Some Albums I Liked in 2020

The year of bands releasing two-part albums, or two albums each, apparently. Plus I guess some other stuff happened too.

15: Éons
— Neptunian Maximalism
(jazz fusion, drone)

Neptunian Maximalism, as you can probably tell from the name, make some pretty out-there music. One of a crop of bands like Dead Neanderthals and Ex Eye bringing together jazz and metal, there’s also something Magma-esque about the ludicrous theatricality of the Belgian group’s music. The absurd song titles, actually about twice as long as the abbreviated ones I list in the highlights here, contribute to that impression and give a good idea of the unhinged ambition of Éons. The album, running over two hours and divided into three acts, places its most immediate music — a series of heavy and intensely percussive jazz fusion ragers — up front, and then delves deeper and deeper into droning soundscapes as it goes on. It’s, as they say, a trip.

Highlights: ‘L’Impact de Théia durant l’Éon Hadéen’; ‘Rituel de l’Ouverture de la Bouche dans l’Éon Archéen’; ‘ Les Animaux Pensent​-​ils Comme on Pense qu’ils Pensent?’

14: DISCO4 :: PART I — Health
(electro-industrial)

Just when Health’s albums had become a little drab and samey, they began releasing a series of really inspired collaborative singles with just about every exciting act in alternative music today, and a few you wouldn’t expect. DISCO4 :: Part I compiles these singles (plus one song by the band alone) into an album that shows the breadth and creativity of the band’s sound when it’s bouncing off other artists. The tracks with Youth Code and Full of Hell are relentless in an intensely satisfying way; the Xiu Xiu collaboration strikes a properly bizarre, experimental note, and feels like one of the most structurally ambitious Health songs yet; and even tracks with artists I’m not as keen on (100 Gecs, Ghostemane, JPEGMafia) showcase the flexibility of Health’s talents in a really impressive way.

Highlights: ‘Body/Prison’; ‘Innocence’; ‘Full of Health’; ‘Delicious Ape’

13: Stygian Bough Volume I
— Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin
(funeral doom, folk)

The emotional core of Bell Witch’s crushing slow-motion epics, for me, has always been the vocal contributions of frequent collaborator Erik Moggridge (aka Aerial Ruin). So Stygian Bough Volume I, a full album produced by the two acts in collaboration, was a welcome surprise. Moggridge’s contributions here aren’t limited to the album’s quieter moments, and his singing rides the album’s noisy crescendos as comfortably as it does its haunting folk passages. The production here is noticeably more lo-fi than it has been in the past, and it’s a choice that suits the band’s sound well — there’s a searing guitar sound around the ten-minute mark of ‘The Bastard Wind’ that’s worthy of any seventies psychedelic act, and Black Sabbath often comes to mind elsewhere. Bring on Volume II!

Highlights: ‘The Bastard Wind’; ‘Heaven Torn Low I (The Passage)’

12: Seminar IX: Darkness of Being — Old Man Gloom
(sludge/post-metal)

Never content to just release an album in the normal way, Old Man Gloom’s stunt this year was to tease an album called Seminar VIII, releasing a single and announcing the release date, and then just up and release the entirely separate album Seminar IX several weeks before that release date. Seminar VIII did release too a few weeks later, but of the two it’s the surprise release that really sunk its claws into me. Like the band’s previous albums, it’s an oddball blend of grimy sludge metal, infectious riffs and choruses, patience-testing noise experiments, and even, on ‘The Bleeding Sun’, one memorable passage that recalls eighties hardcore punk. Like last year’s Cave In record, Seminar IX also pays tribute to late band member Caleb Scofield, who died in 2018, on more subdued tracks like the folk-inflected ‘Death Rhymes’ and album closer ‘Love Is Bravery’.

Highlights: ‘Procession of the Wounded’; ‘The Bleeding Sun’; ‘Canto de Santos’

11: Miss Anthropocene
— Grimes
(darkwave)

Miss Anthropocene represents a sort of middle ground in the Grimes catalogue between the ethereal dreamscapes of Visions and the more mainstream pop sound of Art Angels. While returning to a generally darker mood, the new album doesn’t jettison gleefully appropriated pop and rock sounds. Rather, the palette shifts; Grimes is drawing here on industrial and gothic rock, nu metal, electro, and even drum and bass on the memorable ‘4ÆM’. It gives the album a gleefully eclectic sound, even in the absence of the last record’s upbeat, colourful aesthetic. And ‘We Appreciate Power’ (sadly relegated to the status of a bonus track) is an absolutely killer industrial pop banger.

Highlights: ‘Violence’; ‘4ÆM’; ‘IDORU’; ‘We Appreciate Power’

10: Ohms — Deftones
(alternative metal)

I finally got into Deftones. Having always sort of known I’d like them but never actually got around to listening, I thought I’d jump in with Ohms, and it was a good decision. This is just really good, richly textured alt-rock with just enough edge to it to keep it exciting. Shimmering synths perfectly complement crunchy guitars (particularly on the stupidly catchy ‘Urantia’). The vocals are consistently enjoyable, whether harsh or smooth, and the songwriting is reliably solid, with a couple of great changeups thrown in on every song to keep you guessing. I’ve been missing out.

Highlights: ‘Genesis’; ‘Urantia’; ‘The Spell of Mathematics’

9: Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! — Vile Creature
(sludge metal)

For most of its runtime, Vile Creature’s new album delivers the sort of nasty riffs and shrieked vocals you might anticipate from the band name and unsettling cover art. This is something the band does extremely well, and each of the first three tracks is a deeply satisfying slab of sludge metal. But where the album surprises is on its final two tracks, which essentially form one long composition. ‘Glory! Glory!’ ditches ugliness for stark beauty, consisting of little more than gorgeously arranged vocal harmonies. ‘Apathy Took Helm!’ reintroduces the metal, but with the regular recursion of these choral elements giving it an apocalyptic force, like a horde of avenging angels.

Highlights: ‘Glory! Glory!’; ‘Apathy Took Helm!’

8: Stare into Death and Be Still — Ulcerate
(technical death metal)

Ulcerate softened their sound somewhat for their latest release, though you wouldn’t know it if it were your first time listening. The band’s relentlessly cold, technical sound retains its uniquely alienating effect on Stare into Death and Be Still, but by putting more emphasis on atmosphere than technical trickery this time around, the band consistently delivers a kind of pathos and immediacy only glimpsed in their previous work. This is still a grim, monochrome, and unsettling musical world to enter, but here the disorientation feels more than ever like it’s in service of a really powerful artistic vision. Far from easy listening, but an unforgettable experience.

Highlights: ‘Stare into Death and Be Still’; ‘Inversion’; ‘Dissolved Orders’

7: græ — Moses Sumney
(neo-soul, art pop)

Moses Sumney’s sprawling double album græ, released in two parts (for some reason) earlier this year, is a collection of gorgeously orchestrated songs crowned by Sumney’s otherworldly voice. Like Sumney’s other releases, this is soul music for Radiohead fans, and here the palette is lusher, more colourful, and more varied than ever. Sumney’s self-presentation as a deeply misunderstood romantic can come off as classic narcissism at times. On interlude track ‘also also also and and and’, the persona devolves into self-parody, presumably by accident, as we hear some humourless individual insisting on ‘the recognition of my multiplicity’, though we’re told they’re no longer willing to ‘explain it or defend it’. Fun at parties, no doubt. But on the album’s actual songs, this pseudo-philosophy doesn’t grate; the compositions are rich, sensuous, and overpowering, and it’s hard to escape a sense of identification with Sumney’s obscure woes — though you hope you’re a bit less self-important about your own.

Highlights: ‘Cut Me’; ‘Virile’; ‘Conveyor’; ‘Neither/Nor’; ‘Polly’; ‘Bystanders’; ‘Bless Me’

6: Ghosts V: Together
— Nine Inch Nails
(ambient)

I gather I’m in the minority liking Ghosts I–IV, Nine Inch Nails’ 2008 instrumental album, as much as I do. I’ve always thought that album was packed with brilliant and diverse ideas, even if they’re often just sketched out rather than fully developed. The two Ghosts releases this year are recognizable as sequels to the original album but in many ways take a very different approach. Both V and VI feature named compositions, and and on both albums these compositions run much longer than anything on I–IV, giving the impression of fully considered works rather than a loose collection of ideas. Then there’s the division into two separate albums (released simultaneously): Locusts is consistently dark and unsettling in mood, while Together features music that is hopeful, if still melancholic. The music on Together, the one that’s really stuck with me, is much more abstract and spacious, less immediate than that on I–IV. There’s always a melody, but with the exception of the closing track there’s never really much resembling rock elements — Brian Eno’s ambient works are the analogue that springs to mind. This is the album that’s brought me peace this year.

Highlights: ‘Letting Go While Holding On’; ‘Together’; ‘Still Right Here’

5: Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase?
— The Soft Pink Truth
(electronic, jazz, neoclassical)

‘The Soft Pink Truth’ is the solo moniker of Drew Daniel, one half of the experimental electronic act Matmos. In his solo work, Daniel typically goes in for similarly gimmicky conceits (the other Soft Pink Truth release this year, for instance, was an album of crust punk covers). So it’s refreshing that Shall We Go On Sinning is so achingly sincere and emotionally potent. In some ways striking a similar mood to Ghosts V, this is an album of lovely piano melodies and an overwhelming sense of tranquillity. But it also works with a broader sonic palette: sci-fi synths, dance-y electronic grooves, jazz instrumentation. A particular highlight is the burst of ecstatic noise at the end of ‘Grace’, serving as the climax to the album’s long, slow build to that point — it feels earned, and truly blissful.

Highlights: ‘On’; ‘Sinning’; ‘Grace’

4: After Hours — The Weeknd
(synthpop, R&B)

I wasn’t expecting to like an album by The Weeknd this much in 2020. While I enjoyed the rich atmosphere of his initial 2011 mixtapes, the whole insufferable persona (inexplicably angst-ridden sex god multimillionaire) and the relative blandness of some of his subsequent releases put me off following his music much further. The persona is as vile as ever on After Hours, but the music is hard to argue with. A heady blend of R&B and shamelessly eighties-worshipping synthpop, the production is consistently top-notch, often taking surprising experimental turns (the garage-influenced ‘Too Late’, the drum-and-bass-tinged ‘Hardest to Love’, the oddly touching Elton John-sampling OPN collaboration ‘Scared to Live’). ‘In Your Eyes’ even features a fantastically cheesy saxophone solo. The standout song for me, ‘Faith’, takes a series of surprising turns, presenting a series hooks each more irresistible than the last. Tesfaye’s powerful vocal performances anchor the whole thing, cementing After Hours’ status as a great pop album — though you have to wonder sometimes what he’s so distraught about.

Highlights: ‘Too Late’; ‘Hardest to Love’; ‘Faith’; ‘Blinding Lights’; ‘In Your Eyes’

3: 10 — Tricot
(math rock)

The Japanese four-piece Tricot play a blend of intricate math rock and irresistible pop hooks, and they released two albums this year, both great: January’s Makkuro and October’s 10. I’ve stuck to the rule of one album per artist on this list, but trust me, both albums are killer. 10 feels like the more tightly focused of the two, and presents a perfect microcosm of the band’s inimitable sound. ‘WARP’ experiments with spoken-word vocals; ‘Hako’ has a funky groove and chanted vocals that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Talking Heads album; ‘Agenai’ builds up the same ominous melody across several minutes to a thrilling conclusion; ‘Laststep’ is a moving ballad of the kind Tricot is very good at; ‘Karada’ is about as experimental as the band has ever been, cycling through every percussive trick in the book before sort of collapsing in on itself. The highlight for me is the absolutely charming ‘Summer Night Town’, whose vocal harmonies are just lovely.

Highlights: ‘Summer Night Town’; ‘Hako’; ‘Laststep’; ‘Karada’

2: Ultimate Success Today
— Protomartyr
(post-punk, art rock)

The best song of 2020, and one that captures the year’s whole mood and events in a bizarrely prescient way, is Protomartyr’s ‘Processed by the Boys’. Playing off echoey guitars against a truly ingenious groove, the song develops strangely from an opening featuring huge stoner rock riffs into a middle section anchored by, of all things, clarinet (truly an underrated rock instrument), and from there into a properly devastating finale. This is a dynamic that informs the album as a whole: the riffs are more bombastic than they’ve ever been before, but the song structures are unintuitive, surprising you at every turn, and the artful use of jazz instrumentation at various points is hugely effective. While I think nothing else here quite reaches the heights of ‘Processed’, I really can’t stress enough that neither does anything else.

Highlights: ‘Day Without End’; ‘Processed by the Boys’; ‘Modern Business Hymns’; ‘Worm in Heaven’

1: Room for the Moon
— Kate NV
(avant-pop, new wave)

The new album from Kate NV, also a member of the brilliant Russian rock band Glintshake, revels in its eighties new wave and progressive pop influences while managing to be much weirder than any of them. There are shades of Kate Bush here; a sprinkling of Talking Heads there; a heaping dose of Lizzy Mercier Descloux on ‘Ça Commence Par’, and not just because it’s sung in French. (There are songs in French, Russian, and English, and what sounds like maybe Japanese[?] on ‘Lu Na’.) There’s a warm, retro, analogue feeling to the whole album — you sort of feel it should have been released on VHS — and saxophones at every turn. The songs are unshakeably catchy but take detours in spacious, experimental directions. There’s a deep sense of nostalgia to Room for the Moon, but more than that, of enchantment; you feel like it’s transporting you somewhere strange but familiar.

Highlights: ‘Sayonara’; ‘Ça Commence Par’; ‘Lu Na’; ‘Plans’