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15. Biota - Fragment For Balance

Genre: Ambient / Avant Electroacoustical-Folk / RIO
Put On A Playlist With: Univers Zero, Comus, Henry Cow

So, these guys go back a long way to the late 70's...and whilst I haven't followed their career in depth every step of the way, they are pretty much living gods in regards to compelling but strange chamber folk with a peerless grasp on jazz and classical principles. Other than guys like David Tibet or maybe The Legendary Pink Dots, there just aren't that many groups working at Biota's level for such an extended period of time. Fragment For Balance marks their 40th anniversary, and these 26 cuts take you to some interesting places. On 'Rivers Apart', for example, they bring in sax and some creepy dissonant piano chords out of the damn blue. Brillliannnnt.



14. Pictured Resort - Pictured Resort

Genre: Surf Rock, City Pop, J-Rock
Put On A Playlist With: Boris, Hitomitoi, Boredoms, Stereolab, Toshiki Kadomatsu, The Beach Boys

Fresh like a good sunrise, Pictured Resort do a remarkable job at summoning the hazy, long-forgotten summer dreamscapes of Japan's golden era of 80's pop, though filtered through a decidedly more melancholic lens of a 90's / 00's set of genre influences. In that sense, they sound like Boris or the Boredoms who suddenly got a strong desire to become a Californian surf pop band. And it works!


13. Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Genre: Singer-Songwriter
Put On A Playlist With: Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Fiona Apple, Sally Oldfield

She's basically turned into contemporary music's answer to Joni Mitchell in a lot of ways, but whatever the comparisons this is the first record from Lana that I've really felt represents her full potential as an artist. It's ambitious, but not in a boring way like Beyonce's Lemonade or similar outings. From pitch-perfect 'Mariners Apartment Complex' to the 9 minute tour-de-force 'Venice Bitch', this is record with some massive highs. And even when it borders on getting too "navel-gazey", it's way better than anythng else out like it right now and shows it at every turn.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

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12. Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir

Genre: Death/Black/War Metal
Put On A Playlist With: Emperor, Portal, The Chasm, Necros Christos, Beherit, Dead Congregation

An absolutely hellish, blistering metal experience on the whole from these Spanish slayers. They are supposedly leaders in what is being dubbed "War Metal" these days, a blend of black metal, death metal and ambient that defies easy categorization. What I like about The Baneful Choir is that it has an almost infectious energy to it's depiction of a war torn hellscape on Earth, but it's the relentlessness of the production that brings the whole thing together to me in a particularly fun way.



11. Queensryche - The Verdict

Genre: Progressive Metal
Put On A Playlist With: Fates Warning, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Voivod

The third outing from a Geoff Tate-less Queensryche proves to be the best of the new era so far, blending their Mindcrime/Empire/Promised Land progressive metal sound with a modern (I'd go as far as to say commercial) oriented power metal aesthetic to great success. Every song is a winner, though the swaggering 'Light-Years', 'Inner Unrest' and epic cuts like 'Bent' and the groovy, bass-heavy 'Portrait' are SO good that it makes me wonder why they aren't topping everyone's metal list this year. Unfashionable they may be...it certainly doesn't hurt that Todd La Torre has some fantastic pipes.


10. Shmu - Vish

Genre: Avant-garde Psychedelic Popwave
Put On A Playlist With: Clarence Clarity, George Clanton, Tame Impala, Vektroid
One of my favorite band discoveries from last year have decided to also come out swinging in 2019 with Vish, and it's an even stranger yet fullfilling pop experience than the yacht rock inflected Lead Me To The Glow. Where that album embraced vaporwave trappings while standing out with new ideas, this one goes more into contemporary electronic pop territory to the extent where even I'm not quite sure what to call the end product. It's akin to what Clarence Clarity does, but from a completely different contextual set of influences, even bringing in some hip-hop vibes crossed with something that sounds like a 90's tropical house fixation with an extra helping of N64 nostalgia. There's a killer electro-R&B cut hiding in 'Shampoo' and there's a breakout EDM hit in 'So Don't Try And Stop Me' as well....so no matter what these guys do, they're damn good at it and the results speak for themselves.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

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9. Djabe & Steve Hackett - Back To Sardinia

Genre: Jazz-Fusion, Prog, Ambient, Post-Rock
Put On A Playlist With: Late 60's Miles Davis, Pat Metheny, Pink Floyd, Return To Forever

The former lead guitarist from Genesis's 70's prog heyday continues to be prolific well into 2020. While this isn't the first time he's teamed up with Hungarian world-jazz group Djabe, this particular outing is interesting in that it puts a prog guitarist in a jazzier, way breezier setting that plays in a variety of moods. Think late night Miles Davis moods or Return To Forever when they went meditative. And while Hackett is more like David Gilmour than Pat Metheny, his approach to the axe gels really well with the trumpet solos, Rhodes, and other lite-fusion elements. Great record to just kick back to on a quiet day.



8. Ben Vince - Don't Give Your Life

Genre: Avant-garde
Put On A Playlist With: John Zorn (Naked City era), John Surman, Praxis

Simultaneously a prominent U.K. saxophonist and electronic musician of keen talent, Ben Vince likes to push his jazz background into places where the genre tag "jazz" no longer easily applies. Every song is a beautiful exercise in contrast. 'Mark Of The Spirit' juxtaposes warm vocals against a screaming saxophone backdrop, 'Luxx' is Trent Reznor in 1989 trying to do the soundtrack to The Last Temptation Of Christ and closer 'Fallout' is a 10 minute meditation that Trevor Jones and bands like Dead Can Dance would be proud of, a place where Ben lets his sax actually unwind from the madness that came before. What an absolute gem of a record....seriously.


7. Equip - CURSEBREAKER X

Genre: Vaporwave, Video Game OST
Put On A Playlist With: The Castlevania series, Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu
Signed to 100% Electronica not long ago and known to be something like a workaholic in the "vaporwave" scene, Kevin Hein pulled out all the stops in 2019 with CURSEBREAKER X, a dark fantasy-themed extravaganza that really captures the magic of the early 90's side scroller, and even wrote a cool Hero's Journey-styled story to go with it. It's barely over 30 minutes, but it makes them count.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

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grindy

I've known Bent Knee for years and the vocals kept ruining the otherwise cool music for me.
Gonna give them yet another chance though.

Anyway, thanks for the thread. A lot of the stuff I have already known and a lot was just not up my alley but I had great fun exploring it all and the format is very nice and comprehensive. Looking forward to next year.

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Anteater

Thanks! 2019 was a great year overall for music. I saw your list and there were a few on it I didn't recognize. I'll look 'em over.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette