By now you’ve read the one list that really matters – the Thrash Hits Top 10 Albums of 2014 – but now we’re giving you the opportunity to delve a little deeper into the minds that created it. Here are the unedited, unspoiled and unsullied opinions that we crunched together to distill our Top 10. We asked our contributors to tell us what their personal Top 10 records of the last 12 months were, and to justify their top choice to us.
Joyce Manor
Never Hungover Again
Epitaph Records
21 July 2014
by Alex Andrews
Joyce Manor’s last EP Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired was a curious record. Although nine songs long, it lasted just 13 minutes and felt more like a collection of B-sides than a follow-up to their shit-hot debut. But what was most intriguing was that it allowed the band to explore new territories, like 90s skate punk and wistful indie pop, while developing their identity.
Joyce Manor
Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired
Big Scary Monsters
07 May 2012
by Alex Andrews
There is a reason why debut albums are often held with such affection. They arrive without pressure, without expectation and in the best cases, without unnecessary amounts of polish. Such an example was Joyce Manor’s eponymous album. Not since Against Me! had a young band sounded so fresh or so tunefully intense, and as parallels exist between the early trajectories of both bands, it’s with good reason that the promise of a follow-up has caused waves of excitement to ripple throughout the underground.
We’ve shown you what Raz and Hugh’s albums of the year are, but they’re not the only ones responsible for the Thrash Hits Top 20 Albums of 2011. Oh no. We’ve got a whole load of contributors – writers, photographers, and miscellaneous behind-the-scenes types – that help keep Thrash Hits running smoothly, and the albums they loved the most from 2011 matter just as much as those favoured by the boss men.