The Best Albums of 2021
Anxious Sound
10
Pavone: Lull
Jessica Pavone
4-Song LP
Released October 22 on Chaikin
Favorite tracks: Indolent, Ingot, Midmost
09
Time Skiffs
Animal Collective
9-Song LP
Released February 4 on Domino
Favorite tracks: Dragon Slayer, Walker, Cherokee, Passer-By, Royal and Desire
08
The Other Side of Make-Believe
Interpol
11-Song LP
Released July 15 on Matador
Favorite tracks: Toni, Renegade Hearts, Passenger, Greenwich
07
Microtronics, Vol. 1 & 2
Broadcast
21-Song LP
Released March 18 on Warp
Favorite tracks: 01, 04, 14, 20
06
Maida Vale Sessions
Broadcast
15-Song LP
Released March 18 on Warp
Favorite tracks: Untitled (City in Progress), Look Outside, Long Was The Year, Echo's Answer, Colour Me In, Minim
05
Pompeii
Cate Le Bon
9-Song LP
Released February 4 on Mexican Summer
Favorite tracks: French Boys, Running Away, Remembering Me
04
Gather & Mourn
END & Cult Leader
4-Song EP
Released September 9 on Deathwish
Favorite tracks: Ataraxis, Long Shadows
03
A Light for Attracting Attention
The Smile
13-Song LP
Released May 13 on XL
Favorite tracks: The Same, You Will Never Work In Television Again, The Smoke, Speech Bubbles, We Don't Know What Tomorrow Brings
02
Mother Is the Milky Way
Broadcast
11-Song LP
Released March 18 on Warp
Favorite tracks: In Here the World Begins, Through the Gates of Yesterday, I'm Just a Person In This Roomy Verse, Mother's Milk Means Music (At Home In the Universe)
01
Arrangements
Preoccupations
8-Song LP
Released May 9 on Flemish Eye
Favorite tracks: Fix Bayonets!, Ricochet, Death of Melody, Slowly, Advisor, Recalibrate, Tearing up the Grass
With Arrangements, the fourth studio album by Preoccupations, the Calgary band achieves a perfect synthesis of its self-described “labyrinthine post-punk” approach: atypical rhythms; modular structures; chilly, subterranean textures; Mike Wallace's dynamic, punctuating drumming; the same-brain interplay of guitars, keys, synths, and effects between Scott Munro and Daniel Christiansen; Matt Flegel's raspy, oft-resigned snarl; and an ear for melody that is simultaneously confrontational and captivating, lead by Flegel's expressive, bass-as-lead-instrument playing style borrowed directly from Peter Hook of Joy Division.
Joy Division is a large-share influence on Preoccupations, and its echo reverberates throughout the seven tracks on Arrangements. You can also hear traces of Wire, Sonic Youth, Bauhaus, and even early Police, whose influence is most evident on the album's second track, “Ricochet.” The bleak, grey-sky sonic DNA of Women, the band Wallace and Flegel played in before forming Preoccupations—first known as Viet Cong—is also unmistakably present.
Preoccupations persist in an attitude of resistance, and a heavy, sometimes constant strain of ennui runs through Arrangements. Asked to characterize the album's principal themes, Matt Flegel summarized, “It's basically about the world blowing up and no one giving a shit.” A head-shaking ambivalence is palpable. Still, for all its bad-mood bravado, there is a vibrancy and a sense of purpose to these songs that, try as the band might, cannot be suppressed. Arrangements offers both a defining statement on—and an effectual antidote for—these downturned times.
