And so it begins.
Without further ado, favorite albums of 2022, Meshuggah catch 33 is in effect, so, if your/my favorite 32:50 and 32:32 full length releases aren’t here, hold your tongue and keep your fingers off the keyboard.
The first three I could’ve juggled in any combination but I settled as such. How to justify? As a listener I’m drawn in to records more for drum performances than almost anything else. These three titles capture absolutely stellar drum performances. Each having different nuances in terms of playing styles while being very, very busy.
Aeviterne - The Ailing Facade. An utterly phenomenal drum performances anchors this album. Its constant motion recalls a mind meld of Virgil Donati and Paul Ferguson. Absolutely stellar. And this is even before you add Van Drunen-esque caterwauls, Gorguts-ian by way of Flourishing guitar skronk and ten ton bass tether, smeared with death industrial grime and visualized in a manner reminiscent of a collaboration between Fallout Productions and Beast Arts.
Ashenspire - Hostile Architecture. Hammered dulcimer, violin, saxophone, jazz inflected drumming open this theater bizarre and even before the firebrand vocals are sounded one knows this is chamber music for the damned. Guitars are wide panned, disjointed and atonal. Amidst this maelstrom is a dynamic back line that holds the line on even keel and driving pulse. This album is akin to A Forest of Stars, U SCO and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum on a political action with Contrastate.
Pyrithe - Monuments to Impermanence. Pyrithe carries the dark menace of Souls At Zero Neurosis crossed with guitar chops and multi-riff arrangements of And Justice for All Metallica and infused with huge builds and crescendos executed in a more efficient compact fashion than the overindulgence of late period Swans. The songs here are defined by syncopated madness, lock grooves, open spaces and push/pull dynamics. Pyrithe’s incorporation of tension building orchestration and explosive catharsis set them apart from the pack.
I spent most time with Pyrithe than the other two as John Kerr was kind enough to send me the album way back in August of 2021. Had it been released that year, it would’ve taken top billing. The songs on Monuments to Impermanence are bombastic, orchestrated, syncopated mayhem. Kerr is absolutely phenomenal conducting this cacophonous din from low key simmering cymbal work sounding like washes of rain to whipping things into a frenzy with active kit work resembling members of a drum line warming up at different intervals. Pure brute physicality and intelligent musicality.
Less time with Ashenspire as it is the most recent of this unholy trio. As detailed as Alasdair Dunn’s drumming is on Hostile Architecture the instrument doesn’t figure as prominently in the mix. The mix of this record places focus on the vocals and charged political messages. When vocals aren’t present there is emphasis given to the musicianship by use of dynamic mix. Generally the guitars have a very wide pan where the left and right speakers are playing distinctly different things and amplifying the disorienting quality. Violin, dulcimer and saxophone flit in and out of certain songs tend to be more off center or actively moving, sometimes given center placement at different stretches.
The Aeviterne album captured my imagination in that I couldn’t figure some things Ian Jacyszyn was doing until I actually witnessed it in front of my face. When I saw it the logic was so obvious given the left handed kit set up being played both conventional and left handed; but, as they say, the devil is in the details. It adds to the overall disorienting effect of this cacophony of dark, atonal death metal infused with tribal rhythms and washes of abrasive ambient textures.
4. Gorycz - Kamiene. Probably my favorite recording on the top ten. I’ve gone on and on and on about this album in a previous post and elsewhere. Jazzed-up black metal being an unholy spawn of Ved Buens Ende and Nyia conjured by members of Non Opus Dei and AEON with a sensational three dimensional recording recalling Gorguts - Obscura and 70s prog rock of yore. This could readily usurp one of the top three if I weren’t fighting against recency bias and time spent with the others.
5. Diamanda Galas - Broken Gargoyles. She needs no introduction, she’s the best voice on the planet. When she sets her sights on creating confrontational art she’s an absolute weapon. Performance and production maximize discomfort and push this into harrowing heights of audio terror.
6. MICO - Zigurat A beast of varied dispositions all hellbent on dissonance and destruction. A long time coming for this full length as there were singles dropped at different intervals over previous years. Grindcore aggro, dissonances with the gnarliest of them, short stabs of chaos, longer form mayhem and mystique, pit-stops into power electronics. So many angles of attack. And never once falling out of step with the objective at hand: utter annihilation.
Haunted Horses - The Worst Has Finally Happened Yes, that being an album loaded with keys and synths up front and center as a top ten record for a card carrying member of keys/synths out of metal club? Lucky me Haunted Horses is “industrial punk.” My credentials are intact. In any event this album lines up perfectly with NYC’s The Spitters Sun to Sun given additional heft and noise. Wiseblood, Swans, Suicide, The Spitters… absolutely crushing no wave gloom.
Bank Myna - Volaverunt Experimental French act Bank Myna with an ambitious offering that could sit perfectly with Pink Floyd at Pompeii as well as Test Dept in front of Princess Di or at La Pointe du Hoc with Rosa Crvx. Expansive, immersive and sounding utterly enormous with their minimalist arrangements. Psychedelic drone doom of the highest order.
Worn Mantle - s/t By far and away the best debut of the year. Gaze upon and listen to a catastrophic industrial accident of dissonant death metal and noise. Absolutely barbaric and ferocious. Worn Mantle has the militaristic Voivod Rrroooaaarrr (particularly “to the death!” and “build your weapons”) attitude crossed with Knut Challenger bludgeon mixed with the weirdo death metal noise mongering of Hissing and Infernal Coil and Sumac’s Caspar Brotzman Massaker worship amplified to the nth degree. Victory is a question of stamina. Who will survive and what will be left of them?
Fell Ruin - Cast In Oil The Dressed Wrought. To me Fell Ruin is the sound of urban blight. Nothing about this sounds like it could come from anywhere else other than a city in the throes of decay. I absolutely love the drum performance and tone. It brings a CoC - Blind feel with the drums being extremely dry and the way in which they are mic-ed up sounds as if you are sitting in the room with August Krueger as the recording is going down. Twisted guitar work equal parts Immolation, Morbid Angel, Exhorder, Voivod and nods to old school motor city with “clean” tones having an Alice Cooper Killer aesthetic weaving through different songs are rule of the day. Album closer, “Sightless Amongst the Weavers” is a showstopper with the band at its creepy crawliest and unveiling nuances different from what has come before. Leaving off with this makes one wonder what could Fell Ruin do next to top this?
Rounding out 11 to 50 in no particular order, with a caveat for the final spot… and too lazy to do it alphabetically… no doubt forgetting a thing or two or three. For that I don’t apologize. 2022 has been a hell of a year as far as music is concerned.
KENmode - Null, Voivod - Synchro Anarchy, Verberis - Adumbration of Veiled Logos, Sunrise Patriot Motion - Black Fellflower Stream, Luces Lejanas - Partida, Arizmenda - Spiders Lust in the Dungeon's Dust, Heavy Meta - Mana Regmata, Heaving Earth - Darkness of God, Abraham - Debris de Mondes Perdus, Citadel - Chosen Bereft, Ego Depths - ELLÄKKAIRAVERTTA, I, Parasite - Österlanden, Unyielding Love - Flesh of the Furnace, DVVELL - Quiescent, Choshech - חושך (Black Flag), Dreadnought - the Endless, Embrace the Maddness - Hyperbolic Ascension, Epectase - Necroses, The Otolith - Folium Limina, Sepulchral Rift - Void Sorcery, Altars - Ascetic Reflection, Bad Breeding - Human Capital, Acausal Intrusion - Seeping Evocation, Axioma - Sepsis, Desolate Shrine - Fires of the Dying World, Pestilength - Basom Gryphos, Process of Guilt - Slaves Beneath the Sun, OTDHR - Maraud, Northless - A Path Beyond Grief, KNOLL - Metempiric, Immolation - Acts of God, Abysslooker - Dramaturgy, Scarcity - Aveilut, Choroszcz - rojenie, Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium -Undreamable Abysses. ULTHA - All That Has Never Been True, Hamvak - Maelstrom of Abhorrent Incantations, Blattaria - Dismantle the New Cult, Mourir - Disgrâce…
As I’ve mentioned before, there are always those habitual line steppers dropping something at year’s end that just have to bring special attention to themselves: Terratur Possessions releases Kringa’s All Stillborn Fires, Lick My Heart. Post-punked black metal of most unnerved order. Put out digitally on the 30th. Really? You gotta do this to me? As if Choroszcz and Citadel weren’t late enough to monkey-wrench things. For this, Kringa earns the 50 spot.
From where this actually comes from is anyone's guess. Bandcamp reads China, text is Greek. Ὁπλίτης / Oplitis / Hoplites / soldier... man, whatever... it's all over the place. One minute raging black metal Coalesce, another moment Serpent Column, then full on kenose era DsO. Might wind up being your new favorite thing of the year, but for me, it could be in the 2023 mix since it mentions a January 1st, 2023 official release although the digital drop came December 30, 2022.
EPs, demos, splits to come in a day or two or three.
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