Tracks of the Year

Lisztomania Tracks of the Year

25 - Until We Bleed - Kleerup, Lykke Li
24 - Kiss of Life - Friendly Fires
23 - No Kind Words - Maccabees
22 - Woods - Bon Iver
21 - Animal - Miike Snow
20 - Hell - Tegan and Sara
19 - Audacity of Huge - Simian Mobile Disco
18 - Infinity Milk - Dananananaykroyd
17 - In For the Kill - La Roux (Skream Let's Get Ravey Remix)
16 - 1901 - Phoenix
15 - Little Secrets - Passion Pit
14 - Get Color - HEALTH
13 - Ecstacy - JJ
12 - Daniel - Bat for Lashes
11 - My Girls - Animal Collective

10 - Jealous of Roses - Bibio

The best from a fantastically diverse album, folky guitar with influences from all over... Jealous of the Roses is bizarrely and wonderfully funky, with a delicious bassline to suit.

(Not on Spotify)

9 -Surf Solar - Fuck Buttons

Sprawling, relentless, epic, and other such synonyms

(Not on Spotify)

8 - That Golden Rule - Biffy Clyro

I Got a broken heart and I'll do it again!

So much rage, so much intensity, so much better than anything from Puzzles. Triumphant return to form.

http://open.spotify.com/track/2PIdFwwTFXBq5SwpNpn6oE

7 - You've Got the Love - Florence + the Machine - Jamie XX rework

Combination of two of the year's best artists, the near perfect pop of Florence combined with the minimalistic sound of the XX. Jamie harmonizes beautifully underneath Florence to create something quite spectacular.

http://open.spotify.com/track/38XxK6eGxZf1sHEolRVFM7

6 - Counterpoint - Delphic

Multitudes of synths oscillate, spin, whirl, masterfully. Tell me nothing's wrong, nothings wrong today? Listening to this song, they might be right. /bad pun

http://open.spotify.com/track/0mlTmB0swdZamGlC9xoFJM

5 - Velvet - Big Pink

These arms of mine, don't mind who they hold

Shame the album was patchy because Velvet is terrific, and far superior to the commercially successful Dominos. Elements of shoegaze undercut with electronic rhythm samples, over all of which Robbie Furze's vocals, filled with yearning and passion, rise above.

http://open.spotify.com/track/7mPzFjOG0jiHr4itGsG1ZU

4 - Lisztomania - Phoenix

Possibly the most joyously chirpy track of the year, the vocals are delicious (must be his accent), and the melody ridiculously infectious, filled with sing-me-sing-me lyrics. And then, obviously, it's where the blog title came from so it had to make an appearance really, didn't it?

http://open.spotify.com/track/3EXCJvehlOGEP9ntHaEMAg

3 - Useful Chambers - Dirty Projektors

Perhaps their most accessible song, and also perhaps their best. Dainty guitar riffs and harmonization tease at something great for the opening minutes, and then suddenly everything implodes in the closing minute, as the band let loose and yell Bitte Orca! Orca Bitte!! Bitte Orca! ORCA BITTE!!

http://open.spotify.com/track/7HMaDDBvEz73Ha9p0blzx3

2 - Two - Antlers
Something in my throat made my next words shake, and something in the wires made the lightbulbs break. There was glass inside my feet and raining down from the ceiling, it opened up the scars that had just finished healing.

Whilst the tracks off Hospice work best in the context of the album itself, Two is arguably the highlight. On first listen it sounds almost like a more claustrophobic Bon Iver, nice enough. but then after multiple listens the wall of sound peels away and the lyrics start to come through, at times poetic, at times devastating, and constantly completely beautiful.

http://open.spotify.com/track/3XjhVyOmumNu3uY5DrB6cj

1 - Hooting and Howling - Wild Beasts

We're just brutes bored in our bovver boots.
We're just brutes clowning 'round in cahoots.
We're just brutes looking for shops to loot.
We're just brutes hoping to have a hoot

Is there a more perfectly literal band name than Wild Beasts? Stunningly restrained, understated arrangements of piano, bass and guitar form the basis of the track, leaving space for Hayden Thorpe's vocals to breathe and flourish. And flourish they do, swooping and diving, trembling and growling, hooting and howling, in an almost animalistic style. Sublime.

http://open.spotify.com/track/0VyHkEouiX2dGIELk6AOUo



Just missed - Passion Pit, Animal Collective, BFL, HEALTH, JJ, Miike Snow, Bloc Party