This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get

And so it continues. 2020 has been another fine year for alternative music and there has been no let up in the range and depth of sounds being produced, much of it of astonishing quality. Young bands are not only embracing the ethos of the underground, but they are looking to stretch the realms of possibility even further and discover treasures in remote corners that have not been seen for many years. Waves of young listeners are warming to this and there are no signs of the renaissance faltering any time soon which is a heart-warming thing.

Of course much of this is down to technology. It is far easier for bands to produce music now than it was in the analogue age. It is far easier to create new sounds. When Keith Levene was setting up the studio for the recording of The Flowers Of Romance in 1980 he said that it took him three days to arrange the miking to capture the right drum sound. In his studio now he can do it in ten minutes and have more options open to him. Recording is easier, releasing a record is easier ... making a career out of music may be much harder.

A lot of alternative bands these days are forced to make music in their leisure time and have other jobs from which they make their living. If anything, this has made musicians more accessible. They are not isolated in an artistic bubble; they lead normal lives and mix with everybody else. Social media has made them available to the people who support their music and there is a lot of interaction. Of course there are the arseholes who believe they have been set apart by grace, but there always were. There are just fewer of them. This change in circumstances has also opened up the gateway to experimentation. If you don't rely on record sales for your living, there is far less pressure on you to make your music more accessible and consumer-friendly. For the first time since the great divide of 1980, there are a lot of fearless bands who are pressing ahead with whatever is in their heads. They don't want to be pop stars, they are looking to make a difference with the music they are creating. And trusting in its quality to see them through. Back in the late seventies and early eighties this felt like revolution; in the twenty-twenties it feels like a rearguard action but either way it is still the right thing to do. We will always claim the moral high ground.

Society has changed since those glory days. Much of this has been at the hands of corporations who now rule the world and who long-ago realised that the best way to boost sales is to break down individuals into their component parts. They drive a wedge through society so that they can target people's weaknesses. Divide nations, inspire hatred and jealousy, polarise opinions and maximise profits. The weaker the government and the weaker the bonds that unite us, the easier it is to pick off the individual. We are not people now, we are consumers. If you think you make your own decisions then you are not realising that the faces who hold the real power know you down to your DNA and will be pulling the strings to make you dance to their tune, while all the while you revel in your uniqueness. We live in an era where laughable politics is being taken seriously, where ludicrous individuals are placed in political office to further corporate aims, and where everybody blames everybody else for their troubles. They pick off the weak in an era when we have all become weak, yet believe we are strong.

Excited by the continuing wave of great music last year, we naively considered whether it was possible to rebuild the mighty sub-culture that came into being when music split between the mainstream and the underground around 1979-80. If you weren't of an age at that time you will never be able to grasp exactly how that felt; it was a seismic shift that gave the dispossessed a real home and made them a part of something that was positive, dynamic, intelligent and all of their own. It was wiped out around the millennium when the alternative was assimilated into the mainstream and then ruthlessly brushed aside. A culture that once had three serious music papers writing brilliantly to over a million readers every week became virtually extinct. The recent upsurge in interest in the alternative scene made us consider whether this could be resurrected in some way, but things have been broken apart too far to rebuild anything of that strength and worth. We have been shepherded into isolation, tapping away on our computers, attempting to be recognised as kings of our own little realms. We have followers. We follow grudgingly. We are exposing our weakenesses to a corportion that had revenues of $3.46 billion in 2019 and paid virtually no tax. We're so pretty....

When you are questioning whether it is possible to re-assemble a culture, the most heart-breaking thing is to be immediately attacked for so doing. It gave us the answer we were looking for long before we thought we would find it. Our end of year list was "wide of the mark" one critic explained, and "wasn't the solution". What fucking mark? Of course this was never defined; the criticism was just a random blast at something that somebody else had created. In today's world that is an invitation to attack. And what are we trying to solve? This is an alternative music site attempting to promote bands who make the music we like; we are not attempting to cure the social ills of the world. Since the early 1980s all we have tried to do is bring attention to the bands and the music we think is worthy. We have worked on gigs, promoted gigs, released records, written countless reviews of gigs and albums, interviewed, discussed and urged. We have financially supported music and never once financially gained from it. If only we had realised we were doing everything wrong.

The brightest point of this last year was discovering a branch of our society that seems removed from any such pettiness. The followers of psych music, embraced by the Psych Lovers Facebook group, are fanatical about their music and are quick to build things up rather than tear things down. There is a real community where people work together, mix and socialise happily. There is barely a negative thought expressed and an overriding delight that the scene is flourishing. We were drawn there by the increasing amount of crossovers from the alternative field. More and more bands with psych leanings were impressing us and so many more have been discovered since we joined forces. Once again, more than a few of our top fifty will be found in the lists of the many psych blogs that can be found online.

Whereas we were no strangers to the pleasures of the Fuzz Club label, there are many psych labels around that are producing great music which is released with such fantastic care, dressed in beautifully printed sleeves with quality artwork and pressed in kaleidoscopic bursts of coloured vinyl. There's a pride in their work at which every band and label should aim; the alternative scene was always about the whole package. One label we did not know about until this year was Weird Beard. Their output over 2020 was impressively strong and we are delighted that co-founder Dai Croll has agreed to add his thoughts on the year to this ramble. If you haven't delved into the psych world, you will find it expansive and fascinating and you will end up hopelessly out of pocket.

Lists, lists, lists. We have again included a few and can't seem to wean ourselves away from the Mojo choices that annoy us every year. This may well be their most alternative list to date, but it remains hugely safe and inherently depressing. Chuck in Cornershop and Idles and rebalance things by putting Dylan at the top. The covers of their magazine this year featured Liam Gallagher, Nick Cave, the Foo Fighters and Paul Weller, ageing icons of differing worth, and these were joined by Leonard Cohen, Joy Division, Jimi Hendrix, Talking Heads, David Bowie, The Beatles, Queen and Bob Dylan. There's nothing wrong in reading about these artists, but in an historical context only; it's the pretence they even care about new music that is so galling. They rate half a billion albums a year as essential when the real quota would be about five with a fair number more worthy of serious consideration. In the real world how many records really deserve to be given nine out of ten, let alone ten? If this was football, how many players in the history of the game could be rated as a ten? Three, perhaps, out of hundreds of thousands. Such quality is rare; the promise of quality is to be encouraged and those who narrowly miss out on achieving it are to be applauded. Unmerited praise is only damaging. Of course, it pays to be nice to the companies that advertise in your pages.

Meanwhile Uncut has proclaimed itself "the spiritual home of great rock music." Inspired by their undoubted wisdom, we have decided to become "the spiritual home of all grumpy bastards who feel they have been banging their heads against a brick wall for the past twenty years." Catchy that. No doubt the cash will start to roll in as we proclaim all albums deserving of eleven out of ten. The Uncut albums of the year are virtually identical to those of Mojo. Funny that. Same advertisers?

We also feature a couple of lists from important independent record shops. These are worth a glance. Of course, these often feature artists whose records are still clogging up the shelves, especially those in "unique" formats and Rough Trade is certainly guilty of playing this game. They are, however, an iconic symbol of the independent scene and have an original PiL poster in their shop in west London that has remained untouched for over forty years, so we will forgive them much. We have a lot of time for Brighton's Resident, which was for many years our nearest independent shop. The staff know their music backwards and their perfect-bound annual discusses over one hundred titles from various genres. Pleasingly, they have cut back their albums of the year list to a mere ten and have made a case for all of the other contenders.

Any site that awards The Lovely Eggs the album of the year is alright in our books and the Louder Than War website remains an essential tool for all lovers of alternative music. Unfortunately, their printed magazine was unable to survive this year's crisis and that was a major blow as it was the only publication left that focussed solely on the alternative scene. We forgive them their tendency to be too nice to everybody and even for suggesting that Genesis may in some way be cool as it is clear that life would be much the poorer without them.

All in all, it has been a pretty odd year. Having been locked down in March 2020 who would have believed we would still be buried by restrictions in January 2021? For us, it has been a year of virtually no income and struggle. Fortunately, when hit by the virus it was only mildly. We are lucky in that we have not lost anybody close to us. Too many have not been so fortunate. The lockdowns have allowed us the time to listen to a whole lot more music though we have been unable to buy as many records as we would have liked or contributed to the important causes we support. We saw numerous bands in January but the lack of live music has hit harder as the year has progressed. Our thoughts are with all of those artists who have struggled and lost income. And to those who will find life more complicated after Brexit. You are such an important component in our lives that we hope 2021 will offer deserved relief.

It is difficult to discern exactly how large an effect the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns had on music sales. There is no doubt they contributed to an overall rise, but this is a trend that has been in place for some years now. The BPI recently reported there had been 139 billion audio streams in the UK over the year, an increase of some 20% from 2019. That is a sizeable leap, and there were nearly two hundred artists who had their music streamed over 100 million times. 155 million albums were either streamed or purchased, with the pandemic certainly not having an adverse effect on the overall sales of recorded music, though it is noted they did dip a little at the beginning of the first UK lockdown. The BPI stated that streaming now accounts for four-fifths (80.6%) of the UK’s overall music consumption, though physical formats remain popular. All of the best selling albums of the year had a large percentage of physical sales, with Lewis Capaldi's Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent being the best selling album for the second year running. Other artists in the top ten were Harry Styles, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Stormzy, Pop Smoke, Ed Sheeran, Queen, Elton John and Fleetwood Mac.

Vinyl sales increased by over a tenth (11.5%) as almost 4.8 million albums were bought. This represents half a million more sales on 2019 and is the thirteenth year of consecutive growth. This is the highest total of sales since 2003 and the highest amount of revenue earned (£100 million) since 1990. The format still lags behind the CD format which saw 16 million sales in 2020 (representing 10.3% of the UK’s recorded music consumption), though this is a drop of around 30% on 2019. CDs brought in around £150 million, the lowest total since the early days of the format in 1987. In the USA, vinyl album sales outpaced CD sales in four separate weeks of the year, the first time this has happened since 1991.

The list of the ten biggest selling vinyl LPs of the year demonstrates how much power the alternative market still holds with Oasis, Nirvana, Arctic Monkeys and Idles all featuring along with the usual mainstream suspects such as Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Harry Styles and Kylie. There is no doubt the numbers are still there, even if there is no longer a homogeneous alternative culture.

Once again, virtually all of the best-selling vinyl seven-inch singles were reissued old product. The single now barely exists as a format, the name being thrown at any digital release that precedes a forthcoming album. CD singles and individual downloads are nigh on extinct. We did not buy a single vinyl album this year that came with an accompanying CD; this used to be a fairly common practice with indie labels which has now been totally forgotten. With that being the case, it seems only reasonable that vinyl albums should come with a download code and though the big names are happy to deny you even that small favour (The Rolling Stones, David Bowie et al) it is appalling that smaller bands and labels should follow suit, Fontaines DC for one.

Lists are crap and list journalism is lazy and repellant, though the end of year parade does appear to be one that gets people involved in discussing music and it brings some smaller bands some much-deserved attention. So we continue with it, and with no live gigs taking place over the year where new bands were able to prove their mettle, please do explore those listed here as there is huge worth in what they are producing. Pleasingly, there are six debut albums in the top twenty, and six second albums. This shows the current strength of the alternative scene with plenty of young bands producing records of considerable merit. Wire, Throwing Muses and The Flaming Lips are old hands still doing great things, while The Cravats are reborn and re-energised and well worth heeding. In this context it seems a strange world where Protomartyr, Nothing, Spectres and Klein come across as veterans, but they are all now at least three albums into their careers.

One new dilemma was whether or not to include live albums. Normally we would not do so, but so many psych albums are taken from live performances or undubbed jam sessions that we have decided they are now eligible for inclusion. Many of these recordings feature new material and often improvised pieces that have never been played before and will not be played again. It is one of the marvels of the scene and it is encouraging that such sessions have been captured for posterity. Where a live album doesn't feature this kind of new material, they have been marked down.

As always we encourage everybody to get involved. Tell us what we are missing or what we have under-estimated. If you feel we have got it wrong then write an article for us pointing out the error of our ways. Start your own blog, start a fan club, open a record shop, play an instrument ... just don't wallow in isolation. Be open to collaborating with others as that will only work for good.

Thanks to Gary and Jake for their input. Pray for Sue. Thanks to Dai Croll and Spectres for their contributions. We will ask for more in the future....

Albums of the Year

 

Mojo

1. Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways
2. Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters
3. Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death
4. Bill Callahan - Gold Record
5. Fleet Foxes - Shore
6. Cornershop - England is a Garden
7. Jarv Is - Beyond the Pale
8. Run the Jewels - RTJ4
9. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
10. The Flaming Lips - American Head
11. Paul Weller - On Sunset
12. Idles - Ultra Mono
13. Moses Sumney - Græ
14. Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela - Rejoice
15. Frazey Ford - U kin B the Sun
16. Nick Cave - Idiot Prayer
17. Laura Marling - Song For Our Daughter
18. Toots & The Maytals - Got to Be Tough
19. Sault - Untitled (Black Is)
20. Nubya Garcia - Source
www.mojo4music.com

 

Louder Than War

1. The Lovely Eggs - I Am Moron
2. Bob Vylan - We Live Here
3. Dead Sheeran - A National Disgrace
4. Bob Dylan - Rough And Rowdy Ways
5. The Psychedelic Furs - Made Of Rain
6. Cornershop - England Is A Garden
7. Fontaines D.C. - A Hero’s Death
8. Girls In Synthesis - Now Here’s An Echo ...
9. Sault - Untitled (Black Is)
10. Fiona Apple - Fetch The Bolt Cutters
11. Run the Jewels - RTJ4
12. Nadine Shah - Kitchen Sink
13. Nightingales - Four Against Fate
14. A Swayze & The Ghosts - Paid Salvation
15. Porridge Radio - Every Bad
16. Suzie Stapleton - We are the Plague
17. Jehnny Beth - To Love Is To Live
18. Billy Nomates - Billy Nomates
19. Róisín Murphy - Róisín Machine
20. Pigs,Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs - Viscerals
www.louderthanwar.com

 

Rough Trade

1. Sault - Untitled (Black Is)
2. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
3. Rina Sawayama - Sawayama
4. Laura Marling - Song For Our Daughter
5. Jarv Is - Beyond The Pale
6. Dream Wife - So When You Gonna
7. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Viscerals
8. Bdrmm - Bedroom
9. Porridge Radio - Every Bad
10. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Sideways...
11. Cornershop - England Is A Garden
12. Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud
13. Osees - Protean Threat
14. Idles - Ultra Mono
15. Caribou - Suddenly
16. Tom Misch + Yussef Dayes - What Kinda Music
17. Thurston Moore - By The Fire
18. Oklou - Glamour
19. Working Men’s Club - Working Men’s Club
20. Hazel English - Wake Up!
www.roughtrade.com

 

Resident - Brighton Record Shop

1. Working Men’s Club - Working Men’s Club
2. Porridge Radio - Every Bad
3. Sink Ya Teeth - Two
4. Moses Boyd - Dark Matter
5. Bdrmm - Bedroom
6. Juniore - Un Deux Trois
7. Craven Faults - Erratics & Unconformities
8. Fontaines DC - A Hero’s Death
9. BC Camplight - Shortly After Take Off
10. Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes - What Kinda Music
www.resident-music.com

 

NME

1. Run the Jewels - RTJ4
2. Taylor Swift - Folklore
3. Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia
4. The Strokes - The New Abnormal
5. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
6. Kelly Lee Owens - Inner Song
7. Rina Sawayama - Sawayama
8. Haim - Women in Music Pt III
9. Beabadoobee - Fake It Flowers
10. J Hus - Big Conspiracy
11. Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters
12. Megan Thee Stallion - Good News
13. Deftones - Ohms
14. Lady Gaga - Chromatica
15. Fontaines DC - A Hero’s Death
16. Tame Impala - The Slow Rush
17. Hayley Williams - Petals For Armor
18. Porridge Radio - Every Bad
19. The Killers - Imploding The Mirage
20. Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake
www.nme.com

 

BBC 6 Music

1. Sault - Untitled (Black Is)
2. Fontaines DC - A Hero’s Death
3. Fleet Foxes - Shore
4. BC Camplight - Shortly After Take-Off
5. Bob Dylan - Rough And Rowdy Ways
6. Nadine Shah - Kitchen Sink
7. Cornershop - England Is A Garden
8. Run The Jewels - RTJ4
9. Doves - The Universal Want
10. Sports Team - Deep Down Happy
www.bbc.co.uk/6music

 

It’s been a strange year, something that (very likely) none of us have seen the likes of before. I don’t think that a year has gone by since I was 14 (31 years ago!) that I haven’t seen a live band or artist performance. That hurts, and I’m sure that I’m not the only person that feels this way. That being said, the global situation has done nothing to stifle creativity. Artists have found new ways to share their output, and whilst no substitute for the atmosphere of a live show, streamed events have certainly taken a front seat in the past few months and have managed to take the edge off what has been a pretty grim time for everybody.

Continued

This record took us the better part of three years to finish, numerous re-records, rewrites and frustrating restarts, so it is almost fitting it came out whilst we were all knee-deep in whatever the hell this year is.

It would be naïve of me to sit here and tell you all how hard done by we've been by the suffocating hand of 2020; there are far more people in worse positions than us and the fact we can even release music in this current climate is something we will never take for granted.

We had to exorcise these songs from our husks and we couldn't be prouder of the outcome. Separated by the English Channel, a world-altering virus and already in the midst of a self-inflicted isolation, we haven't gigged or released anything for a while, so we can't wait to play these songs live in 2021, even if it means building our own crypt and inviting you all..

Being on anyone's end of year list is a privilege, so thank you all for listening and coming along for the slog...

Adrian Dutt

50. Such Small Hands - Carousel
49. Dire Wolves - Flow And Heady
48. Dead Sea Apes - Night Lands
47. Nadine Shah - Kitchen Sink
46. Moths & Locusts - Exoplanets
45. Fred Abong - Our Mother Of Perpetual Help
44. The Lovely Eggs - I Am Moron
43. Mayflower Madame - Prepared For A Nightmare
42. Bdrmm - Bedroom
41. Aquarius Lux - The Infinite Korridor
40. The Wytches - Three Mile Ditch
39. Bully - Nestegg
38. Bob Mould - Blue Hearts
37. Mugstar - Graft
36. Krautwerk - Neuling
35. The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol - Berserkir I
34. The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol - Berserkir II
33. The Cribs - Night Network
32. Slow Readers Club - The Joy Of The Return
31. Harry Stafford - Gothic Urban Blues
30. Las Cobras - Selva
29. Ghostpoet - I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep
28. Cornershop - England Is A Garden
27. Bo Ningen - Sudden Fictions
26. Fontaines DC - A Hero's Death
25. Mugstar & Damo Suzuki - Invisible Wind Factory
24. Flatworms - Antarctica
23. Girl Band - Live At Vicar Street
22. Ringo Deathstarr - Ringo Deathstarr
21. Pretty Lightning - Jangle Bowls

Korb's debut album was an almost perfect example of classic space rock being transported into the modern age. Chock full of modular synths, treated rhythms and tripping guitars it managed to sound both retro yet fresh. Happily Korb II offers up similar delights. Both albums take flight and explore similar galaxies with the minimum of fuss. There's nothing that jars, little in the way of turbulence, but plenty of inquisitiveness and no little beauty. From its first probing bass notes to the layered synths tucking you into bed at its conclusion, Korb II unravels the mystery of the cosmos while wrapping its comforting arms around you. There's no space monsters here to worry about, no meteorite storms; the only danger is your brain melting slowly and dripping through your ears as Korb II gently stretches horizons and fills them with a kaleidoscope of wonders. Their great achievement is producing a sound that is so classic it almost hurts, yet not allowing it to become formulaic. It's like a familiar fairground ride that never loses its thrill. When your journey has ended, you run to the back of the queue to wait for another ride. All aboard ...

The Cravats are in danger of becoming prolific. Having just managed to squeeze two albums into their first foray between 1978 and 1983, Hoorahland marks the second new album in just three years from the resurrected outfit, and this collection shows a band very much with a renewed sense of drive and purpose. Hoorahland is a heavy record, the music is dense and clouded, and it is certainly takes a few plays before it begins to reveal its hidden treasures. Rhythmically, there is not a lot of straying from the Cravat's anarcho-punk roots. The bass is crushingly heavy and the drumming offers little in the way of compromise. You can just imagine a live audience erupting as guitars and sax rake at all sides with an exasperated vocal relaying the deficiencies of British Leyland saloon cars of the 1970s. This is part of what makes The Cravats are special; they are one of the most British of institutions, their music rooted not only in the idiosyncrasies of this nation but also powered with exasperation at the same thing. They are what they hate. These songs are snapshots of absurdity, not dressed up in finery, but exposed in harsh light to allow the listener to make their own judgements.

Sometimes a record will hit all the right spots on a first listen and this is one of those. There is a fluidity to its sound that wraps itself around you and never slackens its flow. It is full of gentle passages that will carry you away blissfully and even its tougher moments are calculated not to grate on the ear but simply to twist the soothing soundscapes into equally pleasant kaleidoscopes of shape and pattern. Brazilian duo Gabriela Zaith and Léo Gudan show a maturity far beyond their experience; while their approach may not be especially innovative, their talent is undoubted: you don't make an album with such shimmering beauty without understanding both where you are coming from and where you are looking to go. It is difficult not to capitulate to its mellow, hypnotic charms as beats whisper suggestion and guitars probe as they ease themselves into your hypothalamus, inducing pleasurable slumber. White Canyon And The 5th Dimension is scintillatingly pure and rounded.

Klein's third album, released mid-pandemic in the middle of the night, shows the South Londoner at her most broken and possibly her most intimate. Made without collaborators and recorded in isolation, Klein here is responsible for all of the sounds: vocals, guitar and piano as well as mixing and production. Necessarily the focus of the professed storyteller is inwards and her work takes a step away from the foundations of her previous outings which were the smashing up of R&B into broken fragments which were then rearranged in an aural decoupage to form a layered new sound that would tell a new story. Klein now takes this further and there are fewer reference points, but plenty of textures and depth. It's not easy to portray emotions in fragments, but if a guitar can tell a story then dislocated sound can certainly do the same; it just depends on the ability of the artist and Klein has few peers in this realm. Far from unstructured noise, Klein reveals the structures of the mind. Genuinely outstanding.

It is clear that growing from a duo rooted in DIY ethics to a fully-fledged four-piece hasn't soothed out any wrinkles in Ganser's psyche and Just Look at The Sky is perhaps even more dislocated and uncertain than any previous offerings. Despairing of achieving self-growth in wildly chaotic times, they settle for picking over the bones of their discontent and rail at the world without being able to move on to a better place. This mess is captured perfectly in a blend of post-punk tangents and noise rock fury. Broken guitars attack from every angle, scraping, smothering and dancing, while the hefty rhythm section leaves little room for dainty considerations. The excellent vocals can be bloated with spite or weary with resignation. This is a band of four individuals, all in search of answers and all running into their own dead ends. As they all knew they would. Ganser use blank palettes to paint blank pictures of blank times; the irony is the amount of energy they expel in their frustration at having no better outlets in which to expel it. Jagged, worrying and messed up, you may as well just put a sign on this saying, "This is life".

We very much applaud bands that continue to press forward and not trap themselves in a creative prison, and with their fifth album in eight years Protomartyr have produced their most expansive and interesting album to date in Ultimate Success Today. There's no real change of focus here, with the band still aiming pointed daggers at the failings in American society, and their clouded post-punk backing is still nicely grating, but this music is less claustrophobic than before and possibly hits harder for it. Recorded in a cavernous former church in New York there appears to be more room to breathe; the music is expansive and ringing and the addition of a woodwind section adds a new dimension that intrigues. Blending the huge basslines, reverb-heavy guitars and rattling drums with saxes and clarinets is pretty much a triumph; this is Protomartyr with added perspective and nothing taken away. There is no change of direction but a band moving forward with added weight. Lyrically dense, Protomartyr remain one of the most thoughtful, sharpest and impressive bands around.

Since Wire released their eponymous album some five years ago, they seem to have found a renewed vigour and purpose and when you add that to their undoubted intellect and stubborn refusal to bend to the winds of fashion, then it should come as no surprise that their recent surge of productivity has seen a steady stream of quite excellent and individual albums. Wire have been around for so long now that their music cannot be referenced in terms of contemporary sounds because they have invented most of these themselves. Mind Hive harks back to the band's early post-punk days as well as encompassing the more tangental sounds of their later career. Full of gentle melodies, sharp commentary and staccato beats there is little doubt which band is at work here as Wire take everything in their stride, demonstrating their mastery of disconnected pop, synth-laden balladry and hard-hitting mood-rock. It may have been a bastard of a year, but having a new Wire album is curiously comforting.

There's a very European sound to the debut album by Sei Still. As keyboards soar over motorik beats you can't fail but notice hints of Can and Neu! as reference points but this five-piece actually hail from Mexico City. Working with legendary Mexican underground producer Hugo Quezada, they manage to deliver a sharp, minimalist collection which very much avoids the side roads as it cruises relentlessly along the highways. Analogue synths criss-cross floating vocals with taut bass lines pushing ever onwards, with just enough thrown into the mix to hold our attention. At times it can be menacing, with guitars grating roughly, but its default mode is calming, lulling you into repose with its gentle motion. Sei Still observe and capture the whole world as it dashes by. A hugely classical sound that occasionally borders on motorik heaven, with plenty of propulsion and a few essential twists and turns to add to the excitement. This is an interesting and sprightly first offering which only augurs well for the future.

Early Throwing Muses was all about kinetic energy and structural dyslexia, but this collection offers a new approach, being both slower and more solidly built. This is a meaningful development for a band who have been releasing records for some thirty-six years now and it is encouraging that they are still looking to develop and progress. There have often been unhurried numbers before and indeed there are moments here when the quieter parts of Limbo are brought to mind, but Sun Racket is measured throughout, carefully paced and thoughtful, and any changes in the direction of the songs don't sweep you off your feet. There is much greater depth as the songs reveal textures that were not apparent on their previous outings. It is this multi-layered approach that makes this record so fulfilling; new dimensions created by overlapping vocal waves are especially attractive and thrilling. All that is needed is a more prolific output. It has been seven years since the last Muses album. This is such a promising base to build upon that it shouldn't be wasted.

Taking a massive step up from their debut album, or indeed a massive step down, Nest Egg's Dislocation is an aptly named record: edgy, unsettling and raw. Missing are the relatively clean lines and inquisitive probing of their earlier work; this record is out and out dangerous, opening wounds and infecting them with its grimy touch. Its weakest moments are when it strays too far into rock territory, but its strength lies in its general ability to shrug off genres and create a dark, blurry mass of troubling noise. Drums may pound and basses throb, but they never lead out of the darkness and as you stumble around there you are lashed with sharp guitars and scorned by sneering, dismissive vocals. It's music that finally lives up to the band's self-billing of "mood music for nihilists." Dislocation is huge, bleak and overwhelming and it doesn't give a flying fuck. This record is as desolate as they come, detached from all empathy or compassion, and the monochrome cover art fits the billing perfectly. It's simply magnificent.

2020 grounded a lot of things and it appears to have gone even as far as bringing The Flaming Lips down to earth. American Head is not only firmly rooted on this planet, but it sees the band rediscovering their musical roots as they abandon the drony space operas of the past couple of decades to embrace the tidy psych pop that graced the 1999 classic The Soft Bulletin, the hazy gentility of which made it such a warm and embracing record. There are tales of youth and its philosophies, the discovery and influence of drugs, and thankfully no intrusions from robots or spaceships or additional guest narrators. This is a coming of age story as we learn about the shaping of Wayne Coyne in his home town and the gradual loss of innocence as he becomes an adult. And this is all framed in a glowing backdrop of sound that falls like a soft psychedelic shower around the singer's words. It's all gorgeous. American Head is really a concept album about the life cycle. About growing up. It's beautifully told and beautifully constructed. It's pretty, honest and achingly vulnerable.

Helicon are a band we like a lot, being edgy and pretty bloody pissed off with today's ludicrous society. This Can Only Lead to Chaos is a nicely robust collection of songs which refrains from being overtly rude while carrying plenty of menace. What holds the songs together is the band's excellent rhythm section, especially the powerful bass, that keeps everything in check despite the obvious desire of the guitars to hurl their acid in all directions. This collection is a soundtrack to pent-up frustration which makes you keep one eye looking over your shoulder with trepidation. Guitars attack indiscriminately, smashing and crashing, but ultimately failing to break through into anarchy. Only once are the boundaries nearly breached, messy splashes spilling out of their prison, scalding everything they touch. But this is not all one-dimensional. Helicon are multi-faceted and it's not just the faster songs that impress. There are some measured moments with nicely understated guitar solos, chiming sitars and gentle drones underneath the often cutting vocals. At their gentlest Helicon can sound like light falling as rain. Released back in January, this is one that has easily stood the test of time.

Four albums in and the one thing that is clear about Nothing is that they are firmly rooted in their own misery. The Great Dismal does not offer a great leap forward, or even fairy steps in a positive direction, but remains an inward-looking collection of songs, fogged and devoid of solutions. 'The Great Dismal' is a mighty swamp in the east of the United States and this is symbolic of how the band remain completely stuck in one place; there is no escape from a troubled past and a confused present. Musically, this is shoegaze par excellence as guitars dip and dive over a world of fuzz creating melodies that momentarily lift your spirits. On occasion everything is stripped away, but this is just a ruse to allow the next movement to sneak in with maximum effect. Nothing wear their influences on their sleeves just as they wear their traumas. There have been marked changes in the band for this album with two founder members departing, but this has not altered the dynamic in any notable way and if they are still together in ten years' time it is pretty certain they will still be making albums like The Great Dismal. And we wouldn't mind that one little bit.

We still find it strange when people use 'Shoegaze' as a badge of honour, given that the term was invented as a put-down aimed at a collection of bands with considerably different musical approaches. Of course, when the expression is used today it only encompasses a small part of that musical landscape, namely the ethereal soundscaping of Slowdive and their ilk, so it works well as a frame of reference and, no doubt, as a form of religion. Deserta claim to produce "Shoegaze done properly" and you can't really argue with that as these songs paint the prettiest of pictures. Insistent backing tracks are draped in mellifluous layers of sound that shimmer and soar while gently whispered vocals add to the pleasing mix. If it wasn't for the fact our dreams usually revolve around huge, dark, empty buildings it would be easy to describe this music as dreamy; suffice it to say it is beautifully ornamental, carefully manicured and if you can't embrace its welcoming fluidity you are certainly tougher than us. Best of all it has plenty of those stretching Shoegaze guitars that appear to form sonic bridges, and when these begin to span keyboards lost in their their own ideas of melody it really does form a fascinating junction of aural delight. A wonderful record, a great cover, and a fine start to the year.

Now Here's An Echo From Your Future is every bit as hard-faced as anyone could have hoped for and a fitting offering from one of the most intense live acts around. Expectations were crazily high and this collection lives up to them all with ten tracks of full frontal assault managing to meld the band's DIY punk leanings with their fondness for some of the more experimental elements of post-punk. The result is just over half an hour of pulverising tunes that are both rousing and cathartic, thought-provoking and mind-exploding. The odd screech of guitar and reflected vocal aside, the opening tracks here are pretty much classic anarcho-punk though the band do begin to move their sound into more interesting arenas, the rhythms becoming detached, the vocals subtler. "I hear too much noise and not enough thought" may well be the subtitle for this collection, an explosion of discontent led by the thought that everything is too far gone to fix. But if you look beyond the noise and don't take everything at face value, there may just be a chance. It becomes evident that the noise on this record mirrors the noise of the world; the white noise that can blind you to reality. It's all cleverly done and though the band's sound may at time appear more than a little retro, there's method in their madness.

Some bands simply get it and some bands never will. Over the past eight years grasshopper have done nothing wrong, have continued to grow and have always impressed. Their debut album was recorded between 2015 and 2019 with The Cure producer David M Allen and it's a pleasing mixture of post-punk elements. There is an intense focus on distant vistas which are painted in sepia shades, with nothing in black and white. Nothing here is finalised, nothing nailed down. Built on tribal, pattern-making drumming, the guitars don't dominate, but encourage and occasionally urge, while keyboards sweep across to temper any dangerous, rough edges. This is not a record that is prepared to cut you ruthlessly because it is burdened with uncertainty. It's just not quite sure enough of itself to want to hurt and even the singer's distant baritone has enough give in it not to render it heartless. Every word is weighed up and every emotion shaded. For a record of its type it has an unusual amount of heart and though it points to the horizon, its focus is really far closer to home. The only weaknesses Scuttle shows aren't in the music but the intangible processes of the brain. This means it is both ruthlessly consistent and emotionally enigmatic, and that makes it quite a prize.

There's always one album in a year that appears to come out of nowhere, blowing most everything else out of the water. We wouldn't have suspected that Porridge Radio would be the one delivering the goods, emerging from the DIY scene in our old manor of Brighton with a thought-provoking record that is really remarkably impressive. This is another collection where there is nothing particularly new about the musical approach, but Porridge Radio understand the concept of reshaping the past into something quite startlingly valid and contemporary. Maybe this works so well here because of the contradictions inherent in these songs; the subject matter of the lyrics is narrowly focused yet the landscape on which they are presented is far wider, the band playing gently alternative rock music with easy-to-pick references. Lyrically, this collection is an existential crisis: a working out of what needs to go where and how this is hindered by the pettiness of the self. Repetition is used to help convince and irony fills every passage as knowing is never enough. This is not a soul in torment but an everyday life in focus with a feminine perspective that won't fail to strike a chord with other genders.

Servo's music inhabits the darkness and the first thing to be said is that this is not a jolly record. Servo's sound is rooted in the gothic quarter of post-punk, built around motorik drumming and adorned with plenty of blasted feedback and drone. All of the band members contribute to the vocals, which are generally icily detached and mocking. Chanting voices and crashing waves of combative riffs help produce music that is unstable and fragmented. Shuddering distortion heralds brazen displays of malice and strident guitars cut through a sea of reverb, screeching with frustration as they die alone. This is a record that grows ever more unsettling, with monumental slabs of post-punk sighing over a welter of bloody confusion. As it shifts from psych drone to hardcore tornado, there is plenty of splendid noise to enjoy here though the band throw in a sprinkling of lighter touches. The only purpose of these is to emphasise just how heavy the heavy moments really are and the contrast is immense. Servo continue to grow. Alien is a record full of intent and no little drama where forty-five minutes of pointed assault will leave you battered, but desperate for further punishment.

It's never been about doing it first; it's about doing it right. Taking the best elements of the past and melding them into the present and building something contemporary in which certain aspects may be familiar, but others surprisingly fresh and challenging. A way of putting everything back together. Ist Ist have built from the ground up over six long years, the foundation years, where they were precise and thoughtful and solid and presented things in all the right ways. And learnt. Their music is unbending, cold and immense, yet it offers glimpses of the sky, which reflects patterns and the changing of moods and offers a warmth that is tantalisingly out of reach. Though tough on the surface, there's a fragility found buried in the doubting vocals and the delicate keyboards. Architecture is not just about the musical legacy Ist Ist are building, it is about the building blocks of the mind. If you build high enough the sky may be within reach. And the sky is what they yearn for, offering comfort and assurity. Basses thump, guitars plead and dance, keyboards flood and soothe, while the drums punch holes through which the light may flood. A hugely impressive debut album that is more than we could have asked for, and every bit as much as we had hoped for.

Well, this one turned the world on its head. We've made no secret of our love of Spectres over the years and their first two albums, Dying and Condition, were pretty much triumphs, the latter being our album of the year in 2017 and the former only just coming in behind Girl Band's momentous 2015 debut. Quite simply Spectres have been one of the most important bands of the past decade, their music full of invention and a quite transparent humanity.

Where It's Never Going To Happen And This Is Why differs from its predecessors is that it lifts up its head and confronts its issues head on. Spectres are no longer buried under the weight of existence, awaiting their imminent and deserved demise, but they exude disdain and exert an authority that is really quite remarkable. The vocals are more than apologetic whispers and the guitars are not fighting for the shadows; this is Spectres with muscle. Perhaps they have been working out with Joe Wicks over the lockdown and that's one broadcast we would love to see. Hell, it even sounds like they are enjoying themselves on occasion which is really disturbing. But whilst looking forward to the band's fourth album, Vitamins, it is pleasing to note that Spectres have actually lost none of their desire to innovate, to tread new paths and create new vistas.

Seven tracks on this album are under three minutes and this makes the whole appear as a collection of snapshots from different times and places. INGTHATIW doesn't work as a coherent whole, but we no longer live in a coherent world so somehow this makes perfect sense. The album was recorded in a nineteenth century Methodist church in Leeds and it was clearly an effective place to be as some of the music here has a resounding hugeness, while other tracks sink grubbily into the crypt. It has been way too long since we last heard from Spectres; hopefully they won't wait for the next pandemic to get together again. A journal of discontent from the year of plague ... an echo of all our lives.