Great Songs From Q3 2020

Another weird few half-quarantined months have passed and we’re in the homestretch of 2020. While I don’t believe anything has gotten any better, we certainly seem to be acting like it. Hockey season is over and now the long slow trudge into flu season (and holiday mass shopping season!) lurches into the tracks as we guide ourselves fretfully forward. Here are 20 tracks that I loved in the past few months. At least along with the impending dread, End of the Year Lists are around the corner!

Static-X — All These Years It’s insane to think that after all of these years, Static-X is releasing a new track. Especially one that sounds like it belongs on the same record as their groundbreaking Wisconsin Death Trip. What makes it even more insane is that founding member Wayne Static passed away in November of 2014. Taking the mantle is a masked and unidentified singer going only by the name of Xer0. Whoever he is, he’s really nailing the unique vocal duties. He sounds just like Wayne. A lot of the personality of the songs come from Koichi Fukuda’s staccato and repetitive guitar chugs and the trancey industrial sampling that floats in the background of the track. Even if this record serves only as a tribute to the better days of the band, I think they really honored the persona of what this band was always about. (Youtube)

My Morning Jacket — Wasted This is a phenomenal jam. The first time I heard it, I had a head full of haze and it seemed to stretch out for hours of an evening. When I came back to earth, I had to go back to this track and listen again and again. I’m not sure what it is about this particular song that seems to lift me and put me in a central vortex where relativity is suspended. I guess that’s what MMJ has always been about. When the song comes back after the bridge with some heavy and undulating guitar parts, it’s such an absolute brain melter. This is a perfect example of how a guitar doesn’t have to be down tuned with 7 strings to make it sound crushingly heavy. (Youtube)

The Acacia Strain — Feed a Pigeon Breed a Rat I was put onto The Acacia Strain by someone who was borderline joshing about what exactly they were capable of and the types of songs they wrote. To be honest, they were brought up in the same conversation as Three Six Mafia if it helps to highlight the absurdity. But listen, man. This track is utter filth. Heavy to the point of disrespect. There isn’t a creative flourish or a surprising or interesting run of choices made here. Nothing is learned. This is three and a half minutes of buzzsaw shredding and a challenge to stare deep into the eyes of the heaviest and most distorted guitar parts and come out on the other side. (Youtube)

Jesse Lanza — Over and Over Pulsing hums reverbing into an empty space and a click track high hat over a lo-fi bass drum to open up this track. Lanza’s early 90s pop hooks lift the entire mood of this overly simplistic track. Funky postmodern bass licks accent the starry flourishes that pepper the desolate landscape here and there. This song takes so much of what makes pop songs irresistible but deconstructs the pieces and scatters them over a vast galactic map. This song could have been an easy catchy hook, but Jesse Lanza turned it into a more organic expression. (Youtube)

Loma — Ocotillo This is a moody and contemplative groove that bristles with texture. Flutes palpitate. Woodwinds sway, squawk and cry. Tying all of the early morning daydream jazz is Emily Cross’s lush vocals. Her lyrics are simple and delicate. Really just a marvelous five minute soundtrack to a desert sunrise. (Youtube)

Misery Signals — Old Ghosts Couldn’t be happier that these boys are back. I wasn’t too sure what to expect after so many years of them being gone, a reunion tour and the departure (and revival) of a singer. It seems that they used those absent years only restoring their power because the comeback is startlingly potent. That same soaring backing guitar over the matching chugs of double bass and guitar riffing. These guys are such a major pillar in the world of melodic hardcore and while the genre itself may be tired as hell, the band still knows how to make themselves stand out in a massive way. (Youtube)

Good Tiger — Kimbal This band at some point was being touted and discussed within some metal circles. I don’t see it. For me, they seem to fall somewhere in the post-Mars Volta “jam” sounds, doing mathy guitar stuff with different intentions than those who came after the Bob Nanna style. That soaring high pitched vocal has a lot in common to me with old style bands like Brazil and even the same kind of pedally trippy sound as Circa Survive. This record has some really high peaks and interestingly textured valleys. This song has a little bit of both of those things, certainly not the standard kind of single song that would work as an introduction to the band, but I think it showcases their range without question. And some of the hooks in here get really deeply caught in me, even the ones that fit more in the undertones. (Youtube)

Into It. Over It. — We Prefer Indoors This is exactly what I go to Into It. Over It. for. Tapped and wiggly guitar parts. Bright summer afternoon music. Evan has grown immensely between the last record and this year’s, putting a lot more focus into contemporary songwriting and newer and less immediate ways to express his emotions. This song hints at elements of that while still celebrating the things that made Proper and Twelve Towns eternal records for my collection. There is a moment here where they drop into big mood status, making all that surrounds the track feel even more massive and positive. (Youtube)

Beloved — Like a Song When Beloved announced that a new song was coming, I think all of us from the 03–04 era were losing our minds a little bit, expecting some fresh jams. Instead what they gave us was a U2 cover. And at first, I couldn’t really wrap my mind around how I felt. Was I disappointed? Is this a letdown? The more I spoke to friends about it and went back to the original song, I ended up really finding parts of the track that they made their own. U2’s War is one of my favorite records and I think this song is always such a “surprise” hit on there because it falls behind the singles like ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ and ‘New Year’s Day’. It’s such an interesting choice to cover. And while I don’t think the track really represents “the Beloved sound” until the very final part (which I’ll discuss in a minute), it is definitely well done. It reminds me of another incredible band from around that time, The Exit. This sounds like it would have fallen perfectly on ‘Home For An Island’. The part around the last minute where Joe Musten finally brings his signature roar to the forefront feels like they just took this moment to drop “what Beloved sounds like” and remind people which band exactly was covering this track. I don’t even know if it fits the song properly. REGARDLESS, this track ended up being great. Far from where I felt when I first heard it.

Bully — Add It On Bully has had some great songs peppered throughout the last couple of years. With release of this year’s SUGAREGG, there is much to be celebrated. This song works as an absolute manic album opener, with Alicia shouting in an angsty and urgent rebel yell. Guitars spangle and leave sharp tingles in the veins of the track. This song has such a great grungy throwback sound. And I hope it doesn’t work to take anything away from how excellent the song is, but once I thought it, I couldn’t ignore it; the vocals in this song can sound like an angry Tommy Pickles. (Youtube)

Fenne Lilly — Berlin A sparse and repetitive mantra, “It’s not hard to be alone anymore” is such a strange and proud way to admit defeat. And with this being the banner waved both at the front and the back of the song, it’s hard to not let that sentiment become the shape of this track which otherwise has a tame and meditative loop to it. (Youtube)

Deftones — The Spell of Mathematics This song off of Deftones’ new album OHMS is one which has Steph Carpenter at the forefront, chugging as he always has. Fully bought in, more than any other track on the record, he heavily blasts riffage once the gates are opened, clicking and plucking between massive breaks. Chino oscillates, as is his preference, between gnarled howls and ethereal siren song. I love the terror synth that sits deeply back in the eye sockets of the track, preventing anything from settling whether it’s in the more copasetic parts and really showing its electric face when the music dashes against the rocks. And in full Deftones form, in the home stretch, the way that they organically include the gang-snaps to keep the final beat adds to the spectral haunted nature of the song. (Youtube)

The Casket Lottery — Born Lonely When I first heard this song, I thought I was hearing an old Casket Lottery track and hit up a friend: “I guess I’m finally old enough to love this.” They’re a band that I feel has always hung out on the outskirts of the types of music I listened to (alongside Small Brown Bike, Hot Water Music, Alkaline Trio, etc; bands I never liked but had tons of friends who did). It turns out that this is a track from the band’s first record in a very long time. And listening to it (aggressively over and again) I realize that what I love about it is the Quicksand-esque droney guitars and the vocals that sound shouted from beyond a sonic breach. Such a guitar forward song with lots of distorted magic and engineering mastery. It just has such a cool sound and I can’t wait for the record. I don’t know what the technique is called but it sometimes has that same cool riff-style as L’Astronaut by Every Time I Die. (Youtube)

Mint Field — Delicadeza This is such a dreamscape. A haunted vocal drifts fluidly behind smoked and bubbled glass. The way the the guitars bend and shimmer sound like distorted found footage, with halos and quarks misting off of the notes like sparks and dust. It’s hard for me to not compare this to a few tracks from Blonde Redhead’ s ‘Misery Is a Butterfly’ and that is no small acknowledgment. The song is delicate, special, like old letters found in an attic. (Youtube)

Nothing — Say Less Nothing brings it time after time. The howling of their guitars is post-apocalyptic this go around, casting a hum fuzz cocoon around Domenic’s lamenting and drifting vocals. In the background there exists an almost hollow tubing of guitar sound, like sonar at whales’ depth. And something that comes across without hitch is the way that Nothing have thrown samples in, adding a bit more to that dystopian tilt. (Youtube)

IDLES — Grounds I’ve seen this record catch a bunch of flack for its goofy lyrics and its attempt to make a political record without getting cerebral or urgent enough to make any significant impact. Welp. I truly could care less about any of that. This record reminds me of the Daughters record that came out a couple of years ago just from the sound of the stomping and its removal from attempting to sound anything like “traditional music”. Similar to that Daughters record, it sounds like a city. There lies menace and alleyways and sideways looks. Something ugly and ancient in a way. This feels like it can be considered a “song” only in that it hangs across a segment of time and represents recorded instruments along a breadth of repetitive and orchestrated movements. As the song builds, the ending feels like a door pushed to its very limit, bending at the center, hinges bent into foreign metal, no longer meant for their purpose. (Youtube)

Fleet Foxes — Can I Believe You Man, it was extraordinarily difficult to pick a single song from this record. I’m not too familiar with the band’s work, though a lot of my friends have talked about them for years. I observed that they sound a little bit like The Shins and Band of Horses and Local Natives, but I was told that usually they’re a lot more sad and drab. This record has a few of those moments, but I think just like on this track, there’s a glow about it, perhaps not joyful but at least alive and verdant. (Youtube)

Pixies — Hear Me Out Man, I was never properly introduced to The Pixies. My first introduction to them was The Get Up Kids covering Alec Eifel. I tried to dig into them a bit, but I think I was a bit too impulsive and came from a background that really wouldn’t allow their intelligent alternative rock crack into my nu-metal/emo/post-hardcore head. It’s been a long time since then and I’ve been able to find a lot to love through their catalog. This song is another welcome addition to that fold. There’s almost a modern flower-child tone to some of the way that the vocals hover innocently over the sunbursting, mellowed surf rock guitar. (Youtube)

Mourn — This Feeling Is Disgusting This song sounds like it was pulled from a Deep Elm sampler back in the late 90s, early 00’s. Very blunt and very direct, Mourn wants you to know what it means to feel hideous and disappointing. I love this exact sound. It calls back so many other bands from the past like Pretty Girls Make Graves, bands that now, more than ever, deserve a place in the spotlight. (Youtube)

Miel — I’ll Be Holding This certainly must be lifted from an 80s movie. It’s got heavy montage vibes. The frozen temple synths, the ancient drum machine sound, the absolutely brilliant and crisp throwback vocal style. It’s such a transformation of the present, a nod to a wholly different era. (Youtube)