Closing in on the Top 20 ever so slowly, and climbing in at number 23 we have Jungle with their sophomore album For Ever.
This year has potentially the largest number of sophomore albums I've ever had on an 'Albums of the Year' list. I'm notoriously known for being underwhelmed with follow up albums, particularly ones on the heels of spectacular debuts. So when I listened in to For Ever for the first time and absolutely loved it, I was very pleasantly surprised. In fact, I was so surprised that I wrote about it earlier this year as an underrated album release for that month. As I said then, I had a few instant favourites on the record at that time but I figured they'd chop and change as the months went on and a few of them most definitely have.
"Pray" and "House In LA" continue to garner the most spins from me at the moment but "Cosurmyne" and "Heavy, California" have jumped in the mix replacing "Cherry" and "Beat 54 (All Good Now)" as my current favourites. Again, ask me a year from now and this might have changed. The whole album is filled with gems for different energies and moods amidst the overarching sunny West Coast vibes. I'm hoping that with this album out, Jungle don't fall into a time of radio silence again because I'd love to hear this played out at festival, sunglasses on, cold drink in hand and singing into the sun.
Whilst I think that this album was a little bit underrated when it came out, I have long thought of Jungle as an overrated music machine, churning out palatable funky electronic tracks for the mainstream. However, as much as I want to use that as a reason to critique them, I have to admit they do what they do and they do it very well. For Ever is no exception.
Number 23 last year was a completely different body of work. Have a look at what fantastic record took the spot here.
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