The Top 30 Albums Of 2020 (So Far): Thao & The Get Down Stay Down - 'Temple'

"It closes with a declaration that she won’t live in hiding again." - Sam Wall

It’s fitting that this is the first Thao & The Get Down Stay Down album that band produced themselves. Singer Thao Nguyen has said that the title is a nod to her Buddhist upbringing, but also representative of a place where she could gather the separate aspects of herself and combine them in one place, one person. She should be holding the reins.

In a lot of ways, this is an album about fear, shame and choosing something else. They bite back at universal enemies like "white-collar cannibals", but Nguyen also confronts much closer demons. The singer came out publicly after the band’s last album, despite deep fears that it could have seen her ostracised from family, and she addresses that inner struggle here with full openness.

Temple opens with her mother’s story - a Vietnamese war refugee - told from her mother’s perspective ("But we found freedom what will you do now/Bury the burden baby make us proud"). It closes with a declaration that she won’t live in hiding again ("I know I've lived as a quiet apology/I’m sorry to you/And I'm sorry to me").

In an interview with DIVA Nguyen said many of the songs here are about "who decides who is worth the dignity of a dignified life". The answer clearly isn't 'nobody' right now, but it should be.