The third to last and second to last sentences I wrote on this site were, "Next year is an election year, it's going to be bad. Here's hoping it's as least bad as possible." Uhhh, yeah. At least we have music, and beer? Smash play on some 2024 singles I like while you read.
1. Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us: It's nice to have them back to making baroque pop, and the discordant flourishes and forays into big beats are an added bonus. Ezra Koenig's lyrics are still cutting, and his voice has aged gracefully.
2. DIIV - Frog in Boiling Water: Shoegaze with lyrics critiquing capitalism is in my wheelhouse. Might it be in yours, too?
3. Heems - LAFANDAR: Witty and equal parts poignant and irreverent. A love letter to post-9/11 New York. His second album of 2024, Veena, isn't as good, but it also contains a banger of a song about the 1947 partition of South Asia, if you're into that sort of thing.
4. Wand - Vertigo: So many guitar textures on this album, with great lyrics.
5. Drug Church - Prude: The hookiest hardcore band out there.
6. Des Demonas - Apocalyptic Boom! Boom!: Nominally garage rock, but they cover a lot of ground on this album, including post-punk, krauty motorik, and afrobeat.
7. Los Campesinos - All Hell: I'm not sure "the UK's first and only emo band" is capable of making an alum that I don't like.
8. Nick Cave - Wild God: Something of a return to form. I bet these spacey, gospel tinged songs are great live.
9. Molchat Doma - Belaya Polosa: Belarusian dissidents who have definitely spent some time listening to Depeche Mode's Violator.
10. Tristwch Y Fenywod - s/t: Gothy, doomy Welsh folk, discovered via the front page of Bandcamp.
11. abriction - So Far Away in Time (EP). Banshee is the album, it's a bit poppier, but the EP, with its heaviness, is where I want to be.
12. Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown: I don't have to write a blurb for all of these, do I? She's great in Portishead and she's great here.
13. High Vis - Guided Tour: They try a lot beyond what we think of as a hardcore punk band and it largely works here. It didn't work for Fontaines DC this go round, and that's ok.
14. Him Lo - Stampede of Equestrianz: A bunch of Bay Area knucklehead goon rappers having a blast on a series of posse cuts. The fun is infectious.
15. Meatbodies - Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom:
16. Osees - SORCS 80: I can see myself coming back to this synthy, saxy, bratty psych freakout; maybe a few years from now it'll be their album I listen to the most.
17. SoftSun - Daylight in the Dark: Gorgeous doomgaze, swirling with menace and beauty.
18. sadness - your perfect hands and my repeated words: Damián Antón Ojeda put out, by my count, over 120 minutes of music in August. This is my favorite 40 of those as he continues to move away from atmospheric black metal and towards... emo?
19. Cold Gawd - I'll Drown This Earth
20. Dummy - Free Energy: Sure, they've listened to Stereolab, and Yo La Tengo, but there's more to them than their record collection. It's a decidedly 21st century affair, influenced by the 1990s, but not bound by it.
21. Water Damage - In E: Post-rock in the sense that rock instruments are being used to make non-rock music. Otherwise experimental drone of the highest caliber.
22. Mt. Eerie - Night Palace: Phil Elverum at his doomy-est.
23. Brittany Howard - What Now
24. The Smile - Wall of Eyes/Cutouts
25. Luna Pythonissam - Ecos del miedo: The globalization of blackgaze continues apace.
26. sunshy - I don't care what comes next
27. A. Yotol - s/t: See Luna Pythonissam above, though a bit more murky and ambient.
28. Bad Moves - Wearing Out the Refrain: Multiple singers, hooks for days. One of the best sounding albums to come out of DC in a while.
For 29 and 30 pick from Alcest, Godspeed, Cold Cave, and The Cure. Or don't.
Here's what I wrote for the last DC Beer newsletter of 2024. You should sign up, it's once a month and very unspammy. “I’ve got two 2024 beer highlights to share. The first was the release of a beer I helped design, the Bitter Fruit-DC Beer collaboration People’s Pale Ale, brewed at Dynasty in Ashburn. Writing the hopping portion of the recipe and using as much Virginia-grown grain as possible was very cool, and all credit to Favio Garcia at Dynasty and Justin Broady at Bitter Fruit for how well the beer turned out. The second highlight involves brewery rebirths. Losing Black Narrows really hurt, but out of those ashes came Upweller, and we got to collaborate with their co-owner/co-founder, and head brewer Josh Chapman at Right Proper Shaw. Please Czech out our collaboration with Lost Lagers and the Womxn’s Brew Culture Club, Corner Czech: Czech-style Dark Lager, at Right Proper. No doubt someone out there feels the same way about their favorite Calvert Brewing Company beer, now brewed on the eastern shore by Burnish.”
Evan Rail from Vinepair asked me to write up a brewery for their end of the year article. I chose Port City. “I half joke that D.C. has two seasons, Port City Optimal Wit season and Port City Porter season. With the usual caveat that it is hard to choose just one, my vote is for this Alexandria, Va., brewery, which is also a vote for ‘beer-flavored beer.’ I’m not alone in this assessment; Port City medaled at October’s Great American Beer Festival for their Porter (gold) and Rauch Marzen (bronze). It’s always worth seeking out beers that don’t just deliver what drinkers are looking for, but exceed those expectations. Port City does this year in and year out through their flagships, high-gravity anniversary offerings released every winter, rotating lager series, and brewery-only one-offs.”
The beers, in alphabetical order:
Brewer's Art - Day Trip to Yorkshire, Stingo. I spilled a lot of ink on this beer, best described as a cross between a porter and an old ale. It was one of two beers that could be called a Stingo, and the original from Samuel Smith is once again available Stateside. I recommend trying it.
Denizen's - Gremlin, IPA. Bizarre to me that the best local IPA brewery is Denizens, but between Southside IPA being dialed in and this hazy, here we are.
Dynasty - Sunrider, Imperial Pilsner. I don't see this style around much anymore, but the body of a Hellesbock/maibock and the hopping of an altbier is a winning combination.
Franklin's Oktoberfest. This beer splits the difference between a festbier--pale body, white bread toast malt--and the sweeter, maltier Oktoberfest. It's the best of both worlds.
Franklin's/Maryland Meadworks/Patent Yeast - 3 Body Solution, Braggot. A blend of Belgian-style tripel and mead that really does work. I hope the three Hyattsville, Maryland breweries bring it back in 2025, but in the meantime Franklin's may have a few bottles left.
Lost Generation - Weather Prophet, West Coast Pilsner. The "India Pale Lager" moniker never really appealed to me, but a pilsner hopped like a West Coast IPA? That I can get down with.
Mieza Blendery - Adventures Fiercely Shared, Saison. A saison dry hopped with New Zealand hops? Sign me up. I could have also gone with Child of the Kindly West, a blend of blonde ales aged with stone fruits, vanilla, and cinnamon that was expertly balanced.
Ocelot and Lost Generation - Illusion of Drama, West Coast Pils. Brewed at Ocelot, but I had it at Lost Gen and promptly went back for a second round.
Other Half - HDHC Broccoli, Triple IPA. I don't put a lot of big IPAs on these lists, but I think US brewers are at the point where they've figured out that the best way to balance hops and pilsner malt is to go as big as possible. Dangerously drinkable at over 10% ABV.
Port City - Il Palio, Italian Pils. Those moments when you take a sip of something and all time stops and you say "wow" out loud? This was that beer for me in 2024.
Right Proper - Iteration, Cold IPA. One of my favorite beer stories of the last year is Kevin Davey of Heather Allen and Gold Dot trying and then praising this beer, brewed 5 blocks from where I live, at Snallygaster, and talking to James, who brewed it, all without revealing that he, Davey, is the person who invented and originated the Cold IPA style. Just a really cool moment.
Third Hill - Garston Gold, XPA. We don't see XPAs a lot in the US, but they're common in Commonwealth countries. Third Hill's brewer is from New Zealand, as are the hops, and this beer made for a delicious session.
Bonus cider! Anxo - Great Valley Cuvee, cider. Is this the best cider ever made by a DC cidery? Both the co-owner of Anxo and I think so! A blend of eight apple varieties, spontaneously fermented in oak.
See ya on this space in a year or so, bye!
