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31. Coldplay - A Head Full Of Dreams
| This is Coldplay's second album to chart here, in two consecutive years. I prefer A Head Full Of Dreams to last year's Ghost Stories, but this year was much stronger musically speaking. A Head Full Of Dreams is a bright and optimistic album, sonically more in line with Mylo Xyloto than their more downcast albums. At times, the album almost feels like a midlife crisis album, the album made by somebody trying to convince themselves that they are happy after a break-up, trying to make the best of being on their own for the first time in years, especially since most of the lyrics are made up of the more uncertain language than their previous albums: it's full of future tense "I thinks," and "ifs." I also think it's interesting that Hymn For The Weekend, one of the album's highlights, references wings, which prominently featured on Ghost Stories, but I also can't really see anybody being that hung up over Gwyneth so I don't know there.
At any rate, the album is Coldplay's full-on pop album. It's filled with disco-grooves and warm sweeping ballads. It all feels like one big party that references all their past albums. Amazing Day rivals Strawberry Swing's contended nostalgia, Army Of One borrows some lines from Ghost Stories's Magic and Everglow hits like A Rush Of Blood To The Head. Cap that all off with the Beyoncé featuring banger(?) Hymn For The Weekend and you have a pretty solid pop album.
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30. Catfish & The Bottlemen - The Balcony
| Trying to imagine prezli's reaction to Catfish beating Coldplay. I imagine it being something like "talent always wins"  The Balcony is a great album though. It's full of solid no frills pop-rock. They remind me of the Strokes around the turn of the millennium or early Arctic Monkeys and that's refreshing to hear some catchy rock music n 2015 when everyone is trying out R&B grooves and electronic production (including Coldplay). I'm not opposed to those things at all, it was just great to hear something different than some unknown singer trying to put on some artistic aesthetic we've seen before and sing over stuttering dark electronic beats for the thousandth time while not doing much else to further their style; it just gets a little tiring in time. Anyway, The Balcony has been a great consistent album through the year for me, full of lyrics about relationship and growing up trouble. It's just a solid listen.
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29. Thee Oh Sees - Mutilator Defeated At Last
| These guys are one of my favorite bands, and have been since Castlemania and they're two for two here. Last year Drop charted well, and this year, they're back (not that that's a surprising thing, they're one of the most prolific bands out there, regularly releasing an album or two a year). This album has more of a dusty psychedelic sound to it. I understand that the band has been reshaped somewhat after a hiatus, and that really has only resulted in a more polished garage-y sound. They just offer up some good dangerous sounding garage rock songs.
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28. Algiers - Algiers
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Gospel-R&B-Garage Rock-Industrial fusion could describe the sound of this album. It was definitely one of the most interesting and unique albums I listened to this year. The sound of the album is very dark an bluesy throughout, but also gets loud and takes on an industrial grind on most times with lyrics delivered with a soulful sermon like zeal. |
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27. Deafheaven - New Bermuda
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Disclosure's new album was underwhelming. 
Replies
I did her wrong. Eternal Sunshine deserved so much more 
The vocals alone are so bouncy and warm. 
That song is diamonds taking shape for sure 
