What Makes Me Connect To Music?

I was putting out into the ether not long ago the point of contention I hold wherein I am usually frustrated when people say, "If you like ___, you'll like ___." The idea behind that sentiment is people who enjoy a certain sound are likely to enjoy other bands that have a similar sound. It isn't unsound logic, but it just doesn't hold true for me. Liking a band is far more complex than whether or not they sound like something I've already liked. Given my own fickleness even with my favorite bands being so wildly inconsistent in meeting my expectations, recommendations are only of a small degree of use.

So that brings up the question; what does make me connect to the music I love? It is a complex phenomenon, and it can't be boiled down to an equation or algorithm. Every case is different, and the reasons for my love don't always make sense to me, if I'm being honest. But there are four main categories where I can see trends.

1. Mood

Music is largely about feelings for me, and certain artists and albums are able to conjure a mood that evokes a feeling no one else can. I love them when that happens. Jimmy Eat World's "Futures" is my favorite album in large part because of the mood it sets. It reminds me of the feeling I had when I was sleep-deprived at 3am during my college days, feeling the hollowness of another night spent chasing away disappointment. No other record is able to do that for me. That happens to be the extreme example, but the idea carries through everything I listen to. If the music doesn't make me feel something, whether that be existential or merely a smile curling up, I'm not likely to go back and keep listening. Mood is more than amp settings, and it's indescribable.

2. Lyrics

As a writer, you can't be surprised I'm saying this. Words matter to me, both for the good and the bad. The reason I loved The Wallflowers so much when I was younger wasn't just in the melodies of the songs, it was Jakob Dylan's poetry. The words on "Breach" opened my eyes, and gave me so much to think about. The same is true of my love of Elvis Costello, Jim Steinman, and even Blues Traveler. They all spun phrases that caught my ear, that made me want to find my own unique way of expressing myself. On the other side, there are those bands who write so terribly I can't get over my issues, even if their songs are otherwise good. I've written plenty about my inner conflict regarding "Pinkerton", which is a battle I still fight on a regular basis. What you say is just as important as how you say it.

3. Melody

This is the most important element, to be frank. No matter how closely two bands can align their sound, every writer has their own ear for melody. Some of them will coincide more with mine than others. The waves will amplify for some, dissipate for others. The very identity of a song comes from its melody, and if those hit differently, then any number of bands doing the same thing are doing to wind up being nearly as different as if they were in separate genres. It sounds odd to say, but I have always considered myself both open and closed-minded when it comes to my music. I will listen to any genre, but only if it gives me the type of melody I crave. It's an ethereal thing, however, and even those who have hit my target repeatedly nearly always find their aim drifting at some point.

4. Voice

Finally, we come to the hardest of these to talk about. As I have said before, there are no words to properly express how a voice can resonate in your soul, or how it can stir emotions you didn't know you had. For every one of us, the voices that do that will be different. I have my list of singers who move me, and that collection is shared with no one. Plenty of singers who are adored by the majority do nothing for me, and there isn't a way to explain how or why. All I can say is that a singer who possesses that unique gift is going to get every opportunity to win me over with each and every song, while a better songwriter who leaves me cold is going to have to work twice as hard for half my attention. It isn't fair, but nothing really is.

And thus, I believe I have made my point that what connects me to the music I love might just all come down to dumb luck. That's fitting, no?

What Ten Years As A Critic Has Given Me, Musically

Earlier this year, I reached the ten-year anniversary of when I became a semi-official part of the music scene. That prompted some thought about all the music I have listened to in these last ten years, and all the words I have written about it. To think that something that started with me jotting down some thoughts about an All-American Rejects album has led to probably close to hundreds of thousands of words chronicling my journey as a music fan is something rather remarkable.

One thought I had was to ask myself what this has all meant. The most obvious answer there are the friendships I have formed with a few select musicians. That is the biggest takeaway that has made all of the time spent pounding out words on this keyboard with it. But I was also interested in the musical takeaway. I was already someone who sought out and listened to as much new music as could interest me, so finding what albums I only found because of my role as a music journalist was a tougher question than I might have thought. I know I could not have listened to everything without being prompted toward it.

Here's what I came up with:

Graveyard

The most substantial entry on this list is Graveyard. I remember reading my colleague's review of "Hisingen Blues", giving it a quick listen, and then tossing it aside. It was only the next year, when he assigned the task of writing the review of "Lights Out" to me, that I heard and understood the greatness the band was offering. If left to my own devices, I likely would have seen the album pop up and dismissed it as being 'that band I didn't care for'. It would have been one of the biggest mistakes I could have made, as Graveyard continues to echo in my head as being what I keep looking for out of modern vintage rock bands. As much as I love especially their first three albums, I don't think I would have ever heard them, let alone embraced them, if I wasn't in the right place at the right time to fill in and write a review when the schedule necessitated it.

Michael Monroe - Blackout States/One Man Gang

I knew the name, and I had heard of Hanoi Rocks, but I never had interest before in listening to Michael Monroe's music. But as I was looking for something to fill out a day on my schedule, I had "Blackout States" sitting in front of me, so on a whim I gave it a listen. What happened didn't change my life, but it did remind me that taking chances is an important thing to do, because we never know what is going to happen. Despite being something I shouldn't have loved so much, I did, and I nearly thought it was the best album of that year. The follow-up continued to show me there was more to dirty rock n' roll than I usually assumed. A whim and a prayer, right?

Myja - Myja

I'm not sure how many people even heard of this record when it came out. With an odd name and a grayscale cover, it was not an appealing package. The only reason I ever gave it a thought was the press release that came along with it that mentioned a familiar name who was responsible for an album I quite loved. Without that press release, I would have never heard of Myja, which would have been a shame. The record is a wonderfully weird mix of power-pop and melancholy atmosphere, which is the sort of thing that tends to speak to me. So far it has been a one-off, and rather forgotten, but I remember. That means something to me.

Zakk Wylde - Book Of Shadows II

I had never given Zakk Wylde any thought. He was Ozzy's guitarist, and I hated Ozzy. He led Black Label Society, and I hated his overuse of pinch harmonics. I had seen enough guitar videos to also know his personality rubbed me the wrong way. That is to say, there was no reason I should have been listening to this solo album of his. In fact, the only reason I ever did was because it was sitting in my inbox, and I was going through a fallow period finding new music. I was looking for something to catch my attention, and for no other reason than that boredom, I pressed 'play'. As it turns out, Zakk is entirely different when he isn't playing into the metal stereotype, and I'll be damned if this acoustic-based record isn't something I needed in my life.

Harem Scarem - United/Change The World

Bands like this confuse me, because I hear many of them get talked about as having been popular years back, but I had never heard of them. I suppose my idea of what popularity meant is different, but it was not their band's history that made me listen to "United" when it came out. No, that was simply that I was in a place where I was reviewing as many albums as I could, and since I had access to their label's hefty roster, I listened to practically everything they were putting out. It was a good thing, as "United" reaffirmed me belief in melodic rock, and then they followed that with an even better record. I'm not exactly a 'sunny day' kind of person, but Harem Scarem's two most recent records as just that. They make me happy in a way other rock music doesn't.

The Worst/Most Disappointing Albums Of 2022

For being a year I found rather disappointing for music, the most interesting thing about it is how there are actually fewer outright bad and disappointing albums than I would have expected. The trend was to have fewer albums at the top end of the scale, but that did not come with the sediment collecting at the bottom of the barrel. Instead, we wound up with a bell-curve year, with the boring middle swelling more than ever before.

That being said, there are still some albums that raised my ire, and sunk my chest. These are the records from the year I will remember for reasons they will not be happy about.

The Bad:

1. Ashes Of Ares - Emperors & Fools

This record wins by TKO. It hits the trifecta of having terrible production, terrible songs, and a voice that is in obvious decline. Matt Barlow was once a metal legend, but he sounds like a shell of himself on these songs. Maybe it would be passable if it was a strong collection of songs, but instead this whole thing sounds like a demo that would have been rejected by a producer until the band could come up with some better material. I didn't like their previous stuff, but it was never as uncomfortable to listen to as this one. I truly cannot find anything good to say about it.

2. Serious Black - Vengeance Is Mine

This was also a strong contender. I ranted enough about this record before, so I won't go too deep into the weeds again. This record is fine if you don't understand English, but is absolute garbage if you do. The lyrics on this record, which were described by the band themselves as 'personal', are misogynistic bitching of the highest order. If you like calling women whores, and blaming them for everything wrong with your life, congratulations! Your incel self will think Serious Black is awesome. For anyone who understands women are people, and should be treated as such, Serious Black can seriously fuck themselves.

3. King's X - Three Sides Of One

These guys are legends, and from this first experience of mine with them, I don't understand why. This record has odd production that doesn't sound particularly good, and songs that don't make me want to listen through the poor sound. I'll give them credit that at least some of the vocals are obviously done well, but the record very much comes across like a band that hasn't made an album in fifteen years. Their writing muscles have atrophied, and perhaps they should have considered this a warm-up and waited until they found their groove again.

4. Porcupine Tree - Closure/Continuation

Steven Wilson's last solo album was dreadful, and bringing Porcupine Tree back from the dead isn't helping. Somewhere along the line, he stopped caring about writing captivating songs. The difference between "Deadwing" and this album is stark; the difference between a band that was trying to write songs, and a band that improvises around drum grooves. Listening to him go on and on about how many time changes are in a ballad that never sounds like it does anything progressive just illustrates this is music that wants to be smart, not music that wants to be good. I'll say it again; if you have to explain it, it isn't good.

5. Fozzy - Boombox

Fozzy has never been good, but I don't think they've ever been this annoying. As I get older, I find it harder and harder to put up with people who refuse to mature. Chris Jericho is fifty years old, and he actually sang a song with the lyric, "U.G.L.Y., you ain't got no alibi". I'm sorry, but if you're borrowing your lyrics from the neighborhood playground, you're not putting in the effort. I'm glad they have said this might be the last time they bother making a full album, because I don't know how many more of these I can sit through.


The Disappointing:

1. Taylor Swift - Midnights

I divide this list into bad and disappointing, because disappointments are not always bad. Case in point, I still like "Midnights". Taylor returns to pop, and there is a lot to the dark aesthetic I find quite appealing. She includes some gems, as she always does. The problem is that this isn't as good a pop album as "1989", and it sounds half-baked compared to the beauty of "Folklore". The flatness of the production doesn't give Taylor anywhere to go with her melodies, and there are a few songs where she gets swallowed in the electronic swamp. Compared to what I know Taylor can do, this falls far short, even if it's still better than just about all the pop music I'm accidentally exposed to.

2. Ghost - Impera

Ghost has never been an album band. "Meliora" is the only one of them I can enjoy as a whole, and "Impera" continues to divide things right down the middle. Half the record is great, doing everything Ghost is good at. The other half of the record is the worst music they've ever made. "Twenties" alone is an embarrassment, but it isn't alone as a disappointment. I should know better than to have expected Ghost to come through with a great album, but I still found myself deflated when I realized this would be another record I only remember for three or so songs.

3. Jorn - Over The Horizon Radar

I must be crazy. From the instant the first single came out, through my listens to the record, to my revisiting to make sure I wasn't in a bad place at the time, one thing has been true; Jorn's voice sounds weird. Jorn is one of the best singers in the world, and I absolutely love his voice, but he barely sounds like himself on this record. His bellowing roar is replaced by a thinner tone that sounds to me like he's struggling to push the air. And yet, I have not seen anyone else who hears what I hear from this record. Plenty of people have still said he sounds as good as ever, and I don't get it. Jorn's solo albums are never great, but at least you get to hear him do his thing. I couldn't with this one, and that made me sad. I wish I heard this the way everyone else did.

4. Slash - 4

Certain decisions don't work out. I have loved the three albums Slash has made with Myles Kennedy (I prefer this combination to Alter Bridge, to be honest), and they are among some of the best sounding rock records of recent years. Slash's guitar tones are phenomenal. But this record was recorded live on the floor, and it sounds like it. Those glorious tones are replaced by buzzier guitars that don't have the same punch or clarity. Some of Myles vocals are obviously first takes, and should have been given another pass. The whole thing sounds like a band fighting to control their sound at the volume they're playing at. Compared to what their previous records sound like, this one is almost unlistenable by comparison. It just sounds so bad, when they usually sound so good. A little bit of studio magic would have gone a long way.

The Top Ten Songs Of 2022

Every year, it feels like this is the hardest thing I have to do. Picking individual songs to represent my feelings on an entire year is difficult, not just because of the huge number of them I hear over the course of twelve months, but because it's far easier to think in big-picture terms. An album has more meat on the bones, and when you invest the time in forty-five minutes of music again and again, there's a mechanism of reinforcement you don't get when there is one great song on an album you otherwise don't like. Talking about a three minute song isn't always easy, but it's always worthwhile to point out which songs are the ones I felt closest to over the year.

10. The Spider Accomplice - Fire The Sorrow

A lovely surprise on "The Venomous Montage" was this number, a synth-drenched 80s rocker that elevated a sound I'm not of the right vintage to swoon to. Sounding like a "Blinding Lights" for a more rock-oriented audience, VK and Arno adopted the neon coloring of old "Miami Vice" episodes, and used it to put a fluorescent underline on their first full-length album. This song is a slice of 'neon noir', like a pair of lustrous blue irises wrapped around the deep black of dilated pupils. My eyes can't always handle things that are too bright, but this one is hard to look away from.

9. Ghost - Spillways

I will not call myself a fan of "Impera" as an album, but a gem is a gem. Ghost is great when they don't get sucked into their gimmickry and concepts, and a simple song like this proves it. The best part of "Prequelle" was, to me, the heightened pop aspects. That's what this song delivers again, as the core melody to the song could certainly make for a pop hit. You know, if Ghost wasn't Ghost. As frustrating as they can be, it's worth the aggravation to get songs that are this much fun.

8. Cold Years - Say Goodbye

For twenty years, Green Day's "Warning" is one of the few records that has ever felt like a true melding of modern alt/punk and old power-pop. I absolutely love that, so hearing Cold Years being able to revitalize that sound was (ugh, sorry for this pun) music to my ears. I love the slight swing of the guitars at the start, how the song stops before letting out the hook, and how it feels like an old AM radio hit. And the line "I drove all night with the street lights casting shadows in my mind" is just lovely. This one feels like an old friend to me.

7. Taylor Swift - Snow On The Beach

I have never been to the beach, but I have plenty of experience with snow. I am not as in awe of it as Taylor is here, but the feeling of something out-of-place being weirdly beautiful is one I can understand. Sometimes, we feel like that as people, about ourselves. The coldness of the production on "Midnights" works to perfection here, as the stark instrumentation and Taylor's flat vocal carry the aura of a cold night as flurries begin to fall, and your lips are too frozen to belt out more than a sigh. That feeling is wonderfully replicated here.

6. Halestorm - The Steeple

Here's an interesting song. When I first heard it, I was annoyed by the nursery-rhyme aspects of the lyrics. It felt hokey to me, and I thought it was going to be an annoyance when I kept listening to the full album. In an odd twist, it's this song that has stood out to me the most from "Back From The Dead", in part because of just how damn catchy that aspect makes it. Look, I'm still not a big fan of some of the lyrics, but a call-to-arms doesn't have to be poetic. This one isn't, but I do find myself getting caught up in it.

5. The Wonder Years - You're The Reason I Don't Want The World To End

Now this is how you end an album. This song might not be what you think of with the word 'epic', but the emotional swell of the song is that strong. It's powerful, stirring, and everything from the screaming bridge straight through the quick drop and the final chorus, is flawless. It epitomizes the idea of the emotional catharsis, and that it comes from the simple idea of finding a pair of gloves in your coat pocket just makes it that much more incredible. I may not be able to relate to it with the same intention it was written with, but the feeling it evokes is universal, and deep enough to cut.

4. Allen/Olzon - Never Too Late

Speaking of album closers, here is another one that feels like a true final statement. Russell and Anette work so well together, and when the melody spices things up with a bit more drama, there is no denying the power they embody. There is an air of defiance to the song, as their voices rise up together to stop us from giving up. Maybe that's a bit ironic at the end of an album, but damn if it doesn't work. This is the type of song I think of when I imagine a festival crowd shouting at the top of their lungs. It doesn't get much better.

3. Valleyheart - Back & Forth

The soft/loud dynamic has been in use forever, but that's because it works. As this song goes through its softer opening half, it's a nice little number. The melody is pleasant, and the somber mood hits some good marks. But that changes when the band kicks into gear, as the heavier final push escalates things, revealing an engine that had been idling, waiting for the pedal to be pushed to the floor. When that happens, as The Frugal Gourmet used to say, "Ooo, it's so good."

2. Avril Lavigne - All I Wanted

I found myself listening to "Enema Of The State" a lot this year, and with Mark Hoppus appearing on this song, it struck me as the best Blink-182 song in decades. Avril's voice plays as well off Hoppus' as the classic Blink formula, but it's the weariness of the message (and Hoppus' voice, to be honest) that I love so much, for how it undercuts what could be a bubblegum bit of pop-punk. This song sounds more wistful, more nostalgic, and like they know they're trying to recapture something that was lightning in a bottle.

1. Slash - The River Is Rising

My favorite song of the year is one that annoys me, which I think only underscores how much I love it. I absolutely hate the production, but I almost think the brittle sound is necessary, because otherwise the impending flood wouldn't sound like anything to worry about. Myles Kennedy always comes up with one or two of these songs on each album, and this time there is something about the soar and the swagger that got to me like it hadn't before. Rock and roll doesn't need to be complicated. Give us a cool riff and a catchy melody, and everything else will take care of itself. I don't think any other song this year embodied that quite as well.

The Top Ten Albums Of 2022

Every year tells a story, whether we want to hear it or not. Sometimes, that story opens our eyes to new worlds, wherein we learn about ourselves as we hadn't before. Other times, the story is one of finding buried treasure, bathing in the riches of discovery. And still other times, the story is one of disappointment, as the happy ending slips through our fingers as the sweat of effort makes our grip too slick to hold on to what we consider most dear.

This year was a combination of all of those stories, but the theme I most took away was the one of disappointment. I don't know if I was finally feeling burnout from doing this for over a decade without taking anything resembling a real break, if my tastes have changed in a way that wasn't aligning with the records I was coming into contact with, or if my head is finally full of so much music there isn't room for anything but the absolute best anymore. The questions will remain unanswered for now, but this is preface to say that while these are the best records the year had to offer me, this list is one I must admit is disappointing.

Every year, even if there are albums that make the list I still have concerns about professing my undying love for, the top spots have gone to records that bowled me over in some form or fashion. That isn't quite as true this year, as none of these albums stuck out to me as an obvious top-of-the-list entry the way my winners and runners-up in past years have. This was an odd year for not having at least one album that dominated the year for me, and served as a benchmark for everything else to measure up to.

Let's talk about the albums that came closest to doing that.

EP Of The Year: Rise Against - Nowhere Generation II

Picking up where they left off with last year's fantastic album, Rise Against are on a roll. They continue to produce a blend of punk and alternative that is strident, powerful, and damn memorable. Usually, if there is a companion release that comes along in short order, it is rather obvious why most of those songs didn't make the main album. Not here, as these songs not only keep the quality right on par, several of these could have made "Nowhere Generation" even stronger as an album. That's not an easy thing for an EP to do, and Rise Against did it easily. Though it's short, it is mighty.

10. Avril Lavigne - Love Sux

I shouldn't like this record. Avril presents the whole thing from the perspective of a bratty teenager, dropping f-bombs (and spelling 'sucks' as 'sux', as though it's an original thought) all over the place, and trying to make us forget she's in her thirties. She should be well past that immature crap, but even with that massive flaw staring me in the face all throughout, the record is executed so well I can't say I don't like it. She captures the feeling pop-punk excels at, and delivers sticky songs all throughout. Her duet with Mark Hoppus is way better than Blink's own comeback single, so that's another feather in the cap.

9. Nordic Union - Animalize

I have grown rather disenchanted by the put-together 'project' bands, but this one is an exception. They don't sound that much different than everything else Erik Martensson does, but Ronnie Atkins' vocals hit me far harder than when Erik himself is singing this stuff. Album number three is the weakest of them, but is still the finest heavy melodic rock of the year. Erik certainly knows how to write songs that become anthemic, and Ronnie is the right voice to give them the necessary grit to avoid schmaltz.

8. Elvis Costello - The Boy Named If

It's an adventure being an Elvis Costello fan, but it is clear to me I am happiest when he is in 'return to form' mode. I can't help it, I like Elvis when he decides to play straight-ahead rock and roll, as opposed to his more artistic tangents. This record, then, is the true follow-up to "Momofuku" in his oeuvre of rock records. Like that one, It focuses on Elvis and the band bashing out songs focused on his storytelling and melodies. A song like "My Beautiful Mistake" is one of his late-career gems, and even if he feels a bit like he's phoning it in when he explains the wordplay of the 'pray' and 'prey' line, there's still plenty to remind me of the influence Elvis has had on me.

7. Origin Of Escape - Shapes

It's hard to make moody music that is still engaging. When you wander in the darkness, getting lost becomes rather easy. Origin Of Escape find their way on this record, blending bits of Soen's rhythmic metal with Katatonia's lush depression. It turns into an album that hangs in the air like your breath on a frigid night, a wondrous bit of frozen time. It's a record I have to be in the right mood to be fully immersed in, but when I am, I'm rather captivated by the way melancholy can feel so comforting. Also, it's likely my favorite album cover of the year, as well.

6. Allen/Olzon - Army Of Dreamers

When the first Allen/Olzon album came out, I only had one complaint; let the two singers voices blend together more often. They did that with this second effort, which is a true duets album, as opposed to the half-and-half quality of the first. They didn't catch lightning with another song quite as good as "What If I Live", but this is a more consistently engaging album, because it lets Russell and Anette's voices mix and mingle on every track. That is the magic of a record like this, and it's why it turned out as my favorite (melodic) metal album of the year.

5. Halestorm - Back From The Dead

This record sounds like "Vicious", boiled down and condensed into a thicker molasses. The band is focused on sounding live, and alive, which comes through in spades. I'm not sure wanting to recreate the live experience is the best decision, as it makes the record feel a bit one-note, but Lzzy's voice and the songwriting are still more than worth listening to. I appreciate the honesty of Lzzy lyrics, even if they make me cringe at times, and her voice makes it obvious how much this record was necessary for her. It isn't their best, not at all, but they're good enough that even their b-game gives the mainstream a boost.

4. The Spider Accomplice - The Venomous Montage

The album is still an important format, because it's how you dig deep and discover all the facets of a band's personality. A diamond cannot sparkle if it is flat and one-sided, and neither can a band. The singles that are included here were all great as they came out, but there's something uniquely satisfying about hearing them in succession, packaged with new songs that reveal the story of creativity. Like the track's title suggests, this record is a kaleidoscope of fragmented rock genres, somehow coming together in a jeweled pattern of color that forms a unique rainbow. In this case, The Spider Accomplice is the pot of gold waiting for us at the end.

3. Valleyheart - Heal My Head

If I was struggling to find albums that truly wowed me this year, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise one that came close is the record that reminded me more than any other of Jimmy Eat World, who I spent most of the year listening to more than anyone else. This was my 'emo year', and Valleyheart was able to echo those feelings with an album that made melancholy punch with real weight. The quiet tones set us up for when the band digs in and shows us their power. There is pain and beauty to the melodies, as hints of screams bubble up in the vocals. The experience is an ebb and flow, like the blood being pushed through our arteries, then washing back when there isn't anything for it to paint lifelike. It delivered more of the emotional connection I am looking for than almost anything I heard this year. Almost.

2. Cold Years - Goodbye To Misery

I've loved the last two Rise Against albums, and Green Day's "Warning" is one of my all-time favorites, so an album that sounds to me like a combination of the two is just about perfect. The mix of classic power-pop with angsty alt-rock creates a lovely blend of emo colored brightness. The record is chock full of big hooks and anthemic choruses, buoyed by more crunch and power than pop-punk can muster. These songs burn with the fiery heat of a sugar rush, a blue flame that reminds you to enjoy what you have, because it is a temporary escape from the usual emptiness. Of all the albums on this list, it is the one that is the most fist-pumping fun of the lot. It does indeed say goodbye to misery, because it's nothing but a good time.

1. The Wonder Years - The Hum Goes On Forever

I'm often caught off-guard when an album grows on me over time. I like to think I've gotten good at sizing things up quickly, but every so often a record will sneak up on me. That's what happened with this one. I was initially wary of the handful of slower songs that didn't speak to me, but repeated listens have shown me the push-and-pull, ebb-and-flow is necessary to have the explosive songs hit with the power they do. The record is a roller-coaster, taking us on a journey that rises and falls like our shifting moods. Life is a twisting road, and these songs soundtrack those images. At times sounding like crying, at times sounding like screaming, there is something primal about this record that hits me harder than anything else this year. No other music captured the fun and the sorrow, the pain the the joy, that music can speak in ways we cannot with our words. The power to feel is paramount, and nothing made me feel like "The Hum Goes On Forever" this year. That is why it ended up having to be my Album Of The Year.

The Top 11 Albums of 2022 - D.M's List

 …And then we came to the end.  I won’t waste much column space talking about the struggles of coming up with a best-of albums list for the year, as Chris and I spent enough oxygen on that concept already.  I will say only this – I like this list. A lot.  It is not as strong as many of the lists that I’ve made in recent years.  (What makes this sting all the more is that I started this list last year with a diatribe about how I hoped music was on the upswing!)

It’s also worth noting that there’s been an accommodation to the circumstances in the rules this year.  Those who have followed this column over the past decade or so no that there are only a few boundaries here, but they are as follows – must be original studio material; no greatest hits, no live albums, no compilations.  For this year, I had to stretch the definition a little, as many of these albums contain tracks that were previously released during the pandemic as EPs, sometimes as much as a year in advance.  So, still original material by the artists, but some of it is re-purposed.  That’s probably a clerical note more than anything, but wanted to mention it in the interest of full disclosure.

To begin - 

Honorable Mention – Spill Your Guts – The Wrath it Takes

Honorable Mention – Alestorm – Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum

Honorable Mention – Denzel Curry – Melt My Eyez See Your Future

Three albums in the Honorable Mention category this year for three different reasons.  Spill Your Guts for making me have faith that down and dirty metal was still alive and well.  Alestorm for writing their most complete album to date while still maintaining their gloriously immature attitude about it all, and Denzel Curry, who didn’t match the powerful entries he made with “Zuu” and especially “Unlocked,” but still reminded us that wordcraft in rap isn’t dead.

Without further ado, the best 11 albums of 2022:

11 - Vittra – Blasphemy Blues

Similar to Vaelmyst a year ago, Vittra is a death metal band that manages to incorporate a clean, almost virtuoso-style guitar tone into their proceedings, and that combination is fresh enough and used uniquely enough here, through the lens of some old-school rock soloing, that it proves there’s still space to be explored in the death metal sphere.  It’s hard not to look at “Blasphemy Blues” and hear some shade of what Power Trip might have evolved into, which is a bittersweet sentiment to be sure.  Nevertheless, it always seems there’s one album that makes my year-end list based solely on its pure, adulterated power, and this one is it this year.

10 - Feuerschwanz  - Memento Mori

If you read the year-end conversation between myself and Chris, you’ll know that we briefly discussed what the time parameters on our list should be.  This album was the reason why, as it was technically released December 30th of 2021, thus much too late for a standard year-end best of list for 2021, but also not literally released in 2022.  Nevertheless, as Chris reminded me, in not so many words, don’t take yourself too seriously, and thus “Memento Mori” makes the cut.  Each year there seems to be a folky/intensely loud/singalong album that scratches its way into my top eleven list (Fear of Domination’s “Metanoia” being perhaps the most memorable one, and Turmion Kätilöt’s “Global Warning” being the most recent) and here we are again.  I am apparently a sucker for this very type of record, as “Memento Mori” is nothing if not an upbeat, bounce-along ride.  There is always a part of me that raises an eyebrow at including an album by what is really a lighthearted, jokey band, but here we are.  As we said, don’t take yourself so seriously.

9 - Ghost – Impera

One of the things that always feels dirty in a down year for music is the inevitable feeling that a couple albums get added by default, because of the name at the top of the record.  “Impera” feels a little like that.  Not because it’s not a good album, but because I’ve been a staunch supporter of Ghost for a while now, and I hate to even give the impression of automatic inclusion simply because Ghost released another album.  “Impera” is a good album, with some very listenable parts that really strike a resonant chord, in that catchy, bright-but-dark rock style that Ghost has become so good at.  Make no mistake, it’s not easy to write songs that a wide collection of people will like.  And the manufactured controversy of whether or not Ghost is metal or not is both a) stupid and b) immaterial to the purposes of this list.  But it lacks consistency, has some dead spots, and frankly tries some things that don’t work.  Greater sins have been committed, Ghost’s two previous albums cast a long shadow as well, and all those factors combined mean Ghost has released a good, but not excellent album.  In a better musical year overall, this might not have made the cut.  But according to my wife’s Spotify 2022 recap, “Spillways” was her most played song this year, and she readily hates about 70% of the music I listen to, so that has to count for something.

8 - The Warning – Error

This is the most I’ve enjoyed a female-fronted album since Blues Pills’ “Holy Moly!” in 2020 and the most I’ve enjoyed a female-fronted album that even hinted at being metal since Life Of Agony’s “The Sound of Scars” in 2019.  So that makes me happy, because diversity in music is a great thing.  And let’s not pretend otherwise – “Error” is a fantastic, catchy, highly listenable record, enough to easily earn its place on this list, especially in, as we’ve discussed, a down year for music as a whole.  Still, half of these songs we heard before on the band’s 2021 EP, and there’s also (and this is purely a personal issue,) a certain knee-jerk reaction to including an album that has garnered enough mainstream success that I heard “CHOKE” coming out of the radio in a Quebecois pizza shop.  But those are my hang-ups, and I won’t pin them unfairly on The Warning, who out-Halestormed Halestorm this year (which opening for them on tour!) and stands to stick around for a couple decades to come.

7 - BRKN Love – Black Box

Maybe rock isn’t dead?  Earlier in the year, Chris and I had a conversation about how for all its ownership of pomposity and heaviness and rhythm, metal often isn’t the king of the best, groovy riffs.  Wolfmother planted their flag in that argument more than fifteen years ago, and now the baton is being passed to another generation, of whom BRKN Love stands in the vanguard (and ohbytheway, do does The Warning, above.)  The Canadians continue to pump out memorable grooves that have just enough fuzz to not sound too antiseptic.  It’s an excellent combination that separates them from their contemporaries and makes their future bright.

6 - Destrage – SO MUCH. too much.

Much as with Ghost, this is an imperfect album by a band that has truly transcendent albums in their history.  It’s nearly impossible to judge “SO MUCH. too much” in a vacuum because it lives in the shadow of the three albums that have come before, two of which are sublime masterpieces and the third (and most recent, “The Chosen One,”) which is also very good.  This new album suffers for that, but it is in many ways still the most creative and exploratory music experience that we saw this year.  Destrage lives way, way out on the edge, so far past the margins as to not even be on the page, and listening to them wend their way through unknown territory is in itself an educational joy.  Their dedication to the unspoken credo of expanding musical borders simply through force of will and talent speaks volumes about what this band brings to the table.

5 - Arch Enemy – Deceivers

Arch Enemy has been routinely raked over the coals for leaning more and more into a style of death metal that is more accessible to listeners.  Some have gone so far as to call it ‘poppy,’ but that feels like a misnomer any time we’re talking about something as visceral as death metal.  At any rate, this feels like as good a time as any to reiterate that Chris and I are on board with this move – there’s certainly a place for making niche music for a very narrow audience, but on balance, more music for more people isn’t a bad thing.  Arch Enemy is hardly going to be appearing on CHR lists, anyway.  Maybe they’ll be a gateway drug for more death metal bands?  Oh yeah, and in the meantime, “Deceivers” is an excellent album and well worth a listen for all but the most stubborn and recalcitrant of fans.

4 - 8 Kalacas – Fronteras

You know what I appreciate?  Things that are different.  In just about all facets of my life, but especially in music, where tunes that are purely different is a harder and harder quality to uncover.  8 Kalacas?  Hardcore-metal-ska fusion?  In Spanish?  And done well?  Sign me up.

3 - Dampf – The Arrival

This feels almost dirty.  This album shouldn’t be this good.  It certainly shouldn’t be the third best album of the year, when it’s a metal album written essentially on a dare by an electronic dance artist.  There’s a whole subsection there we won’t get into about ‘how hard can it be to write good metal songs when this guy wrote a killer record on a whim?’ Nevertheless, the layering of instruments and the harmonies here are so good that it can’t be ignored.  And if the album can be faulted a little for having a preponderance of similar-sounding songs, that minor defect is more than compensated for with the album’s closer “From the E-Ternity,” which well and truly is the best single song I heard this year.

2 - Cancer Bats – Psychic Jailbreak

For their second album out on their own in a label-free environment, Cancer Bats again delivers the goods.  It’s hard to picture a hardcore band that’s been more consistent in quality over a ten-year period (and yes, I recognize that their career is longer than ten years, but the band really hits their stride with 2012’s “Dead Set on Living.”)  Especially as the band undergoes a significant change in membership with the departure of longtime guitarist Scott Middleton.  Similar to Clutch, though in a decidedly different execution, Cancer Bats make a lot of hay with storytelling.  Their surprisingly insightful for any stripe of aggressive music, finding a way to tell general stories while including specific details that seem relatable to fans who have been through a similar experience.  Which is doubly weird, because I read an essay earlier this year detailing that Taylor Swift was good at that exact same thing.  I don’t know anything about anything anymore.

1- Rxptrs – Living Without Death’s Permission

So, if you combine the lyrical gravity of last year’s Dead Poet Society album with the raucous, rollicking musical stylings of this year’s Cancer Bats album, what do you get?  Conventional wisdom, and indeed media editorial criteria rarely dictate that combining two albums that were #2 in their respective years (DPS last year on my list, Cancer Bats this year,) would come out with a number 1 record, but here we are!  (Warning, nerdy literary reference to follow: “freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four.”)  The short of it is this: You got Cancer Bats in my Dead Poet Society!  You got Dead Poet Society in my Cancer Bats!  Now, while this is one the few albums I really feel confident about standing behind this year, it is not a perfect record (few are.)  It’s heavy-handed with thematic melodrama, to the point where it seems overly insistent.  Think less “Dirt” and more an accentuated “The Black Parade.”  So, we are dangerously close to the full-on emo border here.  Some of that is just where aggressive music is right now, so that’s completely fine, but it’s something prospective fans should know going in.  That said, all sins are forgiven by the pure, chaotic, antithetical joy of “The Death Rattle,” which if “From the E-ternity” is the best song of the year, “The Death Rattle” is easily the most enjoyable.

The Conversation: 2022 In Review

CHRIS C: This was supposed to be the year everything got back to normal. Perhaps it did, and things seem different once the drama dies down. Regardless of the causation, I found this year to be just as weird as the last few, but in a very different way. Instead of a mass of drama and angst that never seemed to clear, no matter how hard we tried to blow the black clouds over the horizon, this year felt like we spent the entire time in the eye of the storm. Things were calm, but everything felt broken, and I was waiting for the tempest to stir once again.

That's my way of saying the same thing I said at the mid-point of the year; 2022 was a boring year for music. Not only did I not find that many records I feel passionate about, but even the ones I do were not the sorts of albums that excited me to new sounds and new thoughts. This was very much a year of stasis, even if some of the faces were brand new to me.

We will get into all of this later, but I saw this year as being the most extreme bell curve yet. There were not as many records sitting at the top of the quality range, but I also had fewer at the bottom. Ironically, the bad year for music was good for bad music, if that makes sense. The vast majority of albums sat in the fat middle of the curve, so many of them enjoyable enough to listen to while being things I will probably only listen to again when hearing the names prompts me to remember.

As a year, 2022 is like the argument whether a consistently good album is better than an inconsistent one with higher highs and lower lows. Do we need the excitement of the extremes? I'll let you tackle that, and anything else that comes to mind, first.

D.M: I appreciate the extremes in art as much as the next guy, but focusing solely on music in this particular instance, I think that for 2022, what I appreciated, and perhaps even needed, was the banality of a bunch of albums that were only okay.  Which is a strange concept to admit, but I think that's where I was.  I had hit a point in my criticism of music where I was concerned, much as I am concerned about many facets of our societal life, that the middle ground had become passe' and unmarketable.  The industry came to my rescue though, and provided a solid baseline of records that I could listen to and honestly remark "there's nothing great about this, but it's pleasant enough for what it is."  Will I ever, as you outlined below, listen to the overwhelming majority of them ever again? Nah.  Shit, I won't remember most of them two months into the new year.  Still, it was nice to feel buttressed by a soft blanket of albums that were perfectly inoffensive to the musical senses.  Optimistically, while I understand your point about the bad year for music being good for bad music, I prefer to think of this as a year in which the musical floor was raised.  That doesn't make the low peaks of 2022 any higher, but it does mean we don't have so far to fall to the truly wretched.

All that said, I'm in the same boat as you.  I have entered the final phase of musical listening for the year, where I'm trying to sort out my best eleven albums of 2022, to be published later in the year.  Nine records are locked into the list, with seven records fighting for the last two spots (and one I'm still waiting on to see if it gets released this year or not.)  Jockeying for position continues in earnest, but that's part of the problem.  It's nearly Thanksgiving, and there's no one record that I feel enough conviction to call the Album of the Year.  Of the nine I have in cement, I genuinely like all of them, but I don't know if I LOVE any of them.  It's a strange, disappointing place to be.  In recent memory, both 2017 and 2019 left me with some of the same taste in my mouth, but the complication there was that I had trouble differentiating albums 2-10, or whatever.  In both cases, there was a confident number one.  As I sit here today, a week out from the start of the Christmas shopping season, I don't know what record will be first.

(Small caveat - I'm not entirely sure what to do Feuerschwanz' album "Memento Mori." It released December 30th of 2021, so much too late to be considered for those lists, but also not technically in 2022.  These are the things that keep me up at night.)

And I don't know if you experienced the same phenomenon, but many of the bands that would normally buoy a down year for me, or that I at least had some hope would rescue me from indecision, dropped the ball.  Amorphis, Midnight, GWAR, Master Boot Record, Destruction, Soilwork, Halestorm (more on this in a second,) Megadeth, Kendrick Lamar (finally,) and even Clutch, all released albums that weren't bad out of hand, but didn't evoke any particular emotion, either.  Put in your quarter, turn the crank, get an album.

Back to Halestorm for a second - this might be figthin' words, but I think The Warning released a better Halestorm album than Halestorm did this year.  Change my mind.

Before we get into a bunch of other junk, I found myself bombarded with a deluge of EPs this year.  Which was in many cases a teaser for albums to come, and also probably represents a band cleaning out the last of their bored pandemic closet, but it made me think...have we crossed the barrier where an "album" in a traditional sense is no longer necessary?  I think we talked about this a couple years with Greta Van Fleet's annoying tendency to release songs two at a time, but it's worth revisiting now, I think.

CHRIS C: As I mentioned to you personally, I have settled on my Album Of The Year, but it's the first time since you got me into this calling that I've had doubts about my choice. When you're picking the best among a flawed list, it doesn't have the same level of excitement to it. Or perhaps there is an explanation that will get me off the hook, at least in terms of the nagging thought my head my be getting to the point of musical saturation. That would be my admission, if I'm being totally honest, that my real #1 album of the year is fifteen years old. The record I spent the most time with, and felt the strongest about, is an older one that finally clicked into place for me. Saying that my winner is my winner will be true, but it won't be honest. And there I  am parsing words and being a semantic asshat again.

Since you mentioned the Christmas season, I'll ask you a question; do you (still?) use the times when albums serve as gifts as a way to measure how much you like them? Each year, for my birthday and Christmas, I'll get a small box of CDs. Seeing which recent albums I feel like I need to have a physical copy of tells me something about just how much I value them. Let's just say I did a lot of hole-plugging in my collection this year, and I probably acquired less of my potential top ten than usual.

Those late year releases do get trapped. I've had it happen where a single will come out in one year, then the album the next, and it's also confusing. Actually, there was one record that was released in Europe in December, and over here in January one time. That one drove me nuts to think about. I've come down on the side of saying we need to stop putting so many rules on ourselves. If you want to make it a list-to-list calendar, I say go for it.

I did experiece the same thing you did, although I did enjoy two of the ones you listed more than you apparently did. But yes, I was certainly expecting Slash, Michael Monroe, and Avantasia to deliver more than they did, not that any of them are bad. I was just asking some other people if I'm just unusually fickle in that I don't seem to automatically like everything even my favorite artists put out, so perhaps we can at least take solace in knowing we aren't going completely crazy.

Halestorm is a strange case, and sorry, I didn't mean that as a pun. I absolutely unerstand what you're saying about them, and yet I find myself still won over by Lzzy's charisma. Look, *spoiler alert*, their album is going to be on my list, but whatever you want to say about it, I'm sure I'll actually agree. This record was definitely brief, a bit muddy, and Lzzy's worst tendencies as a lyricist are at the forefront. There are things I won't even try to defend. That said, I find their songs to be more memorable than The Warning, even now. Of course, I don't think The Warning have come close to topping their first album, so we're seeing different trajectories there. It's definitely a case of a voice speaking to me in ways only a few people are able to. I will admit that bias.

Albums aren't really 'necessary' anymore, no. Unless you're Taylor Swift and can put your entire album in the top of the charts, everything beyond the singles is just for the dedicated fans. I think that means, ironically, the bigger bands are the ones that need albums the least. We see Godsmack saying they're done with albums, Fozzy has talked about going to only singles too, and I'm sure there are more that aren't coming to mind. When you can pretty much guarantee a chart placement at rock radio on name value alone, the self-sustaining nature is damn tempting to indulge. I don't quite get the listening habits today, bouncing through a playlist of singles, but it is what it is. I prefer finding a band that fits my mood, and spending a solid bit of time with them. It's funny that the album is a dying art form, but people are still flocking to live shows to have that longer-form experience with a band. It almost doesn't make any sense. But to answer the other side of this, albums are actually still necessary. Albums are where you can still make a good amount of money EPs and singles can't generate. How many different vinyl editions did Taylor Swift put out? Sell two or three of those to your most dedicated fans, and albums still hold their own.

D.M: You mentioned that the album you've spent the most time with this year is an album that is more than a decade old.  And while I'm sure that has some implications for the year or 2022 as we've scratched the surface talking about, I'd like to draw your attention to a couple of tangential phenomena.

Is there any greater feeling of wonderment as a music fan than when an album you had previously passed over sparks for you?  Or even similar to that, when you listen to an old favorite for the first time in a while, and discover some new part of it that you previously didn't know you loved?  It always leads to more questions than answers - why didn't I like this before?  What did I think I was missing?  And perhaps most consequential, where was I in my life that this didn't appeal to me until now?  it is, if I may in turn be a semantic asshat, a forward journey made my looking backwards.  (I feel like there's a haiku in there somewhere.)

You know where that's never happened for me?  With Bruce Springsteen.  Because all of his music is derivative and spoiled by sameness.  There, check that off the list.

While we're here talking about deeply personal musical experiences, let me draw your attention to something else that's been bothering me lately.  You ever listen to a record and every part of it jives with some branch of music that you like, and the record is well-produced and sounds crisp and clean and there's nothing wrong it, but for some reason you don't like it?  This has happened to me a couple times in my life, most memorably with The Black Keys, and most recently with The Batelerus, whose album I listened to after reading your review.  Everything about The Bateleurs is something I should like.  I really should.  And I probably listened to it five times, and I just don't care for it.  Worst of all, I can't even tell you why.  Has this ever happened to you?  What causes this?  This bizarre cognitive dissonance?

As far as your Christmas question, I do have a policy, but it's inverted from yours.  Any album that I'm willing to leave to the chance of a gift is one that I liked, but not one that I felt compelled to buy at the time.  This arose from a couple of instances where I tried to hold out for gift-giving occasions, only to find that the album I was seeking was subject to a limited run and no longer available.  These are the pitfalls of being exposed to more bands that are not mainstream popular and thus don't press a high number of physical copies.  Truly a first-world problem.

Because we always seem to get sidetracked by Taylor Swift, let's go there again - brushing aside the Ticketmaster fiasco for a moment (I have no particular sympathy for Ticketmaster about anything, but I do wonder if any company would have been prepared for the teeming masses that caused an avalanche of cascading system failures.)  I recognize that I'm probably being naive here, but I don't think I realized that Taylor had hit the rarefied level of stadium-sellout fame that I associate with say, The Beatles or Michael Jackson or Beyonce (and for whatever reason, Rammstein, which I also don't get.)  I find this surreal.  I guess I never think of a contemporary artist (Beyonce aside,) of being able to attain that level of fame in the modern, fractured digital music audience.  Sell out an NBA arena?  Sure, that check out.  But man, when you fill in the field with seats at an NFL stadium, you're talking about 85-100,000 people.  For whatever reason, my brain can't handle this.  You've been a Taylor defender in the past, so I'm asking you again as a reliable resource here - what about Taylor catapults her to a level that even Metallica can't meet, what puts her on the Iron-Maiden-In-South-America level?

CHRIS C: The main repercussion of that older album's power is probably making my view of this year more harsh than it might otherwise be. When the bar I'm using to measure with comes from this year, it's one thing. When it comes from an older year, and nothing can measure up to it, that does leave me feeling more disappointed than I would be with the same field of albums otherwise. It's a psychological mirage, I know, and yet it's the sort of thing knowing does not enable you to put out of your head. Few things are more frustrating than knowing you're being illogical, and not being able to stop yourself.

In general, you're absolutely right that having a previously dismissed album rise from the deep like Jason Voorhees and slay you is quite the experience. In this particular case (the story of it will have been posted long before this conversation is published), I know exactly why it happened. The thing that amazes me is that in all these years, I never had the thought previously to go back and see if the follow-up to my favorite album had grown on me at all. Lo-and-behold, it did, and I feel like an idiot for missing out on many years I may have missed with an album I'm now holding rather dear. Better late than never, though. This is more extreme, but I believe I was talking about some of the same things last year, as the recent trends have given me more time to backtrack, and I have found myself loving stuff like AFI's "Sing The Sorrow" and pre-hiatus Fall Out Boy even more than I did back in the day. And more than most things today.

And yes, that has happened with Bruce Springsteen a bit too. As I'm writing this, I have a copy of "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" en route to my house. Don't ask me why, but after I wrote my Album Vs Album about that one, it's been on my mind ever since. I don't know how many Springsteen albums you're allowed to have before it says something negative about you, but I'm either close or over the line now. Damn me.

What you're describing absolutely happens to me. You can name most of the bands in the 'vintage rock' genre, and I would say the same thing about them; bands like Horisont and Witchcraft. You're touching on something I was thinking about recently as well; how much I hate when people say, "This band sounds like this other band, so you'll love them." That's not how it works. There is something so incredibly nebulous about songwriting, and the way a person's particular way of phrasing either a riff or a vocal melody, that you can have ten bands all using the same guitar settings and techniques, and you might only like one or two of them. Think of it this way; how many bands have come up that sound a lot like Sabbath, Maiden, or Priest? And how many of them do you like? Everything we spend all these words talking about comes down to songwriting, and in the end, there isn't really a good way to describe what it is about someone's particular ear for parts that hits you. As a songwriter, not being able to understand what it is about songwriting that works is the single most aggravating thing.

This year, I can give you the example of The Ferrymen. It's melodic metal exactly how I like it, the singer is often compared to Dio (wrongly, I think), and it's even written by a guy who has written numerous albums that make my top ten lists (including this year - spoiler alert again). And yet, I don't care about The Ferrymen at all. It happens.

First-world problem or not, I feel you. Every gift-giving occasion, it's always a bit of a puzzle to see which albums are in print, and which are still available without being ridiculously expensive. There are a few I've got on my list I would love to find someday, but I know the odds are low. I was asking recently; why is it we can have nearly every song ever recorded at our fingertips, and yet no one has come up with a cost-effective way of printing one CD at a time, so nothing ever goes out of print?

The thing about Taylor is that she is one of the few people who crosses listener groups. Teen girls love her because she speaks to their insecurities, a segment of teen boys love her because they think that will help teen girls like them, their mothers love her because she can be one of the more astute and literary lyricists in pop, and their fathers love her for more image-based reasons. By virtue of being pop, with country roots, of being hooky, with deeper meaning, she is drawing from a larger pool of people than most artists can. She sits in a middle ground where few people will ever be offended or turned off by the music she makes. And since she keeps changing up her style, if you don't like one of her records, there's a solid chance you like one of the others. It's all shrewd business that gives her the best chance for massive success. "Midnights" isn't my favorite thing she's done by any means, but there's still enough there to keep me intrigued.

So what were the positive developments this year?

D.M: One of the great decisions I've made in the past couple years has been to upload my entire musical catalogue so that I can stream it to my myself on my phone.  Lawn care is just about my least favorite task that I have to undertake on a routine basis, but throw the ole ear buds in and hit shuffle, and the resulting chaos can be a highly rewarding experience,  To wit, I recently heard for the first time in probably a decade Deep Purple's "Pictures of Home," and for the first time realized its sublime genius.  It made me go back and review the entire "Machine Head" album, listening to it with a level of discernment that wasn't possible when I was a teenager.  What's old is...well, still old (1972,) but refreshed!

The thing you're talking about vintage rock is a salient point.  And the fact that you tied it, intentionally or accidentally, into power metal and doom kind of wraps into the same point.  If I've learned anything about those three genres over our career (if I dare call it that,) as music journalists (if I dare call us that,) is that there are certain genres out there that just feed meat into the grinder.  And these three, particularly power metal and doom, may be the most guilty.  Which is to say, there are A LOT of power metal and doom bands.  A LOT.  Most of them are meaningless.  To me, they all sound the same.  And this is where vintage rock ties into this as well - it's easy enough to pattern yourself and sound like any of these genres (power metal gets some respite here because it requires greater virtuosity and possibly greater sheer dexterity,) hell, I'm reasonably certain I could put together some doom songs this weekend; just take some basic blues structures, slow 'em down and fuzz 'em up and you're out the door.  

And as a listening public, we seem to be okay with this.  So long as we get the momentary rush of something new, we seem to be satiated for the time being, and the topic of originality takes a backseat to the topic of immediacy and synthesis.  Nevermind Frontiers records, which we've discussed ad nauseum on these pages.  This is all very scattered by me, so let me try and put it together into something more cogent - there seems to be a relationship between artists, labels and the public where the ability to replicate a sound is more important than the ability to influence that sound.  Hence, Horisont is what they are, but Graveyard is a superior band.  Church of Misery will never be Black Sabbath.  The Ferrymen are not Judas Priest.  And yet that does not prevent us from consuming the new and same at an alarming rate.  Is the public not capable of discerning the difference?  Are we just letting the C students rule the world here?

As I reflect on this, this seems to be much the same pattern that drives pop.  So why is it acceptable for pop to need new fuel every eight weeks, but not for these other genres?  Or am I taking this too seriously?

Regardless, I recall a conversation I had without another journalist for a prominent metal website some years ago, where we were having this very discussion, and I was making the point that some artist he was promoting heavily (time has robbed my memory of who it was,) sounded simply like a poor man's Iron Maiden, and wouldn't he just be better off listening to Iron Maiden again?

To which he responded that for him, that was not an issue - that if the music was in a style he enjoyed, he would enjoy it with equal relish, regardless of whether he could get that same thing, but markedly better, elsewhere.

I do not understand this mindset.

Anyway, good stuff - while I remain disappointed in how few reviews I actually managed to write, I am quite pleased with how many albums I managed to listen to, which was way up this here.  This whole hybrid-work-part-time-from-home thing is paying off for me in spades.  If the work gets done, nobody cares if I'm listening to Arch Enemy while it gets done.  And, my cats, who seem magnetically attracted to video conference calls, have become office celebrities of a sort.

I think from a purely musical standpoint, there are two major positive takeaways from me, one of which we've addressed, is that I feel like the musical floor is raising.  I've felt that way for a couple years now (in no small part represented by my well-populated Honorable Mention list last year, which is really just cheating.)  As my wife frequently remarks when she sees fashion trends either in media or in public "the '90s really are back," maybe that's what I'm hearing, and as such my heart is simply wallowing in nostalgia for my youth, but I genuinely believe the caliber of most forms of aggressive music (and rock,) has improved over the last 30 months or so.  Tangential to that, I also think that the quality of recording has gone up exponentially.  Home recording equipment has gotten much more affordable and accessible, and to that end I'm hearing fewer albums that sound like they were recorded in a hotel hallway (except the intentional ones, natch.)

More subtly, I'm very happy with where hard rock is right now, particularly with respect to its relationship with adjacent genres.  This began in earnest a year and some change ago, with straightforward but deeply creative efforts from The Hawkins, as well as genre-blending showpieces from Cave of Swimmers, BRKN Love and Dead Poet Society (and even Beartooth, depending on how liberal you are with the definition of 'rock.')  Rock seems to have decided that there's a lot of musical substance out there, and while I don't intrinsically love all of the elements that get folded in (there are some trends taken from emo,) the ability to color outside the lines and utilize hardcore, elecontric, metal, industrial, whatever, has made for a more versatile and enjoyable wave in the genre.  The album that right now is most likely to by my Album of the Year features this same creativity, which culminates in a song that fuses bright, funky guitar, choral vocals and depressing themes in a way that I haven't heard since Alice in Chains' too-oft overlooked song "I Know Something (Bout You.)"

So I'm going to ask you what you liked, and I'm also going to ask if you can set us up to to dig into your "what makes a fan" piece, which I thought was brilliant.  (I don't like Candlemass, either.  Which is a shame, because "If I Ever Die," is one of the great modern doom songs.)  Go!

CHRIS C: I'm going to split the difference with the two points you were making. Absolutely, there are tons of bands out there that play with nearly the exact same sound. Between the advent of better home recording technology, and the proliferation of information from producers, it's easy for just about anyone to get the guitar sounds from the albums that inspire them. Dialing in tones is easy, writing songs is hard. That's the lesson to take away from this. The complaint I've always had about the vintage rock movement is that they nail the sound, but they lack the songs. Zeppelin and all those others didn't get huge because people loved the sound of the amps they were playing, it was because of the songs they wrote. These newer bands whose only source of inspiration is classic rock just don't seem to write songs that catch my ear very often. Like you said, that's the difference between Graveyard and Horisont.

However, I'm not averse to bands that offer nothing new at all. I am not going to say I need something original from the music I listen to, so long as it's damn good. The odds of a band that adheres so closely to someone else's sound being good enough are fairly low, but it does happen from time to time. One of my favorite albums this year is just that because of how much it sounds like something else. I don't hold that against it at all, since it's still really good. Of course, the line between inspiration and imitation is often thin, and we're left to debate when it gets crossed.

To get to the question you were really asking; I think metal puts up with more of this than pop does because the metaphor of metal is unchanging. Pop has always been an elusive thing that evolves with time, but metal is supposed to be metal. Just look at what happened to metal bands when they tried to change things up. Whether it was "Turbo Lover", or "Load", or any number of other examples, metal culture is far more set in its ways than pop is. Hence, metal culture has always been far more conservative, in both senses of the word, than they like to admit. There's a reason why a number of far-right extremists form black metal bands.

You listened to more music this year, and I listened to less. I got off to a flying start, but by the time summer came, I was really dragging to find anything I was interested in. Fall had a short bump, but the entire second half of the year has been pretty slow for me. Perhaps that is in part due to Frontiers, as my inbox gets flooded by their albums, and other than one or two with someone I'm a fan of being involved, I haven't heard anything 'new' from them worth keeping around. This year, more of the stuff I liked necessitated my going out and finding it. This was not an easy year where the good music came to me.

The good from this year wasn't a trend in the actual music, but rather in myself. I was interested to see my own taste changing this year, as I spent more time digging into a sound slightly outside my usual wheelhouse (that would be the emo you mentioned not liking). Often, I feel stuck in my ways, so it was definitely a positive sign to see I still have room to expand my horizons. And this year especially, it came in handy. The other good thing this year was my own personal confidence in music. This was the first time I finally felt able to try to do something with my own music. Now, nothing of note has come of it, but I'm still counting it as a good thing that I know more now than I did at the start of the year.

We talk mostly about albums in these, but let's turn our focus to bands. As you mentioned, I wrote a piece about when we should call outselves fans of bands. Basically, I was trying to reason out whether I need to like the majority of a band's catalog to be a fan, or if I can like just one era. The one that drives me crazy is Black Sabbath. I love the Dio era, but I hate Ozzy. Since Dio's era is only three albums, and 95% of people associate the band with Ozzy, do I want to call myself a fan of the band, given what everyone else considers that to mean? I still don't think I have it figured out, but it's a jumping off point. Your thoughts?

D.M: Music is the most subjective fandom there is, and the interpretation of fandom of a particular artist is one of the most subjective parts over and above that.  There are multiple versions of the quote, but in some form, classic science fiction author Damon Knight once said "science fiction is what I point to and say 'that's science fiction.'"  Fandom of musicians follows in much the same vein.  if I say I am a fan of a band, then I am.  I don't know that it rests on a percentage of the catalogue.  After all, I proudly count myself among Iron Maiden fans, but there are whole sections of their repertoire that I've never really cared for, and that doesn't even take into account the Blaze Bayley years.  Am I fan of Rush?  Sure.  Are there only two of their albums, "2112" and "Permanent Waves" that I truly think are great?  Also sure.  And I don't think the phenomenon is unique to you and me.  How many people claim to be fans of Pink Floyd, but haven't spent any time with "Meddle" or "Relics" or even "Animals?"  Never mind the number of people in our age bracket who profess love for the Eagles but can't name more than their single most famous song.  

Now, as you mentioned, the line gets blurred when a band has multiple distinct eras.  Black Sabbath is one of the most prevalent examples, but there are plenty of more subtle variations, where the band members undergo little or no change, but the band changes course.  There are a wide swath of Beatles fans who can profess adoration of all the band's musical permutations, but that crowd is not absolute.  And it is difficult to find fans of both the distinct eras of The Clash.  So perhaps there is always some caveat that must be mentioned in there, a subtext that gives context to our specific fandom.  For example, I am publicly on record that I will never engage with anything The Doobie Brothers did with Michael McDonald.  Much as with your fandom of Black Sabbath, that doesn't diminish my loyalty to The Doobie Brothers, but it does define it.

Isn't this always the way, though?  Musical fandom, like any social gathering of any stripe, first seeks to bring us together, and then we find walls to separate and distinguish ourselves amidst the other fans.  Even in sports fandom, fans of the same team, while unified in their kinship, can identify themselves with different eras.  My dad and I are both Mets fans - he belong to the Tom Seaver era.  I am a child of the Dwight Gooden era, coming of age with Al Leiter and then David Wright.  My brother and I are both Red Wings fans, but he of the Steve Yzerman era, and I Nick Lidstrom.  Good fences make good neighbors.

Anyway, what always comes next for us is what was the bad of this year, and I may as well get the ball rolling.  There are two major takeaways for me, one of which we've discussed a couple of times this year already.  The first is that it's been hard to truly feel conviction about the albums that have been released this year.  There are many good ones, but few, if any, that transcend to memorable greatness.

The second is more subtle, and something that we brushed up against last year, but it still bears discussion.  I find myself disappointed again this year with the significant lack of artists who have something to say about any subject of substance.  Most lyrics don't take the time to discuss anything of consequence anyway, but even among those that do, the overriding theme seems to about issues of the unquiet mind.  And that's fine, there's a lot to unpack there, and mental health and the issues that pertain to it are worthy of consideration.  But it seems that's where everyone wants to go now, when there are plenty of other issues worthy of inspection that artists throughout history have taken on the umbrous task of trying to dissect in song (with varying degress of subtlely - from Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" to Dead Kennedy's "California Uber Alles.")  I can't imagine why artists are choosing to shy away now; I hope it's not for the fear of repercussion. Someone needs to take up the mantle.

What didn't you like?

CHRIS C: Of course, at the most fundamental level what you say is true, and we indeed get to define our own experience. I was trying to, as I am wont to do, explain why I feel the way I feel. Ultimately, it's about my own comfort level. There are some bands where I will claim to be a fan, even in the limited circumstances, while there are others I will not, even when the numbers are the same. It's a cultural thing; namely, do I want to be a part of that culture?

I've lost count of how many times I've put forward the caveat that I'm not a 'metal guy', which is about the music, but it's more about the culture. I look at the metal fans out there, with the way they act, the way they talk, and I seldom want to be included in their clique. Psychologically, I probably put a higher bar on any metal band to say I'm truly a fan, precisely because I don't want to think of myself as one of those people. You know me well enough; do I really seem like I fit in as a Slayer fan, even if I do enjoy a few of their albums?

What I didn't like it also lyrical in nature, but I'll get to that in a moment. We've spent most of the last six years wondering why there hasn't been more topical music taking on the ways the world has been burning down around us. The opening was there, and I firmly believe someone who made the effort was going to get elevated to a new level by being the ones to voice what we were all thinking, but it just didn't happen. These people are letting Green Day be the last band to really make a megahit political/issues album. This is where I'll give Gojira some credit, as they do actually tackle environmental issues in their songs, although you can't understand a word he's growling, so it kind of goes for naught.

But what I found the worst things about the year were two-fold; lyrics that continue to glorify war, and lyrics that insult my intelligence as an actual adult. Let's take those in order.

Between Sabaton, and Warkings, and several others, there are plenty of bands out there who keep writing and writing and writing about war. Unlike when Slayer did "Angel Of Death", these songs never feel like they are calling war the horror that it is. It feels especially tasteless as an actual war is going on in Ukraine, but when you make music that tries to sound triumphant while discussing the kill totals of the people who fought, I'm left wondering if we've completely missed the point of history. The one that really made me want to hit someone was Sabaton's "Christmas Truce", since it was making a big deal about how lovely the brief pause in mass killing was, while completely ignoring that they could have simply stopped shooting each other at any point and ended the bloodshed. Sharing one meal between bursts of bullet fire is not really a positive story.

But the one thing that truly did piss me off was the album Serious Black put out. (A runner-up prize to Chris Jericho, a fifty year-old who wrote a part in a song that literally said "U.G.L.Y., you ain't got no alibi".) I'm sure I'm repeating myself, but oh well. They had a couple of songs on a record they described as their most 'personal' that dove deep into misogyny, calling a particular woman an ugly whore, and basically blaming women for everything bad that has happened. It didn't piss me off that whichever band member wrote the song has those kinds of ugly thoughts. What bothered me most is that his band mates had no problem putting that song on the record, the producer had no problem putting that one the record, the label had no problem putting that one on the record, the PR company had no problem pushing it as a goddamn single. Everyone heard those lyrics and agreed it was the way they were going to try to promote and push the record. And when I did try to address that in one discussion circle I'm involved with, the other people were actually cheering the band on for doing it. And to tie things back together with a nice little bow, that bullshit is why I want no part of metal culture.

Is there anything on the horizon you're looking forward to?

D.M: I need to being by making an adjustment to my earlier statement.  I said artists were not willing to take on serious issues that were starving for a lack of conscientious discussion.  Then last night, I went to a Cancer Bats concert where they were supported by War on Women.  And it made me realize - there are still bands out there taking on the big issues, even if their chosen weapon can be occasionally vulgar or juvenile.  It remains true that there are not enough of them.  And perhaps the larger issue is that those with authority are too cowardly to take the chance on them.  But I want to tip the cap where it's due - those bands are out there.  And they need more column space.

This is not a unique issue, naturally.  Dead Prez was willing to spit truth and take on all comers with the all-time classic "Let's Get Free," but most were much more content to swallow a new Outkast album that same year.

I'm going to call you to the carpet a little and commit a cardinal sin by answering your question with a question.  Worse yet, I'm going to ask you the same question.  You know me well enough; do I really seem like *I* fit in as a Slayer fan?  And yet I am.  Happily so (with the caveat that I started treating them like a traveling museum once they kicked Dave Lombardo out of the band.) You know what I do for a living - for those reading at home, I have a pretty good, reasonably high-profile gig.  But did I wear a Death Angel shirt to work the other day, with my professional button-down just open enough for those who would know the logo to recognize it?  Damn right.  

Do I fit the stereotype of, to use your pejorative, 'those people'?  I would argue that I don't.  And yet, there I am, in the middle of the throng, part of a strange, mutually suspicious brotherhood.  I'll be the first to point out the foibles of metal fandom, and the rampant one-upmanship that runs rampant through the medium.  Still, I am a metal fan.  Metal guy.  Metal disciple.  Whatever the accepted term is.  And, to come full circle into the larger conversation about fandom, I am because I say I am.  There's no grand committee that metes these things out.  We are what we make ourselves.

And that's the sticky point, isn't it?  What labels we choose to accept upon ourselves?  How we frame our own identity?  And how much, to some degree, we recognize, rationalize, reject or rejoice in the stereotypes of those labels.  There's a level of personal tolerance that comes into play, for which there is no right or wrong for the individual.  You said it yourself - we define our own experience.  I suppose what I'm really doing is cautioning you against the 'those people' of metal culture, as each individual in that crowd, including me, may have defined it differently for themselves.  (And of course, as I write this I'm listening to the new Denzel Curry album, which means, yes, I am also a rap guy.  Two things can be true!)

I'm only going to address Sabaton insofar as to say this - why are people still listening to their new material?  Haven't they heard it all by now?  Is this even new material, or did they just re-arrange the deck chairs and set sail?

Regarding Serious Black - gross.  As a tangential point, I think what we've lost in the last fifteen or so years is the ability for allegory (thinly veiled or otherwise.)  Like, if you really look at Venom's "Welcome to Hell," that album is not all that kind to women either, and was clearly penned by three unattractive English gents who were frustrated that women didn't find them more interesting (and then you looked at the inset band photos in the gatefold and couldn't understand why they couldn't figure it out for themselves.)  Yet, we don't really hold that album to the level of misogyny (maybe we should?) because the band, and I'm thinking specifically of the song "Poison," couched their frustration in not-subtle allegory.  (For the record, the first time I think I ever heard the word allegory was when my brother explained to me that the underappreciated Led Zeppelin song "Trampled Underfoot" was an allegory for sex, as all songs about cars and card playing are.  Except for maybe Annihilator's "21," which is either actually about blackjack, or is the clumsiest sexual analogy ever written.  But I mention all of that as context for this - I think it was also, as an 11-year old music fan, the first time I realized that lyrics might not always be literal.  And that sometimes, Led Zeppelin wrote songs about sex.  And other times, hobbits.)

Now, does that excuse Serious Black?  Of course not.  Nor does it absolve any band who heads down that same road, even when writing in dense metaphor.  The only point I'm going for is that I feel in the social media era we've lost the concept of an artist even attempting to pull the wool over our eyes, wink at us, and say something snide like "the song is about whatever you interpret it to be about."  It seems so long ago, when Dee Snider, for all his faults and for whatever we may believe about him, said: "Tipper Gore's claimed one of my songs, "Under the Blade", has lyrics encouraging sadomasochism, bondage, and rape. On the contrary, the words in question are about surgery and the fear it instills in people. As the creator of "Under the Blade", I can say categorically that the only sadomasochism, bondage and rape in this song are in the mind of Ms. Gore."

One more thing I want to toss out there, which I think is a quick conversation, but occurred to me over the fall - now that we live in the Spotify/Youtube/streaming in general era, is there any further use for a Greatest Hits album to ever be released?  Damned if I can think of one (other than the obvious cash grab.)

You know, usually I don't have much I'm looking forward to, but I do have something!  Which unfortunately, comes at the expense of my musical 2022.  The album I mentioned at the beginning of this that I was waiting on, which I might as well reveal to be Kiberspassk's "Smorodina," has been delayed to January.  I have the advance, and I've spun it a couple times.  It's pretty strong.  I was prepared, based on the singles, for it to sweep Album of the Year honors from me, and while I'm not sure that would have been the case, it's damn good.  Also, Powerwolf will be playing in the United States for the first time in February.  I have my tickets.  Let's fucking go.

And I assume I'm going to get offered a pitching contract by the Mets any hour now.  So there's that to look forward to.  You?

CHRIS C: You're right that I probably didn't get specific enough with my Slayer analogy, which is on me. I didn't really talk enough about the energy, attitude, and some more ephemeral joie de vivre. I don't think in any of those categories I would fit in as a Slayer fan. I don't look the part, but I also don't have the energy or attitude of the typically pumped-up Slayer fan. Your concert energy and unique headbanging dance style does actually seem to me as rather befitting a Slayer fan. You have more of the coiled switchblade energy, whereas I am the tool that cleans the grooves of a golf club. No, there isn't truly a standard for what a metal fan is supposed to be, but I do see much more of it in you than me, so that could certainly explain your embrace and my reticence of the label. Or, maybe it's just because I haven't plugged one of my guitars into an amp in years. You never know what causes psychology to occur.

People listen to Sabaton for the same reason they listened to Motorhead; they know what they're getting.

I'll take your point about lyrics as this; sometimes artists are too honest for their own good. Maybe I could have excused Serious Black if they left me the option of considering the song a fictional story about a lousy narrator. Maybe I would be more interested in hearing a new Stryper album if Michael Sweet didn't tell us he writes each of them in just two weeks. Maybe I would care at all about the Frontiers bands if they didn't tell us the label's head put them together because he basically drew names out of a hat. Leaving some things for us to figure out can absolutely be a good thing, not just because it can keep you from saying things that are problematic, but also because it gives more room for us to connect to the music. To backtrack a little bit, I mentioned Lzzy Hale not being among my favorite lyricists. She is unflinchingly honest in her songs, and that's actually the problem. She writes so bluntly about her thoughts that if you aren't feeling almost exactly the same thing, it's hard to use the words for your own purpose. I think it was James Hetfield who once described his own writing as a 'Mack truck'. That sort of writing either hits you, or it whizzes by in a puff of air. There's no hitching a ride on it.

I do actually think there is a use for Greatest Hits albums. If you aren't a big enough artist to have curated playlists on the streaming services, they still serve as the best way for a new fan to be introduced to an established band with a daunting back catalog. Even if you're only streaming the package, rather than holding it in your hands, they make digging into the past so much easier. Do I really want to dig through a dozen Journey songs to find out if there are a few more songs beyond the hits that I want to listen to? No, I really don't.

I don't have a lot of things confirmed to look forward to either. There is the eternal hope, but on the more attainable side, my muse is working on a blues-rock EP, so it will be quite awesome if that comes out at some point in the new year. Otherwise, I don't think anyone I'm a big fan of has announced anything, so I'm going to be flying rather blind.

Take us home.

D.M I've never been called a coiled switchblade before.  I think I'm adding that to my official professional resume.  Appreciate it!

There's not much left to say, so I'll leave us all with a very minor epiphany.  I am, as I write this, currently sitting in a hotel room in Montreal.  It's nice.  It's not as nice as the brouchure suggested.  And really, isn't that what the musical year of 2022 was, in all its facets?  Just when I thought I was really coming around to love some of the albums on my final year-end list, I find that there were about six that I thought to myself "well, I'll just put that at the bottom and work my way up."  So, half my list feels like it just barely merits recognition.  Which isn't to say that they're not good albums - just to reiterate our overarching theme of a 'blah' year in music.

Worse yet, I think I'm losing my edge as I hurtle inexorably toward the big 4-0: My wife and I were walking through a market in the older section of the city and I heard a song from one of my top albums of the year.  Good lord, I'm getting close to the mainstream and starting to like market-pizza-shop caliber songs.

Here's to 2023, which will, perhaps, save me from myself.