30 Underrated Albums From The Last 30 Years | Part 3

The end is here—at least of this series. Part 1 and Part 2 here. Maybe I’ll compile a master list later, but I don’t have a desk right now—real ConcernedApe hours.

This was fun. I hope you liked it. Here are the rest.

2016 - American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love Story by Kevin Abstract

For a long time, I’ve curated a syllabus of a would-be literature class on Coming Of Age In America. Though there is no shortage of bildungsroman records, this is one I return to often. Part of the class’ thesis is that “coming of age” happens over and over at different, unpredictable intervals for everyone, so I don’t know if I can say I was done with my own growing up when I encountered Abstract’s, but it felt as complete and immediate as Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy had for me a year prior, or Catcher in the Rye when I was fifteen. The one-two punch of “Miserable America” and “American Boyfriend” is so aching and astute only an unselfconscious adolescent could pen it. There’s always a back and forth between artifice—the skilled act of creation—and “authentic” expression. Abstract sounds exhausted by the album’s end, and whether he’s acting or not is hardly the point because the audience isn’t.

2017 - Catflap by Sobs

The shortest release on this list, debut EP from Singaporean indie rock outfit Sobs, Catflap clocks in at just under 12 minutes. It’s shiny and dreamy and wavering like the heat coming off the highway. I wrote about “Ocean Song” before, though it was the shimmering lead guitar on “Girl” that first entranced me. Don’t let the lead overshadow the subtle synths on the title-track, or singer Celine Autumn’s wonderfully “idgaf but I secretly gaf” style.

2018 - Narcotics and Animal Instincts by Voices in Vain

Growing up in the middle of nowhere meant that live music was a rarity. The first shows I went to were bills with six bands of absolute dog-food grade metalcore. It didn’t really matter that most of these bands were bad and wouldn’t last beyond the tour they were on. We just wanted something loud to mosh to. Voices in Vain was a local band that came after that era erupted and extinguished, and like the hatchling that arrives after the parents sates their Saturnine urges, escaped into a world ripe for the taking. They’re furious, funny, and fucking wild live. I find Phish unlistenable, and Grace Potter isn’t my kind of music, and so to me and my little corner of space and time, Voices in Vain is The Vermont Band.

2019 - How Do You Love by The Regrettes

If you skip past the spoken word intro, whose lockstep lullaby rhyme scheme deters repeated listens, you’ll be thrown into what ought to be The Regrettes signature song, “California Friends.” Building from vocals to drums to bass to the whole damn band any other act would run that formula into the ground. The punky surf rock sound has gotten picked up by the algorithms in recent years, but I’ve yet to hear a group that cuts as compelling a song in this style as Lydia Night’s. The Regrettes that can hit a hook and whip a verse no problem, and who always make their bridges count; try “More than a Month” and “Go Love You.” Night’s often humorous lyrics don’t detract from the emotional catharsis. It’s too bad they stopped touring.

2020 - How I’m Feeling Now by Charli XCX

In a post-Brat world, it might seem silly to think anything Charli has done has ever been underrated, even if a portion of Brat’s narrative is her wrestling with her own underdog experience. I don’t think how i’m feeling now needs to bow at Brat’s altar, and I think here Charli best showcased her intoxicating authenticity at jet-engine decibels. I worry that how i’m feeling now will be viewed primarily as a pandemic period piece. An interesting insight into a single moment, rather than a cohesive self-portrait. “party 4 u” will persist, but don’t forget the passion and power of “pink diamond”, “claws”, “forever”, and “anthems”.

2021 - Thirstier by TORRES

A sticker on the CD shrink-wrap describes TORRES fifth album as “horniness on an endless loop,” which is both true and a self-deprecating oversimplification. Though the title track is as achingly horny as it gets, tucked between all the blood-vessel-busting yearning are tender and contemplative and witty songs covering suicide, dinosaurs, and impossible futures. It’s an accidental road trip record. You could play it three times, best friend or beloved or both in the passenger seat, and not realize until the state line sign waves as you go by.

2022 - Pool Kids by Pool Kids

I didn’t think they made guitar bands anymore. Christine Goodwyne doesn’t just grab the six-string back from all the post-math-rock youtube cranks, she makes you forget it was ever claimed by anyone else. The riffs conjure the stankiest shred-faces, and the drums go crazy every other verse. Pool Kids sophomore self-titled record is as confident and consistent as it is underrated. They don’t care if you’re listening yet, because you’re going to wish you’d heard of them first when they finally get their due.

2023 - Higher Lonely Power by Fireworks

I never thought I would hear David Mackinder again. Fireworks dispersed at the height of their lonely powers when Mackinder felt that they no longer fit inside the pop punk scene. Nearly a decade later the Detroit Bad Boys returned with a complete crystallization of what maybe they were always working towards. Barn burners “God Approved Insurance Plan” and “Funeral Plant” prove that even punks can age like wine, while “I Want To Start a Religion With You” and “How Did It Use To Be So Easy” pack complicated emotion into every line. Far from a cynical comeback cashgrab, it’s a record that sounds like it was made during their ascendant age but is shot through with a wisdom that could only come from time outside the limelight.

2024 - Maybe Tomorrow by Kennedy Mann

I’ve written about Kennedy Mann once already this year, and I’m doing it again after watching her play to a mostly-empty tiki bar while recovering from a sore throat. I’m here to say get on this train while it’s still in the station. She’s going places. Get the vinyl before it becomes a discogs grail. Mann writes songs for the next generation of hopeless romantics, buoyant and willfully whimsical. The world might be going to shit and that’s why she insists on cultivating the compassion carrying each song.

2025 - Heartskin by Elisabeth Pixley-Fink

Elisabeth Pixley-Fink’s music has all the trappings of an ebullient troubadour’s repertoire; every song feels delivered from across the living room, all warmth and sudden familiar intimacy. On the opening number she sings, “You’re the only one I know how to love/ You’re the only one I know how to fuck.” It’s winking and wallowing all at once. As the title track makes clear, the heart can shed its serpent skin. It’s an itchy process, and the album’s many lovelorn laments trapse across the kaleidoscope of a relationship’s end. There is nostalgia, relief, confusion, joy, determination, and despair. The biggest release comes at the center with “Fearless and The Pure”, and it’s so satisfying to hear Pixley-Fink let loose after so much careful and tender crooning. It’s a record I can already tell is worth revisiting as time goes on, like any good art, you notice something new with every pass. My dad likes to tell me there are corners in your life you just can’t see around yet. Who knows who you’ll be in a year or more’s time? Who knows what you’ll hear in that new old song?

Be well. Be kind. Keep in touch.