4. Bottomless Pit - Blood Under The Bridge

Hyper-competent warrior-monks Bottomless Pit’s latest outing may be the ultimate 90’s-guitar-rock-preservationist’s record. Aside from being made by old Seam, Silkworm and .22 stalwarts, Blood Under The Bridge feels like the natural evolution of that signature sound we all know, love, and are kind of tired of, from the atonal tunefulness to the carefully tempered guitar heroics.  It would all be fairly tiresome in and of itself were it not so immaculately constructed. It’s sequenced so perfectly I can’t not listen to the whole thing once I’ve started. Stopping halfway just feels wrong.

In a year where it seems the future of music-for-music-nerds* is being fought over like it’s the last bong-hit at Hannah Montana’s birthday party, it’s nice to be reminded that a record doesn’t have to be forward-thinking (or re-contextualizing the past in new and wondrous ways) to be great.  It can just be really, really good.

^{*’indie’, ‘hipster-nonsense’, ‘pitchforks’, whatever you like to call it}