Music Suitcase : Favorite Albums of February 2023
Monthly blog entry #62: As a music year, 2023 kicked into high gear in February, led by a bevy of artists either transcending the stylings of the scenes they came up on or eschewing genre altogether. An uncanny handful of these albums specifically mix indie and/or punk rock with soul, gospel and hip hop.
Along with the blog, here’s a playlist with 53 of my favorite songs from February!
Sunny War, Anarchist Gospel
Deftly weaving a helix of Americana music — mostly folk and blues-based — around a punk rock spirit, the Nashville-born singer/songwriter gives 2023 its first masterpiece with her 6th studio album. Toggling between sociopolitical manifesto and break-up album with a few really sweet love songs to boot, the conceptual unity of Sunny’s Gospel is a loose easy-going one; it’s the breadth and dexterity of her songwriting that make it such a gem. Highlights: “Shelter and Storm,” “Sweet Nothing,” “Hopeless,” “No Reason.” Curveball: Her cover of “Baby Bitch,” by Ween!
Young Fathers, Heavy Heavy
Genre-agnostic as ever but rounding out somewhere on the edgier, punchier side of neo-soul, the Edinburgh-based trio’s 4th album is designed to make you move, revel, and embrace life in all its beauty perplexity. This band has swagger to spare, an infectious confidence permeating the music. This album will be claimed as a favorite by people with many different musical tastes. Highlights: “Sink Or Swim,” “I Saw,” “Geronimo”
Shame, Food For Worms
More melodic and more personal than previous efforts, Shame sheds some of the tropes of the post-punk revival on their third record, as vocalist Charlie Steen gets in touch with his actual singing voice. It’s a good move — that scene has gotten crowded — and their larger scope and sound make them seem less the product of their scene, and more like a singular band. Highlights: “Six Pack,” “Alibis,” “The Fall of Paul”
Tianna Esperanza, Terror
This 22-year-old artist uses severe childhood trauma, sexual exploits, a dazzling confidence, her family’s legacy (her grandmother is Palmolive from The Slits) and a clear contempt for genre confines to craft a wildly unpredictable, sometimes shocking, and certainly stunning debut. Highlights: “Terror,” “Buy You A New Attitude,” “Lone Child”
Iris DeMent, Workin’ On A World
Delivering her most political material in almost three decades, the Kansas City native’s 7th record is an unabashedly social justice country album, expressly progressive at every turn. As a songwriter, DeMent wears her Dylan influence proudly here; as a singer, she’s one of a kind. Highlights: “Workin’ On A World,” “Nothin’ For The Dead,” “Let Me Be Your Jesus”
Gabriel Da Rosa, É O Que A Casa Oference
This LA-based Brazilian musician’s debut album as a singer/songwriter (he’s traditionally a DJ) is a short, sweet, breezy bossa nova album with a light, romantic touch. Pleasant and uplifting, I always want to hear it again when it’s done. Highlights: “Cachaça,” “Jasmim Parte 2,” “Bandida”
Algiers, Shook
The Atlanta band’s highly collaborative, proudly political 4th album continues with a characteristically frenetic mixture of Gospel, post-punk, rap and more but this time these elements repeat with a consistency and a pace that makes the whole thing more cohesive. Some of these songs are pure fire: “Irreversible Damage,” “Bite Back,” “Cold World”
En Attendant Ana, Principia
Tightly crafted, melodic indie rock from Paris, Principia continues Margaux Bouchaudon and her band’s arc toward an ever more refined, confident and approachable aesthetic. Innately accessible but never trite, EAE are a really well-rounded band, and always an enjoyable listen. Highlights: “Ada, Mary, Diane,” “Black Morning,” “Wonder”
Andy Shauf, Norm
Yet another concept album from the Canadian songwriter with folk and gentle pop stylings at the fore musically. As usual it’s a simple narrative which nevertheless takes some time to unravel. This story’s much, much darker though, which makes for an interesting pairing with Shauf’s cute, idiosyncratic vocal delivery. Highlights: “Halloween Store,” “Telephone,” “Sunset”
The Go! Team, Get Up Sequences Part Two
The UK outfit’s 7th album carries forward the back-to-basics approach of their 6th, as the band’s sound centers on a marriage of indie rock, incredibly colorful bubblegum pop, and hip hop, and features some returning key collaborators, as well as some shiny new ones. Highlights: “Stay and Ask Me in a Different Way,” “Whammy-O,” “But We Keep On Trying”
dEUS, How To Replace It
The 90s-spawned Belgian art rockers’ first album in over a decade features a bigger sound, a looser feel (it’s based on jam sessions instead of their usual meticulous composition process), and a shift on the part of voalist Tom Barman toward spoken and half-sung lyrics seemingly inspired by latter-day-Leonard Cohen. Overall, a welcome return! Highlights: “1989,” “Faux Bamboo,” “Simple Pleasures”
Caroline Polachek, Desire, I Want To Turn Into You
Combining a knack for modern, mainstream electro-pop with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and artful indie adventurism, the former Chairlift singer makes a great unlikely-pop-star who utterly comes into her own on her sophomore album. Highlights: “Welcome To My Island,” “Sunset,” “Blood And Butter”
Yo La Tengo, This Stupid World
Improvisationally derived, self-recorded and self-mixed for the first time, the indie veterans’ 17th studio album pulls from all the band’s sonic benchmarks but favors the fuzzy indie guitars of the 90s the most, on a sad record tinged with hope and resolve. Highlights: “Until It Happens,” “Tonight’s Episode,” “This Stupid World”
Tropical Fuck Storm, Submersive Behaviour
The Melbourne sextet spend the whole first half of this oddball covers album on a sprawling, 17-minute version of Jimi Hendrix’s “1983” epic, exploring their noisiest and most psychedelic fringes. The other half comprises four other, leaner renditions, each one sounding definitively TFS as the band makes each one their own. Highlights: “The Golden Ratio,” “Ann,” “1983 (A Merman I Should Be)”
Paramore, This Is Why
Having soundly transcended their pop punk and emo roots — a process cemented by Hayley Williams’s recent solo albums — the band’s return injects a fair bit of post-punk influence into the mix, andleans into the more danceable side of their sound. Highlights: “Running Out Of Time,” “C’est Comme Ça,” “Figure 8”
Wanna stay connected? Join the Music Suitcase Facebook group to be notified of future posts and link up with a community of some of my favorite music nerds in the world. You can also subscribe to here on Medium and get my blog delivered right to your e-mail inbox.
While we’re here…
Did you enjoy this article? Awesome! It was written by a white guy privileged enough to have time listen to like 40 albums every month and write a blog as a passion project, for free.
If you are white and you are also are privileged enough to have some time on your hands, or some money to donate, please check out some anti-racism resources and help fight the good fight.
Nerding out over music is fun, but let’s not forget that we live in a burning world that needs our help! Black Lives Matter.