Lucius
Although Lucius released their debut Wildewoman in North America last year, it received a wider release in 2014, with increased promotion through TV and radio appearances. It has recently been re-released in a digital deluxe version, including eight new tracks. Lucius can be distinguished by the sound of two female voices (Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig) singing as one, blending a girl-group sound with a new wave style to make smart and engaging pop music. “Turn It Around”, “Tempest”, and “Don’t Just Sit There” are the easiest routes of entry, with fantastic catchy harmony vocals and clever instrumentation. The skilled band tackle Americana on “Go Home Hey”, with much of the remainder of the album made up of modernist experiments such as “Hey, Doreen” and “Nothing Ordinary”. And indeed there is little ordinary about Lucius, perhaps one of the reasons why Tweedy chose them to add backing vocals for the excellent Sukirae. – Charles Pitter
Milo
Milo is part of the indomitable Hellfyre Club, and his take on KOOL A.D.’s brand of near-dada storytelling and free-associative rhyming, deconstructing rap tropes in pursuit of the deeper truths beneath them, made for a wildly exciting debut. He’d released a couple of mixtapes and had some features in years previous, but the much-lauded A Toothpaste Suburb was his first major showcase and was one of 2014’s better rap albums. The first track alone, with its wandering plot, eye for detail, deadpan delivery, and intricate wordplay, cemented Milo’s place as a storyteller par excellence who comes off much bigger than rap, taking the best left-field tendencies of label mate Open Mike Eagle and adding a dash of meta-narrative and a pinch of consciousness to prove why he’s one of the most vital new artists working in hip-hop today. – Adam Finley
Mr. Little Jeans
Named after a minor character in Wes Anderson’s quirky 1998 film Rushmore, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Monica Birkenes (aka Mr Little Jeans) captured the attention of over two million YouTube viewers with her cover of Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs”. A testament to the immense power of social media, her darkly delectable interpretation of their track thrust an unknown Norwegian musician into the international spotlight and ignited a career. Luckily for Birkenes, her own material and songwriting chops are equally as arresting.
While the prolonged gestation period between EPs and her major label effort might have given critics and admiring fans reason to pause, it appears they had nothing to fret about. The 12 intoxicating songs of Pocketknife herald the arrival of an artist whose immense talent contains both indie credibility and undeniable mainstream potential. From the widescreen ‘80s pop sheen of “Runaway” and the brilliant, lo-fi dance track “Good Mistake”, to the children’s chorale featured on the chorus of the charmingly unconventional “Oh Sailor”, few records brush up against perfection as effortlessly as Mr. Little Jeans’s debut. – Ryan Lathan
Parker Millsap
It’s shocking to me how sure of himself this kid sounds. Even looking beyond that confident and weathered voice, how is it that this 20-year-old from Purcell, Oklahoma, has the guts to jump right into the guise of the classic country troubadour? Some of the tunes on this album — all originals, mind you — sound so patently authoritative that it’s hard to believe they weren’t copped from some old folk record. And a song like “Disappear” must have been borrowed from one of the early Avett albums, right? Or one of those early Justin Townes Earle tracks? Then there’s “Quite Contrary,” which features a mishmash of different children’s rhymes and fairy tales set to a rollicking blues guitar, which sounds like weirdness that could only have been dreamed up by a Delta blues singer in a drug reverie. Where this stuff comes from, an intoxicating mix of country, folk, blues, honky-tonk, and Western swing, it’s hard to know, though it’s safe to say that everyone is left wanting more. – Taylor Coe
Protomartyr
So, Detriot’s Protomartyr isn’t exactly new. However, the band’s second album, this year’s Under Color of Official Right, is so fresh and immediate in its impact that it’s hard not to think of the band as wholly new. The group’s debut, No Passion All Technique, was a raucous, angular record, a barbed burst of energy that could be garage rock if you consider airplane hangars to be garages. The sound and its lasting rumble stretched out that far. Under Color of Official Right is an exercise in refining the edges not to dull them but to make them sharper.
The guitars ring out on opener “Maidenhead”, but the guitars still grind along, the vocals still bellow outward. “Want Remover” is a crunchy wind sprint, but it hollows out to let the melody shine through. The album balances the chaos with the carefully constructed, like when “Scum, Rise!” shifts back and forth between white-out fuzz and a single repeated hook. Protomartyr have found their larger audience by, well, not giving a shit about compromise. Instead, this is honing of a craft that existed on its first record as well. It’s tempting to mention Joy Division when you hear this record, but Protomartyr is missing the self-serious restraint that made the New Romantics sound distanced and cool instead of unabashedly on fire.
Of all the promising rock bands out there, Protomartyr made the greatest leap forward in 2014 and, in turn, created one of the most volatile, infectious rock records of the year. What makes them one of the best new artists is that, crazily enough, it sounds like Protomartyr is just getting started. – Matt Fiander
RAC
That hop from making remixes of video game-level soundtracks to becoming a part of the pop stratosphere is a tricky one to make, noticeably because pretty much no one does it ever. You find your niche in gaming circles, sometimes pump out original tunes of your own, and then you make a modest living off of your small cadre of followers. For André Allen Anjos, however, that journey has been unlike anything else people had ever seen, if not just because his early video game remixes weren’t just fun pieces of revisionist history: they were good. Like, damn good. A great majority of those early songs released in 2008 and 2009 could sneak their way into the club, and you wouldn’t give it much, never mind at all, probably dancing yourself silly to the tune that frustrated too many Contra players to count.
Yet as his notoriety grew, Anjos slowly began working his way towards the realm of the true-blue pop song, and when the two halves of his great full-length album Strangers came out earlier this year, it’s amazing how stripped-down and effective his tunes were: the minimalist funk of the Penguin Prison collaboration “Hollywood” reminded some folks of the work of Tokyo Police Club, who, incidentally, also collaborated on Anjos’ big major label debut, getting to share his unique pop gifts with the likes of YACHT, Tegan & Sara, and even Matthew Koma on the summer anthem that never was, “Cheap Sunglasses”.
Without ever leaning towards twee or even taking himself too seriously, RAC, through his original works and his numerous remixes, has reintroduced the fun back into pop music, finding joy in melody while avoiding the indulgent pitfalls that so many of his remix-ready peers fall into time and time again. While he’s been at it for half a decade, RAC truly made himself known in 2014, and rest assured, you will be hearing about him for a long, long time to come. – Evan Sawdey
Sam Smith
If the recent commercial success of Sam Smith shows that big male voices are back, well—it’s about time! The English singer has a commanding presence, even when he sings about being lonely (“In the Lonely Hour”), barely making it (“Life Support”) or the morning after (“Stay With Me”). A good part of the reason for this is Smith’s ability to start quietly and let the songs build with the intensity of his feelings. There have always been shouters, but Smith goes from a whisper to a scream while always staying in control. This restraint just makes him seem powerful and tender at the same time. Smith’s expressive vocals suggest that he’s someone who knows better but cannot stay quiet even when it hurts him. He embodies that disconnection we all feel when our thoughts and emotions don’t match, but we still know that just being in the grip of love or some kind of higher power is essentially something for which we all yearn. – Steve Horowitz
SOHN
It could be argued that South Londoner Christopher Taylor is quite some way from being a new artist, having previously released three albums as Trouble Over Tokyo. His insistence in interviews that the person he was before SOHN no longer exists might seem something of an affectation, but musically, the sea change is black and white, if not an actual epitaph. The new Taylor is a genuine triple threat as a producer, musician, and songwriter. He displays irksomely great taste in his choice of collaborators and remixees (including Rhye, Kwabs, Lana del Ray, Disclosure, and Banks).
The fact that his own signature sound manages to be a lyrical blend of the intellectual, the physical, and the emotional is already a sign of fearsome caliber, but it’s his ability to coax great performances out of singers that promises the most for the future, even as it made his debut album Tremors one of the most gorgeous, affecting and flat-out best of 2014. We’re not to call it a comeback, but with any luck, this year could be but the first step of a prodigal son. – Stefan Braidwood
Sylvan Esso
To make too big a deal of Sylvan Esso’s roots in other bands — Mountain Man, Megafaun – is both to set up false expectations of what the music will sound like and to make this seem like a side project. If this was once a trial, an experiment, it is no more. It’s an exciting new pop group, one of the most interesting of the year. Slyvan Esso’s new album, as represented by indelible singles like “Coffee”, “Dreamy Bruises”, and “Play It Right”, is a cross between dreamy stillness and rushes of pure, instinctive energy. The instinctive part echoes what the band sings about – the natural world, modernity, human impulses, sex, dancing – and the sing-song-y, chant-y style of vocals. Yet the duo also has a keen instinct for how pop music works, the way a melody embeds in your brain, how the simplest rhythm can drive it, and the power of tapping into our collective memory of music to achieve something new. – Dave Heaton
Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks join Smith Westerns and the Orwells as another in Chicago’s recent surge of garage rock bands helmed by youngsters who aren’t even old enough to legally consume alcohol. Their 2013 debut, Sunken, was a solid record, but its reverbed-washed production overtook the songs, which were still quite rough around the edges. But Twin Peaks’ latest, Wild Onion, isn’t only an improvement over Sunken, it’s quite possibly one of the best record of 2014. On it, Twin Peaks upped their songwriting with meaner hooks and catchier melodies, all while embracing cleaner and crisper rock and roll sound. This year also saw Twin Peaks become one of the most talked about live acts due to their on-stage antics, which even left guitarist Cadien James with a broken foot. After a busy 2014, Twin Peaks’ potential arrow is pointing sky-high. Here’s hoping they can just avoid any more bad breaks. – Richard Giraldi