1. Nothing "The Great Dismal" - Nothing is a shoegaze band from Philadelphia, and I have covered this band from their debut album. This album was the quintessential record for the 2020 pandemic. The title itself refers to the dark times of global lockdown. Domenic Palermo spent his months at home writing the grittiest shoegaze record of the year. There are crestfallen melancholic pieces like "A Fabricated Life", "In Blueberry Memories", and "Blue Mecca". And then there are songs that show their Nirvana-style penchant for '90s grunge like "April Ha Ha" and "Bernie Sanders". But then there are bangers like "Say Less" and "Just a Story" that blend all of these qualities to make this Nothing's best album so far. From darkness and despair, comes beauty.
2. Primal Giants "Untethered" - A stellar debut album from jam band, Primal Giants. They are an eclectic mix of blues, psychedelia, outlaw country, and Grateful Dead-style jam rock. Last year, I did an exclusive interview with wild frontman (or front wildman) JR Hendry, just ahead of the release of the album on March 7, 2020. This was before either of us was aware of the upcoming pandemic and lockdown. Within a week of the release of the album, airports shut down and concerts were cancelled. Along with countless other artists, Primal Giants had to cancel their upcoming tour to support their new album. And it was our loss. We missed seeing what was undoubtedly a phenomenal live experience. (I have watched live online performances.) But at least we have this album and can groove to such smashing tunes like "Stand Up", "Junkie", and "Queen Bee". There are also some deep and confessional songs like "Wasted Years" and "Needles" that will stir your soul. This album is excellent from start to finish. There are rumors of a forthcoming new album and new tour in the near future. Luck us. I plan on being in the audience. Do ya hear me, JR Hendry?
3. The Strokes "The New Abnormal" - How New York is it to adorn your sixth album with a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat? And to give your album a name that accurately describes this crazy time period that we live in? The Strokes are back! Back in form with their first album in seven years, and without a doubt, their best since their first two. Darlings of the New York post-punk revival, they are known for their strong bass and percussion section, Albert Hammond Jr.'s hooky guitar riffs, and Julian Casablancas's distinctive voice. So, Julian! Julian is known to have quite the vocal range, and he is known to hold it in check. But not here! He unleashes it for this album. The result is one of their strongest and most catchy albums. When this album came out, I listened to it on repeat for weeks; every song is that good! I can hardly pick my favorites, but I particularly like "The Adults Are Talking" and "Selfless" for Julian's voice, the '80s-inspired new wave hit "Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus", Hammond's Stones-tinged riffs on "Eternal Summer" as well as Casablancas's saucy emulation of Bowie or Jagger, the melancholy "At the Door"... This album is perfect. I am deeply satisfied. Oh, and all of my kids universally like this one as well.
4. Sufjan Stevens "The Ascension" - This one came as a surprise to me. Sufjan Stevens is an Emmy and Academy Award-winning avant garde composer known for making contemplative and morose forays into indie folk music. For this, his eighth album, he made an electropop album, which I think surprised a lot of people. His breathy voice also sounds freakishly similar to Justin Bieber. However, unlike the Biebs, this album delves deeply into subconscious themes of life, death, happiness, depression, belief, religion, unbelief, society, and grief. Beneath the glittering pop facade, this is a surprisingly complicated album. And not just thematically, but sonically. Beneath the danceable beats and electronic blips and beeps, their are subtle layers and counter-beats, making the arrangements much more complex and more like classical music. This is much more than pop music usually is, although it can be occasionally this profound as Stevens proves. The highlights of this album are the songs "Video Game" and "Sugar". However, he gets to wax trippy and poetic with pieces like "Die Happy", "Ativan", and "Giglamesh". The album ends with the sprawling, cinematic opus, "America".
5. Johnny Goth "The Great Awakening" - My son who lives in New York recommended this artist to me last year in time to catch this, Johnny Goth's fourth album. In spite of the name and the white makeup and black lipstick, Johnny Goth is not really goth - until now. He usually performs indie folk with usually just his sweet angelic voice and guitar. It almost has an acrid sense of irony. (Check out his haunting and startlingly beautiful take on Britney Spears.) Johnny Goth is part of the ubiquitous bedroom pop ethic - young artists who have bypassed A&R men and record labels and have recorded their music in their own bedrooms with their own equipment and have released and promoted their work through social media. And Mr. Goth is prolific. He releases new singles almost on a weekly basis on YouTube. With the new album, he lived up to his name and went totally goth- spooky, vampiric, scary, like a Tim Burton nightmare. But it works. He is best when his voice is muted and feminine like a dark angel. My top picks are "Come Closer To Me", "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" and the angelic "Hit Me Right".
6. brdmm "Bedroom" - This is a brilliant debut album from a UK shoegaze band that I know next to nothing about, and yet I this album has been my personal soundtrack for the past year. This is their first album, and yet they have released a new single on this day as I write. On the new single, they are going for a new electronica, slowcore sound, but this album - called "Bedroom" because they recorded the whole album in their house - is definitely shoegaze, taking a page from artists like Beach Fossils or DIIV. The whole album is dipped and coated in dreamy reverb and muted vocals. Some songs have jangly, krautrock-inspired guitar licks and bouncy rhythms like "Gush" and "Happy". Some songs are watery and shimmering like "Push/ Pull" and "Is That What You Wanted To Hear?". And some songs are swelling and explosive like "A Reason To Celebrate" and "If....". This album is great, happy and sad at the same time in ways only a shoegaze record can be. I look forward to whatever they do next.
7. Health "Disco 4: Part 1" - Okay, I can't even begin to describe this album! First, let me prelude this by saying that I have yet to listen to any other album by this group yet, and they have five albums as well as five remix albums. But this one is amazing! They originally gained fame fourteen years ago when Crystal Castles remixed one of their songs. They are considered noise rock, but they are an unholy conglomeration of industrial, darkwave, grindcore, hyperpop, and hip hop, the genre changing maddeningly with each song. That is because this album is a series of collaborations with a variety of artists they love - like hip hop artists Ghostemane or JPEGMAFIA, or post-punk artist The Soft Moon, or synthwave artist Perturbator, or experimental indie artists Xiu Xiu, Soccer Mommy, or 100 gecs. The result is an electrifying melange of odd combinations, all of it dark and terrifying. My hot picks are "Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.", "Colors", "Mass Grave", "Delicious Ape", and "Hard To Be a God". There are talks of a "Disco 4: Part 2" in collaboration with Nine Inch Nails very soon.
8. Grimes "Miss Anthropocene" - Of course, I have reviewed Grimes before. Say what you will about her high profile marriage - as well as separation - with Elon Musk, Grimes is still a true artist. She writes, engineers, mixes her own music, as well as oversees her videos, designs her own costumes and album covers. She is an artist in every sense of the word. On her fifth album - and her last under the 4AD record label - she creates her darkest and most dystopian record so far. Her music is a mix of synthpop, dream pop, and darkwave, all of it saturated in reverb. My favorite selections are "Darkseid", a collaboration with Taiwanese rapper, Pan Wei-Ju, "4AEM" an ethereal song worthy of 4AD with a drum and bass chorus, and "My Name Is Dark" with its piercing shrieks. The name of the song was originally titled "That's What the Drugs Are For", but her label made her change it. Speaking of which, creative differences caused Grimes to say in some now-deleted tweets that she was done with her "shit label". She was going to make one more fantastic album for them, and then move on her own without them. Well, this album is fantastic. I can't wait to see what she does next.
9. Deserta "Black Aura My Sun" - Generally, shoegaze music falls into two categories - either loud, bombastic, explosive, and grinding like My Bloody Valentine or Nothing. Or soft, ethereal, dreamy and wispy like Slowdive or Beach House. Deserta falls into the second category. Deserta, from Los Angeles, is the solo project of Matthew Doty (although he has since added two other musicians). This album started out our year in 2020, being released in January of that year, and it was very well received by the shoegaze community, and with good reason. This album is billowing like a huge thunderhead catching the last light of evening. The keyboards, guitars and almost-whispered vocals all blend together into a tsunami of sound. This album is mellow and soft, but it has a huge sound. Okay, I'm going to say it - it sounds like Cocteau Twins. My only possible complaint is that all of the songs sound kind of like the same song. But what a beautiful song it is. My favorites are "Paradiso", "Hide", "Monica", and "Be So Blue". Hell, the whole album. They just released a new single, so let's hope a new album is around the corner.
10. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou "May Our Chambers Be Full" - A few years ago, I fell in love with the music of Emma Ruth Rundle. Emerging from experimental band, Marriages (whom I love also), Rundle began making a dark blend of goth rock, doom metal, and folk - much like her female companions Chelsea Wolfe and King Woman. (What a movement!) Rundle's music is all of these genres, and none of them. However, Rundle has always leaned heavier on the metal side in terms of her influences. So, it came as no surprise when she collaborated with critically-acclaimed sludge metal group, Thou, for one album. The result is two devils horns up! This record is heavy, grinding, and carries forward as hot and inevitable as a pyroclastic flow. The contrast between Bryan Funk's shredded vocals and Rundle's spooky voice is amazing. My top picks are "Out of Existence", "Magickal Cost", and the lengthy "The Valley". By the way, Rundle has a new album coming out next month, and I'm super excited about it.
Honorable Mentions
11. Holy Fawn "The Black Moon" - This would have scored a lot higher on my list, but it's not an album, but an EP. A blackgaze group - a mix between shoegaze and black metal - from my home state of Arizona, this group is phenomenal. Their music alternates between ambient electronic verses and volatile, incendiary choruses with screamed vocals. Only three songs on here - "Candy", the instrumental "Tethered", and "Blood Pact", which made every playlist I made for others last year. Their other albums (they have two) are excellent as well. I think the best way to describe their music would be the Sigur Ros of black metal. Please check them out if you have a chance.
12. Meg Myers "Thank U 4 Taking Me 2 the Disco" & "I'd Like 2 Go Home Now" - 2020 provided us with not just one, but 2 EPs from my favorite pop star, Meg Myers. Enough for one album, but we have two EPs instead, and here she is on the Honorable Mention list. The EPs are fantastic, though. Those who have followed my blog know that I - and my music guru, Nikki - have followed Meg since her early EPs, her first album, and her second album. She's great. She is part Kate Bush and part Sinead O'Connor. The strong points here are "Any Way You Wanna Love", "Grizzly", the heart-breaking " i hope u cry", a duet with morgxn, "True Liars", and a piano waltz called "Last Laugh". What can I say? I love Meg!
13. Shimmerance "Shimmerance" - Russia has all of the good music coming out of it - bands like Human Tetris, Molchat Doma, and Parks, Squares, and Alleys. There is a vibrant post-punk scene there, including goth, shoegaze, and dream pop. Shimmerance is a shoegaze quintet from Moscow, and their debut album shimmers! Having two vocalists - Maria Kondakova and Nik Babukhin - they take a different approach to shoegaze vocals by having clear and distinct vocal arrangements (in English) rather than burying the voices behind the instruments. My top songs are "Look At Me Now", "Falling Down", "Altered Realm", and my favorite, "Nightcall". That one is a cover by Kavinsky from the soundtrack of "Drive", a song I always liked and one of my favorite movies.
14. Ringo Deathstarr "Ringo Deathstarr" - That's the sad thing about doing end-of-the-year lists - it's hard to exclude a band, especially when there was so much good music that came out. The list would not be complete without including Ringo Deathstarr, a shoegaze band from Austin, Texas. Ringo Deathstarr (awesome name) have been among the forerunners of the shoegaze revival (please don't use the term 'nugaze') for over a decade, taking a page from older acts like My Bloody Valentine and Lush. And it works. Very well. Especially here, on their fifth album. My preferred tracks are "Just Like You" with its Dinosaur Jr. vibe, "Once Upon a Freak", and the subdued (for them) "Cotton Candy Clouds"
15. L.A. Witch "Play With Fire" - And finally, we have L.A. Witch, an all-female rock band from, you guess it, Los Angeles. They have such a great sound. Originally just known as Witch, they had to change their name when another band already had that moniker. They have the savage impulse of '90s riot grrrls like L7 and the groovy '60s noise rock vibe of bands like Dum Dum Girls. Whatever the case, these girls rock! Thanks to my friend Ryan for recommending them. My favorite songs are "Motorcycle Boy", "Dark Horse", "Gen-Z", and "I Wanna Lose". I had this album on repeat for a while.
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