(As usual, DGR created a year-end list of great length, devoting a great many words to each listed item. Whereas your humble editor continues to fear that the site may collapse beneath this great leviathan of words if it its bulk were caged in a single post, this year we have split it up into only three parts instead of last year’s six. This part includes Honorable Mentions and the albums ranked 30-21.)
There are few things that I enjoy each year more than the yearly list roundup here at NCS — including taking the time to write out my own personal favorites. This is a post that I spend a large part of the year dreading, knowing that my penchant for massive verbiage in the face of all things common sense will turn around and bite me in the ass, and the stress implied therein of the constant re-reading and editing that goes into the joy of crushing one’s website editor under the sheer weight of text. Were the yearly list allowed to be a book, I would deeply enjoy witnessing the ever increasing size of the roll of toilet paper mine would have to be printed on throughout the year. Maybe one year I’ll actually be able to spring for two-ply and at least have some effect.
2017 on this end, was an oddly paced year that moved in massive fits and starts. It seemed like there would be a tremendous flood of music and then radio silence, save for the occasional spark of life that would illuminate an ever-darkening cosmos — a new star birthed just in time to realize that it can’t see any of its neighbors anymore. Believe it or not, there was actually one point at which I thought I’d be able to keep this thing down to a nice and trim twenty albums without falling off the deep end. But as the yearly crawl back through our review archives causes one to do, there was a whole lot of “oh fuck, that actually came out this year” uttered — which is a pretty good sign, as many of these albums have slotted into the constant-play role, alongside the many other discs that I’ve dedicated words to over the years. Continue reading »
