March 31, 2021

The Best of March 2021

March 31, 2021/ Taylor Grimes

Here are my favorite albums and EPs released in the month of March. This is probably the most emo collection of releases I’ve ever written about in any monthly roundup, so consider yourself warned.

Tigers Jaw - I Won’t Care How You Remember Me

The day before Tigers Jaw released their sixth studio album, I published a piece laying out the band’s position as both a legacy emo act and as artists who are constantly growing. That article focused primarily on my history with Tigers Jaw, specifically their breakthrough self-titled album that so many fans hold up as a landmark of the emo genre. The band’s output since then has ranged from solid to excellent, but nothing since 2008 has quite hit the same melancholic feelgood tone as their sophomore album… until now. Asking bands to make the same album over and over again is a fruitless (and unfulfilling) prospect for both parties, but on I Won’t Care How You Remember Me, the Pennsylvania four-piece managed to create a record that’s as catchy and triumphant as the album that so many fans consider their “best.” The release opens with an acoustic introduction that slowly draws you in before bottoming out into a fully-fledged pop-punk banger. The album’s front half is stacked singles all bearing sticky choruses, hard-hitting guitars, and glowing keys. Whether it’s the beguiling “Cat’s Cradle” with its siren song synth or “Hesitation” with its sunny springtime riffage, the album never lets up for a second. Even the back half of the record shakes things up with spitfire deliveries and a stellar closer, all of which seem ready to soundtrack springtime adventures and sunny hikes. A return to form in the best way possible.

Biitchseat - I’ll Become Kind.

I’ll Become Kind is a heartfelt EP about the vastness of emotion and the constantly-shifting nature of relationships. While those topics sound complex and heavy in theory, Biitchseat has a way of making these amorphous subjects sound as light and easy as talking to a childhood friend. Lead single “Anti-Depressed” features a high-flying chorus made up of conflicting feelings. Perfectly representative of the band’s style, “Anti-Depressed” is one of those songs that’s carefree and singable until you actually sit down and listen to the words. With a style that feels inspired by fellow Ohioans Snarls and Sonder Bombs, the four tracks on I’ll Become Kind act as a reminder that in order to better ourselves, sometimes we have to take a long, hard look at the bad stuff. Then it’s off to the skatepark.

Home is Where - I Became Birds

Somewhere between the Bermuda Triangle of Neutral Milk Hotel, Snowing, and Bob Dylan lies Home is Where. The album(?) opens and closes with a rustic campfire guitar, but is packed with horns, harmonica, violin, and more on top of all the usual guitar, drums, and bass. As lead singer Brandon MacDonald’s nasally yelp guides the listener along each dynamic track, the topics range from lighting cops on fire to assassinating presidents. For me, the heart of the album comes in the form of “Sewn Together From the Membrane of the Great Sea Cucumber,” where a steady guitar pairs with an escalating drum build. At the same time, a group chant repeats, “look at all the dogs! / look at all the dogs! / I wanna pet every puppy I see!” before throwing to an old-school screamo breakdown. It’s both charming and unexpected, a violent roller coaster of emotions that feels like it’s one screw away from falling apart at any moment. There are also harmonica hoe-downs, snappy pop-punk cuts, and hard-charging Dogleg-like passages that sound tailormade for driving down the highway at 90 miles an hour. Each consecutive minute of I Became Birds keeps you guessing. You never know whether the song is about to devolve into a tappy emo anthem or a high-pitched screamo tantrum. Easily the best emo release of the year so far.

glass beach - alchemist rats beg bashful (remixes)

Much like 100 gecs’ Tree of Clues, glass beach’s alchemist rats beg bashful is a victory lap. The hour-plus remix album sees the proggy emo wizards handing over their debut album to a host of collaborators and conspirators from every genre under the sun. The results range from faithful recreations, ecstasy-fueled EDM, and Daft Punk-indebted house… and that’s just the first three songs. For what could have easily been written off as “just” a remix album, alchemist rats feels like a genuine celebration. It feels like a band finding their community, raising them up, and rallying around each other, fans included. The diversity of sounds found on this record is a testament to both the skills of the artists remixing the songs and the brilliance of the source material. Plus there’s a Dogleg contribution, so I was sold before I even hit play.

Riley! - Already Fucked

Listening to Already Fucked is like catching up with a friend who has had one too many cold brews. The record opens with an instrumental rumble as lead singer Ryan Bluhm affects an announcer’s voice while introducing the band by name. The end result strikes a balance somewhere between the pre-set excitement of a DIY show and the explosive bombast of a professional wrestling match. After this enthusiastic welcome, the band quickly shuffles through everything on their mind without much time for a breather. As you listen to the band move from talking about time signatures to high school reunions and the failures of capitalism in the same punky sneer, half of the fun is just keeping up.

Harmony Woods - Graceful Rage

If Already Fucked is like listening to a friend unload all their anxious thoughts on you in-person, then Graceful Rage is like reading someone’s diary. It’s an album concerned with excavating deep wells of emotions through everything from soaring Julien Baker ballads to bratty pop-punk rippers. Lead singer Sofia Verbilla achieves this through confessional songwriting featuring a blend of obsessively-fixated realist observations and poetic inward reflection. These realizations are soundtracked with emo-flavored indie rock instrumentals featuring embellishments of horns, cello, and lap steel, all filtered through production courtesy of the wonderful Bartees Strange. The culmination of all these feelings arrives in the penultimate title track as Verbilla belts, “Graceful rage is all that suits me these days,” striking a precise balance between beauty and anger; a perfectly acceptable resting state for 2021.

Future Teens - Deliberately Alive

Each release from Future Teens has been immaculately titled. Hard Feelings? A perfect label for the emotions that flow from the weird half-adult struggles of your early twenties. Breakup Season? Another snappy, clever, and self-explanatory name for the waves of doom that seem to cut through multiple relationships every fall. Even last year’s Sensitive Sessions is a beautifully indicative (and alliterative) name for what’s ostensibly “just” an acoustic EP. Now, the Boston-based bummer pop group is back with Deliberately Alive, an apt way to describe how we’ve all been operating for the past year or so. We all feel tired and overwhelmed. We all feel some sense of regression or not keeping pace. Our relationships with others have been strained or warped, and we’ve all found different ways to cope. Every day, we have to make the deliberate decision to live, Future Teens just found a way to call that out in the most catchy manner possible. The best part is, after four tracks of emotionally exhaustive yet cleverly written rock, the band caps the release off with a Cher cover. Just beautiful.

Bicycle Inn - THIS TIME AND PLACE IS ALL I’LL EVER KNOW

While the young upstarts at Suneater Records have made a name for themselves off jittery zoomer emo, variety is the spice of life, and Bicycle Inn is adding some much-needed spice to the label’s lineup with their debut album. Watching the recent waves of emo roll in has been exciting because it genuinely feels like a new golden age in a genre that can quickly become stale, repetitive, and derivative. That said, sometimes you just want to return to basics. There’s something comforting in familiarity, and bands who can put their own spins on an old sound are bound to become quick favorites of mine. Groups like Short Fictions and Barely Civil who are heavily inspired by a distinct style of fourth-wave emo, yet still bring something new to the table. That’s my sweet spot, and that’s why I was immediately drawn to this record. With THIS TIME AND PLACE IS ALL I’LL EVER KNOW, Bicycle Inn are adding their names name to that list by way of a stellar debut that isn’t afraid to be unabashedly emo.

Brown Maple - I Never Really Learned How To Say Goodbye.

Despite opening with a Scott Pilgrim sample, I Never Really Learned How To Say Goodbye is better than your run-of-the-mill emo release. I’ll admit I’m a sucker for a good riff, but the tapped guitar line that opens “Swiss Cheese” is easily the best I’ve heard all year. In this song, the band navigates their way through sorrowful sentiments of heartbreak and loss, eventually riffing their way up to a cathartic group chant that sounds downright Marietta-esque. If you’re a fan of emo, you know that’s just about the highest praise one can ascribe to a band. Lead single “Merry Go Round” works its way up to a similar outpouring as the band jostles the listener around with a moshpit-inspiring instrumental that’s reminiscent of the breakdown at the end of “Death Cup.” Despite name-dropping two of the most influential groups in modern emo, Brown Maple still manages to feel like their own entity with a unique sound and a story worth telling.

Quick Hits

Arab Strap - As Days Get Dark - The slow-talking Scots are back with their first album in 16 years, a noir-flavored look at the dark side of humanity.

Adult Mom - Driver - Inside you, there are two wolves. One is gay, one is sad.

A Day To Remember - You’re Welcome - A soulless, cash-grabby, Imagine Dragons-wannabe release from the band that used to be a paragon of the pop-punk/easycore scenes.

Drake - Scary Hours 2 - It’s more Drake.

IAN SWEET - Show Me How You Disappear - Ethereal, witchy, waif relationship songs.

Dollar Signs - Hearts of Gold - This album is to Jeff Rosenstock what Muppet Babies is to The Muppets. This is a compliment.

Really From - Really From - Minimalist, improvisational, and horn-heavy emo-ish indie rock.

America Part Two - Price of a Nation - Like a spiritual successor to Valient Thorr, Price of a Nation mixes high-pitched snotty vocals and hard-charging garage rock for an energetic debut album.

Michigander - Everything Will Be Ok Eventually - Fantastic folk that’s consistently catchy.

Citizen - Life In Your Glass World - A dancy and heartfelt pivot from the kings of emo Tumblr.

The Antlers - Green to Gold - The first record in seven years from the iconic indie rock act is a little slower and a little more pensive than their previous work but still hits just as hard.

Nagasaki Swim - The Mirror - Acoustic-led bedroom rock that still manages to sound huge.

Gengis Tron - Dream Weapon - Once the go-to grindcore act of my high school music fandom, now the synthy post-hardcore reunion album of my late-20s.

KALI MASI - [laughs] - Beautiful, powerful, and well-constructed emo in the vein of Microwave of ManDancing.

March 01, 2021

The Best of February 2021

March 01, 2021/ Taylor Grimes

In writing this month’s batch of mini-reviews, I realized that the title of this series is slightly misleading. These albums aren’t necessarily the “best” of the month; that’s a bit of a misnomer. None of these albums are objectively better or worse than anything else that released this month. These are simply the albums that I’ve been listening to the most and therefore have the most thoughts on. I still recommend checking each of these releases out, it’s just that some of these albums are great, and some are only great to me. Speaking of which, this seems like a perfect segue into the first record on our roundup...

Foo Fighters - Medicine at Midnight

For better or worse, I am a Foo Fighters Fan. I spent the better part of my middle school years discovering alternative rock with the Foo Fighters discography paving the way. Even as I fell in love with new genres and more “exciting” artists throughout high school and college, Foo Fighters remained a constant companion and a reliable source of competently-made hard rock. I made a yearly tradition out of watching Back and Forth, and about once a year, I’ll have a short but torrid love affair with the band, leaning more towards their pre-Sonic Highways albums. In the lead-up to Medicine at Midnight, I devoured reviews, think pieces, interviews, and rankings, unknowingly re-igniting my love for the band just in time for the group’s newest offering. Medicine at Midnight is a step above the last two Foo Fighters albums with songs that range from drum-led choirs, hard-charging guitar licks, and even Queens of the Stone Age-esque desert rock. All of these tracks utilize the band’s standard components (an over-abundance of guitars, solid rhythm sections, and Dave Grohl’s signature snarl), but they’re also filtered through a slightly dancy lens that gives the songs a noticeable amount of bounciness and life. I can see why someone wouldn’t like Foo Fighters, especially Medicine at Midnight; this is music that would fit just as well in a Dodge commercial as it would on my high school iPod, but that’s the duality of Foo Fighters, and consequently why I love them.

Vampire Weekend - 40:42

As a longtime post-rock fan, I’ve always joked that I’m just one step away from getting into jam bands. On top of that, I’m a hardcore Ween fan (a jam-adjacent band) and have spent hours listening to a podcast about Phish. In other words, that jam-band-guy-tendency has always been there, lying in wait for the perfect moment to strike. When Vampire Weekend dropped the Grateful Dead-worshipping Father Of The Bride in 2019, my interest was peaked. I’ve always liked Vampire Weekend but never consider myself a big fan. Nevertheless, Father was one of my favorite releases of that year. As I followed the album’s release cycle and watched how the band extended the songs out into longer, more jammy live renditions, I knew it was only a matter of time until the jam band thing came full-circle. Now with 40:42, the prophecy has been fulfilled. This release sees Vampire Weekend tapping jazz musician Sam Gendel and jam band Goose to remix “2021,” both artists blowing the song out into 20-minute and 21-second pieces of their respective genres to awe-inspiring and vibe-filled effect.

Black Country, New Road - For the first time

Somewhere between Slint, Shame, and the first album by A Lot Like Birds lies Black Country, New Road. Extremely verbose and very British, For the first time is a wonderful debut that sees a band unflinchingly committed to their post-punk aesthetic. The record kicks off with “Instrumental,” which is a borderline post-rock track centered around a needly Klezmer riff, frantic drumming, and woeful saxophone. That opening salvo paves the way for ranting tales of science fair downfalls, romantic French encounters, and escaping behind the faint veneer offered by a pair of sunglasses. The lyrics include references to six-part Danish crime dramas, matcha shots, NutriBullets, and micro-influencers, all of which are delivered in a shaky, unstable vibrato that makes it sounds as if the narrator could burst at the seams at any minute. Though the release may only contain six songs, the 40-minute running time leaves the listener emotionally winded in its wake.

Wild Pink - A Billion Little Lights

When I first heard Wild Pink’s breakthrough sophomore album, Yolk In The Fur, it felt like a revelation. Heartland rock with a jangly indie rock twist and just a drop of emo? Not only did it feel tailor-made for me, but it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. In fact, go back and read the July 2018 equivalent of this monthly roundup, and my excitement is still palpable. Three years later, A Billion Little Lights takes that sound and offers up more of the same. At first, the worst thing I could say about the new Wild Pink album is that it sounded exactly like the last Wild Pink album. That’s not a bad thing, just a little unexciting. Then I put the record on while driving, and boom, it came alive. As I flew down the highway, the album seemed to bloom around me, rising and falling with the hills off in the distance. It felt like that’s how these songs were meant to be heard. Of course listening to these songs alone in my apartment wasn’t going to hit the same.

At times on songs like “Oversharers Anonymous,” it still sounds like I’m listening to something that could have come straight off of Yolk, but I don’t think that’s inherently bad. There are some cool, unique moments like a weird glitchy synth-based breakdown in “The Shining but Tropical” and a cathartic finish on “Die Outside,” and sometimes that’s all you need. If this is your first experience with Wild Pink, I emphatically recommend listening to this album and absorbing it fully, especially if you're moving somewhere with a purpose.

Katy Kirby - Cool Dry Place

Out of all the artists releasing warm, sunny, brightly colored albums this month, Katy Kirby might have released the most exciting and dynamic. While Wild Pink takes a more wide-open heartland rock approach and Sun June affects a more pensive, inward style, Katy Kirby uses a lush and expansive sound to examine the fragility of human relationships. Whether it’s the tasteful use of autotune on “Traffic!” or the spellbinding build on “Secret Language,” nearly every track on Cool Dry Place offers something different. The songs are all bound together by the common denominator of Kirby’s affectionate delivery and soft production. The end result is a pleasant and inoffensive album that also offers a surprisingly deep and layered reflection. As Cool Dry Place winds from light indie rock to late-afternoon piano ballads, you can’t help but be taken in by the breadth of emotions contained within the record’s mere 28 minutes.

Mister Goblin - Four People in an Elevator and One of Them Is the Devil

Do you like Pedro the Lion? Do you remember Devil, the 2010 M. Night Shyamalan movie where five people are trapped in an elevator, and one of them also happens to be the devil? If you answered ‘yes’ to both of these questions, then you are in the very specific cross-section that Mister Goblin is speaking to. Despite the overly specific target market that I just laid out, an intimate familiarity with either of these subjects is not a pre-requisite to enjoying the sophomore album from the Two Inch Astronaut frontman. Some of the tracks like “Get Gone” call to mind a particular brand of light-hearted and good-natured indie rock evocative of Brendan Benson. Aside from the aforementioned Pedro the Lion, this release also feels tonally-reminiscent of early-2000s Vagrant rockers like The Anniversary, the Get Up Kids, or the New Amsterdams. It’s an album that’s sonically unbothered but lyrically distraught, a beguiling mixture that proved to be a fantastic first listen.

Miss Grit - Impostor

Easily my biggest surprise of this month, Impostor is a fantastically diverse and economical EP that manages to sound simultaneously familiar and wholly unique. After a glitchy and off-kilter electronic opener that undercuts any preconceptions, “Buy The Banter” deploys a heavily fuzzed-out bassline and hypnotic chorus for a grungy Garbage effect. “Blonde” begins with a crystal clear instrumental and Mazzy Star-esque vocals before growing into a towering Smashing Pumpkins riff and fading into a dreamy outro. There’s the dancy “Grow Up To,” the chunky “Dark Side of the Party,” and the starry-eyed title track. Despite how unique all of these songs sound, they still feel unabashedly committed to Margaret Sohn’s vision. This is a fantastic and uncompromising EP that offers comforting familiarity wrapped around sounds that feel like a breath of fresh air.

Mogwai - As The Love Continues

Mogwai have been a musical companion of mine for about a decade now. Ever since I first discovered Come On Die Young back in high school, I’ve been a diehard fan of the Scottish post-rock stalwarts. In fact, Mogwai has a special place in this blog’s history as our first ever article, though I don’t necessarily recommend you go back and read that. As The Love Continues takes the collection of sounds that Mogwai has spent 25 years cultivating and hones them to a fine point. All the usual Mogwai trappings are here: a groovy electronic cut, the uptempo dance track, unforgettable vocoder usage, the song with vocals, and, perhaps most importantly, the distorted heavy-as-shit riff. The band is able to take all of these different approaches to the genre and cram them into a one-hour thrill ride that oscillates from triumphant to despair to destructive and back again multiple times over the course of its run time. Simply put, they don’t miss.

Quick Hits

Hayley Williams - FLOWERS for VASES / descansos - A second, more subtle solo outing from the Paramore bandleader that’s a little more acoustic than last year’s Petals for Armor, but still just as deeply felt.

Skatune Network - Ska Goes Emo, Vol. 2 - Another collection of iconic tracks spanning multiple waves of emo, all adorned with horns and upstrokes courtesy of the DIY ska mastermind Jeremy Hunter.

Cory Wong - Cory and the Wongnotes - Another funky outing from one of the highly prolific minds behind Vulfpeck.

The Obsessives - Monastery - A pleasant three-track pop-rock outing that’s capped off with a wonderful Breeders cover.

For Your Health - In Spite Of - In the same class as Portrayal of Guilt, For Your Health offer up brutal and visceral hardcore that thrives in garages, basements, and other places you might accidentally get punched in the face.

Sun June - Somewhere - Are you more of a Jackie O or a Karen O? Well, on Somewhere Sun June argues you can be both, but only if it’s in service of love.

Another Michael - New Music and Big Pop - A blissful, colorful, and lovely collection of tracks that oscillate between unbothered and crushingly realistic. A musical Starburst.

Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview on Phenomenal Nature - yet another of this month’s pleasant, naturalistic albums, this one with gorgeous sax, therapeutic exercises, and one of the best wah-wah deployments I’ve heard since Childish Gambino’s “The Night Me and Your Mama Met.”

Jetty Bones - Push Back - Somewhere between the neon fake happiness of After Laughter and the immaculate production of Lover-era Taylor Swift is the debut album of Jetty Bones, equal parts danceable and cry-able.

Danny L Harle - Harlecore - 40 minutes of high-energy, high-BPM from the hyperpop-adjacent happy hardcore electronic musician.

God Is An Astronaut - Ghost Tapes #10 - Proficient post-rock that leans toward progressive heavy metal.

Adrian Younge - The American Negro - One of the most powerful albums I’ve heard in years yet am wholly unqualified to speak on.

Black Sheep Wall - Songs for the Enamel Queen - Incredible hardcore that winds from towering soul-destroying breakdowns, throat-shredding screams, and winding atmospheric passages.

Of Mice & Men - Timeless - Three metalcore songs that swing hard but don’t always land.

Julien Baker - Little Oblivions - The first full-band album from Julien Baker hits all the marks you would expect: religion, queerness, and crippling self-doubt.

Nervous Dater - Call In The Mess - Poppy emo rock that stretches all the way from earthly farms to the far reaches of outer space.

The Weather Station - Ignorance - An earthy and emotional indie rock album that feels like the nighttime counterpart to Saint Cloud’s sunshine.

American Poetry Club - Do You Believe In Your Heart - A distraught emo EP that feels like it could collapse at any moment under its own emotional weight.

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Carnage - A surprise-released album from Nick Cave and a single Bad Seed.

Cloud Nothings - The Shadow I Remember - Hard-charging punk rock in the vein of Titus Andronicus or Japandroids, just with a more naturalistic bent.

Glitterer - Life is Not A Lesson - A dozen under-two minute cuts from the Title Fight frontman.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - L.W. - The second microtonal half of a double album from the ever-prolific and ever-psychedelic Aussies.

Half Waif - Orange Blossoms / Party’s Over - Two fresh tracks from the witchy and dancy electronica queen.

February 01, 2021

The Best of January 2021

February 01, 2021/ Taylor Grimes

Shame-cr-Holly-Whitaker-billboard-2017-1548-compressed.jpg

Well, it’s January, and that means we’ve entered another terrible, horrible, no-good-year. January is one of my least favorite times of the year for no particular reason other than the fact that it feels like a month-long Monday. Getting “back to it” has never been harder than it was this year, but, as usual, music helped me make it through.

New music is especially exciting in January because all of it feels fresh. There’s just something cool about seeing that “2021” at the top of a newly released album, even if the novelty wears off quickly. It’s refreshing to start on a clean slate when it comes to music, even if most of what I’m listening to still comes from previous years.

Despite the fact that COVID has thrown off pretty much every album rollout in existence, we have still received a wealth of fantastic new tunes this month. As usual, I wanted to write about all of these excellent new pieces of music, but reality had other plans. I quickly came to terms with my fickle inspiration, realizing that I can’t write full reviews, premieres, or detailed breakdowns about all of my favorite music no matter how hard I tried. My mind went back three years to 2018, where I composed short new music round-ups at the end of each month, which allowed me to highlight some of my favorite releases from the preceding 30-some-odd days.

I figured why not pick that effort back up again and see how far I can take it? Writing about that many new releases each month was taxing, but it also forced me to keep up on new music and kept me from overthinking my writing. Will I keep this up all year? Probably not. Will I try? You’re damn right. Enough preamble. Without further adieu, I’m excited to present my favorite pieces of new music from January of 2021.

Camp Trash - Downtiming

First up, we have the debut EP from Florida’s hottest new emo-pop act. Emerging as an enigmatic anomaly, Camp Trash was one of those bands that managed to steadily gain buzz on Twitter, eventually leveraging that hype into a record deal with Count Your Lucky Stars despite not having a single song publicly released. Opening track “Bobby” is a bouncy and energetic emo track that’s equal parts Oso Oso and Get Up Kids. Whether it’s the ragged “Sleepyhead,” the acoustic “Potoimno,” or the anthemic “Weird Carolina,” it’s hard to think of anything that’s missing from Downtiming. It may only be 12 minutes long, but this is a tremendous little emo release with just enough pop sensibilities that you’ll be singing along to these tracks in your car in no time. If Downtiming had been released in the early 2000s, this EP would have been lauded as much anything off of your favorite Vagrant Records release.

Beach Bunny - Blame Game

One year ago, half of the music industry saw Beach Bunny as a “TikTok Band,” a dismissive label for a group that managed to garner millions of streams based thanks to their confessional songwriting and sharp hooks. The fact that their songs went viral on TikTok wasn’t key to their success; it was proof that they were on the right track. After a string of fantastic EPs and singles, Beach Bunny released their debut album in February of 2020, an album that unilaterally proved the group’s success was no fluke. Centered around lead singer Lili Trifilio’s defiant voice and effervescent melodies, Honeymoon announced Beach Bunny’s arrival in earnest. One year later, they’ve given us Blame Game, a four-song EP that acts as a follow-up to the feelings explored on last year’s LP. Focusing on the same topics of love life, shitty guys, and sexist double standards, Blame Game shows that Beach Bunny is here to stay, and I cannot wait to see what sugary sweet bubblegum melodies their next release possesses.

Abe Anderson - Seasick Lullaby

Much like pirates would eat a lime or lemon to stave off scurvy; I need a steady diet of brass and horns in my music to feel genuinely at peace. That’s why it was so refreshing to hit play on Seasick Lullaby and be greeted with two minutes of triumphant horns that warmly welcomed me into the release and gently caressed my soul. I shouldn’t have been that surprised, as Abe Anderson is most known for his work in Minneapolis groups like Niiice. and Thank You, I’m Sorry, both of which have no shortage of gorgeous brasswork courtesy of Anderson himself. However, what did come as a surprise is how brilliantly Anderson’s voice stands on its own. Whether it’s the winding wistfulness of the album’s title track or the head-over-heels adoration of “Love You More,” every song on this release possesses the same fuzzy, hazy, dreamlike feel-good quality which makes this record an absolute treat to listen to.

Cicala - Cicala

If bands had commercials, Cicala’s would probably be pretty close to that oft-quoted Reese’s commercial. I can practically hear the dialogue, something along the lines of “Hey, you got your emo in my country!” to which the other party would reply, “You got your country in my emo!” The result wouldn’t be a chocolate-covered peanut-buttery confection, but Cicala. Opening with a jangly guitar and lyrics of a truck stop in Oklahoma, this album blends emo stylings with country licks to an immensely satisfying degree. The album ranges in scale from Red Rocks to a lowly worm, all of which are filtered through Quinn Cicala’s pleasant delivery and emotionally-intelligent perspective. An amber-coated album made for porch beers and mountain excursions.

Cheekface - Emphatically No.

“Everything is normal,” the three members of Cheekface repeat monotonously at the beginning of “Best Life,” echoing a mantra that most of us have tried to convince ourselves of over the course of the last 365 days. After a brief instrumental interjection and takedown of Portrait mode, lead singer Greg Katz exclaims, “we are writers! creatives! we work remotely!” and I was hooked. Now, I know I’m a straight white guy, and most music is created by people who share those qualities, but it was still striking to hear my recent day-to-day experience reflected so clearly in song form. From there, the track goes on to discuss everything from furiously Juuling to getting a stick-and-poke of a Gucci logo because it’s cheaper than therapy… And that’s just one song. Emphatically No. is a hyper-detailed and charming depiction of a definitively un-charming world, all of which is delivered in a plainspoken style reminiscent of Parquet Courts with lyrics that evoke Stephen Malkmus. It’s a portrait of a very specific place in time from a very specific millennial perspective, but if you identify with any aspect of it, you’re guaranteed to see a piece of yourself reflected here to a remarkable and affirmative degree.

Cathedral Bells - Ether

When most people think of DIY music, they probably picture four skinny, weed-smoking white dudes tapping on guitars making midwest emo music. That’s certainly a visual that’s easy to call to mind, but it’s not representative of the entire DIY scene… not by a long shot. DIY includes hardcore groups like For Your Health, Gilt, and Hazing Over. It has pop acts like Get Tuff, Jhariah, and Cheem. It covers ska powerhouses like Jer and Grey Matter. It ranges from acoustic bedroom pop like Jungheim and Loser Camp to grungy rock acts like Bombastic Dream Pussy and Oceanator. There’s shoegaze, punk, lo-fi electropop, and more. In short, it’s unfair to paint the “DIY Scene” as a collective of a few dozen midwest emo groups. Now, with Cathedral Bells, we finally have DIY goth music. Complete with buoyant bass lines, gorgeous reverberating guitar riffs, steady electronic drumming, and far-off shoegazey vocals, Ether is the perfect record for someone in the DIY scene who also happens to love bands like The Cure and New Order.

Mikau / ps.you’redead - razor x blade

Last year, Mikau unleashed their debut album Phantoma on the world. Upon my first listen, I was instantly transported back a decade to my senior year of high school, where I was listening to nothing but screamo every waking hour, much to the chagrin of those around me. Now, razor x blade sees the group teaming up with Buffalo “danceviolence” band p.s.you’redead for a chaotic 9-minute split that winds from auto-tuned croons to jagged and thrashy pandamonium. It’s a feast for the ears and a nostalgic throwback to anyone who spent hundreds of hours in high school listening to turn-of-the-decade post-hardcore while playing Modern Warfare and downing Mountain Dew.

Shame - Drunk Tank Pink

Fitting that this roundup should end with Drunk Tank Pink since Shame’s debut is one of the albums that kicked off my tradition of monthly round-ups all the way back in 2018. For the most part, Drunk Tank Pink finds the band continuing to build their fresh-faced take on post-punk while also pushing at the edges of what the genre can do. Lyrics walk the line between serious and self-deprecating while their deliveries can range from across-the-the-room shouts to poetic dinner-conversation-level monologues. Guitars jangle and strum forward in angular ways as opposed to straightforward riffage. The rhythm section rises and falls with a dynamic range rather than arrow-straight precision. It’s quite literally the perfect sophomore record in that the group didn’t lose anything that made their debut feel so fresh and attention-grabbing, yet they also managed to progress their sound forward in new and exciting artistic directions.

Quick Hits

Get Tuff - in sickness and hell - Dark DIY electropop that’s as demonic and blood-drenched as it is catchy and 🥺

Tiberius - Lull - One of my biggest surprises of the month, this DIY release helmed by Brendan Wright is evocative of indie rock greats like Broken Social Scene. Read our full review here.

The Sonder Bombs - Clothbound - An album full of deep feelings armed with acerbic lyricism, boppy melodies, and charming amounts of ukelele. Read our full review here.

Portrayal Of Guilt - We Are Always Alone - A violent, ever-rageful, and always-changing sophomore album from one of the most exciting bands in the hardcore scene.

Arlo Park - Collapsed in Sunbeams - A chill, vibey, and lovestruck album that seems designed for laid-back Sunday mornings and wistful afternoons.

Joe Vann - Found in the Smoke - One dash of emo, one pinch of Americana, and a big heaping helping of synthy embellishments, Joe Vann’s surprise-released debut album is a relaxing modern Americana outing.

December 29, 2020

Swim Into The Sound's 15 Favorite Albums of 2020

December 29, 2020/ Taylor Grimes

I don’t think anyone could have predicted how 2020 would go. Back in January, we all seemed determined to enter the new decade with a renewed sense of optimism… but that fell apart pretty quickly. Within three days, the US on the brink of war with Iran. A month in, and Australia was on fire. Three months into the year, a global pandemic sequestered us all to our homes. Midway through the summer, the pressure cooker of police brutality, racial inequality, and an ever-worsening economic reality erupted into protests, rebellion, and long-simmering (long-deserved) unrest. Cap that all off with forest fires, near-miss asteroids, murder hornets, and a demoralizing election cycle, and you’ve concocted a perfect storm of anxiety, depression, and exhaustion that made each day of 2020 feel like its own special type of hell.

This was the year of the plague. It was the year of death. It was the year that everything became unsafe for everyone. The year that half of the country came out to protest police systematically killing our black brothers and sisters in broad daylight while the other half protested bars, barbers, and Disneyland closing. It was fucked. But I’m not here to complain.

As bad as this year was for pretty much everyone, music helped keep my spirits afloat. Music has always been a creature comfort for me (as I’m sure it is for many of you reading this), and that comfort was needed this year more than ever before. It’s not like music was more important than any of those things happening out in the “real world,” but it provided a constant outlet and distraction for me when I needed it most. What I’m saying is that I know this isn’t vital to the world, but it’s vital to me.

Music is always there, ready to reflect your feelings and quell your anxieties. Music is there to vocalize the things that you cannot, affirm the way you see the world, or get you to see it from a new perspective. It’s there to support and provide a sense of ease, even years after an artist has released it into the world. It’s an outlet for emotion and a fount for creativity. As an artist, there’s nothing like releasing your creation into the world and seeing it well-met. As a listener, there’s nothing quite like discovering another group of humans out there who can sum up your thoughts and experiences succinctly over the course of an album. It’s a symbiotic relationship, and that’s something we can’t lose sight of. Music is a blessing and a resource. As humans, music is something that we need to create and something that we need to consume, and it has never been more vital than this year.

Whether they were a distraction or a reflection, these are the 15 albums that helped me make it through one of the darkest years of my life.

15 | Touché Amoré - Lament

Lament is an album caught in the blurry middle ground of life. What happens after the death of a loved one? How do you handle losing family members to conspiracy theories or the cult of Donald Trump? What do you reach for when you need a reminder of love? Turns out the answer to all of these questions is you hire producer Ross Robinson and create one of the best post-hardcore records of the year. Lament possesses everything you would expect from a Touché Amoré record; there are throat-shredding bellows, whiplash-inducing blast beats, and beautifully poetic sentiments that speak to a larger human truth. There are also some unexpectedly great surprises: one of the catchiest songs of the year (with a bonus Julien Baker feature nonetheless), a soul-rendering duet with Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra, and a confessional piano ballad to wrap things up. It’s an album that looks back on life with equal parts reverence and regret. The band seemingly knows that looking back is not inherently productive, so they spend just as much time looking forward out onto the great stretch of horizon that lies before them, questioning what comes next. In a year where music, life, and pretty much everything else that we consider remotely important felt suspended in stasis, what better time to pause, reflect, and collect ourselves for what’s to come?

14 | Deftones - Ohms

Like most other Deftones albums, I have no idea what Ohms is about. Sure, I could read interviews, take in reviews, or analyze some of the lyrics, but that would take away all the fun. Also like most other Deftones albums, Ohms bears the same intoxicating mix of Chino Moreno’s piercing screams and Stephen Carpenter’s sludgy riffs. These songs sway, lumber, and envelop the listener with heavy metal perfection. At a certain point, the lyrics don’t even matter because the emotion carried in these songs speaks for itself. There’s a weight to Ohms reflected in tracks like Pompeji, Genesis, and This Link Is Dead that is simply unparalleled by any other band in the genre. Any group that makes it to nine albums is doing something right, and Deftones have stuck to their sound faithfully and completely for three decades. That alone is worthy of praise. The band’s 2020 release comes off as well-rehearsed chaos. Ohms bears the full weight of the emotional spectrum, but, as usual, Deftones somehow manage to make it look easy.

13 | Seahaven - Halo of Hurt

If Reverie Lagoon is a warm, sandy beach with light glinting off the summer water and Winter Forever is… well, winter, then Halo of Hurt is the soundtrack to a cursed late-fall. From the winding knotty basswork to the haunted, witchy lyricism, this album practically oozes spooky energy. Fittingly released in November, Halo of Hurt is a dark and menacing record that takes cues from Brand New and the alt-emo of the early 2000s but modernizes it in the most impactful way. From second one, this record creeps forward with sinister intent. The band counterbalances this abject darkness with uplifting choruses and beguiling instrumentals that offer glimpses into something lighter. It’s an intoxicating combination that transfixes me every time I put the record on. It’s haunting, stark, beautiful, and inward. If it takes the band seven years between releases to turn out an album of this quality, then I say take as much time as you need.

12 | Sinai Vessel - Ground Aswim

Whenever I write a review for an album, I always find it hard to cover again in the context of an Album of the Year list. First off, I feel like I’ve already said everything I need to on the topic; reviews are written to be comprehensive and delve into every aspect of an album. Second, how do I take an 800+ word analysis and synthesize it down to a single paragraph? Turns out it’s easy with Sinai Vessel’s sophomore album. The sentiment of my review still stands; Ground Aswim remains a beautiful, careful, meditative listen that points its listener towards the refuge of a calmer life, yet it’s also an album that evolves with you over time.

From the whisper-quiet remorse of the opening track to the winding wonder of the closer, Ground Aswim is an album that changes each time I listen to it. There are pointed Oso Oso-esque cuts like “Shameplant” alongside songs of painfully emotive loss like “Guest In Your Life.” While the messages and lyrics of these tracks never change (self-growth and dying relationships, respectively), the topics shift depending on what you bring to them as the listener. They’re evergreen subjects that can always be applied to our ever-complicated lives. Depending on what you’re experiencing in your life at the time, these songs can sound completely different, and you’ll always take away something new with each listen. Ground Aswim is a record that poses a series of emotive prompts to the listener and leaves them enough space to fill in the blanks. It’s a beautiful, wondrous, and precious release that ponders, jangles, and reverberates its way deep into the ventricles of your heart.

11 | Hot Mulligan - you’ll be fine

Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘a white dude putting an emo band on his album of the year list, how original,’ but I swear that you’ll be fine is better than any of those descriptors would lead you to believe. Look no further than the opening few seconds of the record which kick things off with an aggressive drum line and a frantic bout of tappy emo guitarwork. It’s an all-out assault on the senses, a moshpit-inducing volley that immediately signals Hot Mulligan has ascended to a new level musically. That feeling of an artistic level-up is firmly backed up by the lead singles “Feal Like Crab,” “BCKYRD,” and “Equip Sunglasses,” each of which pair Tades Sanville’s whiny yelp with Chris Freeman’s emo croon. Other highlights include the overwrought “Green Squirrel In Pretty Bad Shape” and the electronic-drum-led “SDPS,” which ends up feeling like a spiritual sequel to “How Do You Know It’s Not Armadillo Shells?” These are songs that beg to be performed live in a room full of sweat-covered strangers who have memorized every word and know every beat. You may not know these people, and they may not know you, but you both know all the words to “OG Blue Sky,” and that is enough.

10 | Dogleg - Melee

Melee is an LP years in the making. After countless gigs, lineup changes, and onstage handstands, Dogleg finally revealed their energetic debut album to the world earlier this year on March 13th, just days before society ground to a halt thanks to COVID-19. Look no further than any videos on Twitter, the band’s own music videos, or this very blog for evidence that Dogleg is a band that thrives in the live setting. Robbed of that outlet, the world in which Melee was conceived of and created in no longer exists, and that hurts. Watching the group shred on Audiotree or smash household objects in a freezing Michigan garage is a nice substitute, but everything pales in comparison to being pressed up against a wall of strangers and friends yelling “I’VE BEEN. SET UP. YET AGAIN.” as the serotonin in your body spikes to unforeseen levels.

Instead, Melee offers an alternate reality; it presents a world in which things didn’t go so far off the rails. An alternate reality where we could take in all of these shredding riffs, swinging bass lines, and agro drum fills in real-time together. This album captures the feeling of seeing Dogleg live better than any of the band’s previous recordings, and that alone is an achievement. We can only hope that we’ll all be back in that freezing Michigan garage again soon because that’s what I’m looking forward to most once this is all over.

9 | Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly - Soak

Listening to Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly is the audio equivalent of the let’s fucking goooo meme. Within two seconds of pressing play on Soak, you’re greeted with an infamous broken English Mario clip followed by a barrage of jittery emo guitar tapping and frantic drumming. As the band jostles the listener around with energy drink riffs, a flurry of gleeful Mario sound effects score your increasingly-elated emotions as your serotonin rises… and that’s only the first minute. Over the course of the album’s remaining 26 minutes, the group shepherds the listener from Kingdom Hearts samples to throat-shredding screams with skill and ease. The entire release is a free-spirited excursion that never takes itself too seriously. It’s like those nights you spent with friends in high school where you all just gathered at someone’s house and wandered wherever your collective desires took you. Maybe you went on a midnight McDonald’s run, maybe you went into a 7-Eleven with ten bucks and came out with an armful of Arizonas and sour candy, maybe you just stayed in and smoked weed on someone’s dirty couch… maybe you did all three. There isn’t much of a point to be made or a thesis statement to be had on Soak, but much like those high school nights, not having a point kind of is the point.

8 | Bartees Strange - Live Forever

I’m going to come out of the gates swinging here with a bold claim that Live Forever is one of the most creative and confident records released this year. From the floaty introduction on “Jealousy” to the screaming synthy “Mustang,” no two tracks are alike. Bartees Strange (born Bartees Leon Cox Jr.) culls together a wide array of influences and inspiration throughout the release, resulting in an album that’s always exciting and multifaceted. Songs like the leaned-out “Kelly Rowland” and the rapid-fire “Boomer” deploy contemporary hip-hop vernacular over indie rock instrumentation resulting in a combination that’s distinctly Bartees Strange. “Stone Meadows” is a mid-album highlight that hits with the same soaring emotive weight as a National song (fitting as he also released an EP of National covers earlier this year). There are deeper, more dissonant tracks like “Flagey God” and “Mossblerd,” which lean further Bartees Strange’s electronic tendencies. These interjections come across like uncontrollable bouts of Death Grips-like energy that exist primarily keep the listener on their toes. This is an album that could only be created by Bartees Leon Cox Jr., a collection of ideas, influences, sounds, and words that have been picked up across twenty-some years of hyper-unique learned experiences. It’s a musical melting pot that beautifully reflects the unique space in which creativity flourishes most.

7 | Barely Civil - I’ll Figure This Out

For now. Forever. Those are the two sentiments that lie on opposing ends of Barely Civil’s horseshoe of a sophomore album I’ll Figure This Out. While the two states are connected in theory, the path from one to the other is messy and complicated. After all, how does one go from something as temporary as “For Now…” to something as definitive as “...Forever”? How does a relationship move from ‘this is my person for now’ to ‘I love you forever’? How does life go from ‘this is my situation for now’ to ‘this is my existence forever’? It’s staggering to think about how many events make up the space between those decisions, but I’ll Figure This Out does its best to articulate what that arc feels like.

With this album, Barely Civil took the definitively midwest emo sounds they had explored on their debut album and fleshed them out to an immensely satisfying degree. Assisted by Christ Teti of The World Is A Beautiful Place, these songs shine immaculately, basking in the glow of one of fourth-wave emo’s most influential figureheads. There’s a foreboding riff on “Graves Avenue” that is shrouded in this unshakable diabolical energy. “Box For My Organs” boasts a shreddy guitar lick that throws directly to a catchy sing-along chorus. Most notably, I’ll Figure This Out sees the band mastering the art of the build, creating dynamic emo tracks that breathe, expand, and contract, all within the space of a few minutes. “North Newhall” is a slow-burn that ignites from a jolting guitar stab and works it’s way up to a soaring affirmation. “Hollow Structures” layers on hushed vocals, precious lyricism, careful drumming, and a remorseful trumpet that all build to a fake-out ending only to erupt in a barrage of instrumentation that ends up simmering back down to the exact same place as the start. In exploring the spaces between something as tentative as ‘for now’ and something as lasting as ‘forever,’ Barely Civil managed to craft something beautiful that will live on for the rest of time.

6 | Haim - Women In Music Pt. III

One part Stevie Nicks, a pinch of Shania Twain, and a dash of Sheryl Crow. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect indie-pop record, and the result was Women In Music Pt. III. I’ll admit I’ve always been pretty lukewarm on Haim; they were never “bad,” but they never rose above “merely pleasing” for me until this year. Over the course of the summer, Women In Music wormed its way into my heart and became the soundtrack to my season of hiking and exploration. Aside from the throwback appeal, the other aspect that kept me coming back to the record was how catchy it is. “Now I’m In It” takes a warbly 1989-era Taylor-Swift electronic bed and pairs it with a rapid-fire vocal delivery that’s as catchy as it is impressive. “Summer Girl” packs the melancholia of Barenaked Ladies’ “Pinch Me” into a singable chorus about short-lasting love.

There are also lots of risks for what’s ostensibly presented as a pop record. Mid-album highlight “All That Ever Mattered” pairs trappy hi-hats with haunting siren wails that are capped off by a solo worthy of the late great Eddie Van Halen. Meanwhile, “FUBT” takes the sentiment of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps” but wraps it around a jangly reverb-laden guitar that allows Danielle Haim’s vocals to shine before the track makes way for a passionate guitar solo. In short, there’s lots to love about Women In Music, almost none of which I expected when I first went into the album. With just the right amount of nostalgia, love, heartbreak, and modern pop sensibilities, the Haim sisters were able to create a masterpiece worthy of absolute adoration.

5 | 100 gecs - 100 gecs and The Tree of Clues

Much like 9/11 or the OJ chase, everyone remembers where they were the first time they heard 100 gecs. Maybe you stumbled across a video on Twitter, or you saw a friend talking about them on Discord. Perhaps you saw an out-of-context pissbaby copypasta and decided to do some research. Whatever the case, your first listen to any song off 1000 gecs probably felt like a revelation, and you likely had a strong reaction one way or the other. With 1000 gecs and The Tree of Clues, the hyperpop duo has managed to make their world-shattering debut feel new again and usher in something visionary in the process.

Whether it’s recontextualizing their songs in a live setting, getting a chorus assist from the likes of Charli XCX, or a Fall Out Boy/Chiodos team-up that completely rebuilds the track from the ground up, it’s incredible how fresh these songs still sound after dozens of listens. Over the course of the album’s 51-minute running time, the gecs allow their guests to explore hip-hop, noise-pop, and Crazy-Frog-esque EDM, all built off the foundation of last year’s debut.

This record is a marvel of pacing, collaboration, and open-minded ideas. It’s essentially an album-length victory lap for Dylan Brady and Laura Les, who have brought a once-obscure and non-viable genre to the forefront of Twitter talk and Spotify playlists. Tree of Clues is obscure, obfuscating, and ever-changing in the best way possible. The record can radically shift sounds within a matter of seconds, which means it’s never dull. It’s like a shot of espresso injected directly into your veins; for some people, it will leave them fidgety and with a tense jaw, but for others, it will prove to be the exact sort of jolt they needed. Now that the duo has celebrated their win in style, the world waits with bated breath to see what they will do next because nobody is doing it like them.

4 | Lake Saint Daniel - Good Things

Listening to Lake Saint Daniel is like looking at a painting. You stand in front of it, take it in, and eventually find yourself falling into it. This gravitational pull happens over time and occurs so gradually that you might not even notice how involved you’ve become in the piece until something snaps you back to reality. Good Things possesses this transportive power and focuses its message on the concept of youth.

Throughout the album, there are all these little reminders of things you used to do as a child. Things that you had forgotten about, ways of behaving and operating in the world that had once been so viable when you were half the size you are now. “Faking Asleep” hones in on the feeling of being a kid in the backseat on the drive home and pretending to be just sleepy enough that your parents have to carry you in. “Goodbye” fixates on the universal experience of being a kid, getting asked how old you are, and rounding up by a half year or a handful of months to seem more mature. Then, of course, there’s the beautiful cover of “Rainbow Connection” that takes the childhood classic and reimagines it to fit seamlessly within the world of the record. Daniel Radin has a knack for honing in on these universal yet hyper-specific experiences in ways that allow you remember them for the first time in years and love them once again in the process. Good Things makes you want to be a kid again but also acknowledges the reality that those experiences are forever lost to time. It’s a collection of gorgeous country-tinged lullabies for the restless, overworked, anxiety-ridden 20-something, and that’s something I desperately needed this year. This album is a reminder that there are good things in small things, no matter how far removed from them you are.

3 | Young Jesus - Welcome to Conceptual Beach

I can’t think of a single album from 2020 that had a more impactful first listen on me than Young Jesus’ Welcome to Conceptual Beach. This record had been on my radar for a while, thanks to the wonderful people over at No Earbuds, but I went into Conceptual Beach completely blind. My expectations were nonexistent, and that worked in the album’s favor.

A vague concept album, Conceptual Beach seeks to depict the invented place that exists in lead singer John Rossiter’s head. In translating this mental refuge into music, the group utilizes everything from haunting autotune to fluttering woodwinds. Now a decade into their careers as a band, this record sees Young Jesus gracefully transitioning from emo act to flat-out indie rock, a transition many groups before have tried, but few have executed so masterfully.

Fluctuating between aching Matt Berninger delivery, mathy Peaer instrumentals, and long stretches of jazzy post-rock jams, the band welcomes the listener to this auditory world and allows them to find their home within it. “Every record needs a thesis, needs a crisis, or campaign,” Rossiter bemoans on lead single “Root and Crown,” the record’s shortest song and (ironically) its thesis. This ballad comes after epic seven-minute builds, hypnotic repetitions, heavenly saxophone solos, and a wild whammy bar deployment. It’s a journey worthy of a Lord of the Rings movie, yet the payoff makes the entire expedition worth it.

While the record’s first half is beautiful and unlike anything else I’d heard this year, what continues to blow me away about Conceptual Beach even now is the final suite of songs that close out the record. While the first five tracks boast skillful instrumentals, memorable choruses, and passionate deliveries, the last two entries swept me off my feet for a completely different reason. The 12-minute “Lark” follows the same format as some of my favorite songs of all time, such as “Like A River” by Sharks Keep Moving or “Goodbye Sky Harbor” by Jimmy Eat World. These songs establish a scene, build a story, then launch into long meditative instrumental stretches that allow the listener’s mind to wander and fill in the blank portions of the canvas with whatever they choose. Similarly, the 10-minute “Magicians” introduces a life filled with decisions and actions, then lets the listener fill in the gaps with their own life and experiences.

Welcome to Conceptual Beach is depicting a world and a set of feelings that I never knew existed. I’ve found much solitude in this record, and I feel lucky I’ve had it as a realm in which to escape throughout the year. There is no other group making music quite like Young Jesus, and that’s reinforced with every molecule of this release.

2 | Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud

Saint Cloud is perhaps the only piece of music this year to bring me genuine peace. Whenever it felt like the world outside was spiraling into chaos (a phenomenon I’ve experienced multiple times throughout the last 300-some-odd days), I turned to this album, and it brought me comfort the likes of which no other record could provide. Look no further than the album’s name or cover to experience the tranquil feeling of escaping into the mountains and basking in the warm glow of the sun in the back of your vintage Ford. Listening to Saint Cloud is like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket or finding yourself in the comforting arms of a lover. It is true peace.

Album opener “Oxbow” begins with a resonant cymbal crash and a concave electronic beat that immediately commands attention. It’s a totally left-field way to open such a folksy album; this odd combination of sounds calls things to order like the three meditative bells that signal the beginning of a meditation. After this subversion, Katie Crutchfield commands the spotlight with a pastoral scene of settling and getting sober. This poetic and abstract journey leads to a repetition of “I want it all” that echoes the same sentiment as the opening track of Japanese Breakfast’s Soft Sounds From Another Planet.

After this wholesome and homey introduction, the doors to Saint Cloud have been opened and, you have officially been welcomed in. The carefree soaring high notes of “Can’t Do Much” make way for the soft keys and remorseful delivery of “Fire.” Equal parts catchy, loving, and sorrowful, these songs possess a sort of earthy power that makes me feel deeply connected to the planet we call home. The record winds from one natural view to the next; “Lilacs” is delicate yet bouncy, waving in the air along with the summertime breeze. Meanwhile, other tracks like “Arkadelphia” spend their time depicting Crutchfield’s youth growing up in the south.

Album closer “St. Cloud” flashes from different locations and perspectives in a way that allows Crutchfield to honor her father and connect herself to his essence forever. It’s a gorgeous, slow, and aching track that is almost too pure for this world. Much like the ten tracks that came before it, this song is just one step forward in the wholesome, naturalistic view of the world that Waxahatchee is offering over the course of the album. Saint Cloud is a beautiful peek into Katie Crutchfield’s mind that resonates with me deeply and calms my soul. I just feel fortunate we’ve been provided this escape in a year where we needed it so badly.

1 | Carpool - Erotic Nightmare Summer

When I premiered the second single to Carpool’s debut album back in May, I had no idea I was helping unveil what would ultimately become my favorite album of the year. A virtually-unknown presence to me until 2020, Carpool is a DIY emo band hailing from Rochester, New York, who signed to the excellent Acrobat Unstable Records earlier this year and came out of the gates with some heat.

Within the space of weeks, I went from ‘this is a fun band’ to ‘this record has defined my year’ because it feels like it was so tailor-made for me. Erotic Nightmare Summer brings together catchy pop-punk bounciness from my childhood, headstrong hardcore passages that take me back to high school, and tappy emo guitarwork that has become my go-to over the last few years. On top of this instrumental excellence you have Stoph Colasanto’s excellent writing and vocals that range from a Prince Daddy & The Hyena-esque yelp to emo softness in the vein of Macseal. Wrap all of this together and you have a collection of ten songs that bring together nearly everything I love in one place.

Opening track “Cruel Intentions” kicks things off with a slow simmer as a multi-tracked vocal line welcomes the listener to the record over a tapped guitar riff. Gradually, bass and drums turn up the heat as the lyrics become more impassioned, culminating in Colasanto’s trademarked sneer. Just as the track builds to a bouncy moshpit-inducing riff, things boil over, transitioning perfectly to “Whiskey & Xanax,” where a boppy glockenspiel is paired with a swaying emo riff equal parts danceable and moshable. I could probably write about every song on this album, but recognize album of the year write-ups are supposed to be somewhat succinct.

Whether it’s the snappy “Salty Song,” the biting “Beauty School Dropout,” the thrashy “Come Thru Cool,” or the heartfelt “Liquor Store Employee,” Erotic Nightmare Summer never makes a misstep. The fact that this record clocks in at a mere 30 minutes means it’s easy to return to and is infinitely relistenable. Erotic Nightmare Summer genuinely feels like a breath of fresh air in the emo scene; it wakes up my mind and warms my body like a good cup of coffee. Hearing these relatable topics tackled in such a laid-back yet energetic way may seem contradictory, but it’s also affirming because that reflects my own approach to life. As my leg bounces along with the drums and my mind pangs back and forth trying to keep up with the frantic guitar work, I somehow feel comforted. As I scream along to each verse and shout every chorus for no one but my steering wheel, I feel at peace. As I listen to Erotic Nightmare Summer, I feel at home.

December 10, 2020

The 2020 Diamond Platters: Swim Into The Sound’s Ancillary End of the Year Awards

December 10, 2020/ Taylor Grimes

Welp, it’s that time of the year again. Not the holidays, not Christmas, not Hanukkah, but List Season. Yes folks, it’s that wonderful time of the year where every other mainstream music publication stumbles over themselves to write compelling one-paragraph write-ups on the same 50 albums as every other blog.

Vindictive as I sound, I do have a strange affinity for List Season. I’m always curious to see what the critical consensus is and where my favorites rank among the lists (if at all), yet there’s something so off about the whole thing. A 3-page listicle of 50 different one-paragraph album write-ups has never felt indicative of the year. Sure, you can revisit the big hits, the 10 out of 10s, and the cultural touchstones, but the format itself is limited. A simple countdown doesn’t do the year justice. Where are the EPs and splits? Where are the weird headlines? Where are the cover songs? Where are the other formative musical events of the year that don’t fit into the album format? That’s why I created The Diamond Platters.

Intentionally named to be as gaudy and opulent as possible, these awards are the highest honor that I, a music blog with impeccable taste, can possibly bestow upon an artist. Music sales, popularity, playing to swaths of adoring fans, those should all come second, because if you made it on this list, then you made it baby.

Tongue-in-cheek sarcasm aside, this tradition began four years ago and was so well-received that I just had to do it again in 2018. That second iteration was less-well-received, but I thought ‘analytics be damned!’ and did it again in 2019 to relative success. These awards began as a way for me to circumvent publishing “just another” end of the year list. This is a look at the past 365 days in music through a unique (and sometimes hyper-specific) lens. These awards allow me to draw attention to the creations that may not get discussed on a typical publication’s end of the year list. Most importantly, it’s a way to celebrate the year in music without pitting artists against each other. Unique categories for the unique music listener, because not everything fits into a list of 50.

Best Acoustic Reimagining

Winner: The Wonder Years “Hoodie Weather”
Over the course of the last decade, The Wonder Years have become a stalwart of the pop-punk scene. The band has aged gracefully into each iteration of their career, gradually shifting from energetic teenage goofiness to post-college listlessness and, more recently, morbid pathos. This year, the band released the second iteration in their Burst & Decay series, allowing them to revisit their old songs and update them in a way that feels more true to where the band members are today. The group’s acoustic reimagining of 2011’s “Hoodie Weather” merges these worlds together, taking a song about the restless touring of their early 20’s and rendering it in a pensive, more idyllic light. This rendition of the track retains the sentiment at the core of the original and feels like an update that looks back on the events with reverence provided by the distance of time. It’s a revisitation, but also an update. In a way, this feels like the way the song was always meant to be heard. It’s proof that the band still has more to say, even if it’s just saying it differently.

Runner-up: Future Teens “Swiped Out”
Future teens have always straddled the line between “emo band” and something more profound. They have achieved success by using many of the same struggles and stylistic choices as your average emo group but have managed to present them in a more mature way. With their Sensitive Sessions EP, the group revisited four songs from last year’s Breakup Season and somehow managed to make them even sadder. Hell, the band even managed to make Smash Mouth sound sad, so at this point, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing they can’t do.

Best Album Art

Winner: Vile Creature - Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!
For an album that I’ve only listened to one time, the cover to Vile Creature’s Glory, Glory! Has stuck with me more than any other release this year. Capturing the heaviness and beauty at the heart of this sludgy release, this album art is simultaneously gorgeous and disturbing to look at. The cover both sticks with you and accurately indicates the exact kind of songs you’re about to take in. When flipping through vinyl at a record store, this cover is enough to stop any music fan in their tracks, and that means it’s a success on every level.

Runner-up: Niiice. - Internet Friends
Looking at the cover for Internet Friends, you might wonder who some of these people are, but if you’re a part of the emo DIY circuit on Twitter, then you’d quickly recognize a majority of these faces. From Origami Angel to Stars Hollow and Short Fictions, this cover is a veritable Avengers Endgame of 5th wave emo. This means you can spend a majority of the album’s runtime combing over the front and back of the vinyl scanning for easter eggs while taking in songs about weed and depression, essentially the ideal way to spend an evening in 2020.

I Miss Shows: Award For Best Live Album

Winner: Aaron West & The Roaring Twenties - Live From Asbury Park
It probably goes without saying, but concerts were fucked this year, and that meant we had to rely on livestreams and live albums to fill that void. I was fortunate enough to catch a grand total of 6 shows in the two and a half months of 2020 that things were still open. Halfway through the year, Dan Campbell (aka Aaron West) released Live From Asbury Park, a one-hour album capturing two sold-out nights of energetic, folksy, Springsteen-inspired performances from the tail end of 2019. This record is everything a live album should be. There’s crowd interaction, jaw-dropping high notes, and gorgeous brass instrumentation. On top of all this, the live rendition of “Divorce and the American South” is one of the only songs to make me cry outright this year, so this record is worth checking out for that fact alone.

Runner-up: Bon Iver - Blood Bank (10th Anniversary Edition)
I’m a longtime Bon Iver guy and seeing Justin Vernon treat the tenth anniversary of Blood Bank with such reverence warmed my heart. It’s not exactly a sizable release in the band’s discography, but still a memorable stopgap after the breakthrough success of For Emma, Forever Ago. Even though the EP’s tenth-anniversary release is essentially just the original EP plus a collection of four live tracks, the selection of songs taken from different locations across their 2018 tour makes it feel like a lot of time and thought was put into its presentation. Having (finally) seen the group in concert back in 2019, I can say that the selections on this release do an excellent job of bottling up the raw emotional power of these songs when rendered live on-stage.

Best Sequenced Album

Winner: Ratboys - Printer’s Devil
Longtime readers know that I’m a diehard supporter of short albums. I’m already a big believer in ‘less is more,’ but the longer an album is, the more opportunities there are for lulls and rough patches. While it may or may not end up on my album of the year list in a few weeks, there’s no denying that Ratboy’s third album is an immaculately-crafted work. It’s perfectly paced with peppy, upbeat tracks opening each side, long wistful passages right when they’re needed, and a wonderfully pensive closing track. In other words, this is a masterfully-structured release that hits all the right beats at all the right times.

Runner-up: 100 Gecs - 100 Gecs and the Tree of Clues
Nine times out of ten, you could hand me a remix album and I’d throw it straight in the trash. Even for bands that I love, all a remix typically makes me want to do is stop listening to it and go turn on the original. There are some rare examples where a remix can elevate the original or cast it in a new light, but on 100 Gecs and the Tree of Clues, pretty much everything and the kitchen sink is included, yet somehow everything works. Essentially an album-length victory lap for the breakthrough hyperpop act, Tree of Clues sees the duo turning their eclectic 2019 album over to a host of collaborators and conspirators. These guests create ecstasy-fueled EDM bangers, hash noise rock assaults, and everything in between. Every song is different from the ones that came before it, which means there’s never a dull moment.

Remix of the Year

61aec7662124751d396d0ee8d4f838b7.1000x1000x1.jpg

Winner: 100 gecs “ringtone remix featuring Charli XCX, Kero Kero Bonito, and Rico Nasty”
When 100 gecs dropped their ringtone remix at the beginning of the year, I’d never experienced anything quite like it. The mix of Charli XCX’s PC Music pop, the brash bars provided by Rico Nasty, and the kawaii interlude courtesy of Kero Kero Bonito proved to be an intoxicating mixture that felt like falling in love. This remix takes an already great track and re-infuses it with that feeling of meeting someone you’ve fallen head over heels for. A powerful emotion to have bottled up in a three-and-a-half-minute song.

Runner-up: Origami Angel - Origami Angel Broke Minecraft
Once we all collectively realized that gigs weren’t happening this year, Origami Angel did the only logical thing and released a Minecraft-themed remix of their greatest hits for a livestreamed concert taking place in the same game. Despite the complicated and meme-like origins surrounding its release, I’ll never say no to new Gami, much less Gami with Lil John drops.

Best Hiking Album

Winner: Cory Wong - Trail Songs Dusk/Dawn
On top of releasing one album with Vulfpeck and an album with the Fearless Flyers, Cory Wong also somehow found time to release a solo album in January, a live album, a jazzy piano record, a second two-part live album, and another solo album. On top of all this, he also managed to release a conceptual double EP at the peak of summer that (literally) walks the listener through two different halves of a hiking trip. The first release focuses on the sunny hike up the trail, while the second release captures the starry night spent around the campfire. As someone who got into hiking this year, I can’t articulate how beautifully Wong manages to capture the feeling of boundless exploration and wonder that one experiences on their way up a trail, as well as the sense of satisfied triumph you feel on your way back down. It’s a beautiful breath of fresh air that I can’t wait to revisit all winter long.

Runner-up: Empty Country - Empty Country
Empty Country’s self-titled release is an arid, jangly album that walks the line between emo, indie rock, and even a touch of heartland Americana. Much like Wild Pink, this is a band that fuses all of these sounds together into something fresh and accessible. Listening to Empty Country feels comparable to a lackadaisical stroll through a field, or the view from the top of a hill.

Best Interpolation

Winner: Dance Gavin Dance “Born To Fail” (Interpolating Tides of Man)
When I first heard “Born To Fail,” I was digging it. Then, when I heard Tilian quoting my favorite Tides of Man song a full decade after he first sang it, the song officially blew my mind. It never even occurred to me that a band was even ALLOWED to do this, but like everything else that Dance Gavin Dance does, they made it sound great.

Runner-up: Gleemer “TTX” (Interpolating Lesley Gore)
While the interpolation on “Born To Fail” is fantastic because of the reference track's mind-bending context, Gleemer's “TTX” is noteworthy for an entirely different reason. Here, the band interpolates Lesley Gore's “It’s My Party” and integrates it so seamlessly that the lyrics sound completely organic.

Best Music Video

Winner: Rico Nasty “Own It”
Every frame of this video is art. From the bikini-clad Hellraiser look to the babushka-adorned champagne tea party, “Own It” truly feels like Rico Nasty in her element. There are bright colors, triple-take costume designs, and animated in-your-face movements that come across as equal parts boisterous and calculated—a perfect, disorienting crash course into the world of Rico Nasty.

Runner-up: Dogleg “Wartortle”
This seems like a safe place to admit that Clerks blew my mind when I first saw it in college. Not even a casual “blew my mind and liked it,” but an “I need to go sit by myself and think about that movie because it spoke to something that deep within me.” I’m a little embarrassed by that fact six-ish years down the line, but seeing Dogleg’s faithful recreation of the Kevin Smith classic in the music video for “Wartortle” made me feel a little bit better about my regrettably deep-rooted connection.

Best Music-Related Game of the Year

Winner: Dikembe: The Video Game
I’ll admit this category was not entirely my idea but came from Dikembe themselves jokingly suggesting it on Twitter. Despite the artificial creation of this award, this is precisely what the Diamond Platters were made for. After all, how many other DIY bands have the brains big enough to promote their upcoming record with a platformer? Just one, and it was Dikembe.

Runner-up: Get To The Gig: The Chillwavve Records Video Game
In a similar vein, Get To The Gig from Chillwavve Records is a throwback RPG that finds its hero fulfilling the title’s promise and meeting a roster of DIY emo icons along the way. If that wasn’t enough, the “leaked” song at the end of the game made the entire journey feel worth it. Eat your heart out, Travis Scott Fortnite performance.

Best Guest Feature

Winner: Uwade Akhere on Shore
I may not have liked Fleet Foxes’ fourth studio album, but Uwade Akhere’s contributions are undeniably the record’s high points. In fact, the band places a lot of weight on her shoulders for an unknown talent. From opening and closing the album to contributing gorgeous melodies to the album’s best cut, it’s painful to imagine what Shore would have been without her.

Runner-up: Morgan Freeman on Savage Mode II
Morgan Freeman’s dulcet tones are pretty much the last thing you’d expect to hear when clicking play on the newest 21 Savage mixtape, yet on the sequel to 2017’s Savage Mode, they somehow manage to fit perfectly. From welcoming the listener to the album, giving a detailed explanation on the difference between ‘snitches’ and ‘rats,’ to closing the tape out with a reminder to “stay in savage mode,” it’s fair to say this release wouldn’t have been the same without him.

Best Cover Song

Winner: Phoebe Bridgers & Maggie Rogers “Iris”
2020 was a banner year for Phoebe Bridgers; she released her sophomore album to critical acclaim and (relative) enthusiasm from long-time fans. She earned a slew of Grammy nominations, performed at Red Rocks, released her annual Christmas song, and had a seemingly never-ending barrage of attention-grabbing interviews. The arguable peak of Phoebe-dom happened when, during a particularly bleak moment on Election Day, she tweeted, “if trump loses I will cover iris by the goo goo dolls.” Not only did Trump end up losing, but Phoebe stuck to her word, releasing the song for only 24 hours on Bandcamp with all proceeds going to Fair Fight, an organization dedicated to fighting for free and fair elections. On top of all this, both Bridgers and Rogers earned their first Billboard Hot 100 with this cover based solely off of Bandcamp Purchases alone. The song itself is an absolutely gorgeous and heartfelt rendition of the late-90s radio banger, a genre of music I’ve found myself increasingly unironically drawn to over the course of quarantine. If anything, Phoebe’s version of the song only further solidified my belief in the earnest beauty that lies at the heart of corny songs from my childhood.

Runner-up: Pelafina “Cardigan”
I’ll be honest. I have no idea how I stumbled across Pelafina, let alone became a follower of theirs on Bandcamp, but when I got an email announcing their Taylor Swift covers, I bought them without hesitation. TS finds the band revisiting two recent Swift hits, “Cardigan” and “Cruel Summer,” both of which the band casts in a new and loving light that’s both faithful to the source material while retaining their style as a band, exactly what a good cover should be.

Headline of the Year

Scooby-Doo-and-Bjo%CC%88rk-photo-by-Santiago-Felipe.png

Winner: “Scooby-Doo Is Going on Tour With Björk's Costume Designer”
The fact that 2020 robbed us of this experience is nothing short of a national tragedy.

Runner-up: “Sex Pistols star Johnny Rotten bitten by a flea on his penis after rescuing squirrels”
Look, if I had to read this, y’all do too.

Porch Beer Album of the Year

Winner: Routine - And Other Things
Porch Beers, a term coined by me and popularized with my two-follower Spotify playlist, is a subgenre of music characterized by jangly guitars, lackadaisical lyricism, and relaxed rhythm sections. It’s country-tinged indie rock that pairs flawlessly with a porch and a pink sky on a summer evening, and there wasn’t a release this year that captured that feeling better than And Other Things. Surprise announced in the last quarter of the year, this 17-minute EP brings together partners Melina Duterte of Jay Som and Annie Truscott of Chastity Belt for a collection of songs that feels as fulfilling as a full-length. As you’d expect from such a short release, the two waste no time jumping straight into it with “Candy Road” which sparkles like desert sand in the midday sun. The titular “And Other Things” is a masterwork of revelatory reverb. Meanwhile, “Calm and Collected” sends things off perfectly with an extended instrumental stretch that leaves just enough room for reflection while you queue the record up again and grab another beer.

Runner-up: Kevin Morby - Sundowner
With songs like “Valley,” “Campfire,” and of course the titular “Sundowner,” Kevin Morby’s sixth studio album feels tailor-made for porch beers or long, reflective drives home. It’s laid-back, countrified, fresh air music that practically begs you to crack open a cold one, inhale some fresh air, and appreciate your surroundings.

Best Gothic Country Album

Winner: Holy Motors - Horse
If someone were to ask me what Gothic Country is, I would simply show them the cover art for songs like Holy Motors’ “Country Church” and “Endless Night,” then I’d hit play on the band’s excellent sophomore album.

Runner-up: BAMBARA - Stray
Swirling together a mesmerizing blend of gothic country and post-punk, Bambara’s Shadow On Everything was a dark horse entry in my 2018 Album of the Year list. Two years later, they’ve continued to develop that sound into a new release that’s haunting, unsettling, groovy, and even singable at times.

Favorite Longform Piece I Wrote This Year

Winner: The Stark Maximalism of Sufjan Stevens
Spoiler alert: sometimes I use these awards to re-promote some of my old articles. While it may seem like insular self-promotion, what better time than the end of the year to look back on some of my favorite pieces of writing? Literally the first article I published this calendar year, my retrospective on Sufjan’s Carrie & Lowell was a long time coming. Bringing together years of listening history, a live album, and a B-sides collection, I felt like I finally said everything I’d spent five years ruminating on. Not only that, I feel like I was able to articulate myself completely and beautifully, which is one of the most satisfying experiences as a writer.

Runner-up: An Introduction To Post-Rock
Post-rock is a genre that’s gotten me through a lot of tough times. It’s scored countless hours of reading, writing, and creating for me. It’s a pretty specific but deep genre, which means it’s infinitely rewarding to get into. In this piece, I did my best to put the wordless power of the genre into several paragraphs, a task that proved to be both rewarding and herculean. Intended to serve as an entry point for someone new to post-rock, this post takes nine of genre’s best records and explains the differences between each so someone can jump in with an album that’s up their alley stylistically then (ideally) journey in deeper from there.

Y’all Sleep: Most Overlooked and Underappreciated Release of the Year

Winner: Marble Teeth - Park
Do you like Slaughter Beach, Dog? What about Oso Oso? How Do you feel about Field Medic? If you responded positively to any of the above questions, then what are you waiting for? Press play on Marble Teeth’s Park immediately. While Cars weaved minute-long stories of high school football players, paranoid Pop-Tart connoisseurs, and lifelong love, Park ventures into more polished and personable territory. While Cars centered around acoustic guitar licks and simplistic electronic beats, Park favors a full(er) band approach that strikes at the heart of midwest mediocrity. Still centered around Caleb Jefson’s astute observations of the human condition, these songs sway forward in the most approachable and unexpected ways. There’s nothing quite like reveling in the world of awkward relationships, midnight dances, and Connecticut rest stops depicted in Park. This is a superb and lived-in release that is more creative, wondrous, and well-observed than almost anything I’ve listened to this year.

Runner-up: Fixer - Married
Portland, Oregon doesn't have much of a music scene because if there was any justice in this world, then Fixer’s sophomore album would have roughly one million streams by now. A lowkey indie rock release from the beginning of quarantine, this record is catchy, groovy, and immaculately produced. A literal shame that more people haven’t dug into these songs because this 25-minute release is worth its weight in gold.

Best “Making Of” Documentary

Winner: Glass Beach - the making of the first glass beach album
Have 90 minutes to kill and don’t feel like watching a movie? Well, it’s hard to beat the making of the first glass beach album. The perfect introduction to the emo-ish prog-ish indie-ish band, this feature-length documentary is up for free on Youtube and details (as you would expect) the creation of the band’s titular first album. It’s fun, it’s funky, it’s a journey.

Runner-up: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Ratty
Have another 30 minutes to kill? Well, Ratty is a documentary from genre-agnostic Aussie rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. This mini-movie details the creation of their thrash metal masterpiece Infest The Rats Nest, which wound up on our 2019 Album of the Year List. For a band as entertaining and musically diverse as King Gizz, this doc is a great peek behind the curtain into the psych rocker’s creative process.

Best Cover Song Part II: Electric Boogaloo

Winner: The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die “In Circles”
The World Is A Beautiful Place are emo legends. Sunny Day Real Estate are emo legends. It would only make sense that the two should meet at some point, and this cover bridges the gap between emo generations like nothing before. It shouldn’t be surprising that TWIABP does “In Circles” such justice, but they also manage to put their own spin on it that feels distinctly modern. It’s gorgeous and honestly just makes me want a full album of Sunny Day Real Estate covers.

Runner-up: Dogleg & Worst Party Ever - go ep
It started, as many things do, with a tweet. Late November, Michigan punk band Dogleg pitted a fight against Florida emo rockers Worst Party Ever. Accusations were made, shots were fired, the gauntlet was thrown. This jokingly playful beef culminated in the two bands exchanging covers, all of which were collected in a split that warms my emo heart.

Most Triggering High School Metalcore Phase Flashbacks

Winner: Mikau - Phantoma
This year I stumbled across a vinyl copy of The Word Alive’s debut EP Empire at a local record shop. I’m pretty sure I audibly gasped and quickly threw down however much money allowed me to leave the store with the record in-hand. If that reaction makes sense to you, then Mikau’s Phantoma is likely to spark that same corner of your latent 2010’s Hot Topic brain as it did me. There are chuggy riffs, crabcore breakdowns, and synthy interludes. In short, this is the type of band who would have signed to Rise Records in 2011 and raked in money by the thousands every summer at Warped Tour. Instead, we’re lucky enough to have them in 2020, where they can be appreciated for the nostalgic, lost art form that they really are.

Runner-up: If I Die First - My Poison Arms
When I first stumbled across If I Die First on Spotify, I didn’t even know what genre they were. When I clicked play on My Poison Arms and was greeted electronicore in the vein of This Romantic Tragedy, I was immediately smitten. This EP would have fit in perfectly on my iPod Classic circa 2009, so I am legally obligated to love it with every molecule in my latent metalcore-loving heart.

Song of the Summer

fafcc0242f48734290ed600204a13b9b.1000x1000x1.png

Winner: Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion “WAP”
Let’s just get it out of the way; “WAP” is a great song. The track is catchy, dirty, and sexually-liberating, which is all well and good, but what strikes me most about this cartoonishly horny hip-hop cut is the fact that it managed to be so pervasive despite a nationwide shutdown. I know there were (unfortunately) still people out partying this summer, but this song’s ability to spread through TikTok, Twitter, and various other social media is what really cemented it as an artistic achievement in the face of a distinctly non-WAP summer.

Runner-up: Dababy & Roddy Ricch “Rockstar”
I know it was a quarantined summer, and having a hit song during this time feels like it comes with a giant asterisk. However, if your song managed to make its way to me (an uncool white guy in his late-20s), I can only assume it’s reached a level of cultural pervasiveness that is worthy of praise.

Favorite Review I Wrote This Year

Winner: Young Jesus - Welcome To Conceptual Beach
More shameless self-promo, this time in review form! While those earlier articles were longer-form pieces, my review for Young Jesus’ phenomenal fifth album is short, pointed, and poured out of me in one writing session. Sometimes the most challenging part of writing a review is just figuring out your way in. Young Jesus provided so many different ways in on their latest record, the problem became figuring out which one to pursue. Luckily, I feel like I did the album justice and spoke articulately to the statement that it’s making.

Runner-up: Sinai Vessel - Ground Aswim
Much like my Young Jesus review, my review for Ground Aswim poured out of me over the course of one impassioned afternoon that I spent with the record. Also, much like the Young Jesus album, Sinai Vessel’s sophomore effort is a measured, precious, and relaxing album with a statement to make coming at a prescient time.

Best Cover Song Part III: Return of the King

Winner: Lucy Dacus “Lips of an Angel”
Apologies for three identical categories, but we got lots of great covers this year, and I want to talk about “Lips of an Angel.” Originally by the American rock band Hinder, “Lips of an Angel” arrived upon our earth in 2005 and is arguably the toxic masculinity anthem. There’s cheating, gaslighting, pleading, and everything else you’d expect to hear while listening to a shitty dude talk to his ex on the phone. Lucy Dacus takes the band’s cringy lyricism and re-frames it from a distinctly femme perspective that de-fangs the negativity and replaces it with a layer of deeply-felt beauty.

Runner-up: SASAMI “Toxicity”
If you were to sit me down and just start connecting random artists to songs they’ve covered, I would never, ever, in a million years, have connected indie rocker SASAMI to System of A Down. I suppose given the band’s semi-ubiquitous prevalence throughout the early to mid-2000s, it’s unsurprising that an artist currently in her late-20s would have an intimate familiarity with the nu-metal group. What’s impressive is not only how incredible her cover sounds, but how drastically different it is from the original. Proof that a good song is a good song no matter what, and a good artist can always take a good song and make it sound even better.

Greatest Addition to the Christmas Canon

Winner: 100 gecs “sympathy 4 the grinch”
Back at the beginning of December, I mindlessly liked this tweet from 100 gecs and never gave it a second thought. It had never occurred to me that the hyperpop duo even could release a Christmas song. That was simply too awesome a combination of my tastes and interests to exist in 2020. We didn’t deserve it as a society. When the gecs dropped “sympathy 4 the grinch” less than 24 hours later, I was shook to my core. The perfect Christmas song. Finally.

Runner-up: girl in red “two queens in a king sized bed”
As a man, I feel unilaterally unqualified to speak on the queerness of “two queens in a king sized bed.” What I will speak on however, is how beautiful, soft, and caring this song is. Pairing a piano with faint jingle bells and a pulsating drum build, this song is as loving, caring, and gorgeous as you’d want your lover to be. It’s gay as hell and Christmassy as fuck; what’s not to like?

Most Impactful Beat Drop

Winner: Beach Bunny “Rearview”
Complete candor: this song was neck-and-neck in the running for my song of the year, but just barely got overtaken in the homestretch. That said, it’s still one of my favorites of the year, and this list would have felt utterly incomplete without its inclusion. “Rearview” is a mid-album cut off Beach Bunny’s fantastic debut album. It begins simply enough; a gentle guitar paired with Lili Trifilio’s confessional vocals. As she pines for her unrequited love over the guitar, her strums gradually pick up energy, morphing into a more-pointed riff. In the last minute of the song, she lands on the track’s namesake and pauses for a moment, then proceeds to sing a simple rhyme over a cool bassline. “You love me, I love you / You don't love me anymore, I still do. I'm sorry, I'm trying / I hate it when you catch me crying” As these words emerge from her lips, a whirl of feedback tears through the track along with two drum hits that make way for the rest of the band. From there, the group introduces a towering riff that makes the listener feel like a speck of dust in their all-encompassing emotional oasis. It’s goosebump-inducing and possibly my single favorite moment in any song this entire year.

Runner-up: Soccer Mommy “Gray Light”
Sophie Allison knows how to end an album. From the quiet “Switzerland” to the confessional and forlorn “Waiting For Cars,” this fact has been clear from the very outset of her career. But two is a coincidence, three is a pattern. Allison ends Clean with the soul-decimating “Wildflowers” which works its way up from a solitary acoustic guitar to an ascending electronic whir that feels like every emotion you’ve ever had lifting you up into the air like an alien tractor beam. “gray light” accomplishes a similar effect, winding up from a slow soul-crushing spacey electronic bed into a weird reversed electronic “snap” that commands all attention then sends the listener off on a dreamy Mazzy Star guitar slide. It’s bliss.

Most Hypnotizing Bassline

Winner: Seahaven “Moon”
Seahaven made us wait seven years for this record, and honestly, the bassline on “Moon” alone makes that wait worth it. Placed in the skillful hands of Mike DeBartolo, this song sounds like it was made with the express purpose of winding around his knotty basswork. It’s dark, witchy, and downright spooky yet utterly captivating. I swear I could listen to just the bass on this song for the album’s full runtime.

Runner-up: Thank You, I’m Sorry “Follow Unfollow”
Admittedly more energetic than “Moon,” “Follow Unfollow” from midwest emo outfit Thank You, I’m Sorry features a dynamic, bouncy bass that drives the song forward. As the bass, courtesy of Bethunni Schreiner, bounces back and forth, the listener is left to watch in awe, taking the track in like a tennis match, merely trying to keep up.

Find Your Throne: Award For Most Positive Song of the Year

Winner: Cliffdiver “Gas City”
Positivity felt in short supply this year. Maybe that’s why songs like “Gas City” stuck out so much from the crowd. Cosmically affirming and infinitely singable, this single from the Oklahoma-based emo group also introduced the group’s new co-lead singer Briana Wright who brings a soaring quality to the song that makes it all the more uplifting. Also featuring the group’s usual mix of tappy emo, honest lyricism, and soulful saxophone, this song has become my go-to whenever I need a pick-me-up.

Runner-up: Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly “My Friends Are My Power (Spoiler Alert!)”
Any song that opens with a Kingdom Hearts sample and throws directly into a moshpit volley of drums is a winner in my book. I won’t give away the “spoiler” here, but it’s well worth the 1:39-second listen.

Lose Your Throne: Award For Most Self-Deprecating Song of the Year

Winner: Cheem “Smooth Brain”
I feel that “Smooth Brain” really captures the essence of this year well. Between quarantine, the election, and everything in between, I think I could have scraped my brain into a blender and turned it on high for 360 days straight, and I still would have kept it in better shape than whatever I ended up doing. Blending a Patrick Stump-like chorus with pained bars and a glittery instrumental, “Smooth Brain” is the real song of the summer.

Runner-up: I Love Your Lifestyle “Stupid”
Sometimes everything just plain sucks. You are stupid, I am stupid, he is stupid, she is stupid, this whole thing is stupid. That’s almost literally the sentiment captured in “Stupid” by I Love Your Lifestyle. Built around a repetitive, building, earworm of a chorus, this is a song that sounds more like the things you mutter under your breath while working your retail job dealing with abject nonsense day-in, day-out. Truly an anthem for these stupid ages.

Best Posthumous Album

0324a12198af1188460bac355b472c68.1000x1000x1.png

Winner: Pop Smoke - Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon
Posthumous albums are inherently an uphill battle. You never know how much was created before the artist’s passing and how much was studio fuckery. While Pop Smoke’s death at the beginning of 2020 was an outright tragedy, Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon is nothing short of a triumph. From star-studded features, teeth-gritting bangers, and career-affirming assists, this record does everything right. There’s a diverse wealth of sounds, and Pop Smoke rarely feels overshadowed on his own release, which is an all-too-common pratfall of the posthumous album. Shoot For The Stars is already one of the best trap albums of the decade, it’s just a shame we never got to see Pop Smoke’s career flourish the way he deserved.

Runner-up: Mac Miller - Circles
Mac Miller’s death at the end of 2018 came as a shock to pretty much everyone. Having spent a decade developing his sound from frat rap mixtapes as a teen to the jazzy poetry he released just a week before his death, Mac was a poster boy for artistic development on top of being an all-around great dude. Circles continues the sound that Mac was fleshing out on Swimming and ends his story in a satisfying place that offered fans some semblance of closure.

Record Label of the Year

Winner: Acrobat Unstable Records
At nearly every step of the way this year, I was amazed by the North Carolina upstart indie label Acrobat Unstable. Initially conceived as a way for labelmates Eric Smeal and Martin Hacker-Mullin to make tapes and merch for bands that they liked, this quickly ballooned from local acts to bands like Short Fictions and the Callous Daoboys. This year, the label helped release projects from the likes of Carpool, Charm, Acne, Ultimate Frisbee, and Thirty Cent Fare, none of whom I’d heard of before this year, but all of which blew me away. The label also released hundreds of vinyl records and helped bands like Hospital Bracelet, Jail Socks, Stars Hollow, and Origami Angel release merch and vinyl. If next year bears even a semblance of the label’s success in 2020, then we are in for a wild ride.

Runner-up: Moon Physics
While Acrobat Unstable wins for turning me on to a constant stream of new music throughout 2020, Moon Physics earns their runner-up spot for positing a new way that a label can operate in this capitalist hellscape. Centered around monthly “drops,” this Tony-Hawk-inspired entity describes themselves as a “zero-profit, anti-capitalist” springboard for artists. In between dropping tapes, vinyl, and fingerboards, the label acts as an educational resource that also splits the profit of sales between the artists and local community organizations. An aspirational model that I hope sets the tone for a new decade of labels. I cannot wait to see what’s in store for the organization in 2021.

Honorable mentions to Good Luck Charm Records, Chillwavve Records, and Take This To Heart Records because each of these labels consistently dropped fire releases all throughout the year.

Came Out Swinging: Best New Band of 2020

Winner: It Doesn’t Bother Me
You can say a lot of bad things about 2020, but at least it gave us It Doesn’t Bother Me. This Midwest emo project may have had the misfortunate timing of dropping their debut EP at the height of a quarantined spring, but the way I see it, that just gives them more time to rack up fans who will soon be screaming along to these songs in a sweaty Michigan basement. Alternating between catchy Mom Jeans choruses and You, Me, And Everyone We Know-esque vocal stylings, the band is more than equipped to create a string of iconic emo songs ready for Spotify playlists, emo mixtapes, and infinitely-bigger stages. Get hip now before they blow up.

Runner-up: Blue Deputy
Blue Deputy didn’t exist before 2020, and now they do. That alone makes this year worth it. A creative (and romantic) partnership between Andy Bunting and Brody Hamilton, Blue Deputy explores the tender spaces of relationships that can only be observed as you’re living them. Look no further than the gorgeous double New Jersey / I Hate Steven Singer for two catchy emo-flavored bedroom pop songs that sparkle and glisten like the glitter on a freshly-uncapped gel pen. These two will do amazing things, and we’re lucky that 2020 allowed such beautiful songs as these into existence.

Biggest Come-up

dce359d6f5f5ec6ee6cff996e621201a.1000x1000x1.png

Winner: Roddy Ricch
Roddy Ricch began the year with a chart-topping #1 song that fended off singles from both Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. He contributed to the (*secondary) Song of the Summer with Dababy and tossed out features to the likes of Gunna, Pop Smoke, and Ty Dolla Sign. In short, it was Roddy Ricch’s year, unfortunately, the stars just happened to align for him on a really shitty year.

Runner-up: Redveil
Within the space of one calendar year, Maryland-based Redveil went from an unknown Twitter rapper to one of the internet’s hottest upcoming artists. A baby-faced 16, Redveil created a mixtape that single-handedly made waves all over Twitter and garnered millions of streams, all before he was legally allowed to drive.

Best Revisitation

Winner: Into It. Over It. - Canada Sessions
I respect Evan Thomas Weiss as the face of Fourth Wave emo. I respect his output, I cherish his voice, and I love his dynamic autumnal album from this year. While I love and appreciate his body of work, nothing sits quite as close to my heart as 52 Weeks. That record was formative in my emo upbringing, and it makes me sad he’s “moved on” with albums that have had bigger hit songs. Nothing speaks to me quite the way “Basto” does. Nothing gets me singing quite like “A Song About Your Party.” Nothing feels quite as bile-filled as “Bullied Becomes the Bully,” and honestly, that’s a bummer. I had these songs all but written off until 2020 when Weiss released Canada Sessions, a short EP that saw him revisiting two different decade-old tracks off his breakthrough year of music. Obviously better produced than the original tracks, both “Embracing Facts” and “22 Syllables” absolutely shine in this new context, slightly updated to reflect Weiss’ more recent artistic leanings but still tapping into the same younger soul that created them. An affirmation and a celebration.

Runner-up: The Fearless Flyers “Adrienne and Adrianne”
The Venn diagram of members between Vulfpeck and Fearless Flyers is almost a circle, and with four iterations of one song under their belt, Vulfpeck are no stranger to revisiting a tune. While I admittedly have a propensity for the band’s earlier instrumental EPs, I have grown to love the Fearless Flyers for the very same reason as Vulf; an abundance of proficient, funky, fun instrumentals. When I heard the sounds of an eight-year-old Vulfpeck deep cut coming out of my 2020 Fearless Flyers record, I just about lost my shit. It’s like putting on an old winter coat; fits like a charm.

Best Deployment of a Harmonica

86af1758020ef36574a2d3186990e46a.1000x1000x1.png

Winner: Slow Pulp “Montana”
Essentially the end credits to Slow Pulp’s fantastic debut album, “Montana” is a laid-back and relaxing track that’s as easy as the rolling hills that the song seeks to depict. The song builds to a hypnotic repetition as lead singer Emily Massey pleads, “come on get out of my head,” and becomes fixated on the word “head,” singing it over and over until the song’s close. The deployment of harmonica midway through the track not only breaks the repetitive wave-like nature of the lyrics but feels like a stand-in for something larger than the piece itself, something spiritual I haven’t quite figured out yet.

Runner-up: Field Medic “HEADCASE”
Kevin Patrick Sullivan (better known as Field Medic) has made his name as an outspoken and famously-mulleted poet, equal parts emo and horny. While the Bob Dylan comparisons can feel simultaneously on-the-nose and unfair, sometimes it’s a hard thing to avoid when one pairs acoustic guitar with harmonica this much. “HEADCASE” is a fast-moving Field Medic track where the harmonica comes in at just the right spot, punctuating a top-tapping chorus and capping off an array of confessional sentiments found in each verse.

Best Split of the Year

Winner: Arcadia Grey, Oolong, Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly, dannythestreet - Fatal 4 Way Split
To some degree, many of the big bands from the 5th Wave Emo Movement have already revealed themselves to the world… However, if you were to ask me who some of the best, most promising upcoming bands in the scene are, I’d point you to this split. All harnessing the same jittery zoomer energy, this lineup features some of the best bands currently releasing music on the regular. From the moshpit-opening body dysmorphia found on Arcadia Grey’s “Braum” to the propulsive combo of tapping and screaming found on Oolong’s “Dippin Daniel,” I really believe there’s something for everything on this meeting of the emo minds. Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly kicks their contribution off with a fist-balling Mortal Kombat sample that makes me want to start swinging the same way “2nd Sucks” did way back in high school. dannythestreet closes the rumble royale off with a glimmering earworm of a melody that leaves me hopeful for the next generation of emo acts.

Runner-up: Snarls, The Sonder Bombs - A Really Cool Split
As previously established above with the Dogleg x Worst Party Ever split, I’m a sucker for bands covering each other’s songs. It’s cute and sometimes just makes sense in some cosmic way. A Really Cool Split from Snarls and Sonder Bombs sees the two Cleveland bands swapping songs to great effect on top of an acoustic rendition and a long-awaited pre-album single. It’s a loving little pit stop for both bands, one coming hot off one of the most underrated indie pop records of the year and the other ramping up to drop one of the best of 2021.

Best Release From 2019 That I Didn’t Give A Fair Shake

Winner: Hovvdy - Heavy Lifter
By the time fall rolled in, it was simultaneously jarring and calming. Precipitated by the changing of the leaves and sharp snaps of fall temperatures, the fall season still managed to take me by surprise, but I’ll admit that quarantine has thrown off all sense of time. As I mentally relegated myself to the frigid wintertime, I found Heavy Lifter to be a perfect reflection of my mental state. Somewhat inward, a little bit scattered, and wholly comforting, I did not give this album the time of day back in 2019. Aside from the warming blanket of comfort, what I find more artistically impressive about this record is the way that it can make banal things like falling asleep to YouTube and free parking practically romantic in melody. Never again will I sleep on Hovvdy.

Runner-up: Orville Peck - Pony
While I had seen Orville Peck back in 2019 (his half-mask, half-tassel cowboy hat is hard to miss after all), I realized I had never actually listened to him until this year. Within seconds of hitting play on “Dead of Night,” I realized I’d made a grave mistake. Pony is a dark, mysterious country record centered around Peck’s smoldering baritone, which lends an air of genre-based familiarity. Aside from the record’s immaculate production, what makes these familiar genre trappings fresh is how Peck updates the topics to feel more reflective of our society as it stands. He talks candidly about queerness, drug use, and his own emotions, three things the country of yesteryear would never touch with a ten-foot pole. In other words, Pony represents a long-needed update to an entire genre that everyone is quick to write off; I’m just glad I got here when I did.

Song of the Year

Winner: Spanish Love Songs “Losers 2”
Seeing Spanish Love Songs live was one of the last concerts I went to this year, and (apparently) one of the last concerts I’ll go to for a while. I could focus on that lack of live music and dwell in a pit of despair, but instead, I’d rather focus on the freedom I felt that night screaming along to my favorite songs with a wall of sweaty fans.

“Losers 2” is easily my favorite song of the year. Centered around sharp lyricism and a cathartic build, this track quickly became an outlet for me early in 2020. It represents something bigger, something I may not experience for a while, yet experience every day.

For roughly two minutes, lead singer Dylan Slocum finds himself displaced, revisiting former homes, dead relatives, and economic inequalities. Destined to die poor and wake up forever tired, Slocum has no choice but to continue. Third jobs enter the picture, but the larger scene of mortality and capitalism never fades. It’s a life that many millennials can understand. A life where nothing bad can ever happen because a single accident, a single diagnosis, a single unplanned event can throw your entire future into disarray. Minimum wages aren’t fought for by our politicians, but by mothers, forced to rideshare to demonstrations because they don’t have vehicles of their own. The entire thing paints this richly-detailed picture of a deeply-failed country. Of a failed generation. Of the world in which we currently exist.

About midway through, the song transitions to the bridge and here’s the part that gets me every. fucking. time. Just as Slocum self-deprecatingly describes himself as a “walking tragic ending,” something shifts inside him. The instrumental cuts out to a single warbling synth note which makes way for the most poignant sentiment of the entire record. The bridge, which I’ll paste here in-full, is a pitch-perfect depiction of this stalemate between economic and emotional devastation.

So I'm leaving the city / Maybe the country / Maybe the earth
Gonna find a place of my own
Where the fuckups aren't cops / Patrolling neighbourhoods they're afraid of / And the rest of us won't burn out / Displacing locals from neighbourhoods we're afraid of
Now if we weren't bailed out / Every time by our parents we'd be dead / What's gonna happen when they're dead?”

There’s really nothing else I can say.

Runner-up: Mandancing “Johnny Freshman”
Mandancing released one of the most underrated emo albums of 2020. The record is packed with gorgeous slice of life tales of love, loss, and friendship. There are stellar performances, jaw-dropping arrangements, and earnest emo deliveries aplenty. Amongst an album that’s so consistently great, my personal peak comes at the tail end with the closing track “Johnny Freshman.”

This enigmatic and slow-moving song is centered around a dual vocal and instrumental build that both peak in the same cathartic way before whisking the listener off on a shimmering emo outro that’s reminiscent of some of my favorite songs of all time. “Johnny Freshman” borrows the same pleading sentiment as Julien Baker’s “Go Home” as lead singer Stephen G. Kelly belts “would you please come home?” over a near-bear instrumental bed. These pleas repeat and eventually culminate in a goosebump-inducing cry of the same phrase as the instrumental grows in scope, eventually consuming the entire track. For 90 seconds the guitar reverberates, the drums roll, and the bass shakes as the band plays out the same ascending chord strum dozens of times, lending the track this meditative quality that gives the listener time to think and reflect on the entire record they had just taken in. Simple masterful.

Most Anticipated Release of 2021

Winner: Jail Socks - Debut Album
Jail Socks had already created my 2019 Album of the Year, so it probably goes without saying that I’m feverishly anticipating the next moves from the fresh-faced No Sleep signees. Despite only having released a grand total of eight songs to the public, Jail Socks had become one of my favorite 5th Wave emo-ish bands by the end of last year. I still listen to It’s Not Forever on an (at least) weekly basis, so I cannot wait to see what the band does with their first full-length next year.

Runner-up: Michelle Zauner - Crying In H Mart
My second most-anticipated release of 2020 isn’t an album, but a book. Crying In H Mart is the soon-to-be-released memoir by Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast. The book is based on, named after, and presumably in the style of her heartbreaking New Yorker article of the same name. Zauner, who was also the winner of our 2017 Album of the Year, has a beautiful way of navigating words and emotions in a manner that cuts directly to my soul. I’m sure Crying In H Mart will be nothing short of a crushing read, but that’s exactly what I want, and exactly what I need.

Blog

Tigers Jaw - I Won’t Care How You Remember Me

Biitchseat - I’ll Become Kind.

Home is Where - I Became Birds

glass beach - alchemist rats beg bashful (remixes)

Riley! - Already Fucked

Harmony Woods - Graceful Rage

Future Teens - Deliberately Alive

Bicycle Inn - THIS TIME AND PLACE IS ALL I’LL EVER KNOW

Brown Maple - I Never Really Learned How To Say Goodbye.

Quick Hits

Foo Fighters - Medicine at Midnight

Vampire Weekend - 40:42

Black Country, New Road - For the first time

Wild Pink - A Billion Little Lights

Katy Kirby - Cool Dry Place

Mister Goblin - Four People in an Elevator and One of Them Is the Devil

Miss Grit - Impostor

Mogwai - As The Love Continues

Quick Hits

Camp Trash - Downtiming

Beach Bunny - Blame Game

Abe Anderson - Seasick Lullaby

Cicala - Cicala

Cheekface - Emphatically No.

Cathedral Bells - Ether

Mikau / ps.you’redead - razor x blade

Shame - Drunk Tank Pink

Quick Hits

15 | Touché Amoré - Lament

14 | Deftones - Ohms

13 | Seahaven - Halo of Hurt

12 | Sinai Vessel - Ground Aswim

11 | Hot Mulligan - you’ll be fine

10 | Dogleg - Melee

9 | Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly - Soak

8 | Bartees Strange - Live Forever

7 | Barely Civil - I’ll Figure This Out

6 | Haim - Women In Music Pt. III

5 | 100 gecs - 100 gecs and The Tree of Clues

4 | Lake Saint Daniel - Good Things

3 | Young Jesus - Welcome to Conceptual Beach

2 | Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud

1 | Carpool - Erotic Nightmare Summer

Best Acoustic Reimagining

Best Album Art

I Miss Shows: Award For Best Live Album

Best Sequenced Album

Remix of the Year

Best Hiking Album

Best Interpolation

Best Music Video

Best Music-Related Game of the Year

Best Guest Feature

Best Cover Song

Headline of the Year

Porch Beer Album of the Year

Best Gothic Country Album

Favorite Longform Piece I Wrote This Year

Y’all Sleep: Most Overlooked and Underappreciated Release of the Year

Best “Making Of” Documentary

Best Cover Song Part II: Electric Boogaloo

Most Triggering High School Metalcore Phase Flashbacks

Song of the Summer

Favorite Review I Wrote This Year

Best Cover Song Part III: Return of the King

Greatest Addition to the Christmas Canon

Most Impactful Beat Drop

Most Hypnotizing Bassline

Find Your Throne: Award For Most Positive Song of the Year

Lose Your Throne: Award For Most Self-Deprecating Song of the Year

Best Posthumous Album

Record Label of the Year

Came Out Swinging: Best New Band of 2020

Biggest Come-up

Best Revisitation

Best Deployment of a Harmonica

Best Split of the Year

Best Release From 2019 That I Didn’t Give A Fair Shake

Song of the Year