Anger is an energy. Or so someone who later developed a penchant for butter adverts once told us… Our Top 100 Albums Of 2018, voted for by a panel of writers, record shop owners, bands, labels and festival organisers, certainly gives credence to that claim. Finding positivity in anger is the manifesto of Bristol’s Idles, whose Joy As An Act Of Resistance album and stirring defence of the rights of their friend and Ukrainian immigrant Danny Nedelko were reactions to the extreme politics that characterised this year. Look elsewhere in our Top 100 and you’ll ind similar sentiments that suggest dismay at the current world order may be cultivating a creative spirit similar to that which gave birth to punk, hip-hop and rave.
Low’s Double Negative was forged in the shadow of the 2016 US election; Melbourne’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever highlighted the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean on their infectious debut, Hope Downs, and New York’s Parquet Courts took on the current crop of “nihilist” political leaders on the excellent Wide Awake! South London continued to act as an incubator for disafected young talent, with Shame and Goat Girl leading the charge.