As part of our end of year review, we asked some of our favourite artists of 2024 what they’ve been listening to and watching this year.
The blistering, Art History, by New England trio, Perennial, was no.4 in our albums of the year. In fitting with their retro-loving ways, the band’s Chad Jewett recommends his favourite re-issues of 2024.
The Blood Brothers Crimes
The greatest punk album of the 21st century gets a gorgeous deluxe reissue, bundling the original LP with three essential contemporaneous b-sides, all of which are terrific. The Blood Brothers’ Crimes — a gnarled, angular nest of single note riffs and art-damaged synths — remains an avant-garde hardcore tour de force, just as surprising and captivating now as it was back in 2004. The reissue packaging is stunning and the opportunity to sit down with this feral, explosive record (now celebrating its 20th anniversary) is a treat. If you haven’t heard Crimes yet, now’s the time and this reissue is the ideal iteration.
Comet Gain Radio Sessions (BBC 1996-2011)
A warmly shambolic crazy quilt of post-punk, bedroom pop, mod, and lo-fi; London’s Comet Gain have a wide-ranging and incredibly prolific discography, ranging from pop gems to boombox-recorded curios. Radio Sessions (BBC 1996-2011) collects a whole bunch of their best work across a decade and a half, benefitting from both the live energy of on-air performances and broadcast studio precision. A great intro to a great band.
P.P. Arnold The First Lady Of Immediate
We all love a nice, overstuffed deluxe reissue. But there’s also something delightful about a tastefully-minimal, lovingly-assembled reproduction of the original document: particularly –as is the case with Immediate’s reissue of PP Arnold’s 1968 mod-soul classic, The First Lady Of Immediate – when the album in question is already perfect. A showcase for Arnold’s kinetic, showstopping voice and a lushly- produced sonic tour of mid/late sixties aesthetics (Mick Jagger, Andrew Loog Oldham, and members of Small Faces all have production credits on the LP), The First Lady is a riveting but underappreciated masterpiece.
Stop what you’re doing and check out album-opener “If You Think You’re Groovy”, an absolutely thrilling three minutes of soul, boasting one of the greatest hooks ever written, one of the best vocal performances you’ll ever hear (seriously, P.P. Arnold is unreal on this track), and the best Small Faces instrumental to never appear on a Small Faces album.
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