Ryan's Best of 2020

So… 2020 has been a year! What with that crazy toilet paper shortage and that time I stubbed my toe, it’s really tested the boundaries of my resolve. Music, as always, has been an escape from the meme filled reality of modern life. However I find myself writing this review at a disadvantage. We did not tour this year. Not. Once. The lack of time in my precious Santa Fe with the seat warmers on, checking out a new album has really messed with my head.

I lament the hours spent on random roads in southern Ontario. Listening to Joe Rogan talk about DMT for the millionth time. Or trying to figure out how the hell an engineer got “that” snare sound. It truly has been a year of adaptation and survival. It is within this context that my Spotify stats for the year begin to make sense.

In a time of such great turmoil, I went home. I relived the salad days of yesteryear and I don’t feel bad about it one bit. I absolutely crushed Private Island, Big Red Machine, Bon Iver, Local Natives, Leon Bridges, The Teskey Brothers and listened to more John Mayer than anyone ever should (but not really). 

But this review is about the new stuff! So here goes.

My top album of the year was by a large margin The Shape of Life by Instilled in Me. This album gave lip service to my metalcore roots while djently tickling my need for tastier and tastier riffs. I love it. The vocals are incredible. If you like heavy music, just give it a spin.

Live Forever by Bartees Strange was such a cool album! For all intents and purposes it shouldn’t work but it does! Paul actually summed it up better than I ever could when he suggested I check it out. “It’s a really cool mixture of indie-rock, post-punk, and hip-hop. It’s like TV on the Radio/At The Drive In/Kendrick Lamar”. ‘Nuff said.

If you told me at the end of 2019 that by 2020 a Taylor Swift album would be in my top 5 list I’d likely just shake my head. She’s just never been my style. But as I said, 2020 is a year of change and dammit I like this album. The production by Aaron Dessner (The National, Big Red Machine) gives me those chill ambient feels I so deeply crave. Haven’t had a chance to dive into their new project “evermore” yet but my hopes are set high. 

The album Who Are You Now by Madison Cunningham is a total vibe. Her voice reminds me of a super chill Joni Mitchell which is saying something but what really turned me onto this record were the tones!! The guitar work on this record is impeccable and it sounds like it was mixed by a guitarist. They can never be too hot in the mix! That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it!

Last but certainly not least is Sad Hunk by the Bahamas. What can I say about this except that the Bahamas have done it again. They are groovy… warm… safe… I would love to be in the studio during guitar tracking on one of their records. Afie Jurvanen is a genius pure and simple. Also I don’t get how they get their guitars to sound like that! Some of the tones on this record wrinkle my brain.

Alright. That’s it for me. On to 2021! And never forget:

We’re all in this together… Keep your stick on the ice. 

Top 5 Albums of 2020

1. Instilled In Me - The Shape of Life

2. Bartees Strange - Forever

3. Taylor Swift - folklore

4. Bahamas - Sad Hunk

5. Madison Cunningham - Who Are You Now

Top 5 Songs of 2020

1. Boomer - Bartees Strange

2. The last great american dynasty - Taylor Swift

3. Up to Your Knees - Instilled in Me

4. Plain Letters - Madison Cunningham

5. Done Did Me No Good - Sad Hunk

Favourite New Podcast(s) of 2020

1. The Portal - Eric Weinstein - ep. 41: Douglas Murray specifically

Not a new podcast but it’s been new to me this year. This episode specifically hit me. Eric’s introductory essay is the most accurate depiction of my own feelings towards current events that I’ve found. 

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Jay's Best of 2020

2020 felt like the culmination of a lot of slow building tension finally snapping, slinging us wildly in all directions, unable to be put back together in quite the same way again. I spent the previous year trying to recover from a messy relationship without much success and ended it with my Dad getting sick. So I shaved my head, wrote some songs about it and turned 30 with that manic 2007 Britney Spears energy, really embracing the uncertainty of life. Then the pandemic started to take hold of the world and it got darker still. I thought I had properly embraced the uncertainty but I was mistaken. 

Paul and I lived together in Toronto through the lockdowns, riots, fires, floods and other apocalyptic harbingers. Like everyone else, we had a big year planned but it got taken out from under us and we were stuck at home going through various stages of grief over the loss of our old life. I know he already reviewed Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher, but that album really defined that first few months of the pandemic for me. The sense of emptiness, longing and restlessness resonated deeply as I lay on my bedroom floor after running through High Park, making sure I kept a 6ft distance from the other walkers and runners. The sweat dried as I listened to Garden Song for the first, second and tenth time. I remember walking out to the kitchen to tell Paul I finally listened to it, as he had been pleading me to do so. I said “hey man I listened to that Pheobe Bridgers song. Holy shit.” “Right?” he said. And then we just kinda looked at each other sharing a couple of wry smiles. 

When the full album came out it was as devastating as I expected. So devastating that I can’t listen to it too often, but when I do it gets my full attention. Her unconventional but buttery smooth vocal phrasing is so good it pisses me off. Her ability to find the small moments and memories in life and string them together so you understand her particular struggle drives me insane. She does the things I try to do in songwriting, but she does it better. You really should listen to it.

While that album is one of my favourites of the year, the biggest holy shit moment I had this year was the first listen of my #1 pick: Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping.. As the year wore on, feelings of grief and isolation were interrupted by the broadcast of George Floyd’s murder. Then came the horror and the anger and the riots. Which is why, when a friend told me to check out Visions of Bodies Being Burned, it defined the rest of the year for me sonically. This was my introduction to clipping. and they’re like nothing I’ve heard before. It is the successor of another album they put out called There Existed An Addiction to Blood album late last year (which also slaps obv) and is dubbed a noise, horrorcore rap album. They use themes from the horror genre in their lyrics and production. Slasher film style jump scares and gore are used to tell horror stories of anger, violence and fighting back. Daveed Diggs is super dynamic, switching from spoken word style poetry to spitting in triple time, then to smooth flow flawlessly all over top of sparse, anxious production. It’s wild and impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever had an album legitimately scare me before. And it’s good to be scared sometimes, it makes you pay attention.

I did listen to a loooot of podcasts this year. The lack of casual conversation was a void filled by endless podcasts. My fave this year was Your Mom’s House. I’ve been a mommy for years now, but this year YMH really kept it extremely high and incredibly tight during these historically low and loose times. The main mommys Tim and Christine fill my day with laughter as they share clips of the coolest guys and the kind of toks that make you say, “you bet I’m coming up in May!” I also like Radiolab.

Oh also I got into Harry Styles this year. It’s been a weird year. Fine Line is like candy tho dude, just great pop songs played by incredible musicians sang by a dreamy young man I would totally kiss on the mouth if given the opportunity. 

K bye, love you, see you soon.

Top 5 Albums of 2020

1. Visions of Bodies Being Burned - clipping. 

2. Punisher - Phoebe Bridgers

3. Candid - Whitney

4. Shore - Fleet Foxes

5. Fine Line - Harry Styles

Top 5 Songs of 2020

1. Say the Name - clipping.

2. Fire - Waxahatchee

3. Can I Believe You - Fleet Foxes

4. Garden Song - Phoebe Bridgers

5. yankee and the brave (ep.4) - Run The Jewels

Favourite Podcast of 2020

1. Your Mom’s House Podcast

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Mike's Best of 2020

Just as every person is saying these days, 2020 has been a weird one. In a year that saw any prospect of touring and playing live thrown out the window, music became all that more important. At the start of the pandemic, I moved back home after an awesome year of living with AJ in Hamilton. Combining that with employment uncertainty from the first lockdown, it was a strange anxiety inducing time. So it felt only fitting that a week before my birthday, Dance Gavin Dance released Afterburner, an early birthday present if you will. I spent most of my time in my dad’s woodshop those days, and I listened to this record on repeat for months. My spotify wrapped was effectively a celebration of my love for DGD.

Dance Gavin Dance is a tough band to try and explain. Their songs are full of intricate math-rock guitar lines. They can go from a top 40 pop sound, to aggressive post-hardcore, to Latin inspired sounds all within one song. Afterburner (DGD’s 9th full-length release) only accentuates and improves on all of these aspects. The ability of each musician is highlighted in such incredible ways throughout the 13 song album. One of my personal favourite things on this record is how their two vocalists have started to blend into each other's normal roles. Tillian has an absolutely insane set of pipes, powerfully and cleanly hitting highs that I can only dream of. John Mess is also one of my favourite screamers in music right now. He has a very unique tonal sound, and the clarity of his words cannot be understated. I also always get a kick out of trying to decode his cryptic lyrics. Reminds me of The Mars Volta in that sense.

If you’re new to DGD, this is a great record to start off on. It touches on all the areas that the band is known for, while doing it in arguably their most polished version. Lyrics Lie, and Strawberry’s Wake are my two favourites from the record. Both hitting that sweet middle spot of melodic, dancey, aggressive, and chaotic. The great news is that if you dig this record, you’ve got 8 more DGD records to explore and enjoy!

I would be remiss if I didn’t at least give a couple honorable mentions. This Place Sucks Ass by PUP was the quarantine punk injection I needed this year. The Joy of Music, the Job of Real Estate by Vulfpeck challenged my bass playing abilities as I attempted to keep up with Joe Dart, and provided some incredibly happy & groovy jams.

Top 5 Albums of 2020

1. Afterburner - Dance Gavin Dance

2. This Place Sucks Ass - PUP

3. Nothing is True & Everything is Possible - Enter Shikari

4. The Joy of Music, the Job of Real Estate - Vulfpeck

5. Palimpsest - Protest the Hero

Top 5 Songs of 2020

1. Lyrics Lie - Dance Gavin Dance

2. Doom Boy - The Dirty Nil

3. Reckless Paradise - Billy Talent

4. { The Dreamer’s Hotel } - Enter Shikari

5. Anaphylaxis - PUP

Favourite New Podcast(s) of 2020

1. Darknet Diaries

2. The Besties

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Paul's Best of 2020

This past year was a bizarre transitional period for me. Of course, COVID was a major part of that (feel free to check off the free space on your 2020-wrap-up Bingo card) - but this time last year, I was hunting for a job, having still not found my roots in Toronto after moving there 6 months prior. I was extremely lucky to nail something down a mere two weeks before lockdown began in March. The whiplash of rapidly beginning and stalling was a surreal thing. And for me, the soundtrack of these defining days of 2020 was largely made up of 2 albums - Phoebe Bridgers’ haunting sophomore effort “Punisher,” and the out-of-left-field experiment that was Car Seat Headrest’s “Making a Door Less Open.” 

Punisher, an allusion to the emotionally draining act of hanging out with fans after a show, is itself a punishing listen. Garden Song sat on repeat for days on end in early March, as I walked laps around my block - the only real instance of outside time I got those days. The album as a whole is pensive and longing, with enough specificity to give her nostalgia trip a sense of focus. I distinctly remember listening to I Know The End for the first time, and being overwhelmed as the song wove through its set pieces, expanding out into the Nevada desert. If there’s a word to describe Punisher, it’s vivid.

In early April, I had occasion to drive through downtown Toronto to the lab. As I turned from my driveway onto an eerily deserted thoroughfare, the angular synth pulse and drums groove of of Car Seat Headrest’s slow-burn epic “There Must Be More Than Blood” dripped through my speakers. The album “Making a Door Less Open” was a departure for CSHR. And it was not particularly well received by many long-time CSHR fans. Luckily, I’m not a long time fan. This album, an off-kilter experiment with synthesizers anchored by a strong songwriting foundation, hit hard for me. Whether on the wry reflection of Weightlifters, the club-banging Deadlines (Thoughtful), or the indie lo-fi sound of Martin, it all just worked for me.

There’s too much on these lists/playlist to mention everything, but I do want to give note to “Call Me When It’s Over” by Max Bloom (of Yuck fame). In the pre-covid days, this was a song that stayed on repeat for weeks on end. It is a dreary, low-energy masterpiece that just barely preempted the apocalypse. 

Top 5 Albums of 2020

1. Punisher - Phoebe Bridgers

2. Making a Door Less Open - Car Seat Headrest

3. This Front Room - Racoma

4. Suddenly - Caribou

5. Live Forever - Bartees Strange

Top 5 Songs of 2020

1. Call Me When It’s Over - Max Bloom

2. Garden Song - Phoebe Bridgers

3. There Must Be More Than Blood - Car Seat Headrest

4. Dog Bones - Racoma

5. Violent Sun - Everything Everything

Favourite New Podcast(s) of 2020

1. Lingthusiasm

2. Oh Hello

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