Our Best Albums of 2020
“Not listed by rank or importance expect that Rose City Band’s Summerlong is as close to perfect as we deserve.” (Summerlong is our album of the year. Read full review here)
Rose City Band – Summerlong
Ripley Johnson creating a cosmic country rock masterpiece. Sparse and beautiful songwriting that brings orange sunshine to the road trip. Plan on spending the next few hours staring happily into the embers of the campfire as the mysteries of the universe fill your head. Can anyone think of a reason why we shouldn’t just call Summerlong album of the year?
The Black Dog – Fragments
The Black Dog’s newest release sounds exactly like the title would indicate: music spilling over with ideas and melody. Formed in 1989, The Black Dog has given us more than their share of classics. Their Bytes album is essential listening for anyone interested in Autechre, Aphex Twin or LFO. On Fragments, the group creates an album of individual tracks that bounce across the spectrum between bleak and beautiful. Maybe electronic music isn’t dead yet.
Rival Consoles – Howl
One of the few redeeming qualities of this soulless digital age is the chance-discoveries you can find on Bandcamp. Howl is one such find. I’ve grown so very weary of the blandness of many electronic musicians, but Rival Consoles is worthy of investigation. Howl grabs you with its mystery, obscurity, and its humanity. Flashing and hinting with colorful, bold texture and melody that is very real and beautiful. There is a freshness and tunefulness to each individual track. Howl isn’t just filled with great songs, it’s also a genuinely enjoyable journey.
Frederik Valentin & Loke Rahbek – Elephant
An avant-garde explosion of color and texture that’s easy to make your best friend. The music of Like Rahbek has been called “emotional cosmic nihilism” and this album continues the assault on the system. The difference here is that Rahbek collaborates with Frederik Valentin to create an ambient album that actually goes somewhere: sophisticated head-phone music that will gently and carefully twist your head off. An instant classic.
Ital Tek – Outland
How about a trip through the liquid world of electronic noise, avant-garde classical dub-step? This is music that you just can’t prepare for because it shouldn’t exist. Rhythmic with odd beats and beautiful distortion, Outland is a dark and heavy album. The dark deep environment is thick, dense and consuming, pulling you into a wet fog of sound. Foreboding and beautiful.
Tristan Perich – Drift Multiply
Drift Multiply is the amazing new album by New York’s Tristan Perich. Perich refers to his music as “sound art” and that is a perfect description. Using 50 violins and a 50 channel electronic 1-bit, he reduces the song to a pure and simple form of sound and noise. Only, it’s not simple, but intense and complex. The challenge is in the detail of his art with waveforms coming to life under his direction.
Honorable Mention:
AC/DC – Shot in the Dark
The first single from the 2020 album Power Up make me want to use bad language. Fuck! Just when you thought is was impossible. Distorted fuzzed-up guitars pumping through the speaker cables with a backbeat is just dangerous! These aging rockers have created the snappiest damn single of the year. Perfect for breaking social distancing rules this summer.
Kvelertak – Splid
It’s hard to call anyone original these days, you think, „It’s all been done before“ and then along come Kvelertak !! I always find it incredibly hard to explain these guys, the closest I can come to is Queen meets Metallica meets Rush meets Mayhem meets Mötley Crüe.
2020 saw their fourth studio album, Splid.
Having been a fan from the first album I went into this one a little bit sceptical, new singer, first album with some songs in English (generally it’s all in Norwegian, which really adds to their mystical, haunting sound).
I wasn’t disappointed. From start to finish an opera. The new vocalist is perfect for the songs and the English lyrics fit right where they should.
Kvelertak are a force unto themselves, there’s no middle ground, you either love em or hate em, for me probably the best album of 2020 !!
PS. the second song on the album „Crack of Doom“ features Mastadon’s (a band I loathe) Troy Sanders on guest vocals.
The Nightflight Orchestra – Aeromantic
And then there’s The Nightflight Orchestra, original in their way if you can call sounding like 80’s AOR original !
What these guys lack in originality they make up for in pure hard rock fun !! I’ve played this stuff to friends not mentioning who they are and most people thought it was Foreigner or even Chicago !!
Their 5th album Aeromantic was released in 2020 and made me smile so much that at times I almost forgot we were in this shit fucked up year and was cast back to the mid 80s!!
The only thing that’s missing is Bonnie Tyler on guest vocals !!
Featuring members of Soilwork and Arch Enemy, the Swedes perfectly recreate the cliche of 80s Hard Rock/AOR.
Fantastic stuff !!
SALIHA ENZENAUER
“I’ve never heard so little music as in the Corona year 2020.”
Rose City Band – Summerlong
A masterstroke by Moon Duo, Wooden Shjips, and Rose City Band mastermind Ripley Johnson. Just about perfect – THE album of the year (their debut is great, too).
Mark Lanegan – Straight Songs of Sorrow
‘Cause he’s the boss and cannot make a bad album. With Straight Songs of Sorrow, Lanegan set his simultaneously released memoirs, Sing Backwards and Weep to music. Like his autobiography, the album is not retrospectively reflective, but told from the younger Lanegan’s unadorned point of view. The result are intense songs about a misspent junkie youth.
Natural Child – Natural Child (California Hotel)
A mysterious, unannounced, digital-only Natural Child release. Not their best album, but I really want you to listen to this band.
Gorillaz – Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
Said it all in my in-depth review on here. Little has given me so much joy in the fuck-up that was 2020. Also, my little daughter says that it’s one of the few good albums that I own.
Tristan Perich – Drift Multiply
The best and most thrilling discovery of the year, recommended to me by the incomparable Shawn. Drift Multiply is heavily reminiscent of Steve Reich (Music for 18 Musicians and Variations for Winds, Strings & Keyboards). A unique listening experience that’s pleasantly challenging, rewarding you sonically and spiritually. CD only- that’s why this record won’t go through the debasing Vinyl Wankers circuit. Awesome!
Perfume Genius – Set My Heart On Fire Immediately
A stunningly beautiful combination of baroque pop, rock, ambient, R&B and shoegaze. Mike Hadreas (a.k.a Perfume Genius) crafts rich, fascinating and moving shapes. Every track is packed with gorgeous melodies and solid arrangements.
Yves Tumor – Heaven To A Tortured Mind
Experimental artist Sean Bowie (a.k.a Yves Tumor) takes us inside a surreal journey of glam rock, soul and electronic music. Every beat and movement is polished with blissful amounts of emotion.
Sevdaliza – Shabrang
Dutch-Iranian singer Sevdaliza delivers her greatest artistic achievement to date. An elegant trip-hop and R&B combines with a deep immersion into Persian mythology, darkness and fear.
Natalia Lafourcade – Un Canto por México Vol.1
Mexican classic folk songs, traditions and culture are conveyed beautifully in Natalia Lafourcade’s new album Un Canto Por México. The Mexican artist has described the album as representing a visit to a Mexican market – the people, the sights, sounds, everything you find in such a place is in her music.
Destroyer – Have We Met
The pulsating voice of Dan Bejar transports us to an immense nocturnal world, where beautiful instrumentals and gorgeous synths are passionately executed.
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister – selftitled
Hypnotic, intoxicating psychedelic soundscapes by this band from Spain.
Mary Lattimore – Silver Ladders
Atmospheric, delicate, ethereal, ghostly, haunting, melancholy, oceanic, reflective soundscapes. Mary Lattimore’s crystalline harp in collaboration with the numinous guitar of Neil Halstead.
(Read Mark Lager’s interview with Mary Lattimore here)
Rose City Band – Summerlong
Beautiful, blissful, breezy, celestial, cosmic country psychedelia by Ripley Johnson from Oregon.
Ghostpoet – I Grow Tired But I Dare Not Fall Asleep
I am a longstanding fan and this is not his best work, IMHO, but still great and worth it alone for the PiL-esque guitar on the title track.
Katy J Pearson – Return
Acid-pastoral, melodic beauty in the most exquisite packaging of the year. The track “Take Back The Radio” sends me into hallucinogenic raptures.
King Krule – Man Alive!
Woozy dreamscape collage of paranoia and despair – la chanson juste pour la belle epoque, n’est pas?
Billy Nomates – Billy Nomates
A soulful, feminine complement to the Sleaford Mods; more outright comedic than absurdist, but just as righteous.
Xoros – Xoros
Ambient, unsettling but also peaceful vibes. Kind of what the planet might sound like after humanity has been wiped out in some sort of global catastrophe. I listened to this during the first lockdown and it reminds me of the eerie otherness of that quiet spring.
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