My 25 Favorite Metal Songs of 2020

There are always a lot of songs worth appreciating at the end of the year, way more than 25, and I have done like 90-song lists before, which is nuts. But I’m trying to not go utterly insane this year; it’s been insane enough on its own. I’m keeping this one kind of on the short side so that I can put more energy not the top albums I want to highlight. As with each list, the weird, picky compulsive side of me has a weird selection process that basically tries to exclude stand-alone singles that could be featured more fully as part of an album in the future, like Gojira’s “Another World”. It’s not perfect, but it feels weird to include songs like that here when they could make a future list as part of an album too. So here they are, my 25 favorite metal songs of the year:

25.An Autumn for Crippled Children - “Silver”

One of the most ethereal and human moments on an ambient black metal album this year, “Silver” in all its fuzzily produced glory captures the genre at its most vulnerable in a rather succinct package and I can only love and respect it.

24.Sylosis - “Arms Like a Noose”

Another standout among many, “Arms Like a Noose” finds the UK act bringing a metalcore influence to modern melodic thrash, and a retro-flavored breakdown that, in better times, would undoubtedly make the pit explode into a frenzy and the rest of the crowd headbang in full unified swing.

23.Carach Angren - “Frankensteina Strataemontanous”

Meshing a marching palm-muted chugging rhythm with unhinged, anxiety-inducing piano chords, the title track to the ever-theatrical Dutchmen’s sixth album is an much of a bop as a menacing symphonic black metal track can be.

22.The Acacia Strain - “Crippling Poison”

With a sick, stomp-dancing riff at its core, this song is a furious deathcore chugger that captures the hardcore ethos that makes The Acacia Strain such a powerful force in deathcore when they’re at their best the way they were on this past album.

21.Trivium - “The Defiant”

This one seemed to be the under-the-radar hit for the band this year, in a few of the same ways “Caustic Are the Ties That Bind” was on In Waves. Indeed the two sound kind of like sister songs in their emotive guitar-powered melodies (the harmonious solo here seemingly taking a bit of a cue from Khemmis) and anthemic catharsis. It ends on a pretty bright and hopeful note, that I was a little cold on at first, but have really come to appreciate now. It’s a bold, beautiful track that captures Trivium at their best.

20.Suicide Silence - “Two Steps”

After the embarrassment of their self-titled album in 2017, Suicide Silence came back hard with the lead single to this year’s redemptive Become the Hunter, which reinvested in the band’s knack for combining tasty grooves and scary breakdowns that made them such a force to be feared in the deathcore world.

19.Undeath - “Entranced by the Pendulum”

It was hard to pick a favorite from the uniformly filthy and delicious Lesions of a Different Kind, but I really liked the vocal hooks, the drum accents, and variety of riffs (especially the low-string-bending at the bridge) of “Entranced by the Pendulum”, which made a consistent standout as I came back to the album over and over again after it came out.

18.Alestorm - “Tortuga”

The way the true Scottish pirate metal outfit expanded their sound to involve trap, electronic music elements, and a rap feature on this absolute party of a song give me hope that there is plenty of treasure left in Alestorm’s chest and that the band will defy all the expectations of those who thought they would run out of ways to make music about the pirate’s life.

17.Lamb of God - “Resurrection Man”

Lamb of God’s self-titled effort this year was a pretty low-risk affair, but “Resurrection Man” was stark exception in the middle of the track list, its more scowling first half exploring a variety of unusual guitar styles for the band to build the tension that breaks into a more quick-paced headbang-fest and an absolutely slamming breakdown that makes it hands down the highlight of the album.

16.Carnation - “Iron Discipline”

The Belgians kicked off their practically illegally heavy sophomore release with an energetic, infectious, growl-along banger that certainly captures their emphatic no-bullshit approach to death metal at its most diplomatic, offering a chance to join in the vicious death metal attack before it blasts every in front of it to death.

15.Humavoid - “Aluminum Rain”

Stirring together off-kilter rhythms, jazzy piano chords, a tasty central Meshuggah-esque eight-string groove into a wicked, and a groovy synth-driven bridge into a dizzying prog banger maybe even too mad scientist for Devin Townsend, “Aluminum Rain” stands out as a bolstering highlight in the Finnish outfit’s breakout LP among several tracks of ambitious modern progressive metal.

14.Nearea - “Carriers”

Another solid cut on an album of gems, I found myself coming back to “Carriers” the most out of any track on Nearea’s self-titled album this year for how it kind of just has it all in terms of what made the band’s comeback album this year so exciting. Combining melodic death metal at its most furious with metalcore at its punchiest, it is a sharp, deadly ripper of a track.

13.Avatar - “A Secret Door”

The highlight anthem from the band’s most recent theatrical musical release, Avatar go big and high-soaring on “A Secret Door”, with a pretty palpable power metal influence that absolutely blows the house down.

12.Khemmis - “Down in a Hole”

The thriving Denver doom optimists released a little compilation EP this year whose lead single was a glorious and synthless cover of Dio’s iconic inspirational synth metal anthem, “Rainbow in the Dark”. But the band put out three cover versions this year, and that was not the cover that blew me away the most. Khemmis took part in a multi-artist tribute to Alice in Chains’ grunge cornerstone, Dirt, and they got to cover the albums depressive acoustic ballad, “Down in a Hole”. While Code Orange were getting props for going acoustic for their live cover of the song earlier this year and doing a pretty good job, Khemmis kept the amps on and the results were stunning. The band make the song come to them and the grungy depression that Alice in Chain poured into the writing of the song pairs so unbelievably with Khemmis’ solemn, but hopeful doom metal; it’s an utterly goosebumps-inducing cover, and I can’t urge everyone enough to check it out.

11.Oranssi Pazuzu - “Oikeamielisten sali”

After its lengthy, but warped string intro’s serving as a breather from all the psychedelic mayhem preceding it, “Oikeamielisten sali” plunges Oranssi Pazuzu’s psychedelic black metal magnum opus into a spinning, spiraling world of flashing lights and disorienting sounds that feel like an unreal, but vivid nightmare’s plunge into a tunnel to hell.

10.End - “Pariah”

The pit-karate-inducing highlight of what I think has to be the metallic hardcore album of the year, End show just why their no-bells-and-whistles approach to the sound is so potent on the fiery and crushing “Pariah”, whose concluding breakdown brings the already chaotic and technically impressive track to a deservedly violent climax.

9.Ulcerate - “Inversion”

Similarly to how the self-titled Nearea album was hard to choose from, picking a favorite off Stare into Death and Be Still was a wonderfully difficult task because the band hit the mark with each song in kind of the same way. The guitar playing across the album is incredibly creative and emotional for such thick, titanium-clad death metal, and the band indeed surrenders not a shred of what makes the genre so great to listen to in its more simplistic forms, which I think the particularly heart-wrenching guitar work on “Inversion” demonstrates the most. It’s a good taster for anyone who might be skeptical that death metal can manage to resonate with your innermost melancholic ponderings on death while still firing on all cylinders.

8.August Burns Red - “Three Fountains”

The grand, gorgeous, and heartfelt metalcore closer to the band’s ninth full-length builds up through already-emotional guitar melodies to a glorious sing-along climax that rounds the album off on such an inspiring note.

7.Emmure - “(F)inally (U)nderstanding (N)othing”

Frankie Palmeri and company went hard this year, and I think the opening track from Hindsight best captures the band’s singular directive of making concussion-inducing, furious bangers from front to back and making everything as aggressive and punchy as possible. There’s no one to push around here at home, but that central riff, that verse beat, and that groovy bridge rhythm all make me go fucking stupid wherever I am. Absolute unit of a song.

6.Oranssi Pazuzu - “Ilmestys”

The slow-building and spooky intro track to Oranssi Pazuzu’s masterpiece, “Ilmestys” captures the band’s impeccable form and creative evolution in its subtle, understated opening passage that ultimately opens up like a blooming kaleidoscopic flower into the colorful climax that sees the track out. It’s a stunning, hypnotizing track that manages to encapsulate everything that the Finnish visionaries have been working toward with their psychedelic black metal sound in one seven-minute bite. Crazy to think that that’s just the first song on the album too.

5.Red - “The War We Made”

2000’s alternative metal often gets a bit of a bad rep and is treated like it’s not welcome here anymore in the metal world, at least among the critic class. Well I’m not in that class so I get to enjoy the open-hearted catharsis of alternative metal anthems like “The War We Made”. And it really is one of the band’s best songs and a great example of the genre in general. I dare anyone to honestly stand in front of those strings, those power chords, and that soaring vocal delivery and not feel something resonating in the core of what makes them human. It’s a beautiful song in such simple ways that don’t really beckon much contemporary critical dissection, but that simple openness has been the style’s biggest strength, which Red show wholeheartedly on this song.

4.Code Orange - “Underneath”

The album it came from may have found the Pittsburgh metalcore visionaries in a bit of a phase of growing pains as they try to enhance the industrial aspect of their metallic hardcore sound, but the closing title track of Underneath showed none of it, finishing the album off on a confident, swaggering, and effectively heavy note that packs the hardcore punch they’ve built their reputation on into an infectious alt metal structure without losing any potency. They may not have nabbed album of the year again or even the metalcore album of the year this year, but Code Orange definitely come away with the year’s best standalone metalcore song.

3.Imperial Triumphant - “Atomic Age”

Capturing perhaps the best on the album the deliriously foreboding forest of towers of the big apple, “Atomic Age” spirals down and around through experimentally jazz-infused and nightmarish angular guitar leads in the back of terrifying screams and growls that only add to the psychosis. It feels like being dropped from the top of the Empire State Building over and over and over again and scrambling for safety as the windows of the countless stories rush by.

2.Oranssi Pazuzu - “Uusi teknokratia”

Not that any song on Mestarin Kynsi is particularly lacking for its length or anything, they’re all incredible acid trips of dizzying black metal, but the album’s longest and most dynamic song has to be the most freakish, deceptively welcoming, and other-worldly of the bunch. This song really does take you to another world and entangle your senses there.

1.Deadspace - “A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars” (parts 1 and 2)

Deadspace hit an incredible new high with their sole full-length this year, and the title track in its two phases perhaps best captures the shivering, transfixing power of their more unshackled depressive sound. Everything about it, the drawn-out screams and bellows; the somber clean guitar passages; the depressive distorted chords; the heavenly choir, all sounds like the chilling but undeniably compelling farewell of a long-suffering soul finally seeing the glimpse of peace and release in its welcoming of an afterlife. It’s a song that confronts the heavy concept that DSBM deals with in the kind of candid and forthright manner that makes it so compelling when done well. The song’s abstract lyrics deal with the general sorrow that has surrounded the band’s music and the way the band as a whole has made use of their scars for their art. Deadspace announced their disbandment with the release of this album back in March, and the lyrics portray this act as one of bowing out through suicide (as a band, by disbanding, not literal suicide) to represent the finality of what they have sung about so much throughout their career. While not pairing with a literal death, this album, and this song serve as part of the departing act the way Blackstar served as David Bowie’s farewell and the way Purple Mountains served as David Berman’s suicide note. A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars and its title track is Deadspace’s suicide note as an art project, and one that comes fittingly after a gradual refinement of their sound that mirrored the depressed mind’s spiral from melancholic sorrow to malignant despair, ending their career on a chillingly glorious high note. Being that I’m giving an incredibly dark, DSBM song my top spot, I’d just like to clarify that I’m not suicidal in any way right now, nor advocating it. My top song in 2018 was Andrew W.K.’s “Music Is Worth Living For”, and all the music this year, despite its crushing atmosphere on all of us, and as dark as much of that music is, still is. It’s just, 2020, you know.

CASIOPEA

Minoru Mukaiya (keyboard); Issei Noro (guitar); Akira Jimbo (drums); Tetsuo Sakurai (bass)

Fell inlove with this 70s-80s jazz fusion band. One of the greatest musicians to ever live, each member a master of their own instrument. I have never felt greater joy in music until discovering theirs! owo

ok i absolutely have to express this, i have no friend to infodump this on, im gonna go insane. excuse my limited musical terminology, also sorry in advance for the word redundancy (‘good’, ‘amazing’ and ‘love’ LMAO)

Galactic Funk by Casiopea, specifically the 1985 live, is one of the BEST songs and performance I have ever heard. Hyperfixating on this song for days, re-listening about thrice a day - it’s THAT good. I want to know the science behind why it makes me so happy everytime, my mood just improves everytime I listen to it like I can’t help but smile and dance along.

The sound quality of the drums sounds so good, very tasty reverb. I don’t know if it’s because of its tuning, or if it’s the mics, or something else, but the quality is SO GOOD (Also props to whoever their audio engineers were! Audio balance is superb, I can hear all instruments distinctly). And then there’s Akira Jimbo’s amazing skills. I especially LOVE the way the drums accompany the synth solo, getting along the groove really accentuated the synth.

I cannot comprehend how that guitar solo was written, and hgns hgj just how, how do you even start writing a sick fricking solo. When Issei Noro put the pick away and stepped forward on the stage, I was like oh snap he’s about go DOWN. And that slap technique on the guitar? had me on the edge, I’m wondering how the strings didn’t break.

AND THE BASS, I love the tone quality. The bass riffs of this song is stellar, I cannot believe Tetsuo Sakurai is self-taught, like?? king???? I love how the bass counterpoints too. My favorite part about the bass are the sections just before the guitar and synth solos, the part where the bass does octaves (I love the synth on that part too, that may be my most favorite parts of the song).

(derailing for a bit: Sakurai’s entrance solo in Misty Lady (1986) and end solo in Looking Up (1985) live performances are so hot; the latter song has one of the best bass drops and funk I have ever heard, and the one in Misty Lady good god the combination of a sexy bass solo and blues rock-ish beat on the drums w/ such good reverb - hot)

And of course the spotlight stealer of that performance: the synth. The synth riffs are so addicting. Minoru Mukaiya is literally one of the best keyboardists in this planet, actually. I have never looked at synths as a main character type of way until I heard Minoru play. Even as the accompanying rhythm for other instruments, it never faded in the background but to be fair, I have never seen any of the band members fade in the background - they all have a shining moment and I really appreciate that. And the whole 2 minutes of the synth solo, starrt to end, is PHENOMENAL. aaksjdj I can’t explain, I wish I could explain in a musical way but since im a normie, here’s timestamps:

• [2:33] I LOVE THIS PART i am feeling shapes, i have no other way of explaining this.
• [3:40-3:50] very smooth scaling to chord build-up, god I love the progression of those little chord build-ups.
• [3:52] I love this part too!! so beautiful.
• And [4:05-4:19] esp when the drums joined with the double notes or whatever you call it, it does WONDERS for the chemicals in my brain. Akira Jimbo’s beautiful drumming helped create a full sound with the synth solo.

The chords of this song are very addicting, I want to eat it i want to eat this whole song i love it so much. And the energy of the band extends to their playing, really adds fun and the joy and it really brings life to the song. Begging to see an analysis for this, the whole song or just the synth solo i dont care i want to know why it’s so good from a professional musician’s point of view.

But anyways, so glad I got that out of my system. If you like jazz fusion, funk, city-pop, retro video game music or any of the like, Casiopea is a gem. And like I said earlier, no one in Casiopea fades in the background. Each of them are masters of their own instruments, they give way for each other’s solos and interact with each other musically. They give life to music and I really REALLY love that.