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Another fantastic year, 2022 was where all the unreleased potential from 2021 and 2020 spilled over. Normally, I find it difficult to fill in the last half/quarter of my top 20 lists, not because I don't enjoy those later entries, but rather that I find there is a large removal between the first half and the second in terms of quality. This was certainly not the case this year, and I realized I had such a large bastion of records that the list go up by 30-40 entries. Nonetheless, you can find those non-hierarchically ordered entities in my RYM list alongside short review blurbs.
Like most of these yearly pickings, it's difficult to find a grand, overarching theme: it's safer to say there was smorgasbord of quality albums from the usual genre suspects... lots of traditional heavy/power, melodic death, some avantgarde/experimental stuff, a small league of varied black metal, and some miscellany. Bands like Shape of Despair, Cult of Luna and Final Light produced some impressive atmospheric material, regardless of whether they evoked a sense dread or majesty, all these bands transported the listener into a plateau ethereal immersion. Cult of Luna, in particular, astonished me so much by raising the bar again after A Dawn to Fear in 2019 that I think it's evident they've become the true inheritors to the Neurosis sound, going above and beyond.
Sumerlands, Spell and Hell Fire came in guns blazing with trad-heavy, ancient-sounding paeans to 80s metal, inspired by, without mindless recycling riffs. Even Ghost released their most accessible record to date which was somewhat reviled by critics, though personally I enjoyed the shit out of it. More than ever, I'm now ready to pay for one of their extravagant shows. There are also a few records I avoided for a while on account of the hype they were getting across the internet - Cave In and Messa in particular. Upon returning to these albums later on in the year, however, it was evident that they fucking slayed, and between the groovy sludge panache of the former and the morose, oriental charm of the latter there is plenty of inspiration to be found for future sludge/doom practitioners. Immolation, conversely put out the greatest pure death metal album of the year, validated across countless review boards and forums. An impeccable fortress of profanity that should make about 95% of other OSDM outfits wet their pants in terror. The one outlier here is clearly the Final Light debut, an album that caught much less attention than it deserved, which is a shame. It remains a hypnotizing testament to inventiveness across electronic and metal music.
But nothing could have prepared me for Blind Guardian's masterwork, a record so shocking in how hungry and crushing it was I might consider it the second best album in their sprawling discography. I'd only tie it with Disillusion's Ayam, a record that, as the product of planetary alignment in some oceanborne galaxy, provided me with warmth, comfort, and dreams for days in an otherwise uncompromising universe. Soilwork and Voivod trailed just behind with their most proficient meditations in many years, one melodic and achingly beautiful, the other a challenging remedial pill for our postmodern, cybernetic age. Records I caught myself blasting in the shower over a dozen times.
As always, thank you for reading. See you all in 2023.
Links to the albums embedded below.
*Top 20 Metal Albums*
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I also write short blurbs for all the albums I enjoyed yearly on RateYourMusic. Link to the full, non-hierarchical list of my 50 favorite metal albums of the year here.
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Non-metal Albums I've Enjoyed
In no particular order. These records just represent the few samplings I managed to listen in my down time, when I needed something... less heavy. Mostly records by bands I've been following for a while, so it's in no way meant to be comprehensive.
Dance With the Dead (US) – Driven to Madness (synthwave)
The Birthday Massacre (Ca) – Fascination (synthwave)
The Birthday Massacre (Ca) – Fascination (synthwave)
