The Fashionably Late Top 125 of 2019: Crows

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: Crows

What: Silver Tongues

When: March 2019

Where: Balley Records

Why: There's an almost gothic darkness to Silver Tongues, starting with the intense, murky creep of album opener "Silver Tongues" and marching on from there. Crows recorded this, their debut, in the dark (well, almost), and that strategy led to a sound that captures something heightened, something alert and haunted and tense. More than sheer brute force, this is a complex, beating heart of a record, with moments both tender and brutal. And it's the most glorious gloom and doom-cloaked noise you could hope to hear.  

[posted 3.7.20]