We're happy to present "Post-Trash's Staff Picks: The Best of 2024" as voted by the site’s wonderful contributors (including their individual lists). With 25 of our writers submitting their votes, we had 372 different records nominated and only the top four records received a collected score of sixty or higher.
The scope and grandeur of The Healer begs comparison to an epic novel or a film auteur’s masterpiece making it impossible to distill its essence into one catchy tagline. Which is the point. At 76 minutes, it’s oceanic, a leviathan of tones, tempos, and motifs which run the gamut of improvisational noise, sludge, meditative pastorals, and some straight-up heart-palpitating riffs.
With SUMAC’s fifth album, The Healer, arriving later this month via Thrill Jockey, Post-Trash took the opportunity to speak with Aaron Turner on the eve of the band’s upcoming tour. Our wide-ranging conversation is perhaps best framed as a discussion of aesthetic ontology in the digital age—what is art today and why still make it? For a band who routinely releases albums with hour-plus runtimes where individual songs are more akin to orchestral movements than traditional metal songs, these are questions worth exploring.
As anyone who reads our “Fuzzy Meadows” column already knows, the “list” is just the beginning, and we’re always eager to add some “Further Listening” for consideration. Despite what some would have you believe, music is not a contest. We profiled many records in our “Year In Review” feature, but the fun doesn’t stop there.
The time to catch up on the unabridged Post-Trash “Year In Review” has arrived, with all the releases we’ve grown to know and love over the past twelve months, from the smallest of DIY tape releases to the buzz bands and beyond. It’s all here… mostly. This is our comprehensive guide to our favorite records of the year without a pre-determined length.
