Our favorite albums of the first part of the year- Nr. 05

So here we are again. Nothing changes, it all stays the same, nothing ever happens. For the umpteenth time now, we put in our 2 cents of what has been doing it for us in the first half of this year music wise. Hopefully you can find something in there that you agree with, which you overlooked at first, or which you maybe never even heard of. So much great music out there, this is our little grab out of that hat, enjoy!

05. Linda

Artist: Blood Red Shoes

Album: In Time to Voices 

Label: V2 Records

They're back! I can still remember seeing BRS live just after they released their first album 4 years ago. They're still the only band who managed to get the crowd on-stage at Doornroosje in Nijmegen (though admittedly, I haven't lived there for about 3 years now). There was a real sense of urgency to that first album. Box of Secrets was full of teen angst, as the critics liked to put it. Their second album flopped and I was ready to forget they even existed, but they've managed the almost impossible and have come back with something that even outshines their debut.

Whereas Box of Secrets shone in simplicity, this album celebrates coming of age with more complicated guitar riffs and even more noise coming out of Laura's guitar. Tracks like 'Stop Kicking' might even deserve the denominator of 'anthem'. Now more than ever, it is hard to believe it's just to the two of them. Or, to come back to yesterday’s 'essay', that guitar music is on the way out. Rock on!

05. Stef

Artist: Kasper Bjorke

Album: Fool

Label: HFN Music

Kasper Bjorke + Jacob Bellens = Great tunes. Bjorke has this knack for getting out some nice (deep) house music (though not unwilling to let some old school 80s and disco influences rear their head every now and again, see his Kim Carnes edit for instance), and Bellens has the vocals to match exactly what Bjorke is doing. This has led to an album on which the first half consists of more “pop” tunes, with some dancey beats and some great vocals that are easy on the ear. The second half of the LP Bjorke flies mostly solo, and he gets more into deep house mode there.

His last album Standing on Top of Utopia was already an amazing album with some great tunes (Young Again and Efficient Machine especially). This album matches these tunes with the likes of ‘Hummingbirds’ and ‘Deep is the Breath’, for instance, but it, to me, also sounds not as disjointed as SoToU did. This feels more like an album that belongs together and evolves throughout the songs for some reason. Or, perhaps better put, the deep house songs on the second half on this album I find more intersting than the second half of his previous effort. Not that Standing on Top of Utopia was anything to sneeze at, mind you, and this album perhaps even tops that.