My Top Ten Albums of 2020

 While the world around us went to Hell, I used a constant influx of awesome music to stay sane. There were A LOT of great records this year, here are my favorite ten.

Manuel Gagneux has proven he's not going anywhere, and on Wake of a Nation - an EP with a more robust run-time than some albums - he's begun to shift his work from clever Alt-History to a poignant contemplation on current global events to chilling, heart-pound results.

I've never cared too much about RTJ's other albums - none of it's bad, but none of it is irreplaceable to me - but THIS! Partially because of when it dropped, partially because of how it dropped, partially because they refuse to participate in all the Hip Hop tropes that make me skeptical of the genre, and especially because it's just that good. Killer Mike and El-P can both rhyme like madmen - a lost art if you do a quick who's who of the 'name brands' of rap at the moment - and on top of it, they can actually do so eloquently on pretty much every urgent topic of the day.

Two years ago, when I fell in love with Ms. Rundle's music, it never would have dawned on me how well it would mesh with Thou's. Imagine my pleasant surprise then when the first track from this album dropped. To Thou is one of those "Beautifully brutal" bands that transcend any genre or classification for me, and something about their stoic sonic textures meshes perfectly with Emma Ruth Rundle's dark, contemplative musings.

The most 'balls out' record I heard this year. Infinitely repeatable and perfectly balanced between hooking you and punching you in the goddamn face.

I can't even believe the range on display here. One might have thought Greg Puciato's first solo record would have come out sounding a bit like Black Queen and DEP in a blender.

One would be perfectly incorrect. This is... an evolution not many metal frontmen could ever pull off. I remember the days when I could see Mike Patton's influence on Greg Puciato. Now I only see his own personal creative resilience. 

Recontextualizing so many different sounds from Heavy Music's last twenty-five years: I hear Alice in Chains, I hear Fear Factory, I hear Bungle, I hear Slipknot. Only, that's not all I hear. I also hear a template for a band that sounds like none of those things exactly and nothing like anything I've heard before. And I want more.

The first Bungle album in twenty years is a redux of their demo - which I never gave a shit about listening to even at my most rabid Bungle fan stage - and it's being re-worked and performed with Thrash Icons Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian? There was simply no way this one didn't make it onto the list. Also the best concert of the year, although of course, there haven't been any concerts since about three weeks after I saw them, so that may be slightly skewed.

This band reminds me so much of the kind of bands I couldn't get enough of in the late 90s. I loved the first Exhalants record, then they went and deepened their sound into this and I had to do a double-take. These guys are for fucking real and I will follow them to the ends of the Earth. Which, incidentally, might not be that long to follow them for, but still. 

Another band that just can't do anything wrong. The Deftones continue to push the edges of their sound in unexpected directions, and while there's no mistaking this for anything but a Deftones record, ain't nothing wrong with that at all.

And actually, as my friend Jacob pointed out, there is at least one passage that could easily lead one to believe the tracks had unexpectedly rotated over to a Vangelis song.

I guess I needed some beauty in my life this year, and Fleet Foxes Shore definitely qualifies as the most beautiful new album I heard in 2020. 

It was a weird year, and some of these records I didn't even listen to as much as you would think for them to make such an impression on me. But I've begun spending a good deal of time on narrative podcasts and audiobooks, as well as a fixation on a lot of music that predates 2020. Maybe then, the less-listened to entries on this list won their spot by making such a large impression in so few listens? 

Me and that Nergal

 

I've had a feeling this would happen eventually. Previously, even before I discovered Me and That Man, I tried on several occasions to find what it was about Behemoth that people had become so fanatical about. Unlike Frontman and Brainspring Nergal's more recent project, I just could never relate to it. Behemoth always left me cold, and not in a good way. Friday morning, however, a random algorithmic playlist by Apple Music rotated "Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel" through my ears and suddenly, I got it. 

I've only consumed 2014's highly lauded The Satanist thus far, but the momentum behind that first go-through is enough to have me chomping at the bit for more. Behemoth has a very specific sound, or at least that's how I hear it and why I ended up falling into it so hard. It has a lot to do with the way the bass guitar is played, recorded, and mixed in relation to everything else, but moving out from there, the guitars, drums, vocals, and other accompanying instrumentation feel very much arranged or composed, as opposed to assembled by more conventional means.

---

---

---

Watch:

 

Wow. Not only did I find this small peak into Orville Peck's life fascinating, but Alfred Marroquín's direction is as beautiful and moving as Peck's narration. I've avoided watching or learning too much about Peck's life, as I think his enigmatic persona compliments the deserted Lynchian Highway of his music. Marroquin balanced exactly the right amount of 'behind the curtain' with spectacle here, and this short Doc is all the better for it.

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Behemoth - The Satanist

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis

David Bowie - Live Nassau Coliseum '76

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Anthrax - Among the Living

Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

---

---

---

Card:

 

Motivation and Drive, which feels spot-on as several projects ramp up here, at the end of what feels like a top-heavy year, as far as productiveness is concerned. There's a feeling of acceleration as we head into the new year, almost an unruliness. Looking at the Prince of Wands, reading the almost out-of-control momentum on the card's face, I'm reminded that recklessness can negate ambition quite easily.

Down When I'm Not

This song literally makes me feel like I'm twenty-five years old again, about to head out with my friends for a night of adventure. 

When I set out to find the track above from Greg Puciato's Child Soldier: Creator of God and ended up finding this collaboration between Puciato and Jesse Draxler. I'm not gonna lie; I'd been putting off deep-diving into this record for the last few months because I wasn't sure where my head would be in relation to this project, which I'd been hearing mixed things about. I knew I would like it, but I wanted to LOVE it. And I guess I waited until the exact right moment because after two full listens, I'm floored. Also, reading about the album, I was reminded of Puciato's Federal Prisoner label, and in looking up their youtube channel, found this little curiosity.

 

I love what this man is doing! The dissolution of The Dillinger Escape Plan a few years ago filled me with nervous, awful energy. They'd been a mainstay in my life, both live and on record, for nearly two decades; when I fell out of most heavy music, they never waned in my heart. I'm happy as hell to see Greg Puciato doing something I consider pretty extraordinary in his post-DEP life. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

The Ocean - Phanerozoic II

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...

Fleet Foxes - Shore

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Bullshit Vol. 1

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Michael Kiwanuka - Kiwanuka

---

---

---

Card:

Interesting to get a card that signals completion and success at this exact moment when my Beta Reader is back on track and about to finish the penultimate reading of Murder Virus. My original plan to release the book this year have transitioned into a 'first quarter' scheduling for 2021, and I do believe the finished product will be all the better for it.

Slow News Day in Jersey

 

I'm not a huge Fankie Valley and the Four Seasons fan, but this song... this is one of those songs that I've been hearing my whole life and never realized, until a couple of years ago, just how awesome it is. I like some other tunes from Mr. Valley's catalog, but this? This is my favorite.

---

---

---

Watch:

How fitting that, last weekend, when K asked if we could watch Jersey Boys, I trepidatiously agreed. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't what we got. This movie's pretty damn great. Props to Clint Eastwood for making it. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Tiamat - Clouds

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

James Last - Christmas Dancing

I finished The Black Tapes Podcast yesterday, and while I can't say I liked the ending very much, A) it's open, and B) the journey is MORE than worth it. This is still a podcast I would very strongly recommend. 

---

---

---

Card:

 

Simple, symmetrical alignment.

Carpenter Brut and David Eugene Edwards

 

 

Carpenter Brut and David Eugene Edwards? Holy cow. I can't wait to see if anything more comes of this, because I love this track. Edwards brings that spiritually stoic sound that his haunted career in 16 Horsepower led to once he started Wovenhand (reminder to self - it's been too long since I checked in on that particular project). Will we get more music from this collaboration? While it is unclear as of yet, I think I might just make a playlist that combines Horsepower with Brut and see how that sounds together.

---

---

---

NCBD:

Slow week this week. 

This is good since, after the veritable deluge of books over the last few weeks, I have a stack I need to get through.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog

Beck - Odelay

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Anthrax - Among the Living

Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City

Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny

Carpenter Brut Feat. David Eugene Edwards - Fab Tool

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST

---

---

---

Card:

The View from a Sightless Pit

 

How I missed this record's release a few months back, I have no idea. A collaboration between Lee Buford of The Body, Kristin Hayter of Lingua Ignota, and Dylan Walker of Full of Hell? This record is, as you'd expect, unlike anything else I've ever heard. 

---

---

---

Read:

It's not NCBD yet, but I wanted to post about a couple of books I ended up with last week that I hadn't planned on buying, but my friends at both Atomic Basement and The Comic Bug know me pretty damn well and they often pull extra titles for me if they think I'll dig them. No obligation, of course, but more often than not, they're right on the money. I haven't read these yet, but I'm chomping at the bit to for sure:

This last one was my own discovery, and while I'm not really in the market for any Marvel or Mutant books, this stand-alone (I think) book is kind of a throwback to the old Marvel Comics Presents series in the 80s, except it's in Black and White and Red. And it's glorious.

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST 

Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog

I spent almost all day yesterday plowing through The Black Tapes podcast. MAN! So f*&king good! 

---

---

---

Card:

This has been a key concept for 2020 and most likely one that will echo out into the new year. I take this pull, on December Eve (yeah, I just made that up), as a reminder that things are not really all that likely to get better just because we flip a calendar and get rid of a jackass. Not pessimism, just realism.

Motherless Brooklyn's Sovietwave

A month or two back, one of my guys at work turned me onto Molchat Doma, a Belarusian post-punk band from Minsk, formed in 2017, whose newest album Monument, was released this year on Sacred Bones Records. Probably because of introducing them into my youtube algorithm, yesterday afternoon I stumbled across a thumbnail for a post titled "1 Hour of Melancholic SovietWave" (HERE). Sovietwave? I immediately clicked on this, and the track I've posted above was the lead-in track, which in turn sent me looking for more by this band, Воскресная площадка, which so far I have been unable to find a translation for. In listening, so far, I'm fascinated, so I intend to explore this a bit more over the coming days (and nights; this music is perfect for after the sun sets).

---

---

---

Watch:

Friday night I finally got around to watching Edward Norton's Adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's novel Motherless Brooklyn. Wow. Fantastic film. 

It's been at least ten years since I read Mr. Lethem's novel, and being that I finished my re-read of William Sloane's To Walk the Night yesterday, I moved directly into round two with Brooklyn. In cases like this, where I've read the book but not in a while, I'm never sure if I should watch the film first or re-read the book first, so once again, I'm just going to play it by ear. Either way, both are fantastic. 

Of special note, the music for Mr. Norton's adaptation was done by Composer Daniel Pemberton, with contributions from Wynton Marsalis and Thom York, to name a few (although, as always, I feel like Mr. Yorke's voice is somewhat of an unwelcome sonic element in film scoring and composition, as it is so distinct and unmusical, it usually takes me out of the story immediately). 

---

---

Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Oliver Nelson - The Blues and the Abstract Truth

Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come

Ella Fiztgerald - The Best of Ella Fitzgerald Vol. II

True Widow - I.N.O.

---

---

---

Card:

Dogma. Is this good, or bad?