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    • Jan 22, 2021
    • 4 min read

10 Albums/ Eps That Made 2020 A Little Less Shitty

I know that 2020 is the year that we don’t talk about anymore because everyone made banana bread and bought toilet paper in bulk. BUT despite becoming indoor sad bois and gurls, 2020 pumped out some pretty awesome tunes. SO, RIGHT HERE and RIGHT NOW are the ‘10 Albums/EPs That Made 2020 a Little Less Shitty’ take that Spotify Wrapped!


And in no particular order here are the 10 masterpieces of music and which tunes you need to bring into your 2021 playlists.


We are going to begin with the most difficult band to Google, and despite the search results, it’s not any of the Jurassic Park movies, but it’s none other than the Drastic Park (Punk Rock, Melbourne) and their Imposter Syndrome EP. This trio of troublemakers and self-acclaimed comedians really flexed Drastic Park’s skill set in 2020 by releasing two EPs, Last World in February and Imposter Syndrome in August (The second one was probably from lockdown boredom, but hey it’s full of good tunes and it made 2020 a little less shitty).


Moody Music Favourites include: Work of Art feat. Cassie Sutton (of Terra) and 10 Years.


And from the start of 2020, Slowly Slowly (Emo Punk, Melbourne) dropped their Race Car Blues album, for which I swear more than half the songs have been released as singles because the album is just soo good!


Moody Music Favourites include: How It Feels, Creature of Habit, Safety Switch (feat. Bec Stevens) and 19. The Race Car Blues album is an absolute delight for emos, also special shoutout to Slowly Slowly’s 2018 Chamomile album, because that baby also got a lot of love during the year through my personal plays.


Continuing on that pop punk emo skater vibe, we have what Josh from Short.Fast.Loud dubbed as “Happy Slowly Slowly”, yes we are talking about Snark (Punk Rock, Melbourne), the modern Sk8r Bois just don’t tell Avril Lavinge, cause she’ll make things Complicated (get it, Avril Lavinge has a song called Complicated). Snark released their debut EP Impostor during 2020 and it is a solid EP from start to finish!


Moody Music Favourites include: Whatever, Nevermind and Three Twenty-Seven


Let’s take a break from pop punk and get heavy with some In Hearts Wake (Metalcore, Byron Bay) and their album Kaliyuga, just damn! It’s not only instrumentally and vocally heavy, but also lyrically heavy, it makes ya think, ya know… Life, Destruction, Environment, Sustainability, Pain, Anger and Future, just to name a few inner mind reflections on this album.


Moody Music Favourites include: Hellbringer feat. Jamie Hails (of Polaris), Timebomb and Son Of A Witch.


Let’s go for another one shall we? A Lunar Rose is Saviour’s (Metal, Perth) beauty of an album that came out during 2020. This album is light and dark at the same time, it has the heavy screaming that every angry person could ever desire, but it also has those broken up gentle almost lullaby-like moments that create another dimension in Saviour as a band.


Moody Music Favourites include: Never Sleep, Rose and Violet.


Okay lighten up a little bit, because we are going from Saviour’s heavy metal screams to Bad Juju’s (Grunge Rock, Melbourne) attitude.

Besides having absolutely stunningly satisfying cover art on the You’re Not Alone EP, Bad Juju’s released seven tracks to go along with the pretty zombified picture. This EP is one of the good ones, I mean you could have it on repeat for hours and it still sounds good.


Moody Music Favourites include: Disappoint, Let’s Talk and Dawn.


We are going international for these next two.


All the way from Rotterdam in the Netherlands I had the pleasure of interviewing After Elmer (Pop Punk, Rotterdam) about their EP Look Alive during 2020. These guys are soo lovely and also make kickass pop punk music, their EP is quirky and fun particularly with their music video and “whoop whoop” lyrics that introduces the first track and EP title Look Alive. After Elmer also shows an emotional sympathetic side in their music with the acoustic track Talk, that really emphasises the need for people to shut up (in a nice way) and to just listen to each other.


So, as you could probably tell, the Moody Music Favourites include: Look Alive and Talk (Lyric Video just recently released)


You either love it, or hate it, but Neck Deep’s (Pop Punk, United Kingdom) All Distortions Are Intentional album have made it into the ‘Top 10 Albums/EPs That Made 2020 a Little Less Shitty’. This album just sounds light and fun, it’s pure pop punk with happy sounds and depressing lyrics.


Moody Music Favourites include: When You Know, Pushing Up Daisies and Little Dove


Back to the artists of koala-land.


Stand Atlantic (Pop Punk, Sydney) dropped a massive album that everyone went crazy over, I’m talking about Pink Elephants. This album does have a bit more of a poppy vibe but still with that same bad ass punk rocker attitude.


Moody Music Favourites include: Soap, Drink To Drown and Jurassic Park.


The lucky last victim of the ‘Top 10 Albums/EPs That Made 2020 a Little Less Shitty’ is Stuck Out (Punk Rock, Melbourne). These boys brought 2020 home with their EP Lie Through Your Teeth, which just scraped into 2020 in December, phew that was a close one! This EP is amazing and it opens with Inverse, which has this Foo Fighters My Hero guitar-like aesthetic about it, and the EP ends with additional vocals from Mikaila Delgado (of Yours Truly) on the track Mindless.


Moody Music Favourites include: Inverse and Hollow.


And that’s a Moody Music Wrap on 2020 for all of you punks and punkettes! If you are loving the artist/genres mentioned in the ‘Albums/EPs That Made 2020 a Little Less Shitty’, CHECK OUT THE DEDICATED PLAYLIST (CLICK HERE FOR A GOOD TIME)


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