the nine most underrated albums of 2015 so far
Two years ago, the greatest acts in pop music were dropping amazing projects and it seemed like a new act made a major breakthrough every week. While we had a brief lull in 2014, the pendulum has swung back. This year has once again brought on big ticket releases from the likes of Sufjan, Kendrick, Björk, and Father John Misty of Fleet Foxes.
With over 400 albums released already this year, it’s hard to believe the average person could listen to all the great music being released.  So if you want to discover more than just Sufjan and Kendrick, stop sleeping on some of this year's best records and start here!
Leather Corduroys — Season
Season — a Joey and Kami (a.k.a. Leather Corduroys) project – is one of my favorite recent releases across all genres.  It’s, in a word, daring.  As an album it might seem to lack cohesion – but I like every track and love “Badmon”, “In Da Club”, “Remember Me”, “Developers”, “Chicken Talk”, “Mexican Coke”, and “Lucile” – which you may notice is half the track list of the album.  Joey and Kami have given us one of the first albums in the post-Yeezus soundscape that successfully acknowledges and incorporates the polarizing direction Kanye took without actually copying him or creating an experience that will divide audiences.  Most people will find several things to like about Season and, from a critically objective viewpoint, the only real complaint to throw at the final result is the occasional repetition of themes.
“In Da Club”, “Rocket Man”, and “Chicken Talk” should satisfy any pure rap fans, but there’s also a wonderfully rough punk sound on “Developers”, and a sound reminiscent of The Beatles’s daring phase on “My Good Girl” and “Lucile”.  If you’re worried about the Yeezus mention earlier, don’t be — Season does incorporate some dissonance and strange song structures but it doesn’t seek to deprive the listener of a closing musical phrase or cause anxiety by denying a chorus.  A wonderfully diverse instrumentation is employed to create the different feels on Season — from Daft Punk or Justice-esque electronic notes, to an organ, to simple drums and snares.
Leather Corduroys, perhaps by benefit of having less to lose than their more well-known comrades in the SAVEMONEY group, are more daring on Season than pretty much any other group right now; if you’re curious about the directions Hip-Hop may be heading in the future, starting here is probably a good idea.  Check it out on Soundcloud or just straight up download it.
— A. B. Schmidt (Bradapalooza)
Editor's note - Joey and Kami's SaveMoney friend Towkio also dropped a brilliant full-length début, .wav theory. Fans of Chance are sure to enjoy it, and, like all SaveMoney projects, it's completely free.  Download it here.
Dengue Fever - The Deepest Lake
Dengue Fever are the sort of band someone would make up as a parody of hipster tastes. Brothers Zac and Ethan Holtzmann founded the band after a trip to Cambodia, where Ethan fell in love with the local 60s rock songs which dominated the radio airwaves. They were fortunate to find an accomplished Cambodian vocalist in Long Beach, and Chhom Nimol’s timeless voice made it possible for them to recreate the sounds of the Holtzmanns’ holiday on the West Coast.
Their early records are an uneasy blend of by-numbers covers and crude pastiches, but The Deepest Lake sees them masterfully incorporate a range of influences and find their own distinct sound. Nimol now sings in English as well as her native Khmer, and overdubs her own floating harmonies to good effect. The songs are anchored by Senon Williams’ assured walking basslines, with elements such as understated African drums and jazzy horns mixed in with Nitzschean mastery. The old master’s influence, direct or otherwise, both anchors the album within the Western canon and allows the international influences some sincerity; the little Sixties flourishes, not least a Nitzsche-phone, mean this could be his soundtrack to a Cambodian spy film.
Naturally, many of Nimol’s lyrics – written by the Holtzmanns in English, then professionally translated to Khmer, before finally being edited to fit the music by Nimol – are completely impenetrable. That doesn’t detract from the experience, even for listeners unaccustomed to world music. The Deepest Lake is an atmospheric record, the high points tempered by unease, which will delight fans of mainstream indie and folk, as well as 60s revivalists and world music aficionados or simply anyone looking to broaden their musical palette.
- Vesuvius
Jay Prince - BeFor Our Time
2015 has been the year of Grime. Brothers Skepta and Jme have been at the forefront of bringing the UK Rap scene to a wider audience in Britain and overseas in America. Whilst Grime has taken all the plaudits, many up-and-coming rappers have made moves by going against the traditional London sound.
One of those is Jay Prince, a 21 year old from East London who released his latest EP, BeFor Our Time in January. With a production style that recalls the West Coast, and an effortless flow to suit, this could be the man to fill in that market.
A large part of Prince’s EP sees him utilise a sing-rap style as he effortlessly flows over every beat, putting listeners in a trance. He's London's answer to TDE’s Isaiah Rashad. Songs like “Polaroids” and “I’m Good” epitomise this with his melodic vocals, making for some of the catchiest hooks of the year, and echoing a message from the project’s opening skit.
 We don't need an instrument. An instrument was made after we had a voice. This is the most original sound that we have
On “1993” he opens up his second verse with “Some people still feelin’ low, and I’m just tryna give these people hope”, a message that translates to the masses, with the fundamental concept focused on todays youth. Speaking with Noisey he said: “there's hope where we come from. We all have a story to tell. This project is about Truth, Love, Passion”. He executes that brilliantly to produce an EP that should not be missed.
- zk123
San Fermin - Jackrabbit
In 2013, we ranked San Fermin's self-titled début as Rock Genius' third best album of the year.  Their second record might as well represent the band once again. Jackrabbit is a baroque-rock album conceived by  Ellis Ludwig-Leone, who composed around the interplay between male lead vocalist Allen Tate and female vocalist Charlene Kaye. Ludwig-Leone built on his previous orchestra full of horns and strings with more folk influences and dissonant sounds, which elevate the singer couple's stale of a world haunted by death and longing.
This time, San Fermin strengthened their concept with a thematic tale that keeps momentum through the finale. Kaye goes from a sweet melody to anguish mourning in "Philosopher" as she stabs at the entertainment industry with the words "And if I let all my demons out / Oh, you would love it." Meanwhile, Tate evokes realization in backend cut "Reckoning", where he describes time passing with the metaphor "when your friends are grayer by the day."
Accuse the band of revelling in pretentious angst, but it's hard to not acknowledge the power of the ambitious interaction of rock with a mighty brass section. Classical crossover, indeed.
- chihuahua0
Viet Cong - Viet Cong
Viet Cong may have only just released their début album, but all of them are experienced musicians, and it shows. The album falls shy of the 40-minute mark, but every second leaves you unsure of what the next will contain, and so Viet Cong doesn’t sound like a short record.
Their music is grimy and industrial. Drums rumble ominously, and the hiss of white noise is inescapable, but the discord is carefully managed, and exists only to emphasise those moments of release; the organ outro of opener “Newspaper Spoons”, the jingle-jangle guitar which introduces “Death”, the rousing final section of “March of Progress”. Even the rougher moments aren’t cynical anti-pop – rather, the heavier moments examine the gaps between mainstream music and the experimental fringe. Simplicity is teased, and then sharply snatched away.
The band’s sound isn’t burdened by revivalist or progressive expectations. Having said that, this is neither a genre-blending mish-mash nor a deliberate rejection of sixty years of pop history. There are definite echoes of krautrock in with the experimentation; Matt Flegel is an archetypal brooding post-punk frontman, echoing every notable vocalist from the darker side of New Wave. Comparisons to Tom Verlaine of Television are unavoidable, but he also variously evokes Robert Smith, Ian Curtis, and even Remain In Light-era David Byrne. This doesn’t define or restrain Viet Cong though. Their heavy determination, equally expansive and tight, is distinctly theirs.
- Tom Brailli
Natalie Prass - Natalie Prass
Natalie Prass opens her début album with the words “I don’t feel much”, and spends the rest of the album’s forty-minute run time singing to the world about how much she feels the the pain of her breakup from Kyle Ryan Hurlbut, who plays in Kacey Musgraves’s band.  In what is ostensibly a breakup album, Prass comes across like a real-life Disney princess that had her heart wounded by failed relationships. This comparison is solidified in the closing track, ”It Is You.”
Break-up albums are the best kind. It’s just what was happening and I had to deal with it somehowPrass's blend of country and soul with lush instrumentation provided by the house band at Spacebomb Records is something that feels instantly recognizable, yet comes together in a distinctive way. Her voice is stunning and provides these set of songs exactly what they need but she is not a powerhouse vocalist in the classic sense. Instead, it fits in the middle of the mix somewhere; floating on top of the instrumentation à la Lauren Mayberry.
Whatever the reason for the shelving of this record, it’s hard to feel bad for record companies when they sit on incredible albums like this for three years. Natalie Prass cuts through the noise of the constant race for attention that is the indie blogosphere and delivers a record that sounds like an instant classic.
- Benjamin R. Swanson
Editor's note: This review was originally written for Genius's Album of the Month award for January. Natalie has since made a verified account on Genius. View her annotations here!
Tim Gray - Polyhedrons
Meditative. Therapeutic. Shape-shifting. The drone masterpiece Polyhedrons by music theorist Tim Gray represents the boundless nature of singular sound. The music of the four lengthy pieces shifts chameleonic to the shades of life, lulling one to sleep as easy as it commands the waking day forward. To listen to the suites requires all of you and none of you. Background music to the most focused session of self-introspection. Polyhedrons is an apt title: listening to the academically-crafted songs initiates a circular being to find its edges, a fragmented person to find their completion. Listen and exist.
- Brian Duricy
Siskiyou – Nervous
One of the best albums to come out of the Great White North this year so far, Nervous pulls no punches with its depiction of a bleak, anxious world, crafted after lead singer Colin Huebert came down with an inner ear condition. Nervous pairs lush orchestral instrumentation with Huebert’s hushed, almost pained vocals, taking you deep into his affliction with equal parts melodic beauty and jarring, disorienting sound.
I know but I cannot help myself from taking all the milk
Out of the breasts from moms with their kidsNervous is the third album from Siskiyou, and marks a departure from the project’s typical folk sound. And depart it does; over the record’s 10 tracks, it covers vast sonic ground, but there is a cohesiveness throughout, a common thread of constant tension through acknowledging life’s simultaneous beauty and brutality. The record runs the gamut of emotions, from the beautiful string accents on “Bank Accounts and Dollar Bills" and the upbeat, Arcade Fire-esque “Imbecile Thoughts” to the tense paranoia of “Violent Motion Pictures” and “Babylonian Proclivities'” symphonic squealing, encapsulating life’s rollercoaster of experience. It can be a tough listen, but the record provides more than enough sonic material so you can find something to latch onto.
Nuanced, haunting, and heartbreaking, Nervous showcases life’s myriad emotions through its evocation of stark contrast, but using myriad elements to provide 10 different, potent perspectives that work impeccably together.
- Alt-Weakling
Torres — Sprinter
I’m a tired woman/In January I will be just twenty-threeIndeed, who would have suspected that the twenty-four year old Mackenzie Scott would have such a world weary soul? Surely anyone who took a listen to her self-titled debut, but for the uninitiated, it's one of the many surprises her new album supplies.
There's a darkness at the heart of  Sprinter  that could have easily become overwhelming but Torres deftly balances it in a way that would have made PJ Harvey proud. It's never bleak to the point of driving a listener away. Instead, Torres brings a staggering emotional energy that provokes us to instantly latch on to her voice. We honest-to-God relate to her contemplations as they rumble through the distortions and guitars. Her ability to hone in on the sadness that drowns us without ever forcing us into the water is spectacular (as she does in the dreamy "Ferris Wheel). We're invited in, inspiring our own introspections. That level of songwriting isn't easy or quick to master, it's from Torres' own ability to empathize musically. Some of her best moments spring from anger and she lets it run through tracks like "Strange Hellos" and "Son, You're No Island" . There, she snaps and energizes the album with searing lines like.
Heather, I've dreamt that I forgave
That only comes in waits
I hate you all the sameOuch. And yet, Torres still finds ways to breathe in between moments of such fire. The playful "Cowboy Guilt" offers some relief from the intensity with a fun Submarines-like beat. but to let up entirely would just not be her style. Few others would consider a song about Native American reparations and Southern summer childhoods a breather, but that's just the unique kind of tone that Torres brings. Of course, this couldn't go much farther without mentioning the raw closing track, "The Exchange" that showcases the very power Torres is capable of. Experimental, moody and absolutely honest to a devastating level. For sure, one of the best moments of 2015.
Torres finds herself in a sweet spot, finding her stride in "Sprinter", leaving us eager to what we can expect of someone of her talent. As she says it herself in the gloriously sharp title track, "So I found myself some ground to stand/Bound to be the better man."
Now that's what we call some solid footing.
-TheRaconteur
Have you listened to any of these albums, or do you have another hidden gem to share with us? Let us know in the comments below!