Top 50 Albums of 2020
2020 has been a strange old year, a plethora of disaster, darkness, and morbid tales of the rise and fall of multiple governments.
It’s been a year that many are well and truly ready to write off, to try and forget ever occurred, but that would also write off a year that continued the trend of 2019’s impressive stock of releases.
Without tours, many of us have descended deeper into the likes of Bandcamp to discover a wealth of bands we wouldn’t have normally discovered, we had another year of even more YouTube “reaction” videos shining a light on older music we might have have heard before, or merely for awhile.
For me it’s been a year of discovering my home country of New Zealand has far more progressive rock/metal bands than I once thought - several of whom made stellar releases this year and landing them firmly on my year-end favourite list(s).
This year my main “favourites of 2020” list is sitting at around 160-170 albums, rather than anguish over what to drop - I just simply created an empty Top 50 list and pulled my…. favourites - oddly and psychologically simpler - leaving around 110 albums I’m simply all putting in position 51.
Anyway…. here’s my 50 favourites of 2020 - it’s not a top list, and it’s not just metal.
- Aeges - Drommen
- Allen/Olzen - Worlds Apart
- Azusa - Loop Of Yesterdays
- Black Field - For The Music
- City Of Souls - Synaesthedia
- Cloudkicker - Solitude
- Conception - State Of Deception
- Crippled Black Phoenix - Ellengæst
- Derek Sherinian - The Phoenix
- Dirty Shirly - Dirty Shirly
- Dool - Summerland
- Eric Clayton - A Thousand Scars
- Exist - Egoiista
- Fates Warning - Long Day Good Night
- Frost* - Others
- Gazpacho - Fireworker
- Glass Hammer - Dreaming City
- Gramsci - Inheritance
- Haken - Virus
- Harem Scarem - Change The World
- Heathen - Empire Of The Blind
- Imperial Triumphant - Alphaville
- John Petrucci - Terminal Velocity
- Katatonia - City Burials
- Major Kong - Off The Scale
- Neal Morse - Sola Gratia
- Nero Di Marte - Immoto
- Nick DVirgilio - Invisible
- Outside In - Karmatrain
- Pallbearer - Forgotten Days
- PostHumanBigBang - Jungle Eyes
- Psychotic Waltz - The God Shaped Void
- Pure Reason Revolution - Eupnea
- Pyrrhon - Abscess Time
- Revolution Army of the Infant Jesus - Songs of Yearning
- Rikard Sjobloms Gungfly - Alone Together
- Sepultura - Quadra
- Sons Of Apollo - MMXX
- Sorcerer - Lamenting Of The Innocent
- Spook The Horses - Empty Body
- Stalker - Black Majik Terror
- Stryper - Even The Devil Believes
- Testament - Titans Of Creation
- The Flower Kings - Islands
- The Pineapple Thrief - Versions Of The Truth
- The Slider - He Calls Your Name
- The Tangent - Auto Reconnaissance
- Ulcerate - Stare Into Death And Be Still
- Vanden Plas - Illumination
- Violet Cold - Noir Kid
Somehow it seems I never actually published my Top Albums of 2022 here, which I must rectify soon - however, after much anguish and culling and pulling 50 albums into the “Top of 2023 Runners Up” overflow list, here’s my favourite 100 albums (that I managed to get around to listening to) split into two alphabetical lists - no rankings here!