Another year has come and gone, and to commemorate it we’re here to celebrate the past 365 days with a list of some of our favorite albums.
Are these albums the very best music 2022 has to offer? Best is always going to be a moving target, and it’s almost certain that other albums could have ended up here if I had discovered them within the confines of the year. I can say that these are albums that made it seem worthwhile to seek out new music; they’re the ones that challenged me, brought me joy, or simply got stuck in my head. 2022 was a difficult year personally, and in part this music helped me push through.
As always, this list is unranked; albums are listed in roughly chronological order by release date.
Black Country, New Road – Ants From Up Here (Ninja Tune)
Perhaps the most divisive release of 2022, Ants From Up Here attracted as much breathless praise as it did pure derision. Nearly twelve months on, it still sounds like a certifiable classic to my ears. The album’s sweeping, pastoral epics would have been a triumph in any context, but they gained new weight when lead singer Isaac Woods departed the band days before the album’s release; Black Country, New Road rebuilt itself in the aftermath, but we may never hear another note of music from this configuration of the group again. The album serves as both an impeccable artistic statement and an elegy to one of the most magnetic groups of musicians we’re likely to hear this decade.
caroline – caroline (Rough Trade)
caroline initially formed in 2017 as trio, but as they’ve slowly added members over the intervening years they transformed from what was supposedly a conventional guitar band into something entirely different. The formula for most caroline songs is quite simple on paper. First they lay down a backbone, usually a simple musical phrase or riff that can and will be repeated ad infinitum. Then start building atop it; add strings swooping in and out between notes, free drum solos, spindly guitar riffs straight off a Bill Orcutt record, incidental noise. Their compositions fly off in seemingly infinite directions, everything from improvised flights of fancy to folk inspired ballads. One thing is eminently clear from this debut album: caroline are artists, and what they’ve created is a work of art.
WiFiGawd – Chain of Command (POW Recordings)
I’ve seen WiFiGawd touted as one of the most important underground rappers of his generation, but Chain of Command was my introduction to his musical world. Within the album’s opening few moments, I could immediately understand why he is so revered and influential. The influence of Memphis greats like Three 6 Mafia and Kingpin Skinny Pimp linger in the margins, but WiFiGawd turns those sounds into something less ominous and more swirlingly psychedelic. From skewed phonk tracks like “365” to woozily beautiful ones like “Slide Thru”, Chain of Command is a record with the power to appeal to both new and old school rap fans.
Soul Glo – Diaspora Problems (Epitaph)
Soul Glo’s 2020 EP Songs to Yeet At The Sun may have been the Philly punk band’s breakthrough moment, but the band had been plugging away at their music for over half a decade before reaching that milestone. They subsequently signed to Epitaph Records, and Diaspora Problems, the first fruit of that partnership, is one of the rare albums that lives up to feverish hype surrounding it. The band is primarily comprised of people of color and write about their day to day experiences living in America, and though it’s a crucial facet of their music it’s also reductive to talk about it in only those terms. Plainly put, this album fucking rips. It’s a set of songs that is intellectually and musically dense while managing to remain a completely visceral listening experience. I still feel as if I’m digesting this album; I hear something new on nearly every listen. Even so it’s obvious this is a watershed album for hardcore, one that will set the standard for excellence in the genre for years to come.
MJ Lenderman – Boat Songs (Dear Life Records)
When we reviewed MJ Lenderman’s album (Ghost of Your Guitar Solo) last year, we compared Lenderman’s writing to his hero David Berman. Much like Berman’s best work, the songs on that album poked fun at the absurdity of everyday life while illuminating deeper truths about the human condition. Boat Songs doesn’t radically change that approach; these songs are still filled to the brim with moments of quiet contemplation, laugh out loud humor and confessional candor. What has changed is the music’s sense of focus. Though still resolutely lo-fi, Boat Songs is tighter, hits harder and covers more sonic territory than its predecessor. At times Lenderman brings to mind artists as diverse as Gram Parsons and Pavement, but mostly Boat Songs just sounds like a stone cold classic.
Hey, ily! – Psychokinetic Love Songs (Lonely Ghost Records)
Though a lot of chiptune music falls flat to my ears, Hey, ily!’s ability to mix the genre with emo hooks feels both wholly original and deeply nostalgic. There’s a fantastical element to their writing that feels like an appropriate match to its musical backing; the band conjure worlds filled with tales of robots and telepathy, not unlike what you might encounter in a typical RPG. But these fantasy elements only help to heighten the very human emotions and desires at the core of each song: anxiety, fear, loneliness, a longing for connection. It’s a shoo in for one of the most original and affecting rock albums of the year.
Maria BC – Hyaline (Father/Daughter Records)
The base musical elements Maria BC uses throughout their debut album Hyaline are instantly familiar: a guitar, their classically trained voice, synths, field recordings. But perhaps unexpectedly for a bedroom pop record, they choose to largely eschew traditional song structures in favor of conjuring up all-enveloping sonic landscapes. They describe this approach to songwriting as “sonic collage”, and each knotty track feels more like a natural occurrence than manmade song; they float, billow, drift across your periphery, unhurriedly unfurling on their own time. Paired with lyrics that tow the line between character study and personal history, their songs take on the power of lived experience, each one enveloping you and seeping into each and every pore.
Say Sue Me – The Last Thing Left (Damnably Records)
Korea has long asserted global musical dominance via its pop star machine, but Busan based band Say Sue Me feel out of step with their country’s most recognizable sonic exports. The group first rose to international prominence with their 2018 album Where We Were Together, but the band soon suffered many setbacks in the face of their success: founding band member Semin Kang tragically passed away in 2019, and soon after the COVID-19 pandemic ground live music and touring to a halt. In spite of these hardships, the band has emerged stronger than ever on their latest album. The group’s vision of pop allows doo wop harmonies to exist next to fuzzed out indie rock; seeped in nostalgia with a healthy dose of melancholy, it’s a near pitch perfect contribution to the modern indie rock canon.
Linda Ayupuka – God Created Everything (Mais Um)
Though it’s not uncommon to hear her voice emanating from car or portable speakers in her home region Bongo, an area in the northeast of Ghana, prior to her debut album the only readily available recordings of Linda Ayupuka’s music for American audiences could be found on the 2019 compilation This Is Fra Fra Power. The eight tracks that make up God Created Everything are infectious, with Ayupuka’s auto-tuned vocals soaring above complex, percussive polyrhythms. Though many of the lyrics are religious in nature (Ayupuka is largely known as a gospel singer in her home country), the songs would feel as natural on the dance floor as they would in a religious setting. More than anything, it’s music that radiates an infectious sense of joy.
Chat Pile – God’s Country (The Flenser)
Chat is a byproduct of old lead-zinc mining techniques, lead-infested waste mixed with rock fragments; in some cases, entire cities became uninhabitable because of the chat piles strewn across them. It’s an apt name for the band Chat Pile, whose sludgy brand of noise rock meditates on the rot at the core of modern American culture. Heavy music sometimes doesn’t connect with me because the lyrics don’t feel like they merit the intensity surrounding them, but the subjects that Chat Pile tackle on God’s Country downright necessitate it. Issues like homelessness and gun violence permeate our society, yet we seem unable to take steps towards any meaningful change. Though the band may not offer solutions, these nine songs represent a visceral and much needed howl of rage against the status quo.
Cheem – Guilty Pleasure (Lonely Ghost Records)
Though the songs on Guilty Pleasure illuminate many of the challenges of making music today, the portraits and takedowns sketched here don’t feel depressing. It’s largely because they’re accompanied by the sounds that inspire Cheem to keep making music, irrespective of their perceived hipness. This means that you hear elements of everything from less celebrated genres like ska and rap-rock to sounds that capture the current zeitgeist like hyperpop or pop punk. Whether or not you agree with the concept of a guilty pleasure (and, if you’re here, we hope you don’t!), this is anything but one. It’s the sound of a group who know themselves deeply firing on all cylinders, creating some of the most wildly genre-bending music of the year.
Emeka Ogboh – 6°30’33.372”N 3°22’0.66”E (A-TON)
I missed this album by Nigerian installation artist and musician Emeka Ogboh upon its initial release in July; that, unfortunately, is the vicious reality of the whiplash pace of music. Luckily it found me at exactly the right time. The album’s title refers to the coordinates of the Ojuelegba bus station in Lagos, the main character of Ogboh’s work. The sounds of its everyday hustle and bustle mingle with throbbing beats and electronic soundscapes, perfectly rendering the chaotic rhythms of everyday life. As I found it harder and harder to expend the mental energy to sit down and engage with records late this year, 6°30’33.372”N 3°22’0.66”E served as a reminder there is music all around us if we’re only willing to listen.
Cheba Wahida – Jrouli (Nashazphone)
After a nearly two year gap in activity, Cairo based label Nashazphone dropped six (?!?) releases out of the blue back in August. This slab of Rai from Cheba Wahida has stuck with me since then. Hailing from the Oran region (incidentally the birthplace of the genre nearly one hundred years ago), Wahida’s take is decidedly modern, filled with electronic instrumentation and auto tuned vocals. Most importantly, these tracks are a blast; from the spiraling synths of opener “Jrouli Jrouli” to the intoxicating rhythms of “Omri Bi 3achki mebli”, it’s an album of front to back bangers.
Bloodz Boi, Claire Rousay & More Eaze – a crying poem (Orange Milk Records)
Though on paper the trio of Bloodz Boi, Claire Rousay and More Eaze don’t immediately seem like natural collaborators, all three are artists whose sense of adventurousness is ingrained in their deep back catalogs. The starting place for each of the six songs on a crying poem were their lyrics; each track is based on a poem by Bloodz Boi, who then worked with Rousay and More Eaze to build orchestration around his words. The results split the difference between the ebullient pop of a release like Never Stop Texting Me and the “ambient emo” of prior collaborations like an afternoon whine, productions that gently unfurl and wrap themselves around the words. As a fan of each artist’s individual catalog, it’s the dialog between the three that animates the album for me. It’s the sound of some of the most interesting artists working today pushing each other to even greater heights.
Mindforce – New Lords (Triple B Records)
New Lords probably shouldn’t exist. Multiple members of Mindforce suffered severe injuries in the past few years, and the band never even intended to record another album after the modern day hardcore classic Excalibur. Yet here it is, and it absolutely rips. Occasionally a hardcore record will bludgeon its way into my subconscious, and New Lords has done just that. It’s everything you could possibly want from the genre: crushing riffs, airtight playing, howling vocals. It’s the best the genre has to offer, as much a physical experience as it is an aural one.
They Are Gutting A Body of Water – Lucky Styles (Smoking Room)
I’ll admit it: when I see an album described as shoegaze, I tend to run for the hills. Though you can obviously do interesting things with the genre’s component parts, most self-identified practitioners of the genre feel like they’re merely attempting to replicate Loveless. They Are Gutting A Body of Water (aka TAGABOW) are one of two Philadelphia bands who made me rethink that gut reaction in 2022. TAGABOW bend the genre into their own image across Lucky Styles, as likely to bury you in guitar feedback as they are to hit you with skittering electronics or weirdo pop passages; it’s bizarro shoegaze, the genre as seen through a cracked mirror. Lucky Styles makes the case that TAGABOW are one of the most exciting underground acts operating today.
Ribbon Stage – Hit With The Most (Perennial)
With album art that pays homage to The Shop Assistants, you can probably guess type of music on Hit With The Most without hearing a single note: songs that land somewhere between twee and noise pop, sweetly sung lyrics laced with acidity, consummate musical skill masked as primitive amateurism. The band are a cut above your average revivalist because they intuitively understand the delicate balancing act required to pull this sort of music off. Though there’s plenty of feedback laced dissonance, it’s never enough to drown out the melodies at the heart of their songs. Their vocals hover on the edge of audibility, the darkness at the songs’ core leaping out with a suddenly clear turn of phrase. The rhythm section stays on point throughout, providing a crucial anchor to grasp onto. Though they aren’t breaking any new musical ground here, what they make is pretty much the platonic ideal of this genre; it’s an album that can easily sit next to those of their heroes.
2nd Grade – Easy Listening (Double Double Whammy)
I’ve seen 2nd Grade touted as one of a crop of modern power pop revivalists, and though their music is chock full of sticky melodies, blown out riffs and harmonies galore, I can’t help but think it’s a gross oversimplification. Easy Listening is anachronistic in its approach to rock history, collaging sounds and styles into something that sounds both classic and modern; it’s something that sounds instantly familiar yet could only exist at this point in the history of the genre. Though its melodies are memorable and the band’s musicianship is tight, what elevates Easy Listening above being just another rock album is its writing. There’s a quirky sense of humor to frontman Peter Gill’s songwriting, one that continually refuses to take anything too seriously. All of this allows Easy Listening to live up to the promise of its title, proving itself to be one of most joyful listening experiences you’ll have this year.
Moin – Paste (AD93)
Having grown up with 80s and 90s rock, there’s something nostalgic about the sounds Moin draw out of the guitar; it’ll sound like the wiry punk of a Fugazi record one moment and the atmospheric post-rock of Slint or Godspeed You! Black Emperor the next. Yet as you sit and listen to their compositions unfold, you can hear these sounds bending and twisting into thrilling new shapes. The band members grew up on electronic music, and while the influence isn’t overt it feels imbedded into the way they build these tracks. Their compositions are less traditional songs than extended grooves, ever shifting textures built atop a solid rhythmic core. Moin manage the seemingly impossible here: they contort guitar driven rock into something that sounds genuinely new.
Sobs – Air Guitar (Topshelf)
The cover of Air Guitar, the second album from Singaporean trio Sobs, boasts a simple statement: “the sound of pop music from Sobs!”. Depending on how you read it, it could either be a statement of fact or a subtle boast. I tend to see it as both; it perfectly describes the sound of an album that makes the case that Sobs should be one of the preeminent pop groups around. On first listen the album’s guitar pop brought to mind Guppy-era Charly Bliss, but further listens revealed hints of everything from frenetic hyperpop to atmospheric shoegaze. Bottom line: its sticky melodies and addictive hooks are pure sonic pleasure.
+ 30 more albums / reissues that easily could have ended up on this list (in no particular order)
La Roche – Liye Liye (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
Deathcrash – Return (untitled (recs))
Claire Rousay & More Eaze – Never Stop Texting Me (Orange Milk)
Viper – One Day You’ll See Me Again (1997-2009) (Dismiss Yourself)
Yard Rat – Fingerpost (self-released)
Renata Zeiguer – Picnic In The Dark (Northern Spy Records)
Real Lies – Lad Ash (Unreal Records)
Diatom Deli – Time~Lapse Nature (RVNG)
Crake – Human’s Worst Habits (Fika Recordings)
Nevver – 999 (Elefant Records)
Fax Gang – Dataprism (No Agreements)
Mura – 2008 – 2021 (An’Archives)
Organ Tapes – 唱着那无人问津的歌谣 (Worldwide Unlimited)
Anne Malin – Summer Angel (Dear Life Records)
Camp Trash – The Long Way, The Slow Way (Count Your Lucky Stars)
M. Geddes Gengras – Expressed, I Noticed Silence (Hausu Mountain)
Amateur Hour – Krökta Tankar och Brända Vanor (Appetite Records)
Friendship – Love The Stranger (Merge)
Ashley Paul – I Am Fog (Orange Milk)
Coby Sey – Conduit (AD93)
Isabella Lovestory – Amor Hardcore (self-released)
Kolb – Tyrannical Vibes (Ramp Local)
Joyce Moreno – Natureza (Far Out Recordings)
Courtney & Brad – A Square Is A Shape Of Power (Dear Life Records)
Knifeplay – Animal Drowning (Topshelf)
Kerchak – Confiance (Label Blue Sky)
Richard Dawson – The Ruby Cord (Domino)
Horse Lords – Comradely Objects (RVNG)
brakence – hypochondriac (Columbia)
Certified Trapper – I’m Certified (Columbia)