Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2024. Our next list is from Assistant Music Director Austin B. Harvey.

#1 Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee (Realistik)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

This two-hour transmission from a radio station at the end of the universe is phenomenal. Combining Brill Building simplicity with lo-fi production, (as well as turns of melody and romantic longing that recall the greatest American pop songs of the 1950s and 1960s), dazzling guitar work, and dashes of glam, indie, country, and the gloomiest folk music you’ve ever heard, the final Cindy Lee album is a 122-minute mediation on, essentially, heartbreak.

It’s psychedelic in a way that transports the listener to a beautifully dark and desolate place. The manifestation of pain as sonic beauty is nothing new in music, but rarely is it so bare and evident.

#2 “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Constellation)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

The Canadian collective’s 8th album is their most urgent, immediate, and visceral work, perhaps to date. Loud, mournful, resolute post-rock that makes you feel. Essential music for this and all times.

#3 Free Energy by Dummy (Trouble in Mind)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Sure, the shoegaze revival is great (see below) but we’re slam-dancing to Stereolab and the Happy Mondays now. Shake it to the farfisa.

#4 I don't care what comes next by sunshy (self-released)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Incredible, soaring, enveloping, body-crushing shoegaze from Chicago via Evanston. Aims for the heights of Loveless and lands among the stars.

#5 Every Heaven by Humdrum (Slumberland)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Loren Vanderbilt III, formerly of local heroes Star Tropics, regroups with a new band that casts the Another Sunny Day, Felt, and R.E.M.-indebted sound of his old band with a peppy, New Order-like fervor. A sunny blast from front to back.

#6 AMAMA by Crumb (Crumb)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Hazy, fractured, liminal pop that avoids terms like “hypnagogic” or “cloud” but manages to be at once catchy and off-kilter. Call it Countermelody’s Echo Chamber, but also call it brilliant.

#7 Radio DDR by Sharp Pins (self-released)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Filter Olivia Tremor Control, The Byrds, Young Guv, and Big Star through whatever production machine Guided by Voices used in the early days to sound like that, and you get this lovely half hour of powerfully gooey guitar-pop.

#8 Home Constellation Study by Asher White (Ba Da Bing/Feeding Tube)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

White’s been honing her singular, 00’s-indebted, kitchen-sink sound for 26 or so releases now. One hears Peter Bjorn and John, The Life Pursuit-era Belle & Sebastian, Patrick Wolf, Annuals, Antlers, and Shocking Pinks in this. “Dream Design House” is one of the best songs, and probably the best chorus, of the year.

#9 Not God by FINOM (Joyful Noise)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Jeff Tweedy helmed the board for the Chicago duo’s most-realized and catchiest album, it’s clear he learned a thing or two from Wilco’s time with Cate Le Bon last year. Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart and their lovely harmonies have never been more grounded or adventurous, a rare feat and a rare album.

#10 Akoma by Jlin (Planet Mu)

BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Jerrilynn Patton’s journey from footwork hero to in-demand composer and Philip Glass collaborator is fascinating but not surprising. One of the most innovative minds in modern music fuses hip-hop, hyperpop, and classical sounds in new, engrossing, and welcoming ways.

Honorable Mentions

11. Wussy - Cincinnati Ohio (Shake It) The long-running country-rock quintet’s album-long eulogy to their old pedal-steel player John Erhardt is a quieter affair by Wussy standards, but it’s a befitting tribute to a great musician. Wonderful to hear from this band again.
12. Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice (Matador) Following in the footsteps of anti-colonial masterpiece Afrique Victime, Mdou Moctar’s sixth LP leans on the classic rock-nature of his solos while stepping up the political rhetoric in his lyrics, letting the listener know the fury behind the guitar wizardry.
13. 2nd Grade - Scheduled Explosions (Double Double Whammy) Philly band takes the breakneck pacing of early GBV and Connections, marrying it with an irreverent fuzz a la The Breeders, and ties it together with the power-pop songcraft of Mazes, Big Star, or the Raspberries. 23 songs in 39 minutes. A hoot.
14. Los Campesinos! - All Hell (Heart Swells) The first one in 7 years from the former twee-pop stars fully leans into the band’s self-proclaimed status as “Britain’s only emo band”. Technicolor levels of sentiment on display here, from romance-related heartbreak to soccer-related heartbreak.
15. Shellac - To All Trains (Touch and Go) The final Shellac album is humorous, vitriolic, and muscular. It’s sharp-edged, pugilistic, and it’s as good an entry point to the band as any of their other albums. RIP Steve.
16. Nourished by Time - Catching Chickens EP (XL) It’s rare when an artist comes out of nowhere with a fantastic, fresh-sounding album like Marcus Brown did with last year’s Erotic Probiotic 2; and it’s rarer, still, when the follow-up just a year later metatextually examines both the path to newfound notoriety and the resultant craziness that comes as a knock-on effect. Nourished by Time are appointment listening at this point.
17. Blushing - Sugarcoat (Kanine) What if Hole or Veruca Salt got in the teleporter with Lush? That sounds like a blast doesn’t it?
18. Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown (Domino) Moody, mournful, elegies make up the Portishead singer’s first full-on solo LP. Intricate arrangements fill out these intimate songs sung by one of the more lovely voices of our lifetime.
19. Johnny Blue Skies - Passage du Desir (High Top Mountain) Sturgill Simpson revisits the psychedelic and outlaw sounds that made him a superstar in the first place. It’s one of his many wheelhouses, and it’s a welcome return.
20. Chat Pile - Cool World (The Flenser) The sound of the third post-punk revival getting chucked in the rock tumbler with a pack of steel wool. Heavy, yet agile stuff out of OKC.
21. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere (Century) If you want your prog-metal to be taken seriously, you need to quit messing around and give me a multi-minute synth solo right now. Make it snappy.
22. Cassandra Jenkins - My Light, My Destroyer (Dead Oceans) Reassuringly beautiful and lush psychedelic country-folk.
23. Friko - Where we’ve been, Where we go from here (ATO) Their record release show at Metro was one of my favorite “the kids are all right” moments of 2024.
24. julie - my anti-aircraft friend (Atlantic) Post-grunge-shoegaze that makes you wish you could put this on a mix CD in 2001 to impress someone you just met.
25. Drasii - Spirito Celeste (FPE) Top-tier techno from… Chicago? Don’t tell Detroit.
26. Wilco - Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP (dBpm) Wilco's first release after Jeff Tweedy's hip replacement finds the band with renewed energy and joy, covering basically all the band's genres in 18 tidy minutes.