Every month, Uproxx cultural critic Steven Hyden makes an unranked list of his favorite music-related items released during this period — songs, albums, books, films, you name it.
1. Johnny Blue Skies, Passage Du Desir
Sturgill Simpson’s first music under a different name is the closest he’s come to making a “classic” sounding Sturgill Simpson LP in quite some time. In true paradoxical Sturgill Simpson fashion, being someone else has given him permission to be more like himself. Frankly, it sounds like the record that his label would have killed for in 2019 rather than cage-rattling provocation that was Sound & Fury. The album-opening “Swamp Of Sadness” immediately sets the tone, nodding to A Sailor’s Guide To Earth lyrically (he sings about being “a drunken sailor lost and lonely”) and musically, with warm organ fills and a lightly choogling rhythm section playing off of Sturgill’s bluesy guitar licks. It’s an inviting and amiable sound that unmistakably evokes the record that garnered Sturgill’s first and only Album Of The Year Grammy nomination, before he was sent down an opposing path of contrarianism and rebellion.
2. Jack White, “No Name”
“No Name” — the album Jack White release for free via a 12-inch vinyl distributed at Third Man Records stores — isn’t exactly Jack White’s best solo record. (I still ride for Blunderbuss, his solo debut from 2012, a quasi-Blood On The Tracks about the end of The White Stripes and White’s conflicted emotions about his prodigal partner Meg White.) But it’s the record that people who still check out new Jack White albums in 2024 have been waiting for. And it might even by the album that brings estranged listeners back into the fold. Simply put: It’s Jack White in a room with his crackerjack band, playing extremely loud, on a collection of riff-y rock songs that sound like they were written five minutes before they were recorded. It’s raw, it’s direct, and — this is a compliment — it’s not all that thought out. But the adjective that most applies hasn’t appeared in a Jack White album review since possibly the mid-aughts: Great. “No Name” is actually pretty damn great.
3. Zach Bryan, “Oak Island”
I am a Zach Bryan fan. But my admiration for his talent and prodigious output comes with some serious reservations. His ability to zero in on precise specifics with his words typically isn’t matched by an ability to create equally arresting melodies. For all his flair as a lyrical stylist, his music can be monotonous and flat sounding. So, while Bryan impressively composes a lot of songs, a lot of those songs are hard to distinguish from one another. At some point, his albums always get bogged down in a series of downbeat, mid-tempo dirges in which Zach pines after long-lost girls that he had to leave but can’t ever forget. I wish his latest record, The Great American Bar Scene, had more songs like “Oak Island,” the best song on the record and one of the better tunes in Bryan’s entire catalog. It’s his purest Springsteen homage on an album filled with them, in whch the song’s main character gets tied up with “some boys out in Jersey” who have him on the wrong end of a shady deal.
4. Zach Top, Cold Beer & Country Music
Of all the country albums released by dudes named Zach so far in 2024, this one is my favorite. It actually dropped back in April, though Top received a wave of publicity this month after sitting in with Billy Strings at a festival in Montana. On his own, he favors a Fender Telecaster over an acoustic guitar, and he’s adept at ripping out twangy lines that recall the greats of golden-era Bakersfield country. In that respect, Cold Beer & Country Music reminds me of my favorite ’80s country records, like Dwight Yoakam’s Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc. or Steve Earle’s Guitar Town. Also: The man has an impressive mustache, which is a rarity these days.
5. Ben Seratan, Allora
I raved about the lead single from this album, “New Air,” when it came out back in April (https://uproxx.com/indie/steven-hydens-favorite-music-of-april-2024/ ) for how it condensed everything I love about Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born into one eight-minute track. I’m happy to report that the rest of the album also hits all of my aughts-era indie-loving pleasure centers. Similar to Friko’s Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here — one of 2024’s best indie rock records — Allora draws on the maximalism of that bygone era’s most sprawling masterworks, Seratan certainly doesn’t shy from extended instrumental passages in which long guitar solos take center stage. (My other favorite song from the other record is another eight-minute epic, “Free.”)
6. Wand, Vertigo
This adventurous L.A. band has operated under the radar for more than a decade, probably because they mostly eschew easy pop accessibility. At a time when Tame Impala drifted from psychedelic rock to hooky Off The Wall homages that currently soundtrack trendy hotel lobbies, Wand has moved even deeper into the experimental ether. For Vertigo, Wand moved through 50 hours of studio jams to construct eight songs. The miracle of the record is that you can detect that improvisational ethos and also marvel at how well the tracks fall into place. Vertigo constantly knocks you off-balance, but it also operates on an unerring interior logic that always lands in exactly the right place.
7. American Aquarium, The Fear Of Standing Still
This long-running Americana act operates in the Jason Isbell/Drive-By Truckers zone, in which back-porch country-rock is paired with sensitive lyrics about southern identity and the meaning of masculinity. I have appreciated their output in the past, but their latest record hit a deeper nerve with me, perhaps because of the involvement of producer Shooter Jennings, who teases out a harder rocking side than previous releases have presented. At times, there’s almost a Gaslight Anthem vibe to the songs, which provides some extra crunch to all of the thoughtful introspection going down in the words.
8. The Red Clay Strays, Made By These Moments
If you haven’t already noticed the running theme of this column: A lot of the music I enjoyed this month could have appeared in an episode of Justified. And The Red Clay Strays are the most Justified-sounding band of the bunch. The influence of Chris Stapleton is obvious on the brawny vocals of frontman Brandon Coleman, though his old-world greaser guy looks are the opposite of Stapleton’s mountain man figure. On Made By These Moments, The Red Clay Strays stay on the southern rock side of Americana, with riff-y songs that often reach solo-heavy peaks, .38 Special style.
9. Charley Crockett, Visions Of Dallas
I’ve seen Crockett described as “country GBV” due to his prolific output. Visions Of Dallas is his second album of 2024, after $10 Cowboy released in spring, and his 13th LP overall since 2015. The downside of putting out so much music for any artist is that each record can blur into the next over time, and with Crockett, his retro revivalist tendencies don’t vary dramatically from one album to the next. But the man has a tremendous voice for this sort of throwback twang, and his taste in production and album covers is second to none. Plus, on Visions Of Dallas, he wrote a song based on Killers Of The Flower Moon called “Killers Of The Flower Moon” that runs down the story in a succinct three minutes and 14 seconds.