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Best albums of 2020 so far: From Tame Impala to Georgia

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2020 has been a fascinating year for music so far. The quality of albums released since January has varied wildly — we’ve had flops, we’ve had triumphs, and plenty else in between.

Here, we’ve rounded up the finest releases of the year so far, comprised of all the four- and five-star reviews written by the Standard’s critics.

As things stand, we’ve only had one album in 2020 given the full five stars. Here’s hoping for a few more in the weeks and months ahead.

From big indie rock comebacks to scintillating synth-pop, here are our favourite albums of the year. We’ll update it as more excellent music arrives.

Georgia — Seeking Thrills

★★★★

“What makes Seeking Thrills feel like a fresh start is Georgia’s new-found ear for pop melody. While her debut tended to be too much in thrall to the gritty experimentation and chanting of MIA — a grinding sound that resurfaces briefly here on Mellow — she mostly has stopped digitally altering her sweet singing voice and now has more in common with the classy Scandipop of Robyn.”

Read the full review here

Field Music — Making A New World

★★★★★

“The Sunderland band — essentially brothers David and Peter Brewis — have been making intelligent and pastoral pop with a quintessentially English sensibility for the past 15 years, and the studious subject matter here makes perfect sense. Best Kept Garden is packed with the kind of intricate, wonky riffs they specialise in, only this time they’re singing about town planning acts of the Twenties. They’ve taken the unsexiest subject matter and made it sing — we wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Read the full review here

Selena Gomez — Rare

★★★★

“Gomez’s own, assured voice rings out on this 13-track record that flirts with R&B and electro — and is mostly killer, very little filler. That’s because there’s very little self-indulgent mooning, usually a surefire characteristic on a break-up/dating/love album.”

Read the full review here

The Big Moon — Walking Like We Do

★★★★

“The follow-up to their 2017 debut, The Big Moon’s new album is just as bold, romantic and packed with instant hits — but this time they’re bringing something extra to the table too. The grungy guitars are gone now, replaced with sweeping soundscapes, a keyboard and piano, while Juliette Jackson’s songwriting has evolved to include a mature awareness of the unavoidable tribulations of love alongside the dreamy romanticism of the band’s first record.”

Read the full review here

Mac Miller — Circles

★★★★

“Naturally there’s an overpowering melancholy to the music. Miller, an ex of Ariana Grande who had already made five top-five albums, was just 26 when he died. Swimming was also a downbeat, touching collection, and he was already a long way from the ‘frat rap’ that introduced him to the world. Much of Circles is sung rather than rapped, his relaxed tones particularly moving over gently plucked guitar on the title track. ‘This is what it looks like right before you fall,’ he sings. It’s a sad sound that’s still worth hearing.”

Read the full review here

Bombay Bicycle Club — Everything Else Has Gone Wrong

★★★★

“Bombay Bicycle Club were never changing the world, were they? With their new album, they still aren’t. Saying that, Everything Else Has Gone Wrong is a dreamy, pacy album with more than enough of their signature charm to be convincing — plus a few surprises — and it proves that taking a six-year hiatus doesn’t mean you’ll forget how to do your job.”

Read the full review here

J Hus — Big Conspiracy

★★★★

“On his hastily announced second album, it sounds like J Hus is finally calming down. ‘How you gonna run the world, you can’t even run your life?’ he asks himself on the tense, murky Fight for Your Right. Musically, with production largely by his regular collaborator JAE5, he hops genres with even more confidence than before, from the melodic dancehall of Repeat, sung by new Jamaican star Koffee, to the spy theme bass of Helicopter and the mariachi horns and jittery strings of No Denying. If only it wasn’t January it would be the sound of the summer.”

Read the full review here

Pet Shop Boys — Hotspot

★★★★

“After four decades together, they just know what works. Happy People is the kind of glittering dancefloor romp which shows them at their euphoric best. When they’re on form like this, there’s always room for more Pet Shop Boys.”

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Drive-By Truckers — The Unraveling

★★★★

“The songs play out like a dissection of America’s fatal flaws. Political inaction over gun violence is lambasted on Thoughts and Prayers, Babies in Cages takes aim at grim border detention centres, the opioid crisis is lamented on Heroin Again and Grievance Merchants condemns exploitative white nationalists. The impassioned lyrics are on the nose — ‘Stick it up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers’ — and often introspective, as frontman Patterson Hood rasps on 21st Century USA: ‘With Big Brother watching me always, why must I always feel so alone?’”

Read the full review here

Kesha — High Road

★★★★

“This time two years ago, the big Grammys moment was provided by a white-suited Kesha Sebert​ singing her comeback single Praying, backed by stars including Camila Cabello and Cyndi Lauper. The empowering ballad is widely perceived to be addressed to her former producer Lukasz 'Dr Luke' Gottwald, whom she has accused of abuse and sexual assault. Though that legal battle continues, and the first music she released without his input was understandably darker in tone, on this fourth album she’s making a break for bluer skies.”

Read the full review here

Tame Impala — The Slow Rush

★★★★

“Is Kevin Parker, AKA Tame Impala, stuck in the past or moving on? On The Slow Rush, the answer is both. It’s a dazzling, dizzying voyage of retrofuturism, giddy with optimism, yet troubled by gnawing regret. Some things have certainly been abandoned — barely an echo of his early psych-rock remains. Instead, the Aussie forges deep, technicolour grooves, powered by hip-hop, funk and disco, with flickers of acid house and tropicália. The layered synths are often subtle, sometimes fierce.”

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Nathaniel Rateliff — And It’s Still Alright

★★★★

“Nathaniel Rateliff has had quite the ride, eh? This raw, yowling album — his first in seven years — navigates marriage breakdown and the death of a close friend (and that’s just the first two tracks). But any artist knows there’s poetry in love and loss, and Rateliff’s powerful storytelling is brought to life by his throaty, mellifluous growl that keeps things moving, not mawkish.”

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Niia — II: La Bella Vita

★★★★

“An intimate portrait of the complexities of falling in and out of love, Valentine’s Day release II: La Bella Vita sees Niia wear her heart, and influences, on her sleeve. The jazz club-worthy slow number No Light kicks things off with dreamy backing vocals arriving after Niia’s only verse. The standout Face sees her experiment with trap beats and drums, her vocals occasionally a near-whisper, for musings on a former flame.”

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Ozzy Osbourne — Ordinary Man

★★★★

“Ozzy still knows how to bring the noise. The Prince of Darkness’s first album in 10 years opens with the snarling Straight to Hell, featuring the gnarliest of riffs and a promise to ‘make you scream... make you defecate’. It’s good to have him back.”

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Best Coast — Always Tomorrow

★★★★

“A heartfelt depiction of Bethany Cosentino’s journey to sobriety, Always Tomorrow drops the often laid-back vibe of Best Coast’s previous efforts, trading them in for a defiant and punchier sound. The California cool factor that pervaded their previous albums remains a staple component but the vocals are less breezy this time.”

Read the full review here