Honorable Mentions:
Third Eye Blind - Screamers
"Overall, Screamer is better than a sixth Third Eye Blind album ever needed to be." (Pitchfork)
Boy Harsher - Careful
"Overall, though, this record leaves quite the impression; if uneasy listening is your thing, Boy Harsher’s murky interpretation of dead disco will envelop you in its dark delights." (The Line of Best Fit)
Operators - Radiant Dawn
"It’s music for a nightclub in a moon colony. It’s music for a retro-futuristic recreation of an Eastern Europe metropolis that never quite existed. It’s music for an encroaching dystopia." (Stereogum)
10) Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel
"The are several ways in which, amid a swarm of industry buzz, Ireland's Fontaines DC have been described. Depending on the article, they're a bunch of misty-eyed poets, extolling the virtues of Keats and Joyce like a bunch of rag-tag Morrisseys with dirtier shoes. Or they're the next in line to tour mates IDLES' throne - a biting, visceral live force who've already taken over SXSW in a barrage of amp-scaling and high-intensity mosh pits. Or, they're some true Irish lads, cut from the innate emerald cloth of the homeland: prick them and they bleed Guinness.
The real Beauty of Fontaines DC, however, is that they're all of these things and more." (DIY mag)
Video: "Liberty Belle"
9) Grand Salvo - Sea Glass
"This richly allegorical album explores how a single, vivid memory can shape who we are; resurfacing and altering our thoughts and recollections as the years go by. The album’s very structure is an approximation of how such a memory is forged; each song radiates out from a seed memory which unfolds like a lotus jewel in Field of Flowers, the second-last song and the only “straight” narrative song of this remarkable album. The album then closes with Standing On The Sea, a dreamlike journey on the beach that uncovers “a shard of sand smoothed emerald glass / and a change in the light”, layering the dreams of childhood and the memories of adulthood into a woozy contemplation of eternity and the cyclic, ever evolving nature of memory."
9) Grand Salvo - Sea Glass
"This richly allegorical album explores how a single, vivid memory can shape who we are; resurfacing and altering our thoughts and recollections as the years go by. The album’s very structure is an approximation of how such a memory is forged; each song radiates out from a seed memory which unfolds like a lotus jewel in Field of Flowers, the second-last song and the only “straight” narrative song of this remarkable album. The album then closes with Standing On The Sea, a dreamlike journey on the beach that uncovers “a shard of sand smoothed emerald glass / and a change in the light”, layering the dreams of childhood and the memories of adulthood into a woozy contemplation of eternity and the cyclic, ever evolving nature of memory."
8) Richard Dawson - 2020
"He’s not that easy to pin down, and it’s sometimes hard to think of his output as entertaining, but rather access to an inner monologue that we probably shouldn’t have. Sometimes I feel like he’s a sort of ultra-violent Les Dawson. He’s hugely witty, but dark as fuck. His lyricism is, frankly, wonderful. He deals explicitly in the rich vein of pathos that comes lurking always in the everyday." (The Quietus)
Video: "Jogging"
7) Alex Cameron - Miami Memory
"Australian singer/songwriter Alex Cameron developed a persona of the same name over the course of several albums of dark, depraved narratives set to '80s-modeled synth pop. Listening closely to the raw tales Cameron spun in his songs was a wild ride. At times you could almost smell the cheap cologne as he sang about sleazy after-hours scenes, Internet romance, and the general bleakness and failures of his self-named character. With third album Miami Memory, Cameron doesn't dial back the depraved nature of his lyrics, but he pushes them to new places as they evolve to explore divorce, sex workers, parenthood, and other surprisingly mature theme." (Allmusic)
Video: "Too Far"
6) Brutus - Nest
"Most bands would be lucky to have either a drummer or a singer as viscerally talented as Stefanie Mannaerts. Brutus has both within a single human body. Limbs, lungs, and all, Mannaerts is the elemental force that powers Nest’s 11 tracks. No slouches themselves, her bandmates build out Mannaerts’ bashing and howling into world-swallowing rock songs so pulverizing they couldn’t possibly be pop and so catchy that it doesn’t feel quite right to call them heavy metal. However you categorize it, it’s one of the most exhilarating rock records in a long time. " (Stereogum)
6) Brutus - Nest
"Most bands would be lucky to have either a drummer or a singer as viscerally talented as Stefanie Mannaerts. Brutus has both within a single human body. Limbs, lungs, and all, Mannaerts is the elemental force that powers Nest’s 11 tracks. No slouches themselves, her bandmates build out Mannaerts’ bashing and howling into world-swallowing rock songs so pulverizing they couldn’t possibly be pop and so catchy that it doesn’t feel quite right to call them heavy metal. However you categorize it, it’s one of the most exhilarating rock records in a long time. " (Stereogum)
Video: "Space"
5) Julia Jacklin - Crushing
"Ah. Shucks. Grunge-rinsed, feminist-flipped, upcycled Fifties guitar an’ all: Crushing is a triumph." (The Independent)
"Ah. Shucks. Grunge-rinsed, feminist-flipped, upcycled Fifties guitar an’ all: Crushing is a triumph." (The Independent)
Video: "Head Alone"
4) Mannequin Pu$$y - Patience
"Even when Mannequin Pussy venture to truly dark places, Patience is such a pure joy to listen to. In its biggest moments, Dabice’s raw edge is matched by equally colossal riffs, explosive energy, and surging momentum. Patience, is without a doubt, one of the year’s strongest punk rock records." (Pitchfork)
"Even when Mannequin Pussy venture to truly dark places, Patience is such a pure joy to listen to. In its biggest moments, Dabice’s raw edge is matched by equally colossal riffs, explosive energy, and surging momentum. Patience, is without a doubt, one of the year’s strongest punk rock records." (Pitchfork)
"I’ll admit this at the beginning—I have no idea what black midi sounds like. After seeing them at South By Southwest this year, I tried, and failed, to nail it down: “They’re simultaneously an art rock act, a post-punk group, a noise band, a free-jazz ensemble, and an improvisational outfit that’s somehow both tight and loose at the same time.” I later described them as “Parquet Courts-meets-a-free-jazz-combo-with-Donny-from-The Wild Thornberries-as-a-lead-singer” and meant it as a compliment. A friend who disliked their KEXP session from Iceland Airwaves 2018 (one of the only videos of the band available online until recently) said it sounded like two layered Korn songs mixed by a pretentious art school kid." (Paste)
Video: "bmbmbm"
It feels like there’s little more to say about David’s place in the world right now that he hasn’t already said himself. Some of his incredible turns of phrase seem to have been written for this awful moment. But know that they weren't. They were written in lieu of this moment, to replace this moment, showing the world (and himself) that maybe he didn't truly know what was going to happen next."
(Drag City)
Video: "All my happiness is gone"
Video: "bmbmbm"
2) TFS - Braindrops
1) Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains
"David's brilliant work, his songs, poems and cartoons, were disguised as entertainments. In fact, wherever those works were transmitted they engendered great responses of joy and comfort and a recognition of seismic empathy beyond words. In the long run this will perhaps be the most important part of what we all agreed so long ago that we were doing together.
“I've invented fake news as a genre of music,” Gareth Liddiard observes with a laugh. He’s talking about “Maria 63”, the closing track on Tropical Fuck Storm’s sophomore LP Braindrops. The song takes aim at the once-marginalized alt-right conspiracy theories that now seem to be a driving force behind the rise of fascism in global politics. “It’s about a Mossad agent traveling to Buenos Aires to assassinate Maria Orsic, a Nazi witch who telepathically got the blueprints for warp drive engines from aliens,” Liddiard shares.
“It may be the most stupid song ever written,” Liddiard jokes. He’s wrong, “Maria 63” is emblematic of Tropical Fuck Storm’s keen ability to mine the extreme edge of pop culture’s periphery for potent musical and conceptual spice. Braindrops overflows with compelling sounds and visions that reflect the often dark and fractured reality of life on planet Earth as we hurtle toward environmental and social decay at a frighteningly rapid clip.
“It may be the most stupid song ever written,” Liddiard jokes. He’s wrong, “Maria 63” is emblematic of Tropical Fuck Storm’s keen ability to mine the extreme edge of pop culture’s periphery for potent musical and conceptual spice. Braindrops overflows with compelling sounds and visions that reflect the often dark and fractured reality of life on planet Earth as we hurtle toward environmental and social decay at a frighteningly rapid clip.
Video: "Braindrops"
1) Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains
It feels like there’s little more to say about David’s place in the world right now that he hasn’t already said himself. Some of his incredible turns of phrase seem to have been written for this awful moment. But know that they weren't. They were written in lieu of this moment, to replace this moment, showing the world (and himself) that maybe he didn't truly know what was going to happen next."
(Drag City)
Video: "All my happiness is gone"
