Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024 (75-51)

Welcome to part two (of four) of Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024! This post covers albums 75 through 51. For any and all background info, see part one.

See also:
Part One (100-76)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)
Playlist links (Spotify) (Tidal)

75. Friko – Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here

Release date: February 16^th
Record label: ATO
Genre: Indie pop, college rock, fuzz rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here is the debut full-length from Chicago’s Friko, who’ve been associated with the Windy City’s “Hallogallo” scene since they arose around early 2020. Friko recall the playful guitar pop of several associated acts, albeit with a bit more “rock” in tow. Niko Kapetan is a compelling vocalist, sounding in command but close to breaking while delivering sharp melodies over top of instrumentals that veer into noisy indie rock freak-outs and then back to gorgeous chamber pop with ease. Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here swings drama and intensity around, but the projectiles are enjoyably well-crafted, going a long way towards defining Friko as standouts in a crowded and talented scene. (Read more)

74. Crumbs – You’re Just Jealous

Release date: May 17^th
Record label: Skep Wax
Genre: Post-punk, punk, garage rock, indie pop, dance punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Coming in at a dozen tracks in under 30 minutes, every song on Crumbs’ sophomore album, You’re Just Jealous, goes on for exactly as long as it needs to and not a second more. The Leeds group cites bands like Gang of Four, Delta 5, and Chic as influences, and it’s apparent that You’re Just Jealous was made with the perspective that post-punk can and should be catchy and fun to listen to. The record combines the danceability of 80s post-punk, the hooks of classic indie pop, and the sharp edges of 90s Kill Rock Stars indie rock groups–it’s bullseye vocal melodies, Andy Gill guitar licks, and rumbling rhythms right up to the end. (Read more)

73. Spirit Night – Time Won’t Tell

Release date: October 4^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, synthpop, post-punk, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Last year, Dylan Balliett released the long-awaited fourth album from his project Spirit Night, Bury the Dead, and it felt like the culmination of the emo-shaded indie rock present throughout his musical career. Rather than trying to top it, Balliett decided to try something different with Time Won’t Tell, the second Sprit Night LP in as many years. Time Won’t Tell embraces a less-seen side of Balliett’s songwriting, exploring jangly Flying Nun-esque guitar pop, synthpop, and even a bit of post-punk and new wave. Time Won’t Tell is neither a logical extension from previous Spirit Night records nor is it a clean break from the past, both in terms of the music and Balliett’s writing (evoking Bury the Dead at times but unmoored from its vivid desperation). (Read more)

72. Vista House – They’ll See Light

Release date: November 22^nd
Record label: Anything Bagel
Genre: Country rock, alt-country
Formats: Cassette, digital

Last year’s offering from Tim Howe’s Vista House, Oregon III, was an excellent and adventurous take on alt-country, Americana, indie rock, and power pop, and I’m certainly happy to see the Portland-based musician back with a follow-up LP in short order. They’ll See Light is far from a departure for Vista House–once again, Howe leads the band through loud, rambling country rockers and softer, still-rambling folk-indebted music, but the cobbled-together feel of their last album is replaced with something more focused and streamlined. They’ll See Light sounds like the work of a well-oiled rock band who’s decided to record a bunch of great songs in one go because they know that they’re on a roll–and they’re right. (Read more)

71. Guitar – Casting Spells on Turtlehead

Release date: February 7^th
Record label: Spared Flesh/Julia’s War
Genre: Shoegaze, experimental rock, noise pop, fuzz rock, garage rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

Portland’s Saia Kuli brings a louder, noisier sound to his project Guitar’s latest release, and he also gets a little more help this time around compared to 2022’s mostly self-recorded lo-fi post-punk Guitar EP. Kuli linked up with experimental shoegaze label Julia’s War for Casting Spells on Turtlehead, and, as it turns out, a more fleshed-out Guitar sounds surprisingly like it fits right in with the current wave of omnivorous noise pop/shoegaze acts. Like an early Guided by Voices EP, Casting Spells on Turtlehead feels like a collection of disparate but connected moments–beautiful, melodic guitar riffs, basement-acoustic immediacy, lumbering but fun fuzz rock, trippy dream pop. Guitar have stepped things up a bit on their newest release, and we should all take notice accordingly. (Read more)

70. Chime School – The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel

Release date: August 23^rd
Record label: Slumberland
Genre: Jangle pop, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

I’d been waiting for a follow-up to Andy Pastalaniec’s 2021 self-titled debut as Chime School for some time, and The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel is a worthy sequel to that special record from the Bay Area jangle popper. It’s once again self-recorded and largely piece together by Pastalaniec himself, but there’s plenty of development from the singer-songwriter rather than trying to carbon-copy what made Chime School work. Nonetheless, there is plenty of twelve-string jangle and quick tempos, and even though there are a few moments of musical subtlety in the midst of its jangling barrage, The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel is only really “mellow” compared to the last Chime School album. (Read more)

69. Vacation – Rare Earth

Release date: May 3^rd
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)

68. The Smashing Times – Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys

Release date: November 1^st
Record label: K/Perennial
Genre: Jangle pop, psychedelic pop, psychedelic folk, twee
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Baltimore’s premier mod revival quintet have returned with yet another collection of gloriously fractured and free-ranging guitar pop. This time around, The Smashing Times have come up with a record called Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys that’s clearly indebted to the weirdest detours on some of the most classic rock albums. All the blissful psychedelic jangle-beat melodies that marked the band’s last album are still here, yes, but (as one might gather from its title) Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys leans into the eccentricities of British pop of the past across its fourteen tracks. I wouldn’t expect anything other than pop music on their own terms from The Smashing Times, but Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys is a strong reminder of why it’s so fruitful to accept those terms. (Read more)

67. MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

Release date: September 6^th
Record label: Anti-/Dear Life
Genre: Country rock, alt-country
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Manning Fireworks is the first album made with any kind of expectations for Asheville singer-songwriter and Wednesday member MJ Lenderman, and it feels like a transitional one for me. The follow-up to Lenderman’s breakthrough 2022 album Boat Songs contains a few different paths that Lenderman could potentially wander down–sometimes, Manning Fireworks nods towards the delicate and traditional, other times it sounds like Lenderman is hellbent on following his heroes the Drive-By Truckers into the world of blustering, loud country rock and roll. There’s always something interesting going on in Manning Fireworks–and it’s frequently something other than the qualities that helped his music leap out of the weirdo alt-country world from which it came.

66. Amy O – Mirror, Reflect

Release date: May 20^th
Record label: Winspear
Genre: Lo-fi pop, bedroom pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Cassette, digital

Last time I wrote about Amy Oelsner (aka Amy O) on this blog, I called her underrated, and I nearly went and proved my own point by leaving Mirror, Reflect off this list until I revisited it. The more I listen to Mirror, Reflect, the more favorite moments I find; this album, pieced together “at [her] home and friends’ homes” over two years, is a gorgeous mid-fi guitar pop album which loses no potency whatsoever via the casual way Oelsner approaches it. In fact, the patchwork nature of Mirror, Reflect is essential to its charm–even as it sounds complete in its own right, it also hints at a larger, vibrant world that this album only captures for thirty-odd minutes. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard so much contained within the lines “dribble dribble drop drop” and “rumble rumble splat splat”.

65. Frontier Ruckus – On the Northline

Release date: February 16^th
Record label: Sitcom Universe/Loose Music
Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

I first came to the work of Michigan singer-songwriter Matthew Milia via his excellent 2021 solo album Keego Harbor, but he’s probably most well-known for fronting the long-running folk rock band Frontier Ruckus. On the Northline is the first Frontier Ruckus full-length I’ve heard, but I can tell you that it’s great–it sounds like Milia’s solo work, but folkier! Frontier Ruckus’ peers still feel like indie rock and guitar pop groups to me–I hear Grandaddy, Fountains of Wayne, and even some Elephant 6 in On the Northline, but the mandolins, banjos, and acoustic guitars that populate these tracks are always the exact right accompaniments for Milia’s songwriting. On the Northline invites us to get lost in a vaguely familiar Midwestern world across its forty-seven minute journey.

​64. Rain Recordings – Terns in Idle

Release date: April 12^th
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)

63. American Culture – Hey Brother, It’s Been a While

Release date: May 3^rd
Record label: Convulse
Genre: Punk rock, Madchester, power pop, jangle pop, noise pop, college rock, psychedelic rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Denver quartet American Culture’s sound has a lot of familiar ingredients, but it’s a unique and captivating blend that’s found on Hey Brother, It’s Been a While–they’re “punk rock” in a loose sense, yes, although in the older underground version of the term, while also leaving room for indie rock and pop of several different stripes (mid-to-late Replacements jangly power pop, and even some psychedelic Madchester influences). Some of the variety of Hey Brother, It’s Been a While can be explained by the band having two main singer-songwriters, Chris Adolf and Michael Stein–without getting too into it, the two distinct voices are key to the narrative of the album, which deals with a community-level traumatic event from two different perspectives. (Read more)

62. Sharp Pins – Radio DDR

Release date: May 19^th
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 brand new sophomore album called Radio DDR coming scarcely a year later. As great as Turtle Rock was, Radio DDR advances the journey of Sharp Pins without losing the humble charms of his first record under the name. Radio DDR is refined and polished in both its writing and recording, 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.

61. The Softies – The Bed I Made

Release date: August 23^rd
Record label: Father/Daughter/Lost Sound Tapes
Genre: Twee, indie pop, indie folk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Two decades removed from their last album together, The Bed I Made is a reminder of why The Softies specifically have endured, even as their music is deliberately less immediate than most of Rose Melberg and Jen Sbragia’s other projects in the realms of indie pop and twee. When the duo sing together and play their guitars together, they don’t need any additional accompaniment–these songs don’t seek the spotlight, but neither do they shrink from the light shone upon them. When the duo reach a particularly resonant moment in one of their songs, the words just hang there, Melberg and Sbragia taking no measures to shield themselves from their impact. There’s nowhere to hide on The Bed I Made, even if The Softies wanted to do so. (Read more)

60. Micah Schnabel – The Clown Watches the Clock

Release date: May 15^th
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)

59. Silo’s Choice – Languid Swords

Release date: March 29^th
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)

58. Office Culture – Enough

Release date: October 18^th
Record label: Ruination
Genre: Art pop, jazz-pop, art rock, experimental rock
Formats: CD, digital

For the fourth album from his jazz-pop/soft rock project Office Culture, bandleader Winston Cook-Wilson decided to try something different–he decided to make a CD. The seventy-three minute, sixteen-song Enough was deliberately inspired by “the CD era”, embracing the ability to blow everything up to new proportions. Guest vocalists, experimental electronic instrumentation, and songs that cross the five-minute barrier without breaking a sweat all abound on Enough, an album that finds Office Culture and their twenty-something collaborators finding out just how many directions they can stretch Cook-Wilson’s distinct sophisti-pop songwriting at once. (Read more)

57. Cloud Nothings – Final Summer

Release date: April 19^th
Record label: Pure Noise
Genre: Garage rock, punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

In a world where Greg Sage and Robert Pollard are Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, Cloud Nothings vocalist/guitarist Dylan Baldi would be a folk hero, churning out loud, pummeling, hooky rock music at a steady clip for a decade and a half now, aided deftly by longtime drummer Jayson Gerycz and bassist Chris Brown. One could cherry pick a few details from Final Summer–like the way that krautrock-y intro of the opening title track gives way to a big-sounding, saxophone-featuring “heartland rock”-ish version of the Cloud Nothings sound–and spin a “Cloud Nothings as you’ve never heard them before” narrative, but to me Final Summer sounds like the band at their most comfortable, like a group of ringers completely confident in their abilities. (Read more)

56. Russel the Leaf – Thought to an End

Release date: September 1^st
Record label: Records from Russ
Genre: Art pop, indie pop, experimental pop, psychedelic pop
Formats: CD, digital

Thought to an End is Troy-based producer and musician Evan M. Marré’s return to pop music after a few more experimental and improvisational records with his Russel the Leaf project–and it’s a triumphant one. Spanning twenty-one songs and seventy-five minutes, Thought to an End is quite possibly Russel the Leaf’s magnus opus. Thought to an End has the feel of a classic double LP–it’s got room for everything, from streamlined, breezy 60s-influenced pop rock to layered orchestral and psychedelic passages to heady art rock to, indeed, the experimental/jazz moments of the last couple of Russel the Leaf records. (Read more)

55. Spring Silver – Don’t You Think It’s Strange?

Release date: August 23^rd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Fuzz rock, experimental rock, noise pop, art punk
Formats: Digital

Maryland’s K Nkanza has been making D.C.-ish post-hardcore/art rock crossed with both shined-up power pop and electronics and synths as Spring Silver for a few records now, but Don’t You Think It’s Strange? still surprised me. Even though it was recorded entirely by Nkanza alone, the album actually sound like the most “rock-band-focused” version of Spring Silver yet, even as Nkanza approaches this from a unique vantage point. Still recognizably themself, Nkanza takes on the difficult task of making lengthy, rumbling, but still pop-focused rock songs on Don’t You Think It’s Strange?; it’s a singular listen, and it’s impressive how accessible it is in spite of all this. (Read more)

54. Tucker Riggleman & the Cheap Dates – Restless Spirit

Release date: February 17^th
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)

53. Female Gaze – Tender Futures

Release date: May 17^th
Record label: Fort Lowell/Totally Real
Genre: Psychedelic rock, art rock, desert rock, post-rock, jazz rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

After retiring the name of their old band, The Rifle, Tucson’s Nelene DeGuzman and Kevin Conklin formed Female Gaze with Nicky David Cobham-Morgese, and the former garage rockers undergo a remarkable transformation on Tender Futures, their debut album under the new name. Stretching five songs across thirty-two minutes, Tender Futures is an expansive, vast record, with the band embodying the American southwest more than any of their projects ever have before. Inspired in part by DeGuzman’s chronic health issues that had left her in a “painful limbo”, Tender Futures explores the desert using empty space and towering nothingness as its language, intentionally evoking haziness and disorientation through psychedelia, post-rock, and even a bit of jazz-rock. (Read more)

52. Beeef – Somebody’s Favorite

Release date: September 6^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, indie pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Boston’s Beeef put out a pair of excellent jangly college rock records in the late 2010s before going quiet for a few years, but thankfully the quartet is not only alive but quite well. The third Beeef LP, Somebody’s Favorite, is just about everything one could want in a New England guitar pop record–immediately catchy, smart, and friendly, with plenty of depth below the sparkle and shine that feels like it will age incredibly well. Beeef can be one of the greatest modern pop bands whenever they feel like being one, and they’re in a great mood on this one. Somebody’s Favorite even existing at all feels like a victory, but it’s an even greater treat to hear that Beeef sound, more than ever, quite sturdy and built to last. (Read more)

51. Climax Landers – Zenith No Effects

Release date: May 10^th
Record label: Gentle Reminder/Home Late/Intellectual Birds
Genre: Art rock, post-punk, indie pop, college rock, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Although Will Moloney is clearly the ringleader/lead carnival barker of the Climax Landers, Zenith No Effects is just as palpably a record made with full collaboration welcomed. As a frontperson, Moloney frequently offers up his lyrics in a conversational talk-singing fashion–he’s got a little bit of the Minutemen-esque “post-punk as folk music” attitude towards things–but he’s hardly a one-note leader. Zenith No Effects is an offbeat but sincere guitar pop record at its core, with classic pop rock and college rock (aided by Paco Cathcart’s violin, Ani Ivry-Block’s accordion, and Charlie Dore-Young’s bass) shading the record–and Moloney ups his game to match the rest of the Climax Landers. (Read more)

Click here for:
Part One (100-76)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)