Music Backpack: Great Albums from March 2024!
For 75 months I’ve been listening to a steady stream of new albums and blogging about my faves, and March 2024 was one of the strongest months out of those 75. Whatever music you’re into, I sure hope everyone checks out at least the first 5 of these, which sonehow should really all be contenders for Album Of The Year.
So, let’s get to it: All the music I can blog about for this month, with an hour or less to write it, edit it, and put it all together.
AdriAnne Lenker, Bright Future
Following up my favorite album of the 2020s so far with her best solo album to date, the Big Thief frontwoman’s latest is composed entirely of one-take live home recordings. The songs are heartfelt, intimate, and wise, and impassioned. They’re almost all love songs, of one kind of another — songs about pervasive, often world-shaking, all-important love — and it sounds and feels as intimate as it should. Highlights: “Sadness as a Gift,” “Ruined,” “No Machine,” “Free Treasure”
Mannequin Pussy, I Got Heaven
On the Philadelphia band’s first album in 5 years, frontwoman Marisa Dabice is a force to be reckoned with. A profoundly empowered punk album that ranges from melodic indie rock to bona fide hardcore, I Got Heaven is emotive, affective, and exhilarating all the way through. Highlights: “I Got Heaven,” “Of Her,” “OK? OK! OK? OK!,” “Nothing Like”
Moor Mother, The Great Bailout
Not every day an American rapper takes on not only colonialism but specifically eviscerates the British crown. Also from Philadelphia, Camae Ayewa’s most powerful work to date actually sets rap aside entirely here; this one’s an avant-garde spoken word piece whose music is just as chilling and infectious as Ayewa’s lyrics. This album is deadly serious, but it might just cleanse your soul. Highlights: “All The Money,” “Compensated Emancipation,” “Death By Longitude,” “South Sea”
Elbow, Audio Vertigo
Long possessed, however subtly, of one of indie rock’s greatest rhythm sections, the Greater Manchester band pivot from years of softer, slower records to a colorful, groove-driven, much livelier 10th album. It’s also got a lot more synth on it than previous efforts, but that’s a choice that serves the songs rather than one that defines them. Highlights: “Balu,” “The Picture,” “Lovers’ Leap,” “From The River”
Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood
Katie Crutchfield’s 6th album is very much in step with her last two records. While I tend to like my favorite bands to keep stretching their sonic muscles, I’d say this one is a relatively rare case of an artist finding her stride so dramatically — confessional alt-country indie rock in this case — that there’s no need to change things up just yet; Waxahatchee’s music is all about the melodies, anyway, and this one’s no exception. Highlights: “Right Back To It,” “365,” “Lone Star Lake,” “Crowbar”
Daniel Romano’s Outfit, Too Hot To Sleep
The polymorphic Canadian singer/songwriter returns to his punky roots but he’s brought his full band with him — the same band he’s been making expansively arranged psych & prog rock with — and it’s a high-spirited, exuberant trip-and-a-half. Highlights: “Where’s Paradise,” “That’s Too Rich,” “Field of Ruins,” “You Saw Me In Sunshine”
Everything Everything, Mountainhead
Everything that Everything Everything does feels like a high drama concept album and I’m not sure it matters whether it was designed that way. The emotional stakes seem particularly high on the mostly Northumbrian art rock band’s 7th album, yielding at least a few of their most powerful songs ever. Highlights: “Cold Reactor,” “The Mad Stone*,” “TV Dog”
(Fun fact: I totally thought it was “the Mad Store” right up until I wrote this review just now.)
Yard Act, Where’s My Utopia?
Album two adds in a lot of funk and a little disco, giving this Leeds-based band a more distictive voice to their radio-friendly, Sprechgesang post-punk. While still most comfortable in the sly, the ambiguously satirical, and the caustic, they can be devastatingly powerful when sincere; track 3 is the best thing they’ve done. Highlights: “Down by the Stream,” “Petroleum,” “When the Laughter Stops
Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter
While this is being billed as “Beyoncé made a country album,” it’s fairer to say that she’s using her platform to reclaim country music as a fertile space for Black creativity in the public eye, and drawn a through-line from that through to the genre-expansive pop and modern R&B she’s been making for years. Highlights: “16 Carriages,” “Alligator Tears,” “Levii’s Jeans”
Tierra Whack, World Wide Whack
Somehow the 3rd great album of this month from Philadelphia alone, this rapper’s first full-length album follows up her 15-minute, 15-song debut more conventionally than one might have expected — and 6 years later — but it’s still full of unadulterated bops and juicy rhymes. Highlights: “Ms Behave,” “Snake Eyes,” “Imaginary Friends”
Omar Souleyman, Erbil
The world needs more psychedelic music that is fast, festive and danceable, and that is precisely what this Syrian singer and producer, with his modern update of traditoinal dabke music, has set out to provide on his 10th-ish album (depending on how you count.) Highlights: “Ma Andi Gherak Mahbuub,” “Male Atab,” “Rahat Al Chant Ymme”
The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis
A collaboration between the jazz fusion trio two-thirds comprised of Fugazi’s rhythm section, and a saxophonist on indie rock label ANTI-, this album vascillates playfully between jazz and rock and it’s the most interesting instrumental album I’ve heard this year.
Alejandro Escovedo, Echo Dancing
Opening up with three swaggering indie rock tunes, the former Nuns’ guitarist’s 13th-or-so solo album then negotiates between slower, gothic blues and Springsteenian balladry for the rest of this sprawling late-career triumph. Highlights: The first three songs, and “Sensitive Boys”
Kim Gordon, The Collective
Over a decade after Sonic Youth broke up, Kim Gordon is still making noisy, dirty, experimental indie music, though now with gritty, industrial synths instead of guitars. Highlights: “The Believers,” “I Don’t Miss My Mind,” “Shelf Warmer”
Ride, Interplay
Ride are already a little more dynamic than a lot of their peers, but like all good shoegaze, Interplay rewards patient listeners with sounds that dig deeper into your psyche on repeat listens. This time around they also show off their new wave influences. Highlights: “Last Night I Went Somewhere To Dream,” “Monaco,” “Stay Free”
Well… I can’t believe I didn’t get to Four Tet, Kacey Musgraves, the Jesus and Mary Chain, or Norah Jones, which are all really good— but I’m out of writing time! See you next month!
In the meantime, here’s that image again just to help you match the album covers to my blurbs about ’em for those that are lower down:
Additionally though, here’s a playlist of just 23 of my favorite songs from March!
Wanna stay connected? can 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, and that link should also help you find my previous blog entries, wherein are many curated playlists with highlights of previous years, months, etc.
Have fun listening!
