2020 Albums/EPs of the Year/2021 Most Anticipated

 I’ve tried to write this a few times and have found I’ve been going about it all wrong. I attempted to listen to all these releases over in an analytical way and essentially review each one. I don’t think that’s what needs to be done here as a top list is supposed to be personal so I’m going to explain what each release means to me instead. That being said, I feel the need to thank any musician who put work in and released anything this year. The pandemic and state of the world made making art very difficult and I can only imagine the strain of losing the ability to tour and make a steady income.

This year was hard for anyone and I went through plenty myself. I tried to listen to more music this year. I spent whole days at work or home throwing on album after album of things I had never heard before and tried to emphasize the current year. I didn’t skip anything based on genre, artist (with very few exceptions) or anything really. If I never heard it I just threw it on and tried to give the piece of work the time that the person behind it deserved. Obviously I prioritized artists I knew I already liked but that’s besides the point.

Honorable Mentions

I would like to recognize some artists that did not make my top 10 albums or 5 EPs. The first of which being Spiritbox. Spiritbox is a band that I would not have checked out solely for me not having enjoyed the past projects of  their members. I heard a couple tracks on a podcast and was blown away. They did not release any album or EP but three singles which turned out to be some of my favorite tracks of the year. “Blessed Be” is a really catchy, just generally good metal cut. “Holy Roller” is a short and sweet power shot of metalcore that makes me miss the live environment. “Constance” is just… it’s heartbreaking. I really hope to see more from this band in the coming year.

Eskimo Callboy gave something that another band promised but did not deliver on, a Crabcore revival. The lead single “Hypa Hypa” is a favorite of mine from the entire year and maybe the whole EP “MMXX” isn’t as strong without it but it's a perfect hook in. What follows are reworkings of some old songs and reminds me of what Crabcore is; just heavy, danceable, fun music.

Silverstein released two full lengths in one year but my honorable mention here is “Redux II.” The Redux series reworks some of the bands older material with the change in technology and some just with a whole new approach altogether. For someone like me who didn’t jump on till 2009’s “A Shipwreck in the Sand” and even missed some records after being current it's a nice way to catch up and have those songs be part of a current rotation while also holding some nostalgia for the singles and songs I was around for. If you’re new to the band I highly recommend starting with both Redux albums then going into “A Beautiful Place to Drown” their original work from this year.

Sharptooth was a band that to me showed the most growth. I was pretty hot on 2017’s “Clever Girl” but had some nitpicks about the band's sound. On “Transitional Forms” every single issue I had vanished. The vocals were of a tremendously better quality, the song writing was near perfect and honestly the wit and sharpness in themes kept surprising me on the first few listens.

If you didn’t like The Used’s past few years as a band I highly recommend “Heartwork” from this year. This is The Used you have missed and have fond memories of. I didn’t even allow myself to listen to these singles as they were coming out and it was a mistake.

House & Home deserve the world. There’s not much else to say. Their record “Find Sense. Feel Love. Make Light” is incredible start to finish and if they aren’t a cornerstone of the scene in a couple years I’d be very surprised.

As a final mention I’d like to shout out Creeper’s “Sex, Death and the Infinte Void.” MCR’s “reunion” got you down? This album has the energy you’re looking for. High energy emo songs about, well, what the title says that you can belt in your car. If you’re an emo nite fan and would have no idea where to begin in the genre today here is a perfect place.

Albums #11-50 and EPs #6-20

Albums

11. Creeper - Sex, Death & the Infinite Void

12.Hayley Williams - Petals for Armor

13. House & Home - Find Sense. Feel Love. Make Light.

14. The Used - Heartwork

15. Silverstein - A Beautiful Place to Drown

16. Sharptooth - Transitional Forms

17. Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia

18.Bilmuri - Eggy Pocket

19. Slaves - To Better Days

20. Silverstein - Redux II

21. Yours Truly - Self Care

22. Gorillaz - Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

23. Neck Deep - All Distortions are Intentional

24. Make Them Suffer - How to Survive a Funeral

25. Mama - Two of Me

26. Movements - No Good Left to Give

27. Crown the Empire - 07102010

28. Boston Manor - GLUE

29. Miley Cyrus - Plastic Hearts

30. All Time Low - Wake Up, Sunshine

31. Four Year Strong - Brain Pain

32. Rina Sawayama - SAWAYAMA

33. 100 gecs - 1000 gecs and the Tree of Clues

34. Issues - Beautiful Oblivion - Instrumental

35. Liturgy - Origin of the Alomonies

36. Ninja Sex Party - The Prophecy

37. END - Splinters from an Ever Changing Face

38. Dan Avidan & Super Guitar Bros - Dan Avidan & Super Guitar Bros

39. Picturesque - Do You Feel O.K?

40. Kingdom of Giants - Passenger

41. Cheri-Dupree Bemis - Cher Anything

42. R.A.P. Ferrera - Purple Moonlight Pages

43. Signals - Death in Divide

44. The Word Alive - Monomania

45. Bright Eyes - Down in the Weeds Where the World Once Was

46. The Fall of Troy - Mukilearth

47. Dragged Under - The World is in Your Way

48. Amarionette - Sunset on This Generation

49. Knuckle Puck - 20/20

50. Protest the Hero - Palimpsest

EPs

6. Melanie Martinez - After School

7. Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats - UNLOCKED

8. Soccer Mommy - color theory (demos)

9. Eskimo Callboy - MMXX

10. Tito Burrito - Marmalade is for Pussies

11. Mel Stone - Coast

12. Hands Like Houses - Hands Like Houses

13. Bilmuri - Muri and Friends

14. tiger lilli - tiger lilli

15. The Prize Fighter Inferno - Stray Bullets

16. Soccer Mommy - Soccer Mommy & Friends

17. My Kid Brother - My Kid Brother

18. Poppy - A Very Poppy Christmas

19. If I Die First - My Poison Arms

20. Thirty Nights of Violence - You’ll See Me Up There

From here, I’ll go over my top 5 EPs kinda rapidly and the top 10 albums in a bit of depth.

EP #5, Mayday Parade - Out of Here

Everyone knows Mayday Parade, and if you don’t here is the perfect place to start. In just three tracks this has everything they stand for. A tragic alt track into a pop punk anthem into an acoustic sob fest that turns full band by the end. Don’t be afraid to venture outside of “Jamie All Over” and “Miserable at Best,” the band has kept going and gotten better and better in those 13 years.

EP #4, Guardrail - Yikes

OYE records had a lot of highlights this year and showed up in our honorary mentions list as well. “Yikes” is yet another pop punk demonstration on this list that is short but so impactful. It even sees the return of The Color Morale’s Garret Repp in the form of a feature.

EP #3, chloe moroindo - Spirit Orb

For someone like me who fell into the rabbit hole of this form of indie this year it was easy for me to gravitate toward this type of singer-songwriter thing. Only four tracks long but every song is such a unique vibe and it helps that “Ghost Adventure Spirit Orb” hit me in the right places to get out of some slumps this year.

EP #2, Salem - Salem

Will Gould of Creeper appears as the frontman of this project as well. Taking on more of the pop punk side than the emo sensibility Creeper’s record from this year offers, you can find yourself quickly singing along to all these tracks.

EP #1 Bring Me the Horizon - POST HUMAN, SURVIVAL HORROR

What can I say about BMtH that would sell you on them if you aren’t already. This band has gone from being a bit of a joke to being one of the largest bands I’ve seen come out of their scene being big enough to headline arenas. This release shows the diversity and pure mastery of the craft this band has been building since 2004. Plus they continue to bring on such genre fluid features and make them shine brightly from start to finish.

Album #10, Enter Shikari - Nothing is True and Everything is Possible

Enter Shikari has always been one of those bands that everyone in the alt scene just adores. Every time they release an album it's held so high on a communal level and everyone will swear by it. That being said they… never did anything for me. I heard “Take to the Skies” from ‘07 and “The Mindsweep” from ‘15 and just took them as mediocre metalcore projects. I listened to “Nothing is True” expecting to hate it and just as a break from listening to the releases I already enjoyed from that week. By the halfway point of the record I was eating my words.

The amount of layers this thing has makes it so you find something new in the instrumentation with each listen. Rou Reynolds’ vocal deliveries make you feel like you’re taking part in some religious experience. Not to mention songs on here that I just know are going to be classics in 10 years. “The Dreamer’s Hotel,” “Satellites” and “The King” to name a few.

Rou has stated he wants this to be the default Shikari record. An album you can point someone to to get started on checking them out and I would say they succeeded, its an album that really turned me around on the band and I think in the coming year I’m going to spend some time on that old material and hopefully see somethings I didn’t at the time.

Album #9, Grimes - Miss Anthropocene

Last year, I spent months binging Grimes’ albums and interviews and just works in general and by the end of the year she was by far my favorite solo act of all time. Growing up I was very attached to rock and metal subgenres and very dared branch out but within the past few years I started to listen to anything that was music and if I liked it I liked it. When this album dropped in February I broke my rule of not listening to an album more than one time in a day. Maybe it was just my own excitement or maybe it was just that good but in the first 24 hours I had heard it front to back four times and hadn’t grown tired of it.

The thing that gets me most about this release is it shows Grimes’ diversity in writing songs of different genres. “Darkseid” is a straight up dark hip hop track. “Delete Forever” is a heart wrenching acoustic ballad about the loss of friends to addiction. “Violence” (RIP i_o) and “4 AEM” are back to back club dance songs. “My Name is Dark” is something out of alt rock radio with a twist and that’s only half the record.

Now there are some dull moments here and frankly I still start the album on track 2 now that I’ve had my time with it but it was an album I never grew tired of and could always be in the mood for when something from it came on.

Album #8, Soccer Mommy - color theory

If Grimes was the musician I fell in love with last year, Sophia Allison was the one who won my heart this year. Her sound isn’t anything complex, just indie rock that sounded like it would be at home in a 90s rock station and clearly started from one girl, her guitar and her own heartbreaks. That being said I could not get enough of this or her first album this year. It probably had something to do with the tragic nature of the year it was released in but I was hooked from first listen and see these being a part of my regular rotation for years to come. Also helps that this album on repeat really helped out when I was sad and living alone for a few months in early COVID.

Given that these are mostly singer-songwriter driven songs (not that I in any way want to take away from the four other band members) the main appeal is the riffs, chords and vocal delivery and lyricism. “Circle the Drain” and “Crawling in My Skin” have simple, yet fantastic guitar work with the first having a riff that literally sounds like the spiraling sadness state that the lyrics describe. The lyrics don’t offer much metaphors and just hit you with the brutal honest truth of what the person singing them is going through, the very first track just comes out and says that Sophia’s “barely left her room in the past week.” I also want to call out the track “Lucy” for being just a top song of the year for me and one of my favorite indie tracks of all time.

While this isn’t something you can necessarily vibe with lyrically if you’re in a good mood the songs do a good job of painting sadness in a hopeful sounding light, it isn’t all doom and gloom and the sound offers some redemption and light. I know this artist is one I’m always going to go back to and I’m thankful for discovering them this year.

Album #7, Poppy - I Disagree

My relationship with Poppy is an interesting one compared to other artists I listen to. I was in love with her first EP “Bubblebath” but really disliked the debut full-length “Poppy.Computer.” After ignoring her for awhile I went out to a show and got to hear some newer songs from “Am I a Girl” and the upcoming “Choke” and was amazed, I had to hear more. I listened to those two on repeat and then this became my most anticipated album of 2020. Had you told me I was going to be listening to a metalcore masterpiece by Poppy of all people as the first new album I heard all year I would have not believed you.

All that praise and it isn’t even just a metalcore release. Sure”Concrete,” “Sit/Stay” and others are indeed metalcore (there’s even a blegh) but songs like “BLOODMONEY” cover things like industrial metal, something I don’t even really like, in a way that shows some undeniable talent. “Sick of the Sun” is another song I have to give a shout out to as it was a song I had to replay a few times at the end of my first listen through of the album cause I was just that in love with it. Not sure how to work this in but how did she tell the future so well in “Don’t Go Outside?”

Poppy put in some crazy amount of work this year with four total releases across three separate genres. While I doubt the next release will be any facet of metal I am looking forward to the future of this project and whatever it may bring and hope to get to go to another show as well.

Album #6, pulses. - Speak it into Existence

This album is so hard to put into words but here’s the best I can come up with. It mixes elements of swancore, post-hardcore, 90s hip hop and sometimes straight up memes to deliver just some fun, good music. In a genre where everyone takes things super seriously pulses demonstrates that they’re here to have a good time and want you to as well. In songs like “Exist Warp Brakes” they inspire the listener to mosh or at least “nod your head or clap your hands” making a “declaration, to get you moving.” That isn’t to say that there isn’t some heartfelt lines to be found in here, in the title track they deliver a motivational speech right in the bridge that encourages you to cherish and enjoy the journey of life and not worry about who's going to “stab you in the back next.”

I also want to give a shout out to the remix album with BD LCK on the beat. Adds a lofi, more electronic take on every single track. The remix of “Olivia Wild” turns the song into a rap track with those same references to the emo scene and even getting a light hearted moment out of the 2020 world state. Unlike other remix albums, to me, this really served as part of the experience of the whole record and I highly recommend both.

Pulses is another band that deserves the world, if touring were safe in 2020 I have no doubt that they would have skyrocketed this year.

Album # 5, Hot Mulligan - you’ll be fine

It’s late February and the world is starting to fall apart. COVID isn’t causing lock downs in the US yet but it’s looking like it’s going to be declared a pandemic. You think it’ll pass. The song “*Equip Sunglasses” comes out. You think it's okay but being thrown a little over proportion. You turn out to be wrong about both of those things but one you’re very happy about.

“You’ll be fine” is a Pop Punk/Midwestern Emo fusion that, without reading the lyrics, just sounds like a great time instrumentally, melodically and even in tone. It honestly sounds like I should be dancing my heart out in a mosh pit while I scream these words in a sweaty crowd. “Sunglasses” went from being a song that I thought the community was going just a bit too crazy over to a song that I literally do not have the ability to skip. Whether it comes on on a playlist I’ve made or at the end of a different record cause of Spotify’s recommendation algorithm. “Dirty Office Bongos” intro sequence put me in a dancing mood every time and when “BCKYRD” was on the official RSD compilation I felt so much pride as a member of this scene and a fan of this band. All those good times, then I sat, this on my turntable and read along to the lyrics. It brought me to a totally different headspace. The fun instrumental was now fronted by songs about a broken home, addiction and failure to keep up relationships. In retrospect for the genre it was I shouldn’t have been surprised but it made the entire experience more rich with every listen.

Album #4, Dance Gavin Dance - Afterburner

What needs to be said about DGD? They are absolute titans in the scene at this point. This year they played a show on the San Francisco bridge. They continue to innovate their sound and become a better band on every single album. This is, I’m pretty sure, my favorite band of all time and here I’ll offer some highlights to their ninth record.

“Prisoner” was the lead single and first track. It doesn’t really set the tone for what the record is and could have been released as a stand-alone. It has a dark tone that no other song they’ve ever made really has. “Parody Catharsis” and “Nothing Shameful” may just be two of the best songs the band has ever released. The first has everything the band has to offer, riffs, ridiculous lyricism, even a hip hop vibe in it’s pre chorus. “Shameful” features vocals from Eidola’s Andrew Wells who has also been an honorary member of the band in recent years and gives an incredible, heart wrenching bridge. Jon Mess continued to bless the scene with memes on this release with the “multiple stab wounds” line in “Three Wishes” and his performance on the “Strawberry’s Wake” video. None of this is even to mention the band’s attempt at a latino song.

Afterburner is near perfect, DGD somehow does it every single time and I’m not sure they could release a record that wouldn’t make one of these lists

Album #3, Galleons - Metropolis

My introduction to the SotS Podcast (shout out Sam and Marcos) and an absolute treasure trove of a find. There’s something to be said about that old post-hardcore sound and the nostalgia and soft spot it holds in the scene. It’s certainly something that gave teenage me a sense of home and this record really hits those old feelings.

The record opens with “New Horizons” a song whose hook in “This is how empires fall, breaking down all the walls, we stand up and shout ‘all for one and one for all’” immediately puts you back in the mid-2000s. That one line has it all, breaking down empires, standing up for what you believe in, to me these are the things the alternative music scene represents and we’re only about 10 seconds into the record. This sense of lines really sticking with you in their deliveries carries onto the next track, the single, “Elsewhere.” I don’t think I’ve ever not sang along to “still I wait inside all day hoping it goes away” and not gotten goosebumps. The sheer sing along power in the record overall is really consuming and instead of quoting powerful choruses I’m just going to point you in the direction of “Gospel” and “Visavis.” All of this praising of the vocalist and I didn’t even mention the incredible instrumentation that can really hang with some of the greats.

Metropolis would be at home in 2006 but it's also at home in 2020. It brings this sense of the old and new to give you a record that makes you feel both nostalgia and so excited to live in the present. It even has a little Pop Goes Punk style cover as a bonus track.

Album #2, Beach Bunny - Honeymoon

In a way that I don’t think I have since I was a kid first getting into music, I really fell in love with Beach Bunny this year and it was a hard fall. From the very first note of “Rearview,” the first song I heard, I was enthralled and when that song goes from acoustic to a huge rock song mid way through I knew I had to hear more. I dove so deep into the bands, admittedly small, discography and never looked back. I even had a ticket to go see them in Boston but the show was sadly cut off just days before it was to come due to the pandemic.

The thing about Honeymoon is its short but it’s to the point and just so full of emotion that it's hard to just put on one particular song without the whole thing. The entire album pretty much just paints a picture of heartbreak and love lost but the flexibility in musicianship really shines throughout with songs like “Ms. California” and “Dream Boy” having an indie rock vibe and then “Cuffing Season” and “Cloud 9” having an almost pop punk sensibility to them.

Overall with this release and the ones I’ve missed in past years Beach Bunny became a top band of all time for me and now their upcoming EP “Blame Game” may be my most anticipated release 2021. It also sat at the number 1 spot from February until August when this final one finally came around.

Album #1, Stand Atlantic - Pink Elephant

Last year, through a covers compilation album, I discovered Stand Atlantic and became a bit obsessed with their debut releases (which were a year or so old at that point) and found their personalities and presence online so endearing that it was hard not to become a huge fan. I listened to every song daily for months and then got to watch the band perform at Sad Summer ‘19 and even have a brush with front woman Bonnie Fraser. Throughout the first few months of the pandemic they released a new song a month to tide fans over till their sophomore effort until it was finally time to pull the trigger and release the whole thing.

I want to do what I’ve done above and give you some highlights but it's so hard to. This is everything I look for in pop punk. It's fun, it hits you in your emotions in all the right ways. Bonnie’s lyricism while it might seem a bit odd at times is so full of both metaphors and realness and her delivery of every single line is just too powerful to ignore. The band’s overall performance going from house-party-raging pop punk to impactful rock and some ballads spliced in there to keep it fresh makes the half an hour such a journey. If I were to give you any highlights I would have to applaud “Shh!” for being my most played spotify song of the year, “Eviligo” for being my favorite song overall all year and “Hate Me (Sometimes)” (though it technically premiered in 2019) for being my new favorite StAt song overall.

This is a band that not only deserves to be at the top, they’re well on their way there. From a band that I had to hear about through a magazine distributed cover album to a name I can’t, and frankly don’t want to, escape I foresee this being a huge headlining name when the world opens back up.

Anticipated releases of 2021

To wrap up, I’d like to look ahead. 100 gecs, a project I hard denied for about two years but finally caved in on enjoying should have a proper second album out by the end of the year. Bring Me the Horizon has claimed that SURVIVAL HORROR is part one in a four part series of releases so seeing more from them would of course be welcomed. It would be nice to see Season Two of Gorillaz Song Machine Project but I know the cycle for Season One isn’t quite done. Coheed & Cambria’s Vaxis series was confirmed to have five entries and it’s been a couple years now since “Unheavenly Creatures.” While I’m dreaming, I would love for Paramore’s hiatus to break as well.

While not confirmed, I would love to see releases from Bad Daughter, chloe moroindo, DRUGS, Chunk, No! Captain Chunk!, Every Time I Die, Galleons and Poppy all of whom have hinted by means of social media or unattached singles that something is coming.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Attack Attack! The pioneers of Crabcore returned with an albeit disappointing single, but I’ll still be hoping they pull through within the year.