Best of 2020: #1 Idles - Ultra Mono (Partisan Records)

After hearing Joy as an Act of Resistance (my favourite album of 2018), Idles became one of my favourite new bands. They play an uncompromising style of punk and post-punk, with jackhammer guitars, loud, unrelenting bass and guitars, and howled vocals about the unfairness of life as a working person. Ultra Mono is just as good as JaaAoR, maybe even a bit better. It's a bit more melodic, and even a bit more noisy.

Best of 2020

 Best Albums of 2020

1) Idles - Ultra Mono (Partisan)
2) Civic Center - The Ground Below (American Dreams)
3) Psychedelic Furs - Made of Rain (Cooking Vinyl)
4) Bootblacks - Thin Skies (Artoffact)
5) METZ* - Atlas Vending (Sub Pop)
6) A Certain Ratio - ACR Loco (Mute)
7) Jehnny Beth - To Love is to Live (Caroline)
8) Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today (Domino)
9) Crack Cloud* - Pain Olympics (Meat Machine)
10) lie* - You Want it Real (Mint)

Honourable Mentions: Bob Mould - Blue Hearts (Merge), Austra* - HiRUDiN (Pink Fizz), Spectres* - Nostalgia (Artoffact), Evishen - Hair Birth (American Dreams), Caribou* - Suddenly (Merge)

Best of 2019 #6: Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (Partisan Records)

I was introduced to Dublin, Ireland's Fontaines D.C. through British band Idles (my fave album from last year), because the two were touring together. Cut from some of the same cloth as Idles, Fontaines D.C. distill the edge and vigor of classic punk, the working class grit of Ireland and some brutally angular post-punk vibes together for a sound that's like a more melodic version of The Fall. Lead singer Grian Chatten sings with his Irish accent intact, giving the music a drunken Pogues-like swagger that is maintain through the album. The post-punks come out in tracks like "Hurricane Laughter" and the punishingly in your face "Too Real". Their punk roots are always shining through with each song though, which keeps them from feeling too arty and pretentious. A stunning debut!

Best of 2018 #1: Idles - Joy as an Act of Resistance (Partisan Records)

This band is a rare one that I discovered not in Canadian campus radio, but at KEXP in Seattle. I tend to listen to KEXP when work is slow, or I have nothing to do at home but clean up the house or play video games. Every time this band came on, I had to stop what I was doing and see what the heck the song was that was playing. Idles, from the UK, are a hybrid of post-punk precision, punk-rock bravado and working class British values. Their second album has a cocky swagger to it that rivals the best of UK 77 punk, and the teary vulnerability of mid 80s UK pop, backed with a wall of sound musicality that would make David Gedge or Mark E. Smith twist up their face a little. Political, raw, loud, unapologetic, unrelenting. They released a thunderous live album in 2019 and are set with a follow up in 2020, which is bound to be in consideration for my albums of the year for 2020.

Best of 2019 is coming next week!

Top 10 Albums of 2018

1) Idles - Joy As an Act of Resistance (Partisan)
2) Actors* - It Will Come to You (Artoffact)
3) Low - Double Negative (Sub Pop)
4) Freak Dream* - Into the Sun (Artoffact)
5) Peach Kelli Pop* - Gentle Leader (Mint)
6) Alpha Strategy* - The Gurgler (Antena Kryzku)
7) Superorganism - Superorganism (Domino)
8) Plains Apparition* - Adrift (Independent)
9) Confidence Man - Confident Music for Confident People (Heavenly)
10) Dumb* - Seeing Green (Mint)

Honourable Mentions:

Single Mothers* - Through a Door (Dine Alone), Kaelan Mikla - Manadans (Artoffact), Dilly Dally* - Heaven (Dine Alone), US Girls* - In a Poem Unlimited (4AD), Beak> - >>> (Temporary Residence)