The best albums of 2024, ranked
The IndependentSign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Bright Eyes – Five Dice, All Threes “I never thought I’d see 45,” Conor Oberst sings in his tremulous tenor, “how is it that I’m still alive?” After a comeback album – 2020’s Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was – haunted by death and divorce, Bright Eyes’ 11th outing presents itself in cross-gartered yellow stockings, as if embracing life once again. Their fifth album almost works as an aural presentation called “Arctic Monkeys: How It’s Done”; orchestrated lounge bar futurism, yes, but draped in feather boas of classic pop elegance and adorned in hook line sequins. Fontaines DC – Romance There was a tangible “what’s next?” to the tone of 2024, and no one explored more options than Fontaines DC. Less Hallmark card than it is a bloodstained compendium of modern romance – menacing obsession, oppressive relationships, polyamorous webs, love amid the apocalypse – their fourth album expands the Irish outfit’s post-punk remit into acidic folk, subterranean shoegaze, orchestral rock and, on “Starburster”, spy flick hip-hop seemingly recorded mid-panic attack.
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