MJ Lenderman put out my favorite album of the year and played in two of my favorite shows of the year, solo and with Wednesday. He's got real Dudes Rock vibes, but in the kinda chill way that nods more to Silver Jews and Built To Spill.
Hangover Game (left) is the sing-along crowd pleaser, but You Are Every Girl To Me and Tastes Just Like It Costs are the two most often making me stop what I'm doing and turn up the volume. Some LCD Soundsystem and Songs: Ohia vibes, respectively — so, dudes rock.
Every Alex G album has been the best one till the next one. I hear a lot of the ideas he started working on with House of Sugar and the Frank Ocean sessions maturing into his own style on God Save The Animals. The vocals and the drums are noticeably bigger and better throughout, and "Runner" is the best in a long list of classic Alex G tracks.
I feel like he's still kinda figuring out how to incorporate more of the experimental stuff he did on the We're All Going to the World's Fair soundtrack (cool movie btw), and that's the stuff that has me even more stoked for the follow-up.
Beach Music is probably still my favorite Alex G album, but this one will keep growing on me a while.
MS Paint might've been my favorite discovery of the year. They're from Hattiesburg, Miss., and play hazy hardcore that sounds primal and visceral.
I only heard of Rico Nasty's Gotsta Get Paid (prod. 100 Gecs) a few hours ago, but I feel like it's scratching a similar itch. I love this shit.
Every year there's at least one quiet, sad album that I get really sunk into, and this year it was Sadurn's Radiator.
They Are Gutting A Body Of Water (TAGABOW) are from Philly, and I got pretty obsessed after hearing their new album. It's like manic shoegaze; really reminiscent of Spirit of the Beehive, which is why you find them at the top of my list.
My deep dive on TAGABOW also led me to Blue Smiley (RIP :( ) and A Country Western, who wrote the best Pavement song since Pavement on their split with TAGABOW.
Here's everything that I liked and remembered to save on Spotify in 2022.
Continue scrolling for some commentary on the heavy music and the quiet music that stuck to me this year.
I've been listening to a lot of eclectic hardcore-adjacent music lately. In my head, these bands (+MSPAINT above) sorta form a loose collective of heavy and aggressive bands that are explicitly political in form and function, and it leads to some really innovative stuff. So in other words, and in a tongue-in-cheek kinda way? This is sorta how I think about The Shape of Punk in 2022. Max capacity of thumbs up from me.
This feels like the Show Me The Body album I've been waiting for since Bone Soup (which still kinda sounds ahead of its time tbh). It's experimental and raw and in your face, and I know that sounds generic, but I don't know anybody else doing it quite like this.
Extremely listenable for how gnarly it is. Incredible vocal performance. No notes.
I embedded Why because its blunt lyrics are probably my favorite on this whole list, but Anywhere is the song that really takes you on a ride and shows why Chat Pile are built different.
Soul Glo played a show at the Empty Bottle a couple months ago that I'll never forget. I hope they get a Turnstile-like bump for their next record because they deserve it imo.
Militarie Gun have a lot of buzz and just press play to hear why. What's the Platonic ideal of melodic hardcore? Is it this? I spent a lot of time with the newer Fiddlehead album this year too — I think of them sorta like Dudes Rock version of The National, so your mileage may vary lol.
Militarie Gun's collab with Dazy might also be the catchiest song I heard this year. I assumed it was a cover at first because I could sing along before it was over. Dazy put out a whole album of charging power-pop-rock just like that too (Spotify).
Special Interest are the band I have the most homework to do on, but this song and Midnight Legend are undeniable party rockers. I haven't been genuinely excited about "disco punk" in, man I don't know; but I've gotta find more like this in 2023.
Portrayal of Guilt was still my top artist on Spotify. I've seen them twice since they released CHRISTFUCKER and I'd see them twice more before thinking twice about it.
I saw Rage Against The Machine and Run the Jewels at Alpine Valley. There was a time when this show was supposed to happen the week before Bernie's coronation at the DNC in Milwaukee. Obviously none of that happened, but this was Zak's only fully healthy show of the tour, and a reminder that life is kinda cool sometimes.
Drug Church remain one of my favorite heavy bands, and it took Cheer about a year to really hit me, so I'll probly feel the same about Hygiene soon.
Whenever I was working and didn't know what I wanted to listen to this year, I put on Claire Rousay. She supplanted Mount Eerie and Grouper, and I don't really know enough about ambient music to say anything authoritatively other than that this, too, is my shit.
I also found a Spotify playlist she made that's inspired by Lil Peep in all the best ways.
Daniel Bachman's Almanac Behind is another example of interweaving found sound and textured melody (and video) that I've had on repeat and still kinda bewilders me, in a good way.
Hayden Pedigo plays American primitive style guitar that again I know very little about other than I really like this guy.
Marisa Anderson's Still, Here was another cool guitar album I listen to a lot.
Florist are the best.