I don’t think we need another voice pontificating about the absolute hellscape this timeline keeps hurdling toward: I’d rather take a break from reality and talk about the riches that 2024 has bestowed upon my music library. From an absolute avalanche of newly released tunes to finally diving into virtual discographies I should’ve done myself the kindness of falling for eons ago, this year has already given me so much to love so ferociously while casually neglecting 12,700 Songs’ retrospective cache of rediscovery suspended in time.

So, hey, lemme tell you about my favorite new and new-to-me music from the first two-thirds of the year, ’cause it’s a joy to be reminded of how much good music is not only still being made but also always primed for discovery.

Things That Were Actually Released in 2024
Khruangbin, A la sala (released 5 April)
The post-rock fan in me will always be a sucker for music I can just vibe to and impose my own interpretations on without the real lyrics implying they know what the song’s about better than I do. Khruangbin is one of those bands I’m always in the mood for, everyone seems to love (a buddy played it as well-received background noise for a recent trivia night; my husband, whose dissimilar music taste I have referenced, like, every third post here, can’t walk into the room when I’m playing any one of their albums without commenting on how much he likes this band), and needs to be experienced album by album rather than song by song. Their newest offering came out right as the world was waking up for the best season, which was absolutely perfect timing for a dreamy, surf-rock-adjacent sound made to be played in the warmer weather. Having it so top of mind since its release has definitely drawn me to it more than their other also-fabulous albums, giving me a chance to really get to know A la sala a lot better and a lot faster than Khruangbin’s other stuff. If there was one album I could point to as my soundtrack for this summer, it’d be this immediate-obsession-worthy gem.

Pedro the Lion, Santa Cruz (released 7 June)
This installment in David Bazan’s planned five-album retrospective re-examinations of the places he’s lived didn’t reach out to demand my attention and gobsmacked adoration while rocking me back to the horrors of middle school with an inexplicably nostalgia-varnished warmth like its immediate predecessor did, but Havasu did have the element of surprise on its side. And, to be fair, Santa Cruz came out on the same day that two other albums I’d been dying to hear also burst into the world (because this is really, truly the year of musical riches), so I haven’t been able to really hyperfocus on this newest PTL treat but I sure have had plenty of opportunities to fall in love with it. Having a broader scope beyond the titular city and more than a childhood snapshot to zero in on imbued this album with the freedom of adulthood versus the previous two installments’ exploration of familial claustrophobia and limited autonomy, and it deliciously amplified the maturity of experience and confidence of purpose that first taste of one’s 20s is supposed to invoke.

Man Man, Carrot on Strings (released 7 June)
A friend whose taste in not just music is impeccable suggested I give this band a shot back in 2020, and it is such a personal failure that it took me ’til this March to finally and fully appreciate the full-on circus that every single Man Man album I’ve devoured is. I am so happy that this is the first album of theirs I got to experience as a new release: Each freshly dropped single was a treat and the entire album has been so much fun to get to know. Like I said, June 7 was a great day for new releases so I haven’t put this on this infinite-repeat cycle it deserves, but feeling it become little more familiar with every listen has been just so goddamn much fun. It’s a great album, a deeply satisfying listening experience and easily one of my favorite albums of the year.

The Decemberists, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again (released 14 June)
When I say I’m a little underwhelmed by this album, I really need to put that in context: I’m never not going to have high expectations fueled by an interminable waiting period whenever my favorite band announces a new album. And I’m going to want that album to do things I know damn well are unfair to hope for but I just can’t help optimistically itemizing: one hyper-literary musical movement simultaneously delivering the distinctly different smattering of singles their later albums embraced and the early albums’ sepia-toned anachronisms extending one mighty auspicious introduction to a band I have loved with insatiable ferocity since we first met two decades ago. And this album really did capture some of the band’s nascent-days charm and character while adding to a catalogue that only gets more interesting with every installment, plus it gets major kudos for having the meaty clackers to release an EP-length single about Joan of Arc. It’s not their fault I’m a fuccin brat who just wants an album full of “Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect” 12 different way.

WHY?, The Well I Fell Into (released 2 Aug.)
I absolutely love that what might be my favorite album of the year dropped on bestie’s birthday. WHY? is one of the most interesting bands I’ve glommed onto ever since the same friend who introduced me to Man Man suggested I give this musical outfit a try (I can’t recommend the gateway drug of Alopecia enough!): This might be their most accessible, melodic and cohesive album to date, but it’s also a natural progression of an experimental sound that’s finding itself and settling into its ultimate form with the kind of confidence that only comes from pushing at the boundaries of convention and blowing right on past them to make your own rules. Most of what WHY? has put out probably falls neatly into acquired-tastelandia but this might be the newbie-friendliest ingress point to a catalog made of some truly rewarding listening experiences.

Honorable mention: And So I Watch You From Afar’s Megafauna. I’ve played it an awful lot since its Aug. 9 release but it’s still not enough to adequately appreciate the album. I have, however, enjoyed every second spent with this (post)rock-solid delight.

2024’s Late-to-the-Party Discoveries
Christine Fellows, Paper Anniversary (released 2006)
I’ve been trying to figure out for months what to say about Electro-Shock Blues, Eels‘ sophomore album wrung from some walloping personal losses and feeling every ounce of sorrow and healing amid the weight of life, suddenly feeling relevant in ways I was never going to be ready for. (Like, I started that post back in February and, at 1,263 words, I’m hopelessly stalled out on how to make it one unified thing and not a million discombobulated chaotically orbiting shards. And also how to end the thing.) But this album’s second track has racked up dozens more listens than the rest of the album combined since I first really heard “Vertebrae” while driving home I think sometime this spring—like, not just passively listened to it at a red lights but really, actually paid attention to what it’s about—when the snippet “fall to my knees in the hospital parking lot” just cut through whatever brain fog protects other drivers from the full wrath of my justice sensitivity to hit me hard with a distinct gravel crunch, whiff of burning Pine Barrens and disassociating shock that phrases like “hospital parking lot” didn’t have until a year ago. I have never listened to a song about familial death so much or ever expected for one to make me feel so understood, and it’s entirely because this grieve-stricken balm of a song dropped itself into my consciousness exactly when I need it. But also because the line “Why, when you know you should go, is it so hard to leave?” is entirely too relatable these days.

The Sorcerers, In Search of the Lost City of the Monkey God (released 2020)
Like I said, I’m a sucker for instrumentals; that, plus my infinite affinity for classic rock predisposed me to developing an immediate fondness for these guys, whose music my husband actually didn’t hate being stuck in the car with AND packs a solid late-’60s/early-’70s throwback sound. Despite enjoying the hell out of Mulatu Astatke’s music (this album in particular is a mighty fine first taste of his transcendent tunes, and I’ve been digging on a bite-sized Madala Kunene album an awful lot these past couple weeks, too), Ethiopian jazz isn’t a genre I saw myself falling madly in love with. I honestly couldn’t even begin to speculate how this band landed on my radar, but In Search of the Lost City of the Monkey God was the auspicious introduction that got me hooked—and the rest of their discography is just as captivating, catchy and straight-up cool. The Sorcerers remain one of my favorite musical finds of 2024, and they’re the one I’ve been most enthusiastically recommending to anyone who’ll listen to me wax newly minted fangirl about them.

Honeycomb, Worldwide Electric Inventor’s Kit (released 2008)
Rate Your Music‘s greatest service to the world just might be its “Related artists” subcategory, which is how I stumbled upon what is essentially Lotion 2.0. (And is also why I have spent the past two months frantically scouring the internet for any trace of this album as a tangible CD.) With at least half of Lotion migrating to this project, it sounds exactly like the quirky ’90s band got picked up and dropped somewhere in the late aughts and decided to keep on making some music with the tools and whirligigs suddenly available to them. There’s still literal bells and whistles punctuating the landscape of these 14 songs, this could easily pass for Lotion’s fourth album, and it even fittingly continues the trend of these guys making music that sounds like Pynchon’s novels, with the levity of unexpected lyrics and instrumental interjections amplifying the impact of emotionally complex confessions and insights.

Man Man
I rarely get treated to excellent timing in any capacity, so gobbling up Man Man’s catalogue with an all-new treat on the horizon and dropping new singles along the way felt a lot like being rewarded for taking so goddamn long to discover how phenomenal this band is. Years and I guess also decades at this point of loving the likes of World/Inferno Friendship Society and Gogol Bordello predisposed me to loving a band that sounds like just the best circus, and Man Man delivers on that front and so much more. On Oni Pond (especially “Loot My Body“) and Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between (especially “Cloud Nein“) have been quintessential warm-weather, windows-down-volume-up listening this year, and their Philly roots only endear them to me even more. But the most important takeaway is that it’s literally impossible to overstate how much fun listening to this band is.

What Made Milwaukee Famous
I started making a Late to the Party post about this vaguely familiar-sounding band Spotify kept pushing on me earlier this year; I got farther than I thought but never really found a narrative thread I was confident could sustain an entire post. But of COURSE Barsuk, which I think will forever be my favorite record label, never fails in nudging me toward another band to love, even when that band went the way of the dodo years and years before I finally gave ’em a listen. Three solid, musically varied albums is a helluva legacy, especially when those albums have such irresistibly singalong-able songs like “Hellodrama” and the deceivingly titled “And the Grief Goes On….” in all its reclamation-anthem glory.

Pinegrove
God DAMN, Jersey knows how to sling music and I wish I had known about these fellas, like, before they declared themselves on hiatus. The friend who recommended them got me with a Matt Pond comparison, but I’ve felt like they sound like a combination of Active Bird Community, The Decemberists and Neil Young, plus a million other influences that sound like home. A deliciously deep catalogue has certainly helped ease the sadness of probably never getting a chance to sing along to this band live: I suddenly have five albums/72 tracks of theirs in my music library, and that’s just scratching the surface because I want to make this dopamine goldmine last for as long as I can. This band, too, is probably owed its own Late to the Party post, but that would probably mean I need to stop playing nothing but “Rings” for an entire commute or five.

Honorable mention: Octoberman, or a Kids These Days side quest, which means it sounds too much like winter to properly digest now. I’ll always be a little sad that Kids These Days only had the one album and their record label was here and gone, and finally snatching up a White Whale Records album earlier this year made my heart happy for a little while.