This year has been lousy for a lot of reasons, but hard rock and heavy metal were not among them. In fact, there was a bumper crop of great albums to come out of the chaos. You might say it was a 5A year by looking at my list since, in a strange coincidence, half of the artists in my Best of 2020 list begin with the letter A. And that’s not even counting perennial favorites like Alestorm and Armored Saint who didn’t quite make the cut. So, let’s take a look at a few of the good things to come out of 2020, at least as far as heavy music goes:
No. 11: AC/DC – ‘POWER UP’: Insert obligatory Spinal Tap joke here, but I include this album at 11 because I didn’t like it quite enough to crack the Best of 2020’s Top 10. If I’m being honest, I like some of my honorable mentions better, but in a year like 2020, there’s something to be said for consistency – and AC/DC is nothing if not consistent. Yes, this is more or less another release of their one album, but it’s one of the better versions of that record that they’ve done in years, and there are a few really standout tracks. I love the throwback to the Bon Scott era on “Demon Fire.” It was a really nice touch, and I wish they had kept the clean vocals in a little more before Brian Johnson went back to his raspy shout. Angus Young’s groove guitar riff on “Kick You When You’re Down” was one of his best in years, and album closer “Code Red” is just a fun rocker. I’ve always been of the opinion that you only need two AC/DC records – your favorite from the Bon Scott era and your favorite from the Johnson era – but this was a welcome bit of normalcy in a year that was anything but.
No. 10: NACHBLUT – ‘VANITAS’: Right or wrong, it takes something special for a non-English speaking band to make it into my Best of 2020 list. I’m the kind of guy that loves to crank the stereo while driving and sing along at the top of my lungs, and that’s a little tough to do when you don’t know the language. Whatever that something special is, Germany’s Nachtblut has it on their latest album. They hooked me with the gothic rocker “Das Puppenhaus,” a creepy tune with an equally creepy video and an incredibly infectious chorus. I’ve listened to that song so many times that I can sing along to it at the top of my lungs, even though I only have a vague notion of what I’m actually singing. But one tune, no matter how good, does not a Top 10 album make. It’s the variety on Vanitas that sucks me in. Almost every song on this record hits a different subgenre of metal, from folk to black to traditional to industrial. I dig a band that can bounce all over the metal spectrum yet still sound like themselves.
No. 9: MARILYN MANSON – ‘WE ARE CHAOS’: Manson’s best work comes when he’s got his David Bowie-worship hat on. He donned that again for this record, along with the cowboy hat that producer Shooter Jennings brings. While I love Shooter, I don’t care for him as a producer. The records he produces tend to be more him than the artist. You have to look no farther than this year’s Hellbound Glory release, which had way too much Shooter and way too little Leroy Virgil. However, Shooter and Manson manage to strike a nice balance on We Are Chaos. Lyrically, Manson is back on point after a weak last outing on 2017’s Heaven Upside Down, an uneven record produced in the wake of the loss of his father. We Are Chaos has all of the strangeness that you expect from Manson. From channeling Bowie’s “Heroes” on “Don’t Chase the Dead” to more traditional Manson weirdness on “Perfume” to the plaintive “Solve Coagula,” a personal favorite, the album contains some of Manson’s best performances in years.
No. 8: ANNIHILATOR – ‘BALLISTIC, SADISTIC’: Jeff Waters finally delivers what many fans have been looking for after years of experimentation. Ballistic, Sadistic is a pummeling, no-compromise thrash album from start to finish. The album opens with “Armed to the Teeth,” one of the band’s best tracks in years, and never lets up. After a revolving door of vocalists over the three decades of the band’s existence, Waters has taken up the microphone duties. He’s struggled with it in the past, but finally found his voice on this record. While you could argue that it’s maybe a little too one-dimensional in its dedication to speed and heaviness, Ballistic, Sadistic was a welcome return to form for one of the more underrated thrash acts out there.
No. 7: BODY COUNT – ‘CARNIVORE’: Though the title track of this album, which is basically three minutes of Ice-T saying, “we eat meat,” left a little to be desired, the rest of the record did not. It’s remarkable how far this band has come from its beginnings. The raw and amateur sound of their 1992 debut is part of its charm, but Body Count is now a well-oiled metal machine. That’s apparent here on tracks like the hardcore-infused “Thee Critical Beatdown” and the driving “Bum Rush.” The lyrics roll through Ice-T’s realistic and often harsh take on the world with a few surprises. One is “When I’m Gone,” featuring Amy Lee of Evanescence, where Ice challenges his listeners to not wait until friends and family are dead to let them know how you feel. Honestly, it’s not one of my favorites on the album, but still shows a very different side of the band. Two of the strongest performances are blasts from Ice-T’s past with “Colors 2020,” featuring former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, and “6 in tha Morning,” both excellent meldings of metal and hip-hop. There’s also the obligatory cover, which finds the band paying their respects to Lemmy Kilmister with a faithful version of Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades.”
No. 6: AD INFINITUM – ‘CHAPTER 1’: When they released the first single, “Marching on Versailles,” last January, Ad Infinitum couldn’t have known how prophetic their plague doctor costumes would turn out to be for 2020. The only unmasked member of the band in that video, vocalist Melissa Bonny, is one of my favorite discoveries of the year. This record has led me to explore her body of work, including her other band Rage of Light, and her performances under the moniker the Queen of the Damned as a guest vocalist with Warkings, where she brings a little gravitas to a gimmick that I find a bit corny. Bonny has an amazing, clean voice and the ability to snarl like a beast – and she uses both to great effect. In the symphonic metal style of Ad Infinitum, it’s her singing voice that’s on display, with her growl only occasionally punctuating the songs, but that approach is perfect for tracks like “Marching on Versailles,” “See You in Hell” and “I Am the Storm.” Ad Infinitum also used its lockdown time to re-record the album in acoustic versions, which are also pretty interesting, though not quite as powerful as the originals.
No. 5: DELAIN – ‘APOCALYPSE AND CHILL’: Like Ad Infinitum’s plague masks, Delain couldn’t have known how appropriate this album title would be for 2020 when it was released in early February. Aside from the obvious reasons, though, the title is also apropos for the content on the album. Apocalypse & Chill contains both some of heaviest songs in the band’s history, as well as some of the most restrained, and the theme is all about those contrasts. They travel from the pop-rock hooks of “One Second” to the crushing riffs of “Creatures” to the bleak and haunting symphonic ballad “Ghost House Heart” with ease, taking the listener along on an emotional journey through the highs and lows. Charlotte Wessels remains one of the strongest female voices in metal, though she does make a little room for guitarist Timo Summers to duet on “One Second” and a guest vocal from Beast In Black singer Yannis Papadopoulos on “Vengeance.” In many ways, Apocalypse & Chill is a little different from what we expect from Delain, but it’s also one of their strongest outings.
No. 4: ARCHON ANGEL – ‘FALLEN’: It’s been 19 years since the last Savatage album, and I’ve been missing that sound. Before we got an exciting tease from Savatage members late in the year that we might see a new record in 2021, I thought Archon Angel was about as close as we were likely to get. Zak Stevens has put together a strong group of musicians that were obviously deeply influenced by his former band. Songs like the title track could have been pulled straight from Savatage’s Edge of Thorns, the first album to feature Stevens. There is a deep reverence for the pre-Stevens version of the band, too, particularly in the guitar riffs of Aldo Lonobile, with songs like “Twilight” and “The Serpent” recalling those earlier albums. Zak Stevens sounds as good as ever, and the band is tight. It’s probably his best work since the first Circle II Circle record.
No. 3: SOILWORK – ‘A WHISP OF THE ATLANTIC’: This was not a traditional album release by a long shot. Beginning in late 2019, Soilwork dropped new music regularly throughout the last year or so, starting with three connected songs and videos in the “Feverish Trilogy” and ending with the 16-minute epic that would become the title track of this EP. While some of the material definitely fits into the band’s melodic-death wheelhouse, there are a lot of new elements introduced in this slightly strange and proggy set of five songs which all weave together into a larger story, despite only three being directly connected. Soilwork drops an obvious, but still surprising, lyrical nod to the Eagles on “Desperado,” and the hard-rock riffs on “The Nothingness and the Devil” are searing. While the title track is the focus here, the real star to me is the complete badassery of “Death Diviner.” The song has a great riff and incredible attitude that, on first listen, moved it immediately to the top of my list of favorite tunes of the year. If this EP is a glimpse at where Soilwork is headed, I’m looking forward to taking the trip with them.
No. 2: AMARANTHE – ‘MANIFEST’: There really wasn’t much doubt which two records were going to top my list, just which order they were going to land. I stumbled upon Amaranthe a few years back after initially writing them off as a pop-rock act. There is plenty of pop in their sound, but on second listen, the mix of bubble-gum hooks with heavy and melodic metal noise drew me in. Manifest puts a slightly harder edge on the band’s sound in places, but still brings that strange blend of things that shouldn’t work together but absolutely do in the hands of main composer Olof Morck. Amaranthe benefited from some timely topics in songs like “Viral” and “BOOM!1” as the pandemic and social unrest raged, but there are also some solid metal pieces without any ties to the current environment, like personal favorite “Archangel.” Manifest may be, arguably, Amaranthe’s best outing to date.
No. 1: AVATAR – ‘HUNTER GATHERER’: This record came as quite a surprise for me. Long ago, when I was still writing entertainment stories for a local newspaper, an Avatar still in its infancy played a club in town. I don’t remember what album they were supporting at the time, but I remember listening to a couple of songs and not being impressed. After several months spent catching up on their back catalog, I’m not sure what I was thinking back then. Avatar brings everything I love in metal: It’s quirky, but still heavy, with tons of influences from outside the metal realm. Within the 10 songs on Hunter Gatherer, you’ll find everything from the ferocity of melodic death metal to the grit of grunge to the attitude of punk to the bombast of Broadway. I understand that there’s some debate among long-time fans of the band about where this album stands, but Hunter Gatherer for me strikes a great balance between the heaviness of albums like Hail the Apocalypse, the campiness of Avatar Country and the more melodic explorations of Feathers & Flesh. While I think portions of previous records are stronger than anything here, this is the one Avatar album where I don’t use the skip button.
BEST OF 2020 HONORABLE MENTIONS
AETHER REALM – ‘REDNECK VIKINGS FROM HELL’: How could an album with a name like this not make my Best of 2020 Top 10? Well, it was there right up until the end. Fans were probably a little stunned by the lead single, “Goodbye,” with its New Wave-influenced chorus, as well as some other more poppy moments. But there’s still plenty of the blackened folk metal that fans are used to, including a throwback to their first album in “She’s Back,” a reference to the song “Swamp Witch.”
MARKO HIETALA – ‘PYRE OF THE BLACK HEART’: While this year’s release from Marko Hietala’s main band Nightwish was a bit disappointing, his first solo album was not. Released both in English (in 2020) and his native Finnish (as Musta Sydämen Rovio in 2019), Pyre of the Black Heart features a mix of folk, old school rock ‘n’ roll, progressive and just a touch of the symphonic Nightwish style. “Death March for Freedom” may have been my most played song of the year, but “Dead God’s Son” and “Stones” also got quite a few spins. A number of the ballads on the album fall a little flat in English, but are much more impactful and flowing in the Finnish versions, especially “The Voice of My Father,” which is haunting in the original language as “Isani Aani.”
PARADISE LOST – ‘OBSIDIAN’: Paradise Lost’s latest is a fantastic record released at the wrong time. In any other year, Obsidian probably would have made my Best of 2020 Top 10, but it was just a little too dour and depressing for 2020. Though appropriate, I was far more drawn to things that provided a break from doom and gloom. That, of course, is what Paradise Lost does best and they do it amazingly well here, but despite the artistry, I often found myself hopping off to something a little more upbeat.
- Blackberry Smoke – ‘Be Right Here’ (2024) - June 10, 2024
- Why That Self-Titled 1994 Album Is the Best Motley Crue You Never Heard - March 18, 2024
- Alice Cooper, Ward Davis, Steel Panther + Others: Fred Phillips’ Best 2023 Songs - January 31, 2024
