Editorials
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The Best Of 2004 - Top 20 Albums
<Back< No.20 | 19-18 | 17-16 | 15-14 | 13-12 | 11-10 | 9-8 | 7-6 | 5-4 | 3-2 | 1 >Next>
 
No.15 Therapy? - Never Apologise Never Explain

 
In by far the worst year for rock music that I can remember, thank God (or more likely Satan) that Therapy? are still around releasing records. With their eighth album in a decade came yet another shift in direction – this time away from 2003’s more poppy yet equally awesome High Anxiety into more bleak, spiky and sparse territory. As paranoid and unsettling as they’ve ever been (which is quite some achievement in itself) Therapy? have a knack of doing everything they try better than anyone else ever did. And still no one cares. JD

Carving an understated niche out of an overcrowded alt-rock market, Drive Like You Stole It’s mini album provides a cathartic and powerful injection of soul to a genre that is once more becoming increasingly preoccupied with image. Mel Young’s vocal masterclass is a perfect antidote to the generic screamo-hordes, while Simon Young and Mike Wake’s rhythm section employs the back-to-basics approach to perfection. No nonsense, no pretension, just excellent heartfelt music. DS