My 9 Favorite Albums of 2022
Learning the genre conventions of “end of year” articles and reviews is good exercise. This is the first of a two part writing project that seeks to recommend and dwell on the media that shaped my year. I’ll keep these album “reviews” relatively short and snappy and leave my laborious and overwrought meaning-seeking prose for my Year in Review of Games 2022 article.
While many incredible albums released this year, I was mostly occupied with the 2007 album, Do You Like Rock Music? by Sea Power. I also listened to more Nine Inch Nails this year than I have since I was a teenager. I missed out on some of the so-called best albums of the year, but I’ll spend the next few months catching up and/or continuing to listening to 40-year old Japanese jazz. One of those albums I missed out on I will give an honorable mention because I heard it often in my wife’s car —10. Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul’s Tropical Dancer — a very solid, fun, witty, incisive dance album I’ll need to enjoy in full — and fast.
9. Soil & “Pimp” Sessions — Lost In Tokyo
Lost in Tokyo is yet another loose, playful jazz record by one of the first groups to introduce me to the deep world of J-Jazz. There are many moods on display here, but they are all performed with the impressive synergy of its talented musicians and guests.
Perfect for: a walk in the park and/or contemplative work at home.
Favorite track(s): “Valley of The Light,” “Todoroki.”
8. Boris — Heavy Rocks (2022)
Coincidentally the second Japanese release on my list, the legendary noise/metal/rock monoliths Boris most recent release of albums titled Heavy Rocks (I think there are like, at least 2 others) is as loud, garish, and wild as its album art implies. As always, increasing the volume to 11 will warrant maximum results when listening to this relentless and exciting show of glam-hair rock pastiche, industrial metal, intense energy, and seamless detours into dissonance and noise — and yet, these elements come together as an exciting and cohesive whole.
Perfect for: Playing as loudly as possible.
Favorite Tracks: “”Blah Blah Blah,” “Ghostly Imagination”
7. Rhys Fulber — Collapsing Empires
A relatively late addition to this list, Collapsing Empries is a bleak, cold, atmospheric techno album that I’ve spent hours lost within. As with much of my taste in music, it has been informed by in-game soundtracks and playlists. Fulber is featured in Cyberpunk 2077 and his tracks left an impression on me — enough so to seek out his most recent release. His experience in industrial heavyweight Front Line Assembly informs the moods and sonic palette of this album. For techno, it’s hardly what I’d call very danceable — but its atmosphere implies a place and time somewhere between this moment and imaginary cyberpunk dystopia.
Perfect for: sinking deeply into your own hopelessness/dancing in an underground goth club on the Moon
Favorite tracks: “Concrete Cogitation,” “As Far As Dreams”
6. Viagra Boys — Cave World
Cave World is the most recent release of one of my favorite up-and coming punk bands. Their strange thematic obsession with shrimp, dogs, and the absurdity of toxic masculinity and right-wing conspiracy theories continue here, and with the style and off-beat humor theyve cultivated over the last few albums. I can’t downplay the humor and unhinged vocal performances here — it’s really what drives this album forward — and that is not so common in today’s typical punk rock output.
Perfect for: scaring Fox News parents
Favorite Tracks: “Creepy Crawlers,” “Troglodyte”
5. Sea Power — Everything Was Forever
Like I mentioned above…video games have led me to the music I need to hear. The band provided the score for Disco Elysium, one of my favorite games released in the last few years. Some of those tracks return here along with lyrics but retain the melancholy and atmosphere of the narrative-role playing masterpiece. Here, low-key British rock band, Sea Power — formerly called British Sea Power released an album that reflects the isolation, grief, and desperate need for hope in a world continuing to experience the emotional trauma wreaked by Covid-19 and ceaseless disaster. However, this doesn’t stop Sea Power from writing triumphant anthems and quiet, witty meditations on the failure of world governments and the seemingly hopeless future we face. Yet, this isn’t a downer of an album — it is not usually upbeat or cheerful, but challenges — pleads its listeners to hold on even if for just a bit longer. Perfet for rainy drives and solo walks.
Favorite Tracks: “Two Fingers,” “Fire Escape In The Sea”
4. Amos Roddy — Citizen Sleeper (Original Game Soundtrack)
As you might have noticed, I won’t ever stop talking or writing about video games. They are, put plainly, my favorite medium of art and the hobby that consumes most of my time. A good soundtrack can name a mediocre game a masterpiece, and the same is truer when the game itself impresses while totally mute. Roddy creates such a rich atmosphere here that accentuated the loneliness and alienation of the game’s titutal “Sleeper” protagonist perfectly and explores soundscapes here that recall Boards of Canada, Brian Eno, and Aphex Twin without sounding derivative.
Perfect for: brooding while looking out a window at night and/or writing cyberpunk noir.
Favorite Tracks: “Signal Haze,” “Transluce”
3. Black Midi — Hellfire
Hellfire is a loud, abrasive, theatrical, relentless firestorm from begging to end. Surrealist stream-of consciousness spoken word lyricism and crazed vocal performances narrate a breakneck alien-jazz-post hardcore-experimental labyrinth of vibrant cabaret sound and impossible-sounding instrumentation. It’s hard to describe and was difficult to interpret until I’d listened to its entirety more than a few times.
Perfect for: improvisational cooking and abstract painting.
Favorite Tracks: “Sugar/Tzu,” “The Defense”
2. Animal Collective — Time Skiffs
Animal Collective fans are a unique crowd. You’ve got the too-cool for snobs, casual fans of indie pop, and Deadhead-like wooks whose entire personality is based on psychedelic experiences. They’re all valid camps to be in, and they can all find something to enjoy here. After 2016’s somewhat off-putting hyperactive Painting With and the impressive solo output of group members Deakin and Avey Tare (and Panda Bear, to a lesser extent) Time Skiffs is perhaps Animal Collective’s strongest release since Merriweather Post Pavilion. And for the first time since that release, Time Skiffs made an incredible impression on me with my first listen. Its expansive, textured mixing highlights the lush, complex tones and organic instrumentation that’s felt missing from the band’s sound for years. Much of the album seems to reflect on the band’s own legacy and — similar to other contemplative albums this year, dwells on the fear of impending climate disaster and the alienation that saturates popular culture and political consciousness.
Perfect for: Mind altering substances, meditation, and/or walks in nature.
Favorite Tracks: “Prester John,” “Cherokee,” “Royal and Desire”
- Black Country, New Road — Ants From Up There
Ants From Up There is one of those albums that will retain a mystique for many years to come. It’s one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful, dense, poetically lyrical, experimental, and moving art-rock albums in years and immediately after its release, frontman Isaac Wood, who is responsible for the album’s idiosyncratic and gorgeous lyrics and vocal performances. The band has chosen to continue without Wood, but it’s hard to say where there sound will go from here. This one took me by surprise with how immediately I could recognize the “instant-classic” gravitas so easily displayed in this cohesive, immersive album that elevates banal topics such as crumbs of toast in bed to the sublime.
Perfect for: Light emotional devastation with occasional fist pumping
Favorite Tracks: “Good Will Hunting,” “Concorde,” “Basketball Shoes”
