Top 10 Albums of 2014 Pt. 2

7. Reighnbeau - Hands
(May 2014 Bridgetown)

Migrating from capacious slowcore to a pummeling brand of fuzzed-out shoegaze, New Mexico's Reighnbeau turned his signature sound inside-out on his most recent full-length effort, Hands. The sound of the album is simultaneously atmospheric and crowded, rushes of airy guitar coursing through primal rhythms like white water rapids. All that attempts to raft atop the swift flow of trebly noise, (breathy vocals and the occasional synth tone), is pulled under. Reighnbeau's approach to songwriting is a study in minimal maximalism: cramming as many textures and as much beauty into what is nearly a unified drone.

RIYL: Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, Airiel

6. Death Grips - N*****s On The Moon

(June 2014 Harvest)

A sensory feast for the ears, Death Grips' N****s on the Moon is the hip-hop trio's most puzzling effort, much less linear than previous outings like the punk rock influenced mixtape Exmilitary or the sinewy industrial assault of No Love Deep Web. N****s on the Moon finds the trio eschewing the distorted, fat synths that so defined their work for a more brittle sound built up from sliced-up Bjork vocal samples and warbly percussion. Stefan Burnett's lyrics, though delivered with the same ferocity as always, veer from the unhinged violence they conveyed in previous efforts, instead bordering on dadaist absurdity. From the jarring beat drop at the beginning of "Up My Sleeves" to the samply freakout that concludes "Big Dipper", N****s on the Moon has become my favorite Death Grips album since its release date.

RIYL: Clipping, Wolf Eyes, Swans

5. Barlow - Four Castles

(July 2014 Self-Released)

Four Castles is a brief, but powerful dose of old-school lo-fi pop, borrowing influence from Sebadoh's noisy brand of proto-emo as well as the catchy fuzz-pop peddled by Robert Pollard's Guided By Voices. It's not merely an act of revivalism, though; the Pennsylvanian trio uses the sound of its influencers as a benchmark for building upon, injecting a healthy measure of shoegaziness into their gritty sound and incorporating elements of Captured Tracks surf pop into the mix. Highlights of the album include the sludgy, yet ethereal, opener "Missionary" and the muscly punk assault of "Visor".

RILY: Guided By Voices, Early My Bloody Valentine, Beach Fossils

Cassette Corner: Reighnbeau - "Hands"

Reighnbeau - Hands

(Bridgetown Records 2014)

Though I've been a stalwart supporter of shoegaze ever since I first laid ears on the genre, it can, at times, be a rather polarizing scene. Most shoegaze bands could fit into one of two camps, each of which is identified by its own brew of instrumentation. Most populated these days is the dream-pop faction of shoegaze. Cloaked in a bubble of reverb, these bands possess a watery guitar tone that ripples and dissipates endlessly across its own surface area, strummed chords displacing shimmering crests in their wake as if a jet ski. The drums are often relegated to the background and vocals tend to be rather theatric, taking heavy influence from the Cocteau Twins. The other brand of 'gazing stems from My Bloody Valentine's guitar tone. While the dream-pop style focuses on lightness, MBV's sound is like a black hole, an infinitely dense point in space from which nothing can escape. To listen to these bands is to be consumed in droning noise, pounding percussion and gnarled feedback propelling you along. Each of these is great to listen to on its own, but for a new shoegaze release to catch my attention it must find a way to bridge the gap between elegance and abrasion. Hands, the newest cassette by New Mexico's Reighnbeau, does just that.

It's perhaps most evident on the opening track, "Splinters" in which frontman Bryce Hample and guest vocalist Emma Crane whisper over trebly guitar chords, kicking up residual twinkle that arcs and spirals above all else. This beauty is as fragile as a post-snooze button dream, shattered by a gale force pulse of dark guitar drone. In this way, Reighnbeau has two strategies to approach a hook. First, there's the traditional manner of doing so: a dramatic chord change, a captivating string of plucked notes. But there's also a tonal approach as well, lacing two contrasting textures and timbres together in an act of transitional crescendo. Could this principle be illustrated in the album's cover art, reminiscent of the yin-yang symbol? It certainly is bold, minimal, driven by contrast.