WOODHOUSE FINDS

Chandler - Wyatt C. Louis

Hypothetically, all country music should be pastoral. But Wyatt C. Louis’ newest is an immaculate conjuring of wide open spaces like few others. This First Nations fella’s soft, swinging voice gives a touching empathy to each song as the instruments swell with warmth, all of it stitched together with pedal steel.

Visual Kill: The Blossoming of Psychotic Depravity - Saidan

Don’t let the visual novel as album art fool you, this is some straightforward, deeply tasty black metal. Like a few other grand metal releases this year, Saidan knows the importance of hooks. Even over blast beats that sound as crusty as freshly hardened lava, there’s no denying the Enslaved influence showing up the in the riffs, which could just as easily be played on pumping keyboards.

Suspiro... - Maria Reis

A driving, bewitching rock album from Portugal that reminds me of Argentine master Juana Molina. Faded vocals over clattering percussion that never veers from a pulsing, propulsive track. Atlantic Ocean be damned, I want to see these folks live.

Dark Times - Vince Staples

A haunted version of G-funk, even recycling an old hook from Vince’s breakout banger “Blue Suede,” tuned down and ghostly to prove how much time has passed. But there’s pop guile lingering at the edges, even while the specter of death looms large. In other words, it’s Vince at his best.

NOT RECLUSE - K. Freund

Imagine seeing a night club jazz set as the room slowly fills with laughing gas. Now you have at least a glimpse at the winking mania of NOT RECLUSE. Zips and zaps of electronics pierce the slo-motion grooves, brief transmissions from another reality peaking in.

Amy Come on Home - Ladybird

Look man, any band with a song called “Short King Shuffle” is going to make this list.

Hex - Jon Mckiel

The title track is a song of the year contender: deeply wonked out R&B that stole its backbone from Tom Waits’ “Clap Hands.” But the rest of the album is just as unnerving and inescapable.