TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2018

2018 was the year of the unexpected....Sandro Perri released an ambient pop album with just four tracks, one of them stretching 24 minutes, followed by three variations of the same song. Twenty One Pilots, a band I never took seriously, dropped an album I didn’t know I needed. A Perfect Circle returned after 14 years with a record as bold as ever. And then there was Nils Frahm’s All Melody, an ambient, electro album that I still cannot quite categorize after many listens. What a great year!

10. Tunng, Songs You Make at Night

Songs You Make at Night is my introduction to Tunng, an English band that has been combining folk music and electronics since the early 2000s. The band once described its unusual mix of acoustic guitars, electronic beats and samples, harmonies, and assorted strange sounds as “pagan folktronica.” Whatever you want to call it, I’m immediately drawn to it.

There’s a dreamlike quality to much of Songs You Make at Night, which seems appropriate for an album inspired by dreams, sleep, and the strange thoughts that can come in the middle of the night. I love the way Tunng brings acoustic folk music and electronics together, sometimes beautiful, sometimes quirky, and often a little strange.

Songs You Make at Night is a terrific album and a wonderful introduction to a band I’m very happy to have discovered.

   

9. Villagers, The Art of Pretending to Swim 

Conor O’Brien, who records as Villagers, explores faith, spirituality, technology, and our increasingly complicated relationship with the digital world on his fourth album, The Art of Pretending to Swim.

Combining electronic beats and synthesizers with guitars, piano, and some wonderful vocal harmonies, O’Brien steps into some new territory. There are elements of folk, electronic music, soul, and even gospel throughout the album, but it all comes together beautifully.

He’s one of my favorite artists, and The Art of Pretending to Swim does not disappoint.

8. Nils Frahm, All Melody

On All Melody, Nils Frahm blurs the line between composition and atmosphere, building an ambient, electro-acoustic world that resists easy classification. Recorded in Berlin’s historic Funkhaus, where Frahm spent two years painstakingly constructing his dream studio in Saal 3, including a custom mixing desk, a pipe organ, rebuilt wiring, and hand-finished woodwork, the album is rooted in a space designed to capture its every nuance. It breathes with natural reverb and warmth, unfolding slowly with layered textures and pulsing synths. Even after many listens, it remains elusive, a shifting landscape that's I want to explore again and again.

   

7. Gaz Coombes, World's Strongest Man

Gaz Coombes is best known as the singer and guitarist for Supergrass, but his third solo album, World’s Strongest Man, finds him making music quite different from his earlier work. There are still plenty of guitars, but synthesizers, electronic rhythms, and Coombes’ falsetto play a much bigger role.

There’s a lot happening musically throughout World’s Strongest Man, but it all works so well. It’s a long way from the infectious Britpop of Supergrass, and I really like where he’s taken his music. World’s Strongest Man is a terrific album.

   

6. Twenty One Pilots, Trench

Twenty One Pilots was a band that I never took seriously despite the crazy early success that the duo realized. Trench changed all this for me. It's a concept album about a fictional world called Trench which is ruled over by nine bishops, who keep its population suppressed, and the insurrectionaries determined to realize freedom. It's truly an exhilarating album in which the band uses this world as a backdrop to explore issues of mental health, suicide, faith, friendship, and battling to take control of one's demons and life.

   

5. The Pineapple Thief, Dissolution

How The Pineapple Thief stayed off my radar for nearly twenty years will remain a mystery to me. Fortunately, it’s never too late to discover a truly great band. Dissolution, the band’s twelfth album, is my introduction to them, and what an introduction it is.

The album explores relationships and the strange contradiction of living in a world where we are more connected than ever, while those same connections can leave us increasingly isolated from one another. Musically, The Pineapple Thief combine great melodies with progressive rock arrangements that can move from quiet and atmospheric to big and powerful.

It all makes for a dramatic album and a fantastic introduction to a band I clearly should have discovered years ago.

4. A Perfect Circle, Eat The Elephant 

Fourteen years after their last album, A Perfect Circle return with Eat the Elephant. I wasn’t sure what to expect after such a long absence, but I certainly wasn’t expecting an album that sounds quite like this.

It’s a slower, more restrained album, but there is still plenty of tension throughout. Piano plays a much bigger role, along with synthesizers, electronics, and orchestration, while the heavy guitars that defined much of the band’s earlier music are used more sparingly. Maynard James Keenan writes about politics, religion, technology, and our growing dependence on screens and social media.

Eat the Elephant isn’t the album longtime fans like me might have expected, but it just feels so right for the times. It’s a terrific return.

   

3. Hippo Campus, Bambi

Bambi is an album I just can’t get out of my head. On their second album, Hippo Campus move away from some of the guitar driven indie rock of their debut and play with unconventional song structures, layering shimmering synths and glitchy beats.

It’s a pretty significant change, but the sharp melodies and youthful energy that define Hippo Campus are still here. The band also gets more personal, writing about anxiety, relationships, change, and some of the uncertainty that comes with getting older.

I love that Hippo Campus are willing to change things up this early in their career. Bambi just sounds fresh and different. I can’t stop listening to this one.

   

2. Lo Moon, Lo Moon

Lo Moon’s self titled debut sounds like it could have come out of the 1980s. There are hints of Talk Talk, The Blue Nile, and Peter Gabriel throughout, with synthesizers, guitars, big bass lines, and plenty of space in the arrangements. The songs often take their time to develop, something that singer Matt Lowell has said was influenced by Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden.

“Loveless,” which stretches past seven minutes, is a great example, slowly building around Lowell’s vocals before opening up as the song progresses. “This Is It” is another favorite. There is a lot to like about this album, and Lo Moon have put together a really impressive debut.

   

1. Sandro Perri, In Another Life

Sandro Perri defies logic on In Another Life, which he describes as an experiment in “infinite songwriting.” The 24-minute title track drifts without urgency, unfolding like a dream that refuses to resolve. Built on slow-moving chords and gentle melodic shifts, it creates a sense of time suspended, where moments stretch and dissolve before ever settling. There’s no climax, no chorus, just the quiet confidence of a song content to exist.

The second half of the album consists of three versions of “Everybody’s Paris,” each one reimagined with new collaborators and shifting textures. What could feel repetitive instead becomes a study in perspective, as melodies reshape and emotional tones recalibrate. Perri leans into ambiguity and space, letting atmosphere do the heavy lifting. It’s an ambient pop suite that feels both meticulous and unbound, mesmerizing, hypnotic, and quietly unforgettable.