right out of the gate with “Midnight Cowgirl,” they dip into desert weirdness in “Pamela Anderson was a Prophet” and “Rock and Roll Song” delivers subtle jangle. This is psychedelic surf-rock that’s your perfect soundtrack to score desert meanderings, thick and heavy themes for the movie in your head.
Numbers five through one will be printed next week.
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
