the Top 10 Folk & Country Albums of 2020

Feeling depressed? Need a soundtrack to sitting outside by yourself ? This year's current crop of folk albums provided that. As with years past I sort through the genre lists before making the overall top ten of the year list. I know many of you are ready for 2020 to be over with. Hate to break it to you but nothing is getting better next year. As far as 2020 goes for folk and country  there were artists perhaps new to this blog, but not much in the way of new artists debuting anything note worthy enough to make the list. The  fact these artists made it on the list speaks to how great these albums are, so it's not a slight that the number 8 album is above the 9th album, there is something that just gives it an edge that makes me want to listen to it more. After all we can try to look cool and pick the hippest bands for a list, but at the end of the day what makes an album the best is that it makes you want more, you look forward to listening to it again. Sure you can bitch and complain about your favorite band not being on the list. However I listen to five new albums a day so yes I heard your favorite album and was not impressed. No I do not care what you think about it .I do hope you can find your next favorite on this list and have included links to reviews of these albums if you want to check out audio on these guys. Anyways here are the top 10 folk and country albums of 2020

10-Myrkur- "Folksange" 

 This is almost more of an honorable mention. Gone were all trapping of her black metal past. I mean she was half way there on her previous album, this one just finds her all in with a  more Northern European style of folk. She is better at it than most.

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/03/myrkur-folksange.html 

 

9- Ataraxia- "Quasar" 

 Nothing short of spell binding. It's a blend of folk with a fey like atmosphere not unlike the Cocteau Twins. Their lead singer's voice is almost operatic. This album I could leave on and let play.

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/08/ataraxia-quasar.html

 

8-King Dude- "Full Virgo Moon" 

He goes in a more introspective , almost Death In June like realm of atmospheric folk that is more introspective than this flirtations with a darker post punk sound. It shows another side of his voice that I like. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/03/king-dude-full-virgo-moon.html

7-Brendan Perry - "Songs of Disenchantment" 

This is not Dead Can Dance, but I will always take a solo album from him. He went wit ha selection of underground Greek folk songs . This turned out to be much more gangsta than anticipated. All the songs are about smoking drugs , women and running from the cops. At 61 he is still going hard. 

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/12/brendan-perry-songs-of-disenchantment.html

 

6-Sturgill Simpson- "Cutting Grass"

 Simpson worked some of his songs into bluegrass versions , that makes them feel almost like new songs all together. This shows he is the real deal country , so if "Sound & Fury" was your jam then , this might not be for you as the pickin and grinnin is legit here.

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/12/sturgill-simpson-cutting-grass.html 

 


5-Mark Lanegan- "Songs of Sorrow"

Another solo effort from the former Screaming Trees front man. Not rock enough to be grunge, but more rock than most other folk albums put out this year as he still has a rock n roll soul. An unmistakable voice , fans of any of his other endeavors should make sure not to miss out on this one.

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/04/mark-lanegan-straight-songs-of-sorrow.html

 

4- AA Williams- " Forever Blue"

More melancholy than other singers she fell behind. More atmospheric than her peers , she is not content with just putting out a folk album and follows in the foots steps of artists like Chelsea Wolfe by even weaving in elements of metal. 

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/07/aa-williams-forever-blue.html

3-Chris Stapleton- 'Starting Over" 

Not the best album of his career . He begins to settle into a more tried and true formula and shows' off his pipes less. With that said even when he dials it in Chris is able to put out an album that most still can not come close to and continues to dominate country music. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/11/chris-stapleton-starting-over.html

2-Phobe Bridgers- "Punisher"   

She goes beyond the sonic spectrum of conventional folk, but has dressed it up in gorgeous melancholy. Her voice is fragile , but drips with honest beauty. It was a real close call between this and the number one album.

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/07/phoebe-bridgers-punisher.html

1-Waxahatchee- "Saint Cloud" 

This album is in the running for album of the year. She has a unique that she throws around with a great deal of feeling. Her song writing is far beyond the bounds of being just amazing in terms of how she weaves melodies together. Infectious but something to say. Story telling that is left open for you to relate to . She can do not wrong here.  

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https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2020/05/waxahatchee-saint-cloud.html

Brendan Perry : " Songs of Disenchantment"

Brendan Perry , one half of Dead Can Dance from out of nowhere dropped a new album. It's an album of underground Greek folk songs. He is  Dead Can Dance, he does what he wants with no fucks to give. It is not that different from his normal solo work. Perhaps not as dark. The most impressive things is how he layered his vocals. He pulls off almost a tenor vocal harmony. For a dude his age to have those pipes , um wow. He is indulging his obsession with all things Greek, and there are according to him to recorded versions of these songs being sung in English. The melody is a little weird to the second , song but I imagine that is how it was originally sung or the translation over into English doesn't fit as smoothly. Of course the album sounds great, this guy is a legend he is not going to put out anything of inferior quality. 

"In the Basement" is where he starts his exploration of Greek Trap folk. Where he sings about bow legged mother fuckers getting hot boxed. I am only half joking. The trap thugging continues with "Hash Den Owner" . He is smoking the hookah, and I think he was really stoned when he made this album. 'O Memetis" might be about a girl that never likes the memes he posts. This is becoming a concept album about him smoking hash. This continues but with a better groove to it on "In City's Hammam". If I am bobbing my head to Greek folk you are doing something right. "In Your Neighborhood" is about him getting drunk. He is drunk dialing some girl who blew his mind. " You Were Barefoot" sound like they were getting increasingly drunk as the album progressed.

'the Pickpockets' is about the hard time they are having with the cops. They are asking the police to not beat them for stealing. These song work best when he leans into the moodier side of their exotic nature. This is much more gangsta than Dead Can Dance and I did not realize he smoked like that. It is also not as dynamic, though you can hear how it is still within the sonic scope of what Dead Can Dance does. I will give it a 9. 

Gothtober - Dead Can Dance : "Dionysus"

Written in two acts the album clocks in at 36 minutes. The first act consists of "Sea Borne" , "Liberator of Minds" and "Dance of the Bacchantes". The opening song is a dark droning piece that is almost seven minutes. It would be great for ritual, but not a song in the sense of it's something you casually listen to on your iPod in shuffle mode. It works more of the hypnotic atmosphere. It is not unusual for their songs to have this more sound track like quality. It is a wild juxtaposition to their previous album which was more accessible in it's song structure. "Liberator of Minds" does have a more serpentine groove that you could dance to if you were into touch with your more sensual primal side. In other words when it begins to move I immediately thought, my girl friend could dance to this.

At this point in the album it could be a Lisa Gerrard solo album. This is something I would have preferred when I first got into these guys , but after seeing them live I gained an appreciation for Brendan Perry. There is more motion to "the Dance of Bacchantes". Gerrard is not swinging for the fences and belting it out in a grandiose operatic manner, but using a great deal of restraint. Some of the more animalistic chants remind me of Diamanda Galas. Hearing the more Scottish influence on the opening notes to "the Mountain" I knew Brendan Perry was coming . So I was glad to hear his voice crop  up.  It is not what you normally expect from him as he is not singing in English and is using his voice more like an instrument than the kind of folk story telling he normally brings to the table. This song also has Gerrard accenting him in a call and response . I always like when both of them are on the same track. And so begins the second act.

Lisa returns to center stage again on "the Invocation". There is more of a middle eastern flavor to the modes of this song. It also finds a sensual groove. "the Forest" finds Perry singing in his higher register. I always think of him as a baritone , but here he gets up there in an almost androgynous fashion without going into falsetto. They give another call and response on the darker and moodier trance like pulse of " Psychopomp". This album is almost ebbing and flowing like a DMT trip as here is more of a simmering after math from being shot up into more sublime grooves. They were successful at what they intended to do , while I miss the more folk elements of what Brendan does, I respect this album and you can't argue against it as there is no one who does what they do so masterfully so even though I went into this wanting something more song oriented that crafted something truly otherworldly here.

Wilcifer's Top 10 Folk Artists

Since the Weekly Playlist is weekly , I can only publish one a week, yeah, I know its my fucking blog so I could do anything I want, but then it would just be chaos. I am not opposed to chaos, but it would then turn into the bi-weekly playlist. The reason for the Weekly Playlist, was it was the audio equivalent to leaving notes in your crush’s locker in high school. The lyrics to some of these songs could still say..” Do you like me ? Check yes or no”, but not all of them , in fact some are on the angry side. So I made this a top ten list, cause you kids like them. I am not saying they are the greatest of all time, as it lacks the Bob Dylans and Phil Ochs. In fact I let Last FM sort them out and rank them by who I have listened to the most. The Top 10 folk artists, Wilcifer Has Listened to the Most According to Lastfm.com, so really an unwieldy title so , it is what it is. I did not list the song titles by the artists as that would imply they are the best songs by that artist. I just picked these songs because I like them. Some the lyrically content is particularly potent, which I think is a key component of folk, since it’s sripped down more honest story. The John Vanderslice song could have been a letter I wrote to my mom at the peak of my heroin addiction. The Chelsea Wolfe song pretty much sums up my marriage. So I could have titled this locker note…”Here Is What My Life Was Like Before I Met You”. But that title is also very long. It could be argued that these are not all soley folk artists, but by that reasoning neither was Bob Dylan as he took his music to other place. Here there are going to be elements of rock and blues mixed in , but I think that is part and parcel, granted there are many folk artist who came out in the 90s and were marketed as being singer -song writers since folk was not the easiest crossover market at the time. So we could nit-pick this list all day and I don’t have time for that, in fact dear reader while I hope you enjoy this , you are really just a voyeur to me leaving another audio note in the locker. 10- Rome

   



9-John Vanderslice

 

8-Cat Power


 



7-Damien Rice



 


 6-Ani Difranco

 


 5-Dax Riggs

   


4-Brendan Perry


 



3-Death In June



 


 2- the Decemberists



 


1- Chelsea Wolfe