Monster Children’s 21 Best Albums Of 2024
2024 was a fucking dog shit year for the world, but a pretty okay one for music.
It is heartening to know that despite the onslaught of political upheaval, civil unrest, atrocity, genocide, and interpersonal loss, art remains art, and from the frustration and violence can come things that mend the broken and put bullshit in its place out back with the bins.
This is a very biased list. It’s important that you know that going in.
Compiled in no particular order and mostly over text by Monster Children staff, editors, and contributors, Sam Hetherington, Campbell Milligan, Naz Kawakami, Josh Sabini, Elena Saviano, and James Royce.
Pratts & Pain, Royel Otis
Australia’s break out artists of the year, Royel Otis fulfill their destiny of stardom with Pratts & Pain. At this point, the two have little to prove to anybody, which spares the listener the labor of having to hear them fill out their album with obligatory ballads and songs about heartbreak that seem to exist only to skip over as so many of these brink-of-world-famous records do. Thankful for them.
‘Break your heart and put it back together again with this one.’ - Sam Hetherington, editor SYD
Patterns In Repeat, Laura Marling
As though you were inside of the wooden guitar chamber itself, Laura Marling holds you close to her all across Patterns In Repeat, the way that a child might hold an injured dove, nursing you back to health by the grace of their goodwill and depth of heart.
‘Sparkling strings and baby coos. Called my mom several times after listening.’ - Elena Saviano, staff writer NYC/LA
Scream From New York, NY, Been Stellar
New York City has a long and beloved history of musical representation. It is a city that loves to be captured through the waffled metallic coiling of microphones, whether it be through that of Reed, Moore, Sinatra, Casablancas, or Harry. The city is indifferent to its retrieval, and its decades and street corners are only known to be possessed in retrospect, long after the fact, its musical decades reflected on and defined by desperately categorical writers like me spouting obvious and convenient assertions like, ‘Lou Reed was New York in the 60’s’ as distant and easy as an assertion could possibly be given the time allotted to see it. It is rare and difficult for an artist to willfully and capably encapsulate a time, a space, and a feeling in New York at the time in which it is taking place, being lived, and being felt. Scream From New York, NY, the debut album from New York City’s Been Stellar, is an album that succeeds - consciously or not - at holding the city’s depth in the palm of its hand.
‘A record that had no choice but to be made - a compulsive, tense, and unyielding examination of life and experience as a poor youth in a big city.’ - Naz Kawakami, editor in chief, NYC
In Sexxy We Trust, Sexxy Red
Sabini said it best.
‘Listen to this on your way to work you’ll have a way better day. It’s fun as hell.’ - Josh Sabini, staff writer MLB
New Old Horse, Twine
A band that you will want to engage with immediately, because by the sound of their debut record, New Old Horse, you will be better for it, and they know it. There is little in the way of excess on this record as a developing band begins to chart their paths and articulate them with enough grace for you to be aware of their purposes without being overwhelmed by them.
‘Noisy Alt Country with a violin, a debut record that can’t really be messed with.’ - Josh Sabini, staff writer MLB
“No Title As of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead”, Godspeed You! Black Emperor
A band, a message, a purpose, a place, a time, music that says all.
‘Continuous rain, winds from the west at 18 knots - black coffee - 7.28am’ - Campbell Milligan, founder/creative director SYD
Madra, NewDad
Have you read our interview with NewDad? You should. Read it now, here. This is a band that will be big in a matter of months or years, and you’ll want to be in on them before your dumb ass friends get wind of it.
‘I stand by my statement that the Irish are the best people on the planet and the fact that these guys aren’t even 21, like, what?’ - Sam Hetherington, editor SYD
Hyperdrama, Justice
There is an old an incessant rumor that has followed Justice for nearly two decades - something of a half-joke, something of a conspiracy theory - that Justice are in fact Daft Punk in even deeper disguise than the robotic masks and suits has already permitted them. When confronted with that theory in an interview, Justice replied that yes, it is true, and that unfortunately for Daft Punk, they have made so much better music as Justice, and that it is sad how their side project is so much better than their actual band.
‘Justice fully back in some actual, good, classic French house. Allons-y.’ - James Royce, staff writer LA
30 Million Windows EP, Catcher
Thrashing about the bars of Brooklyn are Catcher, a band whose most recent EP, 30 Million Windows demands that you hear it as confidently and brazenly as a firetruck screeching down a one way street, off to save a life. Catcher doesn’t seem to trouble itself with whether you listen or not, because you will, and you’ll be better for it.
Not quite an album, but you know, fuck you.
‘The more introspective, organized, and honest output by New York City’s Catcher, 30 Million Windows is as excitingly threatening as it is devastatingly earnest.’ - Naz Kawakami, editor in chief NYC
Flight b741, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard
I am a notorious King Gizzard dislike-er, though I have seen them live and understand the appeal. There is a place in my heart for psych rock and jam rock and the collision of all kinds of sub-rock genres that come from well-adored legends like Bowie and Grandaddy. Unfortunately, that place is in a heart in the body of a person who no longer does acid and who gets haircuts regularly. That said, again, I recognize the legitimacy of KGLW and respect the ability of any artist to maintain a significant level of quality spread across such a large body of work.
‘King Gizzard does T. Rex in their millionth studio album in consecutive months. Come on now.’ - James Royce, staff writer LA
Manning Fireworks, MJ Lenderman
‘Hands down album of the year. Everyone’s saying it and it’s for a reason. I’ve listened to it more than any other album this year and it still hasn’t gotten old. He played “In a Jar” with Dinosaur Jr last weekend in LA. Life is awesome. Country is so back and Vegas is beautiful at night.’ - Josh Sabini, staff writer MLB
Only God Was Above Us, Vampire Weekend
In an astounding turn of events, Vampire Weekend’s Only God Was Above Us has made this list as well as similar lists by many of our competitors. The band from New York City whose predilection for world music - the type of music that reflects the band members’ various ethnic and cultural backgrounds - which is often confused for variations of North Eastern Prep have released an album that simultaneously engages with those ‘trad’ thematics while utilizing machinery and an ever-expanding range of musical utility to tear it all down beneath them.
‘No shame here, this album absolutely went off. I wanted to buy boat shoes after the first listen through.’ - James Royce, staff writer LA
Tangk!, Idles
IDLES are less sporadic than their time in the days of Joy- they are not swinging for the fences and hoping for the best, having fun (and us having fun with them) the whole way. With TANGK, they are keeping their eye on the ball. Their hits are precise and deliberate, skills that have surely honed in the years since their burst of career energy in 2018. IDLES are a band who are continuing to develop ideas around what they would like to say, and with TANGK, are more articulate than ever.
‘2024 fucking sucked but this album made it bearable.’ - Sam Hetherington, editor SYD
Open This Wall, Berlioz
Jazz that you can engage with, rhythms that shape and format themselves upon you like a thin blanket - the adaptability of a sound and series of melodies layering over each other to you and your mood, accessing and accenting your feelings as they shift and change - this is a rare ability for any art, but particularly in jazz, though Open This Wall gets pretty much all the way there.
‘Melodic house that’s actually good.’ - James Royce, staff writer LA
Cutouts, The Smile
The Smile’s Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner, focus more on texture than structure on this year’s Cutouts, and it serves them well. There is no need to wade on pulse or rhythm when the songs - but really, the specific sounds - are tangible and physically conductive, as though there were a feather in your hand from track to track, or a bed beneath you, or as though in ‘Foreign Spies’, you were in a submersible seeing the world as color and shape for the first time again.
‘overcast scattered cloud, winds from the east 18 knots. Peppermint tea 11.04am’ - Campbell Milligan, founder/creative director SYD
Box for Buddy, Box for Star, This Is Lorelei
‘Water From Your Eyes’ Nate Amos’ alternate/solo project This Is Lorelei’s debut album sounds like it is being poured out of a glass and into another. It insists that you hear it, like a friend you haven’t seen in a long time who has experienced so much more than you but wishes you were there for it all.’ - Naz Kawakami, editor in chief, NYC
Pulsar, L'Impératrice
James Royce, our writer in Los Angeles who elected this album, contributed a quote which you will find below. It reads, very simply, ‘just a good time.’ We can’t argue with that. It is true. Sometimes things can be that easy - that approachable. Sometimes the depth of a piece of work should be measured not by it’s technicality or complexity - though Pulsar contains amounts of both - but rather the degree to which it is enjoyed, danced to, cheers’d to, and kissed to.
‘Just a good time.’ - James Royce, staff writer LA
Bright Future, Adrienne Lenker
Wobbly chords and endearing fades that bookend each track of Bright Future make the album sound like a balance rather than an assertion. The album is precise in its orchestration, but just barely - like a wall covered entirely with photos and art and remnants of family and friends, an organized, controlled chaos reigned in by a caress rather than a lasso. Lenker is optimistic, but listening to the album’s contents, it’s hard to discern exactly why.
‘Extraordinarily poetic and understated. Cried then recovered, again and again and again.’ - Elena Saviano, staff writer NYC/LA
Live in Amarillo, Texas, Hayden Pedigo
There could be no better setting for a musician as rustily vibrant as Hayden Pedigo than the flattened-yet-prosperous Amarillo, Texas, a town as romantically adored by the world of jazz as it is the world of country, that when envisioned, it exists in a perpetual state of twilight. As such, the scorings of Hayden Pedigo do the dawning and dusking town gentle justice.
‘cloudless skies, winds light and humid from the north 5 knots - tequila, lime soda - 2.47pm’ - Campbell Milligan, founder/creative director SYD
Submarine, The Marias
The Marias have been making sensitive, sexy, entrancing music for the better part of a decade and their signature sensuality is not lost on this year’s Submarine. This album sounds more exasperated than previous Marias output which had been known for thematics of indifference and contradictory obsession both passionate and apathetic. Submarine works in a more forceful message than in the past, though still packaged in shyly hypnotic melody and spacious rhythm.
‘This album makes me feel like we’re living in simpler times whenever I listen to it.’ - Sam Hetherington, editor SYD