Luke Nuttall (Editor / Writer)
5
PVRIS – Evergreen
Maybe the problem isn’t with PVRIS, but with the expectation that they’ll actually deliver anymore. They’ve been treading water for some time, and yet, hope and prayer tends to prevail when it comes to giving them another chance. How wrong that is for Evergreen, which might be their worst effort yet. Lyndsey Gunnulfsen has effectively paved over the monochrome electro-pop that thrust them forward in the first place, in favour of blocky alt-pop and the complete lack of presence that’s burdened PVRIS albums pretty much since their second one. And when it never feels like it’s playing to their strengths, you’re left with a rocky reinvention in dire need of some work. Or just a complete do-over; whichever is better.
4
Måneskin – RUSH!
To call this a ‘disappointment’ might be overstating the level of hope attributed to Måneskin in the first place. Granted, they managed to build a worldwide enterprise off a Eurovision win and a couple of bonus hits unearthed after the fact—hardly a stable foundation. But then came RUSH!, a shell of a glam-rock album built from the ground up to make its creators superstars by mercenarily playing the game. Gone is the Italian flair or the harder, tighter grooves, to be replaced by warmed-over pop-rock with ‘style over substance’ woven into its very DNA. It’s over-long; at times, it’s over-annoying; and more often than not, it’s over being anything close to good.
3
Blood Command – World Domination
This one hurts. Blood Command have so often been responsible for some of the most adrenalised punk and post-hardcore around, and while the intentions for that might be good on a gauntlet of fragments to beat the listener into submission, in practice, that’s far from the case. If anything, World Domination has lost so much of what made Blood Command great—gone are the insidious melodies or keen-eared hooks, in favour of a totally underwhelming collection of noise-shards that only work when—big surprise—they’re more developed into full songs. Maybe stick to just that in future, eh? What a novel idea…
2
Sleep Token – Take Me Back To Eden
So apparently it’s a moderately hot take that Take Me Back To Eden isn’t some bastion of creativity in modern music, set to revolutionise rock and prog and metal for generations to come. Of course, when something is bigged up that much, even the slightest deviation is going to feel like a trip down a bottomless pit, something that the minority not head over heels for Sleep Token know all too well. Even if you do get an extensive idea of what this project is all about here (as well as the appeal, for the most part), a lot of the enjoyment of that is predicated on how much of a long, lumbering, grind-you-down-to-nothingness ordeal you can actually stomach. If you’re not totally onboard, Take Me Back To Eden is doing nothing to beckon you closer. Even if you want to enjoy it, its own walls might be just too high.
1
Paramore – This Is Why
There’s a tacit, unspoken agreement around Paramore fans that their albums have to be good. It’s what can immediately set the ball rolling to be let down if that’s not the case, especially when they’ve never previously disappointed and have risen to become the band in pop-rock. But for all the hype around This Is Why, and all the assertions that Paramore have still got it, and they can pull off post-punk as well as anyone, the words felt hollow. It felt out of necessity rather than genuine belief, and the more time that This Is Why has had to marinate—to try and force a change of heart to believe this really is a good album—the more that’s felt like the case. In leaching away all their colour and razor-wire wit, Paramore have ambled down an avenue that’s…fine, and perfunctory for them, but seldom gripping. Quite the opposite, actually; it’s perhaps the smallest and most insignificant that they’ve ever felt, on what was supposed to be a huge leap to snap back at a cold, hostile world that wound up as all bark. Effort and intent can only count for so much, and in this case, you’re barely half the way there.
Georgia Jackson (Deputy Editor / Writer)
5
Sam Smith – Gloria
With Unholy being a fascinatingly unconventional hit song, it wouldn’t be a stretch to expect Sam Smith’s Gloria album to be a maximalist project of chaos. But it wasn’t, and although moves were made to expand the singer’s sonic palette on the album, it didn’t go far enough and regressed back into ballad territory of old far too easily. These somewhat high expectations weren’t even focused on wanting the album to be any good, just something more creative and show-stopping than before, but Unholy played the ace way too soon.
4
Ed Sheeran – – / Autumn Variations
Yes, having high expectations for an Ed Sheeran album might be setting oneself up to fail already, but a deeply confessional, stripped back record produced by Aaron Dessner surely seems like a recipe for unabashed success. But – ambled along and showed off Sheeran’s lyricism in the wrong way, the starker musical backdrops giving clumsier lines nowhere to hide. September’s Autumn Variations fared even worse, sometimes sounding like a creative writing project for a primary school child with its obvious metaphors. Sheeran has plenty of strengths in his musicianship and writing, but these two albums weren’t the right environment to draw those strengths out.
3
The Xcerts – Learning How To Live And Let Go
Artists simply must try new things to keep things from getting stale, but with the bigger leaps there’s always a risk of alienating the fans you already have. That’s exactly what happened with The Xcerts this year; the garishly bright, oh-so-TikTok sound of Learning How To Live And Let Go was too much for many fans of their heartland rock. In the eyes of this writer the sound itself wasn’t an immediate write-off (Gimme was innately catchy and Lovesick sounded like a makeover of their old sound), but these songs were far too short to stand a chance, often forgotten the minute they’ve stopped playing. Their biggest crime was their handling of Ache, a blueprint for one of the band’s best songs ever, cutting it off in under two minutes and grossly underusing their Sam Carter feature—that alone is enough to earn the record a spot on this list.
2
Kim Petras – Feed The Beast
Few current pop stars’ careers have allowed industry suits’ inner workings to show like Kim Petras’. Feed The Beast was touted as her debut album this year in order to make the most of her Unholy collaboration with Sam Smith, which would’ve been a great ploy if it wasn’t the third time she’d labelled a project her debut album. A mishmash of different genres, new material and scrapped cuts from leaked album (another debut, actually) Problématique, it’s clearly been rushed for cynical money-making reasons and far from shows the best of Petras.
1
Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation
Endless Summer Vacation was billed as Miley Cyrus’ grand return to pop, but it was such a letdown. Bang-average lead single Flowers should’ve been the first red flag; it remains a baffling case study of pop virality, its direct response to the star’s divorce from Liam Hemsworth almost certainly the reason for its insane streaming numbers. Jaded, River and Violet Chemistry are some of the best songs Cyrus has put her name to but are bogged down by the nothingness of the rest of what was touted as a career-making record. Ultimately, the easy-breezy L.A. sound was just far too bland for a powerhouse like Miley, and it did nothing but a disservice to her.
