TONEwood's Top 10 Albums of 2019

While preparing the write-up for my top 10 albums of 2019, I realised that most of the albums I had listened to only really felt like top 10 material because, as a whole, I haven't felt very strongly about many releases this year.

I had looked forward to the new albums by Tinariwen, The Budos Band, Death Hawks, Lord Gore, Power Glove, Black Mountain, Grand Magus, and more. But they all sounded aggressively "okay" to my ears.

So, rather than doing an elaborate triple-entendre of top 10 metal and top 10 non-metal albums and runner-ups like I normally would, I ended up deciding on a more concise 10 album format with 5 runner-ups.

TONEwood's Top 10 Non-Metal Albums of 2018

On a personal level 2018 has been one of the more stressful ones in recent memory for me, with the birth of my first child ranking as probably the biggest change in my life. The way your priorities change has definitely made it harder to find the time to delve into new music. Even so, I've managed to listen to hundreds of new tracks in 2018 - though my year-end list does definitely lean heavily toward bands and groups I was already acquainted with, and albums that released before I became a parent.

TONEwood's Top 10 Non-Metal Albums of 2017

They say variety is the spice of life. For years heavy metal has been my go-to music style, and to this day it remains the style that I consume the most of. But even if heavy metal has numerous very different subgenres, there always manages to sneak a bunch of very un-metal albums into my consciousness. These are the Top 10 non-metal albums from 2017 according to the Gospel of TONE.

Com Truise: "Iteration"

The king of dream synth lets his latest album fall to a slow-burning state

When I first heard Galactic Melt, I was sold. It was unlike anything I'd heard, taking the aesthetic of 80s nerd culture and forging it into something more modern and accessible. Daft Punk and likeminded artists seem like obvious contemporaries to draw comparisons to, but Com Truise did something completely different with the same source material by making it decisively less danceable and poppy, in a way staying a little more true to the retro style.

Oliver: "Mechanical"

Fans of retro-future synth music, behold!

Though the duo known as Oliver hails from Los Angeles, their sound could easily see them mistaken for a French house group, and indeed they compare favourably to the likes of Justice with a production job as crisp as the air on an exceptionally cold and dry winters day.

Lazerhawk: "Dreamrider"

An originator who hasn't lost track of his ultimate goal in the face of genre hype

It's been relatively silent from camp Lazerhawk for some time now, and out of nowhere drops the new album Dreamrider like a meteor from interstellar space. From the earlier efforts' affinity for hard-hitting 80s nostalgia over Skull and Shark's soundtrackesque street cyberpunk turned rough-around-the-edges comic, Dreamrider - as the name would suggest - is a dreaming, lofty affair more reliant on vibrant soundscapes and softly head-boppin' synth-pop tunes than the neon-draped silhouettes with the subtlety of a jackhammer that coloured previous material.

Top 5 Missed Albums from 2016

Well it would seem I've already botched the top lists from 2016. In retrospect there are always releases you forgot about or simply didn't know of before long after the year is over. Here are a few examples which are sure to stick around for a while!

This was supposed to be a Top 5, but I couldn't/didn't want to stop there!

2016 Top 10 - Part III: The EP Top 5

Arguably I haven't listened to that many EPs in 2016 - And the best ones seem to have been classified as demos, which is another Top List entirely! For a relatively short list there is still something for everyone. A little metal, a little funk, a little something-something. The choices for Top 5 EPs of 2016 are as follows:

2016 Top 10 - Part II: The Non-Metal Part

Here is the second Top 10 for 2016 - The non-metal part. Again, there has been several worthy contenders, and some must be left out. After all, there's not much sense in the end of the year list if you're not forced to make some choices. And in 2016, these choices are as follows:

Power Glove: "Trials of the Blood Dragon OST"

Hits but mostly commercialised misses for undiscerning fans

Mysterious Australian elecro-duo Power Glove have been lurking and looming for some time, poking their cyborg heads out once in a while to drop off a new track, an EP or a soundtrack at regular intervals. Their hugely popular soundtrack for the Ubisoft game Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon in 2013 was many people's first look into the neon-bathed vector lines of retro-futuristic synthwave music, and now they're back, revisiting the franchise that to some degree broke new ground for them.

The Living Dead of Film Scores

The Living Dead of Film Scores

or: The Lasting Appeal and Influence of Horror Film Soundtracks

There is no way around it. The soundtracks and scores for films are among the most powerful pop-cultural rallying points, and have remained so for quite some time. In many ways they help define generations, while in other cases they transcend age groups. John Williams' Star Wars theme seems to be the prime example - Literally anyone knows it right off the bat. Let It Go from 2013’s smash hit Frozen lingers too, and will in all likelihood be this generation's Circle of Life (from The Lion King, duh).

Second Chance - Part 2: Perturbator "Dangerous Days"

Continuing in the series of returning to albums that didn't originally strike a fancy, we return now with Perturbator's fourth album, Dangerous Days from 2014.

James Kent, aka Perturbator

The Frenchman James Kent, to most probably better known as Perturbator, is by now a mainstay in the synthwave scene. His shadowy cyberpunk sound has captivated many, and he has more or less become the epitome of the darkest variety of synthwave music. At the very least he forms a crystal clear vision of the potential within the scene, both sonically and commercially.

Com Truise: "Silicon Tare"

The trendsetter returns with another genious EP

Right from the release of his first EP, Cyanide Sisters in 2010, Com Truise - the pseudonym of one Seth Haley - has been steadily gaining a dedicated following. With the Galactic Melt debut album from 2011 things really started to get out of control, and people all over the world have been falling in love with Com Truise' dreamy semi-80s frequencies at a rapid pace. Through what Haley himself calls "mid-fi synthwave slow-mo funk" has made a niche for himself that is now, more than ever, much more than just a corner market.

Cosmo Cocktail: "Cosmotronic Racing"

Oversaturated neon-nostalgia

Cosmo Cocktail's album comes courtesy of 30th Floor Records, a label dedicated to the synthwave genre. Though not a veteran per se, they were definitely one of the early movers within the scene to organize and release synthwave albums from independent artists. Cosmo Cocktail, based in Italy, prides himself on his use of hardware synths, sequencers and drum machines, and with good reason. With a morass of new artists emerging from the scene every day there's more than a few who rely solely on standardized VSTs and digital sequencer software, often resulting in an amateurish feel to otherwise groovy synths in a rude and entitled celebration of the fact that nowadays "anyone can make music".

Rise of the Synths

"The Old Soundtrack of a New Generation"

It goes by many names. Retrowave, Vintagewave, Synthwave, whatever you want to call it. With musical roots stretching as far back as the late 70s, it's a far-reaching style. Musicians like Edgar Froese, Giorgio Moroder and others pioneered the electronic music genre in the 70s, and it exploded as part of modern culture in the 80s. Later French House musicians like Daft Punk and Kavinsky revived the genre and perfected the style, mixing it with modern sound engineering and newer elements. In 2011 Nicolas Winding Refn's film "Drive" reacquainted many with the sound we today call "Synthwave".