The Fashionably Late Top 125 of 2019: Grand Vapids

Another rough year corresponded to another bumper crop of excellent music. Once again, my list is huge, because I fell in love with each of these 125 records and found it impossible to not include all of them in my fashionably late list.

I'm choosing to post my favorites in alpha order from A-Z again this year. You'll probably find some records that everyone and their fifth cousin raved about, but I hope you'll also find a few records that might be new to you, and that you'll fall in love with them as much as I have.

My thanks, as always, to the artists who created these records.

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Who: Grand Vapids

What: Eat The Shadow

When: July 2019

Where: Mumblecore Records

Why: Molasses-coated, Spanish moss-draped sludgecore with both post punk and '90s college rock energy, Eat The Shadow has a heavy sense of gravitas. It's a dark, serious listen that reflects a dark, serious time for Grand Vapids. But as weighty as these songs are, they don't come across as overwrought or overindulgent. Instead, the record's dense, murky expanse carries with it a sense of purpose, a sense of catharsis - and the understanding that one often has to hit some crushing depths to find that release. 

[posted 3.24.20]