My 20 Favorite (Non-Black Metal or -Iron-Pumping) Records of 2022

This is the part where I would normally talk about how the world is dog shit. But I gotta say, as terrible as everything can be, and as anxious/depressed as I often am, 2022 was an alright year for me. In addition to my aforementioned fitness regimen, which has resulted in me feeling better, sharper, and stronger than ever, I've developed a bunch of healthy habits around organization and self-discipline, found a therapist that I really like, and generally tried to be more present and engaged with the world around me. I realize that a lot of atrocious things happened this year, and that in a lot of ways the cultural and political landscapes are looking even grimmer than in 2020, but for me personally, still, pretty good year. Don't worry, though: as you'll see from this list, I'll always be a sadboi at heart.

I'm tempted to do honorable mentions, but if I do, I'll end up listing like 30 more albums. Suffice to say, there were a ton of records that could've been #21, so if you want more recommendations, ask, I have 'em. And please let me know what I'm sleeping on and drop your lists in the comments. Thanks for sticking around.

#20

Rot TV

Tales of Torment

Australian punk rock and roll. Rot TV has a horror aesthetic but their sound has absolutely nothing to do with The Misfits or The Cramps; it's seedy, catchy punk done as only the Australians can do it.

#19

Cavernlight

As I Cast Ruin upon the Lens That Reveals My Every Flaw

Harrowing post-sludge depicting a world that's utterly devoid of hope. A dense mix layered with piano, synth, and elements of harsh noise and dark ambient. Guitars, while crushingly heavy, tend towards simplicity -- two alternating chords, three descending chords -- as they'd clearly rather keep your head bowed than get it banging. When they do riff, it's that warped, drawn-out kind of anti-riff that Neurosis excelled at.

#18

Greg Foat

Psychosynthesis

Laid-back, smooth-as-hell jazz/funk/fusion played in slo-mo, from one of my favorite jazz musicians on the planet at the moment. A pillowy, lushly synthesized sound-world that harkens to that bygone era in the early 80s when ECM-style ambient jazz and shimmering new age lived together in harmony.

#17

Current 93

If a City Is Set upon a Hill

Possibly the most melancholic entry in Mr. Tibet's extensive discography, and certainly one of my favorites. Chiming piano, weeping violin, ghostly choirs, earthy guitars, and droning electronics form the musical basis for an extended meditation, mixed as a single composition, on... whatever the hell he's on about. The lyrics and themes are more or less the same as always, which is to say: cryptic, fantastical, abstract, fatalistic, and fascinatingly impenetrable. Here, try this one out: "The moon is dead now / Joke moon / Rabbit and hare in the martyr face / By trap and snare and man / 'Kill them all' says Peter Pan." Does he mention sleeping cats? You know he does. But there's a tenderness, even a fearfulness in his voice that draws me in, even in the record's most oblique moments.

#16

ESA

Designer Carnage

Goes ridiculously hard. A tour-de-force of harsh, inventive, wildly entertaining EBM/rhythmic noise. From the mangled strains of classical piano and opera on "Laudanum Dance" and the unhinged (fake) voicemail that forms the basis for "One Missed Call", to the distorted rap verses on "Whom Then Shall I Fear" (Jesus Christ, the featured rapper's name is Pee Wee Pimpin', that sucks) and the black metal-powered breakbeat meltdown that is "Saturnalia" -- ESA punishes eardrums in spectacular fashion.

#15

Arð

Take Up My Bones

Melodic funeral doom with deep, harmonized, choral vocals, courtesy of Mark Deeks of Winterfylleth. It's like he zoomed in on my favorite bits of latter-day Funeral and made an album out of it, adding an esoteric obsession with ancient, dark Christian ritual along the way.

#14

PLOSIVS

PLOSIVS

One of the best supergroups in recent memory. John Reis (Rocket from the Crypt/Hot Snakes/Drive Like Jehu, etc.) and Rob Crow (Pinback) making perfect, propulsive, deceptively complex punk rock.

#13

The Weather Station

How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars

Graceful, searching, timeless songs for piano and voice, subtly filled out by saxophone, clarinet, and pedal steel. It's a minimal musical pallet that asks a lot of the listener's attention span, but close listening is rewarded by songwriting that's rich with expertly rendered, evocative details that speak to a need for connection, a desire to love life and experience the world as it here and now, and the powerful forces -- institutional, intellectual, spiritual -- that conspire to keep us in doubt and at each other's throats. "Endless Time" is particularly stunning -- a misty-eyed rumination on lost love and the transience of happiness that, to me, is literally one of the greatest songs ever written. There are moments of real intimacy and joy, too, such as in "Sway", in which she watches her partner playfully dancing for her in their bedroom, realizing, "Nobody gets to see you dance like this but me."

#12

Maya Shenfeld

In Free Fall

The drifting sounds of analogue synths -- at times intertwined with trumpet or a children's choir -- in a succession of gorgeous, texturally rich ambient pieces. Makes me feel like I'm laying on the soft stone ground of a dimly lit alien planet, drifting off to sleep while gazing at an infinity of stars, half-aware that I'm surrounded by ghosts.

#11

Christian Lee Hutson

Quitters

CLH's previous record, Beginners, just barely missed my 2020 year-end list. So he obviously concentrated his efforts to win my affections with Quitters, which is, sonically speaking, the most Elliott Smith-sounding record since New Moon. The close mic-ed guitars, fluid chord changes, and whispery, double-tracked vocals are undeniably referential, especially on "Sitting Up with a Sick Friend", which sounds lifted directly from Smith's self-titled. Lyrically, though, Hutson is much more inscrutable. He's confessional on a surface level, but closer listening reveals songs drifting from narrator to narrator so regularly, it can be difficult to parse whether a thought or line comes from him, a character, a second character, or some anonymous witness. An engrossing heartbreaker of a record from an increasingly singular songwriter.

#10

Nite

Voices of the Kronian Moon

So the 'gimmick' here is that Nite make traditional heavy metal -- think Iron Maiden or Thin Lizzy, who I realize are not technically metal -- with detached, croaking black metal vocals. The twist? It's actually really, really good. It's just an endless procession of catchy riffs and glorious harmonized leads, and the vocals are surprisingly powerful. Nite isn't the first band to navigate this realm, but they might be the best.

#9

Kathryn Joseph

for you who are the wronged

"Here is the other side / Here are the wronged and blinded." Devastating, minimal, chilling songs made up almost entirely of nervous, chiming electric piano and Joseph's wavering, whispery, wounded voice. Her lyrics are marked by abrupt cutoffs and seemingly incomplete thoughts that suggest, to me, the way our brains can start misfiring during times of intense emotional duress. Or maybe it's just an impressionistic approach to songwriting. Heartbreaking but open-hearted, full of love, pain, and righteous anger, and unlike anything else.

#8

PENDANT

Harp

Colorful, genre-omnivorous electronic sounds splicing dream pop/shoegaze, electropop/R&B, trance, house, grime, and more, all unified by a basic framework of punchy beats and gauzy synths. A rapturous, joyful-sounding record about mourning and emotional pain that's sonically dense but never claustrophobic.

#7

Jenny Hval

Classic Objects

Nervous, tasteful, gently propulsive sounds that kinda sound like Rhythm of the Saints-era Paul Simon filtered through hazy modern indie/art rock. Hval has a knack for building to these big, dreamy hooks that might have filled arenas if she wasn't singing about collecting trash or peeing blood in a movie theater restroom.

#6

Tim Heidecker

High School

Comedian and genius Tim Heidecker has now released 2.5 'serious' albums in a row (the .5 is for What the Broken-Hearted Do, a breakup record wherein the joke is that he's happily married IRL.) This isn't to say that he's done away with humor, but that he doesn't seem interested in releasing overt piss-takes or album-length odes to drinking piss. High School is, for me, easily his most successful yet. It's a middle-age record through and through -- driven by memories, good and bad, from Heidecker's adolescence, and a preoccupation with how they shaped and continue to shape him decades on. "Buddy" introduces these themes by way of a high school friend with whom Heidecker lost touch, and who seemingly died by suicide or overdose. He sings of regret and guilt that he feels around the loss, but it's completely devoid of self-pity or -flagellation; it's pure, honest communication from songwriter to listener that is among the most beautifully relatable songwriting I've heard. Another highlight is "Stupid Kid", a story-song about watching Neil Young perform a solo version of "Harvest Moon" on TV; how it inspired him to teach himself to play guitar and sing; his initial disappointment at the studio version; eventually learning to love that version; and putting it on a 90s mixtape that he gave to a girlfriend who dumped him shortly thereafter. It really is as simple as that, and it really isn't.

#5

SPICE

Viv

Hooky post-hardcore for depressives who still just wanna have fun. Instantly memorable hooks abound. It's a collection of meditations on pain, how it enters our life and how we exorcise it; and it's a collection of anthems to shout at the top of your lungs in a packed, sweaty basement. "Ashes in the Birdbath" is one of my favorite songs of any year. The weeping strings, the chiming guitars, the way the words "And I cried all year 'cause some of my friends / They keep dying on me over again" just spill out of his mouth, only to be followed by the clear-eyed "But I saw a sky so beautiful / I believed in hope over despair"... it just sends me.

#4

Drug Church

Hygiene

Just as 2021 was the year that I finally started listening to Amyl & the Sniffers, 2022 was the year that I got into Drug Church, another band that most of my friends have been hyped on for years now. They started as a hardcore band, but over the years gathered elements of alt rock, pop punk, and post-hardcore, culminating in Hygiene, their most melodic, accessible record yet. Crucially, the driving, anthemic punch of hardcore remains, and as lush and, dare I say it, dreamy as the production can be, there's still room for feedback and gnarliness.

#3

Office Culture

Big Time Things

I have been DYING to shout this band out on here, and am so happy to finally be able to. Office Culture makes jazz-inflected soft rock/sophistipop for our anxious age. Had I made a non-black metal favorites list in 2019, Office Culture's A Life of Crime would have had a real shot at the #1 spot. This time around, the jazz-rock influences are spotlighted, allowing for knottier instrumentals, more unpredictable chord changes, and an overall more nervous, fidgety feel. Casually caustic but playful, the songwriting feels like an outwardly directed internal monologue: the kind of imagined arguments that play out in our heads while we're driving to work or trying to get to sleep.

#2

Hinako Omori

a journey...

Aching, longing, synth-based, ambient excursions through mysterious landscapes, filled out by gorgeous, plaintive vocals. Whether or not it was Omori's intention, a journey... perfectly captures the loneliness of the endless inner world -- a world that many of us became all-too familiar with during a year or two primarily spent trying not to get COVID. As her voice comes and goes, it takes on a narrator-like quality, as though she's guiding the listener through this strange world; this quality becomes more explicit on the penultimate track, "Yearning", as she sings, "Let me be your eyes / Let me guide your light / Through the darkness." More than anything, a journey... feels like an expression of love, as if Omori is offering this little piece of solace to anyone who needs it.

#1

Cave In

Heavy Pendulum

Before hearing Heavy Pendulum, I truly never would have thought that Cave In were capable of making my AOTY for any year since the turn of the millennium. Until Your Heart Stops was a major, formative record for me, and I did/do like Jupiter, but nothing they had done since then resonated with me. Then, after bassist Caleb Scofield died suddenly in 2018, I think everyone expected Cave In to take a bow, which they seemingly did with 2019's Final Transmission, a collection of demos featuring Scofield's last recordings that I actually really liked. But at some point along the line since (I'm not that tapped into the Cave In-verse) they got longtime friend and collaborator Nate Newton of Converge/Old Man Gloom to step in as bassist. This is, at a baseline, a sweet, heartwarming development; through the band's darkest hour, they found a path forward by way of their extended band family. It honestly makes me a little verklempt.

Aside from the backstory, Nate joining the band helped them to reconnect with their mojo in a big, big way. On Heavy Pendulum, they sound engaged, energized, inspired, and vital. It's a synthesis of the riff-y metalcore they're built on; the psychedelic atmospheres of Jupiter; and the melodic, muscular alt rock of their later albums; all filtered through a modern metal sensibility that's indebted to bands like Mastodon and the like. The barn-burners, of which there are many, slap harder than anything they've done this millennium, while slower songs like "Blinded by a Blaze", "Reckoning", and the title track prove that Cave In can still be extremely effective in space rock mode. Heavy Pendulum is easily my most listened-to album of 2022, and I'm still finding new things to love about it. In an era in which so many artists seem scared of getting caught trying, it's really refreshing to hear a veteran band sticking to their guns and swinging for the fucking fences.