Mid-Year 2016: The Best Albums I've Heard So Far

Let's be honest: mid-year lists are kind of superfluous. I expect that my opinions on the records below will continue to shift. Add six months' worth of new releases, and my list come December will almost certainly look nothing like this one does. With that said, I've heard a lot of great albums this year, and I wanted an opportunity to reflect and think about which ones have resonated the most. All 10 of these records (plus the bonus EP) get the highest recommendation from me.

Happy July and happier listening!

1. Parker Millsap - The Very Last Day

With a force-of-nature voice, a sharp talent for storytelling, and more than a bit of wit and charisma, Parker Millsap weaves The Very Last Day into 2016's best album—so far, anyway. He's only 23 years old and this is only his second record, but when you hear him wail on "You Gotta Move" or spin a tale about the homosexual son of a preacher on "Heaven Sent," you might swear he's got twice that many under his belt.
 

2. Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor's Guide to Earth

Sturgill Simpson's breakthrough record, 2014's Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, was an explosion of classic country, tinged with psychedelia. The Kentucky singer/songwriter paints with an even broader brush on the follower up, A Sailor's Guide to Earth—to the point where many of his fans cried betrayal and bitched about it not being "country enough." Fuck that. On this record, "country music" is anything Simpson wants it to be. He pulls in influences from a dozen genres to create a love letter to his new son, from soul to progressive rock to grunge and beyond.

3. Brian Fallon - Painkillers

On his first solo record, the frontman from The Gaslight Anthem opts out of reinventing the wheel. Instead, he surges straight down the center of the highway, writing songs that feature his usual mix of classic rock, folk, Americana, and references to favorite songs and movie stars. If you wanted a more polarizing record in the vein of Gaslight's Get Hurt, you were probably disappointed by Painkillers. This album, though, showcases Brian Fallon as an artist who knows what he does well and is perfectly content to put out a record that emphasizes strength of songwriting craft over surprises. The decision to hold steady pays off, with cuts like "A Wonderful Life," "Rosemary," and "Open All Night" ranking among his best ever.

4. The 1975 - I like it when you sleep…

On their debut, 2013's self-titled album, The 1975 were a pop band willing to draw as much from emo as they were from boy bands. They were unique, but not flamboyantly so. On the follow up, though, these boys from Manchester transform into the most audacious band currently making music. Long ambient interludes transition into straight-up pop jams, while the album's most John Hughes soundtrack-worthy anthem ("This Must Be My Dream") is just two tracks away from a raw acoustic heartbreaker ("Nana"). The record—like its title—is a hair unwieldy, but start combing the tracklist for inessential songs and you'll make an interesting discovery: there aren't any.

5. The Hotelier - Goodness

 

When it comes to scene classics, it's usually not very hard to tell what's going to stand the test of time. From the first time I listened to Goodness, it sounded like something that kids were going to be discovering 10 years down the road, in the same way that they still discover stuff like Clarity. Less catchy and intense than its predecessor, 2014's Home, Like NoPlace Is There, Goodness is also much more life-affirming, trading the dark emotional doldrums of Home for flickers of love, wistful reflection, and uplift. The songs aren't always as striking as the ones from the last album, but some of them—like "Opening Mail for My Grandmother" and "End of Reel"—are as viscerally engaging as anything this band has ever written.

6. Josh Kelley - New Lane Road

To the outside eye, Josh Kelley peaked early in his career, landing a minor hit off his 2003 debut album with "Amazing." Fast-forward 13 years, though, and Kelley is the rare, almost unheard-of artist who is making his best music with his eighth full-length. A collision of pop, soul, country, folk, and even a little bit of gospel, New Lane Road is as instantly timeless as new albums come. Kelley's voice has always been his not-so-secret weapon, so smooth and delicate one minute and full of force the next. Here, he parlays it into more than a few remarkable moments of pathos, with the bookends ("It's Your Move" and "Only God Can Stop Her Now") standing out most clearly.

7. Maren Morris - Hero

The hooks on Maren Morris's major label debut are so huge that it's not hard to see why she is being heralded as the new country "It" girl. On songs like "Sugar," "Rich," and "80s Mercedes," she effortlessly combines wit, sense for melody, and girl power into an irresistible sound that isn't quite pop and isn't quite country. It's on the ballads where Morris really sets herself apart from the crowd, though, with the likes of "I Could Use a Love Song," "I Wish I Was," and the soaring "Once" sounding like iconic classics in the making.

8. Donovan Woods - Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled

Donovan Woods has always been a talented songwriter, but Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled, his fourth full-length, takes his chops to the next level. More experienced as a writer now than he was a few years ago (having landed songs on a few albums by major Nashville country artists), he conveys different kinds of desolation here with an eye for detail and a clear willingness to twist the knife. From the fracturing relationship of "On the Nights You Stay Home" to the universal regret of "The First Time," all the way to the roller coaster of emotions that defines "Leaving Nashville," Woods will break your heart at least half a dozen times on this record.

9. Sister Hazel - Lighter in the Dark

And here I thought I'd outgrown Sister Hazel. One of my favorite bands from childhood, this roots rock act from Gainesville hadn't made a record that resonated with me since 2006's Absolutely. Lighter in the Dark revitalizes their sound, taking the band in the most overtly "country" direction of their career. The result is a bona-fide summer soundtrack, crammed with road-trip-ready anthems ("Fall off the Map," "Run Highway Run"), classic rock throwbacks (the Eagles-flavored "Prettiest Girl at the Dance"), and dusky, lantern-lit ballads ("Ten Candle Days"). Suffice to say I've reached for this album a lot for runs or long drives on sunny days.
 

10. Brandy Clark - Big Day in a Small Town

Brandy Clark's sophomore record is a bit glossier than her debut (2013's 12 Stories), but don't mistake this album as a mainstream sellout maneuver. Clark is still one of the best songwriters in the country music genre, and this record includes at least five of the year's best compositions. Clark can spin a great chorus (the gorgeous and wistful "Homecoming Queen," or the anthem of heartbreak that is "Love Can Go to Hell"), but her secret weapon is the details: the son who can't talk about his late father until after he's had a couple drinks in "Since You've Gone to Heaven," or the single mother in "Three Kids, No Husband" whose only moments to herself come during smoke breaks at work. At her best, Clark's understanding of the beaten and downtrodden is almost Springsteen-level.

EP: Steve Moakler – Steve Moakler

If Steve Moakler's self-titled EP were a few songs longer, I would have been tempted to include it on this list. Moakler's brand of pop country is breezy summertime fare, but his unique voice and his eye for detail elevate his songs above anything and everything on country radio these days. "Summer without Her" is what Dashboard Confessional's Dusk and Summer might have sounded like if Chris Carrabba had taken a more Nashville-driven approach, while "Suitcase" has a hook that should make Moakler famous. Here's hoping that we'll see a full-length before year's end.

"Will you disrupt this pattern from starting again?" How The Hotelier learn to take life's punches on 'Goodness'

There's a moment in the middle of "Opening Mail for My Grandmother," the standout track from the Hotelier's brand new album Goodness, where the band momentarily drops out, leaving Christian Holden alone for just a brief instant. "I'm coming for you," Holden sings. Already, the song is an eye of the storm amidst an emotive swirl of a record—the album's truest "ballad," and perhaps its only one. It's also the moment on the record that most breaks me in half, not necessarily because I can understand or perfectly interpret all of the words Holden is throwing at us. After all, Holden has always written in dense poetry, and Goodness finds them at their most artsy and impressionistic.

Rather, the song hits me because it captures the acceptance of knowing that someone you love is going to die. It may not be tomorrow, or next week, or even this year, but "Opening Mail for My Grandmother" is about coming to terms with the brevity of life. That might sound depressing, and the song itself is heartbreaking—at least to someone like me, who lost a grandparent recently. However, "Opening Mail" is ultimately a great song because it manages to fit uplift into the frame. The final lines of the song are the most beautiful, with Holden singing "They're keeping your space there, they're dying for you/We'll sing your good graces when they come for you/But until that day's here, I'm coming for you" in a striking lower register. The message is clear: cherish the moments with the people you love while you still can, because eventually, they run out.

That message is also more or less the theme of Goodness—or at least, it's the version of the theme that resonates with me most strongly. The basic idea I've taken from this album over the past week—and one that has been reinforced by album reviews or interviews with the band—is that goodness in life can be fleeting. Again, that statement might sound depressing, the perfect fodder for an album from the new torchbearers of the "emo" mantle. But think about it: how many things in life, good or bad, last forever? Friendships can fade; love stories can reach premature conclusions; the people we love can pass away into an afterlife we know nothing about. If you're lucky, you get to hold onto the goodness in your life for long, uninterrupted periods. If you're unlucky, you never get enough goodness.

On their last record, the Hotelier seemed like people lodged firmly in the latter category. 2014's Home, Like NoPlace Is There, was a masterful snapshot of a life where everything seems to be going wrong. Depression, abuse, suicide, death, and heartbreak hung over that record like taunting specters, standing perpetual guard. The record is only 36 minutes and nine songs long, but to press the play button or drop the needle is to accept that you are about to visit an intense emotional place. For me, that place is somewhere I can only visit every so often. As much as I love Home—and as proud as I was to write about it when AbsolutePunk ranked it as the best album of 2014—it's a record I have a hard time calling a favorite because of how harrowing it is.

I could never truly relate to Home, at least not in the way a lot of other listeners did. From the first time I heard it, I knew it was the kind of album that could come along and save you if you found it at the right time; the kind of album that could pull you through a rough patch in your life and make you feel like everything would somehow be okay again. Needless to say, that unnamable quality helped Home earn classic status in our scene, joining albums from the likes of Brand New and Jimmy Eat World. For me, though, it was more of a memory trip—a look back at the moments from my own life where I'd needed music to get me through. It wasn't something that was going to earn soundtrack status for me in 2014, the year where I married the love of my life and made a big reach to make the goodness in my own life as permanent as possible.

Goodness is at once both more and less accessible. On one hand, the album is at least partially a "love album." It serves up less of an emotional side hook than its predecessor, providing a journey that—while still melancholy—still feels ultimately uplifting. On the other hand, the songs on Goodness are less immediate than the ones from Home. There's still plenty to sing along to here, from the near-anthemic "Goodness, Pt. 2" to "You in This Light," which echoes with a vibe of early Jimmy Eat World. Even "Opening Mail," with its elegantly circuitous melody, makes you want to hum in harmony. There's nothing as "catchy" here as "The Scope of All This Rebuilding," though, or as immediately lyrically striking as "An Introduction to the Album."

The great thing about Goodness, though, is that it continues to unfold and envelope you as you continue to listen. With an impeccable sequencing that yields a near-hypnotic quality to the flow of the record, Goodness offers a journey that, while not nearly as intense as the one provided by Home, still feels remarkably complete. Once again, I can't claim to have parsed the meaning of Holden's lyrics completely. I don't think I will have after 100 listens, either, so I certainly haven't managed it after 10. Still, there are hugely resonant moments throughout this record, images of characters finding goodness and then letting it go, of reaching for love and then surrendering. "My eyes greet hers and hers do mine/And then this room becomes her shrine," Holden sings on "Piano Player. "Was kind of banking on a future that'd be involving you, but I couldn't ask this of you," Holden intones on "Two Deliverances." "I can't sit in your sun," Holden concludes on "Sun." The album is a constant push and pull, of finding the goodness in your life and then watching it fade away. The uplift comes from the fact that, usually, it seems to circle back.

Whatever love story Holden is telling here, it's pretty clear that it doesn't make it to the conclusion of "End of Reel." When Holden sings about the girl who is "singing her swan song again" and how "it got stuck in my head as the sound of you," there's a definite feeling that this girl is someone the narrator is never going to see again—not in this life, at least. The track, despite striking poetry about "dayglow blades scorched by hovering halos" and the "resonant calm" that echoes off the walls, is ultimately a breakup song. But the song's key line and rallying cry isn't "Washing away until I don't even cringe at the thought of you"; rather, it's "I don't know what I want, what I want's where I've been." Holden might have gotten his heart broken here, and the ultimate "swan song" he sings about probably wasn't even an amicable one. By the end of the album though, Holden knows one thing: he wants the goodness back.

Falling in love might end in a broken heart; friendships might start out strong, only to wither in later years; forging connections with other people might one day lead you to their gravesides, reflecting on mortality and pain. But the message of Goodness is that it's worth it to experience that pain and regret if you get to experience the goodness along the way. An album ago, Holden was "calling in sick" to a friend's funeral, unable to accept the loss. Here, he's getting up, brushing themselves off, and saying "hit me again." It's tough not to smile at the thought of such resilience.