The Best Rock Albums of 2021 – Paste Magazine
Though we continue to move into a world where genre is an antiquated notion, it’s always fun to focus our year-end efforts on the best each distinct subset of music had to offer. And if there was one genre that produced an embarrassment of riches in 2021, it was rock—”indie” or otherwise. Bands like TURNSTILE and The Armed made hardcore more accessible than ever. Mdou Moctar shared his Saharan shredding with the world, and Parannoul went from anonymous bedroom-rocker to critical …….
Though we continue to move into a world where genre is an antiquated notion, it’s always fun to focus our year-end efforts on the best each distinct subset of music had to offer. And if there was one genre that produced an embarrassment of riches in 2021, it was rock—”indie” or otherwise. Bands like TURNSTILE and The Armed made hardcore more accessible than ever. Mdou Moctar shared his Saharan shredding with the world, and Parannoul went from anonymous bedroom-rocker to critical darling. Dry Cleaning and Cheekface turned anxiety into laugh-out-loud funny guitar-rock. Some of these bands reinvented the wheel, while others paid tribute to time-honored traditions. There are debuts here, as well as impressive outings from veteran artists. Some of these albums made our list of 2021’s best, while others flew further under the radar. It all adds up to more than 24 hours of must-hear rock music, hand-picked by the Paste Music team.
Listen to Paste’s Best Rock Albums of 2021 playlist on Spotify here.
Portland, Oregon’s Alien Boy—guitarist and songwriter Sonia Weber, drummer Derek McNeil, and a rotating cast of PDX scene mainstays—make punchy West Coast guitar rock aglow with a sense of yearning that will make your heart ache, in a good way. Their debut album Don’t Know What I Am is riddled with “Dreams and Queer Feeling,” the motto the band spray-painted on a banner they hung onstage during a series of defining 2018 shows. “Dear Nora” is a passionate, overwhelmingly earnest expression of affection and gratitude: A melodic lead riff surfs waves of whammied shoegaze fuzz, only receding to make space for Weber’s lovesick vocals: “You’re everything, you’re everything,” she sings, gushing, “I adore you so, you adore me in the way I always wanted.” Alien Boy wield these emotions with an urgency that emanates through your speakers, like on opener “The Way I Feel,” when Weber sings, “The way you love me hurts too much / The way I feel / The way you make me feel, won’t come around again.” The intensity of feeling on Don’t Know What I Am would be almost too much to bear if Alien Boy weren’t so adept at shredding through the heartache. —Scott Russell
Melbourne, Australia punk quartet Amyl and The Sniffers came back with a barn burner of a sophomore album, the follow-up to their 2019 self-titled debut. Amy Taylor and company co-produced Comfort to Me with Dan Luscombe, writing their new record during Australian Bushfire season, not to mention COVID-19 quarantine. The result is ferocious, melodic punk rock that seems to push in every direction at once, but the band’s explosive energy belies a surprising degree of heart: “I’…….
Source: https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/best-albums/best-rock-albums-2021/
