The unequivocal best albums of 2024 according to Karl Puschmann

Local Kiwi talents dominate the best albums of 2024 list. Photo / Vanessa Cone

What moved the Herald entertainment columnist’s dial this year?

When thinking about the best albums of this year I kept writing down local albums. It began to feel a little xenophobic. Which is obviously not good. So, I flipped my thinking and began to think of it instead as being very patriotic.

I dunno. I just didn’t need to add any imports. And as this is Aotearoa’s paper of record, I thought it only fitting to record and celebrate (in no particular order) my favourite albums of 2024. Which all happen to be homegrown.

And what better place to start than with Dartz? The band from Wellington’s second album Dangerous Day for a Cold One bottled lowlife humour and infectious party-punk bangers to create an album that’s more Kiwi than a crate of Double Brown. Their scuzzy chronicles reflect a very specific period of life and the album deserves to be the boisterous soundtrack for raucous flat parties all across the land. Sample the sentimental sing-along pop-punk anthem Golden Hour for a taste.

Not so much switching gears as yanking the handbrake up at full speed is the third album from Ōtautahi’s singer-songwriter Mousey. Enveloped in quiet darkness, The Dreams of Our Mothers’ Mothers! finds plenty of colours to explore within its black mood. The songs are haunting and intimate and made of contrast, but never leave the comfort of the shadows. It’s an album to sit with. And the stunning emotional wallop of Home Alone is the best song The Bends-era Radiohead — which is their best era — never made.

Mokotron’s brilliant WAEREA takes you from the dark of your lonely lounge to the dark of a heaving dance floor. The drums are shuffling, the bass is room wobbling and the album’s chanting vocals are all in te reo. The Māori electronic producer merges breakbeat grooves, moody dubstep basslines and traditional Māori instruments to stunning effect. The politics of the message may not be readily apparent to non-reo-speakers, but the music is so completely realised that it will be inherently understood. The powerfully sombre dance floor filler ŌHĀKĪ is the most groove-laden protest song in years.

Soft Power, the long-awaited second album from Fazerdaze, sees Morningside’s lo-fi darling going big. The production’s big, the melodies are big and the indie-pop tunes are big. There’s even a song called Bigger. But the additional elements and textures she’s folded into her dreamy hazy signature sound never overwhelm the intimate, upbeat vibe of the record. It’s wonderfully sublime, especially highlight A Thousand Years with its tom-heavy drum machine beat, dancing synth-strings and vocals reminiscent of Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant at his most sing-speak.

Thundering in after her soft power is the hard rockin’ power of Troy Kingi’s desert-rock double album Leatherman & the Mojave Green. Kingi has become a stalwart of these Best Of lists, thanks to his ambitious 10 albums in 10 different genres in 10 years goal. Album number eight is a homage to the sludgy stomp, power riffing and psychedelic stoner grooves of 90s desert bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss. At 17 songs it’s a lot, but if I had to recommend just one, it’d be Dynamite Yourself with its blazing funk-rock nod to Split Enz’s paranoid classic Dirty Creature.

Speaking of Split Enz, their former frontman Neil Finn and his recently renovated Crowded House line-up released the breezy, deceptively catchy Gravity Stairs. It’s an album so chill and relaxed it could float away. Again, Finn’s complex, boundary-pushing pop songwriting is masked by its effortless presentation and performance. The record’s gentle Beatleseque psychedelia is warm and sunny and it’s just a lovely album. The trippy, twisty pop of I Can’t Keep Up With You is a lively entry point.

Soundtracking our sunset drinks this year has been Notes, the 11th album from saxman Nathan Haines. It’s a sophisticated double album of nu-funk, jazz-hop, electro-jazz, and smooth cocktail grooves, backed up by an ensemble of vocalists and rappers who all add another dimension to the album. The head-nodding Just Holdin’ On recalls the pioneering jazz-hop of the squire for hire’s 1995 classic debut Shift Left, making it an easy fave of the album.

It’s hard to believe that Mount Maunganui’s award-winning, indie-pop chanteuse Georgia Lines only released her debut full-length this year. The Rose of Jericho is a dazzling collection of lush, piano-led R&B and indie-pop filled with stadium-sized emotional anthems that will move crowds’ hearts, while upbeat tunes like the sultry 1980s funk-pop of Trust will get their feet moving.

Rounding off this year’s Best Of list is the cold beauty of Uneven Ground from Dunedin’s Death and the Maiden, Jon Toogood’s intimately personal acoustic solo album Last of the Lonely Gods, the fantastically loose alt-country twang of Tāmaki Makaurau duo Pony Baby’s self-titled debut, the gothic-Americana of Delaney Davidson’s Out of My Head and Christoph El’ Truento’s slice of classic 1970s-style dub, Dubs From The Neighbourhood, my album of the upcoming summer.

I could go on but I’m woefully out of space. As you can plainly see — and hopefully, will hear — there was simply no need to look overseas for great albums. We have more than enough great albums of our own.

Karl Puschmann is an entertainment columnist for the Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.