Great Songs From Q1 2022.

I hadn’t planned on making this list this year, as I started taking a strange turn during the first portion of the year into a mental place of disenchantment, lack of worth, lack of value, etc. While great music still continued to drop, I felt a little bit like adding my own opinion and lists to the world was just cluttering the works overall, not only giving one more thing for people to have to socially accept and then brush away as I shared it but also the personal experience of having something to share and giving it to others and then spiraling off into an existential wonder if I should have ever caused the Thing to exist in the first place. It wasn’t until this past week that two separate people asked where this exact list was that I realized that not only were there people who were genuinely curious where this stuff was, but also that this was a part of the pulse of my existence. A regular thing that I just did, along with the roman numeraled playlists I’ve been doing since 2003 and the sprawling end of the year lists. So, better late than never, here are my favorite songs that stood out to me between January and March of this year.

And to those who asked: thank you.

(Spotify) || (Apple Music) || (Youtube)

Ryley Walker — So Certain Tall Tales

I talked about Ryley’s traveling bard sense of energy last year in my favorite records of the year list (it was here), and he’s back again with the rambly folk hero sound. There’s an Americana of the Lightened Heart feel about him, something like a stateside Nick Drake. Walker is a prolific songwriter and some of his stuff is a little bit too jammy and cerebral for my taste, but when he drops songs that come from this corner of his bag, I’m engaged. (Youtube)

Waldo’s Gift — Flowerbed

I found my way to Waldo’s Gift by way of another band, Surprise Chef (a band that I am late to the table for but absolutely engrossed in), and then dug to try to find more bands that have the similar jazzy and upbeat jam sound to them. I love their EP The Hut, and this is the first thing I’ve seen them release since I discovered them. Impossible not to nod your head along with this one, the guitars rattle and sizzle through pedals and reverb through ring worlds that they create hypnotically in your headphones. A really cool band that I’m excited to find more from. (Youtube)

Ebi Soda — Chandler (ft. Yazz Ahmed)

Another song rooted in jazz, this one a little bit more fundamental and traditional. It does feature Yazz Ahmed whose 2019 record, Polyhymnia, absolutely rules. This is a great track to get swept up into the vapors of, slithering along the rikkitikking drum pattern and smoothed stone bass tones. The voice of Ahmed’s trumpet provides a sonorous guide throughout, contributing a flourish that holds you above the swirling and calming waters of a cauldron. (Youtube)

Downward — Real Green Dollars

This rolls out that mellow and grungy 90s carpet, the one with the fuzzy guitars and disaffected vocals that prowl along the outskirts of the searchlight. The song has a strange way of building towards the very end, getting itself winded before a big revelation and then unraveling in a pattern of disassembling keyboard and guitar sounds. This track simmers with something emotive and powerful about it, a complete vision that feels like a communication that threatens to outgrow its medium. Love the vocal style. (Youtube)

Adult Mom — 91

The bright guitars clash and meld with the dreary vocals in a form of kintsugi that stirs a little bit of immediate nostalgia, like looking at faded polaroids of people you’ve never met. The instrument rings clean and clear, true like a bell, as honest to its identity when it’s small and intimate as it is when it finally expands into a big climax. Utterly sad in the story it's telling and the vulnerability in its voice, this song is a real heartbreaker at its core. (Youtube)

Camp Cope — Jealous

Camp Cope’s subtlety seems to be their greatest attribute, laying the slightest pressure on the heartstrings and watching it yield infinite results. It may be cliche, but the accent that Georgia McDonald sings with adds something to the intensity and earnestness of the delivery which twists the knife even deeper. The chorus on this one is big and eternally catchy. I hate that for a song that is so great, it comes from such a beaten down, abused and powerless perspective. (Youtube)

Converge — This Is Mine (Redux)

This song is one of the only songs I like from this band. They’re one of those seminal bands whose extreme use of aggression can polarize audiences. Even for me, some of their songs go nowhere, say nothing and “just sound like noise,” while others in their library are so poignant and innovative that I hate that I can’t see their complete vision. ‘This Is Mine’ is one of those songs that hums at just the right level, the needle vibrating in the red and never dipping below it, but also never revving into a dangerous place where it burns me out. (Youtube)

Nuclear Daisies — Heaven In Your Head

As far as I can tell, this is the only song that this band has released and I can’t find much about their plans for a bigger release or an album or even another track dropping anytime soon. This is a big and fuzzy vibe with light vocals that float above wandering UFO strobe sounds, a driving synth beat and a looping riff that keeps the song driving forward. I have so many questions, and for better or worse, so many expectations for this band! What a great introduction. (Youtube)

SOM — Clocks

This record is one of my favorites of the year so far. It’s heavy and driving with shoegaze elements, marrying both of them flawlessly. This song in particular sums up their sound so well, not only displaying their hulking guitar sound beside their delicate vocals, but also that little… light saber/laser sound as part of the enormous hook? This is such a great track, and the way the guitars sound like they’re pumped up to 11 but you can only hear them through a wall of light is so sick. Love it. (Youtube)

Author & Punisher — Maiden Star

Similar to Perturbator’s sound from last year, I think you have to already be a card carrying member of the bands that this artist calls to for inspiration to really get into. Lucky for me, I’m an old dog who has explored a ton of goth and industrial sounds and this sticks the landing as one of the great new artists paying homage to the genre. The synths are so fat they border on obesity, and they’re leaned on with no remorse, singing out and stretching out into a chrome darkness that swallows up all outside sound. The vocals are melodramatic and desperate, longing for a light that never seems to come. This band’s entire sound is a collage of mechanism that grinds and churns, reaping the heavens that it soars through. (Youtube)

Anxious — In April

Brilliantly modern pop-punk, this song sounds like a Hot Rod Circuit revival with the 2011 pop-punk vocal style, somewhere along the lines of Dryjacket. It’s awesome to hear music like this still being made. Energetic and positive, stuff that makes you want to drive a billion miles an hour to somewhere warm to hang with friends. Big time house show vibes. (Youtube)

Circa Survive — Discounts On Psychic Readings

While this band’s first two records are gospel for me, most of what they’ve done after that hasn’t really been my thing. For what they’re capable of though, I will always check in on every release they do, just in case they knock it out of the park like they did with this EP. This song is a great example of why the band will always be relevant, creating an ambient and meditative sound while Anthony Green’s vocals dance like fairy lights over a cosmic thrum. The toms are produced so devoutly that it feels like you’re standing at the epicenter of an enormous march heading right towards you. (Youtube)

Chalk Hands — Teeth and Nails

The sound this band creates is definitively the type of music I listened to nearly exclusively between 2011–2013. Light and quickly strummed guitars that sprinted off into aerials of their very own with a desperate and clawing vocalist roaring above the angular mass. This record is such an amazing revival of the sound, truly recreating the style perfectly and authentically wearing their influences (namely Pianos Becomes the Teeth) on their sleeves. (Youtube)

Band of Horses — Lights

What a record. I am so stoked that this band continues to produce songs that are catchy and strange with new ways to lean and hang hooks on their songs in formations that don’t seem to follow standard convention. There’s a post-Beach Boys Pet Sounds influence on this record in some way that I can’t quite place. It might be the way that most of the irony has been sapped from Bridwell’s voice, and what’s left is clean and clear, with the consistency of pre-dusk daylight. This is just one of the songs on the album that if you hear it once, you’ll be looping its chorus in your head the rest of the day. (Youtube)

Selah Sue — Celebrate (ft. Mick Jenkins)

This was actually one of the more surprising records that I enjoyed this year. Mick Jenkins involvement in the track is what got me here, but this is one of the most straight forward R&B tracks (and albums) that I ended up getting into. The hook is enormous, the voice is honey thick and twice as luscious. I love the way that this track is produced, with its minimal instrumental faded way back, but with a great deal of focus to emphasize the main vocals. Mick’s verse is smooth and collected, brief and to the point. Great song from an incredible full length album. (Youtube)

Softcult — Perfect Blue

I listened to this record on a Thursday night while trying to figure out what records were coming out the next morning. It was a fast listen, an EP of only 6 tracks. But when I got to the end of it, I realized that I was hoping for more and gave it a second listen, then a third. This is a song that stood out to me for its Team Sleep/Deftones kind of sound which, the more I listened to it, started to gain a personality of its own. The EP is really one that surprised me as one that I keep going to as one that I want to revisit towards the end of the year, especially for how notable these two are going to be when they tour and get together to write a full length. (Youtube)

Alice Glass — The Hunted

Alice Glass’ output since her fracture from Crystal Castles has been a bit of a mixed bag, but her style is distinctive and her persona is very consistent. She released an absolutely brilliant EP in 2017 and singles here and there, but with this full length she seems to have let a lot of the experimentation take a bit of a back seat and her songwriting and stylish production take the wheel. I think she is capable of incredible things and this song is a perfect example of the dark, sleek songs she has up her sleeve. (Youtube)