Favorite Albums of 2024

1. Good Looks - Lived Here A While

When anyone asks me what this record sounds like, I say it’s “indie rock made by 38-year-olds.” While I’m probably off the mark—singer/guitarist Tyler Jordan is only 36—these breezy, beautiful, and propulsive songs soar with solos that truly take flight. They’ve soundtracked a year filled with high highs, low lows, and gut-wrenching heartbreak. “If It’s Gone” is an all-timer with lines like “May you always know your value/Don’t let fuckers sell you short,” while the crackling “Can You See Me Tonight?” is simply an intensely enjoyable listen.

“Self-destructor” will burrow into the deepest recesses of your mind, as will the sweet love song “Vaughn.” There are few better lines than right before invoking the song subject’s name, “In a year when everything was going wrong, I’m so glad that I met you.” Certainly true. Turn this one on, close your eyes, and let it flow through you. It’s complicated, stormy, beautiful, and, most importantly, so much fun.

2. Zach Bryan - The Great American Bar Scene

Zach Bryan is one of the biggest stars in the world right now, so it’s pretty strange that he released an album this year that feels weirdly slept on. The Great American Bar Scene, released only 314 days after his self-titled album, is another step in his transformation from country-rock poster boy to a singer-songwriter blending rock rave-ups and Bon Iver-infused folk. While many of these songs might not contain the firepower you’d expect for massive crowds, they’re some of the best of his career.

There’s the bubbling bass undercurrent in the morally murky “Oak Island,” the stellar duet “Sandpaper,” where Zach and Bruce Springsteen sound like younger and older versions of the same man singing in tandem, the solemn harmonica of “Pink Skies,” the rave-up energy of “American Nights” (sure to be huge live on subsequent runs), and the mounting singalong of “28.” There’s so much to love here. Dig in and listen deep.

3. Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood

Katie Crutchfield, recording as Waxahatchee, has once again delivered an album brimming with timelessness. Tigers Blood, her sixth record, builds on the sonic rebirth of 2020’s Saint Cloud, where a pivot to country-inflected songwriting and the clarity of sobriety under Brad Cook’s stewardship set a new high-water mark. If Saint Cloud was a rebirth, Tigers Blood is the sound of that new life fully realized. These songs transcend mere craftsmanship; they feel like standards, rooted in authenticity and earned emotional depth.

The record brims with standout moments. “3 Sisters” shifts from harmonized beauty to a driving stomp, while “Ice Cold” blends twangy guitars with Crutchfield’s soaring vocals. MJ Lenderman, Spencer Tweedy, and the Cook brothers contribute to the warmth and immediacy of the album, with tracks like “Right Back to It” embodying the perfect marriage of their talents. Crutchfield’s duet with Lenderman is a career highlight, her falsetto soaring over his sleepy drawl in one of the year’s best songs. From the southern slow burn of “Burns Out at Midnight” to the communal title track, Tigers Blood captures Crutchfield at her peak, documenting a moment where everything—challenges included—feels beautifully and profoundly okay.

4. Japandroids - Fate and Alcohol

How do you make peace with something you thought was over? That question lingered as I spent months with Fate and Alcohol, the fourth and final album from Japandroids—a band that defined my twenties and carried me into my thirties. When they announced the record, it was a shock. The fact that it’s their last? Not so much. Japandroids always burned like a firework, bright and intense, and every album cycle felt like it might be the end. After seven and a half years of silence, they’ve returned with a record that isn’t a grand goodbye but something more satisfying—a rediscovery of the chaotic, joyful energy that made them unforgettable in the first place.

Fate and Alcohol kicks off with “Eye Contact High,” a ripper that immediately pulls you back into their world of rumbling riffs, splashy drums, and Brian King’s howl. From there, it rolls into standouts like “D&T” and “Positively 34th Street,” a miniature epic about regret and second chances that ranks among their very best. Tracks like “Upon Sober Reflection” and “Fugitive Summer” channel the Celebration Rock era, while “All Bets Are Off” feels like the final page of their story—exhausted, bittersweet, and ready to go home. These songs aren’t meant to be overanalyzed; they’re meant to be blasted through speakers or devoured on late-night headphone listens. Japandroids gave us one last shot at full-throttle, messy, romantic chaos, and while it’s imperfect, it’s everything you could hope for from a band that always left it all on the table.

5. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

Manning Fireworks isn’t an album that introduces the next great songwriter—it’s a definitive confirmation of what you might already know if you’ve listened to MJ Lenderman’s previous work: he’s already great. This album is where it all comes into focus. Songs like “Wristwatch” and “She’s Leaving You” are so perfectly crafted that it’s hard to believe they’re not covers of timeless indie rock jams from 30 years ago. And then there are the lines—memorable, quirky, and spot-on. I can’t count how many times I’ve found myself referencing a “houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome” in conversation, or how true the line “Don’t move to New York City, babe / It’s gonna change the way you dress” feels. "A-woo! Bark at the Moon", indeed.

6.  Johnny Blue Skies/Sturgill Simpson - Passage Du Desir

There’s no point in trying to figure out what motivates Sturgill Simpson. Right now, it seems like he’s embracing a completely different moniker, creating some of the best songs of his career with a jam band-like energy and a tour to match (some shows stretching over 3 hours!). “If The Sun Never Rises Again” is gorgeously delicate, with Simpson’s voice gliding effortlessly over the track, while the easy country vibe of “Mint Tea” transitions smoothly into the stunning “One For The Road.” It’s one of the year’s best and most surprising releases.

7. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Wild God

Nick Cave has masterfully navigated grief through immense heartbreak and tragedy in his recent albums, which have served as beautiful meditations on the subject. Wild God, his first with the Bad Seeds in five years, however, feels like a sliver of light, like on "Joy," where Cave is visited by a 'flaming boy in giant sneakers' saying “we've all had too much sorrow is over/now it’s time for joy.  It's the cresting over the darkness of an endless night. Wild God is awe-inspiring, heart-filling, and, at this moment, desperately needed.

8. Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Past Is Still Alive

Hurray For The Riff Raff continue their impressive hot streak with The Past is Still Alive, reuniting with producer Brad Cook to craft a record that feels a little more direct than 2022’s excellent LIFE ON EARTH. Alynda Segarra delivers standout tracks like the pastoral “Buffalo,” the vigorous “Hawkmoon,” the swirling beauty of “Colossus of Roads,” and the poignant duet “The World is Dangerous” with Conor Oberst. It’s a record that manages to feel both intimate and expansive at the same time.

9. Jack White - No Name

Jack White surprise releases a record with no title consisting of 13 songs that sound like lost White Stripes classics. It’s unrelenting, hard rocking, and most importantly, the most fun thing he’s done in years. That’s it. That’s the writeup. Crank this one up loud.

10 . Restorations - Restorations

Restorations have always occupied that hard-to-define space between raw nerve and quiet resolve, where vulnerability meets defiance. For me, they’re more than just a band—they’re a tether to a self I barely recognize anymore. Their music found me before what I now think of as “The Thousand Yard Stare,” before life split wide open. Three months into COVID lockdown, I became a Dad three months prematurely. My son came into the world weighing 1 lb, 11 oz, in the care of masked doctors and nurses whose faces I can’t even picture. Those months rewired everything—how I connected with people, how I saw the world, even how music moved through me. What once flowed easily now feels like it takes blunt force repetition to hit my bones. But Restorations? They still get into my marrow.

Their fifth album, their first since 2018, is no exception. Restorations remain a band that thrives on uninhibited passion and crackling energy, crafting songs that feel lived-in and alive. But this record hits differently. The band—Jon Loudon, Dave Klyman, Dan Zimmerman, Bean Friend, and Jeff Meyers—had to reimagine their creative process, spread out across Philadelphia, Asheville, and Buffalo. They carved out focused bursts of time at Retro City Studios and Gradwell House to meticulously shape and reshape each song. The result feels deliberate yet visceral, kicking off with “Field Recordings,” a track that announces this new era with all the unrelenting force and heart you’d expect. Restorations are still here, still vital, and still finding ways to speak directly to the space between your throat and your heart.

11. Touche Amore - Spiral In A Straight Line

12. Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us

13. Karate - Make It Fit

14. Jamie xx - In Waves

15. Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee

16. Kendrick Lamar - GNX

17. High Vis - Guided Tour

17. Mk.Gee - Two Star and the Dream Police

18. Father John Misty - Mahashmashana

19. Pearl Jam - Dark Matter

20. Cassandra Jenkins - My Light, My Destroyer