Indieheads Podcast’s Top 25 Albums of 2020
By: Indieheads Podcast
Tags: Album Review, Music, Indie, Lists

In lieu of a cliche opening, I am instead going to present a quote from our very own Dyl on r/indieheads’ Roast of 2020 in Indie Music:

It’s March 1st. You’re standing in line to vote early for Bernie in the primary. The dude across from your college dorm has been playing The Slow Rush nonstop for two weeks now. You’re thinking about going back home for the week of spring break, but you’ll need to call out of your part-time server job at the local diner first. You put on the newest album by Sun Kil Moon and go down to browse your local record store for the afternoon. You get a sudden, inexplicable urge to buy a small bottle of hand sanitizer from the CVS. You can’t wait to travel to Pitchfork Fest later this summer.

Pain. Just lots and lots of pain.

Anyways, instead of our usual business where we just talk about our top 10 on the podcast, we’re presenting a written list that includes 15 extra albums to round things out to a proper Top 25 list! But before we get into that, I just want to thank everyone who has supported us on Patreon thus far, and that if you’re not supporting us yet, we hope you do soon as we’ve got a lot of great content planned for y’all in 2021. But before we get there, we must wrap this year up so let’s get on with the list!

April 24th — Pop Spirit

25. Twinkle Park — As Much As I Forget

I’ve been thinking a lot about voice this year. It’s hard to ignore as a transfeminine person, when voice goes unaffected by estrogen alone and others’ cisnormative perception of voice can often skew how they view you. But, in frequently returning to As Much As I Forget this year, I started to form a more complex understanding of what voice signifies — a vehicle for expression, the power one holds in speaking, how the act of modulation is just as vital as the voice itself. The impeccably realized debut full-length from California emo/pop-punk artist Hazel, As Much As I Forget takes these genres’ tendencies to vocalize onerous trials with gender and mental illness, and completely upends the execution to create an album wholly its own. Complex, mathy riffs and percussion are complemented by twinkly synthetic power-pop, unconventional instruments like the omnichord and Otamatone nestle among the fray, and songs will often veer off in entirely new directions at a moment’s notice to unveil track-long suites. At the center of it all are the vocals — Hazel’s words as filtered through vocaloid — representing the inherent difficulty in even speaking your uncomfortable truths aloud. It’s a creative decision that closely intertwines with the album’s themes, naturally rippling out into the lyrical musings on connection over shared afflictions on “Batteries,” the pain of silently swallowing hurt on “Rotten Woman,” and the expressed desire for self-improvement on the climactic multi-part title track. What all this results in is an exhilaratingly singular pop-punk release, one whose densely knotted power emerges from how the album voices its nuanced vulnerabilities.

— Nat

Listen to As Much As I Forget on Bandcamp.

May 16th — blacksquares

24. Girls Rituals — Crap shit

In 2015, Devi McCallion released Reddishness, one of the most finely tuned pop records of the last decade. For 2020, she released Crap shit, a sequel to the record that also sought to demolish every aspect of the original. Where Reddishness sought to operate on tightly crafted hooks and rigidly structured two minute tracks, Crap shit tends to indulge in much more open structures, letting Devi play much further into her most indulgent behaviors as a songwriter. With the loss of tighter format, she manages to let the emotional core of the songs run out much more freely, creating some of her most devastating songs to date, like the autotuned death march of “Melty Future” or the lovely “Elevator Out of the Catacombs” with its homage to a classic song by Far East Movement, interspersed with a very necessary message. This album tries to play things as loosely as possible, but Devi’s best instincts as a writer continue to shine, no matter how she changes the form.

— Rose

Listen to Crap shit on Bandcamp.

May 15th — Atlantic/Asylum

23. Charli XCX — how i’m feeling now

Alright girls and gays, she’s finally clicked with me. Not completely mind you, as I’m still a little iffy on her work before this album, but I think I’m along for the ride for whatever Charli does next, as for a record that was essentially thrown together across a couple of weeks during the beginning of quarantine, this is just incredible pop music. From the bombastic opening of “pink diamond” to the sticky hooks heard all throughout “claws”, Charli not only proves herself in being one of the most forward-thinking pop artists out, but also one that can more than hold her own individually. One of the biggest issues with her most recent projects is that they’re usually filled to the brim with guests that range from good to unnecessary to borderline unlistenable, but with them out of the equation and a streamlined production process, how i’m feeling now is the most engaged I’ve felt with a Charli album, and I hope under non-pandemic circumstances she can continue to repeat it.

— Matty

Listen to how i’m feeling now on Spotify.

February 14th — Mom+Pop

22. Beach Bunny — Honeymoon

Released on Valentine’s Day, Honeymoon was one of the first great records of 2020, shooting it directly to the top of my working year end list. I didn’t mean for it to stay at the top for the entire year, it just sorta happened. Maybe it’s because it was released a few weeks before the pandemic hit the states, making it one of the last artifacts from the Before Times. Maybe it’s because in These Unprecedented Times, Lili Trifilio’s familiar brand of twee power pop was the comforting energy that I needed. But no matter how you slice it, Honeymoon is just a damn good record. Honeymoon is economical with 9 tracks and a runtime that clocks in at just over 25 minutes, but that’s all the time they needed. Each track is filled to the brim with emotion, addictive melodies, and anthemic choruses to scream at the top of your lungs in the car. Honeymoon is far from the most original or ambitious release of 2020, but it can be argued that finding a way to make the familiar feel fresh and exciting is just as impressive as doing something wholly unique, and that’s what Beach Bunny does in spades.

— Will

Listen to Honeymoon on Bandcamp.

May 1st — Matador

21. Car Seat Headrest — Making a Door Less Open

When talking about where he was mentally when writing Making A Door Less Open, Car Seat Headrest frontman Will Toledo said the following to Huck: “I don’t think I was quite so angry or depressed, but it just felt like a hollow useless time. I was doing a lot of stuff that I felt wasn’t going anywhere.” And right now, that’s where I’m at. While 2020 was an extremely busy year for me where I was doing a lot, I still feel like I haven’t gone anywhere, as I’m still stuck in the same bedroom in the same financial situation I’ve been stuck in for years where I’m doing so much but yet it feels like so little. While it’s been dogged by some fans and critics for being such a vast change from his previous work, I’m ultimately compelled by it because of these changes. And while previous CSH albums have ended with a bit of a whimper comparatively, this isn’t the case with MADLO, as Will Toledo starts and ends this album in the same place: nowhere. He hoped his thoughts could change his situation and he desperately begged for such. No matter what version of the album you listen to, point A and B on this album’s route stay the same, because it’s a loop.

And it’s a loop I hope to break one day. I hope someone cares as I try.

— Matty

Listen to Making A Door Less Open on Bandcamp.

January 31st — Saddle Creek

20. Frances Quinlan — Likewise

A brief selection of Frances Quinlan’s songwriting inspirations: Cain and Abel; Charles Dawson; jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden; a sentient mattress; strangers in India and pop stars in Tibet. As the lead singer of Hop Along, Quinlan owns perhaps the most distinctive writerly voice in indie rock today, as wide and eclectic in scope as it is deep in breadth. It should come as no surprise, then, that the first album which bears her name on the spine scans to me more as a collection of short stories and observational essays than a group of interconnected songs. Composed in part of songs from the Bark Your Head Off, Dog sessions, Likewise, in keeping with its author’s history, follows a wide array of muses, from Quinlan’s newly-born niece and the novel Closely Watched Trains to cannibalistic pigeons, Doug Martsch, and Raid-seasoned spaghetti. And while Quinlan’s lyrics tend towards the oblique, there’s a loose theme of human connection all throughout the album; trying and failing to “relate,” to use a recurring phrase. Midway through the stunning “Went to LA,” Quinlan howls about “the humiliation of having been perfectly understood.” A universal fear, sure, but in a year that would become defined by isolation and a starvation of true connection with others, it somehow morphed into something to be almost wistful for. It takes a writer of great gifts to pull that off, and this album should establish beyond any doubt that Quinlan is one of the best in the genre today. Likewise, in short, is an album as distinct and stirring as the self-portrait which adorns its cover, a one-of-one work from a one-of-one artist.

— Zach

Listen to Likewise on Bandcamp.

August 28th — Smalltown Supersound

19. Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song

Between the 3-year wait from the release of her excellent 2017 debut album and an extended album rollout that was delayed multiple months due to the pandemic, I was beginning to worry earlier this year that I had built up a little too much hype for Kelly Lee Owens’ sophomore album Inner Song and that I would be let down by the time it finally releases. And I was a fool for worrying. An idiot. A real fucking dunce. I should have never doubted Kelly for a second.

It’s incredibly rare for an artist to be able to carve out a specific, distinct niche for themselves on a debut record like Kelly Lee Owens did so successfully with her self-titled album, and it’s even rarer for an artist to follow that up by taking yet another huge leap forward with the sophomore effort, but Kelly has already passed both of those tests with flying colors. Inner Song takes the winning formula of techno, ambient, and pop that defined Kelly Lee Owens and both amplifies and expands on it, further exploring the grey areas between her stylistic influences in the way that only she could. Songs like the incredible single “On” manage to pull off this genre-hopping with ease within the confines of a single song, as the track begins with Kelly’s ethereal vocals in the center of the frame before shifting and evolving multiple times as the driving techno beat becomes progressively more forceful. Other tracks like album highlights “Re-Wild” and “L.I.N.E.” are the most explicitly pop moments of Kelly’s career thus far, and the fact that they go over so well that they almost risk completely overshadowing the other stellar tracks on Inner Song really speaks to her range and the exciting promise that this album suggests for her career going forward. In a year without a Beach House album, “L.I.N.E.” is the best Beach House song of 2020, showcasing some of the best songwriting of the album over some downright heavenly synth pads and an understated beat that really reminds me of something off of the most recent Beach House album 7. These tracks are much more traditionally structured than one of Kelly’s longer, meditative jams like “Corner of My Sky feat. John Cale” or “Jeanette”, but the way she manages to capture the same effervescent, weightless quality that her music has become known for in these more pop-oriented tracks is a real testament to the unique qualities of her incredible singing voice and the range of her production skills. This album is simultaneously satisfying as the long-awaited follow up to her debut record and also incredibly tantalizing in the way it demonstrates that we have only begun to scratch the surface of her full potential.

— Jackson

Listen to Inner Song on Bandcamp.

May 28th — Self-Released

18. Backxwash — God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out Of It

Even with the monumental year that Montreal industrial rapper Backxwash has had — consisting of multiple releases, numerous press features, and a landmark Polaris Music Prize win — what’s most stunning is that her breakthrough album still stands as its own towering achievement, holding a gripping power like few other records. Described by Ashanti Mutinta as “about my version of forgiveness and things that I need to face in order to reach my version of that,” God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It viscerally captures the trials in confronting trauma past and present to reach a place of personal and spiritual absolution. Reconfiguring a number of samples — from ’70s hard rock to found audio of megachurch sermons — with earthshakingly bass-heavy beats, Backxwash vividly captures the haunting anguishes of family alienation and public transmisogynoiristic violence, unspooling painful details of each scenario as if openly asking how such things could even be forgiven. Backxwash’s lyricism itself contributes greatly to the album’s tenebrous mood, fervent and assonant and loaded with wordplay subtly tying the interpersonal to religious iconography, never letting the listener catch their breath over the album’s twenty-two minute span. But it’s the album’s culmination with “Redemption,” where Ashanti reflects back on her own actions toward finding peace and closure over the album’s lightest beat, that gives the album its crucial catharsis at the end of ten tracks of torment. Even when facing the unspeakable, whether physically or in memories, that sense of forgiveness can be found, one where you can know confidently that your combative actions are justified because they’re necessary for your own survival and tranquility. Sometimes it’s enough to know you can find forgiveness in the face of the unforgivable.

— Nat

Listen to God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out Of It on Bandcamp.

July 24th — Republic

17. Taylor Swift — folklore

Taylor Swift didn’t have to make the best album of her career this year. She didn’t have to double down on the creative decisions embodied on folklore to turn around less than six months later and return with another batch of remarkably strong stories on evermore. As well, there was no pressure on Taylor Swift to consciously think of a change in production that echoes back to her folkier roots, eschewing the hollow and ostentatious pop music that provided flair and stadium tours, but rang false when compared to the honest but endlessly compelling country fables she composed for the better part of a decade.

The songs on folklore are delicate, rich tapestries woven from lived experience and a mosaic of heartache and frustration, but spoken by a matured, sentimental narrator. Sentimental, not like a wide-eyed child, but with the wisened perspective of an American icon — an important distinction from any global pop star, Swift’s own self-image feeds on the iconography of small town romance and charts across some twisted mirror of the from-your-own-bootstraps mythology essential to any success story of humble origin.

If there’s anything surprising about the songs on folklore, it’s their inherent simplicity. Swift makes it all look easy here; boyoued (but never dominated) by a careful curation of creative influences like Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon. Taylor Swift has always been capable of writing songs that soar as seamlessly as the best tracks here; but the consistent wrapper of sonic melancholy, playful melody and expansive point-of-view enhance folklore into something truly special. On ‘the last great american dynasty,” she casts herself in a historical line of women judged but not rejected by society, turning the same gossip and interpersonal strife that informed her catchiest (but most youthful) hits.

All throughout folklore, she in the same way acknowledges but never lashes out at the scattered and detailed paths that brought us all to this point. There is a wide network of characters, times, locations, days and dates to be written about. As every detail, and the feeling it conjures, rises to focus her songwriting embraces it in full. Her story, every success and failure, is well-known by now. It’s more than enough to drive anyone into defensive recluse. But on this pair of albums, Swift lays bare the dense, knotted sprawl of these emotions. folklore is her single greatest achievement to date. As the cover art evokes, she is now content to wander through these woods, perhaps aimlessly, all while admiring every last detail.

— AJ

Listen to folklore on Spotify.

October 23rd — Sub Pop

16. clipping. — Visions of Bodies Being Burned

Like all great horror sequels, it starts with the growing, ominous clarity of deep dark fears brought to life once again: the threat still lives. The killer is still out there, striking again. Still, nothing is safe. By setting these expectations right away with harsh noise quickly swallowing the listener up in their world, noise rap trio clipping. free themselves to go all in on their most compositionally impressive record to date. Coming a year after the stellar There Existed An Addiction to Blood, Visions of Bodies Being Burned wastes no time before clipping. starts one-upping their already-staggering experimental approach. Even for longtime listeners of the group, it’s hard to not be knocked back by Daveed Diggs’ unforgiving nonstop flow on “Something Underneath,” or William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes centering “She Bad” around a sample of a rusty gate, or the uncompromised boldness of Daveed rapping over avant-garde free jazz improvisation on “Eaten Alive.” But what’s all the more impressive is that the genuine dread of the album’s sound design and lyrical narratives never ceases for a moment, not even on relatively straightforward tracks like “Say The Name” or the menacing cosmic-scale horror of career-high “Enlacing.” The record is one of the rare sequels that could go toe-to-toe with its predecessor, or any work in its creator’s oeuvre for that measure. Visions of Bodies Being Burned is a new nightmare full of new blood, a terrifying thrill ride of a resurrection.

— Nat

Listen to Visions of Bodies Being Burned on Bandcamp.

September 22nd — ANTI-

15. Fleet Foxes — Shore

Shore is, in many ways, an aesthetic mismatch to the world we currently find ourselves in. It is lush and serene and gorgeous, it forces you to reckon with its beauty, and it carries you to some place more pristine than reality, like it or not. In a general sense, this formula is not novel for Fleet Foxes. Their music, and ostensibly the music of Robin Pecknold, has always been very idyllic and ethereal. Either fleshed out with maximalist chamber-folk production — complete with layers of acoustic guitars and mandolins, strings and horns, and all sorts of miscellaneous orchestral flourishes — or tender, soft-spoken, and stripped-down. Usually nothing extremely boundary pushing, but excellent at what it sets out to accomplish: making really beautiful songs. Whether the evoked image is that of picturesque pastoral landscapes of sweeping hills, clear streams, and quaint but rustic old farmhouses like the band’s first two albums (Fleet Foxes & Helplessness Blues), or that of dark, complex, and mysterious forests as in Crack-Up — you can rest assured that it will be a colorful picture, and you can be confident that you’re simply going to receive some really good folk music. Shore is no exception here, and it takes this familiar blueprint and brings it to new, exultant highs, as this particular collection of songs is perhaps their brightest and most euphoric yet. You’d be hard-pressed to find a song from this year as purely blissful as “Sunblind” or “Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman”, or any number of moments from this 54-minute kaleidoscope of an album. “Can I Believe You” is the closest Fleet Foxes have ever come to releasing a “banger”, and as much as any in their discography, songs like “Maestranza” and “Featherweight” perfectly encapsulate the full range of beautifully-dense to beautifully-sparse in which the band operates so well. There’s just an air of rapture running through these tracks that is absolutely mesmerizing, and that demands your attention and consideration. Because although some level of existential drama has always existed under the surface throughout much of the Fleet Foxes discography, and although that certainly remains true here, Shore’s mission statement is a simple one: zoom out. Study the hypnotic pulse of waves crashing onto a long, empty coast. Stand on that natural border between land and sea and really try to internalize the vast emptiness before you. There maybe, it is possible to lose whatever anxieties, whatever dread you’re hanging on to. Cast them into those eternal waters, and let them wash away in that immensity.

— Jake

Listen to Shore on Bandcamp.

July 17th — Domino

14. Protomartyr — Ultimate Success Today

At some point, death seems to come into the forefront of it all. Joe Casey’s writing on Protomartyr’s latest seems to be certain of it, presenting grim imagery where the void is always on the periphery of his writing. Though many of the lyrics were written in 2019, plenty of them seem to land as dire portents of the current moment we live in. Riot police rise up from hell, summer days seem to drag on into infinity and ennui, billionaire psychopaths claim space and drain what little resources we still starve for. This imagery feels like the next logical step in our progression (or the point we’re already at), and honestly could seem a bit one-note in anybody else’s hands, but Protomartyr understands how to use their musical range to wring the necessary catharsis out of these horrors. With the addition of woodwinds into their sound, opting to accent their more granular characteristics or add a sense of lightness in places that may feel entirely absent of it, making a great counter to the record’s guitars. Speaking of which, Ultimate Success Today has easily the best guitar textures of the year, oscillating between wide-open and crashing rhythms as on “Michigan Hammers”, or the more tightly controlled nuance of “June 21”. As a whole, the combination of it all creates one of the most timely releases of this year, and what may end up being Protomartyr’s best record, a dirge for the band as it’s been up to this point, and possibly forever. Ultimate Success Today! It’s more of an epitaph than a slogan.

— Rose

Listen to Ultimate Success Today on Bandcamp.

May 22nd — Domino

13. Owen Pallett — Island

As promised, the long-teased Island emerged this year as a direct sequel to Owen Pallett’s 2010 song cycle, Heartland. The story of the latter, in which a farmer named Lewis rails against his creator (named, well… Owen Pallett), is continued on Island mere seconds after its climax, in which Lewis destroys his god-tormentor, and is left grappling with the self-destructive impulses that inevitably follow. However, where Heartland was an impassioned argument for the necessity of autofictional mythology as a mode of queer expression, Island serves as a direct unmaking of those very myths: the deterministic impulses of who and how we feel we must be (for a more thorough dissection of these themes, please read fellow podcast member Nat’s exceptional writeup on the album).

Narrative intricacies aside, the bottom line is that Island excels by serving at once as Pallet’s most sophisticated, vulnerable, and undeniably gripping album to date. Underpinning Pallet’s reframing of the Lewis narrative is a sizable change in their songwriting: gone are the concise, loop-based string arrangements of their earlier, pop-oriented work. Island deals largely in large-scale shifts in timbre and home, playing out gradually over the course of a track, or as with the fog drenched opening run, entire movements. The album functions as a near-operatic work, Lewis’ journey from destruction to introspection often demarcated through imperceptible shifts in the arrangements, guided by Pallett’s storied hand. Still when this restraint is left to the wayside, as on easy SOTY contender “A Bloody Morning,” or desolate closer “In Darkness,” the result is handily the best orchestration work of their career.

Island is the type of grand work that more than justifies its six-year gestation, serving as a new high watermark in Pallett’s catalogue. At its best, it is sweeping and cinematic, appropriately rendering the cosmic drama of Pallett’s lyrics, a vivid continuation of a story that has clearly become intimately important to them. As the final string trills dissipate, it seems that Lewis, Pallett, and the listener unify to face the same eager question: what next?

— Lily

Listen to Island on Bandcamp.

January 24th — ANTI-

12. Andy Shauf — The Neon Skyline

One of the best moments of The Neon Skyline comes out of nowhere, breaking away somewhat from the main story of our narrator and his ex that he’s not quite over, Judy. The narrator and his best friend Charlie, who brought him to the titular Skyline, catch up with their friend Claire at the bar, as she recalls “a strange experience” after Charlie asks how her and her son are. She begins to tell a story about drawing a picture for her father as a young girl, and tying that back to her own son, who also drew a picture for his parent, with both her and her father dismissing their child after a long day at work.

The entire album serves as a story about our inability to change the past, and how we react to that in our present. “Living Room” serves as the most compelling piece of this thesis, a breathtaking and almost breakneck piece of folk-rock about the small traumas we experience at the hands of our parents, and how that behavior inherits in us, doomed to repeat to make the same mistakes unless we truly learn from them. While it’s unclear if our narrator even knows Claire that well, her story catches us off guard, and all we can do is stare with “wide eyes, like we had accidentally walked into some stranger’s living room.”

— Matty

Listen to The Neon Skyline on Bandcamp.

March 13th — Triple Crown

11. Dogleg — Melee

This year was a relentless cascade of shittiness, gut-punch after gut-punch and a virtually ceaseless reminder that even if there is a single silver lining to be gleaned out of a communal deepsoak in misery and violence, the battle lines have been drawn and the people in power will stop at nothing to ensure that even their slightest discomforts will be made immeasurably more unacceptable than levels of death and devastation we would have defined as inhumane even one decade ago, and if you were bold enough to talk back you’d disqualify yourself from ever finding common ground to stand on and barter that “hey, maybe things could be better one day” if we all came together and talked it out because sometimes those answers are more easily found in shaken fists and exasperated screams that bounce back off empty walls filling the cavernous feelings of shame and insecurity contained in these frail and failing bodies we’ve all been handed, or howled into pillows, stomped out in the shower, and pushing back as hard and as fast as you can; until the english language is unrecognizable, syllables turned into sonic bullets that pierce that anxiety, punctuated by thunderous drums and the crashing walls of guitar chords distorted all to hell burning with an unmistakable fervor that can, for precious few minutes, burn away all that unavoidable awfulness making you feel like less of a human being and more of an empty husk where there was only shame for letting it all get this bad even though none of this suffering was your fault to begin with: when that fire is lit inside you, it’s a feeling you want to seep into your very soul, to find a comfort in those intense feelings inspiring you even if it’s all going to just keep getting worse every day you wake up, that when you do there will be something there to keep you feeling alive, even if it’s the faintest sound, to close your eyes and focus, to hear that noise and turn it up as loud as it will fucking go.

— AJ

Listen to Melee on Bandcamp.

August 14th — Saddle Creek

10. Young Jesus — Welcome to Conceptual Beach

When I became an intern earlier this year for No Earbuds, one of the most exciting artists on their docket for an album in 2020 was Young Jesus. While I wasn’t super into The Whole Thing Is Just There, it was hearing a band with a lot of potential starting to put together the pieces. Welcome to Conceptual Beach is that completed puzzle, but it’s up to you to put everything together, making each experience even more rewarding than the last. It’s hard to say anything about this record, because part of the experience is going in blind. A magician should never reveal their tricks, and I never want to know the reality of Young Jesus’ kayfabe. I want to be around and live in this world they’ve created, because it’s a hell of a lot better than ours right now.

— Matty

Listen to Welcome to Conceptual Beach on Bandcamp.

October 23rd — 4AD

9. Adrianne Lenker — songs

Adrianne Lenker’s work — with Big Thief and otherwise — has long been concerned with presence and time, expanding fleeting moments onto a canvas large enough to reveal the cosmos within them. Her latest solo album, songs (and its accompanying instrumentals), is her most indebted to these concepts yet, both in concept and process. Recorded as a series of single-takes with minimal overdubs and plenty of room audio, Songs is alive with the spontaneity of its setting. The chair creaks, rain falls, audio trails are cut into at the beginning and ends of tracks, Lenker laughs with her producer before restarting a take. The result feels like eavesdropping onto a private studio session, meant to be heard only by Lenker herself, and makes for some of her most vivid and enveloping music yet.

The beguiling candidness of these recordings is more than just a byproduct of home recording in the COVID era, however. Lenker has an acute ear for arrangement, and the intimacy of Songs’ sonic palette serves as a perfect complement to the most directly autobiographical set of lyrics she’s written to date. As a lyricist, particularly on Big Thief’s output, Lenker has draped her confessionals in character studies and layers of abstracted imagery that place the songs firmly in the realm of the imaginary. No such distancing is found on Songs, which largely sees Lenker sing of deeply personal experiences in the first person, making no attempt to mask the emotional core of these pieces.

It’s a change that feels as political as it does expressive: Songs explicitly trades in queer desire and heartbreak, themes that have always been latent in Lenker’s work, but never before presented so plainly. In particular, the seldom-discussed intricacies of maturing as queer women are brought to the fore, with frequent, grief-stricken references to child-rearing and familial bonds appearing throughout. To hear her confide, “I could be a good mother/and I wanna be your wife,” is to unveil an entire complicated realm of Sapphic longing and alienation, one that is frequently tied into Lenker’s own conceptions of time, mortality, and afterlife. That she is able to vividly bridge these components together so effortlessly is a testament to her rare gifts as poet, to say nothing of her now-undeniable mastery as a guitarist. All this and more makes Songs another uniquely powerful in Lenker’s stellar discography, one more bit of proof that she has become one of the great songwriters of our time. As if we needed any more.

— Lily

Listen to songs on Bandcamp.

April 13th — Blacksquares

8. Black Dresses — Peaceful as Hell

Black Dresses’ fourth full-length was never meant to be their last, but despite the frustrating (albeit entirely justified) reasons for the noise-pop duo’s sudden dissolution this spring, it has come to form an uncannily perfect capstone to their brief-but-unimpeachable discography. When the collaboration debuted with 2018’s formidable Wasteisolation, it was clear that its members were suffering immensely, emerging with an album that dealt with unthinkable trauma and oppression in a manner so candid the band has expressed regret over its mere existence. This raw, if entirely-justified, righteous anger became somewhat of an unfortunate trademark for the duo, and by their third album a mere 18 months later, Love & Affection for Stupid Little Bitches, it was clear that Devi and Rook had become disinterested in reopening old wounds for public display, gesturing towards a more hopeful and nuanced version of the world they wanted to see.

Peaceful as Hell realizes this vision in wonderfully imaginative fashion, completing the emotional arc Black Dresses set upon nearly three years ago. Make no mistake: the anger, hurt, and oppression are all still there, but unlike that unrelenting early work, they’re buoyed by a distinct sense of playfulness and camaraderie. In a world that routinely robs marginalized people of their agency and happiness, the best revenge is to make our own, on our own terms. As Devi says on “Bliss and Stupidity:” “if it’s really gonna be that shit, I’ll just live.” And so, they do. It is still a decision rather than a given, and one that isn’t made easily, but one that carries inarguable power.

Alongside this burgeoning emotional nuance, Devi and Rook deliver their most sonically multifaceted set of productions yet. Peaceful as Hell wields a dizzying array of styles and influences that certainly shouldn’t work together, and that arguably only Black Dresses could have achieved. Their usual noise-pop foundation is rounded out by fragments of nu-metal, experimental hip-hop, downtempo electronica, and heck, even a Weezer pastiche, to name a few. Fortunately, rather than feeling scattered, these fusions are effortlessly seamless, seeing the duo capable of alternating from all-out squalls of guitar, stuttering hip-hop influenced passages, Top-40-worthy pop choruses, and back again multiple times per song without ever missing a beat. It’s a staggering display of production skill and pop music literacy, with Devi and Rook operating at the inarguable peak of their combined powers. The fact that these songs would easily fall apart in anyone else’s hands makes them all the more of a joyful thrill to listen to.

Joy, ultimately, has long been central to Black Dresses’ music, even if only as an abstract pursuit. But, the duo has always been first and foremost concerned with finding some form of solace and unity through the shared expression of their suffering. Gradually, over the course of their work together, this has morphed into a sincere expression of togetherness as a means of survival, doubled with an appreciation for pop bliss and wry humour that all takes center stage in Peaceful as Hell. It is, in a sense, the fullest expression of what the duo has been about from the beginning, perhaps since before they even realized it themselves. This forms the touchstone for Devi and Rook’s swan song, closer “666,” which concludes with the arguable thesis statement of the project: “as long as we’re together, hell’s the safest place for us to be.” The world may never feel better, but the right person, or people, can allow you a safe haven within it. It’s a profound and touching note for Black Dresses to walk into the sunset together. As they do, you start to believe not only that they’ll be okay, but that one day you might be too.

— Lily

Listen to Peaceful as Hell on Bandcamp.

March 27th — Other People

7. Nicolas Jaar — Cenizas

Nicolas Jaar is no more a musician now, but rather a leading spiritual guru of his time, an individual so unique dialed into the daily malaise and quiet suffering of his time that he may as well be placed alongside the likes of Tarkovsky and Thoreau. Call it coincidence, or bad luck, or simply fate, which brought Jaar’s latest opus to our shores right as the global pandemic put into question we knew about our past life — tomorrow’s plans never manifested, loved ones were never seen again, the burdens of grief and solitude overwhelmed a tumultuous culture and we were pressured to reconvene our lives on the terms of destructive forces — uncertain lockdowns, crumbling public infrastructures, racist police states. Meanwhile the capitalist money god still demanded tribute, in gold or in blood, the insatiable bloated beast never once pausing its endless consumption. Who else but Jaar could find comfort in the overwhelming, lighting lamps of sonic resistance in the darkness. In a year when minimalism and slowness ruled, and much was made of ambient music’s power — to calm, to eulogize, to heal, to rebel — who else but Jaar, the prolific shadowy presence that he is, to show guidance.

— Dyl

Listen to Cenizas on Bandcamp.

May 20th — Polyvinyl

6. Jeff Rosenstock — NO DREAM

NO DREAM is Jeff Rosenstock’s best album. I don’t really know how bold of a take this is, especially in the face of some of the most beloved pop-punk music of the last 15 years, but truthfully, I have no other ideas about how to start talking about this album. It’s just his best one, I’m sorry! All of the things I love about Jeff Rosenstock’s music; all of his strengths as a musician and songwriter, are keyed-the-fuck-in here, and it is just relentlessly great the whole time. You have the relatable self-deprecating introspection that has characterized a lot of his past work with songs like “The Beauty of Breathing” and “Old Crap” (the former of which is probably the most personally accurate depiction of generalized anxiety I’ve ever heard in a song), and you also have Jeff’s increasingly prescient detailing of the many ways in which our systems of power are oppressive failures — a component of his music which is and will continue to grow ever more poignant as we all trudge forward, assuming we remain on our current trajectory. It’s interesting because, really, none of what is happening on this album is new territory for him. It’s a formula that Jeff is very familiar with, and as a result, it’s also one that he’s extremely goddamn good at. These songs are infinitely infectious, they contain some of the best hooks of Jeff’s career (“State Line”?, “***BNB”??), they’re anthemic and loud and raw, but most importantly; they understand you, and your malaise, and your angst. Because shit, it’s not a dream, is it? That house on the artwork that’s literally melting in the sun? That’s real. That’s your house, and the situation kinda sucks. And even though this life is often alienating and it’s hard to feel like you can effect any sort of real change to that on an individual level, you can at least yell to Jeff Rosenstock songs about it. And that has to be worth something, I think.

P.S.

As a consequence of the Indieheads Podcast’s long-standing and highly-publicized beef with that of the vacation property rental company Airbnb (Air “Bitches n’ Bastards”), we must divulge this previously classified information: The three asterisks partially constituting the title “***BNB” are, in fact, in reference to that company, and although Jeff Rosenstock and his legal team do not have the resources to uncensor this title, we at the Indieheads Podcast do. With some of the most talented lawyers in the country on retainer, any retaliation on their part will be met with lawsuits, and full intentions to litigate their company out of existence. — mgmt

— Jake

Listen to NO DREAM on Bandcamp.

June 18th — Dead Oceans

5. Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher

Phoebe Bridgers only continues to impress me and make me wish I was doing more with my life. Even though her own experiences might not match mine, Bridgers continues to create touching and relatable works of art (free therapy) that I feel comfortable coming back to. Punisher is a diary entry full of dreams, memories, secrets, and wishes. An hours long conversation in a parked car discussing love and all the stupid things you feel in your chest. A box full of sentiment sprawled out on the floor and knowing that you survived the worst to come. It can be whatever you want. In my own heart and mind, this album is the relief that I am truly not alone in this world. In the past two years, the name Phoebe Bridgers has reached more people with her involvement with boygenius, Better Oblivion (thank you so much Conor Oberst), and collaboration with Matt Berninger of The National. More ways to break my heart and more talent to take and grow from. From all that growth, I feel that Bridgers is just beginning to create a sound that belongs to her name with soaring violin, horns from heaven, and drums that can only be replicated by a heartbeat running from your own emotions. She knows exactly what she’s doing and she manages to lift the heavy burdensome feeling from both her shoulders and ours in the most poetic way possible.

In my adult life, I’ve never been able to listen to an album so relentlessly, and for that I am thankful. I’m excited and terrified for her third album release because I know that it’s just going up from here, but I don’t know how my heart will be able to handle it.

— Corinne

Listen to Punisher on Bandcamp.

October 30th — Warp

4. Oneohtrix Point Never — Magic Oneohtrix Point Never

America is filled with the sonic trash of radio broadcast waves endlessly bouncing around its wastelands, sounds and dreams locked behind frequencies most people won’t ever bother to hear, or will ever hear again. Memories of songs played for the first time, at crucial times, the blabberings of stoned disc jockeys and hyper top-40 morning show hosts, the fabrics of 20th century Americana now whisked away with the wind. Stumbling upon this treasure trove of commercial garbage is none other than Jukebox Danny himself, the master chronicler of lost futures and haunted pasts, the connective tissue between what never was and what can almost be. Lopatin has worn through many styles in his long prolific career, plumbing the depths of our fatigued cultural subconscious and reviving it anew — sometimes a careful archeologist of ghostly sounds, sometimes a mad scientist mutating bleeps and bloops into monstrous cyberjunk. Here, Lopatin finally pulls the curtain back on his own constructed mythology, breathing life into his shadowy persona and transforming it into a Wonka of the digitally discarded, reveling in a colorful landscape of exhausted pop.

— Dyl

Listen to Magic Oneohtrix Point Never on Bandcamp.

March 27th — Merge

3. Waxahatchee — Saint Cloud

With spring comes rebirth, even in a year lived largely behind closed doors. Trees regain their leaves, flowers bloom, and if you’re lucky, maybe you start to grow as well. Arriving at the tail end of March, Saint Cloud, Katie Crutchfield’s fifth studio album as Waxahatchee, and the first she made sober, is nothing short of a living testament to the potential to grow within all of us. Last seen giving a past relationship a Viking funeral on the hellacious Out in the Storm, Crutchfield would in the ensuing three years kick the bottle and find love again. Her lyrics on this album, her most evocative to date, bear the fruit of these changes, documenting hard-won breakthroughs and loves that blossom and die on the vine with an exacting eye. Reflecting the newfound perspective of its creator, Saint Cloud is warm and contemplative, sometimes simple in its construction, but never facile or obvious. The album for the most part does away with the guitar heroics of Crutchfield’s earlier works, instead adopting a sonic identity based in the folk and country music of her childhood. It’s never wise to judge a book by its cover, but I’ve rarely seen an album with art that more closely aligns with its content. This is an album which exudes maturity and wisdom, two traits which have always been present in Crutchfield’s art, but have never felt more apparent than they do here.

The world of Saint Cloud is one that has, over time, become a sanctuary for me. It’s an album I turn to in times of need, one which reminds me that if you slow down, everything will become clear, that even the darkest sky can be ironed out with time and effort. Lilacs grow and die, but hey, they’re beautiful while they’re alive. Saint Cloud is a work of art which finds beauty in the act of living and changing. If I take nothing else from 2020, I hope to carry that with me for a long, long time.

— Zach

Listen to Saint Cloud on Bandcamp.

August 7th — P.W. Elverum & Sun

2. the Microphones — Microphones in 2020

I once wrote about an artist so confident and willing to give himself up to the trappings of time. At the time, I was writing about the western wordsmith Bill Callahan and his picturesque landscapes of the everyday, but that moniker fits perfectly well, perhaps even moreso, to Phil Elverum. Through his long and winding life, Elverum appears to have lived many faces, many hardships wrapping themselves around him, and the mysteries of it all still confounding and comforting him in equal measure still. The American pacific northwest, in all its poetry and natural beauty, its towering forests and pounding saltwater, replenishes the soul as much as it can erode and make fragile the details of being but sentient cosmic dust. Time unravels in its own strange ways, and we bear witness to it, drink from its well and grow old among its furnishings — Elverum has seen this, puzzled this, led his life by an unwavering grip of spiritual wantonness, and yet he plows ever further into the great mystery. Every cycle becomes a verse of poetry, every minute of every hour a boundless hope to see some enlightened end that will never come — it is not the destination nor the journey which matters, but the mystery of life itself, in all its present pasts and departed futures simultaneously living inside all of us.

— Dyl

Listen to Microphones in 2020 on Bandcamp.

April 17th — Epic

1. Fiona Apple — Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Plenty of coverage has been thrown around about Fetch the Bolt Cutters to this point. Even by myself, I’ve already done a two-thousand word writeup, a nearly two hour discussion with my friends here on the podcast, and countless other conversations discussing this thing that I just know is my favorite record of the year. Fiona Apple’s work asks you, the listener, to descend to a much different place within your thoughts from most records. It demands an interrogation of self, to kick and shout at all the feelings you’ve been burying inside yourself until they’re ready to tear you apart at any moment. Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the sound of those feelings sprawling out upon a cacophonous musical landscape, concentrating into some of the greatest songs Fiona has ever written. She faces all her history with a deftness, asking a lot of the men in her life, the other women she cares about, and of course, herself. She creates a framework through which she explores all these peoples’ individual impacts upon her, and asks what her own responsibilities could be in these relationships while interrogating failures from both parties. In total, it’s a litany of different pains accumulated over her lifetime that she lets out as one long, musical sigh. Anyone could write about the kind of fear and anger that’s been put into these songs, but what lets Fiona make them her own is approaching all this pain with a simple kindness and empathy that lets the listener feel able to insert themselves into all of it. In that sense, it’s helped me so much already. When I listen to the album, I’m placed back next to every other time I’ve sat down with it, thinking about all the lines that resonate with experiences I’ve had through my life. While the record can feel terrifyingly blunt with its forthrightness at times, it manages to let you look into it and place your own emotions in without judgement. It’s a powerful work for whenever you need it beside you, not just an album but a tool with which to face your problems and say, “to hell with all of it.” It’s a pair of bolt cutters, and whenever you need it, you can just fucking fetch them.

— Rose

Listen to Fetch the Bolt Cutters on Spotify.