With the end of our calendar year upon us, many of us blogging types turn to cast a gaze over the past 12 months and deliver a year end recap. It’s been a few years since we completed this exercise, but with a year as strong as 2017 was, the opportunity to spotlight the releases and artists that one could’ve found clamoring from the AGP offices in the past year was too good to pass up. We have compiled the 25 songs below that ended up in heavy rotation on our turntables as well as on the various streaming platforms we frequented this year. You’ll probable notice the bulk of favorite tracks have origins in the American Northeast which speaks volumes about those artists, labels like Disposable America and Exploding in Sound Records, not to mention the thriving scenes in Allston, Northampton, Brooklyn, and Providence.
25. Protomartyr – A Private Understanding
24. Soft Fangs – Honey Colony
23. Big Heet – On A Wire
22. Lost Film – I Forget
21. Kindling – Wait
20. The Bats – Rooftops
19. Milked – Goodbye Durango
18. Yankee Bluff – Like An Insect
17. Black Beach – Cluttered Head
16. The Spirit of The Beehive – Cops Come Looking
15. Tobin Sprout – Cowboy Curtains
14. Rick Rude – Bald & Fat In Houston, TX
13. Two Inch Astronaut – Can You Please Not Help
12. Twin Foxes – Own Eyes
11. Infinity Girl – Don’t Believe
10. Tery Malts – Cheap Mimicry
9. Out – Wound Up
8. Downtown Boys – A Wall
7. The Cherry Wave – Don’t Start
6.The Persian Leaps – Picture My Reaction
5. Slowdive – Star Roving
4. Meat Wave – Leopard Print Jet Ski
3. Pile – Texas
2. Guided By Voices – Low Flying Perfection
1. Bad History Month – The Nonexistent Distance
Glasgow’s heavy shoegazers, The Cherry Wave have delivered Close, a new 4 song EP that follows the Scottish quartets superb sophomore LP, Shimaru released earlier this year. The EP picks up where the bands last release left off, although these tracks are even more arresting and yet accessible. In a week littered with some of highly anticipated releases I find myself drawn to this EP and to revisit often largely due to The Cherry Waves penchant for razor sharp hooks, rumbling rhythms buoyed by a tempest of guitar fuzz. With the resurgence of shoegaze there’s no shortage of acts in this sonic terrain but where The Cherry Wave set themselves apart is in the anthemic song structures and post-punk ethos. The EP’s raging opener, Don’t Start finds The Glaswegian outfit relentlessly leaning into their pedal boards and channeling Wire‘s succinct Pink Flag era howl, while remaining grounded in Kevin Shields‘ territory to carve out their very own enclave. Elsewhere Rockets follows suit while delving even deeper into cacophonous terrain. The Close EP consist of four primordial bangers and although it’s over a little too quickly, it’s an exhilarating marriage of noise fuzz and melody.
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