Greetings, music lovers and readers of Spirit of Cecilia! 2024 is fast coming to a close, and the SoC crew would like to share their favorite albums of the year. There was a lot of great new music, terrific deluxe reissues, and releases from old favorites. Hopefully, our lists will lead to some albums you will love as well.

Brad: Tad, thanks for starting us off and inviting everyone to participate.  Always great to write with you!  I’ll just start with an alphabetical listing of my favorite releases of 2024:

• “Dogs” by Pink Floyd, as done by Tim Bowness and Giancarlo Erra
• Airbag, The Century of the Self
• BBT, Flare on the Lens
• BBT, The Likes of Us
• Bruce Soord, Caught in the Hum
• David Gilmour, Luck and Strange
• Frost*, Life in the Wires
• IZZ, Collapse the Wave
• Tears for Fears, Songs for a Nervous Planet
• The Bardic Depths, What We Really Like in Stories
• The Cure, Songs of a Lost World
• The Pineapple Thief, It Leads to This
• The Pineapple Thief, Last to Run EP
• The Tangent, To Follow Polaris
• Tim Bowness, Powder Dry

And, I’m not even including vital re-releases such as the deluxe edition of Synchronicity by the Police; Fear of a Blank Planet by Porcupine Tree; Spectrum ‘97 by Phish; Lament by Ultravox; Bursting Out by Jethro Tull; or This Strange Engine by Marillion.

If I go just by my playlist numbers, I’d have to list “Dogs”, Frost*, IZZ, and, especially, The Cure.  In fact, since The Cure first arrived, I’ve listened to almost nothing else.  But, I went through such phases with Frost* and IZZ, too.  And, really, I can’t recommend the single of “Dogs” highly enough.  Bowness and Erra give it just the right beauty and creepiness that a proper Pink Floyd remake so desperately needs.

I must admit, though, I’m totally against the lyrical content of “Dogs.”  I can’t believe our entrepreneurs are so bloodthirsty as this.  Like or despise Elon Musk, for example, as you will, but he’s not bloodthirsty.  In fact, if anything, I think he’d hate to “be dragged down by the stone.”  And, he would hate to drag anyone else down by the stone.  He definitely wants to win, but he wants to win fairly, by the rules established by society (unless all of society is corrupt, but let’s hope that Pink Floyd isn’t so Marxian as this).  Maybe I’m wrong, however.  Perhaps, I’m deaf, dumb, and blind, and that I keep pretending. . .  Is this how Roger Waters saw his friendship/adversarial relationship with David Gilmour?  If so, so very sad.  For my money, give me Phish’s “Bouncing Around the Room” as the touchstone song dealing with entrepreneurship.

To be certain, though, I’m also a bit biased on the whole The Bardic Depths release.  Given that I wrote the lyrics for it, I’m quite taken with it.  Dave Bandanna did an amazing job in composing the music.  So brilliant, so beautiful, so mystical, so joyful.  Dave brings every song to life, and I’m always stunned to hear my own words given form and made manifest.

And, then, what’s not to love about the new David Gilmour?  In fact, when he sings with his daughter, Romany, I’m completely taken.  So much better than Dogs, co-written with Roger Waters..  Especially if you listen to something as glorious as “Between Two Points.”  I would give anything to have such a relationship with my daughter that I could write something so gorgeous with her.  Romany over Roger any day.

And, seriously, this brings me to all the incredible re-releases of 2024.  Oh, to be “Prince Caspian” and float upon the waves.  Oh, to be Prince Caspian.  Dang, Phish was simply brilliant when they were.

I also want to single out Airbag.  I don’t know their politics, but it strikes me that with this release, especially, they’re trying to combat conformism and cancel culture.  I could be wrong, but I’m willing to take a chance that this is a brilliant counter-cultural masterpiece.   One that shakes the conformists of the world to their very foundations.  And, who wouldn’t love that bass playing and interplay with the drums?  Genius.  Thank God for the non-conformists of the world.  Airbag sounds like Pink Floyd, in terms of legacy, but they are completely their own band.

If Airbag sounds anti-political, Robert Smith on the new Cure album, sounds confessional.  Bless me, Father, I, Robert Smith, have sinned, and something wicked this way comes.  Truly, the latest The Cure album is a masterpiece, a true sequel to Pornography and Disintegration.  My love and respect for Smith only grows with age.

If Airbag is countering the world and Smith is confessing for us all, then IZZ is proclaiming the inherent goodness of each one of us.  I’m not sure what the lyrics are all about on Collapse the Wave, but I feel that John Galgano and Laura Meade are asking us to look at our best selves.  Rather than be dour, they find wonder.  As far as I can tell, IZZ has been reading a lot of T.S. Eliot and a lot of John Paul II.

Tad: What a great list, Brad! Yours and mine overlap quite a bit, since we are often of like mind when it comes to music. Here is mine, based on how often I listened to each album:

8. Kyros – Mannequin

7. IZZ – Collapse the Wave

6. Jeff Johnson/Phil Keaggy – Spinning On a Cosmic Dime

5. Tears For Fears – Songs For a Nervous Planet

4. Airbag – The Century of the Self

3. Bardic Depths – What We Really Like In Stories

2. The Cure – Songs of a Lost World

1. Frost* – Life In the Wires

I’ve been a fan of Kyros’ music for several years now. They wed 80s sensibilities to 2020s expertise. Mannequin is another great collection of pop/prog.

Like you, I admire IZZ enormously. As far as I can tell, the lyrics to the title track are about quantum physics and faith. Who else but the Galgano brothers could pull off such an ambitious song? They definitely succeed.

Jeff Johnson and Phil Keaggy have collaborated several times before, and Spinning On a Cosmic Dime is the most lighthearted and fun of their albums. Johnson is a master of all keyboards – acoustic and electronic, while Keaggy is one of the finest guitarists alive today. When they get together, magic happens.

The Tears For Fears is primarily a live album, but the five new studio tracks are some of the best songs they’ve ever recorded.

You’ve already said everything I could want to say about the Airbag album. They continue to impress me with their social commentary, and their instrumental chops are outstanding. Their previous album, A Day At the Beach, is still my favorite, but The Century of Self is really, really satisfying.

The Bardic Depths’ new one is also a great album. Listening to it is like having a beer with C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and the other Inklings. To my ears, it’s the most musically ambitious set of songs from TBD, and I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to it throughout 2024.

The Cure’s album came out of nowhere as far as I was concerned, and I approached it with some trepidation – there’s nothing worse than an old favorite trying to recapture the spark and failing miserably. Robert Smith et al. came up with a fantastic album that easily holds its own with their previous best. Amazing!

Frost*’s Life In the Wires is far and away the most-played album of 2024 for me. I have yet to tire of it, and every time I listen to it I find some new and delightful detail. Jem Godfrey sings all of the vocals on this one, and he is terrific. The beautiful melodies pouring out of my speakers are such a bountiful feast for my ears. The story is fascinating as well – a young man rebels against a world run by AI when he hears a pirate radio broadcast. After tracking it down to its source, it turns out to be an automated program. But then things get weird – he seems to sacrifice himself to become the new source of the radio broadcasts and spark an awakening of humanity. At least that’s how I read it. 

So that’s what I spent my time listening to this past year. I also loved the Ultravox Lament box set and the Talk box set by Yes. It’s nice to have this often overlooked album get the treatment it deserves. 

Brad: Yes, Tad, thanks for the reminder about Yes’s 30th anniversary edition of Talk.  The last of the Trevor Rabin-Yes era albums, it’s simply beautiful.  Clearly, the band was going for a progressive AOR sound at the time, but the production is so very clean.  I love the packaging as well for it.  Not overblown, but a solid release in terms of presentation.  Don’t get me wrong, I love big box sets like Lament by Ultravox, but sometimes the smaller packaging works just as well.  For me, Marillion’s and Jethro Tull’s releases–in terms of packaging–hit the sweet spot.  Basically small books that fit perfectly on a book shelf.

Thanks, too, for the story about the new Frost*.  I’ve listened to it numerous times, but I’d not figured out the lyrics.  What a great story!  Now, I’ll listen to it with different ears.

I’m so glad we agree on The Cure, on Airbag, and on Frost*.  Three essentials of the year.

As it turns out, The Cure also released their brand new album as a live release–Songs from a Live World–as well.  Gorgeous.  Seriously, what else can Robert Smith do?  He simply captures the mood of every era in which he finds himself.  And, I, for one, am so fortunate to be alive when Robert Smith is alive.

I would also note that 2024 is an important anniversary date.  Kevin McCormick’s gorgeous Squall came out in 1999, a mere 25 years ago!  Even the rather snobbish All-Music recognized the brilliance of Squall.  As far as I understand it, McCormick is working on a follow-up CD.

It’s also the ten-year anniversary of the genius Scorch by the Tin Spirits.  A favorite album.  Also, ten years ago, appeared the brilliant Demon by Gazpacho and Anathema’s mediocre to good Distant Satellites.  

But, Holy Moses, it’s not just about Tin Spirits.  If we go back to the twentieth anniversary of releases, 2004, we get to The Pineapple Thief, Variations on a Dream; Glass Hammer’s Shadowlands; Proto-Kaw, Before Came After; The Tangent, The World We Drive Through; Ayreon, The Human Equation; and Marillion, Marbles.  Sheesh, what else do you want?

Carl: Full and necessary confession: 2024 turned out to be year in which I listened to little new prog rock, or rock of any kind. Not for any lack of new and worthy rock music, but 2024 also turned out to be the year in which I fell quite a ways down The Vinyl Rabbit Hole. I’ll likely say more about that in a separate post on my favorite jazz of 2024, but suffice to say that I’ve been haunting various thrift and record stores. 

My most listened album of the year was released 30 years ago: Seal’s second album (1994), titled, inconveniently enough, Seal—just like his 1991 debut. A deluxe edition was released, with a remastered version of the album (fantastic), as well as alternative versions of the songs (also wonderful). I listened to this album countless times when it first came out, and I have never tired of it (or of his first or third, titled Human Being). Why has it resonated so strongly with me? I’m not entirely sure, but for me it is a perfect pop/rock album, and it sits squarely in the middle of a trio of albums that I continue to think is one of the finest three-in-a-row rock/pop album families you’ll ever hear. 

I enjoyed the new albums by Frost* and Pineapple Thief and if I listened more closely, I’m confident that I would really like them. Both bands have consistently produced accessible, intelligent prog rock of the highest order, so I plan to revisit them in the weeks to come. 

Caligula’s Horse’s Charcoal Grace is mysteriously but aptly titled, as the music has a dusky, burnt quality that also shines with many moments of delicate beauty. This Aussie band has been a longtime favorite, and this album adds to a discography rich with ridiculous chops and vocals at the service of exquisitely crafted songs. A keeper. 

Keep Me Fed by The Warning, the talented sister trio out of Mexico, is (as they say) a banger. Or a series of bangers, the sort of swaggering, catchy hard rock—with sublime harmonies—that has been sorely missed in recent years. For my money, I prefer their live versions a bit more; they are dynamic performers whose young ages (20 to 25) defy (even bely) the band’s evident maturity and exuberant zest. 

Speaking of all female bands, a somewhat guilty pleasure this year has been watching videos of the mind-melting Japanese metal band Lovebites. They have been compared to Iron Maiden and similar metal bands, which makes it all the more strange as I have never cared that particular genre. All five of these ladies are virtuosos, and Miyako Watanabe, one of the two guitarists, was a classical pianist until her late teens, when she picked up electric guitar for the first time. The live album Memorial For The Warrior Souls (2024) and the studio album Judgment Day (2023) are unrelentingly fast, in-your-face, melodic, and—yes—tremendous fun. Check them out live on YouTube and prepare to be amazed.

Myles Kennedy might just be the hardest working and (by all accounts) nicest rocker out there today, and his third solo album The Art of Letting Go is classic Kennedy—powerful, assured, dynamic, moving—with some nice little twists. His is one of the finest rock voices of the past couple of decades, but his guitar playing and song writing are just as polished, varied, and inviting. 

The Smile is like Radiohead if it didn’t have all of its members–and if it released albums more quickly. Which is what it is, with Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, bass, keys) and Jonny Greenwood (guitar, bass, keys) joined by Tom Skinner (drums). Wall of Eyes (released in January) and Cutouts (same session, released in October) are quirky, dark, strangely fun, often weird, always melodic, and never, ever boring. Yorke’s voice is timeless and Greenwood’s playing, which is always so distinctive, is a revelation. And this album comes across to me as even more jazz influenced than their debut—but never in a direct, obvious way. Great stuff!

One of my favorite country artists, Dwight Yoakam, is back with his first new album in almost a decade. Brighter Days finds the Bakersfield legend firing on all cylinders, apparently reenergized by marriage and a young son. Dwight sounds half his age (68) and his band, no surprise, is tight and razor sharp. Every cut is worth the price, with the deceptively simple “I Spell Love” getting a nod from this fan. 

Speaking of artists aging well, Van Morrison continues his remarkable output, with three albums: Beyond Words, New Arrangements and Duets, and Live at Orangefield. The first is all instrumental and is enjoyable, with some unexpected quirks. The second is a solid collection, featuring collaborations with Kurk Elling, Joss Stone, and Willie Nelson, all to good effect. But the live album, recorded a few years ago, is a revelation, captures a mid-70s Morrison at the top of his powers, featuring (as usual) a crack band and some other-worldly backing vocals. It rewards repeated listens and is a notable testament to Morrison’s brilliance as both a singer and songwriter. 

Brad: Carl, excellent choices.  I, too, like The Smile, and I, too, (thanks to you) listened to a lot of Seal II as well!  I also bought Trevor Horn’s memoir, but I have yet to read it.

Well, folks, this pretty much wraps up 2024 for us.  We have a lot to look forward to in 2025.  It looks like The Cure will be releasing more music, there’s a new and final season of Stranger Things, and we’ll be celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis.  Not only is there a 50th anniversary edition of The Lamb coming out, but the brilliant Dave Kerzner has re-recorded the entire album and is offering it as a 3-cd set plus hi-res download for only $49.99, plus shipping.

Big Big Train will be touring the U.S, and IZZ will be performing some stripped down shows–maybe even in Hillsdale!

I’m sure we’ll continue to give our hard-earned money to The Burning Shed and Rita Kay Drew’s The Band Wagon USA.  I highly recommend supporting both of these truly excellent business enterprises.  Amazingly enough, each is competitive with Amazon, even with overseas shipping costs.

Tad, Carl, Kevin, Erik, and I wish you all a Merry Christmas (remember, we’re only on day three of twelve), a Happy Hanukkah (remember, we’re also only on day three!), and Happy New Year, everyone!