Favorite Duluth Albums of 2014
Yes, it’s time once again to get all judgmental about the local music scene and pick the best albums of the year for further breakdown into a fancy PDD poll. There were at least four-dozen albums released by local musicians in 2014, which means few people have listened to them all. So, how do we begin?
Well, it’s fairly simple. In the comments to this post we ask you, the local brain trust, to mention your favorite albums from the past year, then we use that list to generate the nominees for the poll we’ll run a few days from now. It is acceptable, by the way, to nominate an album that came out late in 2013 and maybe didn’t capture much attention until 2014.
With so much local music being produced, of course, it’s hard for even devotees to feel like they have much of a grasp on everything that’s out there, but note that the list of albums linked above contains numerous links to Bandcamp pages where you can listen to many, many tunes for the low, low price of free. So browse, listen, or just spout off about how good the new album by your best friend’s band is and consider yourself an expert. It’s only rawk and/or roll, after all.
To get things started, we traditionally spotlight the critic’s choices right off the top. Tony Bennett’s picks from 2014, as published in the Duluth News Tribune, are:
Wolf Blood – self titled
The Slamming Doors – Road Beneath the Wheel
Toby Thomas Churchill – Where is My Rumspringa Darling?
Ire Wolves – The Ascetic
Wino, WI – self titled
The new album from my band Seeds of Man is gonna drop next year and will be self titled followed by my sophomore effort, Unified Jesus Field. It will not have wolf in the title or anywhere in the credits, but may have wolves tearing a lamb apart on the cover.
The White Wall Sessions Season 2 Black River Revu…: https://youtu.be/fEvwRyX9tkY
This is not a nominating list, just adding a few releases not mentioned yet:
The Brothers Burn Mountain: A Thread Through the Night
Tin Can Gin: Tin Can Gin
Jack Campbell: Jack Campbell
Greg Tiburzi has a whole online song-a-month album: Our Time in the Sun
Don’t know if Haley Bonar is still considered local by PDD standards if so: Last War
Thanks Edge. Brothers Burn and Jack Campbell were on there already, but I missed Tin Can Gin and Greg Tiburzi and have added them to the list.
As far as Haley Bonar’s Last War goes, we don’t consider it a local album because Haley doesn’t currently live here and didn’t record it here. We still consider her “one of ours” so to speak — like a Bob Dylan or David Dondero or Cloud Cult — but her album isn’t really a Duluth product.
One late-2013 album I’ll nominate is Red Mountain’s Scowl Lightly. From this year’s list I like Superior Siren’s Lotus in the Muck, Trampled by Turtles’ Wild Animals, Vivielle’s Time Falls Apart and Yellow Plate Hotel’s The Final Scene.
Today is the last day for nominations. Round one of this poll launches Dec. 30.