Gig Reviews
Cult Leader
Stengade, Copenhagen, DEN - 15/4
Album Reviews
Best Music Of 2020
Previous Nextauthor PP date 14/01/21
As is customary each year, music magazines across the globe gather around and form an arbitrary ranking of the best music released that year. Since music is largely a matter of taste, no magazine typically agrees, not necessarily even internally on what is the best album, the second best album, and so forth.
So here at Rockfreaks.net we have always taken a different approach: we think it's far more important to try to capture all relevant albums from a given year of release that will have some significance a few years down the line. That is to say: if you look back at the albums we've picked three years down the line, will you still remember them and go: "oh yeah, that IS a good release", even if you hadn't listened to it for a while.
So our writers were given the usual task: pick and mix your favorite records from 2020 and combine them into an ordered list of sorts. No particular minimum or maximum limit for each list. The only catch? They had to be releases you'd reflect back on three to five years from now, thinking along the lines of "damn, that album was good", or ones that you'd keep returning to as they pass the test of time, thus cementing their place among the highlights in their given genre when we look back at the decade gone by at some point in the future.
Thus whatever you take interest in from below, you can rest assured that we have listened to it many times over and ultimately found that these records satisfy from the first track to the last. And usually, the ones in top three or top five are typically assumed to become classics in their respective genres as time passes by. PP
PP is the Editor In Chief for Rockfreaks.net, primarily covering punk, hardcore, and related genres with occasional ventures into other genres as well. With between to one and two hundred album reviews a year for more than a decade straight, you can be sure that if an album is on this list, it's still worth a listen a few years down the line.
- 1. The Lawrence Arms - Skeleton Coast (Midwestern punk)
- 2. PEARS - PEARS (punk / hardcore)
- 3. Touché Amoré - Lament (post-hardcore)
- 4. Dogleg - Melee (punk / post-hardcore)
- 5. Anti-Flag - 20/20 Vision (punk rock)
- 6. Spanish Love Songs - Brace Faces Everyone (emo / pop punk)
- 7. Get Dead - Dancing With The Curse (punk / ska)
- 8. New Found Glory - Forever + Ever x Infinity (pop punk)
- 9. Sundressed - Home Remedy (indie / rock)
- 10. Four Year Strong - Brain Pain (punk / post-hardcore)
- 11. The Ghost Inside - The Ghost Inside (melodic hardcore)
- 12. The Deadnotes - Courage (indie / emo)
- 13. Bob Mould - Blue Hearts (punk / indie)
- 14. Laura Jane Grace - Stay Alive (folk / punk / acoustic)
- 15. Sparta - Trust The River (indie / progressive)
- 16. Deftones - Ohms (alternative metal)
- 17. Dance Gavin Dance - Afterburner (emo / post-hardcore)
- 18. Pearl Jam - Gigaton (grunge)
- 19. Five Finger Death Punch - F8 (hard rock)
Disappointing Records:
- Red City Radio - Paradise
- Green Day - Father Of All Motherfuckers
- Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang Of Heartbreak City
Cathartic. Melodic. Transcendental. Trippy. These are the best words to describe AP’s musical explorations in 2020, which, despite turning out to be a pretty forgettable and at times demotivating year for his writing inspiration, ended up delivering quite a litany of excellent releases in virtually every genre. Like the rest of us, he is aching for things to return to some sort of normalcy in the coming months and to finally experience some of the fantastic music that came out in 2020 in a live setting again. And if not, there are already plenty of mouthwatering album releases on the horizon to pass the time with…
- 1. Spanish Love Songs - Brave Faces Everyone (emo / pop punk)
- 2. Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi (psychedelic black metal)
- 3. Svalbard - When I Die, Will I Get Better? (post-hardcore)
- 4. envy - The Fallen Crimson (post-hardcore / post-rock)
- 5. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full (sludge metal / neofolk / post-rock)
- 6. Dizzy Mizz Lizzy - Alter Echo (post-grunge / progressive rock)
- 7. Touché Amoré - Lament (post-hardcore)
- 8. Uada - Djinn (atmospheric black metal)
- 9. Winterfylleth - The Reckoning Dawn (atmospheric black metal)
- 10. Redwood Hill - Ender (post-metal / sludge metal)
- 11. Ulcerate - Stare into Death and Be Still (death metal)
- 12. Palm Reader - Sleepless (post-hardcore)
- 13. A.A.Williams - Forever Blue (doom metal / neofolk / post-rock)
- 14. END - Splinters From An Ever-Changing Face (grindcore / metalcore)
- 15. Protest The Hero - Palimpsest (mathcore / progressive metal)
Honourable mentions:
As one of our two resident Århusian metalheads, the tall viking is as synonymous with metal as they come. If it growls and blastbeats, it has probably caught Rune's attention during the course of the year. His list is, therefore, a unique insight into what have been the best (and the heaviest) metal releases during the past year. Prepare for some serious headbanging below, with a few dabbles in other genres as well.
- 1. Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Ascension (post-black metal)
- 2. Sepultura - Quadra (groove / thrash metal)
- 3. Winterfylleth - The Reckoning Dawn (black metal)
- 4. Skam - Sounds Of A Disease (grindcore / death metal)
- 5. PEARS - PEARS (punk / hardcore)
- 6. Napalm Death - Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism (grindcore)
- 7. Palm Reader - Sleepless (post-hardcore)
- 8. Ulcerate - Stare Into Death And Be Still (death metal)
- 9. Uada - Djinn (atmospheric black metal)
- 10. Afsky – Ofte Jeg Drømmer Mig Død (black metal)
- 11. END - Splinters From An Ever-Changing Face (grindcore / metalcore)
- 12. Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi (psychedelic black metal)
- 13. Enslaved - Utgard (progressive black / viking metal)
- 14. Benighted - Obscene Repressed (grindcore / death metal)
- 15. Deftones - Ohms (alternative metal)
The second of our Århus-based writers, Kristoffer's broad taste in anything technical, atmospheric, progressive and far-reaching takes him across a wide array of genres ranging from technical death metal to post-rock. Those of you whose music tastes aren't limited to just one style of rock or metal will find plenty of progressive gems in his list, and much more!
- 1. Palm Reader - Sleepless (post-hardcore)
- 2. envy - The Fallen Crimson (post-hardcore / post-rock)
- 3. The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic (progressive metal)
- 4. pg.lost - Oscillate (post-rock)
- 5. Martin Grech - Hush Mortal Core (art rock)
- 6. Loathe - I Let It In And It Took Everything (progressive metalcore)
- 7. Protest the Hero - Palimpsest (mathcore / progressive metal)
- 8. Tallah - Matriphagy (nu-metal)
- 9. Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Ascension (atmospheric black metal)
- 10. Spanish Love Songs - Brave Faces Everyone (emo / pop punk)
Album runner-ups:
- Winterfylleth - The Reckoning Dawn (atmospheric black metal)
- Ulcerate - Stare Into Death And Be Still (death metal)
- Deftones - Ohms (alternative metal)
- Dizzy Mizz Lizzy - Alter Echo (hard rock)
- Code Orange - Underneath (metalcore / industrial)
- Caspian - On Circles (post-rock)
- Redwood Hill - Ender (post metal / sludge)
- Svart Crown - Wolves Among The Ashes (blackened death metal)
- Sepultura - Quadra (thrash metal / groove metal)
- Xenobiotic - Mordrake (progressive deathcore)
- Akhlys - Melinoë (atmospheric black metal)
- END - Splinters From An Ever-Changing Face (grindcore / metalcore)
- Svalbard - When I Die, Will I Get Better? (post-hardcore)
- Cloudkicker - Solitude (progressive metal / post-metal)
- Our Oceans - While Time Disappears (progressive rock)
- Igorrr - Spirituality and Distortion (avant-garde metal)
- Gaerea - Limbo (post black metal)
- CABAL - Drag Me Down (deathcore)
- Methwitch - Indwell (mathcore / industrial / noise)
- Respire - Black Line (post-hardcore / screamo / post-rock)
- Boneflower - Armour (post-hardcore)
- Yashira - Fail To Be (post-metal)
After a quiet 2019, MAK returned with a slightly more frequent stance in 2020 to cover more of the underground punk and ska scenes. The core of his listening habits from the UK DIY scene, though also digging up some gems from mainland Europe and the lesser-known bands from Stateside.
- 1. Kill Lincoln – Can’t Complain (ska punk)
- 2. Bobby Funk – Longing For The Bonging (Punk)
- 3. Call Me Malcolm – Me, Myself and Something Else (ska punk)
- 4. China Shop Bull – Public Disorder: Act 2 (ska-punk/hip-hop)
- 5. Pears - Pears (punk / hardcore)
- 6. Anti-Flag – 20/20 Vision (punk rock)
- 7. Harijan - Harijan (ska punk)
- 8. Jet8 – Chasing The High (ska punk)
- 9. Aerial Salad – Dirt Mall (punk)
- 10. Knife Club – We Are Knife Club (punk)
Honourable Mentions
- Knife Club – Lockdown Acoustic EP (punk)
- Brassick – 2.0 (hardcore punk/metalcore)
- Millie Manders and the Shutup – Telling Truth, Breaking Ties (ska-punk)
- Terror – Sink to the Hell EP (hardcore)
- The Ghost Inside – The Ghost Inside (hardcore)
And with that note, dear readers, we invite you to list your favorite records of the year below in the comments section. Feel free to argue, praise, or defame if you so wish, but please do provide your own 'best of' list that consists primarily of records you know you'll be listening to in years to come as well.