25 Great EPs From 2024
Don’t forget about EPs! We certainly haven’t. Although our resident EP czar James Rettig ended his historic tenure at Stereogum this year, the annual list of excellent EPs he once spearheaded persists.
EPs are often overlooked, especially during year-end list season. They tend to be viewed as minor releases, overshadowed by a parade of statement LPs. But sometimes snack-size releases can be as satisfying as a full meal (if not more so). Sometimes an EP is the primary document of an artist on the rise, one who hasn’t yet put out a full-length. Sometimes the perceived lower stakes of a shorter format allow for new kinds of exciting experimentation that never would have made it onto an LP. Sometimes an EP just rocks.
That’s why we continue to spotlight some of our favorite EPs every year. This is not anywhere close to a comprehensive list — it’s just one more opportunity to recognize recordings that connected with us this year before the music world moves on to 2025. We’re certain some of them will end up sticking with you well beyond December. Check out our alphabetized/unranked list below. —Chris DeVille
East coast experimental folk duo @ sound a little bit like getting lost, in the best way possible. Released at the top of the year, Are You There, God? It’s Me, @ is complex yet light, charming yet deep. It evokes the witty, tongue-in-cheek whimsy of a classic Judy Blume novel that’s somehow been updated for the very online generation. @ are calling; do you hear them? —Abby Jones
The Armed’s 2023 album Perfect Saviors flew under the radar a bit, but it was still so jammed with euphorically aggressive noise-pop hooks that this quick burst of outtakes still went hard. “Sport Of Form” remixes from Water From Your Eyes, Model/Actriz, and IDLES are nice bonuses, but the real joy is in hearing the Armed continue to rage out on tracks like “NEW! Christianity.” —Tom Breihan
They sound so gross. Omaha hardcore freaks Bib play straightforwardly ramshackle basement-mosh music, delivering it with gusto and slathering so much reverb on their recordings that they become positively mysterious. But the best moments of their 10-minute rager Biblical are the moments of surprising and hallucinatory melody that arrive when you’re least expecting them. —Tom
They both have tricky, idiosyncratic styles — Chicago rapper Valee’s sniffling sideways tiptoe, Detroit producer Black Noi$e’s twitchy smears. Together, they create their own loopy little world that’s only barely recognizable as rap music. Every song on Partridge a squiggly, elusive idea-splatter, and you can hear these two artists thrilled to discover somebody who can match their weird. —Tom
Five years after the last Bon Iver album, Justin Vernon travels forward and backward in time. His SABLE, EP is spare and haunted and acoustic, like his beloved debut album For Emma, Forever Ago, but the loose and experimental structure of these songs recalls his more recent work. It’s a short but affecting work that’s more complicated than it might seem at first. —Tom
As Dazy, James Goodson makes power pop with a heavy emphasis on power. At just under nine minutes, his three-track EP It’s Only A Secret (if you repeat it) wastes no time getting into the gritty indie rock riffs and addictive hooks he’s known for, amplifying bright, singalong choruses with a touch of experimental production. Dazy isn’t so much a secret anymore, but these tunes bear repeating nonetheless. —Abby
On a fundamental level, hardcore punk is a wholesome and even adorable phenomenon. It’s kids in the basement making noise about their feelings, right? That’s nice! But then why does some of it sound so terrifyingly evil? Here, the young Baltimore band Doubt perfect the arts of scuzzed-out lurch and feverish swamp-pummel, while Claire Abila screams like the meanest demon in hell. Nothing about this feels nice. —Tom
New Jersey’s Gel were already one of America’s greatest hardcore punk bands, but they level the fuck up on this blast of charismatic fury. The blistering intensity remains, but now they’ve got big swagger and real hooks working for them. Gel keep adding new tricks to their arsenal, and they’ve become positively scary. There’s no telling where they go from here. —Tom
If we had to lose Gulfer, at least we got a goodbye present. The noodly, twinkly Toronto band sadly broke up this year shortly after releasing their latest LP Third Wind; like that album, Gulfer’s aptly-named final EP Lights Out shows why they’ve been heralded as leaders in post-revival emo. Throw some lo-fi shoegaze into the mix, and Lights Out makes for one satisfying, albeit bittersweet farewell. —Abby
Grumpy’s first release for Bayonet finds the NYC scenesters combining sounds like hyperpop, grunge, twee, and noisily droning folk in striking ways. Their aesthetic is a bit like pulling together a different statement outfit from an incoherent wardrobe every day. It often takes a strong persona to pull off that kind of approach, and Heaven Schmitt’s songwriting is indeed an ideal glue for Grumpy’s music. Their sweetly melodious vocals and piercingly intimate lyrics cut through the noise, orienting everything else in their image. —Chris
Will Anderson is not just a brilliant noise-pop singer-songwriter. He’s also a voracious listener and gifted community builder who has situated his band Hotline TNT within a diverse universe of underground sounds. On Somersault, a companion to last year’s tremendous Cartwheel, Anderson pushes the music further toward the horizon line, recruiting peers from They Are Gutting A Body Of Water to DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ to transform album tracks into inspired, barely recognizable forms. —Chris
“Yeah I wanna be fast, and I wanna be free/ Never look back, there’s a runner in me.” With those words on “Reckless,” former members of beloved guitar-manglers Palm gave their next project a proper introduction. On that song, they literally spell out their new band name, but even without that sequence of letters, this first batch of material does a lot to communicate exactly what sort of surreal electronic pop act Kassie Krut will be. —Chris
In which two accomplished veterans of artisanal 2010s pop got together and proved they’re still mighty vital in the 2020s. The rippling, pulsing title track was just the beginning; all throughout Heat, Lo’s louche lyrics mesh with Lewis’ crisp club beats in incendiary ways. —Chris
Greg Mendez has never needed to rely on big, bold instrumentation to make his compositions memorable. And so when intensive wrist surgery rendered the Philly musician’s right hand temporarily useless, he leaned into that nonchalant intimacy that made his music so beloved in DIY circles. The resulting EP, First Time / Alone, is more than just the sound of him coping with a difficult circumstance — it’s Mendez figuring out, in real time, how to come out of it stronger. —Abby
“Hell Of A Ride,” the first song from Nourished By Time’s Catching Chickens, sounds like the PM Dawn/Happy Mondays collaboration that never happened. “Hand On Me,” the second, sounds like what might’ve happened if Angelo Badalamente ever tried making Chicago footwork. So it goes, with this Baltimore DIY synth-soul enigma continuing to find fantastic new ways to push his otherworldly voice. —Tom
On this mean, gnarly, intense trio of tracks, Richmond crossover thrash wrecking crew Private Hell show off formidable range within their limited palette. Wake Up Screaming careens from relentless d-beat assaults to churning power-chord breakdowns to what may be the most aggressive Joy Division cover in history. —Chris
Jerkova, a former member of powerviolence band Regional Justice Center, finds a more straightforward but no less intense outlet for screaming her head off in Punitive Damage. On Hate Training, the band’s unhinged hardcore summons much of its power from her righteous barking about genocide, prejudice, and the ways hostility is imprinted upon whole people groups. It will leave you furious and/or cleansed. —Chris
The mood ring itself is a charmingly silly piece of ’70s arcana — an item of jewelry that changes colors to let you know your own disposition. The latest from Kentucky folksinger Joan Shelley doesn’t work that way. Instead, Shelley, along with longtime collaborators like Nathan Salsburg and James Elkington, casts a soft, tender acoustic spell, making you feel things rather than telling you how you already feel. —Tom
Backed by a roster of hip producers and fellow vocalists, Shygirl spends this project leading listeners through 15 minutes of stylish dancefloor euphoria. Sometimes she whispers, but there’s nothing quiet about Club Shy. —Chris
How can anyone make anything sound this epic in this brief window? It seems impossible. Philadelphia screamo crew Sonagi, led by Closer’s Ryann Slauson, don’t need slow build-ups or complicated dynamics. Instead, they rush headlong into grand-scale ferocity, giving your brain no time to adjust. It’s that Fury Road feeling, like walking into a theater to watch a movie that’s nothing but climax. —Tom
Drawing inspiration from all the coolest European bands of the late 20th century will always be a winning formula, but few bands can write songs worthy of such aesthetic brilliance. Starcleaner Reunion’s first EP is almost too vibrant to be chic — a mesmerizing swirl of melody and noise that transcends decade-based nostalgia in its pursuit of fuzzed-out epiphanies. —Chris
It’s always fun when a band gets weirder without losing its mojo. With this plunge into art-pop, former revved-up janglers UV-TV successfully transition into something else entirely, a sonic entity perfectly illustrated by that bendy wrench on the brilliant cover art. —Chris
Before stomping his distortion pedal and steering Wild Pink into new fuzzed-out realms on this year’s Dulling The Horns, John Ross, master of vibes, gave us one more half-whispered heartland rock dispatch. Like so much of this band’s best work, Strawberry Eraser sounds like melancholy nostalgia feels. And in “Air Drumming Fix You,” he gave us a song that lives up to its impossibly vivid title. —Chris
If you think that jangly, bittersweet indie-pop is a lost art, then you owe it to yourself to check out this London band, who would’ve been stars on ’80s college radio. The riffs are warm and gooey. The rhythm section is spare and crisp. The vocals come out in a bemused baritone shrug, nonchalant but never ironic. Everything echoes around in a pleasantly nostalgic way, and the song title “Jangle Bop” is not an idle boast. —Tom
Under her yunè pinku guise, Asha Catherine Nandy conjures dreamy electronic pop too adventurous to be pinned down. At times she evokes talents like Bat For Lashes, Dido, and Everything But The Girl but never sounds like anything less than herself. The ever-shifting Scarlet Lamb is her most stirring realization of her vision so far: streamlined yet lush, reverberating with ideas beneath a cloud of melancholy. —Chris
