Top 5 Most Anticipated Albums of 2014

By: Patrick Topping (@ptopp_ing) –

Following a year of exasperating drawn-out releases in 2013, expect 2014 to hold a number of surprises. In the meantime, this shortlist is a handful of anticipated releases by indie music mainstays and emerging artists to break through the darkness of any polar vortex. These albums will surely cast a light for the bright spots to come in 2014.

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1. St. Vincent – St Vincent (Out February 25, 2014)

When she announced the 2014 release of her self-titled album, Annie Clark shotgunned the anticipation for the year ahead before the ink had even dried on Best-Of-2013 lists.

After over three years of steady touring and recording, most recently in collaboration with David Byrne, Clark is bolstered in her ability to burrow her irascible guitar and disjointed rhythmic hooks into tightly-bound packages entwined with her lustrous slinking vocal melodies. Recent singles show the powerful synthesis she would behold on St Vincent, as interviews with Clark show an artist bubbling with enthusiasm for the process of creating ornately gilded density and relentlessly groove-driven tracks. The punchy “Digital Witness” reveals a horn-based afro-funk ala David Byrne cast in a strutting R&B rhythm, with a flickering chorus harkening to Madonna-esque synthy mall-pop, all while upholding Clark’s irrepressible affections for the avant-garde.

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2. Beck – Morning Phase (Out TBA)

Beck is an artist in a league of his own, simultaneously entrenched in an assured à-la-modewith a deliberately lighter-touch towards the ephemeral pop culture. In 2012, Beck re-emerged from years of constant collaboration and side-projects (long live Sex Bob-omb!), flanked by the alumni band from 2002’s tempered luxuriant alt-folk Sea Changes for a stint on the road. But expecting 2014’s Morning Phase to follow in a similar vein would be short-sighted.

His choppy, forwardly-rhythmic long-player singles released last year indicates a colourful direction, albeit melancholic, steeped in the sonic production nuances of his collaboration with Danger Mouse on 2008’s Modern Guilt. While details beyond the tracklist are scarce, his music deserves a simmered anticipation.

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3. Warpaint – Warpaint (Out January 21, 2014)

The haunting and moody four-piece group stride in the footsteps of New Order with wirey guitar strums, churning rhythms, and pushed electronic tinges while swooning ethereal female vocals lift the lilted songs. Their murky sonic material somnambulates in barren landscapes of lush and burnt terrain, a reductionist palette inviting comparison to the skeletal, post-apocalyptic glowering side of Portishead. Or to invoke an analogy with the explosive, discordant breakthrough of Savages last year – this is the other side of that coin, a languid but equally dissonant outing. Look to “Majesty” off the band’s 2010 release The Fool and recently released single “Love is to Die” here for breadcrumbs into these murky waters.

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4. Temples – Sun Structure (Out February 11, 2014)

The UK garage-rock group Temples released a handful of singles in 2013 that showed a heady blend of flowery Laurel Canyon folk-rock, hypnotic psychedelia, and charming Brit-pop rhythms, charged with a T. Rex swagger and bravado. The temperature is right for Temples’ debut release Sun Structures (to be released on Fat Possum Records in North America) given this year’s rise of Django Django and the surge of Tame Impala. The trick for a young group with such a meteoric push is to develop their identity beyond caricature, a pitfall that both Django Django and Tame Impala avoided by injecting contemporary pacing and elements into their music. Their live performance earlier this year in Toronto showed an assuredness that is instantly infectious. Check out the shimmery Brit-rock album opener “Shelter Song” below.

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5. East India Youth – Total Strife Forever (Out January 13, 2014)

The bedroom synth-electro/electronic producer is a well-worn robe, and arguably well worn-out, but William Doyle makes a stand for himself as East India Youth by striking a deliberate counterpoint in overtly saturated synth-pop hooks, propulsive rhythms, and icy ambience. Doyle’s indie-styled vocals recall the wrought plaintiveness of James Blake cast in the warm universality of Ben Gibbard. It’s an ambitious debut certainly worth placing bets, and at the least will provide moments of danceability, as on the colliding acid-house rhythms of “Dripping Down” below.