Our favorite albums of 2015 (part 5)

Today, I’ll continue the countdown of my favorite albums of 2015. So far, it’s looked like this:

50)Lower Dens — Escape From Evil
49)Girl Band — Holding Hands With Jamie
48)Creepoid — Cemetery Highrise Slum
47)Thayer Sarrano — Shaky
46)Rachel Grimes — The Clearing
45)Stolen Jars — Kept
44)Hey Anna — Run Koko
43)Speedy Ortiz — Foil Deer
42)Marriages — Salome
41)Haiku Salut — Etch and Etch Deep
40)The Harrow — Silhouettes
39)Casket Girls — The Piano Album
38)Spectres — Dying
37)Eternal Summers — Gold and Stone
36)Esmerine — Lost Voices
35)Diverting Duo — Desire
34)Viet Cong — Viet Cong
33)astrobrite — Deluxer
32)Noveller — Fantastic Planet
31)Godspeed You! Black Emperor — Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress

We’ll pick up there and resume the countdown at 30. Click on album artwork to go to where you can buy the album.

Long Beard — Sleepwalker

30)Long Beard — Sleepwalker
This is the debut album by the dreamy cuddle punk trio from New Brunswick, New Jersey. They’re fronted by Leslie Bear, and that’s really who we talk about when we’re talking about Long Beard. She mentions Bowery Electric, Labradford, Lush, and Pale Saints as influences, but I hear something more like a toned-down Lois.

Hamsas XIII — Encompass

29)Hamsas XIII — Encompass
This is the debut album from the dream pop/dark wave duo. Robyn Bright is an Edmontonian. Rich Witherspoon is from Columbus, Ohio. They’ve been working together for a couple of years, and they released their first album back in the spring. The album is full of glove taps to their inspirations, which include Siouxie & The Banshees and Cocteau Twins. It’s a dark and beautiful album.

Westkust — Last Forever

28)Westkust — Last Forever
This is the debut album by the quintet from Gothenburg. They’re shoegazey and noisy dream pop, or dreamy noise pop. They remind me a bit of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. These guys have a couple of members in common with the post-punk band Makthaverskan.
Like some other bands on this countdown, they generated a lot of buzz in advance of their album release, and the first pressing sold out very quickly. They’ve since done another pressing, and made it available in the US.

Hop Along — Painted Shut

27)Hop Along — Painted Shut
This is the sophomore album by the indie rock/indie folk quartet from Philadelphia. I’ve never heard their first album, and didn’t know about this until it had already been out for a couple of weeks. Their grungy, punky approach to the indie rock/indie folk thing reminds me a lot of Drawn Ship. Of course part of that is that Hop Along’s singer Frances Qunilan has a raspy, fried voice similar to the raspy, fried voice of Lyn Heinemann out of Drawn Ship. It’s also the sound. The slightly unclean sound. It’s real, and it’s got rough edges, but it doesn’t care.

Lanterns on the Lake — Beings

26)Lanterns on The Lake — Beings
This is the third album from the Newcastle dream pop quartet. Since their 2013 sophomore album, they’ve shuffled the deck a couple of times, and they have a very different lineup. This was one of my most anticipated albums of the year, and it certainly was no disappointment. In any other given year, this album would sit at around number 10 in my countdown, but it’s been such an outstanding year that a record like this gets pushed all the way to 26.

That’s it for now. I might share another chunk later today, but I’m definitely taking tomorrow and Friday off. I’ll continue the countdown after the holiday.