2020 EP's and Live Albums

24 minutes of pure continuous bliss. If this was a proper album it would be firmly top ten. This is a wondrous, dreamy and highly atmospheric slice of doom-gaze. It manages to be heavy and beautiful at the same time. It is essentially one long track divided into four distinct parts. It twists and it turns as it hurtles forward, just like a hypnotic journey through an alien but vaguely familiar landscape.

Emperor frontman and black metal auteur, Ihshan has released not one, but two EPs this year. The first “Telemark”, is an atmospheric love letter to the area of Norway of the same name (and where both he and I come from). It is awesome; tight, taut but ultimately joyful and uplifting. The second EP, “Pharos”, is however terrible. When your best track is an understated version of an obscure A-ha song (Manhattan Skyline) you know you are in trouble.

Short, sharp, caustic grindcore from the living legends. If you love grind you'll love this, if you don’t love grind you'll think it’s impenetrable noise.

Trancecore from Germany. It sounds like Pendulum if they had upped the metal and the dance elements. The youngsters probably love it but did nothing for me.

Extreme metal's The Beatles, Carcass are one of the most important and influential bands in our world. This EP is a collection of four tracks that have apparently failed to meet the cut for next year’s highly anticipated new album (first in eight years). If this was a full album of the same quality as these four songs, it would sit firmly in my top ten. This is Carcass at their very best; ferocious, fearless and full of melodic driving riffs. If this is the shape of things to come, I think we can at this early stage call the race for next year's top album.

Talking about album of the year, I can honestly say if this was a full length release it would top this year’s countdown. This is by far and away the most amazing collection of music that I have had the pleasure of listening to this year. Unfortunately, by my own strict rules, no matter how good “Wake of a Nation” is, it is still ineligible for the list.

This is a phenomenal and peerless set of rage-filled protest songs. For the uninitiated, Zeal & Ardor combine black metal with the primal sound of afro-spirituals from the 19th century. Passion, power and indignation crackles off these six tracks. They may be inspired by the recent rise of the black lives matter movement, but you can feel decades of subjugation and upheaval run through the veins of all six songs. “Wake of the Nation” is a bold, heartfelt call to arms and it uses its unique musical structures to scream at the unjustness of it all. Uncomfortable, challenging but overall, utterly magnificent.

The first of four EP's under the collective name ‘Post Human’, this signals BMTH return to metal and a return to gruff vocals. There are some moments where I am reminded of why they so excited me in the early part of the decade, but ‘Teardrops’ wants to be Linkin Park so much it hurts and ‘One Day the Only Butterflies Left Will Be in Your Chest as You March Towards Your Death’ not only has a ridiculous title that would make Fall Out Boy wince, but also is four minutes of forgettable saccharine schmaltz.

The Greek sci-fi obsessed black metallers played a one-off show in Mexico city last year with a full orchestra and choir. This is the recording of that very show. Now, there has always been a distinctly symphonic element to their music so this feels like a natural evolution as opposed to some major change in direction. It's big, bombastic and cinematic, and in any other year would be the last word in orchestrated metal, but.....

.....like the star destroyer at the beginning of New Hope, out of the darkness looms the biggest metal band of all time. They did reinventing your back catalogue with an orchestra back in 1999 and then sold it to the world as the platinum shifting “S&M”. Twenty years later they did it again and this live album documents that night in San Francisco. In some ways, we have heard this all before with the first “S&M” but being Metallica they are never afraid to push the envelope. The best bit is when they join the San Francisco Philharmonic to play Alexander Mosolov's Iron Foundry. Hearing them breath metallic fire into a hundred-year-old piece of music is nothing short of exhilarating.

Yet another Iron Maiden live album with yet another Churchill’s Speech intro and yet another live version of ‘Aces High’. Maiden are one of the best live acts out there, and the set captured here was nothing short of incendiary. But surely not even that warrants the release of a 13th live album (yep count them). Completely unnecessary.

Not one but three posthumous Bowie live albums saw the light of day this year, as Parlophone mined new depths in trying to make money out of one of their biggest asset. There is no need for any of these releases, no matter how wonderful Bowie was on stage. From my perspective the mid-nineties show from Dallas is the most interesting’ as he was going through a formidable purple patch at the time fuelled by the quite incredible “Outside”.

2020 has been tough on all of us. Imagine recording what may well be your masterpiece, only to have all your usual channels to market and publicise it pulled from under you. That is what melancholic Swedes Katatonia found when they unleashed the astonishing “City Burials” into the world (spoilers). Like the world and their wife, they did a live cast performance and “Dead Air” captures it. I think this is the first live album culled from a live stream and it suffers from the same issue that befalls online concert, namely the lack of an audience. The silence at the end of songs is deafening and much as I love Katatonia (SPOILERS) I was left with very much a feeling of ‘what was the point of that?’

My nemesis have unleashed two live albums this year. “Hysteria at the O2” proves the point (I made in my infamous review, in that you can literally here) that the energy wane when they enter the second (less well known) side of Hysteria. Flipping it on its head, “Hits Vegas” is the show that I wish I had seen. An all winners no fillers bonanza of everything that made this band great. Contrary to what people may think, I do love Def Leppard and “Hits Vegas” illustrates in spades why they deserve that love.

Live Death Metal. Its raw coarse demeanour makes me miss live gigs even more.

Like any B-side collection, this is essentially songs not thought good enough to go on an album. It’s alright, pleasant but hardly in a position to set the world alight.

A stop gap catch-all compilation of live tracks, instrumentals, unreleased songs and a fantastic cover. The stunning version of The Flaming Lips ‘Spoonful Weighs A Ton’ makes the record for me.

The best new British Death Metal act there is out there, period. Venom Prison cut through all the crap and take no prisoners (pun intended). Direct, no thrills, unrelenting, brutal Death Metal. 2020 was meant to be the year they solidified their position with prestige support slots (Parkway Drive no less) and a long overdue headline tour. Sadly, those plans got moth-balled so instead they have gone back and rerecord the tracks from their first two EPs, “Defy The Tyrant” and “Primal Chaos” and chucked in two brand new songs for good measure. Yes, most of the stuff here we have heard before, but is tighter, heavier and even more aggressive. Five years is a short time, but as a young band they are far better musicians than they were in 2015 and far happier in their own skins. They maybe simply up-cycling stuff they did before but still this is a magnificent calling card for what is to come.

Yet another band with big plans this year. They were planning on releasing remastered version of their most celebrated album and then heading out on the road playing it in its entirety. Like all of our plans, this intenary got bumped, but we still have this polished and pristine sounding version of their masterpiece. The most interesting (but potentially futile) offerings here are the re-recorded versions of ‘Only for the Weak’, ‘Bullet Ride’, ‘Pinball Map’ and ‘Clayman’. They all have new life breathed into them, but if you are only going to give this treatment to a third of the album, it feels a bit of a wasted opportunity in my mind.