Best Music of 2022 (According to Tim)
As tradition, here’s a hastily compiled list of my favorite music from the year with Bandcamp links where available and a Spotify and Amazon Music playlist sequenced with genres and listening in-mind.
01. Mizmor & Thou - Myopia (Doom / Black Metal, Gilead Media)
We were surprised with a collaboration between these two heavy bands. Neither band’s persona really overpowers over and while both bands generally operate on the doomy side, this project seemed to push them in many directions in that I wouldn’t see either band really pursuing, lots of black metal moments, for example. The album is a lengthy journey down the center of the earth.
02. Andrew Bird - Inside Problems (Indie / Folk, Loma Vista Recordings)
Andrew Bird is a constant in my life. No matter where my tastes take me, I will always listen to whatever the singer-songwriter puts out. That’s in part because he’s always pushing into new directions.
03. Cave In - Heavy Pendulum (Post-Metal, Relapse Records)
Our space rock pioneers continue to feel out new realms, while dipping their quill in various wells of their past—space rock, arena rock, hardcore, metalcore, doom, even some surprisingly grungy Alice-In-Chains-esuqe moments.
04. Immolation - Acts of God (Death Metal, Nuclear Blast)
This band has been putting out consistent brutal death metal for over 30 years, but this was the first year I’d ever given them a listen. It’s a joy to discover a legendary band so late in the game because it gave me decades of new-to-me music to splash into. According the streamers, they were my most-listened to band of 2022 (and that’s not including vinyl plays). This album as relentless as anything else in their back-catalog.
05. Signals Midwest - DENT (Punk / Emo, Lauren Records)
Punk and it’s periphery (excluding hardcore) seems to be in a dormant period. I haven’t found anything terribly exciting this year, but luckily Signals Midwest is still out there. Earnest, thoughtful and fun.
06. Evan Caminiti & Jake Muir - Talisman (Experimental / Drone, Dust Editions)
I don’t know much (anything, really) about Jake Muir, but Evan Caminiti was half of the desert guitar drone band Barn Owl—an all-time favorite of mine. Barn Owl stopped playing years ago, but both members have continued prolifically with solo projects. Caminiti’s recent albums have gotten increasingly minimal, but this album is the first in awhile that harkens back to the Barn Owl days. It doesn’t feel like a look back however. Plenty of exploration into dark, hazy unpredictable spaces. Apparently the two were inspired by the superb death metal band, Blood Incantation. Hard to hear that really, but pretty sick muse.
07. Sedimentum - Suppuration Morphogenesiaque (Death Metal, Me Saco Ojo)
I bought this death metal ripper rather blindly based mostly on the label, Me Saco Ojo, which typically puts out quality heavy shit, and the artwork by Brad Moore. Every year it seems the sea of great “old-school” inspired death metal bands grows exponentially, making it harder to stand out (even if it still makes for killer listening). I can’t really put my finger on why Sedimentum’s debut does in fact stand out, but maybe its that the songs take, unprectable turns from low-tempo death-doom to feral blast beats and switches up the “groove dial” enough that the LP ends before I want it to.
08. Kali Malone - Living Torch (Drone, Portraits GRM)
Malone’s last album was a lengthy, simple and glacially slow harmonic journey using a pipe organ. This follow up is a single-LP containing only two tracks (though they’re both 18-minutes long) and uses mostly synthesizers to create the foundation of drone, with some welcome doses of clarinet and trombone. A rewarding listen for the patient.
09. Dream Unending - Song of Salvation (Doom, 20 Buck Spin)
Pretty doom. A quick follow-up to last-year’s Tide Turns Eternal, and, I dare say it’s better. While always feeling heavy, the album takes scenic detours into majestic, shimmering proggy dimensions.
10. The Reds, Pinks and Purples - Summer at Land’s End (Indie / Bedroom Pop, self-released)
This guy keeps cranking em out. Not much has changed. Super catchy, emotive classic indie that sounds like it could have come from the late-80s / 90s, but also timeless.
11. Locrian - New Catastrophism (Experimental / Metal, Relapse Records) bandcamp
12. Tzompantli - Tlazcaltiliztli (Death Metal, 20 Buck Spin) bandcamp
13. Absent In Body - Plague God (Post Metal, Relapse Records) bandcamp
14. Fleshrot - Unburied Corpse (Death Metal, Me Saco Ojo/Maggot Stomp) bandcamp
15. Vanum - Legend (Black Metal, Profound Lore Records) bandcamp
16. Jake Xerxes Fussell - Good and Green Again (Folk, Paradise of Bachelors) bandcamp
17. Vacuous - Dreams of Dysphoria (Death Metal, Dark Descent Records) bandcamp
18. Blut Aus Nord -Undreamable Abysses (Black Metal, Debemur-Morti Productions) bandcamp
19. Undeath - It’s Time…To Rise from the Grave (Death Metal, Prosthetic Records) bandcamp
20. Wilco - Cruel Country (Indie / Rock / Folk, dBpm) bandcamp
21. Mortuous - Upon Desolation (Death Metal, Extremely Rotten Productions) bandcamp
22. Osees - A Foul Form (Psych / Punk, Castle Face Records) bandcamp
23. Morbific - Squirm Beyond the Mortal Realm (Death Metal, Head Split Records) bandcamp
24. Acephalix - Theothanatology (Death Metal, 20 Buck Spin) bandcamp
25. Big Theif - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (Indie / Rock / Folk, 4AD) bandcamp
26. Doldrum - The Knocking, Or the Story of the Sound that Preceded Their Disappearance (Black Metal, Katafalque) bandcamp
27. Daniel Bachman - Almanac Behind (Experimental / Folk, Three Lobed Recordings) bandcamp
28. City of Caterpillar - Mystic Sisters (Hardcore / Screamo) bandcamp
29. ZAAAR - Magicka Dzungl’a (Experimental / Jazz) bandcamp
30. Duster - Together (Indie / Slowcore, Numero Group) bandcamp
31. Faceless Burial - At the Foothills of Deliration (Death Metal, Me Saco Ojo/Dark Descent) bandcamp
32. Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - Recordings from the Aland Islands (Experimental, International Anthem) bandcamp
33. Bekor Qilish - Throes of Death from the Dreamed Nihilism (Death Metal / Black Metal, I, Voidhanger) bandcamp
34. Dead Void - Volatile Forms (Death/Doom, Me Saco Ojo) bandcamp
35. Mary Lattimore & Paul Sukeena - West Kensington (Experimental, Three Lobed Recordings) bandcamp
36. Reeking Aura - Blood and Bonemeal (Death Metal, Profound Lore) bandcamp
37. Carly Rae Jepson - The Loneliest Time (Pop, Interscope)
38. Chaotian - Effigies of Obsolescence (Death Metal) bandcamp
39. Sarah Davachi - Two Sisters (Experimental / Drone, Late Music) bandcamp
40. Loop - Sonancy (Psych / Shoegaze, Reactor) bandcamp
41. Chat Pile - God’s Country (Sludge / Heavy?, The Flenser) bandcamp
42. Doldrey - Celestial Deconstruction (Hardcore / D-Beat / Black Metal, Iron Lung Records) bandcamp
43. Blood Incantation - Timewave Zero (Electronic / Ambient, Century Media) bandcamp
44. Phobophilic - Enveloping Absurdity (Death Metal, Prosthetic Records) bandcamp
45. Cosmic Putrefaction - Crepuscular Dirge For the Blessed Ones (Death Metal, Profound Lore) bandcamp
46. Superchunk - Wild Loneliness (Indie / Rock, Merge) bandcamp
47. Universally Estranged - Dimension of Deviant Clusters (Death Metal, Blood Harvest Records) bandcamp
48. Esoctrilihum - Consecration of the Spiritus Flesh (Black Metal, I, Voidhanger) bandcamp
49. Boris - Heavy Rocks (Rock, Relapse Records) bandcamp
50. Daniel Villarreal - Panama 77 (Psych, Jazz) bandcamp
Some other good ones:
Corpsessed - Succumb to Rot (Death Metal, Dark Descent) bandcamp
Hissing - Hypervirulence Architecture (Death Metal, Profound Lore) bandcamp
Innumerable Forms - Philosophical Collapse (Death Doom, Profound Lore) bandcamp
Tribal Gaze - The Nine Choirs (Death Metal, Closed Casket Activities/Maggot Stomp) bandcamp
Archers of Loaf - Reason in Decline (Indie / Rock, Merge) bandcamp
Predatory Light - Death and the Twilight Hours (Black Metal, 20 Buck Spin) bandcamp
Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There (Indie, Ninja Tune) bandcamp
Sweet Reissues:
Can - Live in Cuxhaven 1976 bandcamp
Les Rallizes Denudes - The Oz Tapes bandcamp
Neil Young - Royce Hall 1971 / Dorthy Candler Pavilion 1971 / Citizen Kane Jr. Blues 1974 / Toast
Ash Ra Tempel - Join Inn
Beach Boys - Sail On, Sailor
Ernest Hood - Back to the Woodlands bandcamp
Karate - Time Expired bandcamp
Vinterland - Welcome My Last Chapter bandcamp
Intestine Baalism - Banquet in the Darkness bandcamp
Sunburned Hand of the Man - Headress bandcamp