My Favorite Albums of 2022

18. Thee Sacred Souls - Self Titled

"Hold up baby can't you see?

Just like walking, love with you comes easily

'Cause you want me for me"

~(Love Comes Easy)

In their self-titled album, Thee Sacred Souls describe love and loss in ways reminiscent of Motown classics. This is the type of soul music that fulfills my spirit, and it makes me so happy that artists have kept this style of music alive.

After growing up listening to artists like The Isley Brothers and The Temptations, projects like this will always grab my attention. This project perpetuates the incarnation of love into music, just like projects of the past, adding a blend of contemporary production and instrumentation.

There isn't much more to be said about this project. I recommend that you give it a listen and let the album speak for itself.

Favorite song(s): Weak for Your Love, Can I Call You Rose?

17. Skullcrusher - Quiet the Room

"Sunlight pours in through a window somewhere

I watch it from my seat

A life just out of reach

I'll be forever searching"

~(Window Somewhere)

It's about time Skullcrusher released a full-length album. While she includes folk elements reminiscent of singles from the past couple of years, Skullcrusher's inspiration for Quiet the Room seems to come from artists of the ambient folk genre like Grouper and Midwife.

Convoluted lyricism isn't required to paint a clear picture of disassociation. Repetition and instrumental emptiness are used to emphasize how it feels to separate from yourself. Skullcrusher pines for a new direction, seeking solitude in the form of support while also appreciating the fleeting nostalgia associated with her haunting present moments.

Favorite song(s): Sticker, Lullaby in February

16. Palm - Nicks and Grazes

"You've been burning rubber like you've never been caught and you've

Mastered three distinct handwritings and a couple of accents

You're methodical and I'm back and forth like a catalog

Or a colander just porous enough"

~(Mirror Mirror)

This is the type of psychedelic music that I really enjoy. Often, psychedelic rock can get a bit too repetitive and boring for my personal taste, but Palm kept me on my toes with every single track on Nicks and Grazes.

In an interview, the members of Palm stated that this album marks a deviation from their previous style. According to them, much of the pandemic was spent learning Ableton's complexities and various other instruments. Their dedication is very apparent throughout the entirety of the track list. Each song is stacked with details, including effects ranging from violin to steel drum.

Though moments can feel a bit chaotic and cluttered on this project, its intricacy makes for an exhilarating experience.

Favorite song(s): Eager Copy, Away Kit, On The Sly

15. Rome Streetz - Kiss the Ring

"Been self-employed, servin' cutties is my line of work

They line up for work, chop it down, sniff a line of work

When they taste minе, it's like your line don't work

Thesе lames thought they was first in line, but they wasn't

Now look how timin' work"

~(Kiss The Ring)

Griselda has been reviving that New York boom-bap Wu-Tang Clan-style hip-hop for years now, and Rome Streetz, frequent Griselda collaborator, does it like no other. Most of his discography is impressive, but Kiss the Ring, which is his first official release under Griselda Records, has an especially commanding energy.

Rome Streetz's talent on Kiss the Ring is absolutely clear. Like in his freestyles, he is able to deliver boastful lyrics with fantastic wordplay through confident flows. Westside Gunn executively produced this project along with Conductor Williams, both of whom provide grimy instrumentals littered with repeating samples and speaker-bursting drums.

This is an album to listen to at full volume, carrying the same energy as Rome on the cover.

Favorite song(s): Big Steppa, Ugly Balenciaga's, Serving

14. Florist - Self Titled

"You are the kind of person that comes from the flower's center

You landed in this dimension

There's love in all your senses, your arms out wide

While you're inside there crying"

~(Spring In Hours)

The entire 58 minutes of Florist sounds like a respite. The occasional short interludes serve as meditation breaks between already peaceful tracks. Emily Sprague, the lead vocalist, described the album to be, "revolving around connections, consciousness shared and togetherness with each other and with everything."

Florist makes you feel empathy for picked dandelions and lightness like falling leaves.

Favorite song(s): Spring in Hours, River's Bed

13. Loyle Carner - Hugo

"Because my kid will maybe have them blue eyes

And he won't understand the pain that's in mine

And late at night, I wonder maybe that's why

Because I never wanna hear the same cry"

~(Nobody Knows)

It isn't new for Loyle Carner to be such an emotional open book, which is one of the many reasons I enjoy his music. In Hugo, he offers the listener a glimpse into his search for an identity.

Each game of tug-of-war that Loyle Carner plays has a different opponent. For just about half of the album, he debates with himself over complications in his family tree. He voices the concerns that he has regarding the generational cycles he has promised to avoid while speaking of his father and the life he wants to provide for his son. He also communicates his battle with social issues, giving real examples of inequalities and expectations.

Kwes, the producer of this album, uses jazzy instrumentals and beautiful pianos to amplify the description of each of Loyle Carner's conflicts. While songs are stuffed with personal vulnerability and social commentary, they are still catchy and enjoyable.

Favorite song(s): Nobody Knows, Polyfilla, Blood on My Nikes

12. Charlotte Dos Santos - Morfo

"I always knew you were for you

And never to your playing devils

Advocate, I see ya

It started out in a comedy

It's ending in a tragedy

I'm glad I have revealed you"

~(The Player and the Fool)

When it comes to R&B this year, I personally wasn't super impressed. The new Sudan Archives album was great, but she ended up drifting toward a safe direction which is unfortunate. For me, Charlotte Dos Santos stood out amongst her peers by a sizable margin this year.

Named after the butterfly native to Central and South America, Morfo is a nod to Charlotte Dos Santos' Brazillian heritage. Specifically, in the song Filha Do Sol, the Brazillian influence can be clearly heard through the marching drums and Portuguese chanting. She chants "o acoite bateu," which translates to "the whip is beating."

Like the bright blue butterfly, this album is light and beautiful. Charlotte Dos Santos discusses moments of falling in love, as well as moments of healthily moving on, proving to be confident in her personal boundaries.

Favorite song(s): Cupid's Bow, The Player and the Fool, Away From You

11 Just Mustard - Heart Under

"Where have you been lately?

Chasing almost nightly

Drew you in my daydream

Swimming, swimming"

~(Rivers)

The Irish band Just Mustard uses intense reverb and blurry compressed filters to provide echoed and distorted environments, creating a sense of droning hopelessness.

Katie Ball's high-pitched vocals may be the best part of Heart Under. She uses her voice as an instrument, transitioning from a soft whisper to piercing intensity to cut through the dense noise.

It is invigorating to walk through the cloudy hellscape of Heart Under.

Favorite song(s): I Am You, Blue Chalk, In Shade

10. Jean Dawson - Chaos Now*

"My old friends think that I've lost my head

Oh my God, shut the f*ck up

It's like all my life, been a f*ck-up

Who do you really think you are?"

~(GLORY*)

Stacked with rebellious punk anthems, CHAOS NOW* feeds your inner angsty teen. I have not felt more euphoric listening to an album this year than when I first heard this one. Songs like SICK OF IT* send you into a high-energy spiral, giving you the urge to tell everyone off.

Jean Dawson bends genres in this project, including aspects of pop, hip-hop, punk, and even folk music, which amplifies its collective message: "stop telling me who I am." He bounces back and forth from describing belittling experiences to proving that he is better off without his antagonizers.

CHAOS NOW* illuminates the most aggressive form of self-acceptance, giving the listener an immensely enjoyable experience.

Favorite song(s): PIRATE RADIO*

9. Ethel Cain - Preacher's Daughter

"What I wouldn't give to be in Church this Sunday

Listening to the choir, so heartfelt, all singing

God loves you, but not enough to save you

So, baby girl, good luck taking care of yourself"

~(Sun Bleached Flies)

Preacher's Daughter follows a young woman subject to aspects of generational trauma, frequently rooted in religion. Ethel Cain stated that this will be the first of three projects, each focusing on a woman belonging to the generation previous to the last.

Each song on Preacher's Daughter sounds like a real memory with traumatic details that felt normal in the original moment. She recollects driving across the countryside with a new trustworthy love interest in Thoroughfare, but that memory is immediately bastardized by the next track, Gibson Girl, where she discusses themes of domestic manipulation. She recollects moments that may not be incredibly unfamiliar to the listener, as they are detailed enough to sound authentic, but vague enough to be relatable.

Ethel Cain proves here that she is very capable as a musician. Each track is different from the last, bringing a new style, energy, or instrument into the mix.

Favorite song(s): Ptolemaea, Sun Bleached Files, Western Nights

8. Jockstrap - I Love You Jennifer B

"If it were a baby, I’d name her Angst

And hold her tight in my chest

And she’d grow, from a small, hard stone

Into my own, the problem my own

That would disease everything, and everyone"

~(Angst)

Like with Quiet the Room, I have been eagerly waiting for Jockstrap to release a full-length project. My patience was rewarded, as this album is one of the most eclectic I have ever heard.

Jockstrap used an entire orchestra along with a plethora of production equipment to construct I Love You Jennifer B, which is comprised entirely of left turns. The style of this album is unrecognizable and absolutely authentic, creating a brand-new color.

This is experimentation at its finest.

Favorite song(s): Glasgow, What's It All About?, Neon

7. caroline - Self Titled

"I'm starting to think

When I tell everyone

About leaving and getting away

That what I'm really saying

To them and through them

Is that I just want them to stay"

~(Skydiving onto the library roof)

It is rare for me to enjoy a largely instrumental album as much as I do this one. To me, the scarce lyrics act as an addition to what is already so expressive. Tracks on this album, which apparently took five years to fully complete, develop from delicate melodies to piercing, string-snapping noise. Songs like Engine get you acquainted with a soft lull until you're forcefully ripped away by squeaking violins and heavy acoustics.

I understand how some may be turned away from this project, but I feel like it's definitely worth a shot. Allow yourself to embrace the discomfort that caroline brings. This project scratches just as many itches as it creates.

Favorite song(s): Natural Death, Engine (eavesdropping), IWR

6. Bill Callahan - YTILAER

"We warmed our hands in the corpse of a wild horse

On the shores of Assateague

And then blood on our hands up to our elbows

At least we're all in this horse together"

~(Everyway)

Bill Callahan still has it. The former Smog frontman released another solo album this year, bringing avant-garde experimentation into Cash-like folk ballads that contain uncanny imagery.

Callahan's voice is brooding on this record. His deep and casual vocals are certainly the frontmost aspect of each track. With that being said, as his voice stays consistent, the background grows more complex. Take tracks like Naked Souls for example, where trumpets, guitar squeals, and high-pitched piano dings gradually become more intense. Furthermore, on Planets and Natural Information, conclusions are tangled with jazz ingredients.

Favorite song(s): Planets, Lily, Bowevil

5. Weyes Blood - And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow

"Sometimes, we confuse the dream for one another

We're screaming to be closer to infinity

To love everlasting"

~(A Given Thing)

Weyes Blood speaks for those whose voices resound like nightmare screams in And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow - an album with a fitting title. She identifies with the feeling of wanting something more, something bigger. For that reason she offers you an escape, leading you to a celestial realm for the 46-minute duration of this album where your worries are dissolved.

This is a project to listen to in solitude after you've been asking, "why can't anyone hear me?" Touching on themes of helplessness and longing, Weyes Blood ensures that you will feel anything but alone when you go back to your forced capitalistic routine.

Favorite song(s): God Turn Me Into a Flower, Grapevine

4. billy woods - Aethiopes

"Speaking Afrikaans, British accent, I want mine from back when

Thebe said the wind get the ashes in the end, bruv

The gorilla severed every inoculated limb, left 'em with stubs

Ziggurats on the Nile, bought the house and tore it down

All your yesterdays in one neat pile"

~(Haarlem)

This album dances with my inner anthropologist. billy woods acts as a cultural historian as he connects his personal experiences to past events and hypothetical fates. The producer, Preservation, who has previously used ethnographic approaches to sampling foreign instruments, namely on his self-titled project, studded this album with African strings. The use of Rembrandt's 'Two African Men' as the album cover carries significance in itself. Being extremely rare for European paintings of the 17th century, Rembrandt featured two African men as prominent subjects in his piece. Aethiopes adds to the amplification of current and previous black voices within the grand scope of history.

For me, what sets billy woods apart lyrically is his ability to create such a tangible atmosphere. Before you have time to fully grasp the image he created for you, he has already begun to describe the next one. In tandem with his collected, yet impassioned tone, each line is deeply rich.

billy woods has been at the top of my list of favorite rap artists since the release of Known Unknowns in 2017, and I am so thrilled that he has gotten the praise that he deserves this year. While I may be biased here, I was so blown away by this project.

Favorite song(s): Sauvage, Christine, Remorseless

3. Chat Pile - God's Country

"There's no motherf*cking exit

Hammers and grease

Pounding, Pounding

And the sad eyes, g*ddamnit

And the screaming

More screaming than you'd think

There's more screaming than you'd think"

~(Slaughterhouse)

In God's Country, Chat Pile offers contradictions for the nationalistic. Examples of suffering, death, inequality, crime, and loss are accompanied by grotesque guitar riffs and brooding bass lines, forcing the listener to face the reality of horror in the western world.

God's Country literally and metaphorically amplifies the voices of those who suffer. Society's ugliness and despair are clearly displayed, instigating those who already feel exasperated and voiceless. This is music to blast in your headphones while preparing to join a riot, fantasizing about the brutal murder of a politician.

If you are already unhappy with the state of the world, I recommend this album. If you don't understand why people are angry, this album is a must-listen.

Favorite song(s): Pamela, Anywhere, Slaughterhouse

2. Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

"What if all the time between

The words we say and what we mean

Would roll as softly as a stream

That we could ride?"

~(The Only Place)

If you know me well, you know that Big Thief is one of my favorite musical acts of all time. I would admit again that my love for this band makes me biased, but I firmly believe that this album, like their others, is objectively amazing.

There is so much that I could say about Big Thief. Consequently, this description going to feel lacking to me no matter how much I write here, so I will be brief. It goes without saying that this album makes you feel so incredibly deeply. Themes of loss, memories, and letting go are exemplified through Adrienne Lenker's vocabulary, timing, and inflection while compassionate environments are created through the band's instrumentation.

Big Thief's discography is so consistently alluring. If you decide to listen to Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, assuming you haven't already, do not stop here.

Favorite Song(s): Change (obviously)

1 MJ Lenderman - Boat Songs

"I always believed it every time you said

You're gonna be, like, our hero someday

Well, baby, all our heroes now are dead

'Cause all things go"

~(TLC Cagematch)

It is incredible how much this album grew on me. Upon first listening, I treated Boat Songs as a project I could easily do without; but, my curiosity kept dragging me back.

Do not let this album slip past you as it initially did to me.

Boat Songs transports you to a rural trailer park to sit on a Coleman cooler and listen to a surprisingly progressive toothless man tell you distorted versions of his memories while he finishes the beer that finally bumps him into emotional vulnerability. MJ Lenderman created a project that feels adjacent to nostalgia during a brand-new experience.

For me, Boat Songs has infinite replay-ability. The anticipation of listening to each song gives me that charged feeling while I queue it up. My attitude toward this Songs: Ohia-reminiscent album has changed dramatically since I heard it for the first time, and I still can't get enough. I really look forward to more solo work from MJ Lenderman in the future. If it's even close to as good as this project, I will be satisfied.

Favorite Song(s): You Are Every Girl To Me, Toontown, TLC Cagematch