If you’re only just now joining us: this is part two of my list of my favorite forty albums of 2024 thus far, presented in alphabetical order. Thanks for reading!
View part one of the list here.
Here are links to stream a playlist of these selections via Spotify and Tidal (Bandcamp links are provided below for all records).
Rain Recordings – Terns in Idle
Release date: April 12th
Record label: Trash Tape
Genre: Emo-y indie rock, 90s indie rock, folk rock
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Carrboro-based Evren Centeno and Stockholm, Sweden’s Josef Löfvendahl have been collaborating remotely for a few years as Rain Recordings, but Terns in Idle is the first album that the duo recorded in person in the same studio. Ceneno and Löfvendahl sound like they’ve spent a good deal of time with essential 90s indie rock groups like Modest Mouse and Built to Spill, but Terns in Idle isn’t entirely devoted to this bygone ornery era of guitar music–there’s also some Neutral Milk Hotel-ish folk ambition, the earnest, wide-eyed 2000s version of indie rock, and even a bit of emo mixed in, as the duo take advantage of the studio setting to expand their sound. (Read more)
Tucker Riggleman & the Cheap Dates – Restless Spirit
Release date: February 17th
Record label: WarHen
Genre: Alt-country, country rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
If 2021’s Alive and Dying Fast was the sound of Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates slowing down and displaying enough confidence in Riggleman’s writing to let it take the unquestioned center stage, Restless Spirit is where the West Virginia-based band show that they can maintain the captivating quality of that record’s songs while also injecting just a bit more rock and roll into things. No one’s going to mistake Restless Spirit for a garage punk record, but it is very clearly an album where Riggleman’s formative alt-country and power pop influences peak through with regularity, and this suits his writing–always with chaos and darkness hovering around, but determined to keep it in check rather than overwhelming everything. (Read more)
J. Robbins – Basilisk
Release date: February 2nd
Record label: Dischord
Genre: Post-punk, post-hardcore, 90s indie rock, alt-rock, art punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
We’re probably lucky that we got a sophomore J. Robbins album at all–the D.C.-based musician is a prolific and in-demand engineer these days, and his influential 90s Dischord group Jawbox have reunited and even released new material in recent years. Basilisk sounds familiar in a most welcome way, with Robbins evoking his golden era in a way few 90s indie rockers are still doing today. That being said, Basilisk doesn’t exactly sound ripped from the world of Jawbox circa 1993–it picks up about where 2019’s Un-Becoming left off, with Robbins writing art-punk anthems with both “maturity” and “edge” and a fearless awareness of the present. (Read more)
Daniel Romano’s Outfit – Too Hot to Sleep
Release date: March 1st
Record label: You’ve Changed
Genre: Power pop, punk rock, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Although the proper records from Daniel Romano’s Outfit generally hew more towards “studio rats” than “garage punks”, those who’ve followed the prolific Canadian troubadour know about his band’s energy and ferocity in their live shows. I’ve been waiting for something like Too Hot to Sleep from The Outfit for a while now–a genuine live-in-studio sounding garage rock scorcher of a record. Romano and his crew really honed in on something potent with this ten-song, twenty-seven minute collection, which is looser-sounding than typical Outfit fare but still led by a smooth operator of a pop songwriter. Even if you think you know Daniel Romano’s deal by now, I’d recommend Too Hot to Sleep to any power pop and/or garage rock fan–it’s one of his strongest albums yet. (Read more)
Greg Saunier – We Sang, Therefore We Were
Release date: April 26th
Record label: Joyful Noise
Genre: Art rock, noise pop, post-punk, math rock, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Considering just how much great music he’s been involved with over the past quarter-century, it’s perhaps not surprising that Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier can carry an album all on his own, but still, I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed We Sang, Therefore We Were, somehow his first-ever solo record. As it turns out, he’s a killer, unique pop songwriter when left to his own devices; the album’s dozen tracks certainly are recognizably “Deerhoof-esque”, but the one-man Saunier band (he wrote, played, recorded, mixed, and mastered everything here) is truncated and streamlined, throwing jagged, catchy guitar riffs and shapeshifting, form-fitting vocals over top of everything in a keen manner. (Read more)
SAVAK – Flavors of Paradise
Release date: March 1st
Record label: Peculiar Works/Ernest Jenning Record Co.
Genre: Post-punk, garage rock, college rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Coming a little under two years after their last record, Human Error / Human Delight, Flavors of Paradise adds to the language SAVAK have been developing since their debut in 2016, contracting it in some places and expanding it in others. The Brooklyn trio recorded the album at Electrical Audio last year, and while they’ve always been a “no nonsense” group, Flavors of Paradise finds the band plowing through twelve songs triangulating garage rock, post-punk, and college rock with a fresh, live sound. It’s easy to take for granted just how well SAVAK click together, but Flavors of Paradise is the work of several indie rock lifers determined to harness their experience into something accessible but still doing justice to the trailblazing nature of their influences. (Read more)
Micah Schnabel – The Clown Watches the Clock
Release date: May 15th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Country punk, alt-country, Americana, cowpunk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Columbus country-punk institution Micah Schnabel has always come off as somebody with a lot to say in his lyrics, both as the primary frontperson of his cult alt-country group Two Cow Garage, and in his just-as-worthwhile solo career (and even, more recently, as a novelist). His latest album, The Clown Watches the Clock, balances Schnabel’s long-winded tendencies with his punk rock instincts admirably–he wanders a fair bit in the songs’ verses, but there’s a conscious effort to return to clear, catchy, and concise refrains again and again on the album. The Clown Watches the Clock is a record about the ambient sights and sounds of middle America: guns, Jesus, and debilitating, humiliating, irritating poverty, delivered with none of the treacly, pandering romanticism in which lesser writers love to indulge (but, rather than cynicism, our narrator emerges out the other side with something much more potent). (Read more)
Sharp Pins – Radio DDR
Release date: May 19th
Record label: Hallogallo
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop, jangle pop
Formats: Digital
Last year’s Turtle Rock was one of the breakout debuts of 2023, an exuberant and well-crafted collection of lo-fi pop that put Sharp Pins square in the center of Chicago’s “Hallogallo” scene. How does Kai Slater (Lifeguard, Dwaal Troupe), one of the most exciting talents in indie rock, follow it up? With a Bandcamp-only digital album benefiting the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, of course. As great as Turtle Rock was, Radio DDR is a huge step forward for Sharp Pins–Slater doesn’t lose the humble charms of his first record under the name, but the writing is refined and polished, finding the Pins inching closer and closer to power pop perfection. Two great and distinct records in as many years–pay attention to Sharp Pins.
Shellac – To All Trains
Release date: May 17th
Record label: Touch & Go
Genre: Noise rock, math rock, post-hardcore
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
It’s as good as I’d hoped it’d be. I can enjoy Big Black in a certain mood and obviously “appreciate” it, but Steve Albini’s work with Todd Trainer and Bob Weston has always been my favorite from him as a musician. To All Trains is ten more songs and twenty-eight more minutes of possibly the greatest-sounding rock and roll band of all-time doing their thing, re-announcing their dominance by honing their metallic, razorblade-sharp sound into levels of concision and prickliness previously thought impossible to reach by mankind. It fucking sucks that this is the last Shellac album. It fucking rules–this, the last Shellac album.
Silo’s Choice – Languid Swords
Release date: March 29th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Folk rock, prog-folk, art folk, new age
Formats: Digital
Built largely around meandering acoustic guitar playing and upright bass, the seven-song, 40-minute Languid Swords backs up the John Fahey influence that Chicago’s Jon Massey cited when he emailed me about Languid Swords. The latest LP from his long-running Silo’s Choice project takes its time and isn’t overly concerned with offering up pop hooks immediately–not that it doesn’t indulge in “pop music”, but it’s always on Massey’s own terms. It’s a bit more challenging than the experimental yet accessible take on Chicago indie folk rock of his other band, Coventry, but Languid Swords is gripping and spirited in its own steadily smoldering way. (Read more)
Sonny Falls – Sonny Falls
Release date: March 1st
Record label: Earth Libraries
Genre: Fuzz rock, garage rock, alt-country
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Since 2018, Chicago’s Ryan Ensley aka Hoagie Wesley aka Sonny Falls has been putting out fiery, unique records that are loose-feeling but incredibly deep underneath their garage rock/fuzz-country exteriors. The fourth Sonny Falls album is a self-titled one that feels like an attempt to pack all the ambition strewn across the project in ten tracks and thirty-five minutes. The songs on Sonny Falls don’t sound like anything but Sonny Falls songs, but every track on the album feels stretched and teased out in a new way, Ensley spending a bit more time composing and arranging his sprawling writing instead of fully leaning into his street-raving side. At this point, Ensley has a very strong baseline as a songwriter, but it’s quite exciting to watch him figure out how to add to it. (Read more)
Sun Kin – Sunset World
Release date: April 19th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Art pop, indie pop, synthpop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital
Sun Kin is the project of Bombay-originating, Los Angeles-based Kabir Kumar, who’s been making music under the name for a dozen years in addition to playing in the band GUPPY and collaborating with Rosy Overdrive favorite Pacing. Sunset World, Sun Kin’s latest, is an ambitious pop album in which Kumar corrals a ton of his musical collaborators and acquaintances in service of an eleven-song, thirty-minute record with boundless energy. Sunset World is a record about destruction (“apocalyptic LA pop”, they call it), but it’s bright and sunny and never loses sight of the positives involved in ruins and decay–it’s just clearing more space for what really matters. (Read more)
The Sylvia Platters – Vivian Elixir
Release date: April 26th
Record label: Grey Lodge
Genre: Jangle pop, power pop, indie pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
At eight songs and 24 minutes, Vivian Elixir is on the shorter side, but The Sylvia Platters consider it more than just another EP–it’s their first “album” since 2015’s Make Glad the Day, even as the Vancouver-based power/jangle pop quartet have remained fairly active in the interstitial decade. And when you’ve got a bunch of songs that are as strong as these are, you can call it just about whatever you want. The Sylvia Platters continue to assert themselves as one of the best guitar pop bands going with Vivian Elixir, offering up power pop songs of varying stripes but consistent in quality and catchiness–about half of the cassette is “gigantic tune that could’ve been the lead single”, and the other half gives Vivian Elixir some extra character and helps it feel more like a proper album. (Read more)
Ther – Godzilla
Release date: April 5th
Record label: Julia’s War
Genre: Art rock, folk rock, post-post rock, alt-rock, slowcore
Formats: Cassette, digital
On every record thus far from Philadelphia’s Ther, the band (led by So Big Auditory’s Heather Jones) has reinvented their sound in some form, so it’s no surprise that Godzilla sounds like none of their previous records once again. Godzilla asserts itself in Ther’s discography by embracing electric guitars and loud, dramatic indie rock to a previously unseen degree. Jones has worked with experimental shoegazers They Are Gutting a Body of Water frequently, and while that doesn’t really describe what Godzilla sounds like, Jones has perhaps taken inspiration from that side of indie rock to create what can at times feel almost like a photo negative the skeletal folk of their last album, in which her vocals alternatingly fight against or become entirely swallowed up by swirling, all-encompassing rock instrumentals. (Read more)
Mary Timony – Untame the Tiger
Release date: February 23rd
Record label: Merge
Genre: Folk rock, progressive rock, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
The amount of definitive rock music that Mary Timony has made in several different bands over the years is staggering–and it’s continued in recent years to the degree that I can’t be the only one to not realize it’s been fifteen years since a proper Timony solo album. Any indie rock musician who’s taken influence from Autoclave, Helium, or Ex Hex should get out their pen and paper for Untame the Tiger, a record that shows that Timony is still better than most at creating something intricate, immediate, and shockingly deep. Untame the Tiger is a surprising album, basking in the sun in plain sight but sneaking up on you at the same time–its leader sounds free, untamed, absolutely thrilled to be still pressing ahead in the form of inventive, unique rock music. (Read more)
True Green – My Lost Decade
Release date: February 1st
Record label: Spacecase
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, lo-fi pop, psych pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Cassette, digital
Minneapolis’ Dan Hornsby is a novelist–perhaps unsurprisingly, his knack for storytelling and flawed, deeply-felt character studies is pervasive in My Lost Decade, the debut from his project True Green. What does surprise me is that the singer-songwriter chooses lo-fi, reverb-y psychedelic guitar pop to deliver it all. There are acoustic guitars, but Hornsby isn’t a folk troubadour, rather making music that’s generally thought of as the domain of Beatlesesque bashers like The Cleaners from Venus and Guided by Voices. My Lost Decade is a pleasingly varied-sounding record, but Hornsby and multi-instrumentalist Tailer Ransom develop a distinct musical style, a busy, kitchen-sink pop attitude that reflects True Green’s confidence that Hornsby’s striking songwriting will shine even if they whip up an instrumental storm around it. And it does. (Read more)
Rosie Tucker – UTOPIA NOW!
Release date: March 22nd
Record label: Sentimental
Genre: Art rock, power pop, pop punk, alt-rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
The snippets of Rosie Tucker’s discography I’d heard before now definitely did not prepare me for the adventurous, overstuffed, and punchy rock record that is UTOPIA NOW!, an album seemingly engineered to appeal specifically to me. As a songwriter, Tucker is lethally sharp, pulling out massive power pop/pop punk hooks out of nowhere, oftentimes completely at odds with where the track had been leading up to beforehand, but never in a way that feels overly shoehorned. UTOPIA NOW!’s sound is just as commendable–like the majority of Tucker’s output, it was produced by themself and their longtime collaborator Wolfy, and they gleefully veer between chilly bedroom pop/folk/rock, slick alt-rock, and limber, jerky art rock/new wave across the record’s thirteen tracks. (Read more)
Vacation – Rare Earth
Release date: May 3rd
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Power pop, punk rock, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Vacation are a quartet out of Cincinnati that have been making their blend of garage rock, power pop, and punk rock for a decade and a half now. Rare Earth, their debut for Feel It Records, displays a belief that pop music should be played loud and fast, but it also reaches over to nearby Dayton to snag a mid-period Guided by Voices “meaty but hooky” attitude and, last but not least, throws in a dash of Midwestern, blue-collar pop punk. All in all, Rare Earth is one of the most inspired-sounding rock records I’ve heard in quite a bit–huge-sounding, catchy, with the edges anything but sanded off. (Read more)
Yea-Ming and the Rumours – I Can’t Have It All
Release date: May 24th
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
The latest record from Oakland’s Yea-Ming Chen and her band, The Rumours, doesn’t reinvent their sound–Chen is still a sharp, 60s pop-inspired songwriter and a striking vocalist, and the band give these songs a polished but utilitarian, classic college rock reading. What makes I Can’t Have It All feel so full-sounding and like a career highlight is the well-earned, quiet but palpable confidence Yea-Ming and the Rumors display throughout the entire record. Every song on the first half is a “hit” in its own way, and once you get on their level, you can appreciate how The Rumours skip through twee-pop-rock, folk-country, dream pop, and slowed-down girl-group-influenced pop with a steady helping of zeal. (Read more)
Zero Point Energy – Tilted Planet
Release date: May 17th
Record label: Danger Collective
Genre: Post-punk, art punk, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Genesis Edenfield and Ben Jackson played together in mid-2010s Atlanta, Georgia art punk group Warehouse–now based in Brooklyn, the duo have reunited as Zero Point Energy. Their debut album, Tilted Planet, is a collaborative reintroduction to Edenfield and Jackson–both of them play guitar, both sing, and both wrote material for the twelve-song, forty-two minute record. Tilted Planet reinvents Edenfield and Jackson’s sound into something more polished and restrained, but still quite unique. American post-punk and garage rock still abound, but Zero Point Energy also adopt a mellow pop rock attitude that puts them towards the jammier end of classic college rock. Edenfield and Jackson meld together excellently here, creating a beautiful, obstinate, simple, complex melting pot of a debut album. (Read more)
Rosy Overdrive 
One thought on “Rosy Overdrive’s Top 40 Albums of 2024 So Far (Part 2 of 2)”