Each month, tons of new music from many taste-spanning genres is released into a fast-consuming, unforgiving market; it can be tough to get a handle on what’s new before it’s on to the next. In an attempt to highlight the standout releases, at the end of each month, AUX staff re-cap the month in Punk, Metal, Indie/Pop/Rock, Hip Hop, Electronic, and Pop with the top five releases in each. Consider it your cheat sheet for year-end lists.

Top 5 Indie/Rock/Pop Releases: November

 

Rich Aucoin – We’re All Dying To Live

We’re All Dying To Live was a project a year and a half and 500 people in the making, one that stood not only as a reward for the rooms full of people brought aboard the good ship fan at shows over that waiting period, but as a muzzle to any critics who were skeptical that Aucoin’s songwriting couldn’t match his showmanship. The Halifax singer/songwriter works well with themes, and this, only his first full-length album, sounds like its title; desperate, dramatic, yearning, simple, beautiful. It’s pop and prog and buzzing, throbbing electro. It’s youth and it’s love and death and yeah, it’s life. We’re All Dying To Live might just be the most comforting and cathartic and downright genuine album all year. (Sonic Records)

Bry Webb – Provider

Bry Webb has till now been known as the frontman for The Constantines, one of Canada’s best, and when they officially called it quits—or rather, went on a sensitively worded “indefinite hiatus”—just over a year ago, we hoped an album like this would surface sooner than later. If you’re looking for a collection of Constantines-sounding songs on Webb’s solo debut, you’re out of luck, unless that trademark worn-in voice alone will do the trick for you. But if you’re looking for a collection of stripped-down, introspective acoustic tunes that are strong, plaintive, inspired, detailed, dig in, though be warned: for all its sparseness, this isn’t easy listening. The trademark voice is still there, but this is the sound of someone who was ready to move on. (Idee Fixe)

Odonis Odonis – Hollandaze

There’s something warm even in the cold guitar clanging on Odonis Odonis’s debut full length Hollandaze. Banging out bold and concise slabs of murky guitar haze, lo-fi rarely sounds this together, and the Toronto trio’s debut, though pretty poppy, almost recalls other local noise heroes Metz in its skilled brashness. Intuitive arrangements drip with attitude while nervy diversions like the end of “Busted Lip” sound like both the shoegazey past and the bleak future, set in a lo-fi industrial dream-like loop. Hollandaze has it so together that when you listen to it you almost lose sight of that. (Buzz Records/Daps Records/Pleasance Records)

Kate Bush – 50 Words For Snow

Though seven songs seems a short offering at first glance, know that the songs on 50 Words For Snow total over an hour of music, and hey, Kate Bush has already put out a full length record this year anyway (Director’s Cut, an album of reinterpreted songs from her catalogue came out in May), so give her a break. No but really, this record is both intriguing and frustrating, wrapping you up in its ethereal, Bush-marked art-pop while being all about…snow. It’s full of her classic storytelling strengths and that voice, just hers. 50 Words For Snow evokes the same feelings as a cozy wintry time, and is often haunting and beautiful—it’s Kate Bush, and we’re lucky to have her. (Anti-/Fish People)

Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream Deluxe Edition
	Take one of the best and most important rock albums of our time (one that stands up strong still, natch) and package it with a bunch of other shit from this era for us to hear? Gold mine. Thanks, industry! (EMI)

Surprises, disappointments and tracks/albums to watch for next month

Surprises: New, PWYC Old Man Luedecke EP! It was literally a surprise. And it was a damn pleasant one.

Disappointments: Florence + the Machine’s Ceremonials. It’s good, but with the talent like Florence Welch’s, it should have been great.

Out in December: The Black Keys are putting out another album early in the month, but otherwise December’s pretttty quiet. Yes please.