Top 10 Music Releases of September 2014

[tps_title]Top 10 Music Releases in September 2014 [/tps_title]

We are already more than a few days into October 2014, but I can’t help but want to recap the very best music from last month, as always. September 2014 brought some great returns and refreshing new turns from artists with long or short trajectories. Music is life, and if you’re constantly listening to the same music over and over again, this Top 10 will help you discover the latest release from an artist/band you previously loved or discover something totally new altogether. Whichever is the case, give it a shot: you won’t be disappointed.

Welcome to the Top 10 Music Releases of September 2014.

Click NEXT to begin.

[tps_title]10. Simian Mobile Disco – “Whorl”[/tps_title]

 

The electronic duo, Simian Mobile Disco, explores new territory in an unsatisfying album that’s just too subtle to be considered music for active listening. Even the most typical techno tracks feel subdued and generic. Whorl starts too slowly and never really picks up much. As you play it for the first few tracks when you’re actually paying attention, you’ll be scratching your head when it feels like you haven’t really heard anything and the album’s already on its fourth track. Deep inside, you finish listening to the album like you began to, with a feeling of total emptiness and dissatisfaction.

Watch & Listen:
Full-length official video for the entire album.

[tps_title]9. Karen O – “Crush Songs”[/tps_title]

Karen O, best know for being the Yeah Yeah Yeahs front-woman, made her solo debut and it’s good but not great. Her previous collaborations as a solo artist indirectly but strongly generated the hype surrounding her impending debut as a full-blown solo artist with her first release, Crush Songs. However, the continuous raw sound, acoustic instrumentals and mid-to-low tempo throughout the album make it a fair distraction that can be more deeply appreciated with every listen. But the problem is that you might not want to listen to it again. It’s highly emotional and has its moments here and there, but Karen O is better off being a part of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or, if she insisted on releasing her own album, getting the rights to her previous collaborations and making a compilation album. Because really, nothing here sounds as good as The Moon Song, her song from the movie Her.

Watch:

Listen:

[tps_title]8. The Drums – “Encyclopedia”[/tps_title]

Encyclopedia is the latest album from The Drums, released in September 2014. It helps the band continue defining its own style while taking a hint from 80s rock as in tracks like There is Nothing Left. Encyclopedia is an album that you can either love or hate, and you can see it either as an evolutionary step for the band or a total misstep. However, regardless of how you see this album, it’s at least a cohesive whole if you end up hating it, so at least that is something this album has in its favor.

Watch:

Listen:
Available to listen at Beats Music.

[tps_title]7. Julian Casablancas & the Voidz – “Tyranny”[/tps_title]

Julian Casablancas, mainly known as the front-man from The Strokes, teams up with his alternate band, The Voidz, in their first full-length album, which sounds nothing like The Strokes and is really one of the best things about the album. It’s refreshing and pleasant, with Casablancas seeming to be restarting his particular style from scratch. Because of this it can seem that Tyranny stumbles, and you might feel a little disoriented, but if you don’t try to make much sense out of the apparently disjointed effort, it really is an intriguingly good one.

Watch:

Listen:
Available to listen at Beats Music.

[tps_title]6. Alt-J – “This Is All Yours”[/tps_title]

Alt-J’s second album is a respectable follow-up effort to their highly successful debut album. With just a couple of years in between the releases of This Is All Yours and their first album, An Awesome Wave, a more-of-the-same approach is more than just an appropriate safe move, it’s very satisfying. The album features their usual weirdness and cinematic sounds, like in Bloodflow Pt II or Warm Foothills, but everything also seems a little less striking than their first album; then again, I must admit that their previous album grew on me quite slowly, so it might have to do with their mesmerizing style and with more time I’ll love their second release, too.

Watch:

Listen:

[tps_title]5. Interpol – “El Pintor”[/tps_title]

Highly-acclaimed band Interpol is back with its fifth studio album, El Pintor. Their fluid style is as pleasing as always. They are energetic without being overwhelming. Arguably, they haven’t evolved their style very much since they were formed in 1997, but their sound is still neatly and specially composed for indie rock and post-punk fans. Their new 39-minute album El Pintor is short, but starts strong with All the Rage Back Home and weaves through nicely the sounds that you’ve gotten accustomed to. El Pintor is not on par with their best work (their Antics album), but it’s nice enough to satisfy more than just longtime fans.

Watch:

Listen:

[tps_title]4. Banks – “Goddess”[/tps_title]

Jullian Rose Banks, or simply BANKS, is an electronic-pop and contemporary R&B artist. After breakthrough performances and gaining momentum over the the last couple of years, her debut album is finally upon us. Goddess is an exquisite mix of R&B and electronic elements running on a steady and seductive pace. The album is everything fans of the artist have been waiting for, because it contains all of the impressive eight singles she had previously released since early 2013, all in one album, including the chart-topping Beggin’ for Thread.

Watch:

Listen:

[tps_title]3. U2 – “Songs of Innocence”[/tps_title]

After all the controversy spurred by releasing the album totally free to every iTunes account holder in the world at Apple’s iPhone/Apple Watch event in September 2014, I too surprisingly found that the songs were already automatically available within my iPhone’s Music app. I started playing it by mistake: I hit play on my EarPods’s cable thinking it was going to resume playing from Spotify, but my iPhone by default started playing from the Music app, the only music I had there: U2’s new album.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the band I once liked so much, whose latest releases I found shamefully bad, has done a pretty nice job on their sub-appreciated new album, Sons of Innocence. After all, taking away the awkwardness of the Apple event, the single and actually all the rest of the songs sound pretty great. And even if they might seem “too old” now, for a band with such a long trajectory it’s hard to make anything exciting and new that still satisfies the most hardcore fans. I was positively amazed by how raw and naturally rocking all their new tracks sound. I might play the album by mistake again sometime.

Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXJz3C12bWs

Listen:
On iOS’s Music app, iTunes on Mac or PC, iTunes Radio or Beats Music.

[tps_title]2. Death from Above 1979 – “The Physical World”[/tps_title]

The return of Death from Above 1979 was a pleasant surprise. Originally formed in 2001, only some will remember them because they had only released one (albeit, very successful) album in their long and unstable history. But is their second album, The Physical World, everything that fans of [their first album] You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine have been pleading and begging for? In short: Yes. They were smart enough to make a follow-up album that maintains the same essence of their first 2004 release. It will definitely satisfy the fans that had waited 10 years for this album. But will it grab any new fans? The short answer is: Probably not. I won’t go into the controversy of calling the band’s style obsolete, but their “noise rock” and original edgy sound is obviously not as refreshing as when they did it for the first time… ten years ago.

Watch:

Listen:

[tps_title]1. My Brightest Diamond – “This Is My Hand”[/tps_title]

Fantastically brilliant and extremely polished, My Brightest Diamond is truly a hidden gem in music that is playful but as real as true music gets. They are a rare mix of rhythmically varied but sophisticated folk and indie adult-pop with chill-inducing vocals. I had enjoyed their previous release All Things Will Unwind, however, but I was just totally blown away by the more energetic but equally and instrumentally amazing This Is My Hand. Multi-talented and multi-instrumentalist Shara Worden makes every song a thrilling ride, obviously including the single Pressure, but also songs like Lover Killer and the album’s title song.

Watch:

Listen:

That’s it! These were the best albums of the month in September 2014.

Hope you enjoyed them and listened to a couple of them in their entirety.

We’ll be back next month with the Top 10 releases for October!

What was your favorite album on the list? Was your favorite new release of September 2014 not on the list?

Leave a comment below!

Advertisement