Top 50 Albums 2020

50. OG Keemo – Geist | Whole Discography

OG Keemo´s debut album Geist was released towards the end of 2019 and passed over by my usual reluctance to give German rappers a real chance. Trickling word of mouth made me listen in. Keemo´s music, carried by his partner producer Funkvater Frank makes Geist and all of his previous mixtapes and EPs a must listen, a lesson in the energy and vigor a German rap story can carry without catering to current tendencies of trap-crooning or misshapen attempts of making dancehall. If anything, OG Keemo is the only German rapper you need to know in 2020! Simply for his banging delivery of tales surrounding poverty and racism which revel in depression without diving into sadness. The agency of Keemo in capturing his past, his bravado in taking a stand in today´s gangster rap, are flawless over the Funkvater Frank´s varied production. While other German contemporaries might appeal to easier sentiments or remain functional as hit-makers, everyone with the German stigma of the “Migrationshintergrund” aka stemming from a migrant family or being colored, black and unwanted will partake in the energy of Geist. Keemo himself lives the influences of Kendrick Lamar and while a comparison as the German Kenny would be a disservice, there hasn´t been an MC in command of his craft rapping in German. Geist serves as an ode to the hidden violence of life in disenfranchised communities living in high-rises and perceived as disruptive to society's well-being. Being black in German has never shined in such a menacing glow, the production gear was rarely this deadly, brooding, and creative. While no one likes being tagged as such, Keemo feels like a saving grace of German rap music. His next album will follow in 2021!

49. Hitsuji Bungaku 羊文学 – POWERS

Shapeshifting newcomer band Hitsuji Bungaku serve as a reminder of the prowess of Japanese bands effortlessly catering to shoegaze needs while remaining accessible as pop-rock bands with heartfelt delivery and emotional lyricism. Growing up with anime openings and endings as the first exposure to many great artists, this blend of guitar-driven music always shines in a certain luminescent adolescence, the pains and triumphs of becoming and its various stages of longing, silence and stunted nostalgia.

48. Kacy Hill – Is It Selfish If We Talk About Me Again

Fragile musings are at the core of Kacy Hill´s second album and for the first time make her intriguingly personal before being aesthetically polished until defacement. Synth-heavy and indebted to different eras of RnB, Is it Selfish explores Hill´s doubts on living and loving, hesitating to fully become emotionally attached or taking center stage as a person with needs and aspirations. The ever-hopeful tracks and twinkling instrumentals capture this delicate tension in their understated beats and singular uses of acoustic elements such a bass or guitar. The trap elements of songs such as “Everybody´s Mother” pair well with the more art-pop or even witch house pieces, never overwhelming yet turning the scales towards something more affective and contrastive to a voice that is neither full nor trying to be resonant in the first place. Singles such as “I Believe in You” are picture-perfect capsules of the album's lighter moments without betraying the overarching themes of self-doubt. Is It Selfish is the whispered wavering moment in life as it is the answer of growing hope in self-awareness and strength through tranquil contemplation. This might be the stake of Hills musical career, far off from being a pop-star or using loudness and recent disco and funk trends to drown feelings in infectious sounds.

47. Black Taffy – Opal Wand

Progressing from Elder Mantis, Black Taffy seeks an even hazier and more spiritually inclined expression of his “occult” sensibilities through the lens of instrumental hip hop. While Mantis had underpinnings of beat-making in the vast sense of DJ´s adjacent to Nujabes, Opal Wand is the more complex twin trying to use boom-bap beat structures as backdrops and guiding stones for warped clarinets, harpsichord or xylophone. The ghostly vibe and melancholic weight of these tracks never drag the experience, enabling a certain easy-listening experience while being too layered and thought out to be really just that. Here Black Taffy goes into a mode of a creature-composer in the twilight of game soundtracks, vaporwave and whatever Oneohtrix Point Never brought to the table in his own work. While occult and mythical are welcome tags in describing his own artistic inspirations, Donovan Jones´ Opal Wand works as an exercise in timeless traveling and other-worldly genre-bending.

46. Ty Dolla $ign – Featuring Ty Dolla $ign

While the aspect of having Ty Dolla $ign featured on a track in contemporary hip hop might come off as a standard of music-making, the perception of this carrying generic undertones and becoming a kind of meme rings true in pop culture as well. Ty Dolla $ign is fully aware of his position but flips this standing as everyone´s beta male in the aptly titled Featuring Ty Dolla $ign. The third album from the golden voice is the first to make full use of all styles Ty Dolla $ign is capable of and his range of moods and atmospheres as an RnB virtuoso. The power relation of being a featured artist changes to the question of how much Ty Dolla $ign actually brings to the table and how his contemporizes like Kanye profit from his musicality and vocal capabilities. Other feature artists might exist, employed for hooks and ad-libs, yet Dolla $ign is an undisputed singularity especially when in command of all creative decisions. The club bangers might be what is known, but the mid-tempo songs, usage of acoustic elements in optimistic tracks let his craft shine. There is a lot of throwback in sounding sunny and celebratory, yet none of the 24 tracks are utter filler or throwaways. Having other heavyweights as features, with the appearances of Kehlani in “Universe” and Future and Young Thug on “Lift Me Up” serving as highlights, help avoid sameness and repetition. The collaborative effort never suffers from this, with Dolla still in the reigns and willing to show that his vision can entail “Ego Death” in favor of the songs as glimpses and experiences of his making. While MCs like Kanye or Drake knows how to utilize their features, Dolla gives platforms for sounds and voice to shine.

45. Guilt Attendant – Suburban Scum

Released under Fernow´s Hospital Productions, Suburban Scum and the music of Nathaniel Young stands as the darkest iteration of club-oriented hard techno music this year. The edge is given when the themes of guilt, mercy and escaping a religious community come into play. Young crafts Suburban Scum as the brooding experience of losing religion in the communal space of a goth-inspired dance party. Sound and the metallic thrusts of Guilt Attendant´s bass and synth mixture make for a transformative listen, that feels as claustrophobic as it cleansing. A sort of reverse baptism through dirt and the abject, the album is a complex engagement that will bloom with multiple listens.

44. Gunna – WUNNA

I have treated Gunna as the talentless sidekick of Young Thug's complete insanity. The Pinky to a highly functional and not self-sabotaging Brain. The rapper’s output until WUNNA was arguably trying to emulate Thugger or going for weaker trap compositions. And it still rings true that his music serves as a blank slate! Yet it might be the trap answers to color field painting. The words or rather verbal expressions yield no meaning and don´t have to mean. You can listen and make out stories and punchline raps (and admittedly sad sad rhyme patterns!) but this is not the point. The tracks would without a doubt pass as grandiose instrumentals if Gunna was subtracted. But this again is not the point and I do not wish for this. As Thugger went hyper-abstract action with Jeffery and Future brightens and darkens his style, contour and storytelling with every major entry into his discography, Gunna created something opaque, aiming for hyper-flat and entirely embracing. Listening to WUNNA front to back is an aural experience of trap music, the thrills of the beats, swagger and style becoming pasty-like in their wasteful usage, filling out the canvas without room for thought. Maybe trap and his lifestyle are a religious experience for Gunna, his time with Thug made him breathe differently and understand the craft in a super abstract and yet simple manner. He might never be a great lyricist, but I´ll get lost in his sound all day.

43. Future – High Off Life

Continuing from Gunna´s take on the dominant genre of the decade, Future newest album falls in line with the synergetic exercise of WIZRD. His double album project and the experiment of giving his triumphant RnB and his dark trap lord side their own project was mostly overshadowed by the effortlessness of his brooding iterations in every album cycle. HENDRIXX might be the smooth talker that has been vying for his chart placements since Pluto, but only the Future persona was able to usher in an artist at the forefront of his peers and a staple of creative energy that revels in the depression of riches, unable to leave the past and the streets behind. High Off Life allows for mellower tracks, yet serves as the reminder of the DS2 and Monster era pain of losing love and drug-infused ennui. Future is a workhorse and does this the best when he isn´t trying to create a hit for major consumption but a stringent body of work that allows for lighter moments, something he explored even further with the collaborative album with Lil Uzi Vert after the bubbly “All Bad” on the album. If one thing, this time Hendrixx has darkened and spits in tandem, as the WIZRD might have been imagined. The trajectory is written and the level of comfort of making music is the greatest strength of someone who took the derided mumble rap to a level of cultural hegemony.

42. C. Diab – White Whale

White Whale is C. Diab speaking his political mind in the most elusive and haunting voice imaginable. His bowed guitar is a shapeshifter, able to create long drawn out ambient soundscapes, eerie drone, tender lifeforms or snappy grunge adjacent riffs. In his own words, the white whale is the constant struggle for betterment and humane living conditions in today´s capitalist regimes. The humanity speaks in the tone of his yearning guitars, reminiscent of Eluvium´s drone. The faster moments of vigor collide yearning with the flow and tension of modernity, a certain sadness of pace notwithstanding and generating an introspection that is more at home with space rock than simple ambient tunes. White Whale always strikes the perfect balance between floaty immersion, aural plotlines and attention-grabbing drifts. Hunting for answers and reflection are never still movements themselves, your mind racing in the ambiance of life is what leads to real ideas.

41. Nils Frahm – Tripping With Nils Frahm

This live album might not have the same pull as Spaces, since it serves as the conclusive edit of a tour cycle and a specific set of performances by Frahm accompanying his 2019 album All Melody. Yet this collection of live performances goes to show how heavily Frahm´s music lives by the momentary meeting of his bulk of gear, his physical availability to give it his all to the crowd and the pensive composition of his music from definite studio album version to the dynamic entity of the live performance. Every song on the album outshines his studio counterpart, the situatedness of the recording, the space that is given to every twinkle of synth or key to shine let Frahm´s vision take place in the collective and now captured singular listening of his audience. In this, “Fundamental Values” works as the capsule of this process and acknowledgment that Frahm appeared to be holding back on All Melody. If the growth of a musician and his ultimate goal as an artist can be heard in any discography, it is the most striking in Frahm´s growing body of work, from the humble The Bells, to the showcase of affective mastery in Spaces ending in the homage to modulation and analog piano working in tandem. The backbreaking performances of Frahm, his out of body twisting and turning of levers of his synthesizers concluding in the delicate caress of his keyed instruments make physicality translate in sound, a love shared for the audience to witness.

40. Novo Line – Autobahn Zwei

Nat Fowler furthers his off-kilter synth experiments with a more story-driven approach. While his main albums might have sounded like the recordings of experiments in low-tech music-making and pushing the boundaries of the digital devices of yesteryear, on Autobahn Zwei Fowler beings to craft small epics. The delineation to Kraftwerk and synth-pioneers is made as clear as the feeling of post-apocalyptic landscapes and dystopian futures that warp the perception of nature and culture into cold electronic movement in impish speed and ghoulish drum patters. The resulting two-hour journey (captured on tape as the only physical manifestation) could serve as driving music for the actual German Autobahn of 2020 as well as the unraveling soundtrack of a sci-fi B-Movie with a stellar soundtrack. If Novo Line´s music might have sacrificed stringency for the sake of total chaos, Autobahn Zwei makes up for this through long arcs and movements while still never holding your hand or removing the usual craft and elements of, well yes, total electronic chaos.

39. Taylor Swift – folklore / evermore

The old Taylor never died, and we might have the pandemic and self-isolation to thank for her return. The endless attempts of going pop, trending and staying edgy hurt the musical foundation of the artist and ruined more than her reputation in the end. You might be able to make some hits, but the competition that never went the songwriting route will never tire or lessen, so making a point was exactly to create the song cycles of folklore and evermore. The call back to the Speak Now and Red era of Taylor shines a light on making emotional tracks on relationship and heartbreak – with the ever-present additives of nostalgic imagination and schmaltz. One could always question the feelings of being lovelorn and totally swaying in love and longing, yet you never had to question the presentation and earnestness of Swift singing these tales and standing in for these feelings in life. With the help of Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver, the acoustic songcraft of Taylor becomes a living and breathing being that isn´t reliant on bubblegum fuss to entice. Both albums shine with a maturity that neither Lover or Reputation were able to even tease. Folklore might become the main entry, but the late addition of evermore with a slighter pop focus might be the way Taylor will continue to work on her music and embrace the songwriter working with fewer elements and less concern about trends in the future.

38. Anna von Hausswolff – All Thoughts Fly

Inspired by the Italian garden Sacro Bosco, Anna von Hausswolff created an organ epic that rivals her previous work every step of the way. Going completely instrumental and entirely maximalist, All Thoughts Fly is a rapture to behold and immerse yourself in. As other creatives have taken center stage in today´s experimental landscape using the organ as the undoubtedly most affective instrument to work in all time periods, Anna von Hausswolff was one of the first to emerge in the early 2010s, equally capable as a gloom-ridden and spine-tingling vocalist and as a instrumental heavy-weight in the minimalist use of the organ. All Thoughts Fly is a transcendental surprise, von Hausswolff withstanding all previous tendencies of carving songs from the organ, letting vocal silence prevail for the grandeur of exploring an actual place of phantasm and the saga attached to it. This works well as contemporary classic with the broadest appeal to those listening for modernity in age-old traditional craft. Beyond this, however, you get the free-flowing compositional strength of someone unconcerned with tradition and well versed in the language of experimental and boundary-pushing implementations of an instrument they are entirely in command of. So much so, that the place this album was inspired from can be dislodged as a referent and the instrument and creator themselves reveal the ability of imagination to become a timespace of its own.

37. Samia – The Baby

Arriving with her debut album and following the success of being crowned a newcomer by streaming sites, The Baby sees Samia forging a path beyond single hits. While many songwriters will try to strike a balance between catchy hooks and serving as a living testament to different agendas, Samia´s lyrics speak in vulnerable and confessional tones even if the song feels upbeat or tongue-in-cheek. The macrocosms of being a young female artist and the microcosm of being a person that tries to communicate with the world and her loved ones is favored towards the latter without being uninformed by or disembodied from the former. Dealing with death and indifference towards this in “Is There Something In The Movies?” or going for a rock anthem on diet culture on “Fit N Full”, you get Samia´s perspective and personal afflictions with themes whilst living in the higher commentaries and making connections to your own experiences. Describing “The Baby” as herself and the album as the admittance of being needy and reliant on other people, the social connectedness and simple concession to needing warmth is strikingly mature and something that will resonate with everyone.

36. Dijit – Hypertattention – Selected Dijital Works Vol. 1

Springing from Cairo, this compilation captures the dark trip-hop of Dijit accompanied by talented vocalist with smoky singer SD taking the fore on five tracks. Hip Hop transgressive and globalist appeal was never out of the question, but its arrival/revival of older genre and stranger blends with British club music and experimental tunes in the middle east and north Africa gives a completely different flavor to the genre and possibilities. The languages and tonalities that are most often known for pop or spiritual songs or prayers take on another life in SD´s feminine husk, evoking Andy Stott´s usage of voice on his last albums and the harsh rapping of AC Ghazy that is slow and precise enunciating every syllable. Dijit´s production could stem from a western standpoint and the influences make their presence clear, but his way of editing beats, giving hollow tones and negative space breathing room in a percussive mindset make the sound his own. The local influences, recordings of older songs and vocal styles, the old school sampling of Casio melodies and effects give a wider scope on his production chops, especially in the singular instrumentals “Soad” and “Mahragan Elahzan”. Being subaltern or non-western was a death sentence in the eyes of global music consumption in the west, but this never stopped from all songs transgressing and different locals of the world interpreting on the pulse of time. Dijit is a prime example of this ever-growing world that is ready to influence the majority yet again.

35. Kehlani – It Was Good Until It Wasn´t

As a sophomore album It Was Good Until Wasn´t sounds like a matured artist far from the Kehlani of the SweetSexySavage era. There is no need to narrate or sound apologetic in heartbreak, the beats do not need to harken back to different eras of RnB glory. The sultry prowess of Kehlani´s writing is complemented with current beat choices that could grace the mellower side of rapper´s with the producer allowing for grace above the sub-bass. Standouts include the collaboration with Jhene Aiko on “Change Your Life” quickly followed by the confessional “Everbody´s Business” professing her full capability as a lover and consumption of self in the process. Here the sunny instrumental and Spanish guitar twang point towards chart sensibility while serving as a rich contrast to Kehlani´s usual beat choices. Regardless of the instrumental side, this is how today´s RnB can and should sound through the lens of an artist in command of marring endless nostalgia with contemporary ideas and daring to step into an otherwise male-dominated class of melancholic alpha males.

34. Spivak - Μετά Το Ρέιβ

Fittingly associated with the Ecstatic gang of genre renegades of utter non-traditionalist experimental music, Spivak´s take on mellow synth-pop is a litmus test to the intelligibility of the whole genre. The ghostly atmosphere here is turned up to a point of the synth-work and Spivak´s voice becoming afterthoughts in the thicket of sounds, cracks of light between the dense drum programming and sound design are akin to sample-heavy ambient music. There is a lounge quality, reminiscent of RnB but all through the veil of Cocteau Twins and rooted in a higher understanding of atmosphere before song structure. Meta to Peiß is the occurrence of a seismic shift in music-making in electronic language with vocals attached. For every audible linguistic fragment, you´ll find ten instances of warped effects carrying the intensity of words and comprehension of a different rationale.

33. Duma – Duma

Nyege Nyege Tapes have been delivering forward-thinking music for three years now, but Duma marks a different trend that appears to have been boiling and ruminating in the continent for a while now. Kenyan metal duo Duma bring the pain that can only find equivalence in the music of the body in the rest of the world. The unholy machine, aptly self-titled and meaning “Darkness” in Kikuyu filters a compromising barrage of screams and blast beat industrial drums through rousing patterns and structured chaos. The resulting songs are equally inspired by trap atmospheres as they are by Merzbow and grindcore disciples. It is always exciting to see how metal music and the mindset land in different regions of the world and transitions through the influences. While guitars or real drums are wholly absent in Duma, the blood boiling attitude of the destruction of a status quo lives in the intensity of every track right until the sluggishly the perishing husk of Prurient inspired “The Echoes of The Beyond” serving as closer to the experience.

32. Ai Aso – The Faintest Hint

The idea of Boris and Sun O)))´s Stephen O'Malley having a hand in this album caught my attention at first. What unfolded was a reminder of how close stillness and loud noise are married in immersion and bodily engagement. Situated in the mode of a singer-songwriter that tethers on the edges of pop and shoegaze, Ai Aso captures slow explosions with her voice and reverb-heavy guitar playing. The tracks “Scene” just has her singing syllables of “du du du” while the instrumentals create an open space without post-rockish reliance on crescendos. This lack of artificial tension makes every sway and change in melody striking. The playful “I´ll do it my way” offsets navel-gazing with beefy guitar flourishes likely at the hand of Boris while “Move” makes the best out of sticking to the scripts of letting wistful musing prevails. The Faintest Hint feels like a passing wind, a delicate being of its own that carries healing energy in its conscious deployment of just enough to persist.

31. Long Distance Calling – How Do We Want To Live?

Returning again with a mostly instrumental beast, How Do We Want To Live? is the most conceptual album of Long Distance Calling in a while, touching upon current trends of dealing with the pandemic and the socio-political trajectory of society as a whole. The question posed is explored through sampled voices, monologues and introductory words from a great beyond that set the stage for Long Distance Calling to bring their unique blend of post-metal with a stronger addition of electronics. Humanity and post-humanism are major concerns here: the constant expansion of technology and the intent of the human´s behind the utility – searching for revolutionary means whilst creating pitfalls and disparities around the world. A quote from The Matrix concludes an album musing on the right to a future as a human being with the statement of humans being not mammals but viruses and yet you know the band´s instrumentals and overarching musical ideas share a willingness for redemption and transgressing fatalism for actual answers in themselves. Whatever personal philosophies might drive the ultimate conclusions, How Do We Want to Live? is the tight, musical-mathematical dissertation on this problem by a band that continues to grow as masters of their genre.

30. Blacksea Não Maya - Máquina de Vénus

The trio behind Blacksea delivered the standout album of this year's output on Principe. Darker and moodier tones have never been foreign to the stellar genre-bending electronic dance music label based in Lisbon, but Blacksea and especially the tracks by member DJ Kolt make for menacing exercises in movement and solemn melancholy. The album shines in taking the highly energetic base of Kuduro and adding and subtracting elements of the DJ´s own imagination to create eerie space on “Terror” before the gnawing beat begins its rise. “Obscuro” follows the trajectory in percussive layering, swaying from an enchanted dance track to a sort of tripping remix of Rainforest Spiritual Enslavements root components. The drips that overtake the latter half transition into whistles on “7even” until chopped and screwed flutes or woodwinds overtake the movement of the track. DJ Kolt ends his run with “Tchilling District” as a denied reprisal of returning to the rave before “Horizonte” by DJ Perigoso changes up the tone into cinematic wobbly synth rises over jungle ambiance. On the second standout “Bubadagash”, Kolt crossbreeds the conversation with banging drum beats and within seconds “Estranhos e Loucos” has DJ Noronha going for the light mood of DnB vocal samples and otherworldly BPM attrition. The album closes with Gqoum influenced “Africanalidade” as the sort of blending that makes all of Principe artists stand out from the crowd and viable as disciples of the label. While the tracks are credited to the DJs individually and Kolt takes up major parts and the mood of the album, the playfulness of going deep and dark in the setting of club-oriented music comes into full effect in the contrast and conversation of the three artists under the same umbrella. Apart from serving as killer tracks for large crowds and secret weapons for sets, Venus stands as yet another reminder of the sheer brilliance Principe and the transcultural artists of the label have to offer towards electronic music as a whole.

29. Fleet Foxes – Shore

Shore might be the most striking pandemic album released this year: bright and hopeful in spirit and outlook but born out of times of societal dismay, distance and political disillusionment. Robin Pecknold recorded and produced the album by himself without any of the other member due to COVID 19 restriction, but calls this piece of work his least personal. In contrast to the weary world view of Crack Up and its many twists leading in and out of despair, Pecknold went the route of creating something light and hopeful that pays homage to his major influences and by effect, making a collection of songs that can be described as Fleet Foxes fan-service. Shore sounds exactly like the ideal Fleet Foxes album if stripped from all altercation and musical struggle. This might come off as a gripe against the lack of experimentation, especially from an instrumental side, but Pecknold’s tight delivery and the inclusion of different vocalists and voices substitute these elements with another set of serenity. Shore might not go down as the bands most adventurous album, but will certainly become a classic in their discography, something other bands and artists will use as a reference when thinking about the music of Robin Pecknold in the next 50-80 years. 

28. Pisitakun – Absolute C.O.U.P

Returning with another killer concept album, the Thai artists goes even deeper into his collage production style and tendencies of overwhelming the listener with layer upon layer of pure techno drenched existentialism. Absolute C.O.U.P is Pisatakun´s unsettling take on the nature of political coups and the loss of personal freedoms at the hands of totalitarian government and police forces. Hailing from Thailand these coups represent a bitter reality of political disturbance while the rest of the worlds uses the country as a cheap vacation getaway and an old monarchy does what they do the best, fill the hearts of people with foolishness and passivity. Each of the seven main tracks touches upon one of the aspects of society that play a role in political systems and the coups as a whole and Pisitakun goes in on mixing his signature hard techno style with samples of political speeches, announcement, folk songs and other ephemera that fill the soundscapes with chaotic diffusion. The result is a sprawling journey, satirical in its dissolution of elements and a sensory overload that leaves no sense of self or hope intact. One of the formats for the album was a golden bullet USB with a set of stickers representing each track in a deformed monstrous manner. These details alone contribute to Pisitakun´s music becoming an uprising itself, hidden, tradeable and bombed on the most public spaces to slowly subvert. Absolute C.O.U.P is a menace to a society that has long abandoned reason and justice for individual gains and political charades – a punch in the gut that is a sad reality in Thailand but a dystopian forecast for the rest of the world.

27. Trouble – Thug Luv

Thug Luv functions as an exercise in giving back and keeping it real with all flaws and pitfalls included. Trouble emerged as an uncompromising rapper, going hard every step of the way and crafting a dark and brooding body of work with Edgewood via the hands of Mike Will Made It. On Thug Luv he tries to switch up some of these elements for mellower songs – sing-shouting on “Shaderoom” or using his coarse voice for the RnB leaning hook on “Special”. These tracks pale in comparison to his straight-shooting bangers on Edgewood or cuts like “All My Niggaz” or G-Funk throwback “Ain´t My Fault”, still they never fail to deliver the honesty Trouble is trying to convey. His vision of being a rapper is not one of stardom, touring and making unlimited amounts of cash. It is the cyclical vision of escaping poverty and never losing touch with his roots and neighborhood – the statement of making music for the streets rings through on Thug Luv, even if this doesn´t mean spinning huge tales or stark criticism of societal ills and rather singing from the heart about the hurt of losing friends to prison or bullets and trying to express affection in tender anthems. In the end Trouble´s vision and honesty remain the strong points of his music, a mode of rapping his contemporary Kevin Gates has perfected over the last years. My hopes are high for Trouble to perfect the synthesis of his styles in the future.

26. Beach Bunny – Honeymoon

Beach Bunny debuts with the best emo filled pop-rock of 2020. Lili Trifilio´s writing is honest in its total immersion in being young and questioning life through the lens of a hopeful romantic: too self-aware as not to be conscious of the facts of longing for the wrong person, falling in love and fearing being alone before being true to yourself. The ability to use these thoughts and experiences to write catchy songs and translate them to an engaging set of songs and instrumentals are impeccable making Honeymoon a standout from a band that is just beginning to make an impression on the scene. You´ll definitely find a hook and sentiment that will capture your inner youth, the lovelorn romantic, the depressed teen and Trifilio´s words will carve a space in your heart.

25. Phelimuncasi – Phelimuncasi 2013-2019

Another Nyege Nyege offering brings to light one of the best Gqom acts with a compilation of droning hits. The distinct sound of Gqom is born from breaking the fold and not being satisfied with usual club-oriented, four to the floor sounds. With DJ MP3, Menzi and DJ Scrotum heading the production of these tracks, the three MCs trade of call and response schemes and energetic flows make this one unmissable in the exploration of the genre. The bare beats and constant drone in the background serve a menacing urgency that forces the consideration of political background and commentary on South African power relations. While the lyrics remain closed off with no translations at hand, you can image the group taking the stage in political rallies, protests, or at 3am in a club.

24. Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin – Stygian Bough Volume I

Aerial Ruin aka dark folk singer-songwriter Erik Moggridge has been making appearances on the music by Bell Witch for some time now. With Mirror Reaper and the death of Adrian Guerra, Moggridge led the incredible epic of Mirror Reaper as a storytelling entity and transgressed the haunt into the beauty of letting go and finding peace in death. Stygian Bough follows this dynamic in making Moggridge a full-fledged member of the band (even if still credited as a solo artist) and taking the slow meditations of Bell Witch to a different level altogether. Mirror Reaper might have initiated the dynamic of atonement in the music of Bell Witch, but on Stygian Bough, the dragging instrumentals of the band are uplifted by instances of guitar fluttering through the bass and drum line-up with Moggridge high pitch to wail and mourn the passage of time, life and death. This aspect of clarity to the sludge sets the band apart and gives the idea of redemption through painfully slow and heavy music a spark. Stygian Bough is at once a meditation, prayer and folklore. The seismic pieces, two of which clock in at 20 minutes and the remaining at 20 minutes split between two tracks and a prelude, shift in recognition of the task at hand. The beginning of “The Bastard Wind” and the first part of “Heaven Torn Low” let the craft of Moggridge shine with Bell Witch overtaking the solemn attitude and drowning it in darkness. While these quiet/loud and soft/hard dynamic might be played out in its horizontal contrast, the band(s) synergize these movements and elements throughout the latter half of the first track and with even better clarity on “The Unbodied Air”. Here, at the end of the album and with the most distinct use of organ both entities meld into a sovereign leader of their own cult and philosophical system.

23. Aesop Rock – Spirit World Field Guide

I still have to digest Aesop Rock´s newest album on part of the lyrical content for maybe a year or so, but again the rapper continues his unparalleled run of high concept albums with complex lyrical content and banging production. The title of the album might suggest a more fictitious approach to Aesop Rocks usual grounded approach of complicating life through his words while shedding light on his inner workings, but while not as therapeutic as his last album, Spirit World still sees him dealing with his demons of paranoia and loneliness. The only change might be the secrecy of some origins of the ideas behind the songs and the liberty of Rock´s writing to include pretty much any mental image in his repertoire. “Dog at The Door” sees him considering all possibilities of a sound he hears outside his house, strolling and straining his distressed mind into “the sound might be a trap of people or beings out to get me”. These 90 seconds alone go to show how singular the writing of Aesop Rock has become over the years and how much energy he can put into an incidental occurrence. His own work as a producer, part of Malibu Ken with Tobacco and making game-soundtracks all fit perfectly into the progression from The Impossible Kid. Spirit World is the most playful and imaginative album to date. We might never get the Labor Days Aesop Rock again, but the need for this lord of gloom and social commentary has waned with the last releases and the excitement of how Rock will continue to surprise himself and the listeners might be the better trade.

22. Pallbearer – Forgotten Days

The stylistic shift back to their first two albums sounds like a misstep in production choices coming from Heartless clear direction and progressive influences. Pallbearer wanted to recreate their birth as a doom band, but making all guitars sound incredibly muddy and indistinguishable is an easy way out. Maybe this is the crux of joining Nuclear Blast, becoming a crown jewel of leading metal but stepping out of the ranks of those at the creative forefront in matters of sound. Nonetheless, Forgotten Days is a worthy successor in the discography of Pallbearer and a thematical and lyrical marvel. Dealing with death might have been recurring, but Campbell´s focus on how Alzheimer destroys the sense of self after witnessing it first hand via his own grandmother makes the scepsis of existence and identity even more heart-wrenching. The dialysis of memory in concordance with self-awareness pair with constant ventilation of the state of mind – simply by knowing and feeling your sense of self waning and trying to hold on to the pieces. Pallbearer captures this with urgency and soundtracks this in doom-ridden canvasses from front to back. Their ability to retain this density in shorter songs like “Stasis” or “The Quicksand of Existing” is laudable and shows that the band is not overly reliant on drawing out their composition for easier immersion. Yet in “Silver Wings”, “Caledonia” or “Vengeance & Ruination” the album's themes click and the deep melancholy is given enough space to ruminate and attach to your own awareness and conceptualization of self. For the lack of clarity, the instrumentals might bear, Forgotten Days and Pallbearer know how to engage the listener. The truest relation to doom metal has always been the ability to live in and through the darkest sensations of life from the safety of aural perception and in this, the band will continue to hone their craft.

21. Container – Scramblers

Container keeps tearing speakers and eardrums with his newest album, the first one not simply titled “LP”. Scramblers remains true to Containers distinct style of disruptive techno on the brink of noise and insanity on tracks like “Mottle”, “Nozzle” or “Queaser” but uses other iterations such as standouts “Trench”, “Ventilator” and closer “Duster” to go groovy and catchy in every sense of the word. These tracks slap with the disgust of Container´s usual production techniques of fuzz and strain while simultaneously retaining the forward-facing momentum of a techno track. These exercises in high bpm muddled with venom are not for the faint of heart, however, on Scramblers Container´s continuation of his own universe is at once one step closer to collapse as it is to become usable in social settings or at least for showing your friends claiming to like electronic music.

20. Envy – The Fallen Crimson

The era of Envy fronted by Tetsuya Fukagawa seemed over for a while. For two years, the transcendental poet and fierce screamo vocalist left the band – a decision that appeared final until it wasn´t anymore. The band could have carried on without his influence and might have had the chance to explore different avenues or voices altogether, something that becomes abundantly clear in the standout track on The Fallen Crimson “Rhythm”, which is the one to totally eschew Fukagawa for vocalist Achico and her tender circumspection. On this track, Envy appears to have even more composure than in their spoken word spaces of Fukagawa, the structure of a coming rupture of shouts and wails betraying these moments after years of listening to this dynamic. Nonetheless, “Rhythm” would not hit as it does in the absence of Fukagawa´s weighty performances and moments of calm and clarity. Long-time listeners have been witness to his punky hardcore performances, the transition to screamo´s fury and the arrival at his signature style under the braces of post-rock influences, singing, speaking and screaming in a flash of ecstasy and defeat from track to track. On The Fallen Crimson no tracks feels pressured to find release, erupt or lessen in its intensity. The band is capable of returning to their shorter and direct songwriting on “Marginalized Thread” or “Fingerprint Mark”, crafting their first true hardcore pieces in years, yet they are equally honoring silence on “Eternal Memories and Reincarnation” or the excellent “Dawn and Gaze” where both Achico and Fukagawa deliver a powerful duet. Their latest album is Envy at a new height that seems indebted to the ruptures and reconfiguration the band had to suffer. Claims of losing their heft or changing up their style are as far off as growing tired of their unique approach to destruction and grace.

19. Deafheaven – 10 Years Gone

While not gracing us with new music and being unable to take the stage in 2020, Deafheaven take a moment to contemplate their existence as a band and bearer of a whole genre in 10 Years Gone. From my own listening experience, Sunbather opened up a new world of allowing black metal vocals to subsist in settings other than murky recordings of guitars and drums on a level of Fischer-Price cassette decks and other flawed technologies. Deafheaven triggered an identity crisis in purist of the genre that derided the band as hollowing out the scene by making it beautiful. Other bands had existed long before Deafheaven and their positioning within the genre was questioned as well, but the huge success in more mainstream media outlets created this dispute of which the band was pretty much unimpressed. Allowing for glistening clarity in their guitar work and recording elevated the brunt force of George Clark´s ghastly voice and his lyrical content and made their music listenable and attachable for a wider audience of rock, metal and music fans in general. In Deafheaven there is no need for spikes, blood or mutilation and murder, the sadness and dejected imagery of Clark evokes are enough for the trauma to stick. Under the guidance of Kerry McCoy, he was enabled to speak of their poverty in Sunbather, the suicidal aftermath of success on New Bermuda and the poetic violence of reconciliation and love in Ordinary Corrupt. On the live recordings of 10 Years Gone, the band retreads their past and brings to the fore deeper cuts from their first offerings or the Adult Swim single “From The Kettle Onto The Coil”. All songs gain from their differences in composition, the bands' maturity manifests in their ability to open new avenues of hurt and despair on tracks like “Glint”, which in its original composition was darker and muddier than its live counterpart two years later. With the waypoint of 10 Years Gone the band celebrates their emergence without any wistful nostalgia, the title might suggest. After ten years in the industry and forging success from their relentless pursuit of a niche style, Deafheaven commemorates their live energy and communicate the impracticality of totems and genre definition in their own way.

18. Spirit Adrift – Enlightened in Eternity

Enlightened in Eternity is a step away from the more doom-oriented mood of the previous Spirit Adrift albums. While heavy metal was ever-present in the color palette of the band and 2019´s Divided in Darkness bore even larger traces of this, on Enlightened in Eternity Nate Garrett goes all-in on paying homage and pushing the genre into current times. The album at times feels like a medley of all elements bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, AC/DC and other greats delivered for young and impressionable metal fans. Yet, as with Garrett, the darker and more ambiguous metal bands and influences, the precise and straight to the point era of nu-metal or the tone of doom past and present make this reveling in influences a perfect circle. Enlightened in Eternity sounds like a classic Metallica album if the band were ever able to put aside their differences and the burden of being considered the greats far to early in their career. All this becomes possible in the singular vision of Garrett and his admittance of positivity and cosmic romanticism in gazing at dark holes. There is grandeur and heartbreak in transgression and musing, the guitars swell and cut sharp when Garrett´s voice commands and the voyage becomes a tight experience. The lasting impression is the confirmation of Spirit Adrift and Garrett being in love with their music and genre in the confidence of having something to contribute and add.

17. The Weeknd – After Hours

Abel Tesfaye could have followed his trilogy mixtapes with After Hours and no one would have questioned his rise to pop-stardom as a sacrifice to the pitfalls of mass-appeal. But the last chapters of his chronology were entirely necessary and yielded some interesting mutations that helped flesh out the persona of The Weeknd on After Hours in ways a younger self hailing from the Trilogy wouldn´t have been able to string together. Here we find the prince of dark-pop channeling influences of synth-pop and electronic eras of glamour production with anthemic strength while retaining his self-torture and promiscuous wailings of the loneliness inside. Standouts like “Scared To Live” make for the best songwriting of his career, eschewing the drug-filled monster for a layer of sensitivity that can only stem deep hurt at the self-awareness in the inability to love. “Snowchild” sees him at his most concrete in channeling the past and rise to the top, time-shifting between somewhere before House of Balloons and after Beauty Behind the Madness, drugs and money becoming signposts of existence until the answer is to take a step towards sobriety. The best realization of the After Hours cycle is that the tracks about the necessary evil of being a druggy fiend-like “Heartless”, “Blinding Lights” and “After Hours” are not mere crowd-pleaser for those demanding the return of the old Weeknd, but riddle persona with the constant awareness of fearing relationship and real love, the longing for understanding becoming a dark disco orb that flutters and speaks about hurt while being a harbinger of it. It might have taken three albums, but on After Hours The Weeknd truly reaches his evolutionary high point, no longer running behind the shadow of a conflicted king of pop, but taking the crown after having his face bloodied and knowing how empty this throne will make him.

16. Choir Boy – Gathering Swans

Choir Boy manifest everything that goth music should entail in a distant void of pop music without the need to equal pain with ferocity or harsh darkened guitar sounds. Gathering Swans has the vibe of The Cure and Depeche Mode, but refreshing in today´s ear electronic pop being synth heavy without a deeper understanding of vocal harmonies and somber moods. Much of this has to be ascribed to Adam Klopp´s angelic voice, which earned him the nickname “choir boy” in the past, but which the band heralds and lets the sensitivity sway and capture essential moments of heartbreak and awareness in melancholy. A special focus needs to be laid on closer and title track “Gathering Swans” which has Choir Boy in full ballad mode, Klopp´s contemplating death and happiness and completely lovelorn. This could be the soundtrack to a suicide pact or the scribbled poetry of a 15 year old melancholic at the edge of confessing love or deciding to paint his nails black and be done with love altogether.

15. I Like Trains – Kompromat

Eight years after their last proper album, I Like Trains returned with Kompromat. For the first time, the band is extremely situated in the now. There is no need to go for historical reference and make songs about these days and tragedies. Kompromat deals with the tragedy of the present, Brexit, misinformation, Trump´s rule and the decline of democratic ideals by demagogues as a whole. While I Like Trains would have never taken on the task of making happier music or changed up their thematic focus for something that isn´t an expression of humanity's failings, their return on Kompromat feels urgent and calmer at once. The expression revels in post-punk and striking rock tunes while the post-rock influences build the background as ambiances or reverb-heavy guitars and climaxes. There is a huge amount of spite in their political songs with “A Man of Conviction” or “The Truth” painting the bleak reality of opportunistic politics and how these affect ideals of democracy and reasons themselves. The bands' politics have been clear since their first singles, but on Kompromat they embody a special kind of political activism in agitation, satire and pointing out failures that turn educational while bypassing entertainment for ultimate bleakness.

14. Oneohtrix Point Never – Magic: Oneohtrix Point Never

Daniel Lopatin answers the question of “can one project fill the airspace like a fully formed radio show?” with Magic and does thin in the unique synthesis of his variant styles and approaches stretching as far back as R Plus Seven. While Age Of spent its runtime addressing different vocal styles and perpetuating the ascent of a pop-minded Oneohtrix that grew out of decaying vaporwave spheres, on Magic Lopatin reproaches his turn away from the sprawling ambiance and maximalist leanings of R Plus Seven and Garden of Delete to invite his own vocals and those of various guest to between the noises of fantastical lands and ruptures digitalism of the early internet age. This is still the Oneohtrix Point Never that takes the stage with The Weeknd and crafts music for the biggest RnB star of the decade, but rather than making any concessions to his production and creative world, Magic plays like a soundtrack in which different chess pieces fall in line for the perfect stratagem. The eerie quality of being transported shines in between “No Nightmares” with Abel popping out of the experimental onslaught for an 80s throwback that exists in the psychedelia of the production and the mellow transformation of the drug fiend into an emotive singer. The last major records by Lopatin were soundtracks for the movies by the Safdie Brothers and his style went berserk in all directions on these offerings. Writing and composing for the visual visions of the gritty filmmakers opened up a space for all layers of his work to exist on the same plane and Magic, rather than being a conclusion to the shifts opens up new spaces of how Lopatin can influence today´s musical landscapes even further. Part Hans Zimmer, part basement ghoul perched behind his battlestation and part genius synth-man.

13. 21 Savage & Metro Boomin – Savage Mode II

After stopping to wonder how 21 Savage and Metro got none other than Morgan Freeman to narrate their gangster epic and philosophizing on the difference between snitches and rats, Savage Mode II bloomed to the definite album by the duo and especially 21 Savage as a lyricist and musician. His last solo album, I am greater than I was had all the makings of a great album, but in retrospect feels like the preparation for his greatest work yet. His lyrical style was always deeper than simple trap anthems and his bravado greater than his vocal capabilities in the past. Metro Boomin as the producer of the moment of most arguably of the decade was the only one to capture all nuances and elevate 21 to his greatest heights. Savage Mode II is a successful power grab and the best US hip hop album of 2020. The duo breaks their gloom and menace for smooth hits like “Mr. Right Now” or “Rich Nigga Shit”, instances of real growth for the voice of Savage and the pure playfulness Metro possess with a capable partner in tow. The gangster epics, strings included, hit just as hard and have lost the muck of their first offering. “Many Men” is spacious and off-sets the street-corner and drive-bys for the back office where fingers are cut and affiliates disappear after their final mistake. This spectrum makes Savage Mode II a genius journey, musical and lyrically, a tension-filled episode of the Wire crossed with the most gangster parts of The Godfather or Scarface. Freeman´s voice popping up as the universal narrator gives the album the feeling of being set in stone, the course of nature and the universe and both artists sitting comfortably on the throne after the slaughter has concluded.

12. Protomartyr – Ultimate Success Today

With an album title sounding like a business cults exclamation before sealing a deal with bloody cocaine noses, Protomaryr deliver their bleakest album with the most psychedelic sounds. The band invited jazz musicians and a woodwind section into their recording process, shaking up their usual drone crystal guitar setup with drawn-out sections of sax or trumpets fuzzing in line with the bass. Joe Casey in turn becomes the abject blues man codetalker, singing about the descent of society into chaos, police brutality and political agitation becoming the new normal and apathy ruling high. While his position as experiencing self was strong in the first albums, his narrative and witnessing eye has become the strong focus of their latest output, Casey being a kind of Nostradamus while Gree Ahee and the band as a whole carry the prophecy of a worse tomorrow through the airwaves. Ultimate Success Today shows the band growing in their pursuit of making sad music for people saddened by the state of the world and too distanced to kick into action. This, however, is the beauty of Protomartyr, the staying power of apathy yielding creativity.

11. Vatican Shadow – Persian Pillars of the Gasoline Era

There is a thematic and liminal shift when Persian Pillar´s B-Side, titled “Taking Iran´s Side” begins. After releasing a major fraction of his discography on vinyl last year, Dominick Fernow developed the secretive industrial outfit Vatican Shadow further with Persian Pillars of the Gasoline Era. Previously dealing almost exclusively with imaginary and themes surrounding the Golf Wars and Iraq as whole when touching on the middle east, here Iran and it´s space in recent history becomes Fernow´s playing field to spread his own line of misinformation and covert aural attacks. The short 17 minutes of the Iraq side feel like a rehash of everything the project has been doing: We get the slowly crushing opener “Predawn Coup D´Etat” that feels like the preparation and execution of a military operation condensed into a little under four minutes followed by the impending rescission of “Rehearsing For The Attack” where booming drum leads are overturned by ghostly synths and an eerie atmosphere of static. “Uncontrollable Oasis” goes for somber melancholy and lingering indignity of defeat as “Taxi Journey Through The Teeming Slums of Teheran” muffles its driving drumbeat for cascading metallic percussions. The repetitions and innuendo of the Iraq side, a psycho deluge of going back in to conquer, destroy and lose control again give way to the sinister respiration of Iran´s “Moving Secret Money”. This composition is removed from the industrial warfare of the first side, the conspirative ambiance layering over the driving beat and weaving in and out of perception. This long meditation on the back-room ferments of warfare transmutes into closer “Ayatollah Ferocity”, with Fernow going into full pyromancy mode within the claustrophobia of his drum programming. On these last tracks, Vatican Shadows is perfecting his craft in long-form compositions that rely as much on repetition as they do and subtle shifts of air. The thematic ideas here might remain veiled for everyone except Fernow himself, but here his worship of the drum machine and secretive ephemera signal to the listener a slow descent into the underbelly of cognition and awareness. As an entry into his overarching discography and in letting Justin Broadrick helm the mastering this is the most polished and concise any Vatican Shadow album has sounded since the inception of the project. With this newfound strength in craft any future thematic arc of the project is sure to inspire and arouse fear in the same length of a beat.

10. FUJI|||||||||||TA – iki / KŌMORI

You could most likely mistake the unusual instrument Fujita Yosuke, stylized as FUJI|||||||||||TA, for an electronically manipulated organ. The fluttering quality of his sound and the tender drone of the pipes seem otherworldly, restoring the celestial instrument not only to secular grounds but to nature itself. Fujita built his own organ consisting of eleven pipes (the number he recreates in his name!) without attaching keys to the pipes or any console to play the instrument. He does this by controlling the airflow of the pipes with an old blacksmith pump and through his hands alone (at least, my best guess). On iki, titled “breath” but with meanings reaching into aesthetics or denoting life as well, Fujita returns after nine years of mastering his own instrument with the most contemplative sounds imaginable. His recording of the pump's rhythmic movement starts of in “kenshiki” and builds the low-key structure of the whole record. As this is purely an organic instrument, the breathing sounds of the pump translate this sensation into a sort of meditation of breathing and life itself, with the warbling drones and high-pitched whistle filling the canvas with motion, affect and intelligence of being alive. Fujita´s other major work this year (he self-released an album called Hae as well) titled KŌMORI develops his work into the exploration of sounds unheard, hard to perceive while factual in their presence in the world. Here he recorded bats and their echolocation with a special microphone and built different compositions with or without his organ from this. He addresses the animal’s constant race against the multiple diseases their bodies carry and simply closes the album's liner notes with “my music also has to evolve”. The haunting beauty of combining the sound of bats with organ flows entirely together and feels like a duet than an edit itself. On Hae, Fujita does something similar to the sound of flies surrounding a meat-bound microphone and the effects are equally impressive. His work goes to show how much the organ as an instrument can evolve and alter our perception of nature and the environment itself. Apart from standing in churches, Fujita takes his organ into the world and with us as listeners tries to build a higher understanding of life altogether.

09. Werendia – Werendia

Sometimes you stumble upon pure gold by rummaging through Bandcamp via a tag. Werendia popped up while searching for more dungeon synth after days of listening to Old Tower releases. The tag alone doesn´t capture the emotional heft of this self-titled release by artists A. Virdeus and his attempt of aurally capturing his homeland Värend of the province Småland, Sweden with its rich middle-age history and nature. Using icy-synth that tether on desolate and uplifting and contributing tortured black metal inspired vocals buried in the mix, Werendia tackles the conceptualized images with snow drenched in blood. However, this perceived violence becomes a minor instance when the first track mutates into the second movement. After the initial blast and getting used to the abrasive nature, the album feels much more indebted to ideas of survival, facing the cold and reveling in the stark nature of the land. All imaginations aside, Virdeus crafted a genre-bending saga most likely from his bedroom and with a singular vision of homage in a language he is in full command of. This music always carries hints of the occult, medieval times, etc. which today always translates into videogames, movies and anime, but on Werendia the immersion of feeling at home in the lands and going out into nature outweighs these fantasies with continued listens. This is not so dungeon-synth as a further revival of decayed black metal vocal styles for the sake of being alive, closer to synth-pop and a certain kind of goth romanticism.

08. Hum – Inlet

Like many others missing self-awareness in the early '90s by a few years, I encountered Hum as the band´s band all great post-metal, alternative rock, post-punk et al. bands cited as a major influence. Constants and Junius and later Deafheaven name Hum and their unique blend of heavy space-rock as a starting point in their own explorations of heavy music with uplifting grace beneath. And this reference made sense when listening back on their first albums fronted by Talbott, especially Downward is Heavenward that marked the disappearance of the band. While existing again in the later 2000s to play shows, no one actually expected an album and the band did their best to gift us Inlet without much ado via Bandcamp. Saying that it feels like the band never left and time hasn´t passed, however, would be a disservice to the newfound ferocity and glacial clarity of the production on Inlet. This album simply wasn´t possible in the limbo of a band still being measured by their clout of Billboard charts or being constantly questioned in their lineage to dying grunge music. Talbott’s vocals and lyrical themes have grown exponentially with his production chops and this makes every track on Inlet an aural beauty in its embracing warmth and heaviness of every riff tearing into space. Inlet is an ode to all genres of hard-hitting and celestial rock music. It rekindles the sensation of youth and finding entirely resonant bands and music that step away from theatrics and mainstream sentimentality to create emotive life-worlds reflective of your own experiences. The biggest takeaway from the revival of Hum and Inlet is that this music will never die or go out of fashion, as a singular expression and as an inspiration for others to warp and modify to fit their own sense and heaviness.

07. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou – May Our Chambers Be Full | The Helm of Sorrow

A match made in heaven for those that needed Emma Ruth Rundle to descent into even darker chaos and the ones waiting for Thou to fully embrace their slew of post-grunge output like Rhea Sylvia or graverobbing Nirvana´s tracks to their own accord. May Our Chambers Be Full and the yet to be officially released The Helm of Sorrow see Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou collaborate on eleven visceral tracks of turmoil and weariness. ERR´s music has always been on the darker side of folk music and her subject matter is the perfect complement to Thou´s usual blend of optimist/pessimist existential horror of self-empowerment and revolt. Weaving her voice together with Bryan Funck the serene sadness of Rundle is supplemented by Funcks dejected banshee wails to great effect, the heaviness of the collaboration is not simply in the sound of heavy riffs and earth-shattering feedback itself, but in the dynamic and density of binding these disparate parts through the band. For all the collaborations and explorations, Thou have done in their time and their solo-working blooming in variant distinct directions with each release, with Emma Ruth Rundle their confidence radiates in its sludginess. Transgressing ideas of heavy music and metal, in general, might be perceived as their most obvious MO, but on both records, it becomes abundantly clear that this is much rather an aftereffect of their musical (and visual) exploration of shortchanging binary thinking for momentary revelations in melancholy.

06. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

On Saint Cloud, Waxahatchee finds a new plane of existence, phasing in and out of her bodily experience to put the sensuous world into motion on a record. While this deep engagement with her environment and the feelings of love, hate and crises of identity was never far from her writing and album output, the point of finding sobriety and age make Saint Cloud a transferal of finally feeling again and being undisturbed by the pressure of functioning or altering your perception to subsist while lessening the pain. Here Katie Crutchfield floats again and makes After The Storm the odd album of her discography that went into a more complicated situation as a musician dealing with relationships of all kinds with; too much fuzz and constructed songs that tighten around the chest. On songs like “Fire” or “Ruby Falls” Crutchfield practices the eyes of a child method and build an ontology of her own through simple chords, piano melodies or the slight hum of a slide guitar. Her assurance of being ok surmounts the struggle of loving and losing and dispatches right toward the listener from every track. Trauma, addiction and self-hurt in its many psychological and physical forms have been present in Waxahatchee's music since American Weekend but here, for the first time, the project is brimming wit resolution and a deep-seated complacency of being.

05. DJ Python – Mas Amable

From the early morning harmony of the first track to the psychedelic acknowledgment of the hopelessness of life on “ADMSDP” by poet LA Warman, the beat embracing her breathy voice, reminding you of your bodily presence in the face of meaninglessness, Mas Amable is a transcendental evisceration and recreation of self with dem-bow rhythms and opaque ambiance. The album flows together to form one 50 minute track, with movement for movement leading up to the first hushes of humane presence by LA Warman and again leading into a percussive waltz that turns cyclical for a continuous looping experience. DJ Python dedicating this album to his friend and building a short scene of seeing them, making a soup with “sazon” – by just going along to create something beautiful – captures the essence of his approach, weaving, adding and subtracting for a wholistic experience of a warm embrace in the face of the apathy of everyday life. This is Mas Amable in the nutshell and serves as one of the highlights of the expressions of musical transference and the ephemerality of beauty in a world that was stricken with unyielding hardship.

04. Jesu – Terminus

Heartache stands as one of the LPs in my collection, that I needed to buy for its impact on my musical journey. As a surprise find through the internet, without knowing anything about Godflesh or who Justin K. Broadrick was, Heartache grappled with my very understanding of heaviness and sadness in music and totally obliterated my sense of self on first listen. After this, Jesu and Broadrick have been a presence in my life, as music, producer or point of reference for those making incredible art. After the collaborations with Mark Kozelek and a mellower Every Day I Get Closer To The Light From Which I Came, Terminus is the stoic return to droning and more reverberant iterations of Jesu´s signature blend of luminosity within obscurity. “When I Was Small” is the sparse starting point very much in the vein of Jesu´s self-titled LP and Mark Kozelek´s influences in letting chords resonate in as much space as possible with simple remarks and conclusions. Terminus picks up with “Alone” in more electronic and operatic trajectories with the title track stopping this ascend for a derelict ten-minute downer of admitting stunted growth and repeated failures while the guitar whirrs in the void. “Sleeping In” continues this admittance of failure in a way only Jesu was capable of for over 15 years and turns to “Consciousness” in another floating electronic exercise of solitude and affliction. The sweetest moments pass in “Disintegrating Wings” with the ambiance departing into huge but solitary riffs, transitioning into another singer-songwriter-esque elegy of “Don´t Wake Me Up”. “Give Up” concludes in a short throwback to the electronic prowess of early Jesu and how his molding of drums and melancholy set apart this project from the industrial villainy of Godflesh. Terminus is an album full of solitude and grievances about yourself and Broadrick translates this gorgeously while retreading his Jesu project from its inception to the present. I can only imagine the sense of isolation and anxiety Broadrick lives through to come to these songs, but the edifying nature of his music hopefully works as a therapeutic moment, a chance at understanding and living with these negative aspects of life.

03. Sumac – May You Be Held

Ending their set with the only message to their audience, Aaron Turner usually makes a statement of saying that his music is about love, growth and becoming a better person. While this statement becomes apparent when following the many interviews Turner gives us a way to enlighten his process in creating Sumac and churning out albums in quick succession, the music itself shines as an enigma of free-flowing intensities of bass, drum, guitar and vocals under the umbrella of metal transgressing into a form that resembles free-jazz. In many twist and turns, on May You Be Held, and after their stellar Love in Shadow and deeper engagement with improvisation itself, Sumac turn towards making an album consisting of two major compositions framed by a shorter statement piece and atmospheric opening and ending tracks. This record is about love, finding it and giving it in a world that is wrought with pain and turmoil. It is hard to listen and read along to the lyrics of “May You Be Held” and not understand Turner´s imaginary of conflict and burned bodies in the contexts of war and civilian casualties. He concludes the track with an actual prayer for something that has yet to step into existence, a vista of harmonious life in which this harm is offset by kindness. You can hear the new father in this, wishing for a better world for his own and others in understanding the preciousness of life condensed into a being one is able to hold in both hands, and you can hear this transformative gesture in the music of the band, the density burgeoning into an atmosphere of pure ecstasy of noise and presence. After their first album Sumac have been pursuing a clear path of making positive music within the realm and methods of harsh metal music and every further entry speaks of the perfection of craft they continue to grow. In their ability to dissolve the boundaries of hard sounds and atmospheres from anything that could be considered metal music at its most standard, Sumac like contemporaries the body or Thou create unfeigned beacons of musical expression speaking of humanity and existence.

02. Nothing – The Great Dismal

Two years after Dance on The Blacktop, Nothing return with The Great Dismal, their fastest and most droning album to date. Dominic Palermo´s outlook on life hasn´t changed much and his expression of the ceaseless tragedy of life and living pummel you in the sensation of crawling in the dirt and looking for answers. The best moments arise when this modus operandi finds lighter moments or more tongue-in-cheeks expressions such as on “Catch A Fade”, with Palermo dismissively begging God for some relief in his drug-filled world-weariness. Other moments include the comically named “Bernie Sanders” about taking drugs in Japan that the band used in full effect to get people to vote, acting as a voice of reason in their own infestations of lacking reasons for betterment. The psychedelic duo of “In Blueberry Memories” and “Blue Mecca” are the best shoegaze offerings in the band’s discography, with serenity in their loud abjections and storytelling of better places never reached. “Ask The Rust” as the closer brings the band to heavier territory again, their dread giving way to purer catharsis in volume and the skepticism of god and something other than failure giving way to acceptance in the fragility of it all. Overall, The Great Dismal, as described by referencing not a black hole but a swamp, is a tale of survival counter the circumstances life throws at you. If humanity can be reflected in nature, the swamp feels an apt metaphor; odiferous, hazardous and yet brimming with life and millions of little lifeforms doing what they can to push forward.

01. Shabjdeed and Al Nather – SINDIBAD EL WARD (From Ramallah To Jerusalem, And Back)

Initially released in 2019, Hundebiss released this low-key piece of history on vinyl in 2020. The duo of rapper Shabjdeed and producer Al Nather operating as part of the Palestinian record label and collective BLTNM are the formidable expressions of how trap music has become a global mode of life, music and a method of expression for those exploited and downtrodden by hegemony but fully aware of their energy and power. While the lyrics remain inaccessible for me, various interview and soundbites by the duo about their music-making in Ramallah as Palestinian youth reveal their chagrin at being posed as victims of circumstance and having to use their music in a way to wallow in their oppression as such. Sindibad El Ward is a feat of strength and resilience without the call for charity, being political by simply being and creating. More indebted to what Future, Young Thug or to some extend T-Pain have been doing in their usage of autotune for rap than to any politically agitated rappers, Shabjdeed´s delivery lives by his rapid-fire verses in constant danger of drifting off into pure artifice. The emotional quality of this effect lives a second life here, just a Future becomes the hollow bluesman in his album, Shabjdeed captures his urgency and agency as a man living his life under oppression and the threat of violence with nuance and extensive vigor. His performances find life especially through Al Nather´s colorful palette of warbling bassline, tight kicks and use of the right mix of hospitable synth-leads. Admittedly, there is a feeling of throwback in his beats and the notion of deja-vu to presets of yesteryear, but what feels like golden-era generics is a keen understanding of his partner's flows and word patterns, the singing erupting into bars and carving space within the composition. As Drake and other rappers are embracing international iterations into their own workspace for the sake of appeal and avoidance of repetition, these upwards trickles rarely yield deeper changes in the years to come. You might establish the flute as a guiding instrument or hear some dancehall in 2021, but the staying power remains adhesive to trends and changing moods, not instincts of survival. The BLTNM collective have put their foot down over a year ago and I hope their play in the wider world and the genre's progression will be felt.