2022 Albums of the Year: The Honorable Mentions.
In 2017, I wrote a list of my top 100 records that were released that year. It was my first time trying to string together a list of any sort that included some reactions, some blurbs, all sorted out in a blog-style format. Before that, I was posting a photo on Instagram of the covers of 10 records with no words, no feeling behind it. Over the last few years, I’ve refined it a bit, finding a happy medium of 50 records to talk about, though realistically even that might be a bit much. Last year for sure, I wasn’t even capable of finding 50 albums to squeeze into the discussion, capping at 42. This year, I think I’m back to finding the good old 50 that I think people should check out, and even still have about a dozen records as well that I think deserve some attention.
Here are 12 records that I wanted to talk about that didn’t fit into the nice and neat Top 50. Hope you find something here to love, and to see the list through until the end over the next few days. Can’t wait to hear from you about these. What did you hope to see on this list that you didn’t? What have I missed? What was your favorite record this year?
Arcade Fire — WE
A super cool, almost experimental rock record. Lots of layers, lots of tangents the songs end up on. I think this one is tough to listen to on a whim, lending itself way more to an attentive listen. It feels more like this is an anthology made up of acts than it does a series of songs written for digestion at random. I don’t think I’ll listen to this one a ton more, but (this may be lofty) similar to bands like The Who and Pink Floyd, sometimes I want to go back and hear a record like this and get into the work of just how this thing was created.
Check Out: Unconditional II (Race and Religion)
thoughtcrimes — Altered Pasts
In a record like this, a collage of aggressions, it’s difficult to find a groove and allow yourself to get jostled in it. There are quick shifts, abrupt halts, jarring accelerations. Whiplash is a very real experience as the band changes from one palette of melodrama to the next. With this one though, there seems to be an underlying sense of experimentation. There are conclusions that absolutely work, that gel in a way that aggressive music needs. Screams that simmer into softer vocals, drum patterns that mirror the flash patterns of downed power lines. But then, just as in any trial and error process, there are times where it all sounds mashed together. Things congeal, curdle, separate and evaporate. Some marriages of sounds blend like a homonculus of waste, two greasy wax papers layered together to form a new lipid based disaster. The fact that these arise more often than not kind of set this highly anticipated record back a bit for me, but what works in this one works in spades. Lots of things to love in here!
Check Out: Deathbed Confessions
Greyhaven — This Bright and Beautiful World
Sometimes I really love when a record drops and you can’t tell if it came out in 2004 and is just being rereleased or if That Sound is just coming back. Greyhaven’s release from this year definitely slides a little bit into that portal in the time gate as there are so many facets of early aughts screamo and post-horror-chord ballet, though it’s interspersed with singing moments that almost feel more at home on a totally different (almost rival) turf from that era, something more inspired by bands closer to Stone Sour. It’s interesting to see the two styles dovetail and find ways to relate and coexist. The result is curious, as it’s tough to tell which is the light and which is the prism. That being said there are some cool moments if you’re into either of these styles, definitely enough that I’ve come back to it a few times and found different things to take with me woth each listen.
Check Out: Foreign Anchor
Ether Coven — The Relationship Between the Hammer and the Nail
Just a heavy record, man. It swings above like the sword of Damocles, foreboding something terrible. It hangs like nights of bad sleep, wrapping around you like a curtain. Slow and powerful and furious, taking time to circle the cage and tap into a bedded fury long locked away into a compartment meant for desperation. Love the pitch black hum at the core of all of this.
Check Out: Psalm of Cancer
awakebutstillinbed/For Your Health — Hymns for the Scorned
For a quick little two-and-two split between these two bands, this one definitely packs a punch. Both of the awakebutstillinbed tracks absolutely rip, while the For Your Health songs both get me stoked to see what the next steps for the band are going to be. The split comes in at under 15 minutes and it really is just a sample, but front to back it was one of the most potent releases I found this year. It left me wanting more from both of these bands.
Check Out: awakebutstillinbed — Ride
Selah Sue — Persona
A super cool pop record by an international artist that I had never heard before this release. Lots of different styles are observed here, from high energy pop, traditional R&B, ballads and soul. Her voice is so unique and she stretches it long and deep in some tracks while on others she shreds it up and destroys it with a gravelly delivery. With the amount of skill she has, I’m blown away that I’ve not heard of her before this release, but thanks to the collab she did with Mick Jenkins, I was introduced to her greatness. So stoked to be in the know now.
Check Out: Pills
Norma Jean — Deathrattle Sing For Me
When this record hits, it hits. There’s something about Norma Jean, something about the way that they have built this ruined-environment aesthetic and have run with it for two decades. Their creativity in the way that they transfer already heavy musical parts into deeply grimy and sludgy breaks is impressive. There’s something in this record that lacks the keen self-editing that the band is so usually on top of, and I feel like it severely reduced the impact of some of the nuclear blasts which they tried to level on the listener. That being said, I think the band still has it in them to come out swinging for a few more records and this will just be one which needed a bit more fine tuning to be remembered as one of their finest.
Check Out: Aria Obscura
Counterparts — A Eulogy For Those Still Here
When I first heard the first few singles for this record, something was missing. I can’t quite place what it is. The album still rules and there’s a lot of parts to be found that have me heaving like an absolute primate, bouncing in place with my full knees, just throwing my neck into a state of necessary bedrest. But I think there just doesn’t seem to have the same pedigree, the sense of quality that I’m used to with the Counterparts records that really blew me away (namely 2019’s Nothing Left to Love). There are tracks that still show up in a major way, mostly in the last quarter of the album. From ‘What Mirrors Might Reflect’ until the end, you can hold on tight and get that white knuckle intensity right up until that record stops spinning.
Check Out: Unwavering Vow
Fallujah — Empyrean
There’s not a lot to say about this record other than it’s one of the more straightforward metal records that I actually enjoyed from the year. I tend to lean way more towards the “-core” subgenres of things, probably just from coming up through the nu-metal -> screamo pipeline and the way that so many of the modern aggressive music trends have sort of amalgamated into this style (see: Code Orange) , that just seems to be my safe space. Fallujah’s secret (in my mind) is that it lets the heft of the music do the work, not getting lost in the meandering of solos or melodramatics of choirs and set pieces. I listened to this record over several late night drives home from work and it was such a welcome backdrop for fast moving, mindless aggression. Really dig it. Sorry I can’t be more specific on what exact type of metal it is.
Check Out: Into the Eventide
Silversun Pickups — Physical Thrills
In order for me to fall in love with the ghost, I have to understand that first I have to see the corpse. And in this situation, I think the whole process happened in reverse. My relationship with Silversun Pickups was so intense from the release of Carnavas through Neck of the Woods. It was deep, sensual, absolutely flawless. I didn’t think that anything could really fall apart. It wasn’t until Better Nature was released that I realized just how wrong I was. There’s something that happened between the end and beginning of those two records that materialized the band from being an ethereal spectre, to being a structure of meat, one that bared a great deal of flaws. You could hear the missteps in writing, you could hear the struggle in trying to put songs together. You could hear the tours finally cutting into their “weird” time, into their creative writing time. Instead of a vision that the band was putting together for years you could hear them sitting in a studio and “trying to write”. The cracks in the visage were there. This record is a special one, because it’s the one that embodies that transition from a whispy and artsy act to “a rock band”. In my eyes, it’s the record that should have happened in 2015. It’s the band finally sticking the landing. The first single (‘Scared Together’) is probably the biggest pass in the record overall, with a sound that feels too big for the skin that the band has grown. The rest of the record is full-bodied but doesn’t forget that every channel in the studio needs to be filled. They’ve returned to a place where they understand that their a lot of their power has always been represented in their restraint.
Check Out: Hereafter (Way After)
Cremation Lily — Dreams Drenched In Static
It’s strange to be This Old (40) and to try and understand the way that People Now (>40) listen to music. It’s rare for me within the people I talk to to see them picking up and listening to whole albums, instead seeing them lean more heavily into playlists or single songs and rocking them on repeat. This is not a record for that newer generation. I don’t believe any of the songs on this album stand up really great on their own, but each of them sound exquisite when listened to as an entire backdrop for the moonbaked and souldragged mood that this record portrays. This is a slow and burned out series of songs with the vocals cooked deep into the furthest layer, lots of Disintegration-era Cure sounds and synths leaning heavily and clouding up so many of the sounds. It feels a little goth, a little chopped-and-screwed, a little shoegaze, but all completely draining and mildly upsetting. I love how this one glorifies the little embers of sound that deeply effect mood and mindspace. There feels to be something woefully deliberate about the way it ties an anchor to your torso and tosses it into a peaceful and calming lake with absolutely no way to escape. Full-bodied production and thoughtful uses of aural space really make this one that I’d recommend headphones for.
Check Out: Selfless
Asian Glow — Stalled Flutes, means
This album is deeply in its emotions, one that seems to be processing and expressing them faster than they can sort out what the end definition of those feelings truly are. Lots of jitters and glitches pop and wriggle in the horizon and on the fringes of the record, deep below and high above the mainline bloodstream of the songs themselves. It also sounds like it was almost meant to be listened to on small and non optimized speakers, as the builds of this record go HUGE and LARGE but seem to cap out at a level far below what even the most standard speaker can output. And I think that’s a part of what this record’s voice is all about. The way out of this machine is choked and there is just too much to force. Parts of this album remind me a lot of the Ace Enders project “I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody’s Business”, a sound I really loved when it released. There is so much experimentation going on, lots of ideas that seem to be placed on the studio floor and then stacked upon, fucked with, poked and prodded, Jenga’d, rattled and eventually we have a whole new product than was first presented. There is a one hour timespan we sit with this record and while a lot of the time blends together as the sounds start to sound like they echo themselves, it seems that in its synthetic state, there are lots of moments organic entropy and decay and genuine emotion that its like making eye contact with a species you can never be sure that existed.
Check Out: Curled From the Roots pt. 2
