Honorable Mention:
Video: "Julia Take Your Man Home"
The Cool Greenhouse - The Cool Greenhouse
Exemplary of the album at large, centrepiece "Dirty Glasses" invites you to view the world from the band’s own, uniquely specific, perspective. Through a strange tale of dinner with Margaret Thatcher and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek, Greenhouse admits, with a long, drawn out pause, that “the purpose of this band is to offer a glasses cleaning service, at a very reasonable price” (The Line of Best Fit).Video: "Dirty Glasses"
Allegra Kreiger - the Joys of Forgetting
The Joys Of Forgetting is a remarkable album. It feels cohesive and coherent despite a huge variety in musical texture and style. It is full of strings that never overwhelm Krieger’s guitar, and the up close fingerpicking frames the songs in polyrhythmic melody. The production is impeccable, and Allegra Krieger is an expressive performer. (Everything is Noise)Video: "Come in"
Kiwi Jr. - Football Money
The band brings a vigorous energy to their quirky sentiments as they walk through their surroundings, instilling a comical bent at any opportunity. Even if they know that the farther they go, the better it is to stop for a second and just be in the moment. (No Ripcord)Video: "Gimme More"
Black Dresses- Peaceful as Hell
This album doesn’t slow down; Black Dresses’ incredible combination of twee indie pop and noise music really succeeds here. (Still Listening)
Video: Beautiful Friendship
(1/12/21 - Addition)
BackxWash - God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It
God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It feels like that rare art: devastatingly honest, creatively crafted, and hauntingly beautiful, it’s the type of thing that could save a life on the intersection of identity, and save the minds of those who’ve closed theirs to the plight of others before. (Counterzine)
Samia - The Baby
This is a release of artfully constructed, seamlessly great indie-rock that could get easily passed by. Samia has the presence of someone effortlessly classy and commanding, which makes this project all the more appealing. (No Ripcord)
10) Sports Team - Deep Down Happy
Combining the spirit of Britpop with the attitude of modern day post punk, tracks like “Going Soft” , “Here It Comes Again” and the familiar cries of “Camel Crew” and “Kutcher”, swell, expand and know just when to pull the pin into an eruption of chaos. (The Line of Best Fit)Video: "Feels Like Fun"
9) Sweeping Promise -- Hunger for a Way Out
Hunger for a Way Out, the debut album by Boston post-punk duo Sweeping Promises, is idiosyncratic in the (brilliant) extreme; recorded, as the Bandcamp description notes, in an unused concrete laboratory using a proprietary “single-mic technique,” it’s set in a sonic world all its own. All it takes to get you there is that first cymbal crash and a half-strangled guitar lick, but it spends ten solid tracks drawing you further in, as they boil new-wave neuroticism down to a science--and they make it so much fun. (Post-Trash)Video: "Cross Me Out"
8) Andy Schauf -- The Neon Skyline
Throughout the record, Shauf’s warm melodies and dry humour make the atmosphere inside The Neon Skyline feel tangible. The brilliance of unrushed pub talk is captured on ‘Dust Kids’ (“Have I ever talked to you about reincarnation?”, a friend asks); and when the narrator’s old love finally arrives at the bar, the pair’s conversational missteps are delicately observed.(Loud and Quiet)Video: "Neon Skyline"
7) Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics
Across these infectious eight tracks clocking in at thirty-two minutes, Choy and his cohort throw everything at the canvas. As well as their familiar late 1970s-era post-punk leanings, we’re treated to well-executed experiments in funk, grunge, rock orchestration, and hip-hop. (The Quietus)Video: "Post Truth (Birth of a Nation)"
6) Special Interest - The Passion Of
Special Interest are a force of nature. Watch any live videos of the New Orleans synth-punk band (which will have to do since they, like all bands, won’t be playing in your town anytime soon) and witness the energy and ferocity of a band whose blood runs with the angst and agitation of hardcore punk at its most primal and, perhaps more surprisingly, the pulse of techno and industrial. (TrebleZine)Video: "Street Pulse Beat"
5) Touche Amore - Lament
Lament continues to prove that Touché Amoré is a force to be reckoned with. Their songwriting abilities and haunting lyrics that touch on intense subjects and themes are deepened on this record. They certainly have become masters of their craft and required listening in the post-hardcore genre. (Get Alternative)Video: "Savoring"
4) Stay Inside - Viewing
Stay Inside’s sound is a grand, clangorous, romantic take on the emo and post-hardcore of the late-’90s. They write big melodies and howl them out over heavy guitars and oblique rhythm-section churns. There are moments of great serenity on Viewing, and there are also big buildups of serrated catharsis. Sometimes, those moments are the same. (Stereogum)Video: "Silt"
3) Blake Scott -- Niscitam
If the work of The Peep Tempel was a sledgehammer, Niscitam is a spell. (Junkee)Video: "A Fever"
2) Winterreise - Jerskin Fendrix
The strangest, creepiest, and best pop album of the year. After many, many listens, we’re still not quite sure what’s happening on Winterreise; all we know is that it sounds fucking amazing. (Loud and Quiet)Video: "Oh God"
1) Idles - Ultra Mono
No gripes here as IDLES deliver their most consistent album to date with a handful of their most rough-cut diamonds sparkling through. (No Ripcord)Video: "A Hymn"
Booyah!!!
