Favorite Albums of 2020

Tis the season for recounting the music I most enjoyed over the course of the year. If you, like me, crave ambitious music that covers the full-breadth of human emotion all while pushing the envelope of what's possible in music, then you are sure to enjoy at least some of the entries on this list.

For a few recommended sample tracks from each of the records mentioned below, be sure to check out the dedicate spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3zJX99On0ndjHklWKLMC2Z?si=q2eQuLnRQqCD-z1zdQobEQ

16. Novena - Eleventh Hour

Novena are a newly formed English progressive rock and metal supergroup which features, most prominently, the spoken word poetry of Gareth Mason (of Slice the Cake fame) and the vocals of progressive music royalty Ross Jennings (of Haken Fame). Despite the combined powers of heaven and hell, the record admittedly falls far short of its potential. Still, there is enough beautiful, aggresive, and interesting music here to make my list.

15. Code Orange - Underneath

Underneath is an absolutely terrifying display of metalcore rage and experimental industrial horror. Considered by many outlets to be one of the best metal records of 2020, I personally find the melodic post-hardcore/emo songs to be woefully underwhelming when compared to the record's heavier and more experimental tracks.

14. Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways

On Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan's coarse, battered, and altogether rustic vocals are either contrasting spectacularly with some calm emotive chord progression or adding a heavy punch to some classic rock 'n roll banger. Traigcally, the lyrics can often be quite cringey. And some of the songs drag on for way too long. But this is still a worthwhile addition to the Dylan cannon.

13. White Walls - Grandeur

Nothing less than a definitive showcasing of modern progressive metal; but also not much more. Heavy groovy riffs, deep growls juxtaposed to gentle melodies, and big ambient choruses all in the vein of the modern greats like Periphery, Tesseract, and The Ocean.

12. Mekong Delta - Tales of a Future Past

A blend of symphonic power metal and thrash, the music on the record fosters of strong sense of imminent danger that is manifesting just out of sight, though never quite materializing. This seems to fit quite nicely with the lyrical concept of the record about the discovery of a long-lost civilization and the warnings its demise has for the present day.

11. Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

Definitely the most bizzare record on this list, Oranssi Pazuzu is part of a growing movement of black metal acts turning to psychedelia and post-rock for inspiration. Mestarin Kynsi is a masterclass in how to build up and release tension in aggressive but still meditative music. Unfortunately, the band's decision to keep their black metal vocals detract immensely from what would otherwise be a much higher rated album for me.

10. Griot - Elisabeth

Elisabeth offers listeners an ambitious and sonically diverse listening experience that respectfully draws from classic progressive rock acts while still maintaining a modern edge. While the record features every keyboard sound from mellotrons and moogs, it is often the straight piano-lead chord progressions that steal the show providing beautiful and imagantive harmonies to.

9. The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic

Phanerozoic II is the the third and ostensibly final installment of a trilogy of albums, the first being 2007’s Precambrian and the second being 2018’s Phanerozoic. This essentially completes the band’s ambitious attempt to cover, via their music, the entire natural history of planet earth from its fiery inception, its multiple dramatic and tragic extermination events, and all the way through to the present geological age. Of course, the geological history functions, on all three records, as a meditation and, at times, extended metaphor for man’s place in the entirely incomprehensible and cyclic vastness of creation. While not as strong as the previous two records in the saga, it is still a diverse offering and a fitting closure to it all.

8. Transcend - Balance I (EP)

Despite formally being an “EP,” Balance I is more of a lean LP that makes the absolute most of its “short” 36-minute run time packing in beautiful melodies, ethnic world music influences, and ambience with punchy modern metal riffs and instrumentals. The Devin Townsend worship at the eight-and-a-half-minute mark on “A Parellel Reflection I” followed by a mashup of a muezzin’s adhan (i.e. Islamic call to prayer) and some envelope filter synth bass are a real highlight.

7. Stone Temple Pilots - Perdida

These grunge and alternative legends always had a knack for injecting their sound with a unique color not shared or replicated by their grunge and post-grunge peers. Perdida is no exception to this. Where Perdida does break with STP tradition is in its being an almost entirely folk record without a distorted guitar riff in sight. The result is a staggeringly beautiful reflection on tragedy and the necessity hope in tragedy's wake.

6. Chaos Divine - Legacies

Chaos Divine are one of the most lovable metal bands to emerge from Australia’s metal boom of the last decade. Songs are characterized by meaty guitar riffs and choruses with the big open sounding chords accompanied by vocalist David Anderton’s arena rock wailing. The arrangements strike an ideal balance between heaviness and beauty. I find myself resisting the urge to simply play outro of “Beacon” on repeat for hours on end.

5. Oceans of Slumber - Oceans of Slumber

An admittedly challening blend of female soulful vocals against a doom metal backdrop, Oceans of Slumber is a record that plants seeds in your ear that steadily grow and wrap themselves around the record's sound until you are unable to pull yourself away from it. This record is haunting, heavy, and beautiful in the best way possible. That some of the sections on this record are still imepenetrable to me is why it does not rank higher.

4. Elder - Omens

Elder is, for me personally, a top 5 favorite band to emerge in the last decade or so. Brandishing a flawless discography, Omens sees the group venture further and further away from their sludgy roots and towards a more pyschedelic and classic prog sound. Lush chords backed by mellotron and Moog synth lines are peiodically interspersed with big riffs generating a truly ambitiou and epic sound that is unmatched by any other artist.

3. Pain of Salvation - Panther

Goosebumps, pure body rattling goosebumps is exactly what I felt upon hearing “Unfuture,” the second track on Panther. Daniel Gildenlöw and company employ menacing synths and somewhat muddied production to create an engrossing Blade Runner like dystopian vibe. As with any POS album, the lyrics present us with a well-developed and thematically significant story. The opening track “Accelerator,” which seemingly starts us off at the end of the story, has our protagonist, a quick minded misfit, facing down the measured and stoic establishment and challenging its narrative of how the world around them all has begun to go up in flames. The album proceeds to detail how it is we came to this point.

2. Intronaut - Fluid Existential Inversions

Sludgy riffs interpsered with trippy and beautiful pyschedelic passages, Intronaut have, on their latest record, perfected their formula.

1. Intervals - Circadian

How can music be this technically sophisticated yet so melodic, colorful, and imaginative at the same time? On this latest latest record, Aaron Marshall, the guitar virtuoso mastermind behind Intervals, takes his signature blend of Steve Vai-inspired lead guitar, djenty rhythm sections, and pop-punk-inspired melodies to their greatest heights.