Album Awards 2024

Easily the most competitive category of this year's Calliope Music Awards, 2024 was stacked with incredible singles ranging from eclectic Pop bangers to deeply personal experiments and culturally monumental psychological take-downs. In the end, one single rose above the rest as a satisfying and intensely replayable combination of all that 2024 had to offer. That is Jane Remover's two-part single, Flash in the Pan.

The first track is a texturally addicting Emo Rap song that sees Jane pop off desperate pines for love as braggadocious status bars. A slick interlacing of electronic components and moody guitar set the stage for Jane's supremely smooth and confident cadence before erupting into one of recent memory's flashiest and hardest-hitting hooks.

 The second track, Dream Sequence enhances the mood in a beautifully lush Dream Pop landscape of gazing guitars and streetlight synth blips. Once again, Jane explodes in a glitzy chorus as waves of guitar drown potent lyrics of love and isolation.

Both tracks make up a wonderfully spirited blend of Alternative R&B production and Emo aesthetics that never cease to deliver a fresh and fun experience, solidifying them as 2024's Best Single in the face of intense competition.

Another intense and grandiose Post-Punk affair, Manchester band, Maruja delivers existentialism as a gift on Connla's Well. Reverberating saxophone warbles amidst wired ambiance, hulking bass guitar, and the apocalyptic spoken word (more so a "yelled-word") of singer, Harry Wilkinson.  The band continues to stun through thundering beasts of Jazzy consonance and Post-Rock composition, building obliterating instrumentals and blistering suspense. At only 20 minutes in length, the demand for a full-length project only grows stronger, but in the meantime Connla's Well serves well as 2024's EP of the Year.

A dense timbre of fizzling electronics, hardy 808s, and a wide array of digital and garage drums set base to an extensive collection of Indie-infused Hip Hop. After years of development and experimentation, Quadeca has found a fulfilling way to create complementary progressions through substantial distributions of refrain and distinct glitchy instrumentation.

Personal and genuinely reflective, Scrapyard is a raw but enthralling step in Hip Hop and Pop fusion, coated with depth and intoxicating developments at every corner, easily making it this year's Best Mixtape.

In a close battle between Kraut Rock legends, Can and the mythical Psych Rock group, Les Rallizes Dénudés (LRD), the Japanese Rocker's newest remaster came out on top. Meticulously reproduced, the live album captures the band's signature dissonance in a crisper fashion than ever before. From the sprawling Heavy Psych opener 'Deeper Than the Night' to the once-in-a-lifetime guitar solo on this 1980 version of 'The Last One,' the four-piece never ceases to add nuance to their dark and astonishingly harsh sound. Although Can's free Kraut warbling and tight band-play is fully displayed on Live in Paris 1973, LRD presents an immersive consistency in ground-shaking bass grooves and sheer guitar Psychedelics. This consistency is ultimately why YaneUra Oct.'80 is 2024's Archival Release of the Year.

  A monstrous record in every sense of the word, Swans' Live Rope presents a rope to climb, one that burns the flesh of hands that slip but bestows a momentous breakthrough for those who reach the top. With a sound and tempo that has never quite been accomplished before, 70-year-old band leader, Michael Gira conducts a black hole of swirling Post-Rock and momentous Gothic atmospheres that shut out all surrounding light. This is a long and arduous listen but an incredulously rewarding live record to sink deeply within, breaking brains and claiming spirits on its way to 2024's Live Album of the Year. 

Former black midi lead singer, Geordie Greep's debut solo album is a trip to behold. In a vulgar parade of ravishing insecurity, Greep exercises immense dynamism through dense Jazz-Rock and sporadic Prog-Rock energies. Expertly decorated and narratively abundant, the record zips and waltzes in stunning Art Rock passages, juicy with humor and dramatism. Already a cult-success story via his former Avant-Prog outfit, black midi, The New Sound has solidified Greep as one of contemporary Rock's brightest and most influential stars, earning his record 2024's Debut Album of the Year.