THE NICSPERIMENT'S TOP NINE ALBUMS OF 2022
Of the several hundred albums I've listened to this year, here is a ranked list
of my nine favorites.
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9. Bog Wizard/Froglord -- A Frog in the Bog
The most fun I've had with any album this year has to be this split that sounds like it was recorded in the gnarliest 80's basement that ever existed...I'm assuming, as we don't have basements in South Louisiana. However, we do have both bogs and frogs, and these two stoner metal bands based around, respectfully, an angry swamp wizard and an all-powerful, immortal toad, pit their titular beasts against each other in a conceptual team-up album that's as good a time as running an NES Zelda dungeon or two while your friends are sitting behind you arguing about a Dungeons and Dragons game.
8. Wilderun -- Epigone
Like some progressive rock dark storybook come to life, Epigone's sweeping runs, symphonic swells, charging rhythms, and alternating soaring/group chant/bellowing vocals create an incredible sound that evokes the impossible mountains and forests of a fantastic realm.
7. Cult of Luna -- The Long Road North
I've been trying to get into this progressive metal band for years, and the atmospheric majesty in the segue tracks of Cult of Luna's The Long Road North is that gateway, leading into twisting, drawn out, mysterious and sometimes crushing passages, with shifty, yet thunderous drums, guitars that shred through arctic forests like massive buzz saws, then chime out like a midnight steeple on a towering hill, buffeted by vocals that rain down like vengeful hail.
6. Holy Fawn -- Dimensional Bleed
This list features some impressive guitar dynamics, but none with gaping voids as wide as Dimensional Bleed's. Gentle, weepy fret and effects work gives way to massive distorted walls of sound, over an immersive ambient soundscape, and vocals that verge from gentle quiet singing to throat-shredding wails. Holy Fawn's impressive sophomore effort takes the listener through an epic emotional voyage, toward an enigmatic final catharsis that brings the album beautifully back full circle.
5. Fleshwater -- We're Not Here to Be Loved
My favorite 2022 music trend is the way several bands have taken inspiration from the heavy music scene of 20 years ago, meaning this Vein.fm (more on them later) offshoot employs the sort of heavy chorus guitar effects and energetic rhythms you'd hear on the cool, heavy alternative station in your hometown...the kind of station that likely closed in 2005.. The energy here is infectious and inescapable, makes me yearn to be 20 again and banging my sweaty head in a thick crowd, ten feet from stage, with a Nokia brick in my pocket.
4. Drug Church -- Hygiene
Speaking of infectious, Hygiene's punk-inspired rock energy has me driving too fast, with introspective, yet confident lyrics and vocals that I'd have identified with just as well 20 years ago as I do now.
3. Vundabar --Devil for the Fire
Vundabar's Devil for the Fire is a revelation, the kind of comforting indie rock that--and I mean this as a high compliment--could sell an entire fleet of Volkswagens, partially evoking the vibe of the late 00's scene, while replacing all that dead movement's off-putting irony and aimlessness with earnestness and lovely catharsis after lovely catharsis.
2. Nekrogoblikon -- The Fundamental Slimes and Humours
Leave it to a humorous, goblin-themed melodic death metal band named Nekrogoblikon to thoughtfully discuss crushing despair, depression, and suicidal ideation, in an incredibly fun album that throws innumerable metal and rock subgenres, unexpected instrumentation, twists and turns into a blender to create an incredibly satisfying smoothie of sound--OH, I HATED THAT METAPHOR! The Fundamental Slimes and Humours is a high energy, diverse tribute to waking up and getting through another day, maybe even trying to be a better person than you were the day before while doing so, even if you sometimes wish you were doing it six-feet under.
1. Vein.fm -- This World's Going to Ruin You
I'm an emotional guy, and I've mentioned catharsis a lot here, but sometimes the best kind of catharsis is to safely purge out all of the ugliness and hate and rage and fear you're feeling in some kind of artistic vomit--think Slipknot's Iowa, one of the most brutal, ugly albums ever created. Vein.fm's crushing This World Is Going to Ruin You does this beautifully, with insane chugging passages colliding violently into one another, chaotic drums played by what can only be some beast from another dimension, and vocals like someone's grabbed you on the street and is screaming in your ear in an effort to blowout your eardrums. All this madness feels meticulously crafted and presented in an incredibly intimate fashion, as if the band has sent the listener a private invitation into their home and world for 32 brutal minutes. The atmosphere is incredibly claustrophobic, with piano, generally a comforting instrument, somehow creating even more unease, along with a few brief snippets of sung vocals that are immediately drowned by the album's crushing sea. The final track, "Funeral Sound," featuring a mysterious phone recording as its centerpiece, feels so menacing and dangerous, so deathly, that the lyrics in the large, beautiful booklet which comes with this album's stunning vinyl packaging are smeared out, as if they are too odious--or too private between vocalist and listener--to be printed. The only line not smeared from the page, the album's final refrain of "I will always be wherever you are" doesn't sound like an affirming promise, but a confident threat.
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9. Bog Wizard/Froglord -- A Frog in the Bog
The most fun I've had with any album this year has to be this split that sounds like it was recorded in the gnarliest 80's basement that ever existed...I'm assuming, as we don't have basements in South Louisiana. However, we do have both bogs and frogs, and these two stoner metal bands based around, respectfully, an angry swamp wizard and an all-powerful, immortal toad, pit their titular beasts against each other in a conceptual team-up album that's as good a time as running an NES Zelda dungeon or two while your friends are sitting behind you arguing about a Dungeons and Dragons game.
8. Wilderun -- Epigone
Like some progressive rock dark storybook come to life, Epigone's sweeping runs, symphonic swells, charging rhythms, and alternating soaring/group chant/bellowing vocals create an incredible sound that evokes the impossible mountains and forests of a fantastic realm.
7. Cult of Luna -- The Long Road North
I've been trying to get into this progressive metal band for years, and the atmospheric majesty in the segue tracks of Cult of Luna's The Long Road North is that gateway, leading into twisting, drawn out, mysterious and sometimes crushing passages, with shifty, yet thunderous drums, guitars that shred through arctic forests like massive buzz saws, then chime out like a midnight steeple on a towering hill, buffeted by vocals that rain down like vengeful hail.
6. Holy Fawn -- Dimensional Bleed
This list features some impressive guitar dynamics, but none with gaping voids as wide as Dimensional Bleed's. Gentle, weepy fret and effects work gives way to massive distorted walls of sound, over an immersive ambient soundscape, and vocals that verge from gentle quiet singing to throat-shredding wails. Holy Fawn's impressive sophomore effort takes the listener through an epic emotional voyage, toward an enigmatic final catharsis that brings the album beautifully back full circle.
5. Fleshwater -- We're Not Here to Be Loved
My favorite 2022 music trend is the way several bands have taken inspiration from the heavy music scene of 20 years ago, meaning this Vein.fm (more on them later) offshoot employs the sort of heavy chorus guitar effects and energetic rhythms you'd hear on the cool, heavy alternative station in your hometown...the kind of station that likely closed in 2005.. The energy here is infectious and inescapable, makes me yearn to be 20 again and banging my sweaty head in a thick crowd, ten feet from stage, with a Nokia brick in my pocket.
4. Drug Church -- Hygiene
Speaking of infectious, Hygiene's punk-inspired rock energy has me driving too fast, with introspective, yet confident lyrics and vocals that I'd have identified with just as well 20 years ago as I do now.
3. Vundabar --Devil for the Fire
Vundabar's Devil for the Fire is a revelation, the kind of comforting indie rock that--and I mean this as a high compliment--could sell an entire fleet of Volkswagens, partially evoking the vibe of the late 00's scene, while replacing all that dead movement's off-putting irony and aimlessness with earnestness and lovely catharsis after lovely catharsis.
2. Nekrogoblikon -- The Fundamental Slimes and Humours
Leave it to a humorous, goblin-themed melodic death metal band named Nekrogoblikon to thoughtfully discuss crushing despair, depression, and suicidal ideation, in an incredibly fun album that throws innumerable metal and rock subgenres, unexpected instrumentation, twists and turns into a blender to create an incredibly satisfying smoothie of sound--OH, I HATED THAT METAPHOR! The Fundamental Slimes and Humours is a high energy, diverse tribute to waking up and getting through another day, maybe even trying to be a better person than you were the day before while doing so, even if you sometimes wish you were doing it six-feet under.
1. Vein.fm -- This World's Going to Ruin You
I'm an emotional guy, and I've mentioned catharsis a lot here, but sometimes the best kind of catharsis is to safely purge out all of the ugliness and hate and rage and fear you're feeling in some kind of artistic vomit--think Slipknot's Iowa, one of the most brutal, ugly albums ever created. Vein.fm's crushing This World Is Going to Ruin You does this beautifully, with insane chugging passages colliding violently into one another, chaotic drums played by what can only be some beast from another dimension, and vocals like someone's grabbed you on the street and is screaming in your ear in an effort to blowout your eardrums. All this madness feels meticulously crafted and presented in an incredibly intimate fashion, as if the band has sent the listener a private invitation into their home and world for 32 brutal minutes. The atmosphere is incredibly claustrophobic, with piano, generally a comforting instrument, somehow creating even more unease, along with a few brief snippets of sung vocals that are immediately drowned by the album's crushing sea. The final track, "Funeral Sound," featuring a mysterious phone recording as its centerpiece, feels so menacing and dangerous, so deathly, that the lyrics in the large, beautiful booklet which comes with this album's stunning vinyl packaging are smeared out, as if they are too odious--or too private between vocalist and listener--to be printed. The only line not smeared from the page, the album's final refrain of "I will always be wherever you are" doesn't sound like an affirming promise, but a confident threat.
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| Thanks, dudes! You've created one of my favorite albums of all time. |
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