BALLS After Dark's best albums of 2015

On BALLS After Dark (the music podcast Beeso and I do as an offshoot of our sports podcast) this year we've been picking a couple of new-release albums to listen to and review across the week. Last weekend we caught up at Lantanaland to compile and compare our top five albums of 2015, out of the ones we reviewed in the After Dark Album Challenge. Here's what we came up with, for posterity.

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT, obvs. Go listen to the pod first.

Beeso's picks

5. Muse, Drones (reviewed in BALLS After Dark episode AD.16)

4. Holy Holy, When The Storms Would Come (AD.29)

3. Alabama Shakes, Sound And Color (AD.04)

2. The Prodigy, The Day Is My Enemy (AD.21)

1. Chemical Brothers, Born In The Echoes (AD.12)

The Doc's picks All Star ballot

Third team all-After-Dark: Cairo Knife Fight, Pond, Courtney Barnett, Bad Dreems, Muse

Second team all-After-Dark: Veruca Salt, Cosmic Psychos, Iron Maiden, Jackson Firebird, Motorhead (which the Doc forgot to mention on mic because counting to five when you are catastrophically hungover is hard, yo)

First team all-After-Dark:

5. The Cavemen, The Cavemen (AD.30)
 

4. The Bohicas, What Went Down (AD.17)

3. The Prodigy, The Day Is My Enemy (AD.21)

2. Sleater-Kinney, No Cities To Love (AD.09)

1. Fuzz, II (AD.28)

Classic albums

The Doc's favourite out of Beeso's classics: Ugly Duckling, Journey To Anywhere (AD.16)

Beeso's favourite out of the Doc's classics: Reef, Glow (AD.24)

Stuff the Doc forgot to bring up on the pod because he was dusty as fuck

Beeso's favourite classic album that he didn't previously own anyway: AC/DC, Live (AD.15)

The Doc's favourite album of 2015 that he didn't hear as part of the After Dark Album Challenge: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Freedom Tower - No Wave Dance Party*

Beeso's favourite non-Challenge album of 2015: Mos Def, The Ecstatic**

* would have been on the Challenge but isn't available on Spotify so the Doc had to buy the actual CD by mail order like some kind of fucking time-traveller from the early 90s, much like Jon Spencer himself

** technically 2014 but Beeso sometimes struggles with calendars and we are trying to be patient with him during this difficult time (please noone tell him about this whole 2016 thing)

And finally...

[drum roll please]

The BALLS After Dark Consensus Album Of The Year:

The Prodigy, The Day Is My Enemy

Fackin 'ell. Pingers innit.

Full listings of everything we reviewed in 2015, including classics and guest picks


From Beeso and myself, thanks for taking an interest; hope you had as much fun listening as we had making it. We're back in mid Jan.

Till then: the Doctor is OUT.