Scene Point Blank's Favorites: Year End (2017)
Music / Year End 2017 • December 31, 2017
It's been a strange year. Global turmoil, political unrest, uncertainty and populism dogging every decision and public event. Who knows what 2018 will bring? But political scientists we ain't: what we do know is music. Here's our annual list of the best music to come out of the past twelve months. Peruse at your leisure our selection of the 30 best records of 2017, and let us know what your nominations are and the albums we've missed. Roll on 2018, right?! Overall list 1 AFI AFI (The Blood Album) Concord Music Group Album number ten for the ever-evolving Californian four piece, whose shift in sound from skate punk to hardcore to "goth punk" to pop-influenced radio rock to... whatever 2009's Crash Love was... is well documented. The Blood Album tries to take the high points of those two records to create an album that reflects a band that has been together for over two decades - the big singalong moments and the shadowy elements combine here to signal the band moving on and realising that actually, they should be making the kind of music they want to, and not what their rabid (and vocal) fanbase would like to hear. The Blood Album may not be perfect but it's a record that continues AFI's transformation from old school punk to gothic tragedy to electronica to dark, flamboyant rock and encapsulates a maturing band who love to make music together. It's also a worthy milestone: a tenth album from a band whose … Read more
Pass The Mic: Artists and labels on 2017
Music / Year End 2017 • December 17, 2017
Each year at SPB we reach out to the wide stable of artists, labels and other music scene folks to find out what their take was on the year just … Read more
