Black Country New Road’s ‘Ants From Up There’ is my AOTY; Hurray for the Riff Raff show us ‘LIFE ON EARTH;’ Jockstrap share their love of Jennifer B; and Joan Shelley captures my country heart with ‘The Spur’

By Joshua Gutierrez - Editor

Like I mentioned with my Below Radar Songs of the Year, the best music comes from this cohort of artists. That’s especially true with their albums. Whatever it is about this range, 100K-1M monthly listens on Spotify, but these artists just release special music.

Look no further than my Below Radar AOTY, Black Country, New Road’s “Ants From Up there.” What is exciting about this album is the almost universal praise, seemingly across music communities. But I saw this band open for Black Midi in a club small enough to see their pupils. While I understand they are basically at a restart because of the loss of lead vocalist Isaac Wood, but it just shows that artists in this range are still very much approachable.

If I just made a singular AOTY list, many of the albums here would likely be near the top there! But lucky for me, I made three lists to expand the conversations of music and the critical praise it all deserves.

Enjoy the Below Radar Playlist below, which features songs from all these albums.

Bye!