LISTMANIA 2024: A YEAR-END LIST FROM SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

(Montréal -based Seb Painchaud‘s unusually varied year-end lists have always been a popular highlight of our YE LISTMANIA series, and the one below for 2024 won’t be an exception. But unlike other years, when we’ve voiced a futile hope that his band Tumbleweed Dealer would come out with a new album in the New Year, this time they really will do it!)

Another year, another list! And what a god damn year it was. Wasn’t sure it’d make it to the end at times. But here we are.

I`ve greatly modified my listening habits, trying to be less obsessive compulsive about NEEDING to listen to every new release out there. Sometimes it’s okay to throw on a Slayer record you’ve heard a thousand times when you’re stuck in traffic.

I still managed to discover some gems amongst the revisiting of classics this year, and here they are:

 

Zorn – Endless Funeral

Zorn, motherfucking Zorn! Every release, these guys hit it out of the park. Blackened, dirty, slimy hardcore punk that does NOT fuck around. As much as I enjoyed their 2023 self-titled full length, this EP right here delivers on the promises made by their first demo.

 

Viima – V​ä​istyy Mielen Yö

I have no idea what the fuck these guys are signing about, but it sounds epic as fuck. Flute-led, vocal-heavy, Finnish Prog Folk, that keeps it upbeat and catchy, kinda shit you’d hear in your head if you ran after fairies into a dark forest in Finland only to be never seen again.

 

Nile – The Underworld Awaits Us All

Full of the stuff they have always done better than everyone else (shred Egyptian scales at light speed and switch into a crushingly slow groove at the drop of a dime) with new elements added like operatic vocal sections that really pay off, this is my favorite from them since Black Seeds. Also, with most bands, you have no idea where they stand on the eating of feces. These guys make it quite clear, they won’t eat it, they won’t have it in their mouths, it will not touch their lips. I can’t say I agree with them, but it’s just so refreshing to see an artist take a stance on one of the major issues these days.

 

Joey Valence & Brae – No Hands

This is the one album I keep recommending yet no one has jumped on the bandwagon with me. This shit is like a VHS straight out of a time capsule, a love letter to early hip hop, a period piece set in the late ’80s, early ’90s. It’s lite and fun and incredibly endearing, and it goes hard as fuck in its family friendly kinda way. I just don’t get how anyone cannot love this.

 

Perilymph – Progressions Imaginaires

A German band with French lyrics (the band leader/singer was born in France and moved to Berlin) paying homage to that period where psychedelic rock was merging into progressive rock. Although you can hear the ’70s throughout, with echoes of Canterbury, this isn’t a purely retro affaire, as they owe as much to that era’s merging of psych, jazz, and prog as they do to Tame Impala in the way they can hold down a good beat and let their swirling melodies soar over it. Definitely a smooth trip that has you coming back for more.

 

Gel – Persona

A fist to the fucking face of an EP; to call this unrelenting would be to miss the point. They keep maximum impact by varying up the attacks, from grooves to headbanging mid-paced riffs and all’out assaults, it’s the body body head technique that makes you drop your guard and leaves you knocked the fuck out.

 

Dysrhythmia – Coffin of Conviction

I’ve always been a casual fan of the group. Their disjointed, overly technical approach to instrumental metal was a good, once in a while when I’m in the right mood, fix to when I wanted metal’s answer to Rock In Opposition type progressive rock. But on this new album, they managed to keep the extremely high-level musicianship and inject a healthy dose of ’80s type jazz fusion into it.

They managed to attain the same level of catchy yet cold and synthetic ‘This is what robots would dance to’ vibe of the genre and gave their music the hook it really needed to become a regular in my musical rotations. I get the same high from this as I do from Watchtower, minus the dated duck vocal acrobatics, with a touch of modern Cynic’s fusionist moments. I just wish I was old enough to have enjoyed some of that sweet ass ’80s cocaine we keep hearing about from boomers to be nostalgic about it when I listen to this album.

 

Tess Hirst – HERstory

I usually hate vocals in my jazz, but this just works. Imagine if Tori Amos or Sarah McLachlan made a jazz album in their prime (but their prime is now and not in the 90’s, as this is a clearly modern-sounding composition); the lyrics are often simple and repetitive, making the voice one of the instruments amongst the others rather than the focal point of the song.

She often adds background melodies without words as recurring themes, further cementing the whole thing as an ensemble work rather than the music supporting her. Top-notch piano and drum playing support her voice perfectly, all of which showcase the amazing and cohesive songwriting that went into the making of this masterpiece.

 

Cantique Lépreux – Le Bannissement

Great black metal that manages an ethereal atmosphere without sacrificing the heaviness (or the goats!), “Rivières Rompues” is the best BM track I’ve heard in years. It’s got these razor-sharp melodies alternating with the more typical, minor chord bashing riffs of the genre, like a modern and augmented take on Naglfars 1998 release Diabolical, which for me is an all-time classic, mixed with some of the more neoclassically inclined groups like Sühnopfer (who have appeared on my previous lists) or even classic Obtained Enslavement.

 

KLONNS – Heaven

KLONNS, motherfucking KLONNS! Another filthy slab of disgusting hardcore punk, this time directly from the land of the rising sun. From the first notes of “Heathen” with it’s pummeling drum beats and nasty vocals you’ll understand that you are going to have neck pain by the time this EP is over.

 

Concrete Winds – Concrete Winds

From mean to downright fucking evil, these guys worship at the altar of Angelcorpse, adding in a healthy dose of modern dissonance and noise. Sometimes riffing at lightning speed with laser-like accuracy, other times spamming the whammy bar and pick scrapes in a chaotic manner like they were trying to win a Kerry King impersonator pageant, these guys marry the extremes of several genres in an overwhelming attack on the listener’s ears and mental well-being that leaves you feeling violated and disoriented yet yearning for more abuse like the good little slut that you are.

 

Corridor – Mimi

One of 3 Quebec bands in this year’s list (That was not by design, I have never been much of a “support your local scene” kinda guy. Support good music, wherever it’s from!), these guys play a unique brand of lite rock that touches on psychedelic, post punk, and art pop. How can something so weird be so catchy? How can something this angular be so smooth? Asking such futile questions is to miss the point of this release entirely. Just put it on, lay back, and enjoy. Let this album guide you through your daydreams and inner thoughts as you envision yourself soaring through abstract images in a clear blue sky.

 

Apes – Penitence

Now we get to the big 3 of 2024. I’ve tagged these guys as “For fans of getting punched in the face by a gorilla wearing corpsepaint” for their potent brand of blackened powerviolence that marries dark melodies and face-ripping aggression. I first got to listen to this album at 5 A.M. on my morning commute, blasting it at full volume in an attempt to try and contain my anger at the slow pace we were moving at despite leaving so early. That morning, as I cranked this unrelenting masterpiece of violence louder and louder as I became more and more aggravated at being late for work, I was not stuck in traffic. No, it was the traffic that was stuck with me.

 

Replicant – Infinite Mortality

What do you get when you cross Ulcerate and Limp Bizkit? That might not have been the question these guys wanted to answer when they started composing this album, but it’s what I kept thinking as I heard the grooviest fucking dissonance I had ever stank-faced to. “Nekrotunnel” is song of the fucking year, and this whole album is just fucking sick. They have managed to create something absolutely horrendous harmonically while so fucking infectious rhythmically. Let that be a listen to all of you out there, it’s not ‘cause your ugly as fuck that you can’t dance like a boss!

 

Mildlife – Chorus

The second I heard this album I called it as album of the year. These guys have been on my lists for a record-breaking 3 times now, always outdoing themselves with every release. Rather than getting more complex, they have stripped it back, leaving only what was really needed to optimize their cosmic disco vibe with most efficiency. These guys tap into that post prog rock era of amazing song writing showcased by bands like Alan Parson Project and Steely Dan, where composers held back in an act of ultimate musicianship, letting the song shine rather than the player. At first listen it might all seem simple, but you can’t have everything fall so perfectly into place without the utmost knowledge of how to craft a song. Like watching a martial artist do a single strike with a perfect accuracy undreamt of by most mere mortals, there’s an amazement that comes over me as I listen to these musicians play these perfectly constructed monuments of laid-back, chill yet engaging bad ass funkiness.

So that’s it for 2024!

By the time you read this, my band, Tumbleweed Dealer, will have a single out from our upcoming album, due out February 7th 2025, check it out and pre-order the album! Hope to see it on all your lists next year!

https://tumbleweeddealer420.bandcamp.com/