Musing

This list is more about posterity than about writing convincing arguments imploring you to try these albums. I'm already later than I'd planned and time isn't getting any freer, so it's time to spit it out and get on with everything else! Remember when I said that last year? When I evidently (somehow) had even more time to write than I have today? Ah, the good old days. So! Same rules apply. 2015 had both better quantity and quality when compared to 2014. I came up with a list of 20 albums off the top of my head that were new in '15, not including albums that were released earlier than that but found for the first time in the last 12 months. Let's recap. Chasing Daylight What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful Strange Trails My Favourite Faded Fantasy Did I Sleep And Miss The Border Beneath The Skin These Changing Skies Vestiges And Claws Curio Cities Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance Kintsugi No No N...

Snow Patrol's Fallen Empires Editor's Note: This is the 3rd in a quasi-weekly series of reviews marking my favorite ten albums of 2012. The 10th edition is wrapped into the larger year-end post I call "The Ho Media Awards", which will be published just after the new year. Stay tuned! A Hundred Million Suns seemed to come and go with barely a ripple in the popular music pool. "Take Back the City" was a modest success on the radio at best, and I don't recall hearing another single off of that album. Although it gave us the gem "Lifeboats" and the three part masterpiece "The Lightning Strike," it seemed that their 15 minutes had passed. So when it came to the new album, Fallen Empires , I wasn't exactly beside myself with anticipation. FE doesn't push any new boundaries for the band, but I think it refines the sound of the last album a little more. It's a little safer that way maybe, which would be my one over-...