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2015 was not the best year in music (at least in the rock world), to my ears. There were no real groundbreaking releases that I heard being raved about, just some impressive full-lengths by veterans like Clutch, Noel Gallagher, Iron Maiden, and Motorhead (R.I.P. Lemmy), and others that were more or less satisfyingly good enough to get by (My Morning Jacket, Kurt Vile, 2 Beach House LPs, Silversun Pickups, etc.).
You could say, however, that the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Deafheaven did nothing to ruin their reputation as genre-defying artists and that the return of loved and innovative rock groups like Blur and Sleater-Kinney and new albums by even more legendary bands like Faith No More, The Sonics, and Death (Michigan punk forefathers) were all causes worth celebrating. The same is also true of Slayer and Baroness. Slayer’s 11th LP Repentless, its first without the late co-founder Jeff Hanneman, and Baroness’s latest record, Purple, which was recorded after a near-fatal tour bus accident, should forever be treasured by fans based on the tragic circumstances those bands overcame just to make them.
With that, here’s a look at my favorite albums and EPs from 2015 – both national and some local (Boston) acts as a bonus section. This list is in no particular order.
2015 albums
Clutch – Psychic Warfare
New Order – Music Complete
Baroness – Purple
Robin Trower – Something’s About to Change
Halie Loren – Butterfly Blue
Keith Richards – Crosseyed Heart
Mocean Worker – Self-Titled
Beach House – Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars
Iron Maiden – The Book of Souls
Deafheaven – New Bermuda
Kurt Vile – b’lieve i’m goin down…
High on Fire – Luminiferous
Sly Stone – Live at the Fillmore East: October 4th and 5th 1968
Desaparecidos – Payola
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Chasing Yesterday
Beach Slang – The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us
Motorhead – Bad Magic
Birth of Joy – Live at Uba
Muse – Drones
The Wooden Sky – Let’s Be Ready
Heather Woods Broderick – Glider
Faith No More – Sol Invictus
Ryan Adams – Blue Light EP and 1989 (Taylor Swift covers album)
Steven Wilson – Hand. Cannot. Erase
Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly
Michael Schenker’s Temple of Rock – Spirit on a Mission
Godspeed! You Black Emperor – Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress
Best Coast – California Nights
Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit
The Amazing – Picture You
Torche – Restarter
Sleater-Kinney – No Cities to Love
Modest Mouse – Strangers to Ourselves
Chris Cornell – Higher Truth
My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall
Bruce Springsteen – The Ties That Bind [Box Set]
Bjork – Vulnicura
Honorable Mentions
Slayer – Repentless
Raven – ExtermiNation
Marilyn Manson – The Pale Emperor
Silversun Pickups – Better Nature
DCFC – Kintsugi
Kurt Cobain – Montage of Heck
Idlewild – Everything Ever Written
Death – N.E.W.
Blur – The Magic Whip
Pentagram – Curious Volume
Local Spotlight: Boston Bands
Speedy Ortiz – Foil Deer
Cruel Miracle – Manifesto
Sonic Disorder – Human Kind
Jesse Ahern – Tales from the Middle Class
Jamie Lynn Hart – The Let Go
Alek Darson – Panopticon EP
2015 Songs
Kurt Vile “Pretty Pimpin”
Speedy Ortiz “Raising the Skate”
The Lowlifes “In Winter” (Matt Pond and Chris Hansen)/Matt Pond PA “Four Eyes”
Radiohead “Spectre”
Baroness “Try to Disappear”
Ringo Deathstarr “Guilt” (with Jeff Schroeder of The Smashing Pumpkins)
Five Finger Death Punch “No Sudden Movement” (It’s anthemic like prime Slipknot.)
DIIV “Dopamine”
Bishop “Wild Horses”
Conrad Sewell “Hold Me Up” (Co-Produced by fellow Quincy, MA native (and buddy) Lou Bell, this became a radio hit, and was featured in an episode of Nashville!)
Slayer “Repentless”
Disturbed “The Vengeful One”
Idlewild “Utopia”/“Nothing I Can Do About It” (Even though they’ll never really get their due here in the States, it’s great to hear these Scottish rockers are still going strong.)
Oh Mercy “Sandy” (Melbourne “chill rock”)
Desaparecidos “City on the Hill”
Pyramaze “Disciples of the Sun” (Denmark power metal)
Mechina “On the Wings of Nefeli” (10-string guitars, says Alt Nation)
Heather Woods Broderick “A Call for Distance” and “Wyoming”
Everclear “Sugar Noise”
Faith No More “Superhero”
Ryan Adams “Style” (Notice the subtle tributes to Mazzy Star (“Fade Into You”) and Sonic Youth (“Daydream Nation”) Adams does in his rockin’ version of this Taylor Swift hit.)
Ryan Adams “On My Life” (This one is from the Blue Light EP.)
Mumford & Sons “The Wolf”
My Morning Jacket “Believe (Nobody Knows)”
Gacha “Waterfall”
X Ambassadors “Renegades” (You’re living under a rock if you didn’t hear this song on the radio or in TV/radio ads in 2015.)
Lower Dens ”To Die in L.A”
Tobias Jesso Jr. “Without You”
Best Coast “California Nights”
Mac McCaughan “Lost Again” (Superchunk leader gets it done solo style.)
Sufjan Stevens “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”
The Singles “Candy”
Nadastrom “House Shoes (feat. Nina Kinert)”
The Amazing “Winter Dress” and “Picture You”
The Sonics “Bad Betty”
Blur “Go Out”
Echo Sparks “Torch Song”
Rae Sremmurd “No Flex Zone”
Alek Darson “Sprockets”
