Thrill blender
![thrill blender thrill blender](https://mccoyindia.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/thrill3.jpg)
The album pulls from an array of '90s indie rock, emo, and post-hardcore influences (Fugazi, Samiam, Archers of Loaf, etc), and Fiddlehead always fall somewhere in the middle of all that, never fitting neatly into any of the three categories. Since forming as a side project in 2014, Fiddlehead have become vocalist Pat Flynn's most widely beloved band since Have Heart - and his first to cross over outside of the hardcore scene - and it's almost all thanks to their 2021 sophomore album Between The Richness. It transcends genre in a way that's so welcoming and uniting that it can draw you in even if you're not an avid jazz or Afrobeat listener, and though the songs are informed by unrest, these electrifying rhythms and melodies never fail to lift your spirit.Ĥ4 Fiddlehead - Between The Richness Run For Cover The multiple vocalists and samples speak to what was happening all around us that summer (and still now), and it comes together in a way that stresses the power of community and strength in numbers, as Damon and his collaborators simultaneously provide a musical backdrop that carefully blurs the lines between jazz, soul, Afrobeat, hip hop, and more. Plus, we've included a few honorable mentions from our individual staff members below.Ĥ5 Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble - NOW International AnthemĪ lot of protest music criticizes an unjust past, some of it hopes for a better future Damon Locks wants to know "what happens NOW?" He and his Black Monument Ensemble (which includes Angel Bat Dawid, Ben LaMar Gay, Dana Hall, Arif Smith, and a six-piece choir) wrote this album during the tense summer of 2020, and it reverberates with the same urgency as the protesters who filled the streets at that time. Narrowing the list down to 50 meant leaving off a lot of our faves, but you can find even more albums we loved from this year in our lists of punk/hardcore/emo/etc albums and EPs, screamo, ska, metalcore, jazz, and rap, as well as our Indie Basement list (coming soon) and Indie Basement's best reissues, box sets, and compilations, and our list of classic rock reissues. It's hard to narrow down all the albums we loved this year, but we whittled a list down to 50, which spans over a dozen different genres of music, from breakthrough debut albums to career-high peaks from veteran artists and plenty of the in-between. (Hopefully that passes soon!) Throughout it all, though, we were still treated to tons of great new music.
![thrill blender thrill blender](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CS0jm16WwAEKhAy.jpg)
It's been a whirlwind year, one that started as a continuation of 2020's lockdown, and then saw the triumphant return of live music, and now is ending like it began, with a mass cancellation of live shows.