BEST OF 2024 Artist Picks: Navel Grazr
To celebrate the end of 2024 and recognize some of the best work of the year, we partnered up with a few of our favorite artists. First up, we hear from Anjali Nair of the dream pop band Navel Grazr. The NY-based project released their debut EP Elegies this spring.
So much great stuff came out this year and there are a lot of standout songs I’ve been vibing with throughout, which I’ll need to make a playlist of at some point before the year’s out. But as far as full albums are concerned here are the ones I kept coming back to throughout the year.
-Anjali Nair
Rosie Tucker - UTOPIA NOW!
A chipper yet unforgiving power pop takedown of capitalism and the role of generational wealth in the music industry? Hell yes - this album is as catchy as it is class conscious. I love Rosie’s sweet voice floating over crunchy, deconstructed guitar riffs while singing lyrics like “I hope no one had to piss in a bottle at work to get me the thing I ordered on the internet.”
Nadine Shah - Filthy Underneath
I was floored by Nadine Shah’s voice the moment I heard it for the first time last year - pure alto elegance, controlled yet expressive. Filthy Underneath creates a textured and unique sonic world with winding, at-times unsettling synth lines and trance-like percussion. It’s one of those albums where you notice something new each time you listen.
Lime Garden - One More Thing
Compared to some of their earlier singles (like my favorite LG song to date “Clockwork”) their debut album One More Thing gives the band room for emotional ebbs and flows, showing a more tender side to their tone mastery on songs like “Fears.” But if I’m totally honest it’s the dark & dancey moments of this album that put it on my list. Great vocal melodies, effortlessly cool, gritty guitar and synth tones, and disco beats accompany the descent into an abyss of existential dread.
Fair Visions - Quite An End
I have been a huge Fair Visions fan since Modern Kids (2021) - an EP that is still very much on repeat in this household. FV records always have a couple of songs that just make me wanna bawl - they are so poignant and strike a particular emotional chord I don’t know how to describe. I was lucky enough to hear an early version of “Quite An End” back in 2022 when Ryan was first working on it but I was blown away listening to it again this year when it was finally released. Amidst a loud and noisy local music landscape, I really love how FV takes a more measured approach in conveying emotion on this album - it’s warm, deliberate, and exquisitely crafted, such that the moments of intensity and power in Ryan’s voice feel all the more cathartic.
Fontaines D.C. - Romance
This band really knows how to create a dramatic atmosphere in their albums and Romance is no exception. From the eponymous first track, I feel fully immersed, heart pounding from huge, cinematic booms. On this album, their use of buoyant harmonic shifts to chase the ambient feeling of doom elevates the songwriting and reflects the nuance of the band’s literary leanings. They impressively transition between the different angles of their sound, for instance placing a straight-up post punk banger “Here’s The Thing” in between boom-bap-inspired “Starbuster” and orchestral cinematic ballad “Desire.” It’s a ride!