Staff Picks: Favorite Albums of April 2024
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The post Staff Picks: Favorite Albums of April 2024 appeared first on Consequence.
In Staff Picks our writers and editors gather their favorite albums of the month. Check out the best of April below.
We’re nearly halfway done with 2024 — can you believe it? April saw some of our favorite releases of the year so far, and we’re not just talking about Sabrina Carptenter’s “Espresso.”
Last month had a lively comeback from St. Vincent with All Born Screaming, while Pearl Jam offered a rousing return on Dark Matter. Meanwhile, several artists have emerged with some mid-career highlights — Hovvdy’s new self-titled album is full of gorgeous, meditative tracks, and Bladee has hit a new high with his widescreen effort Cold Visions. Oh, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross scored the new film Challengers, and we can’t get enough of the original score and the Boyz Noise remix of it.
Listed in alphabetical order, here are the best albums of April 2024 as selected by Consequence writers and editors.
Bladee — Cold Visions
Bladee and the rest of Drain Gang have elicited a sort of “You get it or you don’t” response for the better part of a decade. With each passing project, though, it seems as if the Swedish rapper converts more and more people to the way of the drain, and with the excellent Cold Visions, he’s going to need a bigger church. The production is icy, in-your-face, and awash with the kind of timbres that make your face curl up (just listen to tracks like “FLATLINE” or “ONE SECOND”). Meanwhile, Bladee and company play their part as expertly as ever, coming through with bars that might hide jokes or the answers to the universe (“I’m violently drug abusing weed” being a clear standout). If you’ve been circling the drain for the past few album cycles, Cold Visions might just be the one to finally pull you down. — Jonah Krueger
Listen via Apple Music
Ekko Astral — Pink Balloons
Pressing play on Ekko Astral’s debut full-length, Pink Balloons, is like having the band come up behind you, tap you on the shoulder, and sucker punch you squarely in the jaw. As soon as the bass and drum groove breaks open the album’s first track “Head Empty Blues,” it’s clear the DC act didn’t come to fuck around. The following collection of songs is noisy, visceral, and intensely danceable, from the blistering, whacked-out “On Brand” to the earnest intermission “Make Me Young” through the building catharsis of “I90.” It’s a genuinely exciting debut, one that positions Ekko Astral as a band poised to make waves in the scene for years to come. — J. Krueger
Listen via Apple Music
English Teacher — This Could Be Texas
English Teacher, our April CoSign, are all over the map on their stunning debut album, This Could Be Texas. Each instrument in the quartet has its own journey, and when they sync up — like in the seismic chorus of “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab,” the churning majesty of “You Blister My Paint,” and the teeming rage of “Not Everyone Gets to Go to Space” — they sound like one tremendous vehicle of emotion. — Paolo Ragusa
Listen via Apple Music
Hovvdy — Hovvdy
Hovvdy have returned with their most tender, thoughtful album yet, and it’s a testament to the duo’s songwriting journey over the last decade. Despite the two starting off as drummers, they find moments of pure majesty and unbridled sentimentality in their crystalline guitars. Meanwhile, their vocals have never sounded more radiant, taking leaps in range and bringing as much honesty and rawness as these sticky songs demand. Tracks like “Forever,” “Make Ya Proud,” and “Bad News” are some of their greatest ever. — P. Ragusa
Listen via Apple Music
Lizzy McAlpine — Older
With her third studio album, Lizzy McAlpine has cemented herself as one of the leading purveyors of sad girl tunes for the soul. While it was a track off her sophomore project that launched her to ultra-viral success, Older confirms time and time again that her ability as a songwriter extends far beyond a TikTok-friendly audience. In addition to the fact that McAlpine has writing and production credits on every song on the project, Older feels like she’s settling into her artistic identity with renewed confidence. — Mary Siroky
Listen via Apple Music
Lo Moon — I Wish You Way More Than Luck
Lo Moon’s third album elevates their sound to incredible heights. They’re still making slow-burning, widescreen dream pop, but this time, the stakes are higher, the urgency more palpable, the transitions more vibrant, and the music more unpredictable. Whatever wave of inspiration Matt Lowell was on when writing these songs is clearly working: I Wish You Way More Than Luck is Lo Moon’s most majestic feat so far. — P. Ragusa
Listen via Apple Music
Maggie Rogers — Don’t Forget Me
“Singer-songwriter” is a four letter word that refers to a bunch of unrelated types of artists these days. But what’s wrong with some good folk-pop rock songwriting? Not a gosh darned thing, that’s what. After taking a more electropop direction on her last album, Maggie Rogers simplifies things on Don’t Forget Me. It’s more easily identifiable “singer-songwriter” sound for those of us who heard radio back in the aughts, which allows the songwriter part of the label to really step forward. Sure, she’s singing about the same sort of growing-up-and-experiencing-heartbreak-and-romance as countless people on the cusp of 30 have sung about before (with a few too-cute-by-half spoken inserts), but Rogers is doing it at level with the best of ’em. — Ben Kaye
Listen via Apple Music
Pearl Jam — Dark Matter
Pearl Jam can still rock the hell out, but die-hards have known that for years. Dark Matter, the grunge icons’ 12th studio album, isn’t a flailing gesture towards their past success, nor does it try to wholly reinvent the PJ wheel. Instead, it’s merely the sound of a group of dudes still inspired to write and play decades into their careers. Bringing producer Andrew Watt into the fold, Pearl Jam sound as invigorated as ever, particularly on harder-rockin’ cuts like the title track or “Running.” As guitarist Stone Gossard tells us, the band is firing on all cylinders, and they’re already itching to get back into the studio to ride the Dark Matter momentum. — J. Krueger
Listen via Apple Music
St. Vincent — All Born Screaming
All the frenetic adventurism, heady poetics, and dark wit of St Vincent’s best music is very present on All Born Screaming — yet it feels like a more relaxed version of Annie Clark. She’s shed the self-prescribed ’70s notions of Daddy’s Home to embraced Bond-esque ballads (“Violent Times”), reggae-backed existential revelations (“So Many Planets”), and collaborative indulgences (the Cate Le Bon-featuring title track). Not being beholden to anything beyond her creative impulses befits an album searching for peace in an out-of-control world; Clark acknowledges all the unavoidable tragedies of living while honing in on the beauty under the ashes of Pompeii. She’s Peter Gibbons-ed herself, accepting what she cannot change in order to recline into a sense of harmony. — B. Kaye
Listen via Apple Music
Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Boyz Noise — Challengers [Mixed]
It’s true — the song of the summer might just be an instrumental, club-ready cut from the Challengers score, mixed by Boyz Noise. The title track is addictive and worms its way into your brain just as thoroughly as some of those lingering shots of Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, but Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross completely knocked it out of the park across the board with this assignment. Challengers is a great film that would have had completely different energy without this score, and while the members of this duo have already collected plenty of awards for their film work together, this one is their match point. (If that’s not the right way to use that phrase, maybe just let me live in ignorant bliss.) — M. Siroky
Listen via Apple Music
Vampire Weekend — Only God Was Above Us
Vampire Weekend take us back to their old haunts on Only God Was Above Us, and surprisingly, everything’s not as sustainable as it once was for the New York trio. The sounds on Only God can be both silly and tortured; they’re freshly decayed, doused in seasoning, overbaked and lean. It’s a mid-career album that reflects age and the preciousness of connection, epitomized by highlights “Classical” and “Mary Boone.” Things in the city aren’t looking like they used to, but luckily, Vampire Weekend sound as ambitious as ever. — P. Ragusa
Listen via Apple Music
Staff Picks: Favorite Albums of April 2024
Consequence Staff
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