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Another Year of Pissed-off Music for All the Sick and Sinners: Jonathan Shaw’s Year in Review

In the States, the disconnect between the Real and stories we tell ourselves about it grows ever more distorted and disoriented. Of plague, politics and priorities — our collective sense of what matters most in relation to how we live — we’re nowhere even close to consensus. Don’t get me wrong: I despise the discourse of “bipartisanship,” because I am fiercely partisan and because I think the “bi-“ is a limit on possibility that Americans have just about fully installed in our imaginations, much to our detriment. But for some real things, like the existence of COVID or the already-upon-us catastrophe of climate change, a common understanding amounts to necessity. Americans do not share one, and the consequences have been enormous. The enraged anarchist in me kind of likes the resulting chaos, the father in me is full of foreboding. I’m not a praying person, but the storms, the sickness and all the accumulating death have a scale that feels religious, something like a judgment.

So, for this listener, the record of the year is Lingua Ignota’s Sinner Get Ready. Her songs’ engagement with the austere cruelty of American Christian fundamentalisms is terrifying and sublime. In a different mode, but nearly as effective, the Sleaford Mods have given us Spare Ribs, a COVID-period record of surpassing acid hilarity, characteristic anger and moments of surprising sentiment. On Sinner Get Ready, there’s little to laugh with or feel sentimental about. I’ve listened to that record and Spare Ribs more often than any other this year. They are both excellent — the sort of sounds that demand your full attention, spin after spin. But Sinner Get Ready is tapped into a very particular and peculiarly American range of feeling, hugely meaningful to this lifelong resident of Pennsylvania. It’s the record that will always mean “2021” to me.

I have included Sinner Get Ready and Spare Ribs at the beginning of this list. The other records are arranged alphabetically by artist. I’d say enjoy, but that’s mostly not the point.

Lingua Ignota — Sinner Get Ready (Sargent House)

SINNER GET READY by LINGUA IGNOTA

It’s fearsome and relentless. Kristin Hayter, who records as Lingua Ignota, has gone public with some info about a monstrously abusive relationship she suffered through, an experience that in part issued in these songs. But while the music addresses that awfulness, it also opens to other layers of symbolic and emotional resonance (the perverse immiserations of Trump country, the harsh moral ethos of fundamentalisms), all equally powerful and complex. That’s a mark of artistic genius. Best record of 2021. Review here.

Sleaford Mods — Spare Ribs (Rough Trade)

Spare Ribs by Sleaford Mods

Few creative intelligences have managed to combine vituperation, vernacular authenticity and savvy critique as effectively as Jason Williamson. His now-decade-long musical partnership with Andrew Fearn regularly creates songs that are by turns subtle and bludgeoning. “Mork n Mindy,” “Out There,” “Top Room,” “Nudge It,” “Fishcakes” — they all get better with each listen. I’m going to listen to them right now. Review here.

Abstracter — Abominion (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Abominion by Abstracter

I don’t know that a bleaker doom metal record exists. Cold as nuclear winter, heavy as truckful of tungsten, unhappy as a 4 a.m. hospital night. Abominion is not a record I can spin often — it’s too much of an emotional investment. But I am somehow glad of that when I drop the needle on “Eclipse Born.” Bummer tunes for bummer times. Review here.

Antediluvian — The Divine Punishment (Nuclear War Now!)

The Divine Punishment by Antediluvian

If I am hearing things correctly (never a given with music this completely deranged), sexual desire is “the divine punishment”: the force that drives us out into the world — and yikes! what a world — and that fills us with ecstatic intensities that are as exciting as they are difficult to manage. So we get songs like “Winged Ascent unto the Twelve Runed Anus.” Is that a good thing? Fuck if I know. Review here.

The Bevis Frond — Little Eden (Fire Records)

Little Eden by The Bevis Frond

Well over 20 records, and well over 60 years, and the Bevis Frond keeps doing it: making terrific rock songs full of electrifying guitar and acerbic, heartfelt lyrics. Nick Saloman, like a veteran football side, works the essential skills (melody, riff, rhyme) with experienced fluidity, and he has constructed yet another record replete with stunners: the lyrics and singing on “They Will Return,” the hooks throughout “Pasted All Over,” the snarl and iridescent soloing on “Start Burning.” Now if we can only get QPR back to the Premiere League… Review here.

The Body and BIG|BRAVE — Leaving None but Small Birds (Thrill Jockey)

Leaving None But Small Birds by The Body and BIG|BRAVE

Two seriously noisy and heavy bands make a record together and it’s…folkie? It is, and it’s also something entirely other than folk. Mostly it’s really great. Check out Robin Wattie’s evocative vocal turn throughout the record. Review here.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor — G_d’s Pee at STATE’S END! (Constellation Records)

G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! by Godspeed You! Black Emperor

The field recordings and radio-borne found sounds are back, and so is the band’s penchant for long song sequences that build to triumphal passages — even as the themes announce an equally profound, gut-deflating sense of loss. Which means: they’re back at what they do best. It’s most welcome. It’s also really hard to say what they mean by “OUR SIDE HAS TO WIN.” Can anarchists have a “side”? The side of justice and right for all — yes, or rather, YES. That very much feels like a side, and a side I want to be on. My colleague Ian Mathers’ excellent review here.

Panopticon — …And Again into the Light (Self-released)

...And Again Into The Light by Panopticon

On this latest record, Austin Lunn (who records and occasionally performs as Panopticon) effects a remarkable instance of synthesis. He has integrated his deep interests in black metal and Americana (principally bluegrass and folk) in songs that never feel forced or like schtick. The record has drama and scale, and it features some of his most dissonant playing yet. Review here.

Rata Negra — Una Vida Vulgar (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Una Vida Vulgar by Rata Negra

Even in the midst of a year as miserable as this, sometimes punks just need to dance. Review here.

Succumb — XXI (The Flenser)

XXI by Succumb

Everything I like about dissonant death metal and most things I love about hardcore condensed into 35 minutes. Buckle up — and don’t sleep on Cheri Musrasrik’s excellent lyrics. Review here.

As ever, I am grateful to you who read and listen, and to my colleagues at Dusted. Down with fascism, death to the virus. More music.

Jonathan Shaw

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