Well, another year has gone by. Local music critic, Lindsay Stickney has made my job so much easier by using her discerning and well honed ear to choose her favorite Bay Area albums of 2015. A lot of these bands are friends and I am certainly fans of all of these artists so I was personally pleased with Lindsay's choices (which I had NO say in whatsoever).

I hope you will enjoy her picks as well. Congrats to every single band who put out music in the Bay Area this year. The Deli SF loves you all and we completely acknowledge that this was an amazing year for well produced albums and truly talented artists.

I love you all.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. May 2016 be more musically fruitful and inspiring!

The Deli SF Editor,
Jordannah Elizabeth

1. The Stone Foxes, Twelve Spells

Bursting, bluesy-rock vibes that make you feel less like you’re listening to a record and more like you’re singing along to gospel in a church of rock n’ roll, Twelve Spells delivers an experience. With tracks like “Cold Like a Killer”, we’re reminded of how good it feels to effortlessly sway our hips to a single-note piano and how refreshing a vibrating guitar riff can be for the soul.

2. Monophonics, Sound of Sinning

Kings of dark, slinky soul, The Monophonics’ Sound of Sinning is heavily influenced by the psychedelic rock vibes of San Francisco, providing a funky 60’s-70’s sound that takes you through a colorful ride of epic horns and funky, noir beats. Packed with gut-wrenching vocals, hazy harmonies and hammond organs, it’s easy to get lost in this record and drift away to tracks like “Falling Apart”.

3. Lee Gallagher, Lee Gallagher and The Hallelujah

Lee Gallagher’s typical folky, country roots are uprooted and replaced by a much more soulful sound layered with emotional instrumentation and howling vocals. In Lee Gallagher and The Hallelujah, we’re carried back to a delightful 70’s trippy wave of movement that prove that a simplistic sound is sometimes the most powerful.

4. Lila Rose, We. Animals.

Bass. Power. Killer vocals. Power. We. Animals. is like your sweetest nightmare induced with passion, heartbreak, manic, and complexity. With whimsical beats, haunting vocals, and tribal drums, Lila Rose delivers an intense, sexually-charged album that lays its foundation on raw aggression. Tracks like “Tracking” will abruptly awaken the pissed off, sensual warrior in you.

5. Growwler, Even Tenor

Easing in with delicate acoustics and finishing with an aggressive bluesy piano sequence, the opening song “Long Hair, Short Wits” is a true ode to the San Francisco rock n’ roll scene and is a testament to the effectiveness of brilliant, simplistic instrumentation. Even Tenor is like a nostalgic storytelling that makes us miss the moments that we never lived for.

6. Ice Cream, Ice Cream

Sweet, sweet, classic garage rock. Ice Cream’s self-titled album forces us to remember the reasons we fell in love with rock in the first place. Dirty, honest guitar riffs, quick, aggressive drum patterns, weaved into gritty barely-there vocals, Ice Cream is the perfect combination of garage sound and punk attitude that will pour gasoline on that flickering fire inside.

7. Al Lover, Cave Ritual

The great Al Lover does it again. Cave Ritual is in fact exactly how it sounds: eerie, tribal, smoky, and sensual to the extreme. Textured beats layered with staccato samples give the album an imaginative sound that catapults us into a contemporary, psychedelic rock trance. Every track will take you to the sun, the moon, and then back again. Twice.

8. The Union Trade, A Place of Long Years

The Union Trade are masters of melancholy and it couldn’t be more gorgeously displayed than in their album A Place of Long Years. The subtle, aching cello atop the fluid, chilling piano make songs like “Svalbard” an escape from reality into the ethereal landscapes of your most tragic, stunning daydreams.

9. Guy Fox, Night Owl

Guy Fox are a musical enigma: elements of funk, old-school jazz, indie, pop, and rock can all be traced at different peaks in their most recent album Night Owl. Whether it be the use of timely instrumentation or charming lyricism, Guy Fox delivers an indecisive yet addicting sound. Tracks like “The City Line” create a steamy, devious tone portraying San Francisco as a playground designed for the mischievous.

10.Toro y Moi, What For?

Light, energetic beats coupled with smooth, romantic vocals make What For? the soundtrack to your hazy, yellow summer nights. Toro y Moi is known for his synthy-pop sounds, but the release of his fourth album slayed all former musical confinement. Tracks like “Lilly” walk the perfect, delicate line of modern synth and 60’s psychedelic rock, transporting you to a blurry wonderland that you’ll want to lay in for a while.

Troller is an Austin act that makes music to shatter worlds to. They’ve been around the scene for some years now, creating an extremely unique sound that you’ll understand if the terms “ultra-heavy psychedelic fantasy electronic horror metal” sound like a real thing to you. If that idea is hard to wrap your brainbox around, try out Troller’s newest track “Destruccion,” and you’ll get what we mean pretty fuckin’ quick.

“Destruccion” is heavy, awesome, and fantastical as fuck. With its electronic, metal and fantasy influences swarming together in one track, it’d go equally as well as the soundtrack to a flyover of Mordor as it would a brutal dystopic future cityscape. Shit is unrelenting, with vocals like the chants of a death cult of spacemonks, but it also has a brilliant point at 2:39 where a major-key bridge switch gives an unexpected burst of lightness and prettiness, like a plane bursting up out of a thick smog and into the sunlight to breathe fresh air and see the sparkle off the clouds below for just a brief moment before an Icarus-esque crash back into chaos. The dark crescendo the track ends on is ideally created by a group who knows their sound (that being big, thundering, epic and terrifying), and knows what to do with it.

Troller, as I’m sure they’d tell you themselves, is not for everyone, but if you dig metal, weird electronics or, better yet, think trip-hop and chillout are genres that could do well with more fantasy, heavy and experiemental elements addded in and then done live by a troupe of badasses, you’ll eat Troller the fuck up. This is some damn good weird electronic-y music y’all, and we’d expect nothing less of another band off of the great Holodeck Records. Listen below, and get ready to go on a gotdamn journey with this one.

When it comes to Portland's underground hardcore scene, the kids turn out, turn up and get rowdy. All in good fun, though. Our punky paradise, Black Water, will be staging the likes of Young Turks, Unrestrained, Raw Nerves, Frontflip, and a yet to be announced band for the sake of a good cause. On top of being a great excuse to circle pit, the show on Saturday, December 12th is doubling as an adoption fundraiser to help a local family expand. 

Tickets are $10 and the shows at 8pm. Click the link above to learn more about the cause and see how you can help bring that little boy to his new home!

-Cervante Pope

Last week, Boston quartet Courage Cloak released "Danse Macabre" (streaming below), the blistering third song off its forthcoming seven-track album. Starting with plaintive drums that quickly give way to guttural vocals and chugging basslines, the metal-girded cut emits a surprising sweetness despite its sonic and thematic heaviness. The fittingly-titled song does, in fact, mine such grave ideas as ultimate doom but, perhaps unlike straight metal tracks, lets in at least a little hope for redemption. Courage Cloak plays at O'Brien's Pub in Allston, MA on 12.9. - Zach Weg 

It is finally here! Tricycle Records has released the 5th installment of their local music compilation entitled, Friends of Tricycle Records 5! We really like how TR extended their submission invitation to local artists who are not on their official roster, featuring great artists like Lemme Adams, Brasil, The New Up and Analog Dream.

Enjoy this free compilation. It is a celebration of local music and such a great contribution during a time where record labels are all about profit.

Track Listing

The Union Trade, In The Empire of Giants
NRVS LVRS, City Lights
n. Lannon, Another Love
Bobbi Rohs, That’s Bae
Halou, Lean Into The Gravity
The New Up, Future Is Now
Rich Girls, Total Control (Motels cover)
Lemme Adams, Hella
Everyone Is Dirty, Out Of The Blue (Roxy Music cover)
Kitten Grenade, Eighteen
El Terrible, We Know Your Name
Annie Girl and The Flight, Swans
Unconditional Arms, Fever Basin
Analog Dream, Lion’s Share
Garlands, Hallucination Healer
Brasil, Molly
Jordannah Elizabeth, A Prayer for Black America

Compiled by Julie Schuchard
Compilation Mastered by Christopher Reese Daddio at Donut Time Audio
Artwork by Adrian Landon Brooks
See more at: http://www.tricyclerecords.com/friends5/