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. Alex G, Headlights
This is Alex’s 10th record and the first for major label RCA, but it might be the best entry point yet for one of the most consistent catalogs in contemporary rock. After two recent albums, 2019’s House Of Sugar and 2022’s God Save The Animals, that stand as his most experimental and strangest efforts, the 32-year-old singer songwriter has refocused on the Elliott Smith-style, indie-folk sound of his earlier records. The result is one of the year’s best albums.
2. Ryan Davis and The Roadhouse Band, New Threats From The Soul
Even when this Louisville native appears to work with more traditional song forms, like the rousing highlight “The Simple Joy” (which has backing vocals by Will Oldham, the Adam Duritz to Davis’ Jakob Dylan), his songs frequently surprise with sly one liners that smuggle pathos inside jokey Trojan horses. “My skull was a dunk tank clown for some schoolyard lass to chastise,” he drawls in one line. “I learned that time was not my friend or foe / more like one of the guys from work,” goes another. Davis’ songs go on (and on) like that, like an extended serio-comic monologue accented by occasional pedal-steel licks. The shortest track on New Threats is just under six minutes; the longest is nearly 12. That one is called “Mutilation Springs,” and it includes references to “sarcophagus mornings,” “hair metal afternoons,” and “forsaken punks” who “flip for police force work and worse.” He might come off like a show-off if the songs weren’t so authentically conversational or genuinely, pleasingly weird.
3. Oasis, “Half The World Away” (Live at Wembley Stadium, July 25)
I saw Oasis at Wembley Stadium last week, and I’m going to post a column about it later this week, and I don’t want to big foot that column by writing too much about it here. So, for now I’ll just say this: The band sounds great and I expect them to sound great when the tour hits America next month. But I don’t think it will be as great as seeing Oasis in England. It’s all about the audience. The level of adoration Oasis commands over there has to be seen to be believed. You can get a sense of it from this clip of Noel Gallagher singing a 1994 B-side. It’s a beloved B-side, sure, but B-sides don’t normally inspire 81,000 people to sing along this loudly.
4. Tyler Childers, Snipe Hunter
The first album I put on after I got back to the United States. After a series of albums that broke dramatically from the duo off-center country classics he put out in the late 2010s, Purgatory and Country Squire, Childers is back to making music that shakes up the Americana format with various squiggles outside the lines (including drop-ins from Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso). But in the end, this is a Rick Rubin production, and as his custom when he works with country artists, he subtly repositions Childers as a rock star. Similar to how he made the Dixie Chicks sound like Fleetwood Mac, Snipe Hunter feels like a modern reimagining of John Mellemcamp’s 1987 masterwork The Lonesome Jubilee.
5. Geese, “Taxes”
Possibly the fastest rising indie band of the moment. The gnarled and emotionally charged psych-rock ballads collected on Cameron Winter’s 2024 solo effort Heavy Metal have blown a lot of minds — I wrote about it here — though I’m still partial to Winter’s last album Geese. 3D Country is yet another slow-burn favorite — it generated positive but not ecstatic reviews upon release, perhaps because some critics (like me) weren’t all that crazy about Geese’s 2021 debut, Projector. On that album, they seemed like just another NYC post-punk band in thrall to the city’s past musical greats. But on 3D Country, they showed they were capable of following their Pablo Honey with a The Bends-style reinvention. A wild, druggy, jammy, and exhilarating ride, 3D Country made my year-end list in 2023 but only in the low 20s. I now consider it one of my favorite rock records of the 2020s. All of this is to say that I’m excited for the upcoming Getting Killed, which was teased this week with a great single, “Taxes,” spotlighted in a truly deranged music video that has serious “Darren Aronofsky’s Mother” vibes.
6. Cory Hanson, I Love People
Like Winter, Cory Hanson fronts an excellent psych-rock band, Wand. And also like Winter, he has a thriving solo career — his previous LP Western Cum was another entry on my 2023 year-end list. That record was a pleasure cruise through the sounds of 1970s FM radio, like the first Boston album refracted via a punk-rock sensibility. Hanson’s latest I Love People exists on the opposite end of the radio dial, delving the luscious soft-rock soundscapes outfitted with warm-toned pianos and jangly guitars. As always, Hanson’s unerring pop sense is on display, and with I Love People it’s like he’s made a lost prime-era McCartney album.
7. Andy Boay, You Took That Walk For The Two Of Us
You might recognize Boay from yet another really good psych-rock band, Tonstartssbandht. Their most recent record Petunia made my year-end list from 2021, and I still listen to the utterly beguiling “What Has Happened” on a regular basis. Boay functions like a lo-fi Brian Wilson, stacking vocal harmonies in a manner that creates both great beauty and extreme creepiness. Both are in abundance on this album.
8. Neu Blume, Let It Win
I read about this band originally in Josh Terry’s essential newsletter No Expectations, which you should check out after reading this. They’re a duo from Detroit that’s on a similar “chill back patio country rock” wavelength to fellow Michiganders Bonny Doon. There’s also plenty of pedal steel, so it goes without saying that Let It Win goes down like a Miller High Life tucked inside a treasure koozie this time of year.
