Nite Songs Best Of 2020 - Top 50 Albums Part 3 (30-21)

 

And so we reach the halfway point of our Albums of the Year rundown. Bring on the Top 30...

30. HELEN LOVE - "Power On" (Bandcamp) (Review)

Still as endearingly enthusiastic about everything as ever, this latest album from indie veterans Helen Love provided a much needed dose of sunshine, sherbet and singalongability when the world needed it most. Songs such as Debbie Take Control Of The Stereo and Dead In My Head were a real delight with the band putting their stamp on the material in their own inimitable style. Long may they reign.

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29. FAZ WALTZ - "Rebel Kicks" (Bandcamp) (Review)

Still Italy's premier exponents of '70s style bootboy glam, Rebel Kicks is another good offering from Faz Waltz. Sure, the influences are nothing you won't expect - Slade, T-Rex, Mott The Hoople but when the result is cracking tunes like the Stonesy Born In  The Wrong Time and the strutting Chuck Berry style riff of Last Train To Nowhere, it's well and truly churlish to complain about that. Top stuff.

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28. MATTY JAMES CASSIDY - "Old Souls" (Bandcamp) (Review)

Third album from Northern Irish troubadour and sometime Tyla collaborator Matty James Cassidy and he continues to grow as a musician and songwriter with Old Souls veering from Ricky Warwick style Celtic folk laments through to Cash style country and putting out a few curveballs in the process. If rough spit 'n' sawdust country is your thing then this is really one you should check out.

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27. NEON ANIMAL - "Make No Mistake" (Bandcamp) (Review)

Neon Animal showed a little bit of promise with their debut album a couple of years back but Make No Mistake saw them raising the bar in style with the chugging riffs of Rock 'n' Roll Suicide and Let's Make The World Rock coming on like some sort of great lost AC/DC numbers while tracks like Raquel and Broken Mirror were the sound of a band trying some new tricks and executing them very well indeed. This lot may just be a force to be reckoned with going forward. 

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26. LUCY & THE RATS - "Got Lucky" (Bandcamp) (Review)

Similar to Neon Animal above, Got Lucky sees Lucy & The Rats taking the promise of their debut album a couple of years ago and building on it well. A cross between power-pop and garage rock with an enjoyably ramshackle DIY vibe to it as evidenced on the likes of TV and September. A big leap forward for this band which marks them out as a band who are well and truly in the mix.

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25. BLUE OYSTER CULT - "The Symbol Remains" (Review)

It could have been awful. How many times have we seen a band with a brilliant '70s back catalogue make a comeback and balls it up completely. However, The Symbol Remains was a much better album than it really had any right to be, bringing the BOC's twisted rock sound up to date in fine style on songs such as Tainted Blood, That Was Me and Return of St Cecilia. Drawing from influences across their near fifty year career, this proved that BOC are anything but a spent force.

***

24. HUNG LIKE HANRATTY - "Dragged Up" (Review)

Hung Like Hanratty aren't big and they aren't clever but for days when you just want some angry but humorous foul-mouthed aggro to bellow along to, these East Midlanders take some beating. Like some unholy cross between Peter & The Test Tube Babies, Sleaford Mods and the Hip Priests, songs like Twat On A Bike, Inland Revenue and Fuck With Me And I'll Block You On Facebook are the sort of gleefully antagonistic singalongs that always make for good obnoxious punk rock.

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23. TENSHEDS - "The Days Of My Confinement" (Bandcamp) (Review)

Following on from 2019's more experimental Deathrow Disco, The Days of my Confinement saw Tensheds (aka Matt Millership) take a more stripped down approach for this album recorded during the first lockdown. Stark and ominous, the likes of Bridge Song, Mirrors and Girl I'm Sorry sounded like Nick Cave covering songs from Springsteen's Nebraska and were truly breathtaking stuff. A great testament to Millership's ability both as a songwriter and a musician.

***

22. SAULT - "Untitled (Black Is)" (Bandcamp)

Untitled (Black Is) is that most rare of beasts - an insanely ambitious album in its scope that somehow manages to pull off what it aimed to do. Put together by mysterious soul/R'n'B collective Sault, this album is the antithesis of the tiresome "greed is good" approach of the big-hitters in this genre to come up with an angry and impassioned state of the nation address in the wake of Black Lives Matter and the mess this country's found itself in over the last twelve months. A 2020 version of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On? I wouldn't say it's that big an exaggeration. Essential listening.

***

21. ROSSALL - "The Last Glam In Town" (Bandcamp) (Review)

Similar to the Down 'n' Outz's excellent This Is How We Roll album from last year, The Last Glam In Town sees former Glitter Band musical leader John Rossall hook up with '80s indie stalwarts the Nightingales and Membranes/Goldblade frontman John Robb to turn in an album that's undoubtedly got that big stomping '70s glam sound but puts a modern spin on it to excellent effect with the likes of Equaliser, Neon Lights and Fear Of A Glam Planet being fine stuff indeed.