My Favorite Records of 2022
Hi. I made another list.
First thing’s first. I apologize for the lack of music recommendations and runs on my Instagram this year. Thrice had a pretty busy touring schedule, and with the kids back in school the local virus carousel was BRUTAL. Seemed like we got to sample a new strain of the crud literally every other week. It’d rip its way through the house, we’d send the kids back to school, they’d bring a new batch of snot home a few days later, and it’d start up all over again. Rinse and repeat. It was hard to get out there and run with all that going on. Also: Blame where blame is due ... I got a little lazy when I wasn’t picking up goopy Kleenex or horking up some crud of my own. I”ll be back next year. (Hopefully.)
An-y-waaaaay ...
I did manage to listen to a lot of new music despite "the circumstances”, and I have compiled all of my favorites for you here. There's a pretty clear cut Top 5 this year based on play counts, but the rest of the list didn’t really make sense to rank because this shit’s really all subjective anyway. I broke the list into categories that made sense to me, at the time, for organization’s sake. Each record has link to the band/label’s Bandcamp or website, so please please PLEASE support the artists you love beyond just streaming their music.
Playlists with a song from each record are below. I know it’s a lot of music. I know it’s all over the place. I know you don’t have time to listen to five-and-a-half hours of music. At the very least, I’d suggest at needle-dropping through the entire thing and earmarking some stuff to check out. That’s how I find a good chunk of this stuff.
And please let me know what you dug this year and think I should check out!
Hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season. See you next year!
PLAYLISTS
My Favorites of 2022 Playlist (Spotify)
My Favorites of 2022 Playlist (Apple Music)
My Favorites of 2022 Playlist (Tidal)
THE TOP 5
Elder - Innate Passage
No contest here. This is a clear cut #1 for me. Fifty-four minutes of absolutely glorious, wholly transcendental, life-affirming, dreamy/heavy metal-adjacent prog. As a musician, I can tell you firsthand how hard it is to write a long song that doesn’t *feel* long. These fellas routinely crank out high-quality 10-minute-plus jams that you’ll hope never end. Queue this up and take it for a run, a long walk, or a long drive and you’ll see what I mean. It’s magical. And yes, it came out late in the year, but I haven’t been able to stop listening to it or thinking about it since, and I don’t see that changing for a long while.
Meshuggah - Immutable
It’s damn near impossible to find the right words for this band, let alone this record, but this is absolute wizardry, yet again, from the best metal band that has ever existed. Pure face-melting heaviness. They routinely reset the bar for what heavy music can and should be, and Immutable is no exception. It might even be my favorite Meshuggah record ever.
Museum of Light - Horizon
Ultra-heavy, sludgy, dynamic, meditative, push vs. pull, melody vs. dissonance post-rock in the vein of Kowloon Walled City, Shiner, Traindodge, and Torche. The songwriting is so clean and efficient, and the record as a whole is just a gorgeous, perfectly crafted arc. It’s perfect.
Holy Fawn - Dimensional Bleed
The heaviest, prettiest, most infectious batch of post-rock/metal I’ve heard in a long while. Dynamic shifts that are pure catharsis. A band that has the ability to give you euphoric chills one minute, and bring you to tears the next, headbanging all the while. Their first LP blew me away, and I wasn’t sure they could top it, but they totally have.
The Beths - Expert In A Dying Field
This record was an instant pick-me-up this year. A much-needed salve amidst all the stress and anxiety and depression the world can throw your way these days. Twelve preposterously hooky jams, that will put a smile on your face and a bounce in your step (even when the lyrical content dips into darker themes). It totally rules.
15 OTHER RECORDS THAT STAYED IN HEAVY ROTATION (in no order)
PLOSIVS - S/T
Drug Church - HYGIENE
Tvivler - Kilogram
Birds In Row - Gris Klein
gospel - The Loser
Cult of Luna - The Long Road North
Russian Circles - Gnosis
Conjurer - Pathos
Anxious - Green House
SPICE - Viv
PUP - The Unraveling of PUP The Band
The Smile - A Light For Attracting Attention
Pianos Become The Teeth - Drift
Cloakroom - Dissolution Wave
Stray From The Path - Euthanasia
OTHER RECORDS I ENJOYED (also in no order)
Architects - the classic symptoms of a broken spirit Pedro the Lion - Havasu And So I Watch You From Afar - Jettison Mass Worship - Portal Tombs Rival Consoles - Now Is Fleshwater - We’re Not Here To Be Loved Abraham - Debris de Mondes Perdus Norna - Star is way way is Eye Dan Mayo - Greenhouse Silvan Strauss - FACING Vein - This World is Going to Ruin You Author & Punisher - Krüller Black Thought/Dangermouse - Cheat Codes Cave In - Heavy Pendulum Square Peg Round Hole - Reservoir Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers Pete Rock - Petestrumentals 4 Pet Fox - A Face In Your Life Swami John Reis - Ride the Wild Night Heriot - Profound Morality Bastions - Majestic Desolation Wake - Thought Form Descent Inclination - Unaltered Perspective Momma - Household Name Hot Water Music - Feel The Void KEN Mode - NULL Animals As Leaders - Parrhesia Mark Giuliana - the sound of listening Meat Wave - Malign Hex Haunted Shores - Void Blessed - Circuitous Celeste - Assassine(s) Louis Cole - Quality Over Opinion Grivo - Omit Wonder Years - The Hum Goes on Forever A Hope For Home - Years Of Silicon Mountaineer - Giving Up The Ghost Norma Jean - Deathrattle Sing for Me Lamb Of God - Omens Psychonaut - Violate Consensus Reality Callous Daoboys - Celebrity Therapist Easy Prey - Unrest 84 Tigers - Time in the Lighthouse Codespeaker - S/T Colonial Wound - Easy Laugh Thousandaire - Ideal Conditions
THE NEW BOTCH SONG I LISTENED TO LIKE 247 TIMES IN 3 DAYS
Botch - One Twenty Two
10 FAVORITE EPs
Downward - The Brass Tax Cult Leader/End - Gather & Mourn Irist - Gloria Gleemer - Here at All GoGo Penguin - Between Two Waves Lockstep - Lockstep 2 Portico Quartet - Next Stop Be Well - Hello Sun Chamber - Carved In Stone Waldo’s Gift - Improvisations Vol. 2
1 RECORD FROM 2019 THAT DIDN’T “CLICK” UNTIL 2022
Car Bomb - Mordial
2 RECORDS THAT DIDN’T COME OUT IN 2022 BUT GOT A LOTTA SPINS
Low - Double Negative Pile - Green and Gray
3 PODCASTS THAT I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT
Office Hours - humor, music, pure joy The Distraction - sports and social commentary/humor Effectively Wild - baseball analysis/humor