You can't hear every album. Especially not if you stay away from Spotify and the likes. So herewith some CD's I missed in 2020 and only bought after seeing them appear in end of year lists by people or fanzines I trust.
This was not a pure missed, but more I did not get to check it out yet. When I did listen to the opening trilogy Amelia I heard it was good and could order straight thereafter. Mark Kelly is of course known for playing keyboards with Marillion. This is his frst solo album and he got a decent band together. The vocalist sounds a bit like Peter Gabriel or Jon Mitchell and that makes this prog rock album one pleasant ride. Two long songs broken into parts and three shorter ones make this album just a good LP lenght. It must be nice for Mark Kelly to play this music without the overly presence of H on vocals. A very pleasant easy on the ears album, which for me might come to de boerderij one day. One final comment is on the cover. The painting of Corcovado on the background means this must be from Piratininga beach in Niteroi. I know as we have family living there and I was often on that beach. The painting misses Sugar Loaf mountain in the bay, to be realistic. Just saying.
This power metal outfit made it to Andy's number three of heavy prog and progmetal releases of 2020 on DPRP. I remembered checking it out when originally reviewed. I liked the album immediately, but when finding out that bandcamp meant postage costs would be more than twice the CD costs I bowed out. Than Andy even was as friendly to tip me where to get the album in Europe fairly priced. Seven songs clocking in close to one hour on their fifth full lenght. Therefore they have all the time to sing about battles, swords and betrayal. Now that Jon Schaffer in his utter stupidity killed Iced Earth and Demons & Wizards, this band might go for the throne of US Power metal. Highly recommended album
I did not forget about this album, but naively thought upon release in May that I would pick up my copy during their December show in Breda. A bold thought as the last few times I saw Tokyo Blade live they brought zero merch. Later on I did sort of not remember the album indeed, until Theo put it very high on his list of 2020 favorites. This is one nice surprise of an album, as we get eleven fast rocker fired at us. Several of these songs would blend in perfectly with the likes of Night of the Blade or If Heaven Is Hell. Come to Musicon I'd say and we will enjoy, even if they are the only band so far who refused to stay at my HM B&B.
This band is according to the cover a collaboration between Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin. Bell Witch of course before this album released their one song 80+ minutes wonderful trip called Mirror Reaper. So I was still supposed to check out this new work, when Arno called it best album of the year and posted the Youtube clip of the album. I only needed to hear 19 minute opening song The Bastard Wind to understand we have another work of beauty in our hands. This band with their extremely patience needed slow doom, so goes against today's fashion of very short attention spans, that you must like them for that alone. Atmosphere with a capital A. They are supposed to come to Tivoli together with Death Metal masters Blood Incantation which should be two opening acts that Wolves in The Throne Room can never top. Their luck is that we still shall be suffering from Corona in October.
AngryMetalGuy put me on the track of many a new discovery. Countless Skies their album of the month Novemer, being their last tip. I thought that for world class Melodic Death Metal, you needed bearded Scandinavians. Turns out that four bearded Brits can take care of duties as well. Standing proudly among the best Melodeath albums of the last years this band released with Glow an album anyone mildly interested in this style should hear. Variation all over, with clean vocals going very dramatic reminding me of Barren Earth. On the other hand they can go heavy and bombastic as well. This is their second full lenght, so one left to still dive into soon. If not released last November definitely end of year list material.
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