The Killers, Bruce Springsteen and Laura Marling lead 2020’s best albums

THE KILLERS — IMPLODING THE MIRAGE

Almost 20 years since their formation in Las Vegas, the rock superstars returned in 2020 for an uplifting sixth studio outing. It was a long time coming, with the album’s initial release on May 29 pushed back by the pandemic.

For fans, the wait may have been anxious given this was The Killers’ first collection without lead guitarist Dave Keuning, who took a break in 2017. They needn’t be concerned though, from the synthesiser to the distinguished Brandon Flowers vocals, this was still unmistakably The Killers.

Your dose of rousing rock is still here, accompanied by a pleasingly retro feel. From the opener, My Own Soul’s Warning, to the album’s title track, there is a sense of moving forward at pace, which for 2020 was surely the perfect direction. 9/10 (Review by Edward Dracott)

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN — LETTER TO YOU

Since releasing his autobiography in 2016, Bruce Springsteen has been on a creative hot streak to rival any period in his 40-plus years at the top. There has been a one-man Broadway show, a first cinematic directing credit and even a lockdown-inspired turn as a radio DJ.

Until now he had been holding back two pocket aces, career-long companions the E Street Band and his trademark brand of impassioned rock’n’roll. Letter To You welcomed both back in emphatic fashion, with the Boss’ old compadres back on deck to deliver a series of stadium-sized performances captured live in the studio in just five days.

Ghosts turns Springsteen’s lyrical nostalgia into a white-hot riot, while Rainmaker taps into the political and anthemic stylings of his post 9/11 classic The Rising. Most surprising, and most rewarding, are three “lost” epics from his early 70s playbook, dusted off, polished up and finally rescued from the bootleg pile.

The best of them, the poetic If I Was The Priest, might have been the song that made him a star had he set it free first time around. 10/10 (Review by Rory Dollard)

LAURA MARLING — SONG FOR OUR DAUGHTER

Three years after the Grammy Award-nominated Semper Femina, the cream of British folk returned with another album to delight the scene. Fans of Laura Marling will know how difficult it is to listen to her dulcet crooning without being delighted.

But for those not versed in the 30-year-old’s work, this new record is as good a place to start as any. From the feet-stomping rhythm of Strange Girl to the thoughtful reflection of Fortune and the album’s title track, considered and bright acoustic guitar accompanied by stirring drums and rich strings respectively, this is another perfect example of why Marling is so highly regarded.

More pensive than upbeat, the album is a lyrical masterpiece which rewards the attentive listener in new ways each time you play it. In fact, Marling articulated herself so well that in an announcement on her website, which explained that the album is being released early amid the coronavirus crisis, she wrote: “An album, stripped of everything that modernity and ownership does to it, is essentially a piece of me, and I’d like for you to have it.” I recommend you take up her offer. 10/10 (Review by Edward Dracott)

GHOSTPOET — I GROW TIRED BUT DARE NOT FALL ASLEEP

I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep was missing from most lists of best albums of 2020, but it sums up the year perfectly. Spotify says the most popular genre of 2020 was pop music, reflecting a rise in happier, uptempo music during the pandemic — which is not exactly what Ghostpoet does.

But since no-one’s ever going to want to party like it’s 2020, why choose escapism over the ominous, unsettling reality? Ghostpoet, aka Obaro Ejimiwe, doesn’t fit easy musical

categories, using post-rock

textures as well as beats to

articulate themes of alienation

and paranoia.

The album was recorded before Covid but, released appropriately on May Day, provided the perfect soundtrack to the eerie first lockdown. The first words on opener Breaking Cover are “I am alive” but he’s soon saying “I want to die” and the chorus says “It’s getting kinda complex these days / We’d better get our hard hats ready”.

Ejimiwe — whose parents are from Nigeria and Dominica — warns of the “far right on the jukebox” and references the Windrush Scandal in Rats In A Sack, while its refrain of “out means out” evokes the fracturing

Brexit debate.

Birdsong at the start of When Mouths Collide provides some respite from the sense of menace and disquiet, but the lyrics hint

at personal turmoil to match

the dystopia outside. Never

an easy listen, always an essential one. 9/10 (Review by Matthew George)

RUN THE JEWELS — RTJ4

An expletive lead the memorable website announcement as Run The Jewels brought forward the release of their fourth album in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.

Killer Mike, one half of the duo alongside El-P, spoke emotionally at a Black Lives Matter rally in his native Atlanta and found a tonally different outlet across RTJ4’s spectacular 11 tracks. Mixing extremely NSFW language and cartoon violence with necessary political commentary, the “oof” moments

keep coming.

Opener Yankee And The Brave (ep.4) finds Mike with

“one round left, 100 cops outside” while Walking In The Snow draws on the last words of

both Floyd and another black victim of police brutality, Eric

Garner — “You so numb you watch the cops choke out a

man like me/Until my voice

goes from a shriek to whisper

‘I can’t breathe’”.

Ju$t, and its odd-couple guest stars Zack de la Rocha and Pharrell Williams, offer up my lyric of the year — “Look at all these slave masters posin’ on your dollar (Get it?)” while Pulling The Pin, built around a haunting chorus from gospel icon Mavis Staples as part of an even more unlikely feature duo with Queens Of The Stone Age mainman Josh Homme, hits home as hard as any. 9/10 (Review by Tom White).