Clicky Clicky Music Blog's Top Albums Of 2013: Dillon Edition

And here it is, our last year-end list for 2013, this one top albums selections courtesy of our intrepid Staff Writer Dillon Riley. There is noticeable overlap between this list and our own, which we published earlier this week. However, we embrace the differences between the lists even more, as they allow the publication to recognize yet more very worthy acts that didn't rate a slot on Jay's tally. Yet even Mr. Riley didn't have room in the manger for all he hoped to recognize; he extends honorable mention kudos to Medicine (To The Happy Few, released on Captured Tracks), Grooms (Infinity Caller, on Western Vinyl), Radiator Hospital (see Jay's list), Swearin' (Surfing Strange, Salinas Records) and Waxahatchee (Cerulean Salt, Don Giovanni). If you'll allow a brief aside, we're grateful not only to our readers for lending their attention to the publication each day, but also to the rock solid partners we've conned into helping further the mission of Clicky Clicky. So to Michael Piantigini, Edward Charlton and Mr. Riley, this blog's executive editor offers his sincerest, unreserved thanks. We hope you all enjoy their writing half as much as we do. Clicky Clicky will publish little or not at all for the remainder of the year, but rest assured we'll be out here listening to and weighing the relative merits of the new now sounds, and resting up for what is sure to be an exciting and indie-rock filled 2014. We thank you for your continued patronage. Now on to Dillon's Top Albums Of 2013.

1. Krill -- Lucky Leaves -- Self-Released

It physically hurt, having to choose between these jams and those of the equally impressive collection listed just below Lucky Leaves. No other records were more obsessively spun, streamed, talked and/or posted on Facebook/Twitter about, and air drummed along to in class by me than these two beauties. So, the question remains, why place Krill over Speedy Ortiz at the top of the heap? Well, concerned reader, it's simple: while Speedy most definitely delivered an (all-but) unbeatable collection of ass-kicking rock tunes, Krill invented their own sonic world with Lucky Leaves. So, out of pure journalistic obligation, I just gotta side with them. Plus, what other band on this planet or otherwise would release their highly anticipated sophomore LP in a ball of mozzarella for an obscenely high price? Or, for that matter, any price? I thought so. Buy it here.



2. Speedy Ortiz -- Major Arcana -- Carpark

What more can be said about this record that hasn't been dished already? The culmination of 1,001 basement gigs, a couple incredible singles and a legend-forging EP, Speedy Ortiz's meteoric rise, and the parallel ascension of the scene that birthed them, has been one of 2013's greatest success stories. Another release as good as this (and I'm expecting their forthcoming EP to slay based on the single), and we may have to declare Massachusetts the new indie rock mecca. Buy it here.



3. My Bloody Valentine -- mbv -- Self-Released

C'mon, like this one wasn't gonna make it... I, like many reading this, stayed up half the night on that fateful February evening waiting for the My Bloody Valentine website to gain its footing so I could get my metaphorical hands on these sweet, sweet digital goods. And, uh, no disappointments here. A basically flawless album from one of the most influential bands/sonic auteurs/musical masterminds of all time, mbv picked up right where the final flickering beats of "Soon" left off, despite the two-decade-plus gap. I was there at the House Of Blues gig, too, and in some ways I'm still recovering from it as I type these words -- emotionally at least. "Wonder 2" still induces vertigo when I slap it on the turntable. Buy mbv here.



4. Joanna Gruesome -- Weird Sister -- Slumberland

Complete with a mythic origin story (click and control-f for "anger"), a record bursting at the grooves with energy, and a deliriously bad name, Joanna Gruesome had me captivated long before they blew up at CMJ this fall. An arresting concoction of power-twee hooks and searing, noise-pop guitars, this Cardiff quintet's music presents a perfect yin-yang of indie rock goodness. Sure, they come off a little bookish at the onset with "Sugarcrush," but by "Secret Surprise" frontwoman Alanna Gruesome -- yeah they adopted band surnames a la The Ramones, as well as a certain other Cardiff-based indie pop sensation -- apparently bins her anger management training and embraces some good ol' fashioned violence as she dreams of pulling teeth from an ex's mouth. Joanna Gruesome is another band you can file under Dill-core for sure. Buy Weird Sister here.



5. Ovlov -- am -- Exploding In Sound

am, the debut LP from these Newtown, CT fuzz-rockers, was a near-revelation upon its mid-summer release. Delivering on the promise of their early EPs, Ovlov's current all-Hartlett lineup -- brothers Steve, Theo, and Jon -- is easily their best to date, one that takes frontdude Steve's compositions to dizzying heights. And yet, on an album filled with such intense, unrelentingly overdriven guitar anthems, it's the record's most restrained track, the lumbering "Where’s My Dini?," that shines brightest. At least to me. Whatever, the stratospheric launch around the 1:07 mark during "Blue Baby" stands as my favorite musical moment of the year, too, so what do I know? Buy am here.



6. Deerhunter -- Monomania -- 4AD

Here's why I will always love this band: fresh off their biggest release yet, 2011's gorgeously atmospheric Halcyon Digest, one would expect Deerhunter -- seemingly on the cusp of widespread adoration -- to drop another set of articulate dream-pop tunes. Instead we got Monomania, a haphazard collection of brittle, lo-fi, junkyard-rock, and a bizarre-even-by-Bradford Cox-standards appearance on Jimmy Fallon's late-night gabber. These songs are all splintering guitars and jagged-edge vocal squawks about motorbikes and obsession, a perfect backdrop for Deerhunter's most American-sounding effort yet. The kicker is the record's best song, Lockett Pundt's turn at the mic for "The Missing," is far more Lotus Plaza than Deerhunter: a perfect exception to the rules set forth by the Monomania's skewed aesthetic. Buy it here.



7. Smith Westerns -- Soft Will -- Mom + Pop Music

Speaking of smart, well-crafted indie music, these Chicago dudes kick up a pristine blend of guitar-pop, trading in angular guitars and restrained rhythms for Day-Glo keyboard melodies and glam-rock bombast. How the first single from Soft Will, the deliciously juvenile "Varsity," hasn’t appeared on more (read: any) best song lists for 2013 is beyond me. I guess people don't put as much of a premium on clean-cut pop melodies as they used to. No matter, I get the feeling this band will continue to quietly release 10-song batches of exacting, sugary-sweet angst like this one well into the future. After all, they're barely out of high school. Buy Soft Will here.



8. Bent Shapes -- Feels Weird -- Father/Daughter

Allston basement heroes done good, a classic story archetype you'll find with some regularity within this list. With their debut LP Feels Weird, indie-pop heroes Bent Shapes compiled and cleaned up a proverbial murderer's row of tracks they'd released in various formats (and production fidelities) to create a collection for the ages. A pre-release P-Fork album stream helped build buzz and landed them favorable reviews across the board, and their release show at Great Scott was one our favorites of the year. Not a bad year for the artists formerly known as Girlfriends, I'd say. Buy Feels Weird here.



9. Youth Lagoon -- Wondrous Bughouse -- Fat Possum

You wouldn't know it from the sound of his early singles, but Trevor Powers is quite the arranger. Where his debut under the Youth Lagoon moniker, The Year of Hibernation, exuded hushed tones and reverb-heavy keys, Powers went HD on this affair, trading up for expansive, panoramic production and hard-hitting live drums. This was far and away the best pure psych-rock album released in 2013; not bad considering this year also saw The Flaming Lips release a 24-hour-long song inside of a gummy skull head [total Krill wannabes -- Ed.] and a full-album tribute to The Stone Roses. A sparsely attended afternoon set at the first Boston Calling didn't do Powers justice, 'cause he brings the proverbial it live, too. Buy Wondrous Bughouse here.



10. Pity Sex -- Feast of Love -- Run For Cover

This record had all the trappings of what my friends call a "typical Dillon album:" Blown-out guitar production? Check. Boy/girl call-and-response vocals? Check. A mash-up of two classically "indie" sounds? Check. And last, but not least, a groan-inducingly un-Googleable name? Why, of course. Suffice to say, I fell hard for this Ann Arbor quartet's razor-sharp emo-gaze, and early album highlight "Keep" is still a go-to for my own version of the Seth Cohen starter kit. Buy Feast Of Love here.

That Was The Show That Was: Bent Shapes Feels Weird Release Show With Potty Mouth And Krill

[Photo courtesy of Brad Searles] Shows like Sunday's at Allston landmark Great Scott are the reason why our favorite bands seem to be getting more press in, say, Pitchfork than the Boston media these days. The bill alone speaks volumes for the admirable diversity of our beloved little scene: there were the paranoid insectoid ruminations of Krill, the brash punk stylings of the hotly tipped Potty Mouth, and the whip-smart post-punk jams of Bent Shapes. It was the latter act's release show, and Bent Shapes certainly brought that nebulous "it" live in a big way. Much to our delight, Potty Mouth and Krill also delivered memorable sets.

Bent Shapes took the stage a little after 11 and quickly brought the proverbial house down. The trio's new record Feels Weird -- out today and now streaming at Pitchfork Advance -- is incredible, a hard-earned tour de force from one of the best indie pop band in Boston. They wear their influences proudly, to be sure, but the true appeal to Bent Shapes' fizzing sound is its tight songcraft, a trait that dates back to its early days as Girlfriends. Songs like "Big Machines" and set closer "Behead Yrself Pt. 2" neatly cram melodies and counter-melodies into shiny, breezy post-punk nuggets. None of that gets lost in the act's live show, either. Stripped of some studio polish, the songs register with even more conviction, all strained vocals and loud, crashing cymbals. Out-of-towners might not realize, and the unfamiliar wouldn't know it from the pop euphoria of Feels Weird, but Bent Shapes are veterans of the city's basement scene and were right at home on a small stage like Great Scott's. The show not only felt like a victory lap for the group, but also seemed to celebrate how far the Boston scene in general has come of late, especially this summer. At the end of it all, Bent Shapes had a totally rad encore walk-on moment, too -- not bad for a Sunday night in late August.

First up Sunday were JP's premiere bugcore trio Krill, who not long ago threw a record release show of their own on the very same stage. Dedicated readers of all things Clicky Clicky know we are big fans of that joint, Lucky Leaves. Dare we say it fucking ruled. This is a band that originally intended to release said sophomore set embedded in soft balls of mozzarella, a notion that speaks volumes about the trio's collective, warped persona. That sense of absurdity translates to the stage, as well: within seconds of opening their set, fronter Jonah Furman performed a sight gag for the crowd. Just before lumbering into dub-inflected album standout "Never A Joke," Mr. Furman began pulling what looked like a long roll of toilet paper of his front pocket... to muted applause. The dynamic set that followed offered older tunes, a healthy dose of Lucky Leaves (and we all learned recently that Lucky, indeed, is leaving), and a bit of their newly-written "concept album about wanting to play shows with Pile." Furman's piercing, emotive voice paints him as a natural, if unconventional frontman. Western, Mass pop-punkers Potty Mouth anchored the middle of the bill, delivering a fun-loving, shambolic set pulled largely (if not exclusively) from their pending debut Hell Bent. The catchy brat rock struck a clean, pleasant contrast to Krill's paranoiac parables, even if they had to borrow Aaron Ratoff's guitar. -- Dillon Riley

Bent Shapes: Facebook | Tumblr | Soundcloud

Review: Bent Shapes | Feels Weird

With this long-awaited debut full-length -- and the years of work it represents -- Boston trio Bent Shapes can lay claim to a place among the nation's preeminent indie pop bands. Although we're hard-pressed to think of a contemporary act whose work is as smart, economical and fizzing with energy, and the effort instead leads us back to the early Feelies catalog or Unrest's Imperial f.f.r.r. for meaningful analogues. Since its early days when it used the name Girlfriends, Bent Shapes has shown it can consistently construct bracing pop nuggets, and this facility has carried over from its singles and cassette releases to Feels Weird (a title, fans may recall, that almost became the band's name). Indeed, the long-player -- out Tuesday on Father/Daughter Records -- touts for its full, ephemeral 27-minute duration the potency and immediacy of a brilliant single. This is little surprise, as the majority of Feels Weird has been issued as a single or b-side or in some prior form. But no matter the reason, the collection is one of the most listenable of the year, a sort of pre-emptive Compact Snap! for one of the city's most promising combos.

​​​For as refreshingly minimalist and pointed as the album is, Bent Shapes exhibit a noteworthy range in terms of timbre and songcraft (particularly for a trio leveraging the traditional guitar/bass/drums configuration). The result is panoply of sounds emphasized by rotating lead vocal duties and variations in tension and intensity. There's the breezy pop of "Check My Vitals," the venomous scene crit of the album highlight "Brat Poison" (previously issued as the b-side to the flexi-single released right after the threesome changed its change), ​the uptempo, hip-shaking jangle of "Big Machines" and "Boys To Men," and the staccato power-pop karate chops of opener "Behead Yourself, Pt. 2." ​Evidence of the band's evolution over time can be found in the thoughtful production choices throughout the record. The nostalgic air of "Hex Maneuvers" is limned by the spectral reverb on the guitars​ in the verse, the fury of "Brat Poison" is made more potent with the application of distortion to the vocals and a storming, scalene rhythm conjured by drummer Andy Sadoway and bassist Supriya Gunda.​

Mr. Potrykus stands out as a particularly clever lyricist even in a wicked smaaaahhht town like Boston; he has an uncanny way with meter and melody that colors observations such as his assurance in the brilliantly arranged "Bites And Scratches" -- which, along with "I Was Here But I Disappear," is a new version of song first released in 2009 on a self-titled Girlfriends cassette -- that "the past, you can trust, will mess you up, but hang on to love, it'll be enough to save you somehow." Of, course, his view is not always as optimistic and congenial; indeed, our favorite moments of the record are Potrykus's biting remonstrations in the aforementioned "Brat Poison."

Father/Daughter releases Feels Weird Tuesday; the set is available as an LP (pressed to traditional sad black or bone and electric blue-colored media), CD or download, and pre-orders are being taken right here. Vinyl orders are packaged with a download code and an 11 x 17 poster. The band fetes the album tomorrow night at Great Scott in Boston with a release show that includes sets from Western Mass.-based indie rockers Potty Mouth and the telepathic fear and loathing of next-level bugcore trio Krill. We speculate this show will sell out, so you'd be wise to take the appropriate measures to ensure your intentions at entertainment are met. There are a number of tracks from Feels Weird available to stream, and we've collected embeds of most of them and posted them below. Finally, in case you missed it, we spoke to all three of the members of Bent Shapes in May to learn a little bit more about where they make the indie pop magic; read that feature right here.

Bent Shapes: Facebook | Tumblr | Soundcloud

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Show Us Yours #15: Bent Shapes

To be sure, Boston has always been an indie-pop town, long before there was even the term "indie pop," see Exh. A, The Modern Lovers. But as the scene ebbs and flows and one paws through releases and cycles through shows, sometimes you can lose sight of the great indie pop resident within our oddly shaped metropolis. We're not trendspotting or calling for a renaissance, we're pretty sure it's there all the time, like hardcore bands and Pabst and that one tall guy at all the shows. But we are excited that some of the scene's heavy hitters are about to release some hotly anticipated new music, something we learned when we checked in with the good people of Bent Shapes. The trio are planning to release later this year their debut long-player Feels Weird, a title which longtime fans will recall (from Liz Pelly's Boston Phoenix piece a year ago) was almost the name the band chose to replace its original moniker, Girlfriends. With that in mind, we thought it was high time to check in with Bent Shapes to learn about where they make their magic, what that magic smells like, and what plans the band is forming around the release of Feels Weird. We put our usual battery of questions to fronter and guitarist Ben Potrykus, bassist Supriya Gunda and drummer Andy Sadoway, and they graciously responded. Although the ominous reference to a west coast label below makes us worry about a potential Tupac/Biggie thing on the horizon, maybe we're reading too much into it. We're grateful to the band for playing along; now let's read what they had to say, and have a listen back to the cracking "Panel Of Experts" single.

Clicky Clicky: So why do you use this space, or how did it come to pass that this was the one that you settled on?

Supriya: We are serial practice space monogamists, known around town for courting a space and dropping her like a hot potato once she gets too frigid or stuffy. Who knows though, this might be 'the one.'

CC: Is there an idiosyncrasy or quirk of the space that has affected one of your songs, or even your overall sound?

Supriya: There are few places to practice in Boston. We've been in and out of rooms in this building for the better part of the last decade in various former lives. The quirks are our own ghosts.

Andy: And a whiteboard drawing of Jeff Lynne talking to our friend Emeen from Spirit Kid (spiritkidmusic.com) about his album. It's a reminder that we need to work harder on our music OR ELSE...

CC: You walk into your space. What's the first thing that you smell? Why won't that smell go away?

Andy: The hallway outside of our room smells like what I remember Old Spice "Musk" scent to be. I was about to Google "Old Spice Musk" right now for a reminder of what it’s like, but then I realized that you can’t Google smells (yet). It's too bad that the hallway smells so dank, because I think the new scent is the management's attempt at making the space smell better. The hallway used to smell like stale beer and cigarettes, which I miss at this point. I tried to burn some Nag Champa to get rid of the "Musk," but that Old friend comes back each week to haunt us. You know what they say: another week, another bucket of "Musk" mopped on the floor.

CC: Off the top of our head, Bent Shapes is one of the few bands we can think of in Boston that underwent a name change, which happened almost exactly a year ago. "Mission Accomplished," or did that solve more problems than the original name created? You gonna change your name again the next time Mars goes into retrograde?

Ben: I think it worked out great. Way less confusion, given that we haven't found any other bands called Bent Shapes. No problems with other bands, press, or venues. We tried to play out a lot when the name changed and get some songs out fast, to make sure we were pretty visible. We'll change it the next time Halley's Comet comes around.

CC: What do the next six months look like for the band? You've got an album in the works -- what can you tell us about that? Do you plan to tour to support it?

Ben: It's called Feels Weird and it'll be out on a West Coast label in late summer. More details are going be announced really soon, but we are planning on touring soon after it comes out for a few weeks. There's talk of an US East Coast trip, but we may get into the Midwest or parts of Canada as well. Fingers crossed!

Bent Shapes: Internerds | Facebook | Soundcloud

Previous Show Us Yours episodes:
Shapes And Sizes | Dirty On Purpose | Relay | Mobius Band | Frightened Rabbit | Assembly Now | Meneguar | Okay Paddy | Charmparticles | Calories | Sun Airway | It Hugs Back | Lubec | A Giant Dog

Young Adults Record Release Show | Great Scott | 6 Nov.

Yes, we know you're going to go to Guided By Voices the night before, and you'll be in no shape Saturday night to think about being out. But this is a big deal show. Also on the bill are the hotly tipped Girlfriends, scene-makers Doomstar and Earthquake Party. That sounds like a recipe for a sell-out. Young Adults will be hyping the release of their snarling new 12" Black Hole, which is being issued by Prague-based AmDiscs. You've seen them rock basements, you've heard them unleash tsunamis of swear words on live radio. But you've never seen them play a record release show for Black Hole before. Be there.